Wht are my ad costs so much more than they should be?

Apologies if this is searchable - when I search it tells me 'not enough words in search' although I tried several different ways!

Using keyword elite I see the cost for a keyword is 1.49-1.79 for 1-3 position and that there are three advertisers. I see the advertisers on a google search.

When I place the ad - relevant keywords in the targeted url, title, description and website landing page (a sales page for a video about the keyword) - google wants $5.00 minimum.

Is this normal? I can lose a lot of money fast before I see if it converts...

Thanks from a rookie. Mind numbing stuff this...

 

I'd strongly recommend against paying $5 per click.

Your problem is your Quality Score.

Put simply, Google rewards relevant sites that it thinks its searchers will like, and penalise the ones it doesn't.

To get a $5 minimum straight away, either your clickthrough rate is spectacularly bad (<0.1% on search network), or more likely, Google doesn't like your landing page.

Do you have a Contact Us link? And a Privacy Policy? Is it covered with affiliate links?

Sort that out, and your minimum bids should drop. The point is, even if you can afford $5 per click, your QS impacts where your advert appears in the results, so you still need to get it resolved.

Try clicking on the magnifying glass next to the keyword on your keyword list - it'll tell you why your minimum bids are so high...

 

I did click on the help and it says my landing page is poor. This is a basic one page short form sales page for a business video I sell. I have rewritten the content for each set of keywords - optimizing header, meta, title, alt image tags, and content - linked those to the ads and resubmitted. I will add contact us and privacy links if that is what they want. (I've got nothing else to do today! <grin)

Any idea how long it takes for google to recheck? Do I just keep a low bid and wait? How long?

Thanks much for the help. I know this is a common thing for new people - but I sure do want to get it right! (For obvious reasons)

Miami

 

i'm no expert but if your website just cosists of one form with not much content that could be why.

 

From 1 - 30 days.

 

Set up wordpress... make your 'landing page' just about anything you want. Try two or even three 'static' pages and use the Google Sitemaps plugin to set up your sitemap.xml file. It pings google and voila within 24 hours google is aware of the changes. As far as your adwords campaign, as I said you can think of Wordpress as a 'framework' rather than as just a 'Blog'. Split test on a couple of 'landing pages' and see what happens with different copy. The results can be astounding. If you have any problems or questions, I am starting up classes this weekend. PM me.

 

that is sad, adwords users know they are being fleeced by G.

 

Like CustardMite mentioned "Do you have a Contact Us link? And a Privacy Policy?" makes a huge difference.Just adding those 2 pages to your site will drop your prices.

 

I am sick of ppc. What do I need to do to get to the top of search engines without ppc?

 

Be wikipedia



or do the standard SEO stuff of getting backlinks, organising your on-page (H1 headers, well-places keywords etc)

 

hi if thtere was one ppc book you would recommend which one would it be ?

 

It's a bit off-topic (since this is a PPC forum) but you could hire an SEO agency to manage your account. Most would do your PPC as well...

Well, I'd admit to being a little biased, but mine's quite good!

http://www.epiphanysolutions.co.uk/google-adwords/