A reader asks:

I just finished going through your book Google Adwords for Dummies.

In plunking around in Google search (now that I know what those results down the right side mean), I’ve noticed that some search terms result in zero Google Adword ads on the result page.

Would that indicate that firms who would likely use Google Adwords see no value in Google Adwords for their businesses?

My reply:

When there are no ads for a given keyword, it’s either because it has a huge search volume that no one has figured out how to monetize, or because it has such a low search volume that it’s not worth the effort of writing ads for.

Here’s an example of a very popular keyword that doesn’t attract advertising:

bridges

This keyword gets about 2 million searches per month. Take a look at the Google SERP (search engine results page) for bridges:

As you can see, no ads.

In the examples that you gave me (which I’m not sharing publicly), I see very long tail, specialized keywords that Google may not know what to do with. If the search volume is very low, Google will disallow the keyword. This forces you to bid on more general keywords with higher search volume. This makes Google happy by aggregating auctions and keeping bid prices high.

It also makes life easier for many advertisers who can’t be bothered to brainstorm lots of keyword variations.

For example, if I wanted to sell off my collection of Three Mile Island paperweights (of course, I never would), I might bid on the keyword Three Mile Island Unit II Dedication Acrylic Paperweight.

And if you typed in that exact search term, you would hope and expect to see my ad. But in fact, all you’d see are a few ads for paperweights:

If I wanted my ad to show up when you search for the long tail keyword, I need to bid on the broad match for acrylic paperweight and hope that Google  finds it a good match. Annoying, but that’s the way things are in 2009.

Google wants to show ads for every search (ads is how they make their money). So if you see zero ads for a search, it’s because nobody has figured out how to make money from that keyword.

For your specialized, long tail keywords, you need to find the more general keywords and bid on those in broad match.

But for some B2B markets, you may find that so few of your prospects exist in the world (let’s say, Directors of HR at Fortune 1oo companies, or purchasing managers at injection molding factories) that AdWords is an impractical way of reaching them. In that case, focus on SEO for the long tails (easy to rank high) and take out ads in print and online journals and go for PR.

Anybody else out there confused about keywords? If so, please check out the Traffic Surge course that begins October 8, 2009. My guarantee is that you’ll go from beginner to Market Master in 8 weeks.

Or, if you’re just interested in fine paperweights, I’m entertaining offers:

A reader wonders:

How many keywords (max) would you associate with your individual ad?

My response:

No more than 10 or so. The exact number is less important than the main concept, which is that all the keywords be tightly linked to the ad copy.

So if your ad group is about vidalia onions, and your ad headline is "Sweet vidalia onions," you might include the following keyword variations:

sweet vidalia onions
vidalia onions
vidalian onion delivery
buy vidalia onions
buy sweet vidalia onions
order sweet vidalia onions
order vidalia onions

I would put the following keywords into different ad groups:

vidalia onion recipes
vidalia onion relish
sweet onions
vidalia onion farms

I might use "relish" as a negative keyword if I don’t think relish seekers are my market.

A reader wonders:

I actually DO have a pertinent question for you – an answer to which the Google Ads help team was conspicuously unable to give me. In your book, one of the main themes is to make keywords as specific as possible so as to avoid unnecessary clicks and placements. I worked hard to develop such a set of keywords, upon which Google stopped showing most of my ads because they say the keywords have too low a traffic volume.

But this isn’t logical. As far as I understand it, the whole idea of Google Ads was that if you search for "6 1/2 inch yellow oblong slightly curved widgets", you should get not only any site that deals with such an oddity, but any Google Ad that refers to it or has it as a keyword shoujld also show up on the right.

So my question is two-fold: why is Google doing this to me, and is there anything I can do about it?

My response:

When AdWords For Dummies was published, the long tail keywords were the cutting edge in competitive advantage. Think of keywords nobody else is using, and you get hungrier searchers and less competition. Better conversions on cheaper clicks! What could be bad?

Unfortunately, Google has decided they make less money on long tail keywords with very few searches. Combine that with improvements in their matching algorithms, and you get a new situation: a high quality ad with robust CTR on a less specific keyword will trump a lower-quality ad on a more specific keyword.

My friend and "ears to the ground" AdWords Answerman David Rothwell (David, no charge for the catchy moniker ;) has moved from lots of exact match keywords to ad groups with more general broad match keywords and lots of negatives, which he collects by running the Search Query Report every week.

I have a case study from David which will appear in the second edition of AdWords For Dummies, scheduled for publication some time before Duke next wins the Final Four.

Wanna get a Great quality score for a keyword? Don’t just stuff that keyword into the title tag, headline, alt tags, etc. You need to think about other keywords as well – those related to the keyword you’re trying to optimize for.

What are they? Well, now Google kind of tells you, sometimes, with a new-ish feature that appears at the bottom of the search engine results page (SERP).

The "Searches related to: Keyword" section lets you know how Google is applying its latent semantic indexing algorithms.

In the example above, a search for shamanism is related to a whole bunch of keywords that don’t even include the main keyword and aren’t synonyms for it. A "dumb" search engine or keyword research tool wouldn’t be able to link shamanism to ayahuasca, or animism. Google knows this because it follows us as we search and re-search and re-search again, refining and varying our keywords until we get what we want. So ayahuasca (the "vine of the dead," a psychotropic plant used by Amazonian shamans to facilitate seeing into the spirit world) is linked to shamanism by virtue of iterative search behavior.

Once Google understands these connections, it looks at your web page trying to rank for shamanism to see if it contains any of the other related keywords. The more the page seems to display the correct context for the keyword, the more highly rewarded it’s likely to be.

So run your big keywords through the SERP and take a peak at the related feature down at the bottom. Then go see which of them can logically appear on your landing page.

(This insight comes courtesy of Search Engine News, to which you can subscribe for $144/year.)

A reader wonders:

Am currently using the Look Over My Shoulder (LOMS) videos to get started using AdWords. They’re very helpful, and I’m very grateful to Howie for creating them.

As I will be writing ads and landing pages in French, I need a tool that will help me identify the top 100 French keywords. Are you able to recommend one (either free or paid)? Before checking anywhere else, I wanted to check with Howie because I trust him to steer me in the right direction.

My response:

Aw, shucks. Thanks for the kind words. What was your question again?

Oh yeah, French keywords.

First thing I’d try is the Google free keyword tool.

In the Tools tab, find the "edit" link next to the default language and location:

Change the parameters on the page that displays next:

That should do it for you.

Note to everyone else: If you’re interested in the LOMS AdWords success videos, and you would also like to send me fan mail of gratitude, I think that’s an excellent idea. Find out more here.

A reader wonders:

If I have a lot of related keywords, do I need to send each keyword to it’s own landing page? Or can I automatically insert the keyword into the title tag of a dynamically generated landing page?

My response:

Dynamic keyword insertion into the landing page may work for Google in terms of assigning relevance (and hence a high quality score) to a keyword-landing page combo, but it doesn’t always work for the person searching. Different keywords may require different stories, different emotional appeals, different motivations, etc.

For example, look at a couple of keywords in my field:

adwords help

adwords consulting

They might be considered synonymous, but I’d probably send adwords consulting traffic to a page talking about my consulting practice, and adwords help traffic would go to a product, or even a free newsletter.

Simply swapping out "help" for "consulting" doesn’t capture the big difference between the two needs/problems/desires.

There’s an easy way to find out, though: Try it and see if the conversion rate is pretty equal across a bunch of keywords. If one keyword converts much worse than the others, then you know that traffic requires its own dedicated landing page.

I still see too many campaigns in which all the keywords are broad match. These advertisers are saying to Google, in effect, "You go and figure out who to show my ad to."

Aside from the fact that they’re ending the sentence with a preposition, they’re also abdicating their responsibility to select the exact keyword phrases which will bring targeted prospects.

So today, a brief reflection on the importance of phrase match, triggered by the bungled Presidential oath of office.

Read the rest of this entry »

President-elect Barack Obama recently announced the appointment of Nancy Killefer to the newly-created post of Chief Performance Officer. Her role, in Obama’s words, is to "scour this budget line by line, eliminating what we don’t need or what doesn’t work, and improving the things that do."

In honor of this appointment, I’d like to appoint YOU as Chief Performance Officer of your own business. Even if you haven’t borrowed $1.2 trillion to fund your AdWords account, "eliminating what doesn’t work" is still sound advice.

Read the rest of this entry »

A reader wonders:

if my Adwords ad shows up on page 4 of a search, and the searcher never gets to page 4, does that count as an impression? It was potentially available to be seen, but the searcher quit before getting to page 4.

Or does an impression occur ONLY when the searcher actually views the page where my ad is located?

My response:

It’s only an impression if the searcher brings up the page with your ad on it. So in your example, if you’re on page 4 that doesn’t count as an impression.

That’s why, in your 80/20 AdWords management practice (described in AdWords For Dummies), you must check the average position of keywords after sorting by impressions descending. The total number of impressions is the limit of your market – unless you’re bidding too low to take advantage of the whole pool.

A reader wonders:

I have been using one particular keyword that has been garnering lots of impressions and clicks over the past 8 days.  Today, nothing. What happened?

My reply:

Several things may have happened. Here they are in no particular order:

1. Google may have reassessed your quality score. If it went from Great or OK to Poor, then your current bid may not be enough to put your ad on the first page of search results.

2. Did you activate position preferences? If so, you may be bidding for positions 4-6 while limited your ads to positions 1-2, for example. In that case, your ad would stop showing completely.

3. You may have new competition: more or higher bidders.

4. You may have maxed out your monthly budget a little early.

Here’s what I would do:

1. Show the quality score of your keyword. (The Look Over My Shoulder AdWords Video Series has a nice video tutorial on how to do this.) If it’s poor, then click the details link to find out why.

2. Use the Ad Diagnostic tool to see why your ad isn’t currently showing.

If neither of those methods reveals the path to keyword salvation, then you might want to reach out for help. You can try contacting AdWords help, or call in a pro. (Gentle plug: this sort of situation is exactly why I created the Ring of Fire coaching club. Included in the Ring of Fire is a Help Desk, manned by me, to get you the answers you need without having to hire me as a private consulting client.)