Google Adwords and Keyword Competition

Question: I want to use Google® Adwords to drive traffic to my site and there are already tons of Adword ads on my keywords. Is it a waste of time, money and effort adding my ad to the mix if it doesn’t display on the first page?

Ford Saeks, Internet Marketing Speaker Answers In:

You’ll get the highest click through rate on the first page which as of now shows the first eight Google® adwords ads. I don’t always aim for the top listing even though it gets higher traffic. My tests have found that sometimes being the second or third listing on the first page actually gets a better quality lead to my site.

Google® changed the way keyword bid prices and listing work as of August 16, 2005. The minimum click-through rate is not the main factor in determining where your ads show, but now the amount you bid on the keyword (or keyword phrase) is a major factor with where your ad displays.

It’s only a waste of money if you are tracking the number of visitors and measuring your success of the campaign based on your “visitor value” and that value is less than it’s costing you to buy the traffic on Google. The visitor value is the number of visitors received divided by the revenues generated from them in a specific period of time.

You must split test your Google® ads, split test your landing pages and keep tweaking the process until it’s profitable. It’s profitable when you can attract a paying customer for less than its costing you to buy the traffic from Google. Keep in mind that you might be losing money on the first sale and that’s fine, as long as you have backend follow-up products that make up for it in the long-term.

A competitive keyword group doesn’t mean you cannot make money – it just means you have to be savvier with your ads, landing pages, auto-responder series, and lead generation mechanisms. There are several strategies specific of using Pay-per-Click methods to get traffic – and they can be the best source for cleaning up your sales processes quickly to increase your profits.