Understanding Adwords - Part III: Max Bid Headaches

Anyone who has used Adwords knows this scenerio:

I just thought of this great campaign and I have this great list of keywords that people are going to want to click! You set up your website or blog, you do a bunch of research on keywords and its various derivatives, you go to GoogleAds, create your ad, put in your keywords, choose a max bid that you can afford (like $0.10) and ta-da...

"YOU HAVE 456 INACTIVE KEYWORDS"

This is the point where I usually curse at the computer. So Google (kindly?) gives me two options:

1) Increase my keyword price

2) Increase the quality and relevancy of my ad

At this point, you can browse through your keywords and see the ridiculous prices google thinks your keyword is worth. Some of these keywords are $5, maybe even $10. I doubt you will be paying this.

The only other option you have is to optimize your ad. I have read tons on this topic and even have spoken with Google about it before, but I still am not quite sure how this works. If I change my ad, nothing really happens (at that time). If I add more ads, nothing really happens (at that time either). I think (this is purely speculation...if you have more insight, please let me know!) Google will initially give you its electronic estimate of what it will define its max bid value at based on your keywords and first ad written. From that point on, it will stay that way until the ad is officially reviewed by an editor. This can sometimes work to your advantage. A few things you can do in the meantime:

1) Write multiple ads. It is always a good itea to write multiple ads, but it also gives an editor more options to lower your bids.

2) Put keywords into the ad itself.

3) Be specific and use exact-match [] keywords pr phase-match "" keywords. For example, if you are selling golf clubs, instead of using the keyword:

golf clubs

Use:

[websites to find golf clubs]

4) Use negative keywords

5) Add more content to you landing page (Google does check your landing page for relevancy as well!)

6) Be patient! Time fixes these problems at times.

Perry Marshall goes over a lot of these issues in detail (and adds a few more advanced methods as well!). Click here to learn more.