December 11, 2009 By 1 Comment

Google Earth Place Pages

An addition to Google Maps as of this fall, Place Pages display expanded details about businesses and places people may come across during a map search.  Ever user-centric Google created Place Pages to provide the most relevant content, including pictures, reviews, and more.  If you are the owner of a business, however, Place Pages may be beneficial to you, as well.  You have the control to edit your business’s information, such as contact information and hours.  Now these Place Pages will be even more available as they are also being shown in Google Earth.

You can see these Place Pages when looking through Google Earth by clicking on a business or place and then clicking on “View More Information.”  This will bring up the Place Page with the extended information, pictures and more.

You will also notice Adsense ads are shown here.  The delivery of ads on this desktop application is an anomaly with Google, who has heretofore shown Adsense Ads solely on web-based applications.  There has been no word as to whether or not this policy will change.

Filed Under: Featured, SEM News Tagged With: google, search engine marketing news, web marketing
November 13, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Google Ad Sitelinks

Last week, Google announced the launch of a new product called Ad Sitelinks, which is not available for all advertisers yet.  This is usually how they release new products, commencing a preliminary run with a select few advertisers before the product is even widely discussed.  Then they start expanding the reach more and more before it is eventually available to all advertisers through their normal AdWords interface.

This new product allows your AdWords paid search ads to include more links that can go deeper into your content, beyond your landing page.  It would look like the example above.

Advertisers may add up to ten links, although Google will only display up to four.  Google thus recommends that advertisers list their most important links first.

To employ this new feature, it is not necessary to write new ads.  Instead, Google will simply add these new Sitelinks to your current ads.  If you are eligible to participate, you will see the option in your Campaign Settings.  Right after the demographic and language targeting, you should see a section called Networks, Devices, and Extensions.  Within this section there are a few options, one of which being to edit your Ad Extensions.  If you do not see this edit option, then this is likely not available to you yet.

Ad Sitelinks Edit Option

This could prove to be very helpful for some advertisers, allowing more options to consumers.  Google recommends taking advantage of this during the holidays as an easy way to update seasonal promotions.

Filed Under: Featured, Paid Search Tagged With: Ads, google, Paid Search, Pay per click, ppc
September 18, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Paid Search Site Targeting and Exclusion

As mentioned in my last blog post, Microsoft adCenter Placement Reports, MSN commenced transparency, via specialized reports, of where your ads display within the content and search networks; namely, the Publisher Placement Performance report.  Since that post, Yahoo Search Marketing began sharing this same information, as well.  Their report is named the Ad Delivery Report.  Google’s original version, available since June of 2007, is called the Placement Performance Report.

These reports are very helpful when viewing performance of your campaigns.  To take this information to the next level, you’ll want to use it in managing your campaigns.  In these reports, you can view which sites are working well and then target them with higher bids to try for better placement in Google AdWords.  This does not seem to be an option at this point in Yahoo or MSN.  Conversely, in all three of the engines, you can see which sites are more costly with no return (conversions) and you can choose to block them.

In Google, you can adjust bids per site and exclude sites within the campaign or ad group.  In the new AdWords interface, you can view this information under the Networks tab.  You must choose to show the Automatic Placements to view all sites and you can choose any of interest for managed bidding or exclusion.  You can also exclude sites through their Site and Category Exclusion tool.

In Yahoo, you may submit sites in their Blocked Domain tool.  This can be found in the General Account Information under the Administration tab.  When blocking sites in MSN, you can do so under the Campaign or Ad Group Settings under Website Exclusions.

These are great tools to use when managing your Paid Search accounts.  Hopefully Yahoo and MSN will continue to improve these features to make them more robust.  Google has been working on this longer and has more functionality.  I encourage everyone to take advantage of these reports and use them wisely.

Photo courtesy of lorello.

Filed Under: Featured, Paid Search Tagged With: google, MSN, Paid Search, Pay per click, ppc, Yahoo Search Marketing
July 24, 2009 By 2 Comments

Paid Search Geo-Targeting Hierarchy

Location, location, location was once the mantra of successful businesses in regards to brick-and-mortar organizations.  With so many businesses online these days, it would be expected that location may no longer frustrate success; if your business is online, it’s everywhere.  Oh, but not so fast; location very much matters online, and that’s where Google’s geo-targeting solutions come into play.

There are many different ways in Google in which you may geo-target locations.  You can target by country, state, city, zip code, or custom location by dragging points on the map.  You may also target by DMA (Designated Market Area), which is defined by Google as

“Media markets in which people can receive the same or similar television and radio station offerings, as well as offerings of other media types, such as newspapers. DMAs are defined by Nielsen Media Research, and are used to identify specific media markets for those interested in buying and selling television, advertising and programming.”

What if your business could benefit from displaying different messages to someone searching at the state level as opposed to the zip code level, but you want to speak to both audiences?  There are ways to reach to everyone with a different message.  First, you must understand the hierarchy of the geo-targeting capabilities.

Let’s say there are three campaigns set up with the same keywords but different geo-targeting.  One campaign targets at the state level, one at the DMA level, and one at the zip code level; the targeted areas are Ohio, Cleveland-Akron (Canton), and 44304 (our zip code at the office), respectively.

If someone in Columbus, Ohio searches for a keyword that is common in all three campaigns, they will be served an ad from the campaign that is targeting Ohio at the state level.  If someone in Cleveland searches for this same term, they would be eligible for both the state level and DMA level campaign ads.  They would end up being shown the ads from the DMA targeted campaign.  The most specific targeting will take over.  Lastly, if I were to search for this same term while here at the office, I would see the ads targeted to 44304.

This could be an important tactic for some businesses, such as banks and real estate agencies, where audience locations may be specific.  For example, the state level might show them the state headquarters, the DMA might show them the regional headquarters, and the zip code targeting would allow them to see the local branch.

Photo courtesy of davidrossharris.

Filed Under: Featured, Paid Search Tagged With: geo-targeting, google, Paid Search, ppc
July 9, 2009 By 4 Comments

Chrome OS: Would you trust Google with your Homemade Porn?

The tech sphere exploded yesterday when Google announced they’d be releasing Chrome OS, or Google’s version of an operating system. They pulled their services out of beta and said they’d be reinventing the way people viewed an operating system and sort of even claimed that it would be the swan song for viruses. People touted it as the end of Microsoft and a giant step towards computing in the cloud.

Along the fringes of the discussion though were several more logical and level-headed thoughts on the reasoning, timing and what it actually would mean for people with computers.  My favorite article on this was from the Register: Google’s Vanity OS is Microsoft’s Dream. This article speaks of this announcement as creating a phony sense of competition in the operating system realm which Microsoft could use to save tons of money and get around dealing with it’s antitrust issues.

More fun though is deeper in the article where it speaks of the different ways that people use their computers and how the cloud and it’s applications aren’t robust enough to do a lot of things that we need it to do.

The idea of a desktop running a thin OS served by the cloud is fine – until you want to do image processing, or make music or videos. You do realize there’s more to a PC than updating your Facebook profile, right?

The extent of image processing in the cloud begins and ends with ICanHazCheeseburger. You really can’t fault its ability to move the funny caption around – and change its colour! Get back to me when there’s real-time video scrubbing, rendering or multiple levels of Undo.

Hear! Hear! Though I’m on the internet more than most, there are tons of tools and programs and games that I need to do my job and live my life which aren’t yet available on Twitter.

Shortly after reading a variety of articles and fanfare around this announcement I found a couple of videos on YouTube that I thought were hilarious (mostly cause I’m a dork) but actually ended up making me think about some things in conjunction with a Google operating system. Let’s look at it like this: currently you only (or should only, depending on how dumb or trusting you are) put stuff up on the net that you are comfortable with others finding or knowing about. You might only upload certain pictures to Flickr or show certain personal statistics about yourself on Facebook. But chances are that you have more private information on your local computer. Some of these are probably sensitive in nature – credit cards, billing information, those drunk pictures of you at that one party, financial information about your business, or *gasp* some grainy night vision action of you and that one chick engaged in some NSFW activities.

How do feel about putting that up on the cloud?

There are lots of privacy issues inherant in every 3rd party platform but I’m not sure that any of us grasps what that will mean for your most private info and the new Google Chrome OS. You’ll probably just have to agree to some Terms & Conditions and then pray that you don’t rub ‘em the wrong way and loose it all.

Google as Your Roommate – Part 1

Google as Your Roommate – Part 2

Filed Under: Featured, SEM News Tagged With: chrome os, google, privacy
June 26, 2009 By 3 Comments

Google Search Query Report

If you are using broad-matched keywords in Google, I hope that you have taken advantage of the Search Query Reporting that is available through Google, also.  This report is also useful when using phrase-matching.  When you use broad-matching, you are allowing Google to show your ads whenever a similar keyword is searched or something that they deem relevant to your keyword.  Especially with their expanded broad-matching, many times your ad may be showing for keywords that you do not find to be relevant at all.  This can be a costly mistake but may be combated through negative keyword matching with the help of the Search Query Report.

The Search Query Report shows you what people typed in Google to make your ad appear.  This includes these expanded broad searches.  This is helpful to review and pull out keywords that would bring you unqualified traffic.  You can then add these keywords as negative keywords to prevent it from happening again.  This is an ongoing process that will help refine your account.

Let’s say, for example, you are bidding on the keyword “tennis shoes.”  In your Search Query Report, you may find that people are searching for “kids tennis shoes” and you only sell adult sizes.  You should add “kids” as a negative keyword to prevent spending money on customers that won’t find what they are looking for.   You may also end up with keywords in the report like “tennis rackets” which may not pertain to your business.  In this case, you should add “rackets” as a negative keyword.

Along with picking out the possible negative keywords, you should also review for new keywords on which to bid.  There may be some keywords that you hadn’t thought of that you should capitalize on, perhaps long tail phrases or common misspellings.  This is where broad-matching comes in handy.

For example, if there are people that are clicking on your ads and converting off of the key phrase “buy new tennis shoes,” you should consider adding this key phrase to the account.  This will allow you to appear more often when people search this rather than just hoping that the broad-matched key phrase “tennis shoes” will catch it.  It also may end up being a cheaper cost per click as it is a longer phrase.

For anyone who has run the Search Query Report lately, you might have noticed some recent changes.  They are now showing more query results rather than lumping many together under “Other Unique Queries.”  They also started noting “Session-Based” by some broad-matched queries.  This lets you know that that query was evaluated alongside previous queries from that person to decide to show your ad.

Photo courtesy of dullhunk.

Filed Under: Featured, Paid Search Tagged With: google, Paid Search, ppc
May 21, 2009 By 14 Comments

Google Mobile Keyword Tool

There is an Easter egg hidden in Google AdWords. Tucked away in your campaigns is a tool that will make you rethink mobile search and its implications for your business. Yes my friends, there is a Google Mobile Keyword Tool.

To access this tool, you must have an AdWords account with some odd specs set up.

The easiest way to get there is to open up AdWords Editor and create a new paused campaign with a paused ad group. In that new ad group toss in a random keyword and create a single mobile ad. Click-to-call or one with a link, it doesn’t matter the kind of ad you create. Now upload that sucker and head over to Google AdWords.

Log into Google AdWords and drill down until you are in your new ad group with one little mobile ad. Click on the Keywords tab. Next to “+ Add keywords:” there is a link to the Keyword tool. Click it.
link-to-mkwt

This should look pretty familiar to you. We’re now at the Google Keyword Tool! I know what you’re thinking. “Joe, you made me do all of that when I could have just Googled “Google Keyword Tool” and been done with this? I hate you and your entire family.” Look up in the upper right corner. You’ll notice that your mobile ad is there. That’s a little different, now isn’t it? And if you read the text before the tool input, it says that the results are geared towards mobile searches.

google-mobile-keyword-tool
Go ahead and use the keyword tool as you normally would, but check it out: the search volumes and cost per click data are associated with mobile and not with standard search.

When you clicked on that link back to the Keyword Tool back at the ad group level, something magical happened. Google looked at the oldest ad in you ad group, saw that it was a mobile ad, and is now giving you data that is all about mobile. If you accessed the tool any other way, you would get the standard search data.

I know it’s a lot of work to reach, but the Google Mobile Keyword Tool is a great gadget to help you determine if mobile search should be the next step in your marketing plan.

Thanks for the image goes to salomonrbc via Flickr.

Filed Under: Featured, Mobile Tagged With: google, keyphrase research, Mobile
April 17, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Google Team Advice

Our Google Team, from the Boston office, came for a visit today.  It is always nice to put faces to those voices that you hear every week.  It is also invigorating to have them throwing ideas our way and really being able to brainstorm for clients and an overall strategy.  Plus, they came bearing gifts!  We were each given a Google apron and a Google cookbook.  I’ll have to test out some of these recipes and let you know how they are.

The main thing they were interested in discussing was the Google Content Network.  This is their big selling point currently.  It has evolved into a more dynamic system and they are constantly learning how to master it.  The way they recommend structuring campaigns and ad groups have changed over the last year, now lauding the advantages of separating the Content and Search network campaigns; doing so helps to better monitor and manage the two networks individually, as they are two very different animals.

You may have different budgets in mind for these strategies, and the bidding is easier to manage this way.  In Search, Google recommend using up to 50 keywords in an ad group.  In Content, however, they once recommended throwing upwards of 40 keywords into a Content campaign ad group, but things have changed as they become more knowledgeable and perform more tests.  They now recommend using only 5-10 keywords.  These keywords are going to be broader than keywords you would be willing to use within the Search network since Content terms define campaign themes and subjects where the audience may be browsing.

The ads you want to use for Content may be very different than those used for Search also, because you are potentially reaching an audience at a different time in the buying cycle.  You may want to show a different message to this audience.  If you are using display ads, it is also helpful to create a separate campaign once again for these.  The bids are often times more expensive than those for text ads in the Content network.  This is because of the placement that you should be aiming for with display ads.

In the end, we learned of some new ideas and new ventures, but the main point remained the same: Content is going places and we need to keep up.

Filed Under: Featured, Paid Search, SageRock Tagged With: content network, google, Paid Search, Pay per click, ppc, SageRock