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The Way to Bid on Keywords

When setting up a pay-per-click (ppc) advertising campaign like Google's Adwords it is vital to design each ad around the right keywords. Of course this is common sense. Many advertisers and marketers have made an art form of choosing the right keywords. With careful market research and search engine keyword data they can create a list of productive keywords.

Keywords, unfortunately, are not the only deciding factor in the success or failure of a pay per click advertising campaign. The simple fact of the matter is that internet browsers do not have the patience that consumers who are seeing their ads on television or hearing them on the radio have (and that isn't saying much). Each time that a search is entered into a search engine, pages of results appear. Realistically speaking, which of these pages are going to be viewed before the surfer turns their attention elsewhere?the first five, maybe the first ten if they are determined.

The upshot of this is that in order to be exposed to higher number of viewers the advertisements must be on the first 5 or so pages. What can be done to make sure the advertisements are on these coveted pages? It boils down to money.

If you are at all conversant with how Adwords works you can pass over this next part; but if you are not familiar with the way Adwords functions it is basically a big auction.

The probability of being the only user of a keyword is very small, unless you are looking at a keyword that is so pinpointed in its topic that it is not likely to show up on many searches or bring many visitors. With lots of visitors being the main goal these are not the kinds of keywords to be looking at.

That means that other advertisers will be using these keywords. What criteria does the search engine use to decide which advertisements are shown first?

Whenever an Adwords ad is clicked on there is a fee charged to the advertiser. It is usually less than a dollar and more than 5 cents. But that can add up fast.

So if an advertiser wants his ad put at the top of the search result page for a keyword, he has to be willing to pay more than the other advertisers that are using that keyword. This of course is great for the search engine's business. They get paid no matter if an advertiser gets a sale or not. They of course are going to give preference to the guy that will give him more money when someone clicks on his ad, so they put them at the top of the list so they will make more money.

Balancing your bids and keywords takes time and effort. You will make some money and lose some. Never forget that you will not have a sale with each click. Most likely you will get a sale in only one out of 10 clicks. That is the probable sales percentage. With you product price, budget allotment and this percentage you can figure up how much you can afford to bid for your keywords.

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Kirt Christensen's dynamic flair in AdWords Management as he handled more than $612,000 of annual ppc advertising for clients, has them raving about him! managemypayperclick.com Don't reprint the same version as everyone else. Get your own unique content adwords management article here.

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