Google sent its advertisers into a panic back in mid 2005 when it began to implement a new keyword status policy. Each keyword in their system was assigned a minimum bid requirement. The minimum varies widely anywhere from 2 cents to a dollar or more for some keywords.

Google will just put the keyword in your ad on inactive if you don’t want to put up a minimum bid that meets the requirements, then your ad wont show when people come searching on that term. If you are willing to put up the bid, then your ad will show up.

Many watched as their precious five-cent minimum bids got jacked up to ten and twenty cents and more. Some who based their entire selling strategy on this minimum price thought it would kill their business.

Not So. Should Google demand a higher bid and deactivate your terms then you have more than one option: (1) You could give Google the bid they are asking for, or (2) You can play with your ad copy and try to get the Google computers to believe that your ads are relevant and by that means lower the minimum bid required.

If you are thinking of choosing option 1, make sure you really need to and that your budget can support that decision. With the second choice -this is the recommended one-then use this device:

Place the term and put into your ad in the headline.

Here is what you need to do if putting that keyword in the headline throws off the match for all your other keywords. Use “Peel and Stick”. With this method you move the keyword from it’s original list and make it an ad group of it’s own with an ad whose headline has the keyword in it.

This method will help persuade the computers at Google that you have relevant ads and you will be granted a lower bid price. The best thing is that you will most probably get higher click-through-rates.

The reality is that your ads aren’t really being judged on true relevance but on perceived relevance. Your great CTR won’t get Google to lower your minimum bid price; only the fact that you use your keyword in the headline of your ad will get you a lower minimum bid.

It all boils down to whether the Google computers see you as relevant. It is not on any actuality of your ads being relevant.

By putting their system together this way Google is driving you to do what other more experienced marketers have been doing all along. That is they are separating their lists into small-scale groups with a narrow focus.

You may be penalized by Google if you have keywords on your list that arent relevant to your ad. They will do this by making those keywords inactive.