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If you have the following keywords in an Ad Group advertising for a product, let's for example call it "target" product [target product] "target product" +target +product I've found that the exact match keyword has the highest conversion rate in almost all circumstances.  So it would make sense to have a higher max bid on the exact match then phrase or broad batch.  Even with lots of negative search terms to maximize conversion on the broader matches, if the bid is the same as exact match, the cost per conversion will be much higher (too high.) However in chatting with an Adwords Support Rep (on a different matter) they stated after looking through my account at the end of the chat: " duplicate keywords will impact on quality score. your all keywords will compete with each other" However many of the ad groups in question these duplicate keywords have quality score of 9 and 10.  So obviously if there is an effect it seems it may be minimal. I thought it was pretty common for people to bid higher on more exact match and lower on more broad match.  What's the real story here?  Was this support rep not seeing the big picture?

What's currently the typical time, ON AVERAGE, it takes to see ranking changes when significant improvements are made to significant ranking signals on a long-established (as opposed to brand new) website? Does the rank update associated with on-page optimization happen sooner than addition of quality backlinks?

Granted the Local 3-pack is heavily influenced by the distance between the user and the business, when you actually include the city name in the search, the local 3 pack result doesn't center the map at the city in the search and not the user's location so it is much more consistent despite the searcher's location.  So my personal opinion is that it is worth tracking local 3-pack when you use a keyword such as "Home Inspection Seattle Wa" With that said, which rank tracking services includes the local 3-pack in their tracking results, other than of course Bright Local?

Tracking conversions via phone call can be challenging. The Adwords phone ads only register a conversion if someone clicks on the phone number from their mobile phone. In many cases a landing page on a website has a lead/contact form AND a phone number displayed. The user calling that number would not be registered as a conversion unless you setup multiple virtual forwarding phone numbers for prominent keywords, ad groups and/or campaigns. This can be costly for smaller advertisers. Has anyone done or know of any empirical data on the average percentage of leads generated via phone call versus online form on a landing page. I know it can vary from business type to business type (and the form layout itself will have a modest effect.) More specifically I'm interested in the professional business services industry such as Engineering, Surveying, Commercial Real Estate, Accounting, etc. So for example if you conversion rate for online form submission on a landing page is 3%, and your phone number is prominently displayed, what would be a realistic ballpark estimate for the actual conversion rate including phone calls? 25% more? 50% more? Double? "Ballpark" is the keyword here.  Just seeing if anyone has measured this and what their results were.