So you have taken time to build a website, and you have designed an advertising campaign to promote your site. You do your keyword research, and you input your keywords, and then it hits you. Your bids are not high enough to be on the first page of Google.

So in my case, you can decide whether the max CPC of $.5 is worth going for. But what if that number was $15? Believe me, it’s possible. I have seen some obscene numbers to show up on the first page. Now, a lot of folks believe that you can make a living by staying on the second page, but that simply does not work for me. Unless you are in the top 6 listing of Google, you are not going get enough traffic to make a decent living off your site. Whether you are an affiliate marketer or just a lead generator, you should aim for positions 1 to 6.

Lots of folks do go for the first position regardless of the money involved. I personally believe going for the first position is just dumb. You are going to pay a whole lot of money to get that spot, but you actually get better conversion rates on the third or fourth position. The number 1 position is much different from others as you will have to pay a premium to get it. And since you get lots of unqualified clicks, your budget is going to dry up sooner than you think. Positions 4 to 6 provide you with enough traffic to stay afloat and at the same time are not too hard on your budget. What I do with my own campaigns is that I multiply the minimum bid by 1.5 and use that as I Max CPC. Then I watch my campaigns to see where I end up and if the results are not satisfactory as far as the traffic goes, I multiply the new number by 1.5 and repeat the same process.

There is no magic Max CPC that you can use in your campaigns, but you should bid high enough to be in the top 6 positions. The best way to achieve that is by actually doing it. Don’t worry about losing money in the start. If you continue to optimize your pages to get more conversions, you are going to make enough money to cover your costs (that’s obviously dependant on your business model).

So how high do you bid for on search marketing networks?