This article is about Google Product extensions which are putting an end to the 70-character ad text which is incredibly restricting, the ‘one landing page per keyword’ rule and the fact that image ads are not available on the search network.

Amazing! Unfortunately, this product is only available in the U.S. for the time being but I am sure Google will roll it out world wide once all the bugs have been dealt with.

So, what exactly are Google Extensions? Simple! Instead of simply one ad being displayed for a company/product, the ad appears with a + sign inside of a box underneath it which can be expanded and displays a list of other products featured by this same company. Brilliant!

Where does this extra information come from? The company needs to enter information into Google’s Merchant Center and the information is pulled from there. If a customer then clicks on one of the products listed in the expanded product extension, they are taken to the appropriate page (specified in the Google Merchant Center).

The article goes into great detail about the strategies, costs involved, tracking and whether there will be an impact on SEO (since once all of the extensions are expanded, the first organic listing falls well below the fold) but for sake of simplicity, I have just covered the basics.

Check out the full article here (with a subscription), on Google or contact us at Anduro for more information on this. Remember though, this is only available in the U.S. for the time being.

There are many reports available to the AdWords advertiser – some helpful, some just a lot of data on a page with no real value. One of the helpful ones is called the Search Query report. This report spits back, essentially, a list of keywords users have used and have seen your ads. The reason this is helpful is if you are using different match types (which I hope you are!) there are a lot of variations of keywords that you may or may not have included making this list incredibly helpful. You can also see which words your ads showed up for that you may not want to show for and you can then add these words as negative keywords.

A big one I have been seeing a lot is a local company selling their product only in that particular city, with the geo target set to that city. So for example, if I have a jewelry store in Calgary and I am only interested in local customers, I can set the target to Calgary only. But if someone in Calgary searches for ‘jewelry store in vancouver’ my ad will show up if one of my keywords is phrase match ‘jewelry store’. This will show up in the report and I can add vancouver as a negative keyword.

On the flip side of that, maybe someone typed in ‘calgary jewelry store’ and my ad would have shown. If I have broad match terms, I could add calgary jewelry store as a phrase match term and slowly eliminate the need for broad match terms which often have high impressions and show the ads for some pretty interesting combinations of words! They are also very good at using up your budget quickly.

When you run the search query report, you can specify which campaign or adgroups you want to run the report on.

With this new feature, you can log in to your account and while you are looking at each adgroups keywords, click the “See Search Terms” link and it will show you all of the keywords used for that particular adgroup. This is so much easier than running the report every time and then having to sort by adgroup etc.

The real time saver though, is the fact that you can add keywords right there. With a click of the mouse! You can also add negative keywords just as easily.



You can either select specific keywords and see what variations users have used or you can simply click on See search terms… and then select All. This will give you a complete list.

Fantastic tool that has already saved me a ton of time! Give it a shot and let me know what you think!

The link pointed to an article called “Spammers, Evildoers, and Opportunists” by Derek Powazek. In a nutshell it is tirade against Search Engine Optimization and companies offering SEO which includes our company, Anduro Marketing. I couldn’t resist reading the post and responding.

First Derek gives a quick history of the search engine industry:

“First came the web, and it was a mess.” “Then came the search engines. First primitive indexes of dumb keywords, then Google…” “The ascendancy of Google has meant that, if your goal is to get the most eyeballs possible (as any ad-supported media business’ goal is), then prominent placement in the search engine results became a top priority.”

Not a bad history actually. He should post that to Twitter. But then Derek loads up the page with name calling and loaded language to emphasize his point. His labels for Search Engine Optimizers include: “goat sacrificers”, “snake oil salesmen” and “a new breed of con man”. He then makes 3 points and elaborates on each.

1. The good advice is obvious, the rest doesn’t work.
2. SEO is poisoning the web.
3. The One True Way.

Actually, Derek is right on each point but beyond the basic point Derek seems tarnished, tainted and terribly mislead or misinformed.

1. SEO is Obvious.
In many ways Derek is correct – much of SEO is obvious. Picking keywords, adding them to web pages and getting any type of link back to the website is free and relatively easy. But so is cooking a burger or changing oil in a car. I can do both but I don’t except occasionally. Why? Lots of reasons. I don’t have time. I’m too lazy. And the chef at BrokenCity does a much better job. Besides, I don’t have buns, burgers, condiments, fries and a stove at the office. Why should I cook a burger at lunch time when I can pay someone to do it and talk with customers, colleagues and friends instead? Sheesh.

So what are customers buying when they hire a firm to optimize their website? Where is the value in hiring a company like ours to optimize their website and boost the home page on search engines? The answer is simple. Our customers don’t want to spend time doing tasks that would take them a month of Sundays. We can do SEO faster, better and often cheaper. We have the tools, processes, and know-how to get the job done quickly and effectively.

One of the basic principles of running a successful business is to do what you do well and focus on that. People buy value. If you focus on providing value then customers will buy. But if you spend all your time learning and doing things you don’t have the aptitude, training and skills for then you won’t be able to provide quality products on time at a reasonable price. Trying to do everything sounds like failure to me.

Let me give you an example. Let’s take Dell – a large company with a large budget for brochures and online ads. One would assume that their website would automatically work well with the search engines. Not so. A couple years ago we got an email from a business manager for the business unit focusing on small and medium business. He thought there was untapped opportunities for Dell to rank well on search engines. His rationale was that paid ads on Google cost money and high listings on the organic side of Google are free. Good point. We “messed around” with the URLs, source code, anchor text, internal links, external links and strange things started to happened. Pages on the Dell site start ranking at the top of the SERPs. Dell.com is still in top spot for “business laptops”, beating out 25 million other pages. It’s in 3rd spot, out performing 109 million other pages, for “servers”. The end result – our contact at Dell got promoted. Nice.

But what about small companies? What value do they get from SEO? About 5 years ago Wayne Thomas came to us. He runs a small company called CleanSuite Software Inc. His company produces software for dry cleaning businesses. He wanted to have more visitors come to his website. He had some ideas of how to do that but wasn’t confident and simply didn’t have enough hours in the week to optimize his site and pursue inbound links. We talked. He hired us to help him out and he is a very happy customer. CleanSuite is a small company that is building its reputation and success on our talents. If you go to Google.com and search for “dry cleaning software” his site is listed in 2nd spot beating out 1.3 million other pages. He was in first spot until recently. Wayne, give us a call.

In summary, yes, SEO is obvious to some people but not everyone. For companies that want to reduce their marketing risks, an SEO firm is a good bet.

2. SEO is poisoning the web.

Derek’s complaint is that Google’s search algorithm is based primary on building links back to a site. Then he goes on a rant about “SEO cockroaches” and “SEO bastards” doing all kinds of devious techniques to get links which have temporary value. He is right. If you use black hat tactics and try to trick Google you will get caught and the website will likely be tossed out. But who uses black hat techniques? Any SEO who has been in business for more than 3 years and can prove results never tries to trick Google. What we use are best practices.

1. Picking keyword phrases that will drive qualified visitors to a site – people looking for what companies are offering.
2. Optimizing a web page by adding the keywords in the right spots so that the search engine crawlers can find the phrase. This isn’t secret or hard but it has to be done correctly.
3. Building a web of reputable industry related links back to the site. Not really hard but time consuming so we can’t waste time going after useless links. No one is going to pay us for work that doesn’t produce results.

Derek, what’s wrong with using best practices?

3. The One True Way – Good Products and Good Content.

Derek’s point that many writers create “dumbed down content” is valid. It is sooooo true. I see tons of crappy content on the Internet every day. But I read fast and I can spot dumb content very quickly. Here’s the rub. I doubt that I’m the only one with a critical eye. The folks at Google aren’t stupid either. They know what good content looks like.

Thanks Derek for a stimulating article and your point of view. Ultimately, you and I can agree on something. Create good products. Create good content to let people know about it. Repeat.

Here is a link for more details: Internet Marketing Conference – Calgary 2010.

Great line-up of speakers. So far 60 people have registered. Ends on St Patrick’s Day – March 17th.

Topics include Social Media, Gaming, Videos, SEO, Pay-Per-Click and Industry related news.

Anduro is offering a discount. Call our office and we will give you the promo code.

While I didn’t really find any that would be useful to me that I am not already using but I found some interesting ones that I didn’t know about. I wanted to share the Wikipedia list of Google Tools.

This is an INSANE list!!! I wanted to paste it here but this would then be the longest Blog post ever! Hopefully there are items in there that you haven’t used and can use to make life easier!

Enjoy.

Try it out for yourself! You’ll be amazed.

-Stefanie-

In online marketing the key is to gently coax website visitors through an evolution into website participants.  Whether we are talking about Pay Per Click platforms or ecommerce sites, visitors need to be participating – clicking – in order to increase the conversion rate and, hence, the ROI.  As evidenced by the 2 million Google Search results, this process is not a hard science with tried and tested methods – it is an art.  There are a lot of web users who are more than happy to simply be visitors – just hoping to pass GO and collect their proverbial $200.  After reviewing a few of the Google Search results and thinking of my own online experiences I have identified two key concepts that website owners should keep in mind when trying to entice visitors to take that first step toward earning the highly esteemed blue Participant ribbon.

• The need to participate:
  • In today’s fast paced world, people do not take the time to do things they do not need or want to do.   The end goal of the conversion must be valuable and secure for the visitor as well as for the website owner.  Nurture the desire to participate by clearly communicating the value of the conversion to the website visitor.  Encourage return business by adding an additional thank you page after the conversion step is completed.
• The ability to participate:
  • Expand on the concept of the Big Orange Button (BOB).  Keep the visitor on task by ensuring that the information, design and feel of the website are consistent from the landing page through to the actual conversion step.  Limit distractions, make the next step(s) obvious and encourage and enable the visitor to act quickly.

It is well recognized that higher conversion rates can translate into higher ROI and a few well executed website adjustments can help to increase conversion rates.  So, welcome to all visitors.  Now, ready… set…participate!!

- Jenn -

Guest post done by Jenn. It just so happens that Anduro Marketing offers what we call an “Increasing Conversions Session”. To find out more, contact us.

Really frames both what the company has done right and how they did it. Now I don’t agree with everything Google does – but overall, their track-record speaks for itself.

Simple diagram. Great descriptions. Easy to navigate. Clear. Well put together.

Enjoy!

Essentially, if you are looking to make changes to your account, you can click on this tab and it will give you suggestions on how you could improve the account. The tool is new so right now there are only Budget and Keyword changes ideas but there is a promise that there is more to come.

I tried this tool out on a client of ours and found that, of course, Google wants me to increase the budget and add keywords. What was surprising though, is that the increase was only $0.60/day! This really won’t make them a ton of extra money but according to the tool, will increase the traffic by an estimated 121 clicks/month.

I am always a bit skeptical of new Google tools because I am never sure if the tools are meant to help the advertiser or Google but this one seems to be not so terrible – if you always keep in mind that Google is a business and they need to make money!

Here is a link to some more information about the Opportunities tab which I have actually used a few times. There are good keyword suggestions which you may have missed. For the most part though, it is just a way to check you are on the right track.

There is also another blog post about this that I received a while ago and would like to share.