Adwords Confused

Are you clicking on "Status (?)" or on the magnifying glass and arrow next to where it says "Active"?

By "ranked high enough" do you actually mean aren't bidding high enough?

If you are bidding too low Google will tell you you aren't bidding the minimum to be on the first page, but sometimes depending on the situation it will show you. It could be it's giving you a chance or the people above you fluctuate and so as a result you rise and dive as people above you don't show every now and then and come back.

If you are in position 6 on average that only takes three ads to come back for you to get knocked back to page 2.

Also, sometime ads show in the yellow featured area and sometimes they don't. If three ads come up in the yellow, for example, then instead of the usual 8 ads per page there will be 11.

If the top 3 ads on the right go to the yellow then what was number 4 will now be number 1 on the right, ads shift up and you appear sneaking in from page 2. That may be it. I don't know for sure.

You may be bidding too low for it to tell you you are paying enough to be on the first page. You only appear on page 1 because of ad fluctuation sneaking in and out. Only if you bid high enough will you be almost guaranteed to be on page 1.

Yes I'm clicking on the magnifying glass, and it says bid is to low for first page, but in the column it only says active nothing about being to low for first page.

The Active just means your ads are showing. The Magnifying glass gives you details. So you're showing just not guaranteed first page. You are probably paying too little. If you raise your bid to their minimum or a little higher that may go away. Or somehow raise your quality score.

Thanks tommyp, I'll try raising the bid up to see what happens. Hopefully it won't get to expensive. You have a great avatar.

You're welcome. I don't know if it'll work because I'm not there to see what's going on. Could be Google being funny, or what I said. If it's what I said and you are popping up to page 1 periodically, then the amount you need to raise your bids is probably not that much more anyway. Then you may be toward the bottom of page 1 and sometimes jump to middle or so.

If the keywords convert and have potential but are too expensive for the conversions you get you may want to lower the bids slightly on keywords you have ranking higher and raise your lower ranking keywords by about the same amount you lowered your higher ranking ones (to give the lower ranking ones a better chance, not hurt your well ranking ones too much and stay within budget)