So a couple posts ago, I said I was going to do a blog post letting everyone know what’s going on in my life.  So this is strictly a personal post.

First, my wife and I were not able to save our marriage, we both made too many mistakes before either of us were willing to wake up and try to actually fix it.  It was a case of both of us wanting to be right…even when we were dead wrong!  All the papers are filed, so we are just waiting on the courts now and we’ll be officially divorced, although, we’ve been separated for a year and two months now, so…yeah

Also, I decided to finish my degree.  I’m a huge fan of learning…I believe you should never ever stop learning in your lifetime and that you should always push yourself to learning as much as you can.  I had went to school went I left high school, but left when I got married and started internet marketing and then affiliate marketing.

Since my wife and I split, I had a ton of free time and I was sitting around at the house doing nothing…which is never good, so I decided I needed something that would get me out and around other people on a weekly basis…hence I decided to go back to school and finish my degree in Psychology…

If there is one thing that can help you in the business of selling, it’s probably knowing how people think!

Just kidding!  Actually I just really enjoy the subject!

I’m also going to throw a post up here telling of all the big changes happening at Click Consultants (like the CC Forums becoming FREE!!!) and also all the big changes that are yet to come!  Trust me there are a ton!  So watch for that post!

Anyways, I went through a bit of a rough patch in my life after the divorce, but I’m glad to be back and am planning on being back in full swing from now on!

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There are several factors that determine where Google places your ad when you are bidding on keywords in Google Adwords.  These factors are all added together to come up with, as Google calls it, your Ad Rank Score.  Some factors have more weight than other factors, but every single one of them is important in making sure you get the best possible ad position for your ad.

In this article I’ll discuss the factors that determine your ad position when you are bidding on keywords on the search network of Google Adwords.

In the next post I write, I’ll discuss the factors that determine your ad position when bidding on keywords on the content network of Google Adwords.

The formula for Ad Rank is pretty simple…

Ad Rank Formula = Max CPC Bid x Quality Score

Most of you know what Max CPC bid, it’s just the maximum you are willing to spend per click and is a number you set in your Adwords account on either an ad group level, or if your smart on a per keyword level.  It’s the biggest factor determining in what position your ad will appear within the search results Sponsored Links section.

This means that you can’t bid .10 cents on a keyword like auto insurance even if you have the best quality score possible and expect to show up in position one… it just isn’t gonna happen…

Moving on, so what affects your quality score?

The quality score you receive is based on a number of factors, however, once again there is one major factor that tends to be the most important.  That is your CTR (click through rate) of your ad.  The higher your click through rate, the higher your quality score.  The reason for this is because Google is out to make money…I know…shocker…right?

The only way that Google makes money is when someone clicks on your ad.  If you write an ad and Google shows it yet no one ever clicks on it, then they make nothing.  So naturally Google desires for you to have the highest CTR that you can, which also benefits you!  It means more traffic for you, and more money for Google as their being paid per click and the higher your CTR the more clicks you are getting for the same amount of impressions.

So the two biggest factors is your Max CPC (Max Bid) and Ad CTR (click through rate), however, what happens when you have a competitive bid price and a great Ad CTR but yet you still just can’t seem to beat that one competitor that is outranking you?

Well, there are several other factors that Google uses to determine your quality score, and while they may not give you as big of a boast as having a high CTR would give you, they can still help you tremendously.

• Your Account History – Not only does Google care about your CTR that you are currently getting on a campaign, but they also take in to account the overall CTR that you’ve received for all your campaigns, ads, and keywords.  The better CTR you have long term, the strong your account becomes.

• Ads Relevant to Keywords? – Google also takes in to account how well related your ads are to your keywords.  If your writing ads about selling a dog training ebook, yet your keywords are on ringtones, that will lower your quality score.

• Ads & Keywords Relevant to Landing Page? – Another factor that will affect your quality score is whether or not your ads and keywords are relevant to your landing page.  Again, if you are bidding on keywords and writing ads on things that aren’t related to the actual product or service you are promoting, it will negatively affect your quality score!

There are several other factors that will affect your quality score, however, the ones listed above are the ones that I’ve found to affect your quality score the most.

While Google doesn’t show the actual quality score you have, they do now give a number 1-10 to help you see how a keyword is ranking quality score wise.  You can see this quality score by going to an ad group and looking at the keywords and turning it on by click the show/hide columns button and selecting it.

In the next post I write, I’ll discuss what factors determine your quality score when bidding on keywords on the Content Network, so make sure you subscribe to my feed if you haven’t yet to make sure you get an update when the next one is posted.

Update – Understanding How Google Ranks Ads on the Content Network

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Hey guys, my buddy Chad over at CDFNetworks just released his new local lead generation course.  I just finished it myself and I think it’s one of the best complete guides that I’ve seen on the internet about local lead generation.

Local lead generation is affiliate marketing, however, instead of using CPA networks like Market Leverage, AzoogleAds, etc in order to get offers, you find local businesses that are looking for leads, like maybe a local dentist office, and enter in to a contract with them to supply them local leads using the same methods that you are using already for affiliate marketing.

The biggest difference is that you are advertising in Google Adwords, Yahoo, etc locally instead of advertising your stuff across the entire country.

There have been several large affiliate marketers talking about this method of affiliate marketing lately at a lot of different affiliate marketing blogs, however, no one has really put together much information about it in to an easy resource.  For example, Shoemoney talked about the possibilities of local affiliate marketing on his blog.

This is what Chad has done!

His course includes an ebook that explains everything you need to know about local lead generation, but it also goes much further by including sample contracts, sales proposals, invoices, etc to help you do it correctly and so that you are taken seriously when you go in to your local dentist office…don’t want them thinking your an idiot do ya? Haha!

Anyways, it really is a great course if you’ve been wondering how local lead generation works or if you’ve been wanting to give it a go.  It’s only $79 bucks and honestly, after reading it and looking through all the stuff you get, I think it’s worth every single penny.

Your probably thinking this is another course that is just going to take your money and provide you with nothing of real value like so many courses in this industry does…however, I encourage you to at least visit his site, view his video, and read about the course before just completely writing it off!  As I said, I’ve personally gone through it and although I’ve never personally run any local affiliate programs, I must admit that I’m pretty excited to give it a try.

He’s running the program through ClickBank which means that it offers a 60 day money back guarantee if you’re not completely satisfied, so trying it out for yourself can’t hurt you…

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Okay, so today I read that Twitter is coming out with their own Advertising Platform. At least for big name clients right now like Best Buy, Virgin America, and Starbucks. It doesn’t seem like there will be a self-serve platform yet, but anyways…

As most readers of this blog know, my main source of traffic comes from PPC from the top three search engines, I still believe that this is the absolute best traffic you can get and some of the easiest to make work and see the biggest profit revenues from.

However, there is one mistake I’ve made several times in the past that I’m not planning on making this time…

For whatever reason, when these new ad platforms for social media sites come out…Facebook, Myspace, etc come out, I don’t jump on board immediately…

My reasoning most of the times is because there is so much to figure out because it’s new that I just don’t have the time, or I tell myself I’ll let a couple people get going and write up a couple guides that way I don’t have to go in and spend a bunch of money testing stuff…

This time I’ll be jumping on board as soon as they offer it to us regular folks and I encourage you to do the same as well if you’re normally like I am when it comes to new ad platforms that social media sites release.

If you’d like more information on it, TechCrunch, Jonathan Volk, and Zac Johnson have all written articles on Twitter’s New Ad Platform, I’d definitely recommend giving them a read.

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Hey guys, I just wanted to give everyone an update on the Click Consultants Affiliate Forums.  I have changed it that after you register you’ll immediately have access to all the forums as soon as you verify your email.  You don’t have to wait until I approve your account or send me an email or anything now.

All parts of the forums are opened for free, except for the Learning Center.  The reason being is because as I mentioned in the previous post, it’s the part that is currently being updated.  All the old videos, articles, etc have been deleted and new ones are currently being worked on.

I’ll continue to give updates to the forums, and I can’t say exactly how long free registrations will be open, so I encourage you to signup immediately to make sure you don’t miss out on this opportunity.  Thanks.

Please let all your friends and followers know by using one of the social media buttons below!

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