10 MUST HAVE Google Adwords Features from 2010 You Should be Using in 2011
For PPC management, 2010 brought forth a whole host of new Google Adword features. These new tools and reports allowed savvy paid search advertisers deliver stellar performance in their campaigns. With the overall goal to improve ad conversions and increase sales, while generating detailed data for evaluating performance.
The new features are also packed with other great benefits. With this latest innovative creation, an ad’s overall return on investment (ROI) can be maximized, while keeping the cost per click (CPC) as low as possible. With that being said, here are the top 10 must-have Google Adword features from 2010 every PPC advertiser must use in 2011: Read More
What is the Blue Arrow on Google Search Results: Keyboard Nav
Have you noticed the new blue arrow on Google SERPs yet? It apparently is a new accessibility feature for keyboard navigation from Google Instant search results.
Does Google Instant Render SEO Dead? – 10 Reasons For and Against
As you may know already, Google unveiled a huge change to its search user interface called Google Instant on the 8th September. Google Instant aims to speed up a users search experience by loading search results as users type their queries. Google instant is certainly a game changer in the SEM world and so every SEO and PPC expert has an opinion on its long term effect in the search marketing scene. Here are 10 articles (each) for and against the impact Google Instant would have on not only SEO but PPC… Read More
Modified Broad Match now Available in All AdWords Accounts
Google officially announced the global launch of their much awaited modified broad match modifier via their AdWords blog. They had been undergoing a test rollout both in the UK and Canada since May but July 14th marked it’s global rollout. According to Google:
The broad match modifier is a new AdWords targeting feature that lets you create keywords which have greater reach than phrase match and more control than broad match. Adding modified broad match keywords to your campaign can help you get more clicks and conversions at an attractive ROI, especially if you mainly use exact and phrase match keywords today.
How Modified Broad Match Works
If you had two keywords under normal broad match, say:
mobile phones
You would typically attract clicks from searches related to ‘mobiles phones’ that may also include variations such as synonyms and misspellings. So ‘mobile phones’ under broad match may attract keywords:
- cell phones,
- cellular phone deals
- vodafone mobile contracts
- mobile phone plans
- iphone hacks
- free mobile phones
- mobile phone contracts
- 3g mobile phones
- pink mobile phones
The trouble with broad match is that it typically can get out of control by attracting irrelevant search traffic. The only way to taper irrelevancy is to constantly build and improve an extensive list of negative keywords.
Under broad modified, you can actually ‘fix’ a single keyword as constant in a key phrase you bid for. This constant *must* be present in all searches your broad modified keyword attracts. Let me illustrate. Say you bid for the broad modified key phrase (To implement the modifier, just include a plus symbol (+) directly in front of one or more words** in a broad match keyword.):
mobile +phones
This would attract searches with the keyphrase ‘phones’ present or close variations such as misspellings, singular/plural forms, abbreviations and acronyms, and stemmings (like “drive” and “driving”) BUT not synonyms as normal broad match would return. So the above key phrase would attract searches for:
- mobile phone (singular/plural)
- mobile pohne (misspelling)
- cell phone
- cell phones
- cell phnoes (misspelling)
notice ‘phone’ is the constant.
This modified key phrase:
+mobile +phones
Would attract searches for:
- moblie phones (misspelling)
- mobiles phone (singular/plural)
- mob phones (abbreviations)
- mobile phones
- mobile phone
Again the constants here are keywords ‘mobile’ & ‘phones’ – so its offers a much wider reach than phrase match and more control than normal broad match.
It is a very interesting add-on to AdWords and is bound to improve conversion rates if implemented properly.
We have already implemented it on all our clients’ AdWords accounts and are seeing positive results already.
Watch this space….
Measuring Conversions and Setting Up Funnels on Google Analytics
It is so vital to set goals on your website, to track the effectiveness of all your online marketing efforts & campaigns. This 60 second video sheds more light on Google Analytic’s funnel visualisation report – which shows each step you have defined as part of your conversion process. It is particularly very useful for tracking shopping cart abandonment rates on eCommerce sites.
SEO Hierarchy of Needs
I can’t remember where I stumbled on this diagram but I just found it in one of my archives. It pretty much sums up the SEO process for a new website or redesigned site from start to finish. Starting from Keyword research for content development, then matching your keyword research to the actual site architecture and other on page elements like title, header, and meta description tags. You can’t escape from good usability and web design when it comes to SEO – pages need to load fast, breadcrumb navigation is a given and good website design also improves the average time visitors stay on your site (Google apparently takes note of this). Finally link building is the crown jewel of SEO. We need to continuously build quality inbound links to improve our search rankings and authority….so here you go voila
Track Exact Match AdWords Keywords in Google Analytics and More…
Over the next couple of weeks, Google will be rolling out a new AdWord reporting section in its analytics package – Google Analytics. It’s intention is to give advertisers more insight into user actions after their AdWords ads have been clicked. In order to fully access the new AdWords reports, your AdWords and Google Analytics accounts must be linked with destination URL auto-tagging enabled in AdWords.
The new reporting feature I’m most looking forward to using is direct access to exact match keywords in Google analytics. Google currently does not share exact match keyword date on Google Analytics (requires a hack to access exact match keywords).
There are also single click common reporting queries in the overview section that automatically generates reports (see image below):
These reports are meant to answer questions marketing experts and site owners ask about:
- Site Usage
- Goal Tracking and Conversions
- AdWords Clicks
- eCommerce activity and
- Revenue metric ROI i.e. revenue per click
All this data would be available in a drill down mode familiar to AdWords users:
Campaign > AdGroups > Keywords
The new analytics reports would also be able to show data by AdWords dimensions at the campaign, adgroup or keyword level like: Match Type, Ad Content (your text ad title), Ad Distribution Network, matched search query, Placement domain, Placement URL, Ad Format, Targeting Type, Display URL, Destination URL and more (see image below):
These new insights on AdWords campaigns in Google Analytics reinforces the need for AdWords experts to have a deep understanding of Google Analytics to manage their campaigns effectively.
How to Use the Thesaurus to Kick Start Your Keyword Research
Thesaurus’ came in very handy when I was essay writing in Uni and are still very relevant to me as a search marketing professional today. The thesaurus is my number 1 keyword research tool and the perfect resource for finding synonyms or related keywords. The beauty of using a thesaurus is that a bulk of keyword research has been done for you by thesaurus publishers. My favourite online thesaurus site is Thesaurus.com. Visual Thesaurus is also a handy tool if you are after a visual representation of keyword relationships (but it requires an annual subscription of about $20). I’d rather keep things simple by sticking with Thesaurus.com. Better still, thesaurus.com used in combination with the AdWords Keyword Tool is a clincher for your keyword research efforts.
How to Use Thesaurus.com and AdWords Keyword Tool
Type in your keyword in Thesaurus.com (in this example I typed in “architect”) – it should generate a list of results
Copy the URL- I copied ”http://thesaurus.com/browse/architect” for this example
Go the AdWords Keyword Tool – then copy and paste the thesaursus URL in the website text field.
AdWords Keyword tool crawls the specific page on thesaurus.com and returns even more keyword results
This not only helps you leverage two very powerful keyword tools at the same time but also ensures that no stones are left unturned over the course of your keyword research.
Real Time Search Looks Impressive
Google finally unveiled its real-time search results today and I have to say that it is so darn impressive I’m blogging about it. So what is real-time search? Well, according to Google:
Now, immediately after conducting a search, you can see live updates from people on popular sites like Twitter and FriendFeed, as well as headlines from news and blog posts published just seconds before. When they are relevant, we’ll rank these latest results to show the freshest information right on the search results page.
Google real-time search does exactly what it says on the can by returning some really impressive real time results from a variety of news sites, blogs and social media sites like Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, MySpace and Identi.ca (although Facebook and MySpace updates are yet to implemented).
Apart from its highly accurate real time relevancy, the real appeal of Google’s real time search results to me is the natural flowing integration it has with Google’s other static search results.
Bert & Ernie on Google – Priceless
I’m not sure if you’ve seen this but my fav Sesame Street characters – Bert and Ernie are on today’s Google home page. I know it might be a bit of a mundane topic to blog about but I absolutely love them and appreciate the impact Sesame Street had on my education earlier on in my life that later gave me an edge in life. Happy 40th Birthday Sesame Street.
