How Many AdWords Competitors Are There?

A reader wonders:

Since Google has removed the "More Sponsored Links" button, can you give me a specific explanation on how to find out the number of advertisers for a given keyword?

My response:

There are a couple of ways to get this information. Unfortunately, none of them is accurate. Fortunately, the exact number isn't important. 

First, how to determine the number of advertisers?

1. Use the Google Keyword Tool

You can use the free Keyword Tool within AdWords to see the relative competition for a keyword (relative, that is, to all other keywords in Google's database.

In the example below, I use the keyword Canon battery charger.

As you can see, these keywords are all very competitive. Compare them with keywords related to buying vuvuzelas, the plastic horns that are blaring at the soccer World Cup in South Africa this summer:

Not quite the same supply (or demand, I dare say ;)

2. Free Spyfu lookup

You can go to www.spyfu.com and enter a keyword and receive a pretty good chunk of information about it.

Here you can see 11 PPC competitors listed, and a month by month analysis of their tactics below.

3. The Paid Keyword Spy Tool

For $140/month, you can get the Rolls Royce of Competitive Analysis tools, Keyword Spy. (Full disclosure: that's my affiliate link, which means I get paid if you click it and subscribe. To keep things clean, you can click this link – www.keywordspy.com – and go there without giving me a penny.)

Here's what Keyword Spy says:

OK, so now we've got 54 advertisers, not the 11 that Spyfu claims. Which one is correct? No idea.

You can also see Keyword Spy's assessment of the trend over time, from the previous 10 months (red arrow).

Why Don't You Need to Know the Exact Number?

Because it isn't actionable information. 

Are you going to choose a different ad or bidding strategy for 11 competitors than for 54? No.

The number of competitors is interesting only when you are assessing the market, seeing if it's robust enough to support advertising. Once the competition has filled up the first page of Google search results, you've got to do enough things right to get into the first page affordably, given what a visitor is worth to you.

What are the Right Things?

1. Writing an ad that attracts your ideal customer and repels non-buyers
2. Taking them to a landing page that immediately converts their attraction into interest, so you can harness their desire and turn it into action
3. Bidding just-right for each conversion, so you're neither underpaying nor overpaying for clicks

Once you've committed to a market, you go in with the intention of being the most successful advertiser on the page. Regardless of whether you have 11 or 54 or 230 competitors. If you aren't in the top 10, you're not in business. If you're not in the top 3, you're not profitable.

(And by "top" I don't mean position, but effectiveness. You might be in position 7, and still cleaning up for that keyword by virtue of a perfectly tuned ad and website.

Is Your Local Business Getting Smothered on Google?

Google has just made it easier for you to connect your business location or locations with AdWords.

If you're a local business, you need to know about these features if you want to stay competitive:

Video Editing Just Got Easier

Check out the new YouTube video editor:

Now with a cheap video camera and a youtube account, you can do some amazing things to promote your business.

(Thanks to Shelley Ellis for pointing this out.)

A Tale of Two Balls

Ball #1: Jabulani

A bunch of the world’s soccer goalkeepers are having fits about the new Adidas Jabulani ball. As the World Cup approaches, the goalies are near-unanimous in their complaints: Too light, too curvy, too sleek, too slippery, too unpredictable.

Here are some quotes about the Jabulani from the goalkeepers of several teams playing in the Cup this summer:

Hugo Lloris of France: “A disaster.”

Iker Casillas of Spain: “Like a beach ball.”

Gianluigi Buffon of Italy: “Shameful.”

David James of England: “Dreadful.”

Fernando Muslera of Uruguay: “The worst I’ve ever played with.”

Ball #2: The Worst Call in Baseball History

And on Wednesday, the Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga was one out away from a perfect game (only 20 of these games have been pitched in the history of Major League Baseball) when first base umpire Jim Joyce completely blew it and incorrectly called a runner safe with two outs in the ninth.

Galarraga’s response at being cheated out of a history-making achievement? “[Joyce] probably felt more bad than me. Nobody’s perfect.”

Wow.

While the goalkeepers are already making excuses for the goals they haven’t yet allowed, Galarraga responded with more grace and integrity than I can imagine.

Arguing with Reality

Here’s my confession: While I would love to say I would have reacted like Galarraga, I act like a whiny goalkeeper much more often.

It’s so easy, after all, to blame the world for what it’s withholding from me.

Even when it’s a patent absurdity, such as a soccer ball that will challenge all teams equally.

But as Mick Jagger and Buddha so wisely remind us, You can’t always get what you want.

And as one of my teachers, Byron Katie puts it, “arguing with reality” is a sure cause of misery.

After all, the Jabulani ball is equally bad for everyone. Kind of like the other excuses I like to trot out when the world doesn’t deliver exactly what I want: the market, the economy, the labor market, the demands on my time.

Unless I pay attention, I can become a veritable font of excuses that can keep me victimized, aggrieved, and helpless.

Accepting Reality

Contrast that attitude with Galarraga’s, whose near-instant acceptance of the irreversible bad call has made him synonymous with hugeness of spirit.

He showed us all how to make friends with reality.

And by “reality” I don’t mean anything more than what is actually going on right now. As opposed to the constant comparison with the story of how things should go.

Suppose Galarraga had done the “normal” thing and yelled and protested and complained and told the world he had been robbed.

Would that have changed anything?

Clearly not, as it didn’t work when the Tigers’ manager. 

Here’s what it would have changed: Galarraga’s experience of the event. As it unfolded, he ended the game with a big smile, a huge ovation, and what looks suspiciously to me like inner peace. A tantrum would have erased all that good stuff.

Plus, as my friend Brian pointed out, his story has become a resonant social fable far beyond baseball. Millions of people with no interest in baseball admire and will remember him.

How many of you can name the men who pitched the first two perfect games this season? If you’re not a baseball fan, I bet you can’t. (FYI: I can’t. Despite being a baseball nerd in my teams, I quit cold turkey after the 1978 season, reasoning that for a Yankee fan, life could simply not get any better.)

The Power of the Invisible Sun

Just to add a bit of irony to the goalkeepers’ moaning, the World Cup is being played for the first time in South Africa, a land with great energy and great challenges. I spent two months in South Africa this past year, and I’ve seen enough of childhood poverty to last me a lifetime.

While the high-tech Jabulani balls are slipping through fingers in goalkeepers’ recurring nightmares, many South African kids dream of owning a soccer ball that consists of something more rugged and aerodynamic than rubbish and garbage bags held together with string.

Photographer and philanthropist Bobby Sager, who took the above photo, teamed up with former Police frontman Sting and inventor Tim Jahnigen to create an indestructible soccer ball.

Instead of a bladder that can be punctured, the new ball can be stabbed with a knife, run over with a car, and rolled over broken glass without any problem.

The bright yellow balls, inscribed with the words “Hope is a Game Changer,” are being handed out by the thousands all over the world.

Why? Sting answers, “This is instant joy. Kids need fun, too. Imagine living in a refugee camp. I mean, what is there to look forward to? Very little. This is concrete. Very, very substantial.”

(To support this effort, go to The Power of the Invisible Sun.)

My fantasy is that one day a child who grew up in a South African informal settlement will grow up to be goalkeeper for the South African national team. I bet you he – or she – will be very happy with whatever ball is used.

And that, like Armando Galarraga, he or she will realize that the greatest victory is not the final score, but the way we conduct ourselves no matter what life throws at us.

So from my own humble place of learning, my gratitude goes out to my teachers: Armando, Bobby, Sting, Tim, and Byron.

May I be inspired to accept reality with grace and confront it with courage.

And so may we all.

Have you recovered from math class yet?

Remember math class your senior year of high school? Pretty meaningless stuff, for most of us. The answers were in the teachers' edition of the textbook, and our job was to figure out the formula and apply it, with as little thinking as possible.

We were being trained – and rewarded – to be impatient solvers of trivial problems.

Fast forward to our professional lives. Things are different now.

We engaged marketers know about patient problem solving. There are no problems in our businesses that are straightforward. That we can solve by applying a known formula. For which we have exactly the right information, no surplus and no deficit.

So why are we teaching kids a method of problem solving that has no use in the real world?

Check out this inspiring 10-minute talk by math teacher extraordinaire Dan Meyer:

“People Buy What You Believe”

Every marketer needs to study this video:

Start with Why, not What.

What you do simply serves as proof of what you believe.

Enjoy.

A Landing Page Parable

Imagine this:

You wake up and there’s an inch of water on your living room floor, and it’s rising. Discovering a burst pipe in a closet wall, you grab the phone book and call the first plumber who offers emergency service.

Ring ring.

“Hello, this is Oscar and Felix’s Plumbing Service. How may I help you?”

“I’ve got a burst pipe and it’s flooding my house.”

“Oscar and Felix’s Plumbing Service has been operating in your town since 1987. We specialize in custom kitchen plumbing, septic systems, replacing old pipes with copper and PVC, and unclogging stopped drains.”

“Didn’t you hear me? I’ve got a busted pipe and my cat is swimming.”

“Would you like us to send you, absolutely free of charge and with no obligation, our Special Report, ‘7 Plumbing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your House’? All you need to do is give me your full name, address, email, and phone number, and you’ll have that report in your email inbox in just 3 minutes.”

Click. Dial tone. You, the hot prospect, are gone, never to return.

Your Landing Page is the Person Who Answers the Phone

And your prospect’s search query is the first thing they say after you pick up.

For example, let’s pretend you sell information on how to use webinars to grow your business. One of your keywords is how to record a webinar.

When someone enters that keyword and clicks your ad, they’ve just called you and said, “Hello, I’d like to know how to record a webinar.”

Your landing page headline is your response. Most advertisers don’t take the time to create different landing pages for different keywords. So their reply to the search query is something like the following headline:

“How to Make Money With Webinars”

But in that case, you’ve totally ignored what your prospect just told you they want RIGHT NOW.

And that feels pretty disrespectful. Like the receptionist at Oscar and Felix’s Plumbing Service ignoring the immediate need of the caller.

Instead, your headline might read:

“How to Record Webinars without Compromising the Quality of the Live Event and Without Needing Expensive Equipment or a Degree in Engineering”

Now does your visitor feel heard and acknowledged? Might they spend a little time on your site, enough perhaps for you to share some value with them in exchange for their contact information, or even their credit card number?

But I Have Hundreds (or Thousands) of Keywords!

You may be thinking, “That’s all very well in theory, but I couldn’t possibly create different landing pages for every single keyword in my account!”

Fair enough.

Here’s where the 80/20 rule comes to the rescue. Don’t try to do everything at once. Bite off a manageable chunk, like this:

Go into your AdWords account and click the Keywords tab.

Next, sort all your keywords, descending, by impressions.

Chances are, you’ll have just a few keywords (fewer than 10, and maybe only 3 or 4) that account for the majority of your traffic.

Can you create a new dedicated landing page for the biggest keyword that doesn’t yet have one?

If you have a decent amount of traffic and low conversions, this is absolutely the best use of your AdWords time.

It’s your choice:

You can mend the weakest point in your sales pipeline now.

Or you can call me when it bursts and you’re up to your ankles in a flood of expensive, unconverted visitors.

“Hello, this is Howie’s AdWords Plumbing Service. How may I help you?”

3-Part Landing Page Clinic

http://askhowie.com/lp-clinic-sale

If you're driving AdWords visitors to a landing page that doesn't produce enough leads or sales…

If you want to discover a simple formula for producing winning landing pages…

If you'd like to get a huge discount, plus not have to wade through a long sales letter… ;)

Here's the thing: I have this product, the Landing Page Clinic, which is really good. Three webinar recordings plus handouts.

I did it live several months ago, and never released it.

I'm working on the sales letter. But I'm exhausted from Camp Checkmate, and backed up on a lot of client work.

I'll get to the sales letter, I really will. 

But in the meantime, if you trust me enough to buy the Landing Page Clinic without it, I'll reward you with special pricing and a zero-risk guarantee:

Special Pricing

Landing Page Clinic will retail for $97.11. If you buy it now, minus the sales letter, you can take $50 off. This offer is good until June 25, 2010.

The 2-Part Zero-Risk Guarantee:

If you want a refund for any reason, at any time, just ask and I'll give you your money back.

If you implement what you learn and don't experience at least a 25% improvement in conversions within 60 days, I insist that you ask for and get your money back.

Get started now: http://askhowie.com/lp-clinic-sale

Wishing you health, happiness, prosperity, and good plumbing,
Howie

Traffic Tuesday Webinar Replay

In this Camp Checkmate edition of Traffic Tuesday, we played a game of "Landing Page Double Negative," and then turned out critical eyes to three websites:

operacollectors.com
completehomebuyer.co.uk
bluechipwrestling.com

I'll eat my bowler hat if you can't find some nugget to apply to your own website from one of these scorches.

And now a word from our sponsor: Camp Checkmate

Camp Checkmate Chicago, June 10-11, is your one opportunity this year to achieve a guaranteed quantum leap in your marketing.

Not another "scribble notes furiously" seminar.

A full-out, hands-on, masterminding, best-practicing, creativity-exploding, get-it-done-ing two days that will rock your world. 

My guarantee: come away with effective done-for-you ads, landing page copy, headlines, strategies, and guarantees, or I'll write you a check for your entire tuition plus $750 to more than cover your travel expenses – on the spot.

I can only make this guarantee because I'm 100% confident that you will experience a profit-producing breakthrough – or several – on June 10 and 11.

Listen to Joey and Jamey Bridges discuss the aftermath of their 30 minutes of Camp Checkmate – FOUR MONTHS LATER:

And if you want more testimonials, from some of the biggest names in direct and online marketing (Perry Marshall, Drayton Bird, Robert Middleton, Ben Moskel, and others), spend a few minutes here.

Want the full story? Camp Checkmate home page.

Price goes up on June 1 – register now before time slips away.

Stretch Your Mind – A Clever Use of AdWords

When we use AdWords, we generally think in terms of numbers. How many impressions, how many clicks, how many conversions, based on a large potential market.

But what if your entire market consisted of only 5 people in the whole world? Could AdWords work in that case?

Check out this devilishly clever case study of an AdWords campaign that targeted known individuals, rather than big markets:

Have you used AdWords in unorthodox and clever ways? Share your stories in comments.

(Thanks to Barbara Demarest for the heads-up.)

AdWords Ad Split Testing Protocol – Webinar Recording

On Friday, I shared my 4-stage testing protocol for AdWords ad split testing in this 60-minute webinar. 

Enjoy! Any questions or comments or disagreements or tangents, please share them in the Comments section.

Interested in being notified about upcoming Checkmate trainings, events, and free webinars? Register below.