Google Adwords Update for May 2015

Google Adwords Basic Concepts and Updates for May 2015

Google Adwords is Simple, Complex, and Always Changing. 

I had the pleasure of finally being able to attend a meeting of the Fort Bend Internet Marketing Group in May, 2015. Presenting to and meeting this talented group of mostly independent marketing professionals was inspiring and educational.

My presentation covered some basic principles and processes involved with Google Adwords, which can help target your market more efficiently and effectively. I also covered some basic overviews on search engine marketing and the lead generation power of search engine optimization. Google is always tweaking this powerful lead generation tool, and not always for the convenience or advantage of the Adwords account holder!

Meetup is a valuable resource. 

If you live in the Fort Bend County and Houston regions, you are welcome to attend this group. Just RSVP and let the organizers know you'll be there by using the Meet-up Group web tool.

 The Fort Bend Internet Marketing Group can be contacted at:
http://www.meetup.com/Fort-Bend-Internet-Marketing-Meetup-Group/

You can download a copy of the May 2015 Google Adwords presentation I gave to the group, on Google Docs:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5OYdawKrxwYSmtTc0dFTFNvWGM/view?usp=sharing

Negative is Still Positive with Google Adwords, and BING too.

Embrace Your Negative Side When Managing Paid Search Campaigns.

Five years ago I wrote a popular blog article on the use of negative keywords for Adwords, entitled Negative is Positive with Google Adwords.

Guess what? Negativity, in the form of negative search terms, is still a very useful tactic for refining your paid search campaigns, lowering your costs, and improving your conversions.

Both Adwords and BING provide easy-to-use tools to research and add negative terms to your campaigns and individual adword groups. Negative keyword search tactics are often ignored and underutilized, based upon my observations over the years... leading to large amounts of wasted effort and spending.

Negative is Positive with Paid Search

Why use Negative Search Terms?

Negative search terms help filter out people searching for things not relevant to your business.

One of the the challenges with paid search is that very different people may use identical or very similar search terms to access very different information and business solutions. Also called 'indirect search engine competitors', many bad things can happen to your search campaign if you find yourself inadvertently competing against indirect competitors.

For example, if your company sells 'brake shoe liners' to B-to-B industrial and mass transportation clients, your attempts to use paid search ads using search terms such as 'brake shoe' or 'shoe liner' may result in your ads competing against totally unrelated businesses selling 'shoes', 'brakes', 'liners', and variations of these keyword search terms. Not only will you pay more to be higher up in the rankings, but you may get clicks and 'leads' from confused or irrelevant visitors. You'll waste time, money, and harm your reputation as you attract 'garbage leads'.

Besides using more long-tail search terms, adding negative search terms will help cut back on the clutter and waste. If a potential searcher is looking for a search term which includes your negative keyword, your ad will not show. You just saved time, money, and reputation. Negative search terms to combat 'brake shoe liners' could include 'store', 'women's', 'sale', 'car', 'autoparts', etc. Your click through rate will climb, your quality score will climb, your conversion rate will climb, and more.

A well designed paid search campaign may, in fact, have more negative search terms than positive.

Google Adwords in particular has some great tools you can use to research both potential and actual search terms related to your keywords and your ads. You can actually review real Adwords search history for your adwords groups, select search terms which are not desirable, add and/or modify them to ensure there is no unintended problem with your positive search terms, and then load them as negative terms. You've just enhanced the performance of your campaigns.

One important word of advice regarding negative search terms... choose wisely, selectively, and sparingly. Try to keep to one-word negative keyword lists, as this will reduce the risk of accidentally filtering for good keywords. Better to use 'automobile' as negative term than 'automobile research', if your company conducts research for clients, for example.

Lessons Learned from Ten Years with Google Adwords

Revive Stagnant Paid Search Campaigns: Brian Geddes @ SMX West 2014

Brad Geddes is one of the acknowledged experts in paid search marketing. I've had the pleasure, and the competitive advantage, of taking his Google Adwords classes in the past. Brad Geddes's presentation "Breathing New Life Into A Tired Paid Search Campaign" at SMX West 2014 is worth a serious look and review, especially for those of us who have been running Adwords campaigns for years. In my case, for over 11 years. Paid Search is too effective for lead generation to be taken for granted, or allowed to wallow on extended auto-pilot mode!

Breathing New Life Into A Tired Paid Search Campaign from Search Marketing Expo - SMX

Paid Search Engine Marketing Organization Tips

With Paid Search Marketing Structure, it is always a good idea to Start at the Top.

If you want to start using Adwords and BING Ads, and are new to paid search marketing, take the high Earth orbital view first, and focus on the big picture. Also called PPC or pay-per-click, here are some useful paid search pointers I recommend you follow before you launch any new paid search campaign.

Paid Search Campaign Structure: 

How should the strategic campaign structure of your account be organized? Allow for future growth and diversification of large and niche campaigns as your targeting and  business grows. Name your campaigns logically, and related them to the target market, service or product. Logical organization of your campaigns will save confusion and frustration later on as you expand your paid search marketing efforts.

Think of your campaign structure as you would planning the future growth of a potentially large city, think about the big-scale organization first. Then drill-down to get the major 'neighborhoods' right. Only then should you be worried about where to put the 'streets' and 'parks'.

Once you have a good strategic understanding of how you want to organize your campaigns, determining sub-categories are next. In Google, these are called Adword Groups.

Adword Group Structure:

Adword groups are the actual niche mini-campaigns which reside in each of your higher-level Campaigns. These should be very focused. It is in the Adword group where you need to think carefully about:

Keywords - What keyword phrases do you want to trigger your ads. Are they sufficiently targeted using long-tail tactics to avoid wasted clicks or hyper-competitive search terms of only partial value to you? Do the keywords you've chosen for an Adword Group make sense together, or are they too broad? Can they be split into two more focused Groups?

Negative Keywords - What (single) keywords do you NOT want to trigger your ads? Negative search terms are extremely useful to help improve focus, lower costs, improve click-through-rates, and raise conversion rates.

Ad Content - What will the Ad say? Is it relevant to the market and keywords you have targeted? Are you running alternate ads to measure relative success? Avoid one-size-fits-all approaches.

Landing Pages - Your landing webpage must be absolutely targeted and customized to the intended audience and market niche. Don't send people to your homepage or some higher level webpage, you'll only frustrate your visitors and risk a low quality score from Google, resulting in lower click-through and conversion rates.

There are more factors to consider…. a lot more. But by getting these four fundamental paid search management principles well-designed and optimized in the beginning, the other many paid search tasks and factors needed for success become easier to manage and optimize.

Paid Search, (Google Adwords, BING Ads) run in a parallel universe to organic search engine marketing. I've been successfully and efficiently managing paid search campaigns for over 10 years now, with Adwords as my paid search top priority.

Lessons Learned from Ten Years with Google Adwords

10 Years Managing Google Adwords

Happy Anniversary Adwords! I've been using Google Adwords for 10 years. Adwords has supported me ever since with a never-ending stream of high quality leads and highly visible branding.

I opened my first Google Adwords account on April 4, 2003. I still manage that account and have added others. My knowledge, experience, and skills managing Adwords have grown, as Adwords itself has evolved over the years.

10 Great Years with
Google Adwords.

In those 10 years, this original account has generated over 3.8 million visits (clicks) for niche B-to-B technical and industrial service websites I manage and/or promote. This history includes Adwords campaigns in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, German, Arabic, Chinese, French, and other languages targeting over 30 nations.

Thanks to continuing education and hands-on use of Adwords, my click-through-rates and conversion rates are strong and continue to rise incrementally in a continuous improvement process. While nothing, and I mean nothing, can replace organic search ranking optimization for quality lead generation, the intelligent use of Adwords has been an indispensable weapon for my success with search engine marketing.

What I learned during 10 Years with Adwords:

• Get Adwords Educated:
  Nothing helps manage Adwords better than learning from experts and keeping up with the latest Adwords features and the latest strategies and tactics. Adwords education saves time, improves efficiency and effectiveness, allowing you to spend less money, reduce wasted efforts and increase quality lead generation and ROI. Keep up with the latest Adwords developments.
  Brian Geddes is a highly rated Adwords expert you should follow, and there are others. Search Engine Strategies (SES) and Search Marketing Expo (SMX) are perhaps the best big conference meetings to learn more about paid search marketing updates, tactics, and advice. The depth of knowledge shared can be amazing. PPC Hero is another paid search blog and newsletter service full of tips and tactics, and they sponsor a devoted all-pay-per-click search conference in the USA.
  Google offers extremely valuable Adwords 101, 201, 301 classes. Take these classes! Take the 301 class again after a few years, as Awords is constantly evolving.
• Control your spend in the face of rising pay-per-click costs:
  Take intelligent steps to manage spending limits with Google. When I started out in 2003, the CPC rate was very low, especially for long-tail search terms. My competitors were oblivious or ignorant of the lead generation and branding power of Adwords for many years, often leaving me a monopoly on key search terms. But between direct and indirect competitors 'waking up'  to coveted search terms and Google tweaking Adwords to force higher CPC rates, the general long term trend for CPC is going up, not down. 
• Budget:
  Google loves you. But Google loves your money even more. Adwords is extremely profitable, and it is the core source of Google's revenues. If you are too generous in your Adwords search settings and parameters, Google will find innovative ways to spend your budget down to the last penny. To reduce waste or bankruptcy, make sure budget settings are locked down, and monitor your spend. While click fraud is rarer these days, you should monitor for sudden trend changes and anomalies. I tend to avoid runnning Adwords in some countries specifically because I experience high click volumes of low quality.
• Campaign Structure:
  Organize and Structure your Adwords campaigns and groups logically and effectively.
• Ad Ranking:
  Being "Number One" in Adwords is not always an advantage. It can be expensive and wasteful, inviting many lower quality clicks. Targeting Rankings alone is not the best approach. What is your real goal: Conversions or Click Throughs? Do you already enjoy high organic search rankings? Then you can look at running ads ranked number 2, 3 or 4. Lower ranked ads will result in lower click throughs, but they will produce a higher quality click rate, attracting more motivated leads and enhancing conversion rates at a lower cost. The top right hand side of Google SERP results is a good position for an Ad.
  There is no simple answer to ad  placement. If the campaign has great filtering for where, when, and to whom, ads are shown, it becomes more cost-effective to target a number one ranking with less risk of wasted spend.
• Keyword Research:
  This may seem like common sense, but it is surprising how much opportunity is missed, or waste produced, from insufficient keyword research. Long-tail search takes work, experimentation and patience, but the results are well worth the effort. Keyword candidates can be found using the Google Keyword Tool, external resources like Wordtracker, your customers, your target markets, your employees, and other sources.
• Adwords Experimenting and Investigating:
  Running multiple ad versions to improve adword group performance is essential and will help improve your ad copy and performance.
  Want to conduct low cost market research? Using Adwords is a very cost-effective way to measure keywords related to potential market interest or popularity.
  Exploit your growing wealth of historical data in Adwords, it can be a true "Big Data" resource for trends and keyword data mining.
• Filter, Filter, Filter:
  With Adwords, less is more. Avoid the easy route of using just broad search terms... you'll get a lot of impressions and clicks, but most will be worthless. Take the time to add long-tail keyword terms, use the vocabulary of our target markets. Use negative search terms (really important). Use Geographic, Language, Device, and Time Zone options as needed. 
• Embrace Your Negative Side When Managing Paid Search Campaigns.
• Track, Track, Track:
  I can't imagine using Adwords without having the Conversion tracking enabled and working. CTR is a good indicator for ad popularity. Conversion Rates are a great indicator for quality. Separate your Display Ad Campaigns for better clarity. I keep my Display Ad Campaigns in a totally different account.
• Know Your Goals:
  What are important to you: Conversions? Visits? Impressions? CTR? Conversion Rate? CPC? Mastering an optimal blend of these factors is idea for lead generation and branding, while keeping to a reasonable budget. Managing Adwords successfully is essentially the equivalent of juggling. Everything is dynamic, fluid, and in motion. An important feature in Adwords is the ability to set your campaign settings to optimize for conversions or clicks. I find greater value from optimizing for conversions, but your goals may differ.

10 Ways to Increase Your PPC Click-Through Rates

10 Ways to Increase Your PPC Click-Through Rates Today - A webinar presentation from WordStream and Hanapin Marketing.

If you directly manage or supervise Paid Search Campaigns, like Google Adwords or Microsoft BING, this presentation on click through rates (CTR) is highly suggested.

We benefit from higher click through rates with more efficient campaigns, lower cost per acquisition (CPA) and higher conversion rates, if thoughtful targeting, organization & structure, keyword selection, negative search terms, and other campaign settings are used to better weed out non-relevant (wasted) clicks and spending.

Presented by Larry Kim (Founder, CTO of Wordstream), Sean Quadlin (Writer and account manager at PPC Hero & Hanapin Marketing), this presentation on "10 Ways to Increase Your PPC Click-Through Rates Today" is well worth watching and learning. You'll be inspired to improve the PPC CTRs for your own campaigns.

 

10 Ways to Increase Your PPC Click-Through Rates Today [WordStream and Hanapin Marketing Webinar] from Internet Marketing Software - WordStream

Google Adwords Scripts

Fred Vallaeys of Top Tier Marketing is a 10 year Google Adwords veteran, including Google's Adword Evangelist, before starting his own company. Fred's presentation at HEROPPC during the "Winning in a Hypercompetitive Market" session today was very informative, sharing how anyone managing Adwords accounts can use a useful tool provided free by Google Adwords to help make campaign adjustments and analysis easier and more automated.

Learn more about Google Adwords Scripts in this video from Google, "Go Bigger, Faster, with Adwords Scripts":



The Adwords Scripts video is nearly one hour long, and is deep on detail, so make sure you have some quality time to view it. You can also visit the Google Developers website to learn more: https://developers.google.com/adwords/scripts/.

Access and use complete Adword scripts from Google: https://developers.google.com/adwords/scripts/docs/examples/complete-scripts

Paid Search Marketing Wisdom @ SES San Francisco 2012

Pay Per Click Analytics Marketing Tips at SES San Francisco 2012

I attended as many PPC focused sessions at SESSF 2012 as I could. The presentation by Steve Latham and Crispin Sheridan was a motivating, and useful addition to the full day of PPC training I had earlier in the week. See Fun With Adwords @ SES San Francisco 2012 for more details on Monday's two 1/2 day classes devoted exclusively to PPC.

Paid Search Analytics and Multi-Touch Attribution Analysis
Moderator: Andrew Goodman, SES Advisory Board; President, Page Zero Media
Speakers:
Steve Latham, Founder and CEO, Encore Media Metrics
Crispin Sheridan, SES Advisory Board; Sr. Director Search Marketing Strategy, SAP

Make Adwords work smarter for you.

There were good strategic key points and take-aways in this informative session. Some suggestions may seem obvious to someone familar with Adwords, but these points go deep and require going beyond the routine.... using drill-down efforts to really benefit from gained knowledge and insight. These suggestions can have subtle and important implications in the success of your PPC campaigns.

A good rule of thumb is to never get complacent with your PPC campaigns. Ignorance is not bliss with PPC, it is merely just another way for Google to make more money off your Adwords account!

• Paid Search is much faster than any other marketing channels. Exploit this advantage.
• Paid Search provides a sense of urgency, on a constant basis.
• Paid Search provides a form of inexpensive market research. 
• Start your PPC campaigns with actions, then apply and study the analytics.
• PPC Factors and Measurements to look at:
  CPA (cost per action), ROAS (return on ad spend), CTR, Conversion Rates, Ad Quality Score, Match Type, Ad Text.
• Bid Management Tools can be useful. Try automated tools for routine work. Monitor!
• Inaccurate bids are some of the biggest costs in PPC today.
• The Quality Score is connected to search intent. A poor quality score score can be a warning of misguided notions about potential client behavior.

There are 7 suggested areas ripe for PPC Campaign Improvement:

1. CTR and Conversion:

• Ad Content makes a big difference. 
• Test your ads often. Don't rest. Try A B tests. Use Ad extensions. 
• Conversion Rates can be misleading if the volume is low. Don't assume!
• Understand and use setting filters and negative search terms.

2. CTR on Keywords:

• "Sculpt" your campaigns. Remove or move poor quality score keywords. Filter. Use negative search terms to weed out wasteful clicks. Focused keywords "tend" to perform better than broad search.
• Get the keywords closer in intent to your ads.
• Get more granular in your campaigns and ad groups.
• Conversion Rate is an important quality factor, but what if the search term is generating quality first time visitors who are researching, in discovery mode, and don't convert on the first click? It is very important to use analytical data to track actual behavior over time before slashing low conversion rate keywords.

3. Bad Segments:

• Are there differences between device behavior? PC versus Tablet versus Mobile? Apple versus PC?
• Are time zone settings, geography and language campaigns in need of dire attention?
• Adwords 'teems with waste' - - find and prune.

4. Attribution and Analytics:

• Try to understand how PPC works with your other marketing channels. Dig into Analytics for insight. The book Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics by Brian Cliftin is highly recommended.

5. Steady and Constant Account Adjustment and Expansion:

• Always look at adding new products, services, offerings. 
• Capture trends and opportunities before your competition have time to think about it or react.
• Target category leadership.
• Try using Display Ads, Geography and Language settings. 
• Never stop experimenting. 

6. Reshape your Adwords accounts to pursue 'high intent keywords'.

7. Be proactive. Less reactive.

• Over time, you'll be spending much more of your PPC time working on opportunities than fixing problems.

Fun With Adwords @ SES San Francisco 2012

Adwords Deep Dive.

I've just finished an intense full day of Adwords training: "Advanced Keyword Research & Management" and "Mastering the Google Display Network" at Search Engine Strategies in San Francisco, courtesy of ClickZ.

Search Engine Strategies 2012

Adwords is a complex system that is stuffed with a complex, diverse range of tools, data, and options which can be overlooked and under-utilized due to time restraints and/or a simple lack of awareness. These classes shed light on the array of options available in Adwords.
The ClickZ Adword classes today were focused, in-depth and extremely useful. Applying the techniques, tactics, strategies, technologies, analytics, lessons and options learned today can transform paid search campaigns.
Paid Search is a vital tool to help drive in business, quality leads, and market awareness. It should never replace organic search success, but PPC does a great job in  complementing it. Direct Search ads and Display Network ads are important tools in a proper search engine marketing kit. I've been using Adwords since 2003, but I'm not ashamed to say I learned quite a bit of useful information today!

Adword experts Bill Hunt and Joseph Kerschbaum put on the classes today:

Advanced Keyword Research & Management

Bill Hunt
SES Advisory Board; President, Back Azimuth Consulting @billhunt
Summary: 
Don't assume your search campaigns are 'optimized'. Most likely, they aren't. There is always room for improvement. Bill Hunt spent 4 hours showing how adword campaigns can be improved, even transformed.... and how lucrative new business opportunities can be discovered. Bill shows there is huge potential for improving your current campaigns.... generating more leads, more intelligently, and quite possibly at lower cost. It didn't matter if attendees were rookies or grizzled Adwords veterans, this was an extremely useful class. I recommend Bill's class to anyone touching an Adwords account.

Mastering the Google Display Network

Joseph Kerschbaum
Vice President, Clix Marketing @joekerschbaum
Summary:
Display Ads with Google have been evolving. Joseph shows that the lower expectations and poor perceptions of Display Ads from a few years ago is now unjustified. Joseph guided the class through the improvements and innovations in display options, tracking, exclusions, remarketing, etc. He also dived into tactics and strategies with Display Ads. Joseph makes it easy to understand that the 2012 Google Adwords Display Network is not your Father's old clunky Google Content Network. Thank God. Thanks to Joseph, a new appreciation for Google Display Ads is possible. Display Ads is a resource which should not be overlooked, nor under-managed. For anyone ready to take a serious look at Google Display Ads, Joseph provided an exceptionally informative and eye-opening class today.

My impression of today's events at SES:
There was so much valuable, useful information presented today by both gentlemen that it is impossible to provide an outline here without writing a small book - - in outline form. Based on the wealth of Adwords and Paid Search marketing information received today, I'm confident a rapid payback and positive ROI will quickly result from today's classes  - - even if only a few of the many ideas, tactics, and suggestions they presented are used.

Google Adwords Approaches Infinity

Adwords Account Limits now let's you add "3 Million Keywords" to your Account.

3 Million Keywords and Counting.....

I just read Google Adwords' "Account Limits" web-page and I'm impressed. Effectively, for most marketeers and reasonably sane people, Google has reached near-infinity in terms of options available.... moving beyond mere stars and galaxies and into big-bang cosmic dust clouds when it comes to how massive you want to make your Adword campaigns.

I've been successfully managing Adwords accounts and campaigns targeting global, regional, language, and niche markets and geographies since 2003. Adwords is an extremely effective way to generate leads, advertise, and brand your services and products. Paid Search (Adwords, Bing) is one of the major pillars of Search Engine Marketing, along with (of course) Organic Search Optimization.

Newly updated information on Adwords account limits is very impressive:

AdWords account limits:
These are the limits for an AdWords account:
10,000 campaigns
20,000 ad groups per campaign
5,000 keywords per ad group
4 million active or paused ads per account
3 million keywords per account
10,000 location targets
100,000 active ad extensions per account
1.3 million references to ad extensions

Google goes on to say "Most advertisers don't reach this limit". Indeed..... I hope they are right because managing such massive accounts effectively and efficiently would require a small army to run it, along with a huge spend budget. At least now you know you'll likely never run out of keyword, campaign and ad group options with Adwords!
Learn more at Adwords Account Limits.
Learn more about using negative search terms for positive effect: Negative is Positive with Google Adwords

SES Conference: Search Engine Strategies Live. Day One

I've just finished day one of Search Engine Marketing University..... an action-packed day at the SES Conference during CONNECTED Marketing Week. Today was a deep dive into search engine marketing and related areas. More tomorrow. Between the SEO and PPC presentation tracks it was a full and richly educational day. I had no time for the other tracks on Social Media, Accelerator and Kick Start topics. There is just too much to absorb, unless you send a team. I've never been able to attend an SES conference before due to timing and logistics.... finally did it, and I can say SES was well worth the wait. If you have to pick one mega-conference on Online Marketing, go to an SES Conference. You will learn literally hundreds of tactics, ideas, options and strategies to help make your marketing more effective and efficient. And there are two more days to go! 

SES Morning Session.

There were so many useful bits of expert knowledge broadcast to the large audiences today that I can only give you the briefest of outlines:


The Tools of the Trade for PPC:
Moderator: Kevin Lee, Co-Founder & Executive Chairman, Didit

• Speakers:
• Thomas Bindl, SES Advisory Board & Founder & CEO, Refined Labs GmbH
  Jeff Ferguson, CEO, Fang Digital
  Tim Mayer, Chief Strategy Officer, Trada

"Better ad targeting can save up to 30% in costs without losing conversions."
"Don't look at Search as a silo. Look across channels."
"PPC audit process - look at structure, creative, tracking."
"Utilize Negative search terms"
Try "Match Type" campaigns to further target.


The Tools of the Trade for SEO:

Google and Symantec Exhibit Booths at SES.

• Moderator:Rob Garner, Vice President Strategy, iCrossing
• Speakers:
  Bruce Clay, President, Bruce Clay, Inc.
  Jamie Smith, CEO, Engine Ready
• "First set your website priorities and KPIs."
• "Review of Keyword research tools, SEO tools, Paid Search tools." 
• "Visibility = Impression / Rank / Position"
• "Search marketing SERPs are changing, thanks to local search, instant search, etc."
• "Multichannel Analytics Beta available from Google. Ask your Google Rep about it."
• SEOToolSet Version 5 now out - - excellent presentation by Bruce Clay.
• "Social Media is emerging. Facebook has organic and PPC search sectors."
• "Search Engines enjoy higher conversion rates."
• "If you want to be in the top three organic search results, you better study the guys in those spots and BEAT them at their own game."
• Google and Links: "Trust Score getting more weight. Page Rank getting a bit less. All in an effort to reduce spam results."
• 
  
• Insider Tips to Ad Optimization:
• Moderator:Bryan Eisenberg, SES Advisory Board and NYTimes Bestselling Author, bryaneisenberg.com
• Speakers:
  Nicholas Gadacz, Director of Search, CafePress.com
  David Greenbaum, Founder and CEO, BoostCTR
  John Yi, Marketing API Program Manager, Facebook
• "Get a copy of 'Ad Magic' from your Google Rep."
• "Use a team of Ad writers for better results - - reduces the blind spots."
• "Test Test Test - - - CTR and Conversion"
• "Facebook is optimizing for 'word of mouth' - - we're only 1% finished!"
• "Facebook is about a 'Friend's voice', not a 'brand voice' in terms of influence.
• "Facebook will provide more metrics for advertisers, they're coming."
• "Use resources to find those WORDS that SELL."
• 
  
• Google Adwords Author, Expert and Trainer Brian Geddes was spotted during the morning sessions.
• Website SEO Expert and Author Matt Bailey was spotted at SES, and he hosted a table during lunch.
• 
  
• Crossing the Digital Divide: The Leap from Search to Display:
• Moderator: Chris Sukornyk, CEO, Chango, Inc.
• Speakers:
  Emily Iverson, Director of Display Media, Booyah Online Advertising
  Bill Leake, President and CEO, Apogee Search
• Yes, Display Ads do matter and they are going to play an even bigger role. And you can bid on them like Adwords. Search is "Pull" advertising. Display is "Push" advertising. You benefit from having both.
• DSPs are Display Side Platforms - - Services you can use to coordinate and bid on Display Ad space across many websites. Use only one DSP agency at a time or you'll bid against yourself.
  DSPs can be very cost effective compared to massive display campaigns negotiated with large sites like Yahoo, NYT, etc.
• "Use auction driven display ad options - be smart."
• The "Lift Factor"
  Search + Display Ads running: +119%
• Search Only: +82%
• Display Only: +16%
• "Google will be a winner in Display Ads."
• "Display + SEO + PPC = the biggest lift." Integrate them all.
• Display Ads are the best tool to fight market lack of awareness and low visibility challenges."
• "Exploit Google Trends for potential niche targeting and brand awareness."
  
  Here in one day, four sessions, is plenty to think about and act upon. And I'm not including the sessions I missed from the other simultaneous tracks.... SES is huge and offers a lot to absorb.

Promoting a new online business on a limited budget.

Getting leads and promoting your business with a limited ad budget.

So you're launching a new small online business, and you have limited promotional funds. Promotion is vital to your new business, because it leads to lead generation which leads to customers which leads to revenue and profits.

The Gift which keeps on Giving:
Search Engine Success will Drive Growth 24/7/365.

My advice is fairly simple, and it doesn't cost a lot of money... if you do it right... just some quality thinking, actions and some of your time.

1. Get Found on Organic Search Engine Results:

This means you need to rank on Google and BING and other search engines. Your website and webpages must be SEO friendly and content must be focused and relevant to your target market. If your business is local, then make sure your content references location. Sign up with Google for free local listings. Get quality websites to link to you if possible and avoid black-hat tactics. Then monitor results and keep trying if your pages are not showing up on page one search results for search terms you want. Benchmark against webpages that rank higher than yours, and make an effort to understand what needs to be done to raise your own page ranking. Organic Search success takes time and persistence but can yield huge rewards for your business. 

Target local search results for maximum success, especially if your business is targeting a geographic area like a city, county, or neighborhood.  

Cost: FREE (not including initial website development and content management costs)

2. Take Advantage of Social Media:
Social Media is evolving and growing quickly, and is another powerful tool... if used wisely. Social Media takes time and effort to make an impact. Understand your target market and gear your efforts to get their attention. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and others offer free ways to establish your brand and service. You can also run ads. Focus on getting these social media sites linked with your main website and blogs. Add social 'share' and 'follow' buttons on your web and blog pages. Then promote the sites and gain friends, contacts, follwers, etc. Patience is important with Social Media as progress can be slow and even random, but when you hit critical mass it will directly benefit your business. Go easy on propaganda and overt promotion or you'll lose your audience. You're enticing visitors to visit your business website, the sell should be professional and low-key.

Cost: Mostly Free

3. Blogs:
They are mini-websites and they are free, and they are powerful. They can easily rocket to high rankings in organic search if the topic and niche is focused. Create niche blogs that feed to your main website and each other. Each blog should be unique on the topics and subjects they cover... and ideally done in a professional  and neutral manner - - content should attract readers, and don't subject them to 'advertorials'. Cross-Link your main website to this 'solar system' of blogs which orbit your main site. 

Cost: FREE

4. Paid Search Ads:

OK, this is not free, but it can be very effective and cheap! Open up Google Adwords and BING paid search accounts. Focus on your key search terms and try them out in very focused campaigns and ad-groups. You can limit your daily spend, you have total control of your costs. You can limit the campaigns to specific locations - - geographical areas, even cities, and languages, time-zones, etc. Paid search can cost you just a dollar a day if you  want. But results are immediate and help fill gaps in your organic search results. Display ads on 3rd party websites broaden your ad reach by a large amount.... and your added costs can be just pennies a click. With Google, you will also get FREE access to Google Analytics, which when loaded on your main website can provide you great visitor tracking, search term research, understanding and insight into your website.

Cost: You Decide


5. Email:
Use of email to qualified and targeted individuals, when done professionally, can produce another stream of leads and business. To avoid spamming issues, it is important to follow best practices, including clear opt-in and opt-out options. Segment your email lists so that you can better tailor your emails. Always include links back to your website and/or blogs. Clean up your email lists on a regular basis. Use a professional 3rd party email provider to send out the emails, such as Constant Contact, to help look professional, avoid being banned as spam by IT managers at your targeted companies. Review your email campaign stats to improve openings and click-throughs. Produce, or have produced for you, professional looking emails and newsletters in .html format which can survive various email server filters and format compatibility issues. Avoid spam-like behavior at all costs.
Cost: Variable


These five tactics; organic search, social media, blogs, paid search, and email, can bring very lucrative results to even the smallest online business with the smallest marketing and promotional budget. If used together in one cohesive strategy, the positive impact on your business can dramatic.


Regards; Erik Holladay

Take Advantage of Google Adwords Local Search Features

Google has added some very useful campaign setting options for localized ad targeting. This can be effective for campaigns where you want only local leads. "Local" targeting can be as large as a country or state, or as small as a town or city.

I'm using both local and multinational campaigns (where appropriate, as I run global campaigns which target multiple countries), but one local search option that really caught my eye is the "Phone Extensions" feature in the "Ad Extensions" section of each Adwords campaign settings page.

With "Phone Extensions", you can add a 'click to call' feature for smart phone users. As more and more people use their smart phones for web browsing, our search engine marketing efforts need to be in synch with this trend.

Depending upon how your campaigns are set up (Country, State, City), Google allows you to list a local telephone number a visitor simply has to click on their smartphone to call you with a business leads.

Directions are straightforward:

1. Go to your Campaign Settings page.

2. Go to Ad Extensions   >   then go to Phone Extensions.

3. See "Display click-to-call phone number on iPhones and other mobile devices with full Internet browsers:"

Add Your Numeric Telephone Number Here.

Google allows only numeric number listings for now, no alpha 'vanity' alternatives allowed yet.
This works for me, as alpha phone listings can be irritating to the caller compared to simple numeric dialing.

I've just started to use this Phone Extension feature. It is best for targeted campaigns where one phone number can be listed. Like anything else with Adwords, it will take some time and experimentation to see if the new click-to-call helps bring in leads. I suspect it will.


Best Regards;

Erik Holladay

Managing Adwords Avoids Increasing PPC Cost

Many B2B Adwords managers suffer increasing costs of pay-per-click campaigns in order to "stay competitive". And every Adword veteran has treasured paid search-terms that were not only effective, but really cheap and cheerful a few years ago. Now, thanks to more competition for keywords on a global scale, these same search terms are becoming more and more expensive to run with high rankings.

But there are strategies which help avoid this PPC price trap...

During the last year, I didn't experience Adword PPC inflation, but rather PPC deflation.

My overall global campaign costs are reduced and campaign quality has increased:

1. Total Adword Spend down over 50%
2. Already low Cost per Conversion down over 50%
3. Cost per Click down over 25%

And by spending less and with more selectively I gained better quality:

1. An already high Conversion Rate jumped over 35% from the prior year.
2. With conservatively counted conversion rates of over 8%, 20% and higher.

To get these happy results, I focused on separating search-term wheat from the chaff, by going for more long-tail terms and exact and phrase match options which have relevance to my targeted customers, micro-managing time and location settings, using Adsense content ad filters heavily, and using google hegative search terms aggresively to help my campaigns stay focused on the markets I wanted, and where and when I wanted them. I was able to acheive this across campaigns, global geography and languages without using an outside consultant.

Simple Adword campaign changes can yield big results.

Ad Position:
Another great way to limit PPC costs is to focus on the number 3 or 4 or 5 ad positions. Why? 1 and 2 get more clicks, this is true, but they get many more casual clicks of lower quality. You pay more for less.

By being lower in rankings but high enough to get noticed you filter out casual clicks and attract more quality visitors from the core market you seek. You pay less for more.

Monitor Conversion Rates before Click-Through-Rates:
For B2B at least, getting conversions for the sales funnel is more useful for ROI than the initial clicks. Follow conversion rates closely. Click-through rates do offer guidance for potential keyword search term trimming, enhancement and improvement. But the Conversion Rate rules as a top priority for gauging your campaign quality, effectiveness and efficiency.

Trim, Filter and Block Search Term Options:
For example, if you were targeting "Engineering Services", which is very broad search term, back in 2003 it was cheap, but it's not now. The search term is hyper-competitive in Google Adwords. But instead of total surrender, or gritting your teeth and paying more and more in a never-ending price war spiral with your competition, get creative with long-tail search terms to help get around tough PPC situations like this.

Ask yourself; who are your real, paying, customers?

If your target is the Engineering Services for the Nuclear Cold Fusion Industry, for example, then you have options which will be cheaper to run and more effective. Try not using the high cost search term "Engineering Services", it is too broad and expensive. Try more focused search terms like "Cold Fusion Engineering" or "Cold Fusion Energy Engineering" or "Fusion Widget Engineering", etc. Google's Keyword Tool can help you discover related many terms as searched for in Google. Choose quality search terms over 'popular' ones. A search term may be very popular, but perhaps too broad and expensive to run an ad for. Going for long-tail search terms will usually be much less expensive than "Engineering Services".

Extremely important when using the Keyword tool is to also identify the -negative search terms you want listed. Using negative search terms reduces the chance your ad will show up for a search term that is not related to your product or service, thus helping avoid wasted clicks, which saves your campaign budget. For example, having a negative term set for "software" and "web" is a wise idea for any campaign going after "Cold Fusion Engineering" search terms! You don't want to be confused with a software company if your product is a service providing nuclear industry technical engineering expertise.

It is true that there will always be search terms that you absolutely want.... you along with 10 of your favorite cut-throat competitors. In those cases still try to find allied long-tail search terms and negative terms you can use...use the geography and time settings. These and other tactics will help you keep your PPC spend down.

In B2B marketing, there are thousands of technical and industry niche search terms which produce few clicks but yield high quality visitors and profits. It takes some time to research and implement these actions, but they will pay off in the end.

How to Promote Your Website On a Limited Budget

Earlier I focused on how to promote your website using free tactics and tools. Free was fun. Now we're looking at Paid Promotion... paying for great cost-effective results is fun. Paying for poor results is not fun at all, don't let that happen to you!

This follow-up blog will list effective tactics you should try when promoting your website and you have pending money... there are a many things you can do to promote your website, even on a limited budget! Careful planning can vastly increase a website's audience exposure and visitor rates with little additional investment.

1. Stationary, Business Cards, Fliers, Brochures:
Putting your website address on these items adds zero cost to your budget, or small marginal costs if you want the address to pop with a special color. If you are investing in the usual printed materials that go with a business, make sure your website is included on all of them. Anything printed on paper that includes your business name and contact details should have your website listed! Prospective customers will visit your site and generate valuable business leads because your website was printed on something.

2. Promotional Giveaways, Signage, Advertisements:
Again, little or no additional cost is involved in adding your website to these promotional tools. You're already paying for a sign or giveaways, add your website so that people can learn more about your business and convert to leads.

3. Live LARGE with Budgeted Adwords Campaigns:
Think online paid-search advertisements are expensive, hard to measure and for the big boys? Then you would be wrong! Google Adwords is one of the most measureable and cost effective for-pay advertising mediums in the known universe. You can control how much you spend, and where and when you spend it. The biggest challenge is to learn using Adword Text Ads to best advantage for your business, including ad and search term optimization and use of negative search terms. If you want to advertise your local business in your metro area only between 2 PM and 10 PM Monday to Friday.... and spend a maximum of 4 cents a click at 3 dollars a day, you can do it! If you want to cover a state, province or entire country on Saturdays in Spanish only... you can do that too. With Adsense, you can even partially segment your market by gender and age group.

4. Print Ads, Radio Ads, TV ads, Direct Mailers:

If you run ads anywhere for any reason... make sure your website is listed or mentioned. Without the web address, you risk losing many business generation opportunities. This as important as listing a phone number.

5. Your Email Signature:
It is amazing how many people don't take advantage of this simple and free option on your email. List your website at the bottom of your emails, along with your phone number, fax, twitter etc. Costs nothing and again you encourage people to click on the link to your site.

6. Press Releases and Email Campaigns:
Press releases and email campaigns can be expensive or cheap depending upon which service you use and how broad you want the PR or campaign distributed. But what gives the press release and email enduring value is to make sure you have not only a link to the homepage but also a link to an appropriate landing page that focuses on the service or news your press release was targeting. If you also load a modified version of the PR or email newsletter into your website you'll have an excellent webpage that can increase your Search Engine results for years. So while you usually have to pay for a decent press release service and the initial email campaign, you can take steps to extract value many times over the original cost.

You can enjoy first-class lead generation results on an economy budget if you get your website promoted well. Watch the spending and focus on value-for-money... you can produce ROI results that will dwarf any investments you made in your initial campaign, promotional, advertising and stationary investments. Just remember to always include your website!

Negative is Positive with Google Adwords

I am called many things, but being negative is usually not one of them. However, when it comes to managing Google Adwords campaigns, I am proud to wallow in negativity!

Using "Negative Keywords" can greatly filter out and reduce wasted clicks on your Adword campaigns, lessen the chance of confused (irrelevant) visitors and help your overall campaign costs, conversion rates and cost-per-conversion. They also help reduce the load on enquiry centers handling the enquiries. I am a big fan of the aggressive use of intelligently selected negative keywords.

Adding negative keywords and search terms is rather easy... you can add them manually and/or, (strongly advised) research the term first with the Google Keyword Tool. You'll be amazed at the sheer number of similar search terms entered by people which have no relevance or value to your B2B campaigns.

An example of a negative term is one related to a desired search term, for example, 'Chemical Lab'. I want people who need professional B2B chemical analysis services. I don't want people looking for a 'Lab' as in 'Labrador Retreiver', or a 'Lab' puppy. So -dog, -dogs, -puppy, -puppies, etc, all go negative for this campaign. This is a simple task with the Keyword tool. For us, other great related negative terms include '-job', '-jobs', '-drug lab' etc. Filter the worthless search terms as much as you can.

I have quite a few campaigns where my negative terms outnumber my positive search terms... and these campaigns greatly benefit from this strong filtering. Conversion rates jump, costs slump. Very positive results from going negative.

Caution: Negative Search Terms and Names can have a very powerful filtering impact, and if you are not careful, unintended consequences can hurt your campaign. For example, if I had used 'lab puppy' as a broad negative search term, I could be filtering out other desirable 'lab' related searches. Going negative for [lab puppy] is better. Using only 'puppy', a very specific one word negative search term, is the least risky of all. I try to keep my negative search terms to one word each. Keep this possibility in mind when adding negative phrases or word combinations.

I use negative keyword terms in B2B campaigns across global business streams, niches, regions and languages, a 24/7 operation. Going negative helped reduce my spend on poor quality clicks and sparked higher conversion rates. If you're not using negative search terms yet, you're likely wasting money and time, which is never a good situation.

Embrace Your Negative Side When Managing Paid Search Campaigns.