The Control Center provides three ways to edit the crucial CPC (cost-per-click) bid. This is the bid that helps determine your ad’s position on search pages. Normally, the bid applies to all keywords in an Ad Group, but you may also specify unique bids for individual keywords. Following are the three methods of tweaking your CPC bid:

-  Using the Edit Keywords link. I describe this method in the preceding section, in the discussion about editing keywords. The same screen allows keyword editing and CPC editing.

-  Using the Edit Keywords link, but this time with a different method for determining keyword-specific CPC bids. As you type new or edited keywords, separate your bid amount from the keyword by two asterisks (**), putting the bid amount on the same line as the keyword. Here’s an example:

ancient coins**0.45

Do not use a dollar sign. In addition to specifying a unique CPC bid for each keyword, you may include a unique destination page. Just extend the line with another two asterisks, and then type the complete URL of your landing page for that keyword. For example:

ancient coins**0.45**http://www.the-coin-trader.com/new-signups.htm

Don’t put spaces between any characters. Do type the complete URL, including the http:// prefix.

-  Using the Edit CPCs/URLs button. This button, located on the Ad Group page, leads to a friendlier interface for entering unique bids and landing pages. Click the check box next to the keywords you want to select, and then click the Edit CPCs/URLs button. (On this screen you don’t have to bother with asterisks.) Notice the small arrows in the screen shot (they’re yellow on the screen); use the arrows to enforce the same value for all selected keywords. Use the arrows even if a minority of keywords will eventually receive different CPC or URL values. After setting those values and clicking the arrows, travel down the page and change the keywords that need to be changed. Researching and Refining Keywords Enough mechanics. The remainder of this article is mostly about strategic issues. I discuss formulating keyword concepts using the Keyword Suggestion Tool, the widespread reliance on keyword generators, finding keywords by thinking like your customer, and the four keyword-matching options at your disposal. You find out about tactical positioning of ads on search pages, planning for distribution in Google’s extended networks, and trademark controversies.

I continue the discussion of Google’s insistence on relevance at all costs. Let’s get started. Hunting for the ideal keyword Imagine the gold ring of search advertising: the mythical keyword that’s in high demand by searchers but has no competition from other advertisers. That sweet spot in Google where, even if only for a short time, you can reach millions of hungry searchers for the absolute minimum cost per click. In that Eden-like scenario, your ad would be the only paid link on the page, floating majestically in alluring solitude, receiving hordes of dirt-cheap clickthroughs. That’s the ideal. Reality usually differs considerably. Sharp, opportunistic advertisers converge on important keywords, driving up the price of good positioning into the realm of dollars per click. But, amazingly, ideal and nearideal keyword discoveries do exist. I’ve launched dozens of Ad Groups with keywords for which I bid the minimum of $.05 per click, and watched the ads claim positions no lower than third on the page (and several times the top spot), earning very robust clickthrough rates. Driving highly targeted clicks at a cost of $50 per thousand is a true bargain. Article 4 describes Wordtracker, which strives to evaluate keywords based on their popularity as search terms and their prevalence on Web sites, to arrive at a competitive profile of a keyword or phrase.

Wordtracker is certainly a tool you should know about. It’s also important to research on your own, especially in Google, where your keywords must perform well to stay in play. (Actually, the ads perform well or badly, but the keywords are disabled if the ads fail.) When you identify a potential keyword, search for it in Google that’s the most direct way to survey the competitive landscape in the venue that really counts. Click the Search button a few times to catch ads that are in slowed or spread-out distribution patterns. Notice also how many search results Google finds. These two pieces of information the number of search results and the number of ads on the page give you a good idea of the demand (from searchers and advertisers) for that keyword. When demand from searchers (represented indirectly by the number of search results) seems to exceed demand from advertisers (represented directly by the number of ads), you know you have a potentially productive keyword. Remember that an attractive keyword need not result in millions of page results in Google; hundreds of thousands of links represents a healthy marketplace in which to present your ads.

The first screen is Google’s results page for the keyword phrase discount cds. The second screen shows the results for budget cds. The first page shows strong demand everywhere: roughly 2.5 million search results and an AdWords column full of ads. The second page shows strong consumer demand (753,000 results) and faltering advertiser demand. Is there room in that AdWords column for a third ad? Most certainly, especially because one of the displayed ads is owned by a local shop. Whether a third ad would be successful depends on many factors. But for the moment, it appears that the third spot could be purchased for a low CPC bid. This situation is ripe for testing, and it took me about 30 seconds to find it. Search Google with your prospective keywords and with productive variations! One possibility to remember as you strive for the perfect keyword is counterintuitive. Namely, being lower on the page can deliver better results than top placement. The point of bidding up a keyword is to attain a higher position. But there’s some question as to whether a high position necessarily means better visibility, and there’s even more question about correlated advertising results. Consider these factors, based on anecdotal experience shared by the Google advertising community:

-  Top-placed ads suffer from drone clickthroughs. Tire-kickers, it’s widely supposed, veer straight for the top ad and click through it with no intent to do business. Those determined to find useful information and products are just as likely to click further down the AdWords column of ads. Also, determined searchers who are often the best leads and most likely future customers comparison-shop in the AdWords column, clicking several in succession and examining each landing page.

-  Competitive ad-bashing normally targets the top-placed ad. It isn’t particularly ethical, but when competitors want to drive top-placed ads out of their lofty position, they click through the ads, driving up costs (and driving down ROI) for the advertiser. Such hostility is usually not directed at lower-placed ads. (Google is alert to such ad-bashing and penalizes those who are caught.)

-  Top-of-page ads might not be as visible as ads in the AdWords column. AdWords ads roll up to the top of the page when 9 or 10 ads qualify for placement on the page. In those cases, only 8 ads are placed in the AdWords column. While reaching the top of the page (where Google used to sell cost-per-impression sponsored links) is an accomplishment and an honor, there’s some doubt about the effectiveness of that perch. Google users are accustomed to glancing over to the right when checking out the ad portion of search results. And “ad blindness,” in which the viewer disregards top-of-page, horizontal ads, is also common.

Here’s an example of a lower placement beating a higher placement. Notice the performance of the Josh Turner Ad Group. Although its average page position is the secondlowest of the group, its CTR is the highest, by far. Notwithstanding everything I say about low positions having certain advantages over high positions, one aspect of high placement gives it undeniable value. Google’s extended advertising networks present ads differently from Google, in ways that dramatically reward the top spot. On AOL Search, for example, often only a single ad is presented on the results page, and I have experienced outstanding clickthrough rates on ads claiming that spot.

Placement: It’s not just bidding One crucial feature of the Google system that all advertisers must remember is the two-part formula that determines the placement of ads on Google pages. Bidding price gets most of the attention in this department, as competing advertisers slug it out with clickthrough dollars for premium placement atop the AdWords column. But clickthrough rate (CTR) is as important as the bid price. The specific formula multiplies the two. If one advertiser bids 50 cents for a keyword and develops a CTR of 1.4 for that keyword, his or her ad would place second to an advertiser who bids 40 cents (10 cents less) and develops a CTR of 1.9. A third advertiser bidding only 35 cents would rise above both competitors if his or her CTR were 2.2. Here’s how the ads would be ordered: 35 cents x 2.2 CTR = 0.77 (1st place) 40 cents x 1.9 CTR = 0.76 (2d place) 50 cents x 1.4 CTR = 0.70 (3d place) This formula creates turbulence in the AdWords column: you never know for sure where your ads will land. The competitive situation is always changing. Don’t attempt to game the formula. Google cares overwhelmingly about the clickthrough rate because it reflects relevance, and the company rewards advertisers with successful ads by placing them higher sometimes much higher than they might have earned by their bid rate alone. Success breeds success in AdWords. Smart advertisers concentrate less on bidding wars than on relevancy wars.

The content network (AdSense sites) presents its own twist on placement value. Many AdSense publishers choose horizontal banner-like displays of AdWords ads, in which four ads are positioned side-by-side. A good argument can be made that none of those positions is more valuable than another, and that argument speaks to the cost-saving value of dropping out of the top spot. (AdSense also provides publishers with a vertical display, in which the top spot is arguably more visible and productive than lower positions.)

When considering your performance in the content network, you drop off the radar when your ad is ranked below the fifth position, because none of the ad displays in the AdSense program contains more than five ads. Most of them contain four, and some of them contain two or one. These ramifications are interesting, but I must issue a closing reminder of this crucial fact: Google evaluates your ad performance strictly on Google’s pages. Although you get clickthroughs on the extended networks, pay for them, and see them reported in the Control Center, they don’t count toward the official CTR that Google uses to reward or punish your ads. Keywords are slowed and disabled according to how their associated ads perform on Google’s pages, and nowhere else.

Using the Keyword Suggestion Tool The most dangerous keyword strategy is one that’s too broad. Broad keywords are usually thoughtless keywords, and Google advertising punishes lazy marketing. The danger is not even so much that you lose money deploying overly general keywords; worse, you lose time. You probably can’t get the clicks you need with wide, fuzzy targeting, yet you’ll accrue an enormous number of impressions before you can make a cup of coffee. Then Google will shut you down before your statistics have even arrived in your Control Center. Targeted relevance is the key. The more precise your targeting which is to say, the more precisely your ad’s keyword matches both your ad copy and the searcher’s keyword the more magnetic your ad. One way to find out what your potential customers are searching for is to ask Google. The Keyword Suggestion Tool is Google’s way of answering your question. The Keyword Suggestion Tool is no more than three clicks away from anywhere in the Control Center:

1. Click the Campaign Management tab.

2. Click Tools.

3. Click Keyword Suggestion Tool.

The Keyword Suggestion tool is designed to spit out search terms related (in varying degrees) to one or more keywords you entered. The best results come from not mixing and matching unconnected keywords, though Google allows any combination. Google delivers three lists of keyword suggestions, though the organization is a little confusing: -  On the left side of the page, under More Specific Keywords, is a list of words and phrases matching your entry most are phrases. These are broad matches that might trigger any ads associated with the keyword you entered, if that keyword is set on broad matching. (I cover keyword matching later in this article.) That popular keyword is too broad for most advertisers, but the more specific key phrases might not be. Of course, you need to choose relevant items from the list. -  On the right side of the page, under Similar Keywords, are two lists. The top list consists of expanded broad matches to the keyword you entered. Any keyword in this list would trigger your ads if your keyword were set on broad matching. The Similar Keywords list is not as related to your keywords as the More Specific Keywords list.

-  Also on the right side of the page but further down are more suggested keywords, but these don’t trigger ads associated with the keyword you entered. I often find that these words are the most useful. This list is where Google’s contextual intelligence shines in the Keyword Suggestion Tool. The best new, yet related, ideas are in this list. Most of the keywords and phrases here do not include the keyword you entered but are related in concept. This type of relationship is extremely valuable and sometimes difficult to invent without assistance. And, because Google gets its ideas from its immense database of search terms that people have entered, you know these are viable search queries. Thinking like a customer The sad truth is that business people often don’t think the way their customers think. As consumers, we see this frustrating reality every day in the products we complain about. When advertising on Google, and in particular when selecting keywords, the big challenge is understanding the mind of potential customers as they enter the search engine. Even if you know what they’re looking for, do you know the search terms they’ll use to find it? That is the question that counts.

You must find your own specific terms that match your product or service, of course. But to get on the same page (literally) as your potential customers, who are trying their best to find you, consider exercising your mind with these thought inversions:

-  Solution versus problem. As an expert in your field, you think in terms of solutions. But a customer’s mind is filled with the problem. Searchers commonly express their queries as questions, not answers; problems, not solutions. So although your impulse might be to advertise on the keyword landscape grade repair, your customers are probably running to Google with queries like how do I stop my basement from flooding. There’s not a search engine in the world that expects its users to enter solutions and answers in the search box. You shouldn’t expect it, either. Build keyword lists not just around your products, but also around the questions that will lead to your products as answers.

-  Knowledgeable versus naive. Assume that your potential customers are naive about the terms that define your industry. We all tend to think everyone knows what we know. When you brainstorm for keywords, dedicate some keyword lists to avoiding buzzwords and industry “in” phrases. You might fill some Ad Groups with keywords such as home improvement contractor, landscaping materials, and retaining walls. But don’t neglect other keyword opportunities to reach potential naive customers who might be searching for healthy grass, golf green in back yard, and fixing dog damage.

-  Using versus discovering. You use your product or service, and you no doubt get repeat business. But a certain percentage of your customers are brand new. When attracting these people, don’t assume that they search with the mindset of someone who is familiar with what you offer. Imagine that you know nothing about your industry. What words lead to a first discovery of your business? All these inversions are similar, in that they all require you to erase your selfknowledge, approaching your own product with a fresh mind. One trick is to ask your friends, acquaintances, family, and even strangers what search terms they would use to find what your offer. The beauty of AdWords is that you can perform keyword experiments. If the keywords get disabled for poor performance, you probably don’t want them anyway.

People type all sorts of things into Google, including mistakes. Even misspellings return results and sometimes ads. How does an ad get roped onto a search page for a misspelled keyword? The advertiser anticipated that misspelling and put it in the ad’s keyword list, that’s how, and that advertiser is in the excellent position of being perhaps the only relevant link for the searcher who hit a typo. Thinking up every plausible way to misspell your keywords is a grueling chore, but every serious advertiser does it. I recently experienced the benefit of productive misspellings. I ran a series of ads keyed around the names of musicians and bands. I wanted an ad for the group Blink-182, and it occurred to me that many searchers probably wouldn’t know about the hyphen (or, trusting Google, simply wouldn’t bother typing it in) and would also omit the space between blink and 182. So I included two keywords: blink-182 and blink182. Indeed, the proper spelling ended up getting disabled by Google for poor CTR, while the misspelling delivered outstanding results. Complying with Google’s need for relevance Throughout this article, I talk about Google’s obsessive enforcement of relevance on its pages. The AdWords program doesn’t hold to lower standards. You might not realize it because of the smooth automation with which the Control Center operates, but every ad in the system is cleared by a human. These gatekeepers check stylistic considerations, but simple relevance is equally important. Don’t attempt to blanket Google with irrelevant ads. Google will probably stop you and their prevention would save you time, because nobody would click on irrelevant ads.

The quality of ads on a search results page is as important to Google as the quality of its editorial search results. It is all content to Google, content that is judged and responded to by people searching the index. Google doesn’t want anything on the page that fails to meet its standard of relevance. The gray area of trademark infringement The standard of relevance for which Google is renowned is tested painfully by some companies for allowing competing companies to place ads on their search pages. By “their” search pages, I mean pages answering search queries about that company. The complaining companies claim that their trademarks are violated, a claim implying that the company thinks it owns the search results page. Perhaps the most celebrated trademark case involved an environmental organization that ran AdWords ads critical of a cruise company, and associated those ads with keywords related to the cruise company. On the surface, this tactic might seem no less sporting than attack-and-response ad campaigns, common in political advertising. Political opponents might hate each other, but they don’t claim trademark infringement when the ads get dirty. The problem on Google arises in the very concept of relevance. Everyone wants Google’s search pages, including the ads, to express a high level of relevance.

When an advertiser reaches across competitive lines to appropriate a keyword normally associated with a rival, the rival can charge that the relevancy of “its” results page has been compromised, and the users of that page (the searchers) have been betrayed. Google is responsive to such arguments, or at least cautious enough in the early days of this new type of dispute, to generally accede to requests for editorial control of the situation. In the example just mentioned, the environmental organization’s ads were taken down within a day. The lesson for advertisers is simple: Don’t make obvious crossovers into competitive territory to plug your products. That goes for affiliate advertisers, selling other companies’ stuff.

You can see this caution played out on Google’s search pages. Search for a well-known company, and you rarely see its competitors’ ads. If you do, you never see those ads mentioning the competing company by name. Using keyword-matching options Google provides four ways to treat your keywords so that it interprets them exactly the way you want. These treatments, called matching options, are similar to the search operators used on the front end of Google. (You might want to refer to Google For Dummies for a complete discussion of search operators.) One of those search operators the quote operator is the same as one of the keyword-matching operators discussed here. The four keyword-matching options at your disposal are -  Broad matching -  Negative keywords -  Phrase matching

-  Exact matching Keyword matching is powerful stuff and sometimes ignored by advertisers. In the rush to launch a campaign, it’s tempting to throw in untreated keywords (which default to the broad matching option) and let them ride. Slowed accounts and disabled keywords are often the result of such carelessness. Read on to find out about these four important options. Broad matching Do nothing, and your keyword is broadly matched to a potentially huge array of related keywords. Your ad might be displayed on search results pages for variations of your keyword, misspellings of your keyword, or conceptual similarities to your keyword. Broad matching is convenient, because you let Google do the work of researching keywords.

With a single word, you cover a lot of search queries. On the other hand, broad matches might not work for your ad, and Google is the sole determinant of broad matching if you don’t balance a broad match with a negative keyword (see the next section). Broad matching is risky, and most experienced advertisers use it cautiously. If a broadly matched keyword is disabled by Google (a common occurrence), you may put it back in play with a different matching option. Narrowing the effect with phrase or exact matching often makes a sputtering keyword suddenly potent. Negative keywords Placing a minus sign (hyphen) immediately before a keyword excludes that keyword from matching your keyword and triggering an ad impression. Negative matching looks like this: -keyword Google recently introduced a valuable feature that assigns negative matches to the entire campaign every Ad Group. The Campaign page contains an Add link for creating a campaign-wide list of negative keywords. That link becomes a View/edit link after you add at least one negative keyword.