AdWords Myths - common misperceptions about keywords

We’re back to dispel a few more of the myths you may have heard about AdWords. If you missed the first AdWords myths post last week, check it out to learn about common misconceptions around AdWords billing and spending.

Today we’ll cover three myths related to keywords and click-through-rate:

Myth # 3: Your conversion rate can impact your quality score

Fact: The conversion rate of your ads does not affect your quality score. Some advertisers using AdWords conversion tracking mistakenly believe that they should set an easy conversion event on their landing pages to artificially boost their conversion rates. In reality, this won't have any effect on their quality score and will simply make it harder to measure the true value of their AdWords investment.

Myth # 4: The AdWords keyword tool suggests keywords to use

Fact: The keyword tool doesn’t make any kind of recommendations about which keywords you should be using. The keyword tool just analyzes related queries that might be of benefit to you and displays them. It's up to you to decide which keywords you want to include in your account.

You should always assess the tool’s results in the context of your advertising goals. When you do so, the keyword tool can be a helpful way of finding new, meaningful keywords, including potentially profitable ones you aren’t currently using and those that you might have excluded as negative keywords in order to protect your click-through-rate.

Myth # 5: Upper and lower case letters in AdWords keywords matter

Fact: The AdWords system doesn't distinguish between uppercase and lowercase letters.

• “NYC” is the same as “nyc”
• “Android Phone” is the same as “android phone”

For the sake of simplicity, we recommend that you enter all of your keywords as lowercase letters.

Check back in with us next week for the truth behind myths related to the AdWords auction!

Posted by Dan Friedman, Inside AdWords crew