I don’t normally get involved in Adwords campaigns any more, but a client asked me this question today and to be honest, I didn’t know right off the bat. So I took a look around and went to the oracle for the answer. Here’s what Google says;

“On Google search result pages, the highest ranking AdWords ads are eligible to appear in the top positions above the search results. While we show only up to three ads above the search results per page, several top-performing ads can be eligible for these positions. Therefore, we cycle through all eligible ads in subsequent pages until there are no eligible ads left; when this happens, we’ll return to showing the first competing ad at the top of the page.”

OK, so you pay more, you get to the top huh? Well no;

“Google believes strongly in providing high-quality and relevant advertising to our users. Our system does not rank ads solely on cost, and there is no way to reserve top placement on a search result page.”

So how does it happen?

“Ad position on the search network is based on the matched keyword’s cost-per-click (CPC) bid times its Quality Score. A keyword’s Quality Score for ad position is based on its clickthrough rate (CTR) on Google, the relevance of the ad and keyword to the search query, historical keyword performance, and other relevancy factors.”

Got that? No? Well it’s not what you’d term crystal clear. But to summarise, it’s not possible to guarantee a top position for a Google search page using Adwords even if you make sure that you are paying more per click and are willing to spend more per day than everyone else advertising. The way you get ads to show up is to subscribe to a Google Adwords pay per click campaign and set what you want to pay per person clicking on your ad and what the maximum you want to pay per day is. You then have to write an ad that gets clickthroughs and gets Google to notice how effective the ad is. If Google thinks it’s a good quality ad it will put it at the top of the page above the search results in the yellow boxes. If there are more than three good quality ads, then Google rotates them. Kinda dependent on a lot of variables isn’t it?

So there’s a new version of AdSense Secrets published, what’s the big flap about? Well, it’s been a while since version 3 and if you’re in any way into Adsense then you will know there have been a few changes. So if you already make money from Adsense and want to make more, or want a slice of the action for yourself, then you need this book. It is of course written by the best-selling Adsense author Joel Comm and what he doesn’t know about Adsense probably isn’t worth knowing.

So you get a renowned expert, and updated classic, what more do you want. How about a price of $9.95? And for us over this side of the pond that really equates to pocket change. You get a bunch of quick action bonuses, some of which may actually be useful to you. But don’t be swayed by the bonuses, get the book, I did.

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It’s true to say that online marketers can have high expectations, work hard and spend maybe a lot of money, and still end up burned out, cynical and with nothing to show for it in the end. Why is this?

It’s to do with expectations. A simple Google search will provide more promises and guarantees of fabulous wealth than any one person can make use of in a hundred lifetimes. If you’re the sort of person who wants to make their own decisions, run their own business, then these options may look worthwhile if you buy the right course or follow the right program. Even normally cynical people can end up buying stuff just because they have hope. Hope that it will make a difference, and that hope circumvents their cynicism and normal defences because it might just work this time. Internet marketers are selling hope, not a course, not a program, just hope. Of course it is packaged in bright promises and pretty guarantees, but in the end all they are selling is the hope that by spending the money, you will be able to change something you have not been able to heretofore.

So is this unethical, or even a problem at all? No, it’s not unethical as long as the program can, or has delivered to the extent claimed. The border of ethical selling is some place around whether the results can be replicated for someone else, and if not, whether it is made clear that this may have been a one-off due to favourable circumstances or suchlike. The border is crossed when the results cannot be replicated, but it is still claimed to be an effective method.

Whether the way something is sold is a problem depends on how you view it. With eyes wide open and a mind in gear, you should first question what is your motivation for purchase. Is it something which will maybe be of use in the future (questionable basis for purchase), or something that will facilitate what you are doing or hope to do now. If it’s the latter then it needs to be something that will not detract from your primary focus.

Whilst spending money to make money can be a reasonable business tactic, you need to know how that money will come in and what to do when it doesn’t. If you have affiliate accounts and sell other companies goods,what percentage will you make on each sale and when will you recoup the money you are spending. Too many would-be marketers set something up and hope it will work. In all but a few cases it doesn’t because at least at the beginning you have to constantly check what is going on and make changes. Sure if you hit a deep pocketed niche you can make a killing pretty much automatically once you have set up sites to attract that niche. Trouble is no-one is going to tell you what a valuable niche is, they take a lot of finding before you even start to think of how to service that niche.

This may all come across as negative, but look on it as the antidote for the wild claims of easy money.  Yes you can make a decent living on-line, but you normally have to know what you are doing and have some idea how you will achieve it, just like the real world in fact. Opportunities to sell on the Internet can only increase, make sure your expectations match reality and you can be part of it.