As you might have already learned, the greatest Google ads in the world won’t do you much good if Google doesn’t place your ads. For any Google AdWords campaign to be successful, you need to first and foremost be able to reach eyeballs. But in order for your Google ads to get seen, you have to win the bid and beat your competition for ad placements. To do that takes more than just shelling out money.
You win the bid in Google AdWords through a combination of bidding a higher amount than your competition and by achieving a higher quality score. Google AdWords uses a bidding system that instantaneously determines which ads get placed, where those ads get placed on each page, and how much those ads cost when they are shown or clicked.
The Bid
The first part of this equation – the bid – is based on raw numbers: higher bids take precedence over lower bids. You make a bid in Google AdWords by specifying your maximum cost per click (max CPC) within each ad group or for each individual keyword. The amount you specify for each bid should be competitive with what your competition is willing to spend on each keyword.
Choosing the Right Bid
Choosing the right bid in Google AdWords is essential to creating a successful Google AdWords campaign. Since Google AdWords uses a bidding system to determine the cost and placement of ads, it’s important that you learn how to properly choose a competitive bid.
When you create each of your ad groups, youll see the option of selecting a default bid (max CPC) for each keyword in each ad group. In addition, you can customize bids for each keyword in the “keywords” tab of the Google AdWords campaign manager.
To assist you in determining a competitive bid for each of your keywords, Google provides a tool that estimates the current bid for specified keywords. Google also displays when your keyword bids fall below the first page bid estimate.
Quality Score
Remember that, in addition to your bid, you can also beat your competitors higher bid by achieving a higher quality score for specified keywords. Since Google’s mission is to provide relevant search results, Google tries to place the most relevant ads for each keyword searched, just as it tries to place the most relevant search results. To achieve relevance, Google assigns a quality score to each keyword, which is based on how relevant the keyword is to each ad and to your website landing page. Google then determines how much youll pay for ad placements not just by your max CPC bid, but also by your keyword quality score. Because of this, often a high quality score will get your ad placed over a competitor who might be willing to bid more than you.
Improving Quality Score
You can improve your keyword quality score in Google AdWords in a number of ways:
* Choosing better keywords
* Featuring keywords in your ads
* Using SEO on your website landing page
Start by choosing the right keywords. Your keywords must be specific and relevant to the products or services in your ad and on your website landing page. Avoid keywords that are too general, since it’s impossible to know what is relevant to someone searching a general keyword. For example, if youre advertising Google AdWords consulting, use specific keywords like AdWords consulting and AdWords Experts and avoid general keywords like “Google AdWords” or AdWords.”
Secondly, include keywords in your ads, in particular the headline. Any keyword in your headline will make the keywords appear much more relevant to your ads and should help increase your keyword quality score.
Thirdly, search engine optimize (SEO) your website landing page. With professional SEO, your website landing page includes all the keywords used in your Google AdWords campaign. This, in turn, improves each keyword quality score.
So remember, you win the bid in Google AdWords through a combination of bid and quality score. And while simply raising your bid may sometimes be necessary to stay competitive, keep in mind that you can save money and increase your ad rank by achieving a higher keyword quality score.