Note from Andrew: Steph is learning a lot during her internship. She filed this report from a recent visit to Google’s Ann Arbor office to learn about pay per click advertising:

A few days ago, I had the privilege of doing a job shadow at the Google AdWords headquarters in Ann Arbor. The experience and the people I talked to at Google really reinforced what I have been learning at Your Search Advisor.

One of the people I job shadowed was an optimization specialist. She stressed the importance of having specific, relevant keywords. For example, if you’re selling baked goods in Ann Arbor, you may be tempted to choose “happiness” as one of your keywords, since your cupcakes bring others joy. However, the Google search engine would not find your ad very relevant to people typing in “happiness.” You would do much better if you choose something like “Cupcakes in Ann Arbor.”

Something else I found interesting was the formula that Google used to rank its AdWords ads on a search page. Although bidding high amounts and paying more money can help, the quality of the ad and of the website is also extremely important. For example, a company can pay a lot for an ad, but if it is irrelevant or if the website it links to is poorly designed, that ad wouldn’t rank as high as a better quality (though less expensive) ad.

Near the end of the job shadow, I was given a link to a video on YouTube that is very good at explaining how Google ranks its ads. I’d like to share it with you:

Enjoy!