Archive for the ‘Search Engine Marketing’ Category
Seven Expert Search Engine Marketing Guides
Friday, February 25th, 2011Done properly, search engine marketing (a.k.a. SEM, paid search, PPC) is a powerful complement to SEO and an effective tactic on its own. SEM enables enterprises to rank for specific search terms immediately (including terms for which it would difficult to rank organically), target traffic to specific landing pages, test everything (keywords, bid levels, ad copy, landing page design), and precisely quantify ROI based on sales or leads generated. Of course, done improperly, it can also be a tremendous waste of money.
How can you improve quality scores to get a higher ad position at a lower cost? How can test to increase conversion rates while reducing the cost per conversion? How can create dynamic landing pages, and are they worth the effort? Discover the answers to these questions and others here in seven noteworthy search engine marketing guides from the past year.
My Best Advice on Improving Your Google & Yahoo Quality Scores by PPC Hero
Three strategies for improving quality score, which results in high ad positions with low cost per click (CPC), such as creating small, tightly focused ad groups (“breaking down your campaigns and ad groups into smaller ad groups…allows you to write more relevant ads for a select number of keywords in your ad group. Google and Yahoo both say that by including your keywords in your ad title and descriptions will greatly help increase your quality scores”).
How to quadruple a conversion rate by Google Website Optimizer Blog
Trevor Claiborne shares lessons learned from the Voices.com search engine marketing campaign on optimizing conversion rates, among them: knowing your customers (“time and again, the greatest conversion rate increases I’ve seen have come from a better understanding of the customer”) and testing everything.
Paid Search Ad Copy: Five Things Newbies Don’t Know by ClickZ
Andrew Goodman discusses the importance of testing ad copy and important considerations to keep in mind when doing so, like measuring both click-through rate (CTR) and cost per acquisition (CPA) when evaluating ad copy, and running tests long enough to generate valid data for decision making.
Dynamic Landing Pages by PPC Hero
Amy Hoffman explains why dynamic landing pages are helpful (“The more specific a landing page is, the more likely it is that the visitor will convert”), how to create one using either dynamic keyword insertion or IP targeting, and best practices to follow when using dynamic pages.
How to Double Your Conversion Rate in the Next 5 Minutes by KISSmetrics
Cameron Chapman offers a half-dozen tips for increasing your conversion rate by making your sign-up form more friendly, such as by removing unnecessary fields, making as many fields as practical optional to complete, and explaining why you’re collecting the information requested.
Lessons Learned from 21 Case Studies in Conversion Rate Optimization by The Daily SEO Blog
Paras Chopra uses several case studies to illustrate the role of design, headlines, copy, and calls-to-action in landing page and conversion rate optimization.
6 Optimization Tips to Get Ready for the New Year by PPC Hero
A half-dozen tips for “PPC housekeeping” to get you account shaped up for the coming year, including reviewing your negative keywords, segmenting your analytics by device (to determine, for example, if you get enough traffic from mobile devices to make it worthwhile to set up separate mobile campaigns) and replacing under-performing ads with new copy.
Best Google AdWords Tips and Tactics of 2010
Friday, January 28th, 2011According to recent research from eConsultancy, “Paid search consumes the largest portion of online lead generation budgets, accounting for 28% of spending (in 2010), up from 22% in 2009.” In addition, more than half of companies that use paid search increased their budgets for it last year.
There’s no question that paid search delivers leads, and no question that AdWords is the big dog in the PPC world. Yet many marketers struggle to optimize this channel in the face of increasing competition, changes to Google results pages (e.g. Google Instant) and changes within AdWords itself. How can you use AdWords reports to fine-tune campaigns? How do the new keyword targeting options work? When should you use the AdWords Editor? How can you optimize campaigns using search funnels? Where do image ads fit in the mix? And most vexingly, how can you fix low Quality Scores?
Find the answers to those questions and more here in some of the best Google AdW0rds tips, tactics and techniques of the past year.
4 Ways to Leverage Adwords Search Query Reports by PPC Blog
Four ways to generate actionable data from Adwords Search Query Reports, such as finding new keywords from phrase variations and synonyms, and identifying negative keywords to add to campaigns.
Including Image Ads In Your Marketing Mix by PPC Hero
“Image ads (a.k.a. banner ads) are run on the content network, and they are a great way to add an additional variable to your ad testing, and reach your customers in a new way.” This post outlines several considerations to keep in mind when using image ads on Google’s content network, as well as step-by-step instructions for setting up image ads.
3 Rarely Used AdWords Settings You Should Be Aware Of by Daily SEO Tip
Eric Gesinski explains how to adjust keyword bids by time of day, set up a custom area within which to display ads for local campaigns, and rotate ads evenly for proper A/B testing.
New keyword targeting feature rolling out globally by Google Inside AdWords
Dan Friedman illustrates how the new modified broad match keyword targeting option works, complementing the original broad, phrase and exact match options in AdWords.
Google AdWords Quality Score Factors by PPC Blog
***** 5 Stars
An outstanding post detailing the factors that make up Google’s notorious Quality Score, the most important steps you can take to improve a low quality score, and which actions don’t really matter.
Uncovering Valuable Insights With Google’s Bid Simulator by MediaPost Online Media Daily
Comparing Google’s bid simulator to “a spreadsheet where marketers can test different scenarios to illustrate the real value between click and cost,” Jeff Licciardi explains how the bid simulator can be used to drill down to the revenue-per-click level and optimize bids to increase impressions, clicks and ROI.
5 Reasons Why We Love AdWords Editor by 1upDigital
The AdWords Editor, as Lucy White describes it, is “a free Google application that allows you to manage and update your Google AdWords campaigns offline, and then upload your changes to the online AdWords interface.” She details five reasons why this tool is helpful for managing large AdWords campaigns, among them the ability to find and replace, copy and paste, and make bulk changes (such as changing max cpc bids for a group of keywords).
Spotlight on AdWords Search Funnels – Part 1 by Google Conversion Room Blog
Noting that “The standard approach to conversion reporting traditionally focused on a customer’s last click on your ad. Search Funnels fills in the gaps on what happened before this last click!” Evelyn O’Keeffe steps through the benefits of and process of using AdWords Search Funnels to hone in on metrics such as assist clicks (clicks on one of your AdWords search ads that happened prior to a conversion) and assist impressions (unclicked ad impressions viewed prior to a conversion).
6 Steps To Raise Your Quality Score by PPC Hero
Amy Hoffman provides a helpful checklist of actions for improving quality score, such as using keywords in your ad copy and creating tightly themed ad groups.
______________________________________________________
ADVERTISEMENT
If you sell professional services or consulting and the thought of having to sell makes you anxious, distressed, and uneasy, you’re not alone. You’ve actually got A LOT of company. And here’s a little secret: As a consultant, you already have many of the skills you need to succeed in sales—all you need to do is learn how to apply them to your selling efforts.
To teach you a better way to sell, the folks over at RainToday developed a new training program, Selling Consulting Services with RAIN Selling. Lessons start next week but enrollment for the program closes at 9 p.m. ET on Friday, January 28, 2011.
______________________________________________________
8 Ways to Optimize Your AdWords Campaign by Search Engine Journal
Larry Kim offers eight tips to improve the ROI from your AdWords campaigns, including using your prospects’ words, optimizing ad copy, and using long-tail keywords to get more conversions at a lower cost.
The New Google AdWords Feature You’re Not Using But Should Be by MediaPost Search Insider
Janet Driscoll Miller explains how the AdWords Call Metrics feature works, who can benefit from it, how to enable it, and how it “opens greater opportunity to effective, trackable mobile search advertising.”
Case Study: Improving Low Quality Score Accounts by PPC Hero
A practical, real-world case study that steps through four key areas for improving quality scores: tightly-focused ad groups, relevant landing pages, using keywords in ad copy, and taking advantage of all keyword match types.
SEM Mystery: The Case of the Missing Leads
Thursday, June 17th, 2010Originally published on the WebMarketCentral blog in December 2008.
It was 5:00 on a sultry, simmering Friday afternoon when she walked into the office. Trouble, spelled with a capital T, a capital R, and several other letters.
“Hello Sugar,” I said as I slipped a bottle out of the bottom drawer of my desk and poured myself a belt. “Care for a drink?”
“No thanks,” she responded as she wriggled herself down into a chair across the desk from me. “I’ve got to watch my figure.”
You and every poor slob on the street, I thought to myself.
“Mind if I don’t smoke?” she asked, pulling out a cigarette but not lighting it.
“Nah, don’t kill yourself,” I answered. This was Minnesota, the state where nothing is allowed. I was used to people not smoking in my office.
“I’ve got another job for you,” she purred.
I had figured as much. I’d done a job for Sugar a few months earlier. Government stuff, on AdWords. Went great. Door-busting CTRs, conversion rates as respectable as that lady always sitting in the front row at church, nice ROI.
“Sure,” I said, taking another sip of my drink. “Another government job?”
“No. Private sector this time.”
Well, that was fine. Government, enterprise, it was all business to me. Sugar explained the plan. Same product as before, only they’d made a few tweaks to optimize it for business use. Sweet new white paper to go along with it as well. No problem, I thought; knock out a keyword list, crank out a few ads, test a couple of different landing pages, keep an eye on things to weed out the bum search phrases and keep bids in line, piece of cake. I could do it in my sleep. Heck, a couple more drinks and I might have to.
“No sweat, Sugar,” I said. “Leave everything to me.”
Except things didn’t go quite as planned. Two months down the road, the AdWords campaign was in trouble. Trouble, spelled with a capital T, R, and those same other letters. Sure, the CTRs were decent, but the conversion rate was uglier than the business end of a sharpee. Nothing seemed to make the conversion budge either; I threw up new landing pages like condos in Shanghai, but lead production stayed stubbornly low.
Sugar wasn’t going to like this, and as the old saying goes, hell hath no fury like a woman with an underproducing SEM campaign. Or something like that.
So I downloaded a keyword report and went through it with a fine tooth comb. I tried running the numbers by campaign, by CTR, by landing page—everything seemed random. Finally I sorted all the keywords in the entire program alphabetically, and suddenly the columns lined up like a slot machine hitting the jackpot in Vegas. It seemed that everyone searching for a certain phrase, or variant of it, beginning with a letter of the alphabet that won’t be named here, was bailing out at a scandalous rate.
Why hadn’t we seen this sooner? Because we’d made a big mistake, thinking private sector yahoos would search for our offering using the same lingo as government schmucks. But it don’t work that way. Not in the city.
Once I’d cleaned out the unsuitable search terms, the campaign started humming like the V8 in my `66 Ford. I could breathe a sigh of relief, put my feet up on my desk, and pour myself another round.
She came strolling in again. “Hello Sugar.”
“Nice work,” she said. “But things were looking a little dicey there for a while. I thought you’d lost your touch. I didn’t think you had any more tricks up your sleeve. Thanks for proving me wrong.”
“No sweat, Sugar,” I tossed back. I know how to play good cop / bad cop with an AdWords report. I’ll talk nice to the analytical data set and buy it a few drinks, but if that don’t work, I’ll take it out back and knock it around until it gives up the answers. “It’s what I do.” That, and dodging bullets in the rough-and-tumble world of search engine marketing.
Best Search Engine Marketing Tips of 2009, Part 2
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010While more than 80% of companies now use paid search in some form (primarily AdWords), many of these programs are under-optimized and not delivering the results they could be. How can search marketers use techniques like testing and keyword match types to improve results? How important are branded terms in paid search? Does PPC advertising help with branding? How can you use demographic and geographic targeting to improve results? What are the best ways to reduce the bounce rate from landing pages? What’s a “conversion path” and how can you use that knowledge to increase conversion rates?
Get the answers to these questions and many others here in more of the best articles and blog posts on search engine marketing (SEM) from the past year.
10 tips for extending paid search growth by iMedia Connection
Noah Elkin walks through how to use testing, match types, ad text optimization and other tactics to improve search marketing success.
Better Targeting = Better Leads — Demographics for SMBs by Search Engine Watch
Carrie Hill explains how to use demographic targeting tools from AdWords, MSN AdCenter and Yahoo to increase conversion rates for b2c search marketing programs.
Back to the PPC Classroom | A Disciplined Approach To Managing A Client Relationship by PPC News & Opinion
For search marketing consultants and agencies, four basic phases and an example of what a monthly report should consist of to keep the client engaged throughout the relationship.
The Importance Of Branded Search Programs (Even in Tough Economic Times) by Search Engine Land
Sami Carroll shows why branded terms are important in both SEO and SEM efforts, along with tactics for maximizing results with a limited budget.
New Research: Paid Search Builds Branding by ClickZ
Kevin Lee reports on a study showing that search increases brand awareness by 6% or more, and points out that, because PPC search marketers pay only for the click, the lift in branding due to the sponsored link is free.
What’s The Real Value of Brand PPC? by Search Engine Journal
Brian Carter uses research and client studies to support the same conclusion reached by Kevin Lee in the post above, and also provides tactical options for maximizing the branding impact of search based on your objectives. Two other noteworthy posts from Brian are 5 Ways to Maximize PPC Impressions, in which he explains how to use bid levels, keyword match types and other tatics to maximize PPC exposure, and The PPC ROI Calculator: How To Forecast And Optimize Your PPC ROI wherein he shows how to maximize the productivity of search marketing programs using an ROI calculator.
Geo-Targeting Basics: A How-To Guide on Setting Up Geo-Targeting in Google, Yahoo and MSN by PPC Hero
A guide to options and techniques for limiting delivery of search marketing ads to a targeted geographic area for local SEM.
Study Confirms Display Ads, Paid Search Work in Concert by MediaPost Online Media Daily
Laurie Sullivan details results of an iProspect study quantifying how “display ads and search work together to provide a bigger impact on campaigns.”
X Marks the Spot! How to Get Listed In Google Local Map Ads by PPC Hero
***** 5 Stars
This post tells how to get a business listed on Google Maps, then goes on to explain the distinction between a map listing and local map ads: “that (map) listing doesn’t reach as many searchers and internet users as one might think. To broaden your advertising reach, Google created Local Business Ads. These ads are separate from your traditional campaign-level geo-targeting in AdWords.”
10 tactics for lowering your website’s bounce rate by iMedia Connection
Tom Shapiro explains how to analyze your bounce rate (percentage of people who hit the landing page from a PPC ad then leave your site immediately without taking any further action) and reduce it using keywords, timing, landing page design, navigation, offers, and other elements.
7 Steps to Improving Conversion Rates by Search Engine Guide
Stoney deGeyter provides a seven-step guide to using conversion paths to increase conversion rates.
How to Use Google Wonder Wheel and Related Search Tools for Keyword Research by PPC Hero
Why one of Google’s less-known tools, the Google Wonder Wheel, “is a very helpful and insightful tool for PPC keyword research” and tactics for using it.
Best AdWords Tips and Tactics of 2009, Part 2
Thursday, February 18th, 2010Optimization—the greatest results for the lowest cost—is the goal of every AdWords campaign manager. What are two of the simplest ways to optimize AdWords campaigns? Google is constantly changing and upgrading its AdWords tools; which recent enhancements are most important to understand and take advantage of? Click-through rate (CTR) is the single most important factor in determining Quality Score, which is as important as bid level in determining how highly an ad will appear in search results. But it isn’t the only factor; what other items are considered, and how can you optimize these?
Get the answers to these questions and many others here in more of the best articles and blog posts from last year on Google AdWords search engine marketing.
Setting up PPC Campaigns 101, Part 1 by Search Engine Watch
Ron Jones steps through the process of structuring content for AdWords campaigns, developing keyword lists and setting up ad groups, along the way identifying helpful resources and tools such Permutator.
2 dead simple ways to optimize your Adwords campaign by CDF Networks
Chad Frederiksen recommends using the AdWords Conversion Optimizer tool and Opportunities tab to increase conversion rates while reducing per-conversion costs.
AdWords Management : How ROI, Costs, and Services Measure Up for Your Business by Pure Visibility
Although AdWords advertising can benefit a wide range of businesses, it isn’t right for every company. Steve Loszewski walks through ROI calculations to help determine the value of AdWords for a specific situation, as well as what’s involved in properly managing a successful AdWords program.
Rich Media and Video templates in display ad builder by Inside AdWords
Emel Mutlu explains how to use the AdWords display ad builder tool to create ads for Google’s content network that display multiple products, incorporate multiple destination URLs, track unique interactions, include video, provide in-ad coupon codes and more. New templates simplify these tasks, and Emel notes that he hopes they will be “one more great reason to try out the AdWords display ad builder, and reach additional customers in new ways.” More noteworthy posts from the Inside AdWords blog:
- AdWords Editor 7.5.1 for Windows and Mac: Austin Rachlin reports on key changes in the latest updated of the AdWords Editor tool, including the ability to import .CSV files, selectively download specific campaigns, and view and organize new keywords by topical category. In another newsworthy post, Conversion Optimizer is now available to more campaigns, Austin announced that any campaign with at least 15 conversions in the most recent 30-day period is now eligible to use Google’s Conversion Optimizer tool, and that according to Google’s research, “campaigns which adopted Conversion Optimizer achieved a 21% increase in conversions while at the same time decreasing their CPA by 14% (on average and in comparison to similar campaigns).”
- New Interface Thursdays: Keep tabs on your account with custom alerts: Trevor Claiborne explains how to set up custom alerts to get notified about specific types of events or activities in your AdWords account, such as a spike in impressions for branded keywords or when a campaign is close to hitting its daily budget.
- AdWords Conversion Tracking is now even easier: Emily Williams shows how changes to the interface for the conversion tracking tool make it easier to implement and monitor this capability. Of note, the “New Conversion” button allows you to quickly define new conversion actions or import them from a Google Analytics account, and the “Webpages” tab makes it easier to track conversions by page.
Is The Hype Over Google AdWords Quality Score Justified? by Search Engine Land
Craig Danuloff provides a detailed discussion of Quality Score: its importance (high), its ability to function as either a discount mechanism or a tax, why CTR is critical, and why landing page design isn’t. Two other noteworthy posts from Search Engine Land are The 6/90 Rule: 6 Reports Contain 90% Of Actionable AdWords Insights, in which Brad Geddes identifies and demonstrates the value of the six most important AdWords reports, and How important Is Click Through Rate In Google’s Quality Score Formula?, wherein Siddharth Shah illustrates mathematically the importance of CTR to quality score (it explains about 72%; all other factors combined account for the other 28%).
Learn How to Import Your Google Analytics Goals into AdWords Conversion Tracking by PPC Hero
A concise but helpful post that explains how to pull goals and transactions from Google Analytics into AdWords for unified conversion reporting. Analytics and AdWords have traditionally been completely separate systems with inconsistent data, but Google continues to bring the two into closer harmony. Two other valuable posts from PPC Hero are 5 Tips on Passing the Google Adwords Qualified Professional Exam, which provides tips such as knowing how to calculate ROI and AdWords ad text policies before tackling Google’s AdWords certification examination, and 6 Rules to Achieve Awesome Quality Scores & Increase PPC Performance, which explains five factors other than CTR (such as having well-organized ad groups and pruning under-performing ads and keywords) that can help improve AdWords quality scores.
