Newbie with Keyword Woes

General or specific keywords, and what type of matching to use?

[ohfiddlesticks]

Hi all, this is my first post at Webmasterworld. I recently started using Adwords for the first time and thought I knew what I was doing, but my account has been slowed a few times and now I need to reactivate it. I've read alot on different sites about Adwords, but obviously I'm missing something.

My site is in a pretty competitive market...used books. I tried using both very general keywords like "used books", and using more specific ones about the genres we carry and even author's names. I used broad and phrase keyword matching, along with some global negative keywords to remove searches for genres we don't carry.

Problem is that the more general keywords show lots of impressions with low ctr (never higher than .6%), and lower positions (around 15). Yet these general keywords show as "strong". My more specific keywords show much less impressions, high positions (1 and 2), a slightly lower ctr, but end up being slowed and terminated within a few days.

I would prefer to target people searching for the genres and authors that make up most of our inventory instead of just "used books", but the traffic estimator shows that we won't get any clicks with those keywords.

Any advice or good articles on this? I've read everything I saw at Google, and didn't find it very helpful. Thanks

[buckworks]

The Adwords traffic estimator is not reliable enough to use for serious decision-making, in my experience. Do what your common sense tells you, and make your decisions based on your own testing.

I would prefer to target people searching for the genres and authors that make up most of our inventory

I think your instincts are sound about that. The more specific the keywords you target, the better chance that they'll send visitors who actually buy something.

The problem might be that unless you're using [exact matches], your terms aren't as specific as you think. I suspect it would help to do a lot more work with negative keywords. Spend time with a good keyword suggestion tool, watching for terms that you should be blocking as well as terms to bid on. I guarantee you'll find all sorts of things to block that you wouldn't have thought of on your own. If you can reduce the number of "wasted" impressions that will improve both your CTR and the quality of the traffic.

[your_store]

Just a random thought, but I would target incomplete book titles. I for one can never remember a complete title, but I can usually come up w/ at least a couple of words.

Other than that I would say Buckworks is right on w/ his advice. Negative keywords are an broad matching advertiser's best friend.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

I think your instincts are sound about that. The more specific the keywords you target, the better chance that they'll send visitors who actually buy something.

Agreed!

To the above I'd add one really important detail.

Make sure that the ads that the keywords bring up are very highly related to those 'specific' keywords you've used.

In other words, create highly targeted Ad Groups in which the keywords and ads are about the very same thing.

Silly example (Yes, I seem to love these):

The keyword 'lightly salted brazilian widgets' is very specific, no?

But if the ad that comes up for this keyword reads:

Wholesale Mixed Gadgets
Wide selection of locally grown
Boston gadgets. Wholesale only.
www.magadgets.com

Well, then, your CTR will likely be poor in spite of the very specific keyword.

AWA

[ohfiddlesticks]

Well I tried tweeking my keywords a bit. Tried some exact matches along with more specific phrase and broad ones. Then I reactivated the account for $5. Thought I'd watch it over a few days to see how it compared to my results before. Woke up the next morning to find my account had been slowed again!

Now the keywords that it had slowed had only had a few impressions and one had no impressions. How can it say the I have poor CTR when the ads had not even had impressions yet. Before it took over a week for my account to slow and it made sense because I had some words with high impressions but low CTR. This overnight thing makes no sense at all. What am I not getting?

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Now the keywords that it had slowed had only had a few impressions and one had no impressions. How can it say the I have poor CTR when the ads had not even had impressions yet...This overnight thing makes no sense at all. What am I not getting?

ohfiddlesticks, please note that when your account is slowed, the system is not looking for 1000 impressions per keyword. Rather, it is looking at the most recent 1000 impressions for all keywords in your entire account combined.

I suspect this may be your situation - that all the keywords combined have accrued another 1000 impressions.

BTW, this can literally happen in seconds if your account is filled with very general keywords. This is where the 'overnight thing' begins to make sense - it is not based on time at all. Instead, it's based on accruing 1000 impressions, and one really general keywords like 'software' can do that in a couple of minutes. If you have lots of equally general keywords, 1000 impressions comes up pretty darn quickly.

Another related thing to keep in mind: If you have 'disabled' keywords in your account and don't delete them (in every place they've occurred) before re-using them - then those keyword will be disabled again very quickly.

AWA

[ohfiddlesticks]

Ok now I see how the 1000 impressions applies to the whole account. I was also looking at the individual keywords impressions and failed to notice the "content targeting" section showing 5000 impressions with 0.0%CTR! So I disabled the display of my ads on content sites and partner searches and my account seems to be doing better now...no slow-downs yet.

Another thing that I think is messing me up is that I still see totals showing deleted keywords and paused ad groups. Is it advisable to start new adgroups and then pause an old under-performing one, rather than to keep tweaking one that is active.

Thanks

[buick]

I have my account slowed just about all the time so for me I gave up on google, I have reworked them and raised amounts and even wrote them with no reply. Good luck!