Adwords advice on sponsored links

Hi,

Have just started an Adwords campaign and wondering how companies get their link at the top of the search page instead of on the right hand side.

Couldn't find any info on Google's site, does anyone here know how to obtain the top spot above the search results?

Cheers,
Rose

It all depends on the competitiveness of that keyword. If a search phrase is very competitve and many companies are advertising on it, Google will usually place some ads at the top of the page.

I see this to be true, but I sometimes see random keywords sometimes showing up on top and some only on the right side.

thanks veto! xx

I've also read, in other forums, that Quality Score is an indicator in which ads are placed on the left, above the organic listings. Those advertisers with the highest Quality Scores reach "the promised land", so to speak.

HTH,
Sam

basically the ranking (how high up the page) is dependant on

cost per click * click thru rate

if your ad is displayed 50 times in a day, and clicked 5 times, your click thru rate is 10%

if you bid 10p a click on that click thru rate.. and someone else bids 11p a click on that click thru rate.. they will be above you.

if you have a click thru rate of 95% and you bid 10p a click, you may well appear higher than someone with a poor click thru rate who spends £10 per click.

however, its not that simple.. i think google are clocking on to certain issues such as click fraud..

if one of your competitors constantly clicks your advert to:

make u pay each time
ruin your return on investment
waste your campaign budget for that day

they are inadvertently improving your click thru rate, making your ad have a higher rank... HOWEVER, i think they have introduced something where as if the same client pc is clicking an advert constantly, it realises this and alters your rank accordingly.. but this is just my hunch..

i dont know about you lot, but if over a year you have a click thru rate of 10% for an entire campaign, you are doin very well..

10% is a very high CTR. Especially in competitive areas.