New Ways to Analyse Keyword Performance

If you are already taking advantage of SEO services, then you will probably be aware of Google Search Ads; the pay per click paid search tool. If you are already running an Adwords campaign, then I bet you have tested it out by searching for your keywords to see where your ad appears in the sponsored are on the Google SERP.

While being at the very top of these results isn’t always the place to be, depending on your industry and business type, for some it is an enviable position that can mean more visits to your site, and more conversions. Google Adwords announced this month that a new metric had been added to the campaign dashboard of Adwords accounts – Top of page bid estimates. Similar to the first page bid estimates, this new metric will; show you the approximate CPC bid needed for your ad to appear in the top section above the organic search results.

How can I use this information?

This new metric will make optimising your adgroups for the ‘top’ or ‘side’ sections much easier. In July, a new segment called ‘Top vs. Side’ was introduced so that users could see a breakdown of how many clicks and conversions their keywords were getting when comparing the position of the ad.

You could then leverage this information in your keyword bidding, if a keyword was performing better in the ‘top’ section, you could bid more for it in an effort to get the keyword to appear there more often. The only problem with this system was that you never knew how much to bid, and you may end up paying many dollars more per click than the keyword was worth. The new top page bid estimate metric takes out the guesswork.

To see the new metric in action, all you have to do is:

• Select the ‘keywords’ tab
• Click the columns button, and then select ‘customise columns’
• Check the ‘Est top page bid’ box and save your changes.

Remember not to rely on this information as the only tool in optimising your AdWords account – as position can be calculated on quality score, your daily budget and user behaviour among other things, this is merely a guide for you to gain insights into your account and to plan your strategy accordingly. If you aren’t sure about how to interpret your findings, White Chalk Road are more than happy to make sense of it for you.