Mike Mancini here again with our Adwords Optimization, Week 1 – Day 2.

Let’s Check the Keyword Status

These are some quick ideas that you can take and use to help optimize a newer adwords campaign or a campaign that maybe has never really been touched.

So for the next step, what I want you to do is log in to your Adwords campaign. We’re here inside a campaign that we recently took over.

And go to the campaign and then click on keywords.

Now I want you to click on that status column.

You might see a bunch of things here that say eligible. But click on it to resort it. And then what you also might see here are a bunch of red warnings.

First of all, this ones says it’s below the first page bid. So if we hover above that, it says the ad is showing but it isn’t performing well because it’s bid is too low.

So scroll down to the next one. Now this one is not showing because it doesn’t have a high enough bid to basically get on the first page.

So obviously these can be a problem and can give you an idea of exactly what you need to be spending on your keywords.

So when I go in, I will look at this and maybe under brake rotor service, I might think… I don’t know if I want to pay up to $5.50 a click.

Now just because you bid that, does not mean you will necessarily pay that. It comes down to your click-through rate, the quality of your ads, the quality of your landing pages and a number of other factors that go into that decision.

Are Your Ads and Keywords Even Showing Up?

But what I want you to do is, take a look in your accounts, because a lot of people don’t realize that sometimes this is happening and some of their best keywords are not being shown as their keyword status is not eligible or the bid cost is too low.

This is something you should at least check a couple times a week. Just go in, click on your campaign as a whole, and click on the keyword area and see what comes up.

Now this one, “find a mechanic”. Bidding $2.59? Sure. I’m willing to up that. I will usually up it by at least 25 cents or so. So let’s just say $2.76. Then click save and now you can see that now that keyword is eligible.

And then I go down to the next one. And so on and so forth.

Now I’ll also take a look at where the average position is. Maybe it was running a bit low.

Also, you might see these other ones that are saying, rarely shown due to low quality score. And if you hover above those, you can see your quality score as well.

It really has a below average click-through rate, and a below average landing page experience.

So one thing we could do to maybe switch this up right away and redo the ad for that specific keyword. And if you go through, you’ll see different quality scores for different keywords.

And you might see a different diagnosis as well.

Then you’ll find other keywords where it may say, low search volume. And it will elaborate and let you knwo that it’s not performing well because not many people are searching for the keyword.

And when you look closer, you realize that it has a great quality score, an eight out of ten. And it’s got a great click-through rate. There’s was one conversion for $15.00 (which is actually ok for this company). I’m not going to touch that keyword.

If anything, because of the average position, I might up my bid a little bit.

And here’s an example where you can see, we are bidding a maximum cost per click of $5.16. But we’re only paying an average of $3.14 for that click.

So just because you have a maximum CPC here, a larger amount in the bid area does not mean you’ll be paying that.

So, in fact, what I’m going to do is I’m going to up this bid a little bit to hopefully improve this average position.

Check Your Keywords Status Often

So at least twice a week, I would go through and just double-check your keywords and make sure that they are working. Make sure they’re operating. Make sure that they’re actually eligible and showing to people.

I can’t tell you how many times we go into new accounts and we realize that some of their biggest keywords are not showing because they’re not eligible.

Perhaps there were changes made to the account. You might have a keyword that has been eligible ever since you turned the campaign on but maybe a year has passed and as time changes, the campaigns change, and that keyword may no longer be eligible.

Maybe it’s no longer showing because maybe there’s more competition for that keyword, or maybe it’s not performing as well as it used to.

So take some time, a couple times a week, and go into your account and make sure that that keyword status is eligible.

And we’ll see you in the next video.

See Adwords Optimization Day #3 Here (Negative Keywords)