As a result of our ads on Google, we have had a HUGE influx of orders for gemstone Eggs and Marbles. Our bead sales are not improving, and I figured out why. I tried to search for "Chrysotile chip beads," which is one of my specific keywords and which isn't likely to be anyone else's. (Indeed as far as I know, Ephemerala is the only source for Chrysotile chip beads online!) With such specific keywords, you'd think my ad would be right at the very top, followed by less-specific keywords. Now I have discovered that ads with "beads" as a keyword show up before mine. I guess Google lists them according to the amount the merchant spends on the clicks, rather than how close the search gets to your keywords. Since many stores with "beads" as their keywords have offered more per click than I have, their ads show up first, while mine is lost on the third or fourth page.

This is a bummer both as a seller and as a buyer. As a seller, obviously, it's unfortunate that, despite the specific keywords, I still can't compete with the higher-cost ads that simply show "beads" as their keyword. For the buyer, it is frustrating because if you actually ARE looking for "chrysotile chip beads," you would expect them to show up in the first few ads on the page. Repeatedly going to bead stores that rank first, and NOT finding what you were looking for, is quite annoying and discouraging. I may raise the cost per click in order to compete with the general bead stores, so that people who are looking for something very specific won't have to waste their time going from site to site with no luck.