My ads are buried deep in the search results. What is the best plan to increase the ranking? Because I am so low on the rankings, my CTR is also low.
Is best to just increase the PPC and hope that increases the ranking and CTR?
On the other hand, should I tell everyone I know to do searches and click my ad to increase my CTR?
I feel somewhat like, which came first the chicken or the egg.
Any suggestions or input would be appreciated.
-- You mention "my keyword" as if you're only bidding on one term. Do some research to find additional terms that people might use to search for what you're offering. As long as they're well-targeted, the more words and phrases in your "keyword basket" the better. Some people around here bid on thousands of terms.
-- If you're using anything other than exact matches, be sure you understand how to use the negative keywords feature to keep your ad from appearing on unsuitable searches. That will help both your CTR and your average profit per click.
Example: suppose you had a horse for sale. You might want to bid on the word "horse", but someone searching for "horse pictures" would not be a good prospect. You could block the word "pictures" to keep from wasting impressions (and clicks) on poorly targeted searchers.
I read your previous post to lhinds.
Does your suggestion in the last statment apply for more specific keywords such as, "atlanta personal injury attorney"? Do you still need to use negative keywords with keywords that are as specific as my example?
Your answer is appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
PJLsfl
Basically, poke through your logs and referring keywords etc. (Awstats has this feature as do a few others) and keep adding -widget to your keywords list until the traffic starts picking up.
Alternatively, pick some keywords that aren't heavily bid on and bid very low for them. You'll get a nice stream of cheap traffic with a very high clickthrough rate.
Good luck!
<added> PJLsfl: Basically, yes :) </added>
Do you still need to use negative keywords with keywords that are as specific as my example?
Yes.
What if someone searched for "crooked atlanta personal injury attorney"? If you were promoting a lawyer, the word "crooked" would be a good one to block for the entire campaign.
As well as reviewing your logs, spend some time messing around with a couple of keyword suggestion tools, hunting for terms you'd prefer to block. No matter what your sector, I guarantee you'll come across search phrases you never thought of that include your words but still manage to be off-target somehow. Weeding those out of your campaign will make it more productive.
