Trying Find the Right Keyword Matches in AdWords
I really think that Brad Geddes and David Szetela hammered the point of keyword matching the best on their PPC Rockstars installment on April 12th, PPC Advice for Small Advertisers. Geddes talked about the importance of phrase and exact matching when starting out in an AdWords campaign, particularly if you are managing a campaign for the first time. I totally agree. Forever ago when I start my first AdWords campaign, I took for granted the keywords that I wanted to target, and went after then. I thought that all searchers identified the services we were offering searched how I did, or how I perceived them to search. Yes, I was wrong. Thankfully, now that I co-run a search marketing firm, I don’t make those mistakes anymore.
Phrase matching and exact matching in AdWords are a must to learn if you are to run a campaign. For reading on the differences between broad, phrase, and exact keyword match types, go to the AdWords help section on keyword matching. Often times, trying to find right keyword mixes within these match types is the key to getting quality traffic. And while you want to use phrase matching - sometimes it is hard to tell what variations on a phrase to get traffic. You may find that impression levels are low on the exact or phrase match you have selected. What if you are missing impression share?
Enter the See Search Terms tab in AdWords. I present the following example to demonstrate. Say we start an ad group with broad matched keywords, such as “paving company”. Keep in mind, that your ad could now show for “asphalt service”, “blacktop”, and “tar for my driveway”. Now, in terms of writing an effective ad, it is hard to create an ad that incorporates these keywords into it, and still maintains strong click through rate. Meanwhile, you are monitoring the keyword both at the campaign level and at the Google Analytics level, you are just seeing the performance of the keyword as “paving company”. See the problem? You are not getting a full view of how potential customers are searching for your services.
Now, to see the actual search terms that users are clicking on for your keyword “paving company”, check keyword, and then select “See Search Terms” column. You will now see good list of actual key phrases in which your ad was triggered. Seeing this list hopefully gives you intelligence on how potential customers are searching, and how your ad is performing. Most importantly, it should provide guidance on what ad groups to start so that you may write more tailored, keyword-saturated search ads. It should also trigger some ideas on keyword matching. You may now see enough data to start a new ad group that is centered on the keyword and search ads for “asphalt company”. Or, you may decide that is will be effective to place a phrase match on “paving company”, so that you ensure that your ads will be effectively targeted, and you will still show up for “lansing paving company”, while avoiding getting ads triggered for partially related terms.
To conclude, keep in mind that when you are viewing your keyword reports, users are not just searching in neat and tidy phrases. It is important to keep track of the exact phrases and variations that your ads are showing for, and the See Search Terms tab is a very helpful tool in deciding your match types for AdWords.
Local Optimization-What Does It Mean for Lansing SEO?
I have posted a few examples in my poor, sporadically used and lonely blog (especially compared to my partner Adam Henige, who is a blog machine) about the importance of localized search results. I believe it will be an important and ever growing role for businesses as they market on the web. As Google looks to increase value for users, it is seeking to create geographically relevant search results for searchers.
I have discussed using the Local Business Center. But I have not gotten around to discussing some new features in the Local tool which was launched a few months ago - the Local Business Center Dashboard. The business center is now providing information on your company’s total impressions, and actions taken. On the impressions side, you can view the keywords in which you appeared, a la Google Webmaster Tools.
For example, for Netvantage Marketing in the last month, I can see that our local listing appeared for:
- Netvantage Marketing
- Netvantage east lansing
- East Lansing web marketing
- Lansing SEO
- marketing consulting (which is more of an accidental listing for us)
As importantly in the dashboard, we can see the actions taken on the listing - with a neat breakdown of:
- Those who went on to visit your website
- Got driving directions to your business
- Gained more info about your business on Google Maps
So when Lansing businesses are figuring our their SEO tactics for the web, again, don’t discard the Local Business Center. It has also provided great free advertising, and now, it provides solid reporting to back it up.
Netvantage in the News
We have experienced a tremendous amount of exposure in the news right out of the gate in the New Year. First, I was quoted in a story on Liquid Web, our awesome web hosting provider, in the Lansing State Journal, which can be found here.
On Monday when we launched the Lansing Web Awards, a fantastic contest that Adam dreamed up, we were fortunate to be featured on WLNS TV 6 news in the 6:00 newscast. That short story can be seen here.
And today, I was interviewed on 1320 WILS AM speaking about each award winner and the different characteristics of their respective websites. This interview can be heard here.
All things considered, we are very excited about all of the publicity Netvantage has been receiving, I hope this is a sign of things to come in 2010!
UPDATE: Also - catch our article in the Greater Lansing Business Monthly with our friend Web Ascender.
Netvantage Ranked in Top 50 Pay Per Click Companies List
We discovered today that we are ranked 34th in the Top 50 Pay Per Click companies according to topseos.com, whom describe themselves as an independent authority. The full list is available here. I must say we are a bit surprised by this ranking, and honored. I do notice a few other prominent search marketing Michigan firms that are not on the list, so I am a bit surprised/mildly concerned about the actual list. I also do not see David Szetela and Clix Marketing, who I know are tops in our industry, which also makes me wonder.
However, good PR is good PR, and we will certainly take it. We do strive to develop and maintain strong returning campaigns for our clients, using base principles rooted in strong click through rate, testing, and pay strict attention to our clients’ PPC budget needs. Hopefully this good news is a sign of even more great things to come for Netvantage in 2010!!
A Follow Up To My Fulfilling Life In Michigan
Kate Tykocki is one of dozens dedicated and talented people that are really striving and pushing for a different way of life in Michigan. Her essay - “My Fulfilling Life in Michigan” gained a lot of positive attention in the social media space, http://ow.ly/HfVG. It is truly a great piece on her thoughts on staying in MIchigan, and all of the positive and fulfilling benefits she enjoys, coupled with her fears of what lies ahead for the great lakes state.
Upon reading, I felt compelled to jot down some more the same in support of her notion, and to add to the benefits she brought up. Now, keep in mind, that Kate and I have only some of the same traits, and interests. I don’t play kickball. I don’t like theater. I don’t work in the public sector. I live a great and fulfilling life here in Michigan for different reasons. My perspective is a bit different because unlike Kate, I am NOT from Michigan. I am from Upstate New York. I moved in in 1995 to attend Michigan State University, and I have not left Michigan, now in my early thirties. I too live a fulfilling life in Michigan for many, many reasons. Here are a few.
1. Ability to work in a technologically advanced company that myself and partner started in 2008 in which we were able to keep our overhead/rent/labor/startup costs low. Our cost advantage has been passed down to our consulting fees which has helped us win projects.
2. Promixity to world class education institutions which lend us research knowledge, a talent pipeline, and many amenities which are taken for granted such as the the Wharton Center, the Breslin Center, and the Kresge Art Museum.
3. Cost of property. While this has been a bit of a hindrance as I tried to re-sell one of my homes, myself and my family truly lived “the American Dream”, and moved up with a two acre ranch house in the country with no neighbors for the less the cost of a 1 bedroom condo in any major city, plus we were able to buy quaint cabin on a trout stream on 4 acres in the UP.
4. I love the outdoors. In minutes, I can be deer hunting. In a matter of two hours, I can be on world class trout stream. Or on a sandy beach with safe water. And in only a few more hours, I can be in the most beautiful places in the world, the Upper Peninsula, with a pristine beauty that is unmatched. And to get there, I will fight minimal traffic. I used to go to NYC, my brother lives in Jersey, trust me on this. On our way to a wedding in Marquette, my wife was driving and I was working on my laptop with a wireless card for one of our California clients. For a break, my family stopped at a road side beach park in the UP on the top of Lake Michigan. We got out and played in the clear, pristine water, awesome sand in our feet. The sky was crystal blue and smog free. Got back in the car, dried off, and I jumped back online. That is mixing work and play in a global setting folks.
5. Or, I can go the other way catch a Tiger game in downtown Detroit, and go to a high end restaurant in Royal Oak, catch a Robin Williams show at the Wharton Center, or go visit the Meijer Gardens.
This is not intended to a be Utopian blog post about Michigan. It is ugly out there. Cuts to education scare me. Our unemployment scares me. However, the work that Kate and others in the creative class circles do needs to be spread. We are going to get there. There is going to be a breakthrough. Not because of us waiting for it, but because we will create it. As we know, the world, and Michigan, is comprised of 90% of people that things happen to, and 10% of people that makes things happen. I am going to be part of the 10%, and so is Kate, and hundreds of other leaders.
This is the greatest state. There is diversity, there is people, there is will. And I do think its changing, and changing in the right direction. And i am thrilled to be a part of it.
Two Methods to Help Decide Between Organic SEO and Paid Search
As we have covered in the past, there are many differences between organic search engine optimization and paid search marketing. Many small and medium sized businesses that are new to the platform of search marketing have the dilemma of using both mediums, or choosing between. The question came up during my most recent speaking engagement. I am going to offer two quick criteria points based on my experiences that you may be able to use in your decisions.
1. What is your target audience? If you are serving a local market, you may want to target your keywords and then leverage the geo-targeting advantages that pay per click marketing offers. You can use this to serve ads on search engine result pages defined across very specific geographic areas. For organic SEO, this can be tricky, especially in the area of on page optimization. If you have to focus on queries like “book store in Lansing”, it takes some very good attention to detail in your meta titling, and body content. By contrast, in paid search we can focus on broader keyword variations but define what geographic locations you want your ads to be served in, and not be concerned with being burdened by geographic keyword orientation in the content and code on your site.
2. Conduct a quick benchmarking study using the free Rank Checker from SEO Book, and you can see what keywords your site is ranking out for. If you have some that are ranking out within the top two pages, perhaps this is a good window of opportunity to focus on SEO and gain first page, and consequent top three rankings. If keywords that are important to you are ranked out very low, like 86th, or not ranked at all, it may be time for paid search. The reason being is that even if you aggressively focus on SEO, you are probably 3-6 months away from seeing rankings, and an even greater amount of time away from seeing quality traffic from those rankings. To get quality traffic - may be time to deploy a paid search campaign.
And finally, it is can be a good idea to test both mediums. If you are committing resources to both tactics, often times there can be intelligence gathered from each to help the other. (Note: sometimes this is not the case as paid traffic can behave much more differently than organic traffic depending on your sector) For example, you may deploy a paid search test over a month’s period, and from this use Google Analytics to evaluate which keywords deliver higher performing traffic.
Remember, aside from your overall conversion goals, pay attention to metrics per keyword such as bounce rate, average time on site, and pages per visit. (To view this, go to Traffic Sources>Keywords) If you are using Google AdWords, you can link up your campaign directly to Google Analytics by going to the Reporting tab>Google Analytics drop down option to initiate the link. Using this data in a short term test, you can evaluate what keywords tend to deliver higher levels of quality traffic. Developing those clusters of keywords, you are now armed with keyword research in which to embark on your longer term SEO strategy of optimizing on site for those keywords. Again, I will caution that in some sectors, paid traffic will behave much more differently than organic search traffic, but it is worth the test.
Hope this helps as you try to decide where to commit your search marketing time, resources, and budgets.
The Potential of AdWords Managed Placements
If you are looking at venturing into the realm of online advertising, you probably have had discussions with account managers at an online newspaper - like the Lansing State Journal - or perhaps at a broader network level like a Vibrant, which has large content market share. And if you are familiar with AdWords, you know that advertising on the content network is an option along with advertising on sponsored search engine marketing. And one of the options within advertising in the content network is a concept called “Managed Placements”.
Some background on ad placements, and the content network. In presentations and workshops that we conduct for those beginning AdWords, we immediately show them how to get into their campaign settings, and only select the search option. We always caution users to stay away from the content network due to the fact when enabled it can ramp up spending while attracting less than qualified traffic. Countless times I have looked at client accounts as we take them over to manage, and one of the major culprits for poor spending is the content network. For those of you that are completely unfamiliar with the content network - these are ads that are commonly found in an article, or a blog that you are reading, commonly marked by an Ads By Google label. (usual mis-targeted suspects involve how to get whiter teeth)
Now there are two options for advertising using placements - one in which your ads will be matched and placed on web content that Google feels are related to the keywords you are using in your ad group - and the other is called managed placements. Using automatic placements is a tricky process, and will be the subject of a blog post on for another day. Do not use automatic placements until you have a good understanding of it, and never, never use placements within the same ad group as a sponsored search campaign. They should always be separated. Again, another post coming soon.
Meanwhile, back to managed placements. Using this advertising platform allows you to hand choose where you want your placements to appear. Using the managed placement tool, you can sift through hundreds of websites to determine what is a good content match for your ads, and see what websites participate in the Google network. You can research by the following ways:
Enter in a specific URL to see if it is in the Google network, such as www.freep.com
Describe a topic: search engine marketing
Select from a pre-set list of Categories - ranging from Animals to Travel - with several sub categories
Select Demographics
As you browse the different research options, you are presented with a series of domains and sub domains to place your ads on. I always recommend that you preview the URL before you commit to advertising on it.
Think of advertising in this environment as you have been give free access to newspapers, article, blogs, jobsites across the Internet to advertise that have a strong match to what you are offering. Free impressions!! Well, it is free advertising, until of course someone clicks on your ad, and then hopefully you have targeted well and done your job.
When selecting, you have the options of evaluating average daily impressions a website receives, and types of ads allowed, with the options being textual, graphic, and video.
When embarking on this tactic, remember to place an emphasis on normal marketing tactics. Write at least 3 test ads per ad group so can gauge response. Be sure your Ad Delivery settings are at Rotate - (they are defaulted to Optimize) similar to what you would do in sponsored search. This will allow you to determine how ads are performing in enticing readers away from content and to your ad, while giving each ad a good chance to be served equally across your impressions.
And remember, response is not just clicks. It is measuring the traffic in Google analytics to get a feel for how the traffic is performing from each referring site. Like sponsored search, be watching your bounce rate, average time on site, pages per visit, and per referring site to get a feel for what is working and what is not.
In summary - the managed placements function in AdWords offers a strong opportunity to gain a high number of impressions across targeted sites. Keep your traditional advertising principles in place, and monitor it for a strong test as a another potential avenue to reach customers across the web.
If you would like to to learn more about this effective form of digital advertising, please give our office a call at 517.580.3752, or email me directly at jford@netvantagemarketing.com.
My Wish List of the New Google AdWords Interface
I have lost track of time because we have been so busy (awesome problem) at Netvantage, but about 2 months ago I began using the new interface in Google AdWords within our Client Center. I really have taken to it, and while there has been push back from many in our industry, I think does very well.
If you are unfamiliar with it, I recommend you check it out here,
However, within this new overhaul there some Christmas in July presents that I wish Google would put under the Netvantage tree. Here they are:
1. Copying. The new interface makes it very easy to copy ads and keywords across ad groups and campaigns. This very ideal. However, copying is not an option when creating a new ad group or campaign that may have similar characteristics. You must have established ads or keywords in an ad group or campaign before having the ability to select and copy within the drop down. Enabling this would make life a lot easier when creating similiar ad groups in a campaign that may have just slight tweaks in ad text or keyword variations.
2. Keyword and Ad Exporting. The new download feature is nice, but why, painfully, does it include all elements of an into one column. This is essentially useless for me to use. I know there are some excel tricks I can use with it, but it seems to me that the brillant people at Google could engineer a cleaner export of this data for usage. Especially since it is difficult to export data on keywords and ads to easily share with others, and in Reports the campaign must be active to generate relevant views.
3. Speed. Will this improve. I don’t know. As tweeted by one of the many AdWords gurus that I follow Rehan Z “I *want* to like the new AdWords interface, but it just isn’t happening. It’s the new Windows Vista.” I am assuming he is discussing the frequent error bugs, and speed. I am hoping this, unlike Vista, will get corrected over time. And to be fair, there is a lot of data to load. But speed to continues to be an issue when working intensely with campaign.
4. Placements. A few refinements within placements. First, a sort by exclusion category would be very helpful. If one has engaged the content network in a test, and wants to exclude some sites, it is hard to do a sort on those placements that have been excluded. Ditto for the ability to download and create a formal report on these, as the List URL function is too cumbersome.
Along these lines, being able to add previously excluded placements back into my active list is cumbersome and has poor usability. Simply, this should be listed as a check box column within the placements interface.
There will be more on this topic, but after two months of working with the new interface, this is my usability wishlist to improve the overall functionality of the program. Again, great job by Google, but it needs some minor tweaks to get to perfection.
Back to the exciting task of maximizing our clients’ advertising dollars….
Google Local Business Center Equals Free Advertising
While this post may be a bit of a old topic, it is still worth reviewing. The Google Local Business Center continues to strike me as a great way to gain free advertising in a Yellow Book fashion — without the ridiclous costs.
I was recently at a cousin’s graduation party in Dayton, Ohio and I was chatting with my Aunt and Uncle who have a woodworking business. He is a highly skilled woodworker who is capable of building about anyting beautiful. Kitchen cabinets, decks, sun porch remodeling, room renovations, you name it. He of course has noticed a downturn in business lately, to be understood. All of his business comes from referrals. He doesn’t have a website, but I already had the wheels spinning.
We jumped on Google and did some localized searches “lynchburg va kitchen remodeler”, “cabinet maker lynchburg”, and he was seeing all kinds of competitors, many of whom did not have a website. I went into our Netvantage account and added him within 5 minutes. Google called with the PIN, and it was verified. We did some quick searches, and there he was, for lynchburg kitchen remodeler.
The point of the story is that many local small businesses are still not taking advantage of the opportunities that Google is providing for free advertising, even if that business does not have a website. With even more opportunities such as the newly released dashboard, and the increased localization in Google search results without the geographic qualifier within the query - not being active with a local listing is the same is turning off your lights and closing your door to prospective customers. And in this economy I can’t think of too many businesses that can afford to do that.
Netvantage Marketing Upcoming Public Outings
Well, since I haven’t posted in a long time, I may as well break another rule of blogging and do some shameless self-promotion. We have a very busy next few weeks coming up at Netvantage Marketing.
Starting tomorrow, April 22nd, Adam Henige will be a co-emcee at the Central Michigan Chapter PRSA PACE Awards. Let’s hope he sticks to presenting and not trying to tell jokes.
I am moderating the IT Council’s 7 Technology Tips To Save You Money. Seven of some of the brightest IT professionals in Lansing will be presented 7 minute burst presentations on how businesses can use technology to save money. Topics are ranging from Unified Communications to Cloud Computing. The presentations are being offered after the Greater Lansing Business Monthly’s Strategic Business Luncheon. This event is on May 5th, at Eagle Eye Golf Club, luncheon starting at 11:30, and the IT presentation starting at 1:45.
Next up on the agenda will be myself and the infamous Adam Henige are presenting at the Lansing Rotary on May 8th. The purpose of our presentation will be the Impact of Google on Local Business. We will keep this very simple, and discuss advertising options for local, small to medium businesses now that the phone book is dead.
On May 13th, I will be presenting to the Capital Area Construction Council on a similiar topic, specifically focused how the Mid Michigan construction industry can leverage Google as an advertising tool. This is a quick, 5 minute presentation, and is in conjunction with 4 other “burst” presentation.
On May 14th, we are planning on having our 1 year anniversary celebration. We have been very fortunate to have been helped out by several people in the Lansing business community as we have launched Netvantage Marketing, and we are hoping to have a low-key cookout to host some of our partners.
So if you happen to attend any of these events that we are speaking or moderating, please be sure to say hello.
