Discussing recent changes at Google (being dubbed Google 2.6) with Andrew Goodman – an AdWords expert – Marketing Sherpa reviews the effects of the new elements of AdWords on PPC advertisers. This article takes the view that Google is forcing higher costs, posing challenges for smaller advertisers, and driving up competition for traditionally non-competitive keywords. While Google has made significant changes to how they rank PPC ads – landing page quality is now part of the equation, for example – it seems to us, and has been our experience, that we can actually get CPC’s cheaper now. How? Because relevancy is key. The more relevant your keywords, ad groups and landing pages are to each other, the less you’ll likely have to pay. Google is rewarding advertisers for providing relevant, quality advertising. How much you are willing to pay for a click is, of course, still a factor, but by factoring in relevancy you have the opportunity to minimize cost.