Maketting Internet Blog

30 + Really useful info graphics tools & resources

2012-01-20T11:21:00.000-08:00

Infographic credit: Ivan Cash

Infographics are everywhere! Whether you’re a fan of them or not, infographics have become a staple of web content and are engaged in a seemingly endless love affair with social media. As digital marketers, we’re interested in the content marketing potential of infographics, which can generate thousands of pageviews, social media shares, backlinks and capture mindshare.

If you’re interested in developing your own infographics to reap these potential benefits, we put together this list of 30+ useful infographic tools and resources to help you on your way. We included a well-rounded mix of charts & graphs generators, graphics programs, mind-mapping tools, and resources for finding data sets and statistics.

Whether you’re just looking for simple online charting tools or seeking complex data visualization software, the list below has got you covered!

(Listed below in Alphabetical order!)

amCharts – A set of free JavaScript/HTML5-based chart tools that can cover most of your needs, whether designing static infographics or developing embeddable “live” charts! Includes serial charts, pie/donut, radar/polar and xy/scatter/bubble charts. Cross-browser & standards-compliant!Bubbl.us – A free online brainstorming tool that lets you easily build colorful mindmaps to print or share with others. Screenshot your creations for incorporating into infographics, presentations and other content!Cacoo – Create eye-catching diagrams online with real-time collaboration! User-friendly drawing tool that enables you to create a variety of diagrams like sitemaps, wireframes, and network charts. Free version is more limited, but still powerful.Chartle (Beta) – Simple, browser-based tool for creating slick-looking charts & graphs easily using a variety of pre-built templates like US Map, Venn Diagram, and many others. Publish, share & embed your creations or screenshot them for including in infographics!ChartsBin – A web-based data visualization tool that will allow everyone to quickly and easily create rich interactive visualizations with their own data. You can then share your interactive visualizations with others by embedding them in websites, blogs or sharing via Facebook or Twitter.Creately – Create beautiful-looking charts and diagrams quickly & collaboratively. Has an extensive library of object sets and ready-made templates to make things easy. Offers both free & paid (but very affordable) versions to cover your needs.Data360 – A treasure trove of useful, up-to-date data for incorporating into your infographics. Covers a wide range of topics, including Economy, Societal Trends, Energy, Environment and data by Country. If you’re looking data and statistics, start here!Gapminder – Another great source of data for infographics. A “fact tank” that promotes a fact-based world view, here you’ll find updated statistical content, videos, Flash presentations, and charts showing major global development trends with animated statistics and colorful graphics.Gephi – A free, cross-platform (Windows, Linux, Mac) interactive visualization and exploration platform for real-time data visualization. Deep-dive into data to interact with, manipulate, and extract knowledge from data. Creates beautiful, intricately-woven visualizations of complex data and systems.Gliffy – Create great-looking diagrams for free. Professional-quality flowcharts, diagrams, floor plans, technical drawings, & other useful visuals you can incorporate into your infographics.Google Public Data Explorer – Need very specific data for your infographics? This Google tool presents interactive charts of public data that you can explore, manipulate and screenshot for developing rich, informative infographics. Use the built-in search function to find information about specific topics.Hohli – An easy-to-use online charts builder. Just select the type of chart you want to create, plug in your data, select a size, customize the look & feel, and you’re done!InetSoft Visualize Free – A free visual analysis tool for sifting through multi-dimensional data to spot trends, abberations, and do some slicing & dicing. Includes a set of useful pre-made datasets and visualizations that you can interact with.Inkscape – An open-source vector graphics editor for creating professional-quality infographics. If you can’t afford expensive vector graphics programs like Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw, this might be the solution for you!JSCharts – Use JSCharts to easily generate impressive-looking JavaScript charts with no coding experience–bar charts, pie charts, and simple line graphs. Screenshot your creations for infographics, or embed them into your blog or website.Lovely Charts – Premium tool that allows you to create professional-looking diagrams of all kinds, such as flowcharts, sitemaps, business processes, organization charts, wireframes and many more. Offers Desktop, Web-based, and iPad versions.IBM Many Eyes – Explore a wealth of data sets, visualizations, and other useful information to inspire & inform your infographic development process. Create new topic centers & upload your own visualizations and data sets too!Microsoft Office – Good ‘ol Microsoft Office–the ubiquitous but oft overlooked infographics tool! Whether you’re using the free web app versions or have the full-blown suite installed at home or work, chances are you already have access to programs like Excel, PowerPoint and Visio that all have helpful features for creating infographics.Mind42 – Browser-based collaborative mind-mapping tool. Manage your ideas, visualize your brainstorms, and screenshot your creations adding well-organized, text simplicity into your infographics.Mindomo – Another online brainstorming and mind-mapping tool that enables you to create beautiful-looking, collaborative visualizations of your thoughts and ideas.Online Chart Tool – A simple, free browser-based tool for creating charts and graphs. Point & click to create Bar, Line, Area, Pie, Bubble charts and more. Customize your creations with colors and fonts, then save & share.Re.vu – Using infographics as a résumé? Sure, why not! Re.vu is one of a new breed of services offering visual résumé storytelling for a more memorable, expressive way to inform your prospects and potential employers about your professional experience.StatSilk – Offers a range of web-based and desktop software to cater to diverse visualization needs. Award-winning suite of products that includes StatPlanet, StatTrends & StatWorld.Tableau – Robust, premium data visualization solution for analyzing and presenting data in more meaningful ways. Try Tableau Desktop for free, which includes sample workbooks and data sets.Tagxedo – Online tool that turns words (quotes, slogans, themes, articles–anything you want) into visually stunning word clouds. Great for incorporating into infographics, blogs, and websites.Visualize.me – Another visual résumé service that turns your work history and experience into beautiful infographics! Connect your LinkedIn account for easy integration with Visualize.me’s visual résumé tool.Visualizing.org – Need data or inspiration for your infographics? Look no further! This is a massive collection of rich data sets and beautiful, well-organized infographics from all over the web. Community of designers, data geeks and educators regularly contribute. You’re bound to find something useful here.Visual.ly – Another curated collection of beautiful infographics from around the web. Users can explore infographics, share their own designs for exposure and feedback, and soon they’ll be able to use Visual.ly to create infographics as well (tools in development).Wolfram-Alpha – Extremely useful statistical analysis and research tool that you can use to calculate data, make predictions, and do some heavy-duty number crunching for infographics data plotting & development.Wordle – Generates beautiful, customizable word clouds from your own text. Copy & paste your own words, or enter any RSS feed to automatically parse & scrape text. Tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts and color schemes.

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Our 2011 top blog posts

2012-01-19T21:09:00.000-08:00

At the end, will, we are taking 2011 2012 ring and back watching us in the most popular blog post. Below is the article attracted comments most through traffic, mention, share, or the year. And seems to be enjoying the (re) reading often come back in 2012!

Is this list displays content curated by hot now. Too many additional tools must read the comments that have been proposed by our readers. (Read more)

Non profit online fundraising continues to grow faster than its traditional counterpart. Provides creative ways of rewarding that recruit volunteers and donations give society website than this new breed,. (Read more)

How useful our readers "for when it comes to love article, especially as Google Analytics. Your own analytics event tracking is still set? (Read more)

Gave birth to today's "group by" mega-popular deal sites, many clones trying to mimic the success of the original, all. This list is only a part of them! By then, continues top 2011 draw 2010 later in this entry,. (Read more)

Feet by 2011 2010 popular posts. Rich media advertising why so effective. Rich way to long-term beneficial standard advertising and why five reasons here, need to consider using advertising media. (Read more)

Useful tips and advice for your email and social media activity schedule packed. You don't have to miss it when it comes to timing of your online marketing efforts, is one of the summary. (Read more)

Such as online media, and buy for them and we plan to do the budget to hire Agency is not medicine-small companies. This list gets acquainted available various DIY online advertising solutions. (Read more)

Challenger brand is a brand of competitive spirit looking to gain ground on market leader. Using Twitter to learn how we can move forward. (Read more)

Market, you must use many tools and best to you, do you? This is a list of the various tools discussed here 17. (Read more)

Growing mobile search rapidly. Your website SEO mobile-friendly?? (Read more)

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5 Digital marketing & advertising resolution 2012

2012-01-19T10:44:00.000-08:00

Unless you are depressed about the preparations of Armageddon Resignedly, the digital marketing and advertising games as 2012. Rapid convergence of new media, new tools and technology wave after wave of entertainment choices to push towards something of our golden age, for digital advertisers. How to almost become 2012, these new opportunities? You can recommend the following new year's resolution.

You expect mobile marketing and advertising formative 2011 companies stay ahead of curve and is worthy of serious attention is that rapidly growing segment proved suspicion. Consider this:

To search rapidly 20600000000 dollars by 2015 Mobile World 8000000000000 this statement spend more than 2011 Mobile advertising messages sent last year, four times search seven products, now mobile71% of TV and press advertisements online mobile search, Smartphone users can expect.

Not ready full of many companies, even though these eye-popping mobile statistics or deliberately ignore mobile complete more serious crimes (lack of mobile SEO) with relatively simple oversights (mobile-friendly website is not) from. Market – in many consumer devices, smartphones, tablets, e-readers, handheld games, and others – litany of advertisers have tremendous opportunities before them. So we are moored on our computers anymore, go. brand engagement, consuming large amounts of content we are everywhere Which brings us to our next point

Call day, looks slick corporate web site can be constructed when the long gone.

Today's customers are timely, relevant content, and requires a lot of it. Many other channels for content consumption and caused large amounts of, blog, video, social media, email, podcasts, webinar, all competitive prospects attention span, just continue.

Marketing Corporate brands struggle to capture mindshare in the flow of information and constant ebb valid at multiple levels, and to engage in many different contexts, and to develop effective and easy-to-manage content should ever greater 2012. You can react to demand disposal useful, share-worthy content web content curation tool brand.

In 2011, advertisers or stopped if social media fashion questions. (As having a website with Facebook and Twitter presence and standard. Plus Google, too, you bonus points. ), But social media strategy for your marketing LinkedIn, YouTube, (may be whatever the platform du jour is), please do not stop the usual suspects.

To meet interest and many more niches mature social media popular is giving rise to a new player. For example, using platforms like ThisNext and retailers pay attention to taste makers eagerly Pintrest, obtain the hotfix window-shopping society. New social media site course of luster is all going to come up with a way to integrate them into social e-commerce strategy is worth your investment, explore these familiar new way beyond the point is.

This digital disruption seen "crazy times", where is going on. Decision wrong some (or lack of decision that matters for ) can easily to the best opportunity for hungry competitors. RIM and Netflix fell prey to doubt how things changed so much as it even once beloved brand and so quickly. Many innovations, the company no longer remains in their glory of room is part of such must compete to survive the challenger brand. Evolution of the digital marketing and advertising is to level the land in many ways. You must assume and smart investing in new online marketing strategy and advertising technology company in the same rivals. You must track and monitor competitive is an integral part of your strategy.

Especially start every new year's is spread over prediction, technology. To deploy any startup? Come out on the device? At this point, last year, iPads did not yet exist. Shape determination of what future tool and technology marketing and advertising? Is the type of questions should be considered to formulate budget allocation and those companies marketing plan. We will bring, what future exactly, but unpredictable we can be ready for the notification. Important for the success of this year's regular review of the analysis of the social effect of keeping statistics, marketing and search and your own efforts to understand technology news will be. Perhaps continue the status quo, just to check door, expect your best.

Belt belts – 2012 is going to be wild ride!

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Change the Twitter love three new business-friendly brand.

2012-01-19T00:25:00.000-08:00

Posted by WebAdvantage.net 12/9/2011.

Some changes to the Twitter platform, some really good way ( ) seem to change how work whole, as well as how it is consumed has announced. For example, followers and what recent Twitter 'activity', had to know, the user can, rollback tab ( following tweets, retweets, such as ). For more information, definitely. However, was how to streamline the engagement?

Both can be how other and effect of this latest update original tweet and other access to interact with their account. Tweets now online web fabric itself is anything else and is deep, shared meaning.

First, the actual changes.

Embedded Tweet : Twitter is dead rather than simple full Tweet link or embed a static screen shot. Paste the HTML now, visit the tweet copy, and customize the options directly, click the embedded link details page. Paste the HTML that contains the actual Twitter user ID information (detailed instructions here). HTML, short (like the popular WordPress blogging platform in ) and link all available easily.

Bonus: dynamic to the oEmbed endpoint these Tweets. In other words, can, according to click as a URL, such as the retweet, share images, video to render rich HTML. It an extra step (get status request to the oembed endpoint) value added interactive inviting it.

Button : also mention including specific hash button improvements, easier @ easy to search, for people who Tweet about specific topics.

Brand page : only a handful of brands now step closer again ( less Facebook [Google plus page recently) is a perfect Twitter + brand integration. Large logo with highlights, catchphrase, extended and most importantly: your own branded Twitter page Tweets of your company (or your timeline) controls how to promote.

Twitter began as a way to share content, ability to take these updates and new content-level competitive bartender. What is this Twitter business applications mean?

Company ( thought leadership they can dynamically display content to promote the 'sponsor' content area steering clear controversial ( and references as well as traffic ) of Gets the credit. Love only their topic around the attractive easy Twitter buttons and options that provide your audience to find increases beloved ROI time and fewer steps, this particular social network.

So we will be following closely these SEO digital advertising and marketing, is our gig. Questions about the meaning of this to your business, or tell us if you have questions other online marketing-we can. In the meantime, do you like how your new Twitter? Yes, no, maybe, OK?.

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Can monitor tell Jimmy about Santa media.

2012-01-18T11:47:00.000-08:00

Vocus, Frank strong, public relations Director,
No one still more open Christmas presents, Christmas tree under. Some Santa left media monitoring lessons-traditional social media — PR professionals, New Year.Last October Vocus, that apply here began monitoring our words "Santa Claus". We're Google blog, top 100 United States newspapers are monitored, including distribution services including AP. Finally, add a sample selection of our social media sites: did Twitter, YouTube, FriendFeed, Digg, Flickr.What, we find?

• Blogs. From Santa Claus was mentioned 411 times 1/7 blog-, as analysis of feeling 32%, 10% of the negative and positive 57% neutral tones then. 10/4 Week has increased from five mentions steadily 9/20 week 63 high blog article,. Most blogs though Interestingly, away - 14 article - mention Christmas still few weeks 6 days, came to Santa received 1 December.

• Social media. Was referenced in the old St. Nick more than 120,000 times social media in the same period. And if the blog is an affirmation of approximately 19% 10% negative, in the same was 73 percent neutral tone. Between the maximum percentage of the following occur naturally, YouTube they mention 85 %twitter on caused-just 8%.

• Traditional media. -14 74% Positive and neutral referenced negative tone about 11% and 1/7, amazing 9,775 news Santa Claus. As a blog post, in the traditional media of Santa got the mention steady and growing over time 2,455 reached the peak 12/20 of the week articles. The Oklahoman newspaper, ?????_???,-Ledgerand stars 239?190 wrote more than 700 Ap Santa and 189, followed by. Unlike blogs, coverage, almost every single day had acquired Santa Christmas Eve — 655 article.

For clarification of misinformation and media monitoring social media crisis response is a prerequisite. For example, proposition might be nefarious pirates, Twitter Santa Claus associations 12/15: "your pirate of any connection ' Yo Ho 'Santa Claus ' HO-HO-HO... ' I think "hope, certainly, this is to dispel the mere rumor Santa's public relations department.

In another example, @ TheCaitallo, wrote a little past 10/9/15, the "I believe in Santa Claus Halloween. xD [sic] good idea or totally stupid? "Santa I of spokesman, prepare questions at a press conference the next morning you may (is enough before the poor Christmas sales Thanksgiving — that should now start before Halloween? )?

Is the clearest example of these is clearly in always apply market research planning PR media monitoring. Santa got the experience I think the five of me reputation monitoring project.

1 Starting point social media. ? Determines the location to start problems with PR professionals face when kicking the social media program. Find customer "listening" than simply-because there are literally hundreds of social media sites. Santa's, given the momentum around the Twitter I of tweets from the mentioned social media is no surprise more than 80% of the stems. However, YouTube followed by the second, really shows the opportunity. The following community and momentarily forget the concept of audience identification and key message development, you're now instead of start to build. Identify who cares about the Organization — now — and grow your community from there. For Santa is a budding community on YouTube.

2 Recognize and react to crisis . At some point, won the 10,000 tweets Santa, one week or more. That simply read, corresponding to each Twitter posts can not be. However, by applying the auto toning separation a negative article, analyze, and respond accordingly. Such rumors "claustrophobia" — fear Santa Claus — Twitter route, Santa's of had not enabled the marketing team. Ruin was whether some people actually feared Santa over Christmas.

3, Traditional media still matters. ? Benefits of social media all ( and, is a valuable work ), traditional media still problem: it drive buzz, social media, in many cases. Especially those with complex products and long sales cycle b-difficult to communicate the value proposition of one work in the market here — only in 140 characters can be. For the Santa United States postal service is trying to exit the program and he played crisis pole of the small town, Alaska beginning in 1954. Was the social media conversation write some support nationally syndicated AP Anchorage Office note, fuel report.

4 Marketing program planning considerations . In fact, Santa's of spike is not a surprise Christmas buzz weeks ago, amazing rapid descent. Santa nearly 20,000 social media mention Christmas, but plummeted 75 percent so far: drew after the new year. Santa's of team maintain the topic what season do so maybe consider naughty or nice people of track is a one-year work. Can not you say July to Christmas?

5 New market opportunities . 53 Times Santa wrote about the New York area publication 1,568 times Santa his house in Alaska, based on the reference was made in the publication. That is not surprising given the media hub in New York, Kentucky publications 210 times, Santa Louisiana 161 and to see that said Kansas 133 defied expectations. Coverage of him, will find what Santa competitors compare whether he-probably the Easter Bunny — and attract new customers and their data, cross-references? May answer to the obvious — would drive region and affects the likely public relations strategy, represents the greatest opportunities for shifting budget allocation. This process can easily duplicate through vertical market, provides the opportunity to clearly tie PR activities and business results. Also may terminate the planned meeting with big PR budgets.

This article provides cheeks, point comprehensive monitoring of your brand, — of both traditional and social media — is important. Obviously monitor public relations experts, corresponding to online can have you must listen to the conversation. Also validate data PR efforts in the aggregate, improve and opportunity of insight offers can provide a very clear and convincing case.

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How do advertisers GeoEdge, spy

2012-01-17T23:31:00.000-08:00

Web Ad.vantage always providing the competitive advantage with the latest online marketing tools, better client work ( us demo & 30-day free trial live! ) of looking into the technology.

Spin takes GeoEdge recently we. GeoEdge is a tool to tracking display advertising with publishers, media buyers work. We share the new-found love, and I hope this review helpful.

Keep track of all display ad is the URL of any website and you choose trafficking GeoEdge site. And ads which provided exactly for all geographical locations and virtually it, you can simulate a wide selection of devices to display the view. GeoEdge the proxy network 75 in the world has dedicated server + country + 25 United Kingdom and North American cities. Enter URL of customer site or ad tags to analyze the world monitor, capture, and banner ads from its site.

First, install the GeoEdge toolbar, live in your browser. From the menu of the toolbar [first, select the location (drill down into started state in the country, and further drill down into the city, if necessary) [refer to specific URLs to view the web site. You view the web site to see someone from the actual location and see the same ad as GeoEdge, simulates the location selected. You can also select from the drop-down menu of the devices supported by mobile devices to simulate viewing experience advertising. Therefore, how to display the ads if you want to see somebody advertising France, using the iPhone 4 visit Gizmodo.com, provided they are for example, you can even do it using the GeoEdge!

Dashboards are GeoEdge, providing data for advertising, you can track advertising specific URL over time. A streamlined view sizes and specifications, plus it ( it easily through to visit click ) more organizers provided URL of the page linked, all display ads give. Tool during our hands (content, ad placements and campaign) was able to view web sites in various locations around the world, over 20 mobile phone,.

Competitive mobile market campaign at GeoEdge ( of SEM strategies like) can research and monitor ranking in remote areas, to optimize the keywords. Not bad!

Competitive analysis: and what banners and content provided by advertisers, sites, and, through the ad seen click. Ability to validate global advertising campaigns run according to plan, category and channel research to verify the success most. Who has bid on different ad placements are know. Ad incorrectly (or not) to determine whether the can simulate a wide selection of mobile devices in a variety of screen sizes. Like all MediaPlex, Atlas, Doubleclick and other advertising platforms, like providing reports. Self analysis to complement a solid, reported from a neutral third party, unless at least go to display advertising. To see if would be interesting to see what ( time? ) all other types of GeoEdge or other ad formats is specifically to provide similar peak video.

It is enough to we website advertising landscape plans give you understanding & buy and GeoEdge discovered a valuable tool for online media. Site advertising goes country of any web site which, all the devices, "land of layout", so to speak, you can.

( We ' love 'em! ) digital knowledge of what is a great tool, you know, at the end of the day, nothing can replace the media partner! If you are seeking partners in media and advertising expertise and proven performance planning us, phone (410) 942-0488 or fill the online RFP. I love to hear from us!

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30 + Really useful info graphics tools & resources

2012-01-17T09:52:00.000-08:00

Infographic credit: Ivan Cash

Whether you’re just looking for simple online charting tools or seeking complex data visualization software, the list below has got you covered!

(Listed below in Alphabetical order!)

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Candidate's corner-why weak, we all love brands

2012-01-16T20:13:00.001-08:00

Candidate's corner is a resource for aspiring brand ready challenger brand news round-up of the monthly information, case studies, destructive ready, get the F I E... R... C... E... take the market leader! More great content, we subscribe to topic Scoop.it challenger brands, we #isfierce hash even to Twitter.

Case Avis, was impressive weak brand of Robert Townsend, CEO of it. 'We try', are just campaign bombers between the legend of even significant share from the mighty Hertz, won. Truth is, we all love underdog brand. In equal measure and buy it for perhaps their success despite attract leaders such as shame Microsoft, Tesco, and Manchester United. However, you must realize that could put the successful firing of the No.2?s line. (Read more)

Competition brings the best of winners. Crowded market sector 9 do the fire brand here is piecemeal way: strongly go: certainly is plenty of daily trading website. Die off of some is guaranteed. "The selection now," said Dealfind.com President Gary Lipovetsky. He ran 12 years MenuPalace.com restaurant directory ago branching out to the special offers section. I.e., Lipovetsky solid system and were merchant relationships. "The real differentiators and I think many companies came to this space," he told IBD. "One can survive with infrastructure. "(Read more)

As a digital marketing expert, works in a wide range of our clients. You are trying to compete in some mid-market companies demanding a few Fortune 500 markets. 'Challenger brand' of the latter of these two reasons – considered a contention can be difficult to heavy hitters for their industrial strength, the positioning of these brand marketers difficult head stand, head of the top players can.
What is the solution to grow these challenger brand market share effectively while improving the position of its online? (Read more)

Can anyone come up with a great idea right next your innovation industry, you know? In fact more lot is it more. Following questions true or false (that do not compare us, Einstein) separation ability test innovative fact from fiction promised to answer by: 1) for coming up with creative ideas, innovative new acts. 2 ) is a random process, and technology innovation. 3 ) some innovation is an exclusive area of naturally talented people. (Read more)

I'm rather stunned not to leverage disruptive technologies to strengthen the organization how to belly, business communication, organize, and their work. We even now, has been calm turmoil all around a "social" (bit) and know so much, company "some social media we about integrated marketing. "Is still the nagging mind make the destructive social technologies to enhance business intelligence listening to customers (patients with health care ), conducted market research, managing customer service community in solidification. (Read more)

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View From The Other Side Of The May Day Update

2011-11-23T17:55:00.000-08:00

There has been a lot of chatter, complaints and the inevitable “let’s start a class action lawsuit against Google” over the past few weeks in relation to an algorithm change dubbed the “MayDay Update”. I wont go into much detail here about all of the complaints or absurd theories, but you can read the main source of this over on the WMW thread here.

Last week Vanessa Fox wrote an article on these updates and speculated as to what happened. While most dismissed her speculations, I believe she was right on the money. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that Vanessa (Who’s an absolute sweetheart in real life as well as a genius) might even have known something that the rest of those on WMW didn’t and she was really REALLY doing her best to give a “please read between the lines” post. For that she was shunned. Their loss.

Note* As I do with all posts, I left this one in drafts to sleep on it. It just so happens that Matt posted a video with a little more information. It’s brief and you can watch it below. Please note that all content on this post was produced before this video was released.

Get the Flash Player to see this video about MayDay update.

One poster on the thread mentioned:

“Everyone here is complaining about loss of traffic and nobody is gaining traffic, the lost traffic has to be going somewhere“

Let me tell you that we, our clients and our network of websites, are on the “other side”. i.e, sites like ours and our clients took that traffic.

We have concrete Google Analytics evidence that shows 30-60% increases in traffic to some of our and our clients sites just before and after May. It is important to note that these sites are all eCommerce and forum sites that had a steady flow of long tail traffic and now have a much greater share of this traffic. All this traffic increase is from Google search term referrals with a word length of 4 or over. I will follow this up as usual in another post with data as soon as we can anonymize it and get permission.

So what do we do different to our competitors who we’ve now drastically overtaken in the serps?

Here at Redfly, we’ve almost always started a PPC campaign and all that goes with that long before even attempting to look at the SEO side of things. Those of you who deal almost exclusively with AdWords will know what I’m talking about here. Google has always taken a hard line towards ensuring quality on it’s network. They have penalized, suspended and even banned advertisers who pay a significant amount of money in order to keep their paid search results top notch. AdWords advertisers are constantly adapting to changes in Google policy and I for one have noticed that what works in AdWords is usually, eventually included in some form in the organic search algorithm. Site speed, relevancy, CTR (Don’t tell me CTR in SERPs is not or will not be a ranking factor now that Google has released this data in WMT).

The MayDay update is something that a lot of AdWords experts knew was coming a long time ago. What really made me laugh is that some people genuinely think that Google has made a mistake and that things are broken and it will eventually roll back. If anything, it’s only rolling out. It’s going to get worse for you.

As an aside, this reminds me of a book I once thought was an incredible condescending read after being recommended to me by Rand Fishkin called “Who Moved My Cheese”. I never thought I’d see the day that I’d recommend this book or even make reference to it but I have to say, it really hit the nail on the head with this one. To all of you in denial, I’d recommend reading this book (It’s a short book, I completed it in under 15 mins). It’s an almost child like story about change, complacency and the dangers/opportunities of each. It’s available on Amazon for $3, but if anyone wants my copy, just let me know in the comments.

So, how come we’re sucking up all your “hard earned” traffic? Well, from Vanessa’s post and from the point of an AdWords advertiser/manager, it’s pretty obvious. The majority of those complaining have relied too much on domain authority and internal linking. IN MY OPINION, rather than site authority, being used by most of you as the main egg in your basket, carrying all the weight, Google is now seeing individual documents as their own entities a lot more.

Basic SEO principles still stand true here. Think about it. A document on a less authoritative site might be more valuable and more useful to the Google user than a page with less useful information pushed to the top of the SERPs by the authority of the root domain.Only 4 months ago everybody was complaining that big brands had the advantage. Google has done SEOs and small businesses a huge favor here and leveled the playing field for those of us who produce valuable, relevant content. Content that produces links. In every example of sites that I have seen “lose their rankings” those pages were overtaken by pages on domains with not much authority, but with a lot more backlinks to those individual pages. A lot of those links may be spammy, but they’re still backlinks.

OK, so let’s break it down.

All our eCommerce sites and client eCommerce sites have never taken the “easy route” to market. We have made sure of that because this is essential as an AdWords advertiser and the majority of AdWords policies eventually become reality for SEOs. Advertising a page with just a manufacturer boilerplate description and a buy now button wouldn’t survive a day in an AdWords auction. All our eCommerce sites/clients have put in the effort in creating unique descriptions, reviews, videos, UGC reviews (good and bad) and used incentives to get links to these product pages. As Vanessa mentioned, look at what Amazon does! Google mentioned before (no source at present) that a lot of user feedback focused on the excessive amount of almost identical shopping results in the search engines. Why do you think they introduced the “less shopping results” feature in the sidebar? You need to build links, build quality and interesting product pages and get creative. After all, that’s your job as an SEO.

Every single one of our eCommerce sites have seen an increase in traffic since May despite the annual seasonal downturn.

All of our forum sites sites and client forum sites have noticed a significant boost in long tail traffic too. This is because we insist on building links to and promoting every single thread created (that’s of any value of course). This has taken the form of incentivsing users and site owners to blog about and reference thread titles to bring inlinks, traffic and contributors to the forum thread which in turn encourages others to do the same. Self reinforcing. Write customized versions or synopsis versions of long forum threads, syndicate them, guest blog about the opinions expressed in a forum thread, get links from national newspapers on topics in your forum to build links to those threads/individual pages. After all, that’s your job as an SEO.

Every single one of our forums have seen an increase in long tail traffic since encouraging linking and externally referencing valuable threads.

Handy tip. To get you started, tweetmeme and topsy widgets on each page provide a starting point, a frequently crawled dofollow link from their main site when you use their widgets which also adds to the user experience. There are countless ways to build links to pages as long as you make them link worthy. Now the “secret” is out, I don’t expect this one to last long.

Some “questions” I’ve seen on the WMW thread that I would like to address:

Q:”How can I get my eCommerce item page to rank where it once was, all I have is the manufacturer description, who’ll link to that?”

A: I think I’ve addressed that already. I hate to (really, I do) sound like a Google fan boy but put yourself in the users shoes. Do you really want a list of generic eCommerce site results in the search results for a product? Do you want to shift through them all, offering the exact same product at the exact same price, each offering only a unique-ish design and then pick which one you want? Or do you want Google to do what it’s good at and use it’s algorithm to show the top results by using it’s advanced (largely) link based algorithm? Isn’t this what you started your SEO career on? Building links to quality content? Just so happens that now Google is working just as designed and giving more weight to those pages with more links. If anything this is a rollback from the “brand update” a while back. If you’re good at what you do and have not gotten complacent (which I dare say is now rampant among “professional SEOs” who have inherited authority sites) you should be able to build a better links than your new competitors for you and your clients to these pages. After all, that’s your job as an SEO.

Q: “Really spammy sites are appearing above mine, can’t Google see this?”

A: No. They don’t. Google sees more links, which you as an SEO should know (in general) is a vote of confidence for this page. The question now is two fold: 1) Why does this site have more links than you? 2) What can you do to get more/more valuable links to YOUR page than your spammy competitor? This should be easy for you. After all, that’s your job as an SEO.

Your cheese has moved. Go find it again or go find more. It’s not coming back. Matt says so in his video.

Oh, and trust me, if you spent as much time on the AdWords help forum as I do, you’d realize, like all the other posters and top contributors on the forum that no amount of bitching, moaning, law suit threats, class actions, begging or bribing will get Google to roll this back. Google doesn’t care that it has “wiped out entire businesses” with this algo update. Google has literally wiped out billion dollar VC funded companies overnight on AdWords without even an explanation when they introduced quality score. Let this be a lesson that AdWords advertisers have learned countless times over the past 3 years, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. If I may dust off an old chestnut, build your site as if Google didn’t exist. Then, when you’ve exhausted every possibility of getting traffic to every page on your site that doesn’t require a search engine, focus on Google.

“Familiarity tends to breed complacency” – Christopher Jones
“When a great team loses through complacency, it will constantly search for new and more intricate explanations to explain away defeat.” – Pat Riley

*I realize that this may upset a lot of the SEO industry folks but I believe that it is pretty obvious what has happened considering the timing and data that we have. It is very rare I write a post like this but I was astonished at some of the unbelievably outlandish theories presented as explanations for the update. I welcome any rebuttals, a few “you have no idea what you’re talking about”s and and more than a few anecdotal proofs that I’m wrong in the comments below.

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Irish SEO, SEM, Webmasters & Designers Meetup Take 2

2011-11-23T14:50:00.000-08:00

The time has come again. Irish SEOs, online marketers, webmasters, all members of the Irish Webmaster forum and anyone with an interest in all things web related are all welcome to come along to the second official IWF meetup.

The event will once again be hosted by the Harbour Master in the IFSC, Dublin on Saturday the 9th of August. I encourage everyone who can to attend as it is a great way to have a few drinks with people who don’t get annoyed at you for talking shop when socializing.

For the second time running, the event will be sponsored by the most fantastic webhosting company in Ireland, Blacknight Solutions who incidently are launching their new web hosting plans today and have also just exploded onto the scene with their new VPS hosting solutions (I plan to sample the finest champagne) ;)

If you can make it we will be meeting at 7:30PM – 8:30PM. This is an open event and anyone can attend. The last event was great and I cannot tell you how much I got out of meeting everyone.

The confirmed attendees are as follows:

The last time a LOT more than the confirmed list came along so please do join us.I might be there a little late so whoever gets there first, please get a table where we can all sit together! Looking forward to meeting some fresh faces and some… not so fresh. More details can be found here.

Those who are definitely coming along, let me know in the comments below and I’ll link you up above.

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What Every AdWords Advertiser Should Know About Quality Score – The Ultimate QS Improvement Guide

2011-11-23T11:16:00.000-08:00

Do you need to improve your AdWords Quality Score? Do you want to understand what Google wants from you as an advertiser in exchange for a decent Quality Score and lower click prices? Today I will teach you the ins and outs of the algorithm and show you how you can tweak your account and site to influence each Quality Score factor.

*Update: I have been contacted by a source inside Google and updated two points in the post accordingly*

I am constantly surprised at how little advertisers really understand Quality Scores. If you put in a little effort, you can reap some very tangible benefits and come out leaps and bounds ahead of your competition.

While Quality Score is relatively simple to grasp as a concept, it’s a little more complicated in practice. Stasia, an AdWords Seminar leader, gives you a nice introduction to the basic concept of Quality Score in the video below:

Get the Flash Player to see this video about quality score.

Back in the good old days, AdWords was based on a pure auction-based model. If you bid more than another advertiser on a keyword, your ad would appear higher and ultimately get more clicks (and hopefully sales). Back in 2005 when Google introduced the Quality Score, it changed everything.
No longer could search results be flooded with irrelevant ads of those with massive budgets. Many advertisers were very upset, but a unique opportunity arose for those with smaller budgets and the inclination to put in a little hard work — perhaps people like you. With the refinement of the Quality Score algorithm and the great scam / affiliate flush of late 2009, there has never been a better opportunity for those advertisers with a quality product or service and a little time to try to understand Quality Score to really reap the rewards. Are you ready to learn more about Quality Score? Let’s get started.

Quality Score is extremely important because it can make or break your campaign (and in some cases, your business). Quality Score determines how much you pay for your advertising on Google and how much exposure you get. You wouldn’t place a TV or magazine ad without knowing how much you have to pay or how much exposure you would get, would you? Brian Carter, a humorous motivational speaker and the Director of Search for Online Marketing Agency Fuel Interactive shares some interesting client information over on Search Engine Journal on the inverse relationship between Quality Score and cost per click (CPC). I have reformatted the data below:

As you can see, the higher your Quality Score, the lower the price you pay per click. Also, as you will see below, the higher your Quality Score the more exposure you will get as AdWords uses Quality Score to determine what Ads are placed in the coveted 1-3 search results above the organic and local search results.

According to Google, there are two “types” of Quality Scores. The AdWords help documentation goes into a little more detail, but the guys over on PPC Hero pretty much nailed it in their Quality Score Handbook (Essential reading by the way) when they said:

Search Network Quality Score is different from Content Network Quality Score. Also there are different Quality Scores for setting minimum bids and ranking ads for the Content Network, Quality Score and the maximum cost-per-click determine the ad rank on content pages. For search, Quality Score, along with maximum CPC, determines ad rank and determines promotion to top of page.

There are slight variations to the Quality Score formula when it affects ad position and first page bids:

For calculating a keyword-targeted ad’s position, your landing page quality is not a factor. Also, when calculating ad position on a Search Network placement, Quality Score considers the click through rate (CTR) on that particular placement in addition to the CTR on Google.For calculating first page bid, Quality Score doesn’t consider the matched ad or search query, since this estimate appears as a metric in your account and doesn’t vary per search query.CTR on Google network, CTR on Google Network impacts QS on the Google Network, not on Google.

The Quality Score for calculating an ad’s eligibility to appear on a particular content site, as well as the ad’s position on that site, consists of the following factors:

The quality of your landing pageThe historical CTR of the ad on this and similar sites

The Quality Score for determining if a placement-targeted ad will appear on a particular site depends on your campaign’s bidding option.

If your campaign uses cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) bidding, Quality Score is based on:

The quality of your landing page

If your campaign uses CPC bidding, Quality Score is based on:

The historical CTR of the ad on this and similar sitesThe quality of your landing page

Brad Geddes of bgTheory has a handy Quality Score chart with all of this information (reformatted for this post) :

Now that you know as much as Google is prepared to share about Quality Score, how it is calculated, and roughly how much weight is given to each factor, what factors can you as an advertiser realistically influence? As it happens, quite a lot! Let’s go into each of the major factors and look at what we can improve.

The CTR and historical CTR of the keyword and the matched ad on Google

The CTR of your ad / keyword pair is by far the largest factor in determining Quality Score. The important thing to remember is that the CTR is normalized to your position so your CTR is judged good or bad for Quality Score reasons based on the performance of other ads currently and historically in this position.
Bidding more to move up to the number one position will more than likely improve your CTR, but it will rarely do you any good if your ad doesn’t get a better Quality Score than other ads have received in that position in the past. The goal here is to make your ad so relevant and enticing that the searcher just has on click on it. You can explore the topic of Improving CTR in more depth in some of my previous posts.

It is also important to aggressively research and add negative keywords. This will increase your CTR and reduce your exposure to those searching for something you do not provide. Consider running an AdWords Search Query Performance report daily or weekly, mining your server log files, or checking your Analytics account for negatives and add them to your campaign negative list. Matthew Mierzejewski has also written a fantastic post on this topic and detailed how negative keywords impact Quality Score.

A final historical CTR improvement tip: always bid (and bid high) on your company or brand name. You will get a massive boost in historical CTR because 70%+ of the time, your ad is what searchers are looking for. You will pay pennies per click and decrease the normalized Quality Score and historical account CTR of any competitors bidding on your brand or company name!

TIP: Here is an extremely important article showing the importance of CTR when determining quality score and reinforces where you, as an advertiser, should be focusing your efforts.

Account history is a tough one and is subject to a lot of speculation. Unfortunately, I believe a lot of it to be true. Advertisers with older accounts which have performed well in the past have a huge advantage over advertisers with new accounts. It can take anywhere from 1 week to 4 months to “shake off” a “bad history.”
This is also what some people refer to as the account level Quality Score. It is not so much a type of Quality Score as it is a factor. Unfortunately, there’s not much that can be done here with a new account apart from making sure that you have a solid understanding of the factors to get your account off to a flying start (ie: a high CTR off the bat).
If you have an old account with a poor historical Quality Score, you might feel tempted to create a new account to counteract this. This is against AdWords’ policy. If you want to be on the cutting edge and have an appetite for risk, you can beta test new AdWords search ad formats. New formats generally show huge CTR improvements before they settle into the consciousness of Google users. It’s also important to note that the AdWords system treats an edited ad like it’s brand new and has no performance history. According to the FAQ here:

Ad position is partly determined by an ad’s relevance to the search query as well as its historical performance on Google. Editing your ad, therefore, can affect its position.

A relatively new addition to the QS family, historical CTR of the display URL in the ad group is an easy one to get right. Make sure you initially split test the hell out of your ads/display URL and make sure you stick with the one that drives the highest CTR. Adding keywords to the subdomain and subdirectory of display URL can give massive improvements. Especially if the keywords are trademarks. Frank Pipolo has some good tips on using test domains for this.

This is another subjective topic. However (and this is very important), Google has hired thousands of what are called “Ads Quality Raters.” These are actual humans outsourced by Google who sit at home and rate your ads and the quality of the pages those ads go to. To improve on this factor, it is important to pay very close attention to the Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines here. I wrote a quality score post years ago on this exact factor, and a lot of the tips are still relevant.
Google also has thousands of Search Quality Raters, not to be confused with Ads Quality Raters, who look at and rate pages for classification in the organic search results. While I don’t have the Ads Quality Rater operations manual, the Quality Rater document is out in the wild for all to see. I’ve heard there is an awful lot of crossover.

Remember, you should ensure your landing page is capable of passing a human check. Make sure it follows the rules and never forget that once it is reviewed, it will be reviewed again.

You’ve heard it many times before. Make sure your base keyword is in the ad title, ad text and display URL. Easy peasy, even for the tiny fraction of weight it carries.

This one is a little trickier. Again, attack your negative keyword research aggressively — consider it an essential daily task. This is a more advanced area where going through some detailed buying cycle analysis and segmenting search phrase intent can really pay off. The effort-to-reward ratio will vary here. Getelastic has an amazing post on something very similar here.

This factor is a relatively new addition to the Quality Score algorithm. I wrote a post about using geo-targeting to improve CTR previously, but the important takeaway is not that blanket geo-targeting is the right way to go, but that you should pay attention to the geographic areas that are performing poorly and consider creating a dedicated campaign or adgroup for this area or remove it completely. Run an AdWords Geographic Performance report to see where you could improve. Consider using local colloquialisms in your ad text for those specific areas to help improve performance.

While there is no way to know for sure what all potential factors are, some common sense can be applied here. The first thing to work on is your bounce rate, or more specifically “back-bounce-rate.” Yes, you read that right. Google has mentioned throughout the years that if a visitor clicks your ad and immediately hits the back button, this is an indication that the page was not relevant. In fact, Google explicitly prohibits the disabling of the back button functionality in their policies.

We also have anecdotal evidence that adding your root or base keyword to your landing page title tag and the other keywords in the adgroup around your copy improves Quality Score marginally. If you have the time, it would be ideal to create a landing page for each individual keyword. When this is not possible, a landing page dedicated to each adgroup usually does the trick.

Page Load Time/Other Factors
You may have noticed “page load time” or “site speed” left out of the factors above. To be honest, I’ve never seen a poor Quality Score due to slow page load time. From my experience, as long as your page loads in a reasonable length of time, you don’t even have to worry about this for now. If increasing your page load by a half second has any impact on Quality Score, it is minimal. There are also many other marginal factors I won’t go into, but Bradd Libby does.

There is a lot of crossover in the areas where you can improve your Quality Score on the search and content networks. Let’s look at the factors we can influence to improve Quality Score on the content network. In most cases these are a little harder to influence and take a lot more time and resources, but they are worth the effort if you want to succeed on the content network.

You can do a little or a lot with this one — from site and site section targeting all the way up to joining the community (if it is a forum for example) to get to know the users of the site and what makes them tick. As a member of the site, what ads or ad text would you find most relevant? I have seen some people even targeting the site users themselves (ie: an ad headline that says something like “Attention Redfly Blog Readers! Want to know more about increasing your keyword Quality Score? Click here!“

Another tip is to try image ads and compare their performance against your text ads for each site (if the site accepts image ads). Many advertisers still don’t use image ads, so there is a huge opportunity to jump straight to the top of the pile.

Consider using Google AdPlanner to get the demographics of the site, and target your ad copy to those demographics. Also have a look at what other AdSense ads are showing on the site and make note of ads that are consistently displayed over time. In general, those ads are what Google finds most relevant to that site (at the time). If you can’t beat them, join them.

Again, use Google AdPlanner to see the “Other sites Visited” section of the site you are targeting. Run a site targeted campaign on some of the lower trafficked related sites. This will improve your “related performance” on similar sites. It might be a lot of effort but not only will you improve overall content network performance, but you will gain significant long tail content network leads or sales.

There are numerous things that can cause a sudden drop in Quality Score or a slower, more gradual decrease. Here are some of the most common Quality Score problems and what you can (or cannot) do about them.

This is an extremely common problem and is characterized by an advertiser noticing a very sudden drop in traffic from AdWords. In a lot of cases, your search network traffic stops first and is followed shortly by your content network traffic. This unfortunately is known as a “Google Slap” and occurs when a review has taken place on your account and you are no longer deemed to be complying with the outlandishly opaque landing page and site quality guidelines.

Cause: You are linking or deemed to be linking to a bridge page, a get rich quick scheme, an affiliate page that’s only purpose is to redirect traffic to another domain, an affiliate site that provides no added value, a data collection site (a site that collects users’ email addresses or other info in exchange for a free product / whitepaper, etc.), a “poor quality” comparison shopping site, an arbitrage site, or a scam site.

Solution: Despite what you think about your own site, Google, the Ads Quality Raters, and the QS Algorithm/Bot feel differently. They more than likely feel your site falls into one of these categories. In this case, there is very little that you can do. If your site falls into the “scam site” category, expect to be banned permanently or investigated by authorities.

If you feel that your site absolutely does not fall into any of the categories, request a quick look over of your site on the AdWords Help Forum and then request a manual review by contacting Google here.Note that it should be a 100% false positive if you are to get this reversed so be completely sure that your site doesn’t even fall remotely into one of those categories. Remember, AdWords does not run on auto pilot. Real people will look at and inspect your account.

This problem happens when a specific high volume keyword, usually a single word or two-word phrase, slowly drops its Quality Score and starts costing more. Because these keywords are usually high volume, they can generate a lot of traffic, and a low Quality Score on these keywords can cause a significant drop-off in exposure and sales.

Cause: High volume and low CTR.

Solution: Add negative keywords to the campaign, use exact match, remove the keyword (be careful as this can impact an adgroup “theme” on the content network) or place the keyword in it’s own ad group and optimize the ad copy and display URL aggressively.

Unfortunately, this is not a problem with your Quality Score. When it comes to certain keywords, there are quite literally hundreds of advertisers. Assume all advertisers also have a 10/10 Quality Score. What determines which ads show? That’s right, good old fashioned bid price.

Cause: High volume of advertisers.

Solution: Bid higher and use the backend to improve ROI and increase lifetime customer value (LTV) so you can afford to bid higher.

AdWords Quality Score is still a closely guarded secret, as is Google’s organic search algorithm. While it may not be possible to figure out every factor, just like the organic search ranking factors, it is possible to extract enough meaning to understand them and make them work for you. The great scam / affiliate purge of 2009 may have made things easier for existing advertisers, but at the current growth rate of PPC and online ad spending, it’s only a matter of time before the paid search results become as competitive as they used to be. Those of you who understand Quality Score will be in a far better position to get more from your AdWords advertising spend than those who do not.

I hope you got some value from this post. If you did, please share it with others who might get something from it too.

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How Too Many Press Releases Can Damage Your Credibility

2011-11-23T06:40:00.000-08:00

As an online PR consultant, there are a few questions I repeatedly get from webmasters and online entrepreneurs. One of those common questions is how many press releases a company should send (weekly, monthly, more?). I always give the same answer: Send a press release whenever you have something newsworthy to say.

Because press releases are increasingly being used for their SEO benefits, many business owners assume that more is better, or that they should be on some kind of set press release distribution schedule. That’s generally not the case.

Sending too many press releases can actually damage your company (or site) reputation and credibility. Here’s why:

You’re very likely targeting a similar, if not the same, audience with each press release you send.Sending multiple newsworthy press releases over time can help to keep your company’s name fresh in their minds.Sending too many press releases just for the sake of sending them (as opposed to disseminating real news) will also keep your company’s name fresh in their minds… just probably not the way you’re hoping for.If you put enough garbage in front of people, you’ll end up with a sort of “boy who cried wolf” syndrome when you have real news. Members of your target audience will now recognize your name, and immediately attach it to images of “fluff” instead of news, and you won’t get the coverage you otherwise might have. You’ll put yourself on the fast track to being ignored.

That’s not to say that a schedule won’t ever work; only that you shouldn’t send out a weekly press release just for the sake of doing it. In some cases it does work. Here are a few examples of cases where regular press releases may not have such a detrimental effect:

Regular contests – If your company runs a monthly contest, and it’s big enough to be newsworthy (giving away a $10 prize each month really wouldn’t justify a press release each time), then there’s nothing wrong with sending a regular press release for each one.Regular product launches – I used to work with a company who released a new product every Monday. They would issue a release for each product launch, because each product (in this case new t-shirt designs) was directly tied to something relatively newsworthy that would appeal to their target audience.Regular research or reports – If your company conducts research and issues public reports on industry issues, and you tend to do this on a regular schedule (as in serious research, and not something like a casual Web poll), then you shouldn’t hold off on announcing your findings through a press release just to avoid regular distribution. It has news value, and in this kind of case, a regular schedule may even give people something to anticipate if you become known for their quality.Regular charitable efforts – If your company is involved with a long-term charitable endeavor, and you’re making significant progress (such as in raising funds for an organization) on a regular basis, it might be worth mentioning repeatedly (for example, if a company raised $10,000 for a charity in January and then $15,000 in February, sending a release each month probably won’t hurt).

The key is to know your audience. Know what they’ll care about, and try to issue press releases that will appeal to them – remember, you want them to help spread the word. The trick isn’t to send a lot of press releases for results… it’s to actually make yourself newsworthy. As long as you do that your press release distribution schedule won’t become an issue.

If you find yourself almost never having something newsworthy to say, start putting some thought into things you can introduce to fix that (get involved with a charity, run contests, participate in important events, etc.). Every company (or website, organization, or individual) has the capability of becoming newsworthy. Don’t let your chances pass you by.

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Introducing The New AdWords Networks (Placements) View

2011-11-23T03:28:00.000-08:00

The AdWords content network has been the source of heartbreak and of joy for countless advertisers over the years. There are many opinions on the content targeting and placement targeting but the general consensus is that those new to AdWords should avoid it until they understand it fully. That is about to change. We were recently invited to participate in the new AdWords UI beta. Things have really changed a LOT and to be honest, I don’t really like it yet but there is one feature that really jumped out me as a game changer, the new “networks” tab. ..

Below you will find some screenshots of the new interface. Please note that I have removed any data that has identified the campaigns. These details are simply deleted and are indeed included in the interface. Please click images for full sized shots.

The new interface is a streamlined, ajaxified beast with a lot of new features. You’ll notice straight off the bat that the interface has been adjusted to look like Google analytics. In fact, the transition between AdWords and analytics is now seamless, complete with all the ajax progress animations. There is also an option to collapse the left sidebar (not shown) which includes a list of campaigns for easy access, similar to AdWords editor.

The one feature of note however is the new “networks” tab in each campaign. This tab lists the networks that your campaign is running on. Either search, search partners, content network and defined placements. The best part however is the content network automatic placements!

Previously, the only way to access this data was to through a tedious process of creating a placement performance report for the date range you wanted. Then you had to wade through the data with the awful pagination Google provides in it’s reports (what can we really do with 100 rows Google?). You also had to manually select your campaigns. Not any more.

Now you can see day by day metrics on each URL that your ads appear on the content network without running a placement performance report!

And that’s not the best part. With the new view, you can sort the columns in order of the metric of your choice, check the URLs that are performing to that metric and automatically add them to your placement campaigns! (Now called “Managed Placements” as seen).

To those of you who that were willing to put in the hard slog and suffer the sometimes agonizing wrath of the content network and placement campaigns you will realize how much of a fantastic new time saving feature this will be. This cuts out what can be hours of research time looking for decent performing placements.

The interface is still in very early beta. It errors out at least 2 times a session for me every time I have tried it. This has been a common complaint so I doubt it will be released any time soon.

Now, if Google could provide some cross segmentation options and integrate the bizarrely missing display ad builder tool, this will be an absolute hit. Great stuff Google!

Is anyone else as excited about this as I am?

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How AdWords Determines How Much You Pay Per Click

2011-11-23T00:16:00.000-08:00

Back in the good old days, AdWords worked in a very basic way. The higher your bid per click, the higher your position. Simple. There are a lot of other PPC networks still operating on this model and that is one reason nobody can remember their names.

Two years ago (I think) when Google dragged it’s advertisers kicking and screaming into the new Quality based bidding system, the game completely changed. Google AdWords no longer operates on a “highest bid wins” system but on a rather confusing and sometimes illusive set of quality criteria.

Some people find it very difficult to get their heads around how this “quality” effects their bid prices and ultimately their ROI. Today, Google’s Chief Economist, Hal Varian has posted a fantastic video that simplifies the whole system and makes it easy for anyone to understand.

Get the Flash Player to see this video.

Easy to understand or what?

Now that you understand quality score a little better, realize how important it is to improve your quality score by increasing your click through rate and re-evaluating your landing page relevancy, what are you waiting for? Even if you increase your CTR by 0.01% a day over a month, that can be enough to bump your keywords quality score up and reduce your overall costs significantly.

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Use PPC To Dominate Your Typo SEO Landscape

2011-11-22T20:07:00.000-08:00

PPC advertising is not only great for generating sales and qualified traffic, it’s also the BEST possible keyword research tool available. While other keyword research tools offer a general “starter” set of keywords in most verticals, most only give general words and without demographic information. PPC data can be used for a whole lot more and is completely customized to your market. You’ve paid a premium for this data, now use it to your advantage…

With PPC, you can get detailed demographic data, hourly conversion data and of course what we are going to touch on here… typo conversion data.

PPC data comes with a huge bonus, conversion data. If you bid on typos, you can see what typos are actually converting. While the volume is usually a lot lower, over time, this conversion data can be very valuable in optimizing for organic search engine rankings.

Lets use the screenshot here as an example. If you were presented with this data, you can see that the search term “londkon hotel” over the past year and a half has had 314 conversions. With each conversion being valued at $80, that’s a little over $25000 in revenue for this “fictional” company.

If this “fictional” company was to organically optimize their organic rankings for for the search term “london hgotel” they would probably have seen zero results. If they had optimized for “londkon hotel” they would have seen some fantastic results. Assuming the organic number one position gets (a conservative) double the number one PPC result, that would be an additional $50,000 in revenue for this company. That’s just for one search term! More than likely, they wouldn’t have organically optimized for ANY typos.

Caveat: Bidding on typos in AdWords and Yahoo will usually result in a poor quality score for those keywords.

Now, if we take this data and write a press release, an article and a blog post all containing links to the company site with the anchor text “londkon hotel” that would probably be enough to rank their site for that search term seeing there is much less competition for it. Organic search engine optimisation without conversion data for each keyword is not where you want to be focusing your efforts. Most online companies engaged in active search engine marketing know that and focus on their core keywords. This leaves the competition in the typo landscape for that niche much easier to compete in.

So there’s another good reason why SEO and PPC compliment each other. So while you competitors are eating each other alive in the PPC Pirahna tank, take a step back and see how you can take advantage.

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A Press Release is NOT a PR Campaign

2011-11-22T17:06:00.000-08:00

There’s a pretty common misconception (especially on the Web where press releases are booming) that one press release alone is supposed to bring massive exposure, traffic, and links. Well sorry folks. In the vast majority of cases, that’s just not how it works! There is a big difference between an press release and a PR campaign, especially online. When asked about how effective a press release really really is, I hear thee following kinds of things a lot, generally from people who issued their first press release without the results they were hoping for…

“Press releases don’t work.”“Press releases only help big companies.”“Press releases aren’t as good as [fill in the blank].”Common Complaints About Press Releases

Here are a few common complaints I hear from people who aren’t happy with the results of their first press release (and how I tend to respond):

Complaint 1: It was too expensive.

Response: I usually ask where they spent their money. Hands down, the biggest expense is distribution for most (often an upgrade package with a distribution site like PRweb). I then ask why they didn’t take advantage of free or inexpensive options, especially with their first release. It’s not uncommon for me to hear that so-and-so (their press release writer) told them they had to use one package or another to get results (usually the same kind of PR person who’s advocating the same distribution model for everyone – bad idea – or taking in affiliate income from the distribution source). So moving forward, I tell them to look into other, cheaper distribution options (as long as they still reach their target readers), and know the qualifications of whoever they’re working with.

Complaint 2: No one covered my story.

Response: Did you actually have something newsworthy to say? In many cases, the answer is no. (For example, launching a new website is very rarely newsworthy in and of itself.) Something else I ask is how long ago the release was distributed. Remarkably, most are complaining within a day or two of distribution because they’re not seeing pickups or backlinks. The reality is that those things can take a while to show up (especially if you’re tracking them yourself, as you’ll be at the mercy of the indexing schedule of search engines).

Complaint 3: My press release didn’t bring me much traffic.

Response: Let’s look at some common reasons you may not be getting traffic. Did you have any earth-shattering news that’s going to drive people to click over to your site in masses even though it’s your first release and they’ve likely never heard of you? Not likely. Did you have a well-written press release? It’s possible. But in this day and age we have everyone and their brother calling themselves a press release writer without any qualifications. Stick to hiring real professionals, or invest the time into learning how to write a press release for yourself. Last question… how did you distribute your news release? If you just threw it onto a distribution site or two (or two hundred for that matter), that explains a lot. Contrary to the belief of many, the average Joe just doesn’t search for their news from press releases. They have specific news sources they trust, and they go right to them. Did you do anything to target trusted news sources tied to your own target market? Chances are that you didn’t.

People need to understand something before they decide to jump into using press releases to promote their businesses or websites:

Press releases are just one tool, of many, in a larger PR campaign. On top of that, they’re a tool that needs to be used repeatedly over time in order to fully realize their potential (building awareness, maintaining an image, and overall exposure and name recognition). So don’t put all of your eggs into one basket by spending a small fortune on your first press release, because chances are that you will be disappointed with the results.

Always think about your long-term goals when using PR. Who are you trying to reach, what message are you trying to convey, and what tools can you use to get that message out to your audience? If you’re serious about using PR to help your business, you need to broaden your outlook a bit beyond news releases. Here are a few other examples of PR tools to include in your overall PR campaign:

Media Advisories – These are used to actually invite members of the media to an event to cover it in person.Op-Eds – These are opinion pieces that run opposite an editorial in a newspaper or other publication.Letters to the EditorBlogsNewsletters

Figure out what types of tools are going to best reach your specific target audience(s), and then put together a solid PR plan using them to complement each other.

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5 More Ways to Improve CTR

2011-11-22T12:45:00.000-08:00

In a previous post, I went through some ways you can use “strong” words in combination with strong call to action words to improve your PPC click through rate (CTR). Since that post, there have been some updates to the AdWords quality score algorithm and as such, CTR plays an ever important role. In fact, it is my opinion that incremental CTR increase is the most important part of any PPC marketing campaign as it is one of the few factors you can directly influence to increase your ad position and reduce your cost per click (CPC). Remember to always be A/B split testing your ads and never leave an adgroup with only a single ad.

Below, I outline five examples of ways you can increase your CTR without doing anything technical or magical. The ads are fabricated but the data is not. The ads are as close to the original as possible. Besides, you’re going to test the theory yourself anyway right?

1) Trademark Symbol/Registered Symbol.

While I have been using this method myself for years, Brad and Amber make some great points on this very topic. Not only can special symbols be used to increase your PPC CTR, but they can also be used to increase your organic SERP CTR. I could not agree with Ian Lurie more on his blog post predicting that organic CTR will matter a LOT in 2009.

2) Price In Headline

Adding the price in the headline is a great way to increase CTR. Be careful with this one though, if you’re not the cheapest, you’re CTR will suffer.

3) Seasonal Headlines.

Doesn’t matter if your product is not seasonal. If you sell blue widgets all year around, a headline like “Easter Widget Sale” will work great. There are so many different holidays, festivals and events that this can be used with. If you’re targeting locally, even better.

4) Trademark in Display URL Subdomain

While you can’t use most trademark terms in your ad copy, you can use them in your display URL. Amber has a great post on why AdWords allows trademarks in the display URL here. Using the trademark in the display URL some argue confuses potential clickers into thinking that it is the “official” site of the trademark holder. Be careful with this one too… Google knows when a visitor clicks the back button on their browser!

5) The exact Keyword in the Headline.

An oldie, but a goodie. We all know that search engines BOLD your keywords when they match the search query. Having tightly knit adgroups will allow you to take advantage of this without having to use dynamic keyword insertion.

Remember, CTR for quality score reasons is only calculated on the exact match of the keyword and is only counted on the Google search network. This means that any increase in CTR from Dynamic Keyword Insertion does not improve your google quality score. CTR on Google search partners does not contribute to your quality score calculations.

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Free $100 Facebook Coupon Courtesy Of Redfly

2011-11-22T07:45:00.000-08:00

For those of you who are not advertising on Facebook already (and even if you are) and want to give it a try, now there is a completely free way to test the waters.

As part of the Visa Business promotion, Visa are offering $100 USD in advertising credit to facebook users/advertisers. To get the free credit all you need to do is…

Update: We are now offering $100 to one lucky fan of our Facebook page each month. Simply “like” our page for more details.

Click here to enter our monthly $100 Facebook advertising coupon code giveaway.

Log into facebook and add the Visa Business Network App. Once added, Facebook will send you a coupon code with instructions on how to add the credit to your account.Perfect if you want to test the waters on facebook and perfect if you’re already spending a fortune with them. There’s more to PPC than just the big three :)

Seems like Alexia was WAY ahead of me finding this. Also, Master Mulley is running a competition for the best stats on a facebook campaign. Have a look!

UPDATE *** You can now receive this free facebook advertising code credit by following the instructions here.

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How AdWords Can Be The Best SEO Tool In Your Arsenal

2011-11-22T04:33:00.000-08:00

There are literally thousands of SEO tools out there. Some paid, some free, some good and some not so good. There is one tool that is often overlooked when it comes to SEO, yes, search engine optimisation, and that’s AdWords. While most people see AdWords as simply a paid traffic generation tool, many fail to realize the organic SEO benefits a tool like AdWords can provide. I’ve touched on this subject briefly before but below, I have outlined a few more detailed ways that AdWords can (and should) be used for SEO. Please note that screenshots have been slightly modified to protect some sensitive data.

1) For Keywords

Before you start to do any SEO on your site, you need to know what keywords to target (You can’t target them all). You could use one of the plethora of keyword tools out there but they are rarely accurate. AdWords allows you to test any amount of keywords you think are relevant to your site and get 100% accurate data on which ones you should be targeting. There’s no worse feeling spending months targeting a keyword for SEO and finding out that it doesn’t convert or it doesn’t drive any traffic. You can even filter out keywords that use a question mark so you can find questions to problems that your product or service can solve. You can then craft a blog post around this question.

2) For SERP CTR Improvements.

Any seasoned SEO knows that Google uses some sort of user data and probably uses organic SERP CTR data (and a recent patent looks like things are going that way) to judge how relevant an organic listing is to a keyword . Marcus touches on it here and Bill goes into patent detail here. With the CTR data and gains you obtain from a PPC campaign, you KNOW what page title and meta description to use to increase your organic SERP CTR. Just think, if you’re in position 3 and get twice the click through rate as the number 1 position over time, doesn’t it make sense that Google would factor this in? Simply pick the best headline from your best performing AdWords campaign and use that as your headline on your page. Pick the description of the best ad and add that to the meta description. This can be improved upon and changed over time too with zero risk. Use the AdWords Ad Performance Report for this (Make sure you filter the ads so that there is enough impression and click data to get a statistically significant ad, using AdWords Editor works great for this too). This also has the benefit of getting the perfect anchor text when someone links to you because many people will use the page title when linking out to you.

3) For Landing Page Optimization.

With Google’s website optimizer, you can quickly test and optimize your landing pages so that you don’t have to wait months for the traffic you would ordinarily need for optimizing with organic traffic. You can create a landing page that’s super optimized for your conversion type so that when the organic visitors do come, you’ll convert them at ultra high rates. This gives you a huge head start over your competitors. It also allows you to create personas that you can map to keywords or sets of keywords to each persona so you can create specific “SEO Campaigns” and more effectively structure a larger SEO effort.

4) For Geographic Targeting.

AdWords allows some pretty granular geographic targeting. Knowing which countries, cities or states convert best (by using a Geographic Performance Report in AdWords), can help you optimize your pages specifically for those locations. It can also help deciding which cities to target when running local business listing campaigns. This data can also help you decide if you should create location specific landing pages or not. Tailoring landing pages to a users location has proven extremely effective… How many really attractive people have you seen available for a date in *your area* lately?

5) For Link Ideas

The Google content network reaches 80% of all online users in the world! Running a campaign on the content network can generate a LOT of traffic but using Placement Performance Reports in AdWords, you can see where exactly you’re CONVERTING ads are running. You can use this info to strike a direct sponsorship deal with a particular site that’s sending you great quality traffic, or maybe you can write content for those particular sites and get a link back. Some people I’ve heard of have even bought links from those sites. An ultra relevant link that sends conversions. You wont get that from any directory links!

6) For Content Ideas

Further to (5), you can see a list of URLs that sent you converting traffic. You can look at the content of that URL and create some content (even a blog post) that has even better information than that page and solves the problem the visitor came to your site to solve to begin with. If that particular page of content was found organically, if you can make it better with your content and SOLUTION, you’ll have fantastic web content that attracts links naturally, more so than the original piece. You can even merge a lot of the ideas from different sources into one “super source” of content which will be seen as the ultimate resource and linked to as such.

7) For Large Scale Media Buys

While this is not strictly SEO related it’s very valuable. If your product or service has mass appeal, you can use the Google content network to test out creatives (flash ads, image ads, video ads etc.) to find out which ones drive the highest CTR and Conversion rate out in the wild. Now you don’t have to drop 25k on a run of network test just to find the best creatives. Anyone who has ever advertised on the Yahoo display network in the past can tell you, this is not for the faint of heart, although this has changed somewhat recently with the improvements of a FANTASTIC service called AdReady (More about this in another post). You can go into your media buy with what you KNOW are strong creatives.

8) Demographic Targeting Facebook

Again, not SEO related but a goodie. You can use an AdWords Demographic Performance Report and ad version reports to find out (generally) what age, sex and country demographics are converting on your site and the creatives that were associated. You can use this info to get a whopper of a start in facebook. Simply target the age, country and sex fields in facebook that matched your AdWords reports and use similar images/creatives for your ads. (You can pick up a free $100 facebook voucher code here). You can also use this demographic data for (7) above to give you that extra edge. Facebook uses CTR data and historical CTR data as a major factor on how much coverage you get so the higher your initial CTR for a new campaign the better. Start as you mean to go on.

9) For Link Exposere & Diversity

New website owners have always faced the chicken and egg problem. How do you get links to a new site if nobody knows about you to link to you? With AdWords, you can get immediate exposure to your content, product or service. With this immediate exposure comes the potential to be linked to which will ultimately improve organic search engine rankings (Be careful to redirect your users to the correct URL when using this method, you don’t want links to an analytics tagged URL or a URL with any sort of campaign tracking arguments in it). This is technically a “clean way” to buy a link. You can also buy AdWords traffic to your linkbait content. This is a slight variation on one of Gab’s tips in his fantastic piece on link buying here. *Image courtesy of SEO Book*

10) For Improving Your Conversion Rate

Yes, that’s right… improving your conversion rate. Microsoft/Atlas release an insightful piece of research (PDF) showing that and increase of up to 22% in conversion rate can be achieved by effectively synergizing search and display advertising. We have found this to be true not only with display and PPC search, but also with display and organic search. This information comes with a few caveats however:

Another point of interest is the impact of display ad frequency in driving conversion results for users exposed to both display and search. Again, the results varied by advertiser, but generally those users who viewed three or more impressions in combination with at least one search click had better results than those who viewed only one or two impressions. Both conversion rates and search click-to-conversion rates climbed significantly for these users, further suggesting the benefit of display advertising when paired with search. However, there is a point of diminishing returns when display ad frequency gets too high.

So there you have it. Ten ways in which AdWords (or any other PPC network) can help improve your search engine optimization. Do you use AdWords in any other creative ways to help improve your natural search engine rankings? If so, why not share them in the comments below and I will add more to the post (with a link) as they come in.

Note* I am fully aware that in a lot of cases, users who click on sponsored listings behave differently than those who don’t. Please use the above tips as guidelines and make sure to test everything for yourself.

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Take The Guesswork Out Of PPC Campaign Setup

2011-11-22T00:29:00.000-08:00

As we grow and take on more and more clients as well as consult with smaller clients, there has been one very alarming trend that we have noticed. The majority of business owners coming to us asking us to “fix” or “improve” their PPC campaigns all arrive with their accounts in the same state. Poorly set up and poorly performing. This is a little mind boggling as all PPC networks give explicit instructions on how an account or campaign should be set up. I will now go through step by step how we set up our campaigns and our campaigns for clients. This is quite a long article, so don’t say you have not been warned.

Before we start, here are three tips to save you time and get you the most out of your PPC campaign using this guide:

Download the free AdWords Editor tool from Google.If possible, create a new account for your content network campaigns.Download the free KeyWordPad tool from GoodKeywords.

We will first start off creating our campaigns in AdWords because the tools available make for easy creation here first and AdWords makes it even easier to export your completed campaign for use on other PPC networks. I would strongly advise against using AdWords starter edition if you can help it as it encourages “lazy” and hence poor performing account structure.

Step 1) – Account Structure Determination

The first step is to understand how your account will be structured. It is usually best to consider the product or service that you are offering at it’s most granular level and create your account like a tree. So if you have a site selling a software product or products, you should create a new campaign for each feature. For example, if you are selling some sort of image editing software, you should have a different campaign for “image editing” and a different campaign for “photo editing” and so and so forth. Inside each of your campaigns you should have generic ad groups (like a “cheap image editing software” group and a “buy image editing software” group) as well as an ad group for all the features relating to the root keyword (image editing). This may seem blindingly obvious but you’d be surprised how many advertisers just lump everything into a “software” adgroup with the default “campaign #1? name. The tree should branch out immediately, more like a bush. So keeping image editing as an example, a single campaign will look like the attached image. Note, there are actually a few in this example.

Caveat. Each account is different. Splitting your account up into as many campaigns and as possible will give greater visibility but less general manageability. Find the right balance for you.

Step 2) – Keyword Research

The second step is keyword research. There have been a million posts on a million blogs about this topic, so I won’t go into it. Let’s just assume that you have generated a nice keyword list for each of your ad groups using your favourite keyword research tool. Wordtracker, SEO book’s KW tool, Keyword Discovery and HitWise are all great tools. Each has individual pros and cons but for now, compile your list an move on. We will expand on this later on in the campaign setup but for now, we should have as big a keyword list as possible with all the keywords and phrases not related to your business taken out and put in a separate “negative” list/file. We will also use this at a later stage in the setup.

Tip. There are literally hundreds of different ways to go about getting your first keyword list. Lisa Barone has a great article on KW research here. If you are new to PPC advertising, I suggest you read that before continuing.

Step 3) – Set Up Campaign

The third step in setting up your PPC account is creating a new search network only campaign. I wont go through the steps to create a new keyword targeted campaign but please look out for the options that are not set by default. The first setting you need to change is the network settings by removing the check from the “Content Network” checkbox. The content network can be very valuable so I do not recommend ignoring the content network completely. We will set up a new content network only campaign later or in another account. You also need to make sure that your ad serving option is set to “rotate” so you can split test your ads and your delivery method is set to “accelerated”. The last option may not apply to you if you are working with a very small budget, but in general, you want to max out your budget initially if you can afford it to get some numbers to work with.

Caveat. The search network is the only network we will be working with in this post. The content network is very valuable and should not be ignored but it should be treated separately. For now, we want to focus on the search network.

Step 4) – Build A Negative Keyword List

The fourth step is creating a new keyword list. A list of terms you do not want your ads triggered for. Google has recently removed/hidden it’s negative keyword builder so have a read of our negative keyword tips. You should have at least a few terms already from building your keyword list in step 2. You also know your business so sit down with your colleagues for 5 minutes and brainstorm some negative words too. Another tip is to run a search query report in AdWords if you are already running a PPC campaign and mine the negatives out of that. You can also go into your analytics package and look at what keywords people are finding your site for and take negatives out of that. For those queries in the search query report that Google does not want you to see, have a read of apollo SEM’s guide to extract all the data. Once you think you have all the negative keywords you can think of, add them to your campaign immediately. In my opinion no campaign should ever start without negative keywords.

Tip: Do a search for your main keywords on Google. Look at the first 50 results and try to identify possible negative keywords from the sites that are listed that are not related to your business.

Step 5) – Create Your Root AdGroup & Ads.

What we need to do now is create a default, generic adgroup and ad. The ad should be action oriented and describe your product. Create your ad with strong words and use our guide to link them words with a strong call to action. This ad is only going to be our default ad for setup. We will not be using this ad in production. It should accurately reflect your product or service so you do not start off with a poor quality score. So assuming we are setting up the “Image Resize Software” campaign, we create an ad with “Image Resize Software” in the title and at least once in the ad copy. No need to tweak just yet, this is only for setup. We like to call this initial adgroup “Campaign Name Root”. What we need to do now is dump all the keywords from our keyword list into this adgroup. There could be thousands, that does not matter. We will separate them all further on. The important thing is to setup this root campaign and have all the keywords possible thrown in. Once setup is complete, confirm all your actions and your campaign will go live. Pause this campaign immediately. We will be doing a lot more work on the campaign so we do not want it live.

Caveat: You may notice that a lot of your keywords have a poor quality score in this situation. This is normal. While you may not see this if your account has a lot of history, if your account is new or previously performing badly, this is common. We will fix this at a later stage.

Step 6) – Download Your New Campaign & Split It Up

Now we really get to have some fun. If you have not done so already, download AdWords Editor and download your account containing your new campaign with the root adgroup. What we need to do now is use the “keyword grouper” tool within AdWords editor to group our keywords by theme (Check the screenshot to see how to access this tool). When given the option to “copy text ads from a template” select yes as we will use our default root text ad for now. Finish the process and you will have lots of ad groups divided into common “themes”. Upload the new campaign with the newly separated adgroups to Google and log out of AdWords editor for now.

Caveat: When using the keyword grouper too make sure that you do not exlude “stop” words, especially the word “in” as this will prevent AdWords Editor from creating the “in” adgroup which usually refers to local searches. Local or location specific searches can be some of the most valuable.

Step 7) – Manually Create New Ads For Each AdGroup

The next step we need to take is to go back into AdWords and create new and custom ads for each adgroup. If you are stuck for time, create a minimum of two ads per group. If you want to start off strong, create at least four ads for testing. It is absolutely essential that we use the “theme” keyword in in our ads titles. AdWords editor makes this easy by naming the adgroup the same name as the “theme” word. The “theme” word should also be used in the ad copy if possible and absolutely in the display URL as either a “fake” sub directory or a “fake” subdomain. The reason for this is so that AdWords will assign a decent initial quality score to your keywords and so that anyone searching for your keyword will see the exact keywords they searched for bolded in your ad. You should set the destination URL to either the category/product page or if you have the time, an individual landing page for that product and keyword combined. Make sure that your ads are compelling, are grammatically correct and have a clear call to action. You may also want to take this opportunity to create some Dymanic Keyword Insertion powered ads.

Tip: If you do not want to or do not have the time to create an individual landing page for each keyword, use PHP (or any other server side scripting language) to dynamically insert the keyword into the general landing page for this adgroup.

Step 8) – Expand Your Keywords

At this point we like to go into each adgroup and use the AdWords keyword too to expand our keyword list. Copy all the keywords from your adgroup and paste them into the keyword tool making sure the “use synonyms” box is checked. The AdWords keyword tool will give you a list of possible other terms you might want to add to the adgroup that you may not have thought about (as well as give some additional keywords for your negative list). In some cases, you may also want to use the in built keyword pad tool to duplicate all your keywords using different match types. A lot of times different match types cost different prices and convert differently. Once you have a packed up your adgroups with relevant keywords, you are almost good to go.

Caveat: It’s always wise to build one campaign at a time and build your keywords and adgroups slowly. If there is a problem or a problem setting you will not have to spend hours manually going through all your hard worked on campaigns fixing a problem you could have found early on with patience.

Step 9) – Duplicate,Track, Monitor, Succeed.

Once you have all your search campaigns ready to go, your final step is to make sure that your analytics package is installed correctly and that your ads are showing up in the countries you are targeting. Insure that your conversion tracking is working correctly and place a test order if necessary. Once you are sure you are setup correctly, you can now duplicate your campaigns for content network use (Simply copy and paste in AdWords Editor) and for use on other PPC networks. Please note that your campaigns will almost always perform differently on the content network and on your other PPC accounts. You should modify your bids and check your status on these accounts individually.

That’s pretty much the typical setup for each of our campaigns. This may seem incredibly basic to some of our readers but time and time again we come across accounts that are so badly put together that it shocks us the owner continues to use it in the hope that their results will change.

People continuously ask, “Does Adwords/PPC Really Work?” and the answer is an overwhelming yes! As long as you are doing it right! Do you have any PPC setup tips that have helped you get the most from your PPC campaign?

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Dublin SEO, SEM & Webmaster Meetup

2011-11-21T21:00:00.000-08:00

The stage has been set and flights to Dublin from most European and domestic locations are fully booked. The first annual Dublin SEO, webmaster, Designer and webworker meetup will take place on Saturday the 9th of February. This is an event that will certainly go down in the history books. Ireland’s web workers have long been restricted with their networking opportunities for many reasons. We have now reached the tipping point…

The Harbour Master in Dublin’s city center will play host to food, drink and talk that was once a pipedream in our normal social circles. Kindly sponsored by the most fantastic hosting company in Ireland, Blacknight. If you can make it we will be meeting at 7:30PM. This is an open event and anyone can attend. The more names we can all put faces to the better. If you work with anything web related, please feel free to come along. A good time is guaranteed to be had by all*

The confirmed attendees are as follows:

Cormac Nolan ;)
Louie
Richard Hearne
Mark Walsh (I can’t wait to print out Google paid link guidelines and show to) ;)
Dave Davis
James Larkin
Allistar
Eoghan McCabe
Ken Stanley
Ciaran
Gavin Doolan
David Behan
Micky Wall
Gavin
Michael Flanagan

There is a continued discussion on the Irish webmaster forum here. Special thanks to Gavin Doolan for kicking this all off. Not too sure if any of the ladies are confirmed yet? I hope to see all you guys there.

*This is not a guarantee.

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7 Tips For Finding & Expanding Your Negative Keywords

2011-11-21T16:02:00.000-08:00

With the now fully accepted quality score mechanism implemented in all major PPC platforms (and soon to be MSN too), click through rate (CTR) is even more important now than it ever was. Broad match and advanced matching options allow your products and services to be found for terms you may not even have thought existed but that luxury comes at a price. The phrases you “never knew existed” can also be phrases and search terms you do not want your ads to show for. Having a comprehensive and well built negative keyword list can significantly improve not only your CTR, but your conversion rate too. Here are some of the methods that we use to build our negative keyword lists.

Caveat: Many advertisers think that they do not need to use negative keywords if they are only advertising using exact match keywords. While this may be true to an extent, it is important to still use negative keywords on the content networks. Exact match should also be used in conjunction with phrase and broad match to expand your keywords list.

1. Your Own Data.
Your own analytics can be an amazing source of negative keywords. Look at not only your PPC data but your organic data too. Print out a monthly keyword report and highlight those negative terms. If you are unsure of any, do a simple search for the keyword and see what results pop up. You might be surprised. Don’t forget to run a search query performance report on your PPC account to make sure your ads are not being triggered by terms you don’t want them to. The guys over at ApolloSEM have a fantastic article on extracting your search query data that Google doesn’t want to give you.

2. Google’s Keyword Tool.
Use the free Google keyword tool. Paste in your keywords and make sure you select the “Use synonyms” checkbox. You may be surprised what keywords show up that Google thinks are related to your product or service. Also, paste your URL into the “Website Content” box to see what the tool thinks what your site/page may be about. Check the “Include other pages on my site…” checkbox to get a more rounded view. Make a list of words you are unsure of.

3. Organic Search Results.
This may seem blindingly obvious, but try setting your search results to display 100 results. Search for your main keywords and notice the results that have absolutely nothing to do with your product or service. Visit those sites and take down negative keywords. Run those sites through the Google keyword tool too. Leave nothing to chance. Think about words people would be using to complain about your product or service or show it in a poor light.

4. Adsense And Other Ads.
Do a search for your keywords. Look at other advertisers PPC ads. Many may be completely unrelated or triggered by one of your stem keywords. There are so many advertisers that allow their ads to be displayed for completely unrelated or downright silly terms. Don’t be one of them. Also, try dropping an adsense unit into your page or site as a test. See what advertisers are displayed. Make sure your keywords are not displayed for keywords relating to their product (unless you have the same product!). Be as anal as you can and don’t forget to run the sites you find through the keyword tool again.

5. Use A Thesaurus.
Try running your main keywords through a thesaurus. There is no way you could possibly know every single synonym of your main keywords. A Thesaurus is not only great at expanding your negative keyword list but also your main keyword list. Find variations of your variations. Ask friends and family that have nothing to do with your product or service what words they would use to search for your product and run them through the thesaurus too. If you are advertising in a competitive space, missing a single negative and having your ad displayed for a search that will never convert can be extremely expensive. You might not even find out for weeks if your PPC management company are not monitoring your log files. Don’t find your negatives the hard way.

6. Obvious And Industry Related.
Try using your own knowledge of your industry and product. What terms are you certain people will be searching for that are either not related to your product or service or that are related and that you don’t provide? Sit down with your co-workers and brainstorm for ten minutes. Again, be thorough and leave nothing to chance. If you do not know your industry (you do know your industry right?) or product well enough, visit the manufacturers website or give them a call. Ask your customers if you need to. What words are similar or spelled similar to your product or service name? Also be aware that new products are being released every day. Set up a Google alert for your keywords.

7. Anti Tire-kicker, Penny-pincher & Freeloader Terms.
There are many terms that you will want to add to all of your campaigns to prevent your ads being shown for searchers at the beginning of the buying cycle, who are looking for the cheapest option or for searchers who are outright trying to steal your product or service. While your business may be competing on price, I think it would be safe to say that you do not want your ad being shown for searchers looking to rip you off or complain! Solomon Rothman has a great list of keywords that can start you off. Remember to use common sense when generating your negatives. If you offer a free trial or a free product, do not blindly use the negative keyword “free”. Use what applies to your business. Some of the negatives Solomon offers are:

Problem Negative Keywords
problem, problems, warranty, returns, parts, complaints, complaint, sucks, suck, hate, protest, indictment, illegal

And of course some freeloader related ones negatives to get you started too:

Technical Negative Keywords
warez, crack, serial, serials, cracks, rss, xml, hack, hacks

So there you have it. Seven simple ways to build a super negative keyword list to increase your CTR, improve your quality score, increase your conversion rate and give you a higher return on your ad spend. This is by no means an exhaustive list on how to create a negative keyword list but it’s a good start. Feel free to share your own negative keyword generation tips in the comments below.

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Website Redesign – A Sometimes Essential SEO Tactic

2011-11-21T11:38:00.000-08:00

Over the past year we have had a massive increase in leads for our range of online marketing services, especially from Ireland. The recession has really done a number on the SME and most are starting to think smart, because they have to. This has led them to look more and more to the online face of their business and many are shocked that their competition who put int he effort earlier on are way ahead of them in the online space.

In a lot of cases, it is no longer good enough to have a lot of inbound links OR a good looking website. You need both. There is also no point in having a website number one in the search results for a keyword if the traffic it brings just will not convert on your dated website. While constant hacking away at an already poor website may bring temporary relief, it’s just a band aid and will eventually be untenable.

Trent over at Blizzard Internet makes a very good point about how all the SEO tactics in the world can’t help a poor website. He goes into some detail on the stats but this jumps right out and should be highlighted.

… Sometimes they want to discuss SEO and are not open to discussing the overall problems with their website. Forget SEO for a moment, and consider that doubling the visitors to your website still won’t be profitable if your website doesn’t convert. It is the definition of throwing good money after bad… This hotel doesn’t need more SEO! They need to lower their 43% bounce rate AND improve their 0% conversion rate. They need a better booking engine.

Some web designers can even do a lot of damage to their clients online business if they don’t have at least a basic understanding of what I call “Core” seo. Adam has a great post on dangerous web design here where he states:

So what is there to learn from all this? At a minimum, this situation illustrates that knowledge of SEO is critical for anyone running a web design/development firm. But I would argue that this isn’t even SEO — it’s basic web 101. To think that companies are operating without this knowledge, and doing their clients real harm, is a little scary.

The emphasis above is mine because I think that is exactly what Eoghan and Ken were trying to get across in the SEO is Bullshit post here. While I do nott agree that SEO is bullshit (Bill pretty much put that to bed in his excellent “10 SEO Questions” post), I DO see their point. “Core” SEO is basic webmastering and web design 101. You’ll find it very difficult to make a website made completely with images or flash against a competitor with a well designed, standards compliant, accessible and structurally comprehensive website with logical internal linking and basic best practices kept in mind.

To all you small business owners considering getting a website built and asking yourselves “Do I need to redesign my website to rank in Google?” please remember to ask your web design company or web designer what they are doing to make sure your website is search engine friendly. To all you small business owners considering getting SEO “done” to an existing site, consider what I said above. All the SEO, inbound links or fantastic content in the world wont help you if you have a terribly inaccessible site.

This post may seem a little self serving but more and more we are not only having to redesign clients websites , but insisting on it. (We have now merged our web design service with our other offerings to be more in line with this idea). So before you even consider having an SEO company work on your site, make sure it’s ready to be worked on or it might end up costing you a lot more in the long run.

Finally, in relation to inbound links, a really good website design that pays attention to both style and standards can obtain a massive influx of high quality links and traffic by being included in the plethora of web design and CSS showcase galleries. These can be a huge boost to site authority and give a much need initial boost to any SEO efforts.

* This will be the final semi-self serving post of the year :) What do you think of the new design?

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Google Global Firefox Extension Version 2.2

2011-11-21T08:11:00.000-08:00

It’s been a while since our last Google Global update. We’ve been kicked into gear by the forceful upgrade of Firefox to 3.6 lately too. For those of you who have been holding off upgrading Firefox to the latest and greatest version so you could continue to use Google Global, the wait is over. Today we would like to announce the release of the latest version of Google Global.

The latest version comes with whole host of backend improvements, a lot of code re-writing, a much smaller memory footprint and a really snazzy new logo/icon that fits with our new free Internet marketing tools suite that will be released this year and finally an in-built auto update system so you wont have to worry about coming back to find updates, they will be automatically installed for your convenience.

So head on over to the new Google Global page which will detail the changes and let you download, install and get back to your search engine marketing.

As usual, the tool is free and while we appreciate bug reports, feature requests and general feedback, we can unfortunately not offer individual support to everyone.

Finally, if you have found this tool useful, please help us spread the word, tell your friends, tweet about it and if you really like it, we would love if you could blog about it. For those of you who have found the tool helpful and are kind enough to blog about Google Global, drop us a mail and we will add you to the beta test group where you can test future versions before they are released. These include:

A Google Chrome versionSupport for YahooSupport for BingLBL supportAdTest Support

We release our tools for free and appreciate each and every one of you who use them every day. Thank you. Each and every one of you.

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Google Global Video Guide – How To View Google Results In Different Countries

2011-11-21T03:21:00.000-08:00

Our good friend Vittorio over at Tech Savvy Marketer has created a video tutorial on the installation and usage of the new Google Global Firefox extension we recently released. For all of you have have emailed asking how to install the extension and how to use the extension once it is installed, this should answer all of your questions.

The new extension can be downloaded here. The installation guide and usage tutorial can be found in the video below.

If you have any further questions, feature requests, bug reports or general feedback, please feel free to leave a comment. I also highly recommend taking a look at Vittorio’s other Marketing Videos. Enjoy!

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