Your Search Advisor, LLC

Bing Ads Phishing Warning

2013-04-17T18:29:23Z

We’ve seen a batch of fake emails going out to clients this morning claiming to be from Bing Ads / Microsoft adCenter. They are a phishing attempt to get your login and password.

Do not click on any links in this email!

Here’s the text we’ve seen (notice the broken English):

Dear adCenter customer,

For quality services and running your ads without any problems (Innactive account meaning Pausing your Ads) check the status of your adCenter account regularly.

Some of the ads directed to YourDomain.com may have stopped running this morning.

Check your adCenter status now.

Sincerely,

The Microsoft adCenter Team

Our Bing Ads reps have confirmed that these emails are not from Bing and contain links to sites that will attempt to steal your account password. Once they have your account login, they can automatically create campaigns and spend your money to drive traffic to their spammy sites.

Again, DO NOT CLICK any links in this email. If you already have, let us know immediately and we can work with our Bing Ads reps to clear up any problems before they start.

Bing Ads Phishing Warning originally appeared on Your Search Advisor, LLC

Now Hiring: Summer Intern

2013-04-17T15:36:38Z

Good news: the Your Search Advisor team is growing – at least temporarily. We have some exciting projects on the horizon, and we’re looking for a marketing intern to help us out this summer.

Here’s a little bit about the position – let us know if you, or someone you know, might be interested!

Job Description

A paid summer internship with a rapidly growing digital marketing agency in Richmond, VA. There’s no such thing as a typical day, but core duties will include:

Data Analysis and Reporting
Ad Campaign Setup (Google AdWords, Bing Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, etc.)
Creative Testing Strategy Development
Industry Research
Client Interaction

You’ll do all of this while enjoying the many perks that Your Search Advisor has to offer – Casual dress, flexible work schedules, regular foosball breaks, and a big screen TV that may or may not be on all day.

Desired Skills & Experience

Our ideal candidate is a rising junior, senior, or May graduate working towards a degree in Marketing, Communications, Business, or a related field. He/she should demonstrate:

A basic knowledge of the digital marketing industry (Social Media, Search Engine Marketing, etc.)
A strong mix of both quantitative and qualitative skills.
A great work ethic – we may play hard, but we work even harder.
Intellectual curiosity, and a passion for learning.
Above-average competency in foosball, darts, and/or Nerf basketball. (Excel skills help, too.)
A great sense of humor – we like to have fun while we work.

Interested in applying for this position? Fill out the form below, or email your resume and cover letter to Ross@yoursearchadvisor.com. We look forward to hearing from you!

Fill out my online form.

Now Hiring: Summer Intern originally appeared on Your Search Advisor, LLC

Home From HeroConf, Ready For More

2013-04-11T18:09:25Z

225 PPC experts. 47 speakers. 2 days of brain-busting, awe-inspiring, and downright geeky Pay Per Click advertising.

The entire YSA team had a blast at HeroConf in Austin this week. The Hanapin Marketing team did a spectacular job hosting some of the best minds in the search marketing field. We returned to Richmond with notebooks full of ideas and some new friends.

We managed to work in a little fun, too. Looking forward to next year!

Ross, the PPC Hero
Bryan Eisenberg's Keynote
A late-night tour of Austin
Swag Bags
Ross Winning Shuffleboard
Ross Knows Skee Ball
An Oprah Moment
The Undisputed Foosball Champions
Burgers at HopDoddy
Something to remember us by

Home From HeroConf, Ready For More originally appeared on Your Search Advisor, LLC

How to Improve Your Bing Ads Quality Score

2013-04-07T11:47:39Z

Much like on Google Adwords, Bing assigns a Quality Score to each of the keywords in your campaign. Their formula is fairly simple, but it has a significant impact on your keywords’ performance metrics.

So, why is my Bing Ads Quality Score important? Well, a lower Quality Score leads directly to higher CPC and a lower Share of Voice (Bing’s equivalent of an Impression Share on Adwords). In other words, you’ll pay more and perform worse.

Fortunately, there are always ways to improve your Quality Score on Bing. We’ll break down some easy, effective ways to raise your Quality Score by improving your keywords’ and ads’ Click-Through Rates.

Keyword Relevance

Choosing relevant keywords is the simplest way to give your Bing Ads Quality Score a boost. Here are a few easy tips for selecting the most relevant keywords possible:

Make sure keywords match ad copy – This is best accomplished by creating smaller, tighter ad groups. The more often you have specific keywords appearing in your ads, the better.
Stick to Phrase and Exact Match – Broad match keywords may help your ad appear on a wider variety of searches, but it will almost certainly affect your Quality Score on Bing.
Increase Exact Match Keyword Bids 10-20% Over Phrase Match – By bidding more for exact match keywords than phrase match keywords (for the same keywords, that is), you increase the likelihood that your exact match keywords will show.

Landing Page Relevance

A lower Quality Score leads directly to higher CPC and a lower Share of Voice…

As part of your overall Bing Quality Score, you also receive a Landing Page Relevance Score. As you would expect, this score tells you how closely related your landing page and ads are to a person’s search terms and your ad copy. While not quite as simple as increasing your keyword relevance, there are several ways to improve the relevance of your landing page:

Lower your landing page bounce rate – An easy way to do this is including links to other parts of your site. Sure, you may see a slight drop in conversion rate, but you’ll also see a higher Quality Score and lower CPCs.
Write relevant meta title, keyword, and description tags – Google doesn’t take these into account when factoring in Quality Score on AdWords, but they absolutely play a role in your Bing Quality Score.
Add text content with targeted keywords – You can do this in any number of ways. For instance, rather than simply listing a product on your landing page, include a keyword-rich product description along with it. You can do the same with reviews, testimonials, etc.

Landing Page User Experience

Even if your landing page is highly relevant, Bing will dock your score if the user experience isn’t up to par. Often times, a high bounce rate will indicate a poor user experience. While there are several ways to enhance a user’s experience, you should focus on these:

Improve page load times – If your page takes too long to load, many potential customers may quickly lose interest in your site. Bing understandably considers this a negative user experience.
Eliminate Popups – There may be no quicker way to annoy a user than bombarding them with popups. If you’re looking to enhance your landing page’s user experience, get rid of your popups.
Don’t Auto-Play Videos – We’ve tested auto-playing videos on several landing pages over the years, and the results are never good. Videos are great features for a landing page, but you should let users click play whenever they’re ready.

How to Improve Your Bing Ads Quality Score originally appeared on Your Search Advisor, LLC

After Hours Dental PPC Strategies

2013-04-05T20:24:45Z

Let’s assume your practice is open each day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. How do you handle after hours patient inquiries? We’ve come up with a few dental PPC strategies to make sure your campaigns are working hard even while you are not!

Our AdWords data for dental clients reveals some interesting statistics that should make you re-consider how, when, and where you advertise when your office isn’t open:

42% of clicks occur after 5 p.m. and before 8 a.m. the following morning
43% of searches occur after 5 p.m. and before 8 a.m. the following morning
Our average Cost Per Click is 10% lower after business hours
Our average Conversion Rate is 28% higher after business hours
This results in a Cost Per Conversion that is 29% LOWER after business hours
After hours searchers are far more likely to be using a smartphone or tablet

Now You Know. Capture & Convert!

This means that patients are actively searching for dentists and willing to engage with your practice long after you’ve gone home for the evening. Even if your staff are not around to answer the phones, there are some things you can do to minimize the possibility of losing these patients to a competitor:

Change your PPC ads by time of day: schedule your phone call extensions to show only when the phones are manned, then switch to a lead capture Call To Action
Use your voicemail system to play an “after hours” message to encourage callers to leave a message and offer to return their calls first thing in the morning
Better yet, use a call answering service with a live human that can field inquiries and schedule follow-up phone calls from your staff in the morning
Have a prominent email lead form on your website with an “after hours” message that encourages people to email you. Set the expectation that they will get a phone call back first thing in the morning
If you handle emergencies or have a dentist on call, show separate ads after hours and on weekends that explains this. You are MUCH more likely to get qualified clicks and immediate phone calls this way

The bottom line is this: you have the opportunity and the PPC tools to land new patients much more affordably after your competitors have shut off their campaigns for the day. Don’t waste the opportunity by providing a poor customer service!

(CC photo credit: Leo Reynolds on Flickr)

After Hours Dental PPC Strategies originally appeared on Your Search Advisor, LLC

My Advice To Startups

2013-03-19T01:55:05Z

We can’t presume to know or anticipate how the site will evolve, but our objectives, strategies, and tactics should be expected to evolve with it. The foundation is measurement, knowing exactly who is using the site, how/when/where/why, and whether or not they are accomplishing their objectives (not necessarily OUR objectives). Robust web analytics should be included to support the decision-making framework from which we can make more informed, intelligent choices.

My Advice To Startups originally appeared on Your Search Advisor, LLC

PPC Conferences: A Worthwhile Expense

2013-03-13T03:03:42Z

A s with most knowledge-based businesses, our greatest asset is our people. In fact, our entire physical office could be wiped out tonight and we could still maintain and restore our full operational capacity within hours to keep servicing our clients. Without our people, we’re nothing.

Could we have more expensive office space and cooler toys? Of course! But instead of spending money to impress clients with stuff, we choose to invest in training and tools to impress clients with results. For that reason, it’s a no-brainer to invest in training and educational conferences like Hero Conf.

Hero Conf is the world’s leading PPC-only search marketing conference, filled with information-packed PPC sessions, ground-breaking keynotes, expert-level attendees and live entertainment in downtown Austin, TX.

From April 7 – 10, our team will be joining 200 other PPC experts in Austin, TX for 3 days of PPC-only search marketing education. It will quite possibly be the geekiest event I have ever attended…and that’s a good thing!

Full disclosure: I’m not a conference groupie or the annoying networking guy. My last search conference was SES New York in 2006. Since then, I have avoided industry conferences because they have become vanilla and were not worth the expense. I haven’t been to a Hero Conf before, but I expect it will be different. Here are just a few of the reasons I’m actually excited for this one:

Attendance is limited to 200 people and 47 speakers. This attendee:speaker ratio is significantly lower than other search conferences I have attended in the past.
The average attendee has 3-5 years of PPC experience, so the sessions won’t be dumbed down for beginners.
The speaker schedule is stacked with some pretty intelligent people that aren’t sharing their info elsewhere.
Our team can show off some of the amazing work we’ve been doing over the past year and learn from others doing the same.

Again, training and education are my #1 priority for continuing to evolve our team’s capabilities and get better results for our clients. Industry-leading events like Hero Conf are just one of the ways we can stay on top of our game.

We’ll share pictures and updates when we get back.

PPC Conferences: A Worthwhile Expense originally appeared on Your Search Advisor, LLC