Discussing PPC Advertising, Analytics, and other forms of Search Engine Optimization.

It is time for a legitimate SEO conference in Atlanta. I’m just saying. West Coast has it locked. The SEO Conference Circuit twists and turns through the West Coast, hits Chicago and New York and then gets on a boat and heads for London.

Not Fair.

Leave a comment if you want to help organize this thing or if you have resources or if you know others who will be interested.

I will update this post regularly with intermediate goals and projects as well as a description of progress.

Thanks,
Eric

{ 2 comments }

When the new Google Local Business results began showing in the search results there was much speculation about what it took to get moved to the top of the listings. Around July of last year I heard reports from people who had attended some of the SEO conferences – apparently not even the top experts had the secret. Thanks to Lisa Barone from The Bruce Clay Blog for a great description of the SMX Give It Up session.

Google Local Ranking Tips: How Google ranks local listings in importance:

* Registration with Google Local
* Perceived closeness to center of city
* Number of local reviews
* Local link popularity
* Local Phone Number
* Participation in Online Menu Services
* Quality of local reviews (the stars)
* City name inclusion in anchor text
* Local Directory Listings
* Keyword/City in Business Name
* Domain Authority
* Address Inclusion on the Web pages

{ 0 comments }

We went to the AiMA event last night. The topic was finding the value beyond click to conversion. There were some very professional speakers and they did a wonderful job presenting the material. The first two (Yahoo Guy and Google Girl) were really good speakers talking about things that we already know and that we’re already talking to clients about.

The Yahoo Guy (Ron Belanger) got really deep into why search is so important for Brand Development, going a little more deeply into the fact that customers use search to develop their concept of what your brand means to them. He had some stats to support the fact that most internet users will go to search and taste 2-3 brands before making a purchase decision. In this context if you’re the brand leader you can continue to dominate using search and ensure that your brand is there on top of search results in the most pleasing light possible. If your brand is less recognized you can use search to develop the brand and to disrupt the brand message of the top competitor. He makes the point that people go to search to find that positive message reinforcement even for products they may have already purchased or companies they already are engaged with. The post purchase value of search marketing is very easy to underestimate.

The Google Girl (Raku Coryne) talked more about actual metrics and using Google Analytics, and did a wonderful job of explaining how to use Analytics data to develop actionable insights. She mentioned bounce rate as a key performance indicator, and described some of the ways you can use it. She also discussed the factors that make up a good metric. I think she would have done well to go more into the advantages of segmenting the data and comparing those metrics from segment to segment, but I understand that it’s not the kind of thing you can do at a conference.

There was some talk of the importance of mapping offline purchases to online initiatives and vice versa, and promise that there were ways to do this although it still seems pretty grey. Coupons and online only 1-800 #s can be used to quantify online to offline to some extent. Google Analytics can be used to demonstrate the degree of effect an offline initiative might have to online. This can be done by comparing the geographic area where the offline campaign (TV, Radio, Mailers etc.) took place to a geographic area where it didn’t, or by comparing the online traffic for the time span of the offline initiative to a time span where it was not present.

I thought that the majority of this material has been covered and discussed thoroughly for quite some time now and I kind of had the feeling that the guy from Yahoo was giving the same story he gave 5 years ago. That being said, if you were not familiar with the concepts then it would have blown your hair back so I’m sure someone got something out of it.

{ 0 comments }

In this industry every now and then you run into strange situations and strange client requests so often that it becomes the norm. Some of my favorites are the people who absolutely must get ranked for certain phrases but have a very limited budget. Other times there are people who have budget aplenty but have no ability to wait for Google to register the changes.

At times people feel like it is their right to be in the Google index almost as though Google were part of the global government - It’s my right to be indexed in Google! I’m a citizen of Earth!

Presently I have a company contacting me that does not rank for their own domain name in Google. If you search for their domain it shows that Google has indexed it as the hosting company place holder page. This is fun because we get to see if we can take some steps to get Google to reindex it in a hurry. (How do you rush Google?)

1) Examine Source for Errors
2) Customize Robots.txt
3) Add to Google Webmaster Tools
4) Add to Yahoo Site Explorer
5) Point a couple of hyperlinks to the site from a site that Google spiders regularly

These are the first steps I will take to lead the spiders to Arborview Capital Partners.

{ 0 comments }

Perhaps there are good reasons why you would need that functionality…

I thought that for this post it would be handy to describe my impressions of the usefulness of the program before and after this Adwords Editor Webinar which promises to provide advanced tactics for using the Google Adwords Account Management Tool. If you are interested in registering I am pretty sure that it is free to all.

Advanced AdWords Editor webinar: June 10th
The Google AdWords Editor Team will be holding an advanced training geared towards users who have some experience with AdWords Editor. Please register here to join us on Tuesday, June 10th from 10:30 to 11:30am PDT to find out more about the features and new developments of the account management tool.

Probably the first thing that you should make sure you’re clear on is that whenever you get in to the editor you have to hit the Get Recent Changes button in the upper left hand corner to update the editor. For a while I thought that this button was just for if you made changes in Adwords web based interface while you had the editor open. This isn’t the case. Always click it when you open an account in the editor.

You can keep multiple accounts in editor as well as draft accounts.

If you click export for archiving when you first log into an account before you make any changes then you won’t have to worry about losing data or making an irreparable error.

One thing that is really useful is to use the Adwords Editor to find Duplicate Keywords. (As pictured below)

You can also use the editor to Export your entire account (or sections of the account) in a variety of formats.

You can then make bulk changes and then Import the account back into the editor. For those of you who are getting sick of the slow interfaces this will be an indispensable tool for when you have a lot of changes to make. Some of you may remember the same type of functionality in Yahoo’s older version of their web based interface. This can save you a lot of time.

Some of you may remember an advanced keyword filter that used to be in the web based interface for Adwords. Anyone? Well it was really useful until one day it just vanished. Well it turns out that it was mostly integrated into the Adwords Editor in the Advanced Search option (Pictured Below). You can search the keywords based on a variety of filters such as click thru, conversion rate, cost per click etc.

One area that I wouldn’t mind seeing in Advanced Search would be a filter by placements.

These are just some of the features that I find useful. I will post again after the webinar to keep you abreast of any of the other ways that this tool is fantastically useful.

Please share if there is a way that this tool is particularly useful for you.

{ 0 comments }

With regard to Social Media Marketing news, just days ago the Washington post reported on Google announcing that they will provide a service that lets any Web site to become a social site. Currently in Beta, Friend Connect lets any Web site get social features up and running immediately without programming – by merely adding a snippet of code. Available features include invitations, user registration, gallery, reviews, and the ability to post messages, as well as the ability to incorporate third-party applications built in the OpenSocial developer community. This may make it easier for the average small business in Atlanta to have a low cost entry into social media advertising

• Friend Connect appears to be a response to MySpace Data Availability and Facebook Connect
• Friend connect will propel the concept of OpenSocial which, while very significant, has received relatively little notice by the public
• Free services like Friend connect may serve to lower the cost of proprietary social media platforms
• Perhaps most important, the upswing in Social Media marketing is now a large step closer than it was before.

Eric Werner, 5/13/2008, Atlanta

{ 0 comments }

I originally had the Aha! moment almost 10 years ago at a party in Atlanta. Social Media Optimization at Live Events was the wave of the future. I remember spending the remainder of the evening trying to convey the significance of this concept to a woman I met that night. (In retrospect I have no idea whether she was interested or not, but she kept listening.) Of course at the time I was visualizing people at parties connecting through social media on the internet with other people in other areas of the country (some at parties and some at home).

While it may not have much of an application to the party scene yet, it will become very significant for many industries.

If I could watch a webinar of a live Atlanta SEO conference and be able to instant message my questions in real time - some of which may be fielded by the speaker, some of which may be answered by members of the audience if they choose… If I also have access to the questions other people are asking and anyone who wants to can take those questions and comments and put together new materials and then send those materials out to a mailing list of people who had those questions or expressed interest in the topic. And if we can do all of this without worrying about someone getting my personal information and spamming me to death. Now we might be getting somewhere…

{ 1 comment }

One of the projects I have taken on recently is the management of two Google Grants for an Atlanta non-profit organization. When I first heard about Google Grants it was the type of thing that made me feel very positive about Google. I knew that the fact that they would provide this free advertising for non-profit corporations that fit certain requirements was a good thing. It fits in well with the way Google approaches everything else (SMART).

Managing a Google Grant poses some interesting challenges. For all Grants the maximum cost per click allowed is $1.00 – I think that would make it completely useless to a great number of self proclaimed PPC Experts. I found it to be a fantastic practice in the development of the long tail key phrases needed to get really inexpensive clicks. In fact I think that every internet marketer in training should be given a non-profit to develop a campaign for their very first time out so that they are forced to learn the skill it takes to develop revenue generating phrases that have low competition.

Apparently most not-for-profit organizations the limit on a Google Grant is around $300 a day. I was shocked to see what the daily ppc budget was for this company… $1300 – Now I admit even I am finding it a little bit difficult to figure out how to spend that within a limited span of time to work on it.

I learned something else while managing a free ppc spend for this Atlanta non-profit. This may be worth an entire post of its own since it answers questions that many people in SEO would be interested in. Historical Keyword Performance affects the cost per click for that key phrase.

Understanding this concept requires a little extra attention so I will probably post about it in another blog entry. Everyone is aware of the importance that Relevant Landing Page, Relevant Ad Copy, and Keyword Targeting have an effect on Quality Score. Most people are not aware that the keywords themselves have an intrinsic Historical Keyword Performance score which can cause you to pay out the nose for a keyword even if there is no competition for that phrase!
I will discuss it more later
Regards,
Eric

{ 0 comments }

In local Adwords Marketing news, an Adwords Authorized Reseller in Atlanta may have made a significant error that could cost them their credentials and possibly litigation.

What is an Adwords Authorized Reseller? Why do I feel so much less confident in the term Reseller as opposed to Google Certified Adwords Professional? Or Google Qualified Company? Or perhaps best of all Google Analytics Authorized Consultant?

Why is it so difficult to find good information on the Adwords Authorized Reseller program?

Before I go into a detailed answer to these questions I should back up and tell you the story. Some of you already know, but bear with me I will try to keep this brief but pointless.

My first encounter with a Google Adwords Authorized Reseller was when one tried to woo a client of ours with the suggestion that they could give him great results in 30 days for a relatively low fee. This company then made a near exact duplication of the website we developed and put it at a slightly different domain name and proceeded to serve Adwords ads like it was their common practice.

When I found the site I was shocked. How could someone consciously do something that violated Google Guidelines and Adwords Policies and with no potential gain!? Now I know that there are plenty of people who will violate Google Policy in order to get traffic to their site. I know that there are plenty of people who have done this successfully. I do not know of anyone before who has done it in a situation where there was no potential upside and the potential downside is being completely removed from the Google Index.

It turns out that the results that this company provided was nowhere near as effective as ours and it was easy to explain to the client that he had made a boo-boo and that all could be forgiven as soon as the offending copycat site was removed.

But what of this unethical company? Is there a regulating body that should be notified of this behavior? Is there any potential blowback from reporting them?

These are the answers I don’t have - If you’ve got ‘em let me know. It is companies like these that give us all a bad name.

Regards,

Eric Werner

{ 0 comments }