'Dear Inside AdWords...'

Not too long ago, I suggested to the team that we start a new feature on Inside AdWords where we answer questions from you, our gentle readers. I was a little worried at first that we wouldn't get enough questions to answer, but after Jon's post on Friday, it seems that many of you still have unanswered questions. Today's post will be the first of a regular series I'd like to call 'Dear Inside AdWords...'. With that, let's go straight to your (email) letters!

What do the numbers in "Avg. Pos." mean? I found myself trying to explain what it meant to our marketing guy and realized that I didn't really know. - Stewart F.

Dear Stewart: "Avg. Pos." in AdWords stands for the "average position" in which your ad may display--with "1" being the top right-hand side position on a Google.com search results page. If you're wondering why the value may contain decimals, it's because your ad may be shown in different positions throughout the course of the day so the AdWords system gives you a calculation of the average. (See a quick explanation of how ads are ranked here.) For example, you may see "2.2" as your average position; that means your ad usually appears in positions 2 or 3.

Is there anyone I could hire to manage my AdWords account so that I don't have to do it myself? - Jennifer R.

Dear Jennifer: There are definitely many companies and individuals in the advertising and search engine marketing industries that could help you with your AdWords account. While searching for someone to manage your accounts, you may want to look for those who are "Qualified Google Advertising Professionals" -- you may remember my previous post about this program -- these qualified individuals and companies have met certain criteria set by Google in order to receive this distinction.

I am involved with a charity that sells baskets produced by third-world weavers. 100% of our profits are reinvested in the weavers’ communities and paid as wages to the weavers. All of our overhead is supported by donations. Is there a discount offered by AdWords to support charitable organizations? - Robert W.

Dear Robert: Kudos to your organization! While we don't have any explicit discounts for charities, Google does have a Google Grants beta program which provides in-kind advertising with AdWords for non-profit organizations. You can find out more about the program details here.

That's all for this post. Keep those questions coming. We'll try to answer as many we can, but due to time and space limitations, we may have to focus on questions of widespread interest. For questions that apply specifically to your own AdWords account, it's best to contact our AdWords Support team here.

P.S. If we post your question and it doesn't sound 100% like what you wrote, it's probably because we've had to edit it for clarity, and not because we didn't want to publish every word that you sent to us. :-)

Posted by Vivian, Inside AdWords crew