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Google Adwords making Quality Score improvements

Ads - Pay-Per-Click, Google, Marketing, Search / By /

According to a post yesterday in Inside Adwords, Google’s official blog about Adwords, “changes will take effect in all advertisers’ accounts over the next few days.”

They list three main improvements to Quality Score:

  • Quality Score is now more accurate — because it is calculated at the time of each search query
  • Keywords are no longer marked ‘inactive for search’ — all keywords are active because they are evaluated for every relevant query
  • ‘First page bid estimates’ replace ‘minimum bids’ in your account — providing a more actionable and useful metric to advertisers

You may read a detailed explanation by reading their “Google Adwords making Quality Score improvements to go live in coming days” post.

My first thoughts are:

I’ll remain from Missouri on their first listed change. We’ll see.

The ‘inactive for search’ change will help most people, but especially advertisers with smaller budgets that have unique products and search terms. While the search volume may be low on some terms, the return is not necessarily so.

Replacing ‘minimum bids’ with ‘First page bid estimates’ more clearly reflects the metric, and is an improvement. Though, as most often the case, Google is encouraging higher bids with this. That is not necessarily bad, just shouldn’t be constued as an altruistic change.

Bottom-line is that almost everyone can benefit from a Google Adwords campaign, and this makes Adwords a little better.

Google – Get Local, Get Traffic Quickly

Google, Google Maps, Marketing, Search, SEO / By /

If you are using Google Maps Local Business Center, you can stop reading. If you are not using Google Maps Local, and your potential customer’s search terms include the name of the city, town, villiage, state, or geographical description of where your business is located, keep reading.

Often, searchers narrow their search results by adding one or more location-specific terms to their search. For example, the search term, “auto dealer lancaster wi” yields the following.

SERP for auto dealer lancaster wi

Who benefits? You get more visibility. The user gets more relevant results with less work. Win, win! Obviously, if you are in a rural area, there normally will be less competition. Consequently, rural business will generally have even better visibility. Even if you don’t get the click that time, it is still branding, branding, branding.

The position of where Google displays the map and listings varies from query to query. Sometimes, you’ll find it directly below one or more “Sponsored Links.” Other times there may be two or three organic listings above it. Or, there may be a video link above or below the Local business results.

So, how do you get listed? It is easy. You may already be listed. Google pulls your address and other information from public data. If you search for your business, and click on the “Directions and More” link. (see example above), you find more info and you will notice an “Edit” link. In the bubble on the map, you will see “Are you the owner?” and a “Claim your business” link.  You’ll need a Google Account, which many of you have. If you don’t have one, you can sign up and follow the instructions here. Note: The street address you enter will be shown in the Google Maps search results.

So, why should you use Google Maps Local?

  1. It gets results.
  2. It is free.
  3. It is easy to use.
  4. Oh, yes. It just plain gets results.

The bottom line is, you get a highly-visible link that most users will notice and click on before they click on Adword advertisements or organic listings.

Bonus Thought: You can safely bet that Google will continue to very aggressively push Google Maps and related advertising in the mobile hand-device market.

Don’t wait. Get Local, and Get Traffic Quickly!

I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed

Google, Search, SEO / By /

How many of these emails have your received, with promises of #1 rankings, yada, yada, yada? Surprisingly, even Google gets them.

In Google’s Webmaster Help Center, they say, “Amazingly, we get these spam emails too.”

“Dear google.com,
I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories…”

We get them, and frequently some of our clients forward them to us, asking what we think of the offers, and why don’t we, “offer the same guarantees.” We don’t because no one can do so honestly. But, don’t take it from me. I am happy to concur with, and tell you, what Google writes about them.

Google says you should, “reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for ‘burn fat at night’ diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.”

Those of you who have the need or desire to peruse Google’s Webmaster Help Center, likely know all of this. For rest of you, here is a list of the headings in one article.

  • Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue.
  • No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.
  • Be careful if a company is secretive or won’t clearly explain what they intend to do.
  • You should never have to link to an SEO.
  • Some SEOs may try to sell you the ability to type keywords directly into the browser address bar.
  • Choose wisely.

The bottom-line is, people or companies you can trust don’t send out unsolicited email promising the Holy Grail.

As Google says, “chose wisely.” The fact that you are reading this means you have chosen, or are close to choosing, wisely.

Thanks for your time!

Read more on Google’s Webmaster Help Center.

Landing pages – not just for Pay-Per-Click

Ads - Pay-Per-Click, Google, Marketing, Search, SEO, Web Design / By /

So, what is a “Landing Page,” and when and why do you need them? Well, practically all of your pages are, or should be, landing pages. Those of you with PPC campaigns should already understand the importance of landing pages. All of your pages that have been indexed by Google and other search engines are defacto landing pages for search terms that are on your pages.

PPC landing pages should be about a specific topic, product, item or event you want to promote or sell. Putting multiple topics, products, items or events on a page will most assuredly not serve you well for PPC landing pages. Nor will they serve you well in organic (so-called free) search results. Your content should be page-specific to compete well (obviously, there are many other factors as well) in organic search results. Talking about more than one thing on a page dilutes the value as far as search engines are concerned.

The point is you should pay careful attention to creating any of your pages. Always follow Google’s guidelines for creating content. The essence of their most important guidelines is as follows:

  • Write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.
  • Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your page actually includes those words within it.
  • Make pages for visitors, not for search engines. (A useful test is to ask, “Does this help my visitors? Would I do this if search engines did not exist?”)

Treat all your pages as potential landing pages, and you won’t have to write one specifically for your next Google Adwords campaign. Just choose one that already exists on your site.

Good landing pages will help you meet your objectives and exceed your goals.

URL, URL, everywhere URL

Marketing / By /

Recently I saw a newspaper ad placed by one of our clients, and I noticed they had not included the URL (some people spell it out, others of us say, “Earl”) for their web site. I called and reminded them that they should always include their URL in ads, and practically everywhere else.

It reminded me of an experience I had a couple of years ago at a Wisconsin Economic Development Association conference I was attending. I was visiting with a group of WEDA members, and a gentleman walked up, looked at me and said, “URL, URL, everywhere URL.” I couldn’t help but smile. Five years earlier, I had given a presentation for members of the Association of University Related Research Parks (AURRP) on marketing their respective web sites. I talked about several strategies, including optimizing their web sites for Search Engines. The only PPC player was goto.com, the predecessor to Overture, now known as Yahoo Sponsored Search. And Google Adwords was only a rumor. I told them that everywhere your logo goes, your URL should go as well. If you have a fleet of vehicles, it should go on the doors, or as a decal in the back window. Use it on your letter head, business cards, email signature, bill boards, signs, water towers, and every ad (including radio and TV) you place.

I finished that presentation by telling the audience if they only remembered one thing from my talk, it should be “URL, URL, everywhere URL.”

It was true over seven years ago, and it is true today. When you think advertising, think, “URL, URL, everywhere URL.”