Negative Keyword Conflict Reports: Intro

Every PPC junkie knows negative keywords can make or break a campaign.

Have the right negative keywords and click through rates (CTR) rise, cost per acquisition (CPA) drops, and cost per click (CPC) drops. Have the wrong negative keywords and best case scenario you’re not filtering out unqualified searches. The worst case scenario, you’ve totally screwed yourself by blocking important and relevant searches.

AdCenter has been reaching out to the PPC community lately and Negative Keyword Conflict Reports could be an olive branch of peace to a group of advertisers historically frustrated with AdCenter’s lack of features, usability issues, and lack of support.

Following is a short overview of Negative Keyword Conflict Reports.

Overview:

Adcenter’s Negative Keyword Conflict Report lets you compile a list of negative keywords that conflict with active keywords. Reports display the account, campaign, adgroup, keyword, negative keyword, and conflict level.

Conflict level refers to the account level where the positive keyword conflict is occurring, for example, campaign or adgroup. We’ve also seen numbers in this column when we’ve downloaded the report and are not sure what these are referring too.

Note: This report will still pull negative keyword conflicts from paused adgroups and campaigns if the keywords are still set to active. Be sure to select specific accounts, campaigns, and adgroups under “Report Scope” to avoid wasting time.

Report options and customization is limited to selecting entire accounts or selecting specific accounts, campaigns, or adgroups. There is no option to select a time range since the report is compiled based on the current negative and positive keywords.

The Good:

This is a fantastic tool unique to AdCenter. Reports run quickly and provide invaluable data.

·         This report is especially useful for large and complicated accounts.

·          If you are taking over a new AdCenter account that has been managed by another company this is a must run report.

·         This is a great tool to audit an account before going it live.

·         While Negative Conflict Reports are not quite as essential for smaller accounts it will still save a lot time combing through keywords.

The Bad

No Flexibility.

·         When selecting “Report Scope” you are unable to sort campaigns and adgroups by active, paused, or deleted. This is an annoying time waster for large accounts.

·         Only a limited number of report columns are available. Additional columns would be a welcome addition to Excel Jockeys.

·         This is a report not a live tool.

What I’d Love to See

If this report option was a live and functioning tool I think I’d have to ask for Bill Gates forgiveness for all the awful things I’ve said about AdCenter in the past. If I could click, sort, edit, and bulk change this negative keyword conflict  report information  from AdCenter Desktop I think I’d even buy him lunch.

If I were nit picking, being able to sort by status when selecting specific accounts, campaigns, and adgroups would be a huge time saver for users managing large accounts.

Overall

This is a fantastic and time saving report. It’s a bit limited but it really is hard to complain about. However, like most things AdCenter, it could have been a homerun as a tool but ended up very useful as a report. 

I’m excited to see some advanced tactics developed for this.  Post your tips and tricks below!

Author: Mark Jensen 

Photo Courtesy of http://www.vanishingtattoo.com

Pubcon Las Vegas was epic from start to finish. Not only was there epic dinner, epic karaoke, and epic networking, there also was loads of great PPC information being passed around! I’ve compiled the best tips and tricks from the PPC experts who presented at the conference:

1. Dave Feldman from Microsoft adCenter said, “adCenter Quality Score does NOT affect rank or CPCs – just indicative.”
2. Kerstin Baker-Ash shared about one study which found, “19% of conversions came from GDN. 84% of those were from view-through conversions.”
3. David Szetela said on positioning, “1-3 is magic in search, 1-4 in content. Impressions drop off after that.”
4. Brian Piepgrass from Facebook shared, “People are “performing” on Facebook. If they like your page they are trying to look cool in front of their friends.”
5. Brad Geddes shared several gems:
   
   • “If you are trying to update your account for relevancy it may take up to 2 weeks for the changes to take effect.”
   • “Static conversion rates do not exist. They vary from hour to hour and day to day.”
   • “On your landing page forms is the value of what you are asking for equal to what you give out?”
   • “Don’t ask questions that Analytics can answer”
   • “City and state are redundant if you get the zip code”
6. Amanda Watlington, in the Keyword Research session commented,  “There are two types of competitors: competitors on your keywords, and competitors that your client identifies.”
7. Joanna Lord, on strengthening brand on landing pages said, “Use mission statements, testimonials, awards, customer counts, logos, consistency, badges, press mentions, positivity.
8. Michael Black said, “On the display network, match types don’t matter, but exclusions do.”
9. Janet Miller, in the Facebook landing pages session said, "If you use an Iframe in Facebook you can use your existing PPC landing page with just some small tweaks."
10. Mat Siltala tweeted, “Everybody knows what happens in Vegas gets posted on Twitter… FB, Tumblr, etc… hahahah (oh and YouTube)”. Great ORM advice.

This was my first conference and it was better than I bargained for. Awesome information was shared and I met some great people.

If you were at Pubcon Las Vegas, what PPC advice did you find most helpful?

This is our final dental pay per click strategy in our 5 part series. Thus far, we have discussed four important aspects of an effective dental pay per click account:

·         Account structure

·         Dental ads

·         Dental keywords

·         Landings pages with offers

After you have created that solid foundation, it is essential that you take time to optimize your account frequently. In this post you will learn some great tips to help your account improve and save you money.

The follow are things that are ‘musts’ when it comes to frequent dental account optimizations. 

Dental Ad Optimization

1. Select an adgroup and compare the CTR or click through rate of your ads.
2. Pause the ads that have the lower CTR and create a new ad that is based off the best performing ad.
3. Repeat this process for all of your adgroups weekly or at least monthly.

Dental Bid Optimization

1. Select an adgroup and view the keywords. Pay attention to the average position and CPC (cost per click) of your most important keywords.
2. Adjust your bids according to how much you want to spend on a keyword and if you have a desired position.

New Dental Negative Keywords

1. Take a minute to view the search term report found within the keyword tab.
2. Select keywords in the search report that are not relevant to your practice or are searches that show they are not serious about finding a dentist.
3. We recommend that you view this report at least monthly if not weekly

If you have more time to dedicate to your dental pay per click account here are few otherthings we recommend.

New Dental Keywords

1. Use Google’s keyword tool and websites like www.keywordspy.com to find ideas for more relevant dental keywords.
2. Use your search term report to find relevant searches that you are not currently targeting.

Break High Volume Keywords Into New Adgroups

1. Look for keywords in your adgroups that are receiving a high volume of clicks and impressions.
2. Copy one of those search terms like 'dentist' into a new adgroup with all three match types: broad, “phrase”, and [exact].
3. Write ads in the new adgroup that are relevant to the separated keyword.
4. Note that by separating the keyword, you are able to pay special attention to its progress and also write ads that are more relevant than before. This strategy helps with the CTR and quality score improve.

That concludes our 5 part series for Dental Pay Per Click Strategies with Google Adwords. We encourage you to implement these strategies and find how Google Adwords can benefit your practice.  

--Sterling Green

Having great ads and a solid keyword list is great and all, but without a proper landing page and dental offer, you will be hard pressed to get the new patients in your office.

Landing Page

When making an effective landing page, it is first important to first consider your potential patient and why they have come to your website. If you have written an effective ad, you should have called them to an action of some kind. With that call, they are at your site with the expectation that you want them to do something – a phone call, form request, or read about something important. It is important that you make it easy and almost obvious for them to do what you want, on your dental PPC landing page. That might mean:

·         Putting your phone number in big bold numbers at the top of the page

·         Putting a fast, easy form on the landing page

·         Having an arrow pointing to what they need to do

·         Having an obvious link to where you want to send them next

These techniques should always be done tastefully. People aren’t dumb, they will see through a gimmick quickly.  We recommend using a form with a dental offer to get the best results.

Dental Offer

People on the internet will rarely give without getting something in return. That is why we recommend offering some kind of dental offer to new patients. We have seen that having multiple offers, which appeals to a larger group, are more effective than an offer that is very specific. To the right is an example of a form used in a dental pay per click account.

The form is very simple, but in the context of the website it is obvious and tasteful. It is also very effective and brings in a large number of new patients every month. The offer is only valid to those that schedule an appointment and come in to redeem it.

It is also important to have a simple and clear navigation on your landing page and content that is relevant to the keyword searched. This not only helps the person surfing your site, but also will help your PPC quality score with Google. A better quality score means a lower cost per click and a better average position.  

So make sure that you have a relevant landing page that has incentive for your new patient. This is a key part in having a successful Dental pay per click account.

--Sterling

This is the third post of a series of dental PPC strategies.  This week we are going to focus our attention on writing keywords that will attract the most relevant traffic and keep you safe from searches that have no relevance.

When developing a good keyword list, we recommend using Google’s keyword tool to start. You can find that tool in the Adwords dashboard under the tools tab or when you click on the “add keywords” button in the keywords tab.  Look for keywords that you know would be relevant to your site and do not be afraid to create a good sized keyword list. Here is an example of keywords found in a “Denture” adgroup:

• [dentures]
• "affordable dentures"
• "cost of dentures"
• [denture]
• "cheap dentures"
• "dentures cost"
• dentures ronan montana
• "partial dentures"
• "low cost dentures"
• "denture implants"
• "same day dentures"

The actual list is much bigger, some adgroups can have up to 40 or 50 keywords in a dental ppc account.

You will notice that some of the keywords are wrapped with “quotations”, [brackets], or nothing at all. This is called ‘keyword match type’ and is a great way to control how your keywords are used by Google’s search engine. The bracket match type is called exact match. The quotation match type is called phrase match. The keyword with nothing wrapped around it is called broad match.  We commonly start a campaign with exact and phrase match to limit search volume to the most relevant traffic and have only a few specific terms use broad match like: dentures ronan montana.

One last tip for your keyword list is to include negative words. Negative keywords are a great way for you to tell Google about specific keywords that are not relevant to your site. This can be used to block out people using related keywords that are not prospective new patients. Here are a few examples of negative keywords we use in a dental ppc account.

• -books
• -employment
• -resumes
• -education
• -staffing
• -seminar
• -career
• -picture
• -supplies

For someone just starting a dental ppc account, we recommend using the ‘see search terms’ report to find what irrelevant search terms are being used to find you. You can find that report by clicking on the keyword tab at the campaign level. Click on the drop down menu titled, ‘see search terms…’ and click all. This report will allow you to see what terms your ads are showing on. Use this report to determine if a keyword is relevant or not and quickly add it as a positive keyword or a negative one.

Please check in next week when we talk about how to use landing pages and dental offers in a dentist pay per click account to more effectively see a return on investment.

- Sterling Green

This is the second in a five part series on Dental Pay Per Click Strategies. This week we are going to be covering how to make a killer dental PPC ad. If you missed last week’s post check out how to make good dental pay per click structure.

Why is the ad so important? For three reasons: 1) it gets you noticed on the SERP and gets you the click 2) it lets the searcher know they found what they are looking for and 3) it sets the expectation for what a searcher can expect on the landing page. If you have a smooth path from ad --> expectation --> landing page --> goal you can expect success from your PPC management. So let’s look at some good ads that work for our dental PPC clients:

• Use Dynamic Keyword Insertion in title to make ad more relevant.
• The keyword "Denture" is mentioned 3 times.
• Funny or witty(ok, at least we think so).
• Call to action.

• Local and geo keywords are empashized. We used the name of the city and nearby school.
• Offer is mentioned in the ad itself preparing searchers for what they can get on the landing page.
• Call to action.

• Title continues to the first line drawing more attention.
• Unique selling propositions highlighting "affordable dental care" and "$99 off".
• Call to action.

As a last note I will simply add that you must always be testing! Have at least 2-3 ads in each adgroup and test different headlines, different ordering of words, different calls to action, different display URL text, and more! You WILL be surprised what you find works for dental PPC ads.

Tune in next week to find out about the best keywords to use in dental ppc accounts.

-Luke

No, the title does not refer to the "geek" "cookies" used for remarketing and other fun things of the sort.  I am talking about purely delicious, sensationally terriffic, appealing to the eye, shipped fresh, sitting on a nice silver platter, gourmet cookies.

After 9 or 10 years of selling these cookie baskets online, Heidi's Heavenly Cookies (HHC) has come to us looking to take their online presence up another notch.  The last couple of days we have dove into their Google Analytics and Google Adwords accounts to sift through years of data.  While we were working on that, Heidi Nel, Founder of HHC, decided to help us better understand exactly what we would be helping her sell online by sending us a cookie gift basket.  

I was impressed!  So impressed.  Heidi is a smart lady.  Having tasted her cookies I have a HUGELY increased desire to help her sell more of these amazing cookies online.  I can't even describe how impressed I was using words, so I will use pictures:

Yep, perishable.  No preservatives in this deliciousness! Hey, whats that purple thing?

A hand written thank you note for helping her with online marketing, before we have even touched her website!

Man this box is heavy! What's inside?  The first layer of padding.

Ice packs.  Underneath the first layer of padding. Note the thickness of just the outside layer of padding.  As you will see in the following pictures, she could have shipped us eggs and they wouldn't have broke.

There were 12 of these ice packs.  The cookies were cold.  She could have shipped us ice cream!  In the summer, from Georgia to Idaho, yeah, I guess that is smart.

The first deliciousness.  Talk about fancy wrapping for one treat.  Notice all of that bubble wrap.

Angels were singing in the background as I peeled away the last layer of bubble wrap off of the top of the cookie platter.

The package looked like it was just picked up from the local bakery a few minutes ago!

50 gourmet cookies on a silver platter and a whole team of happy search engine marketers! Check it out, with in all of the fancy wrapping the cookie platter is cover in another layer of vaccuum sealed plastic to keep the cookies in place so they don't crumble.

The cookies in all their glory on the conference room table.  My favorites were the Macaroons and the the Toffee covered cookies.  YUM! My mouth is watering just finishing this post.

A SINCERE THANK YOU TO HEIDI'S HEAVENLY COOKIES FOR THE COOKIE GIFT!

The following post is the first of a series on Dental Pay Per Click Strategies. When creating any confident, relevant dental pay per click account, account structure plays a strong hand in the account working effectively and you making changes efficiently.

After creating your dentist ppc account, you begin your setup by creating a campaign. The campaign should have a relevant name and is where your settings are determined, as well as your specific geo-targeting. Within your campaign you will create a series of adgroups.

Adgroups are just as the name implies. This is where you separate ads and keywords by relevancy. For example, for a dentist that offers dental implants, sedation dentistry, and is a dentist in Ronan, Montana; they will want to create an adgroup for “dental implants”, one for “sedation dentistry”, and one for “Ronan Dentist”.

Each Adgroup should include keywords and ads that are relevant to that group.  Below are some examples:

• Adgroup- Implants
  • Keywords- dental implants, implants, tooth implants.
  • Ad- Need Dental Implants? 25 Years Experience in Dental Implants. Call Us Today!

• Adgroup- Sedation Dentistry
  • Keywords- sedation dentist, dental sedation, sedation dentistry
  • Ad- Sedation Dentist in Ronan. Stop Worrying. See a Sedation Dentist Pro. Schedule Now!

• Adgroup- Ronan Dentist
  • Keywords- ronan dentist, ronan dental, dentist
  • Ad- Trusted Ronan Dentist. Find A Trusted Ronan Dentist. Call Today!

That is the basic structure of a dentist ppc account. If you need to add more adgroups because of new services offered, or if you need to create a new campaign because you want to target a different part of a city, you can accomplish that quickly and stay organized at the same time.

Also keep in mind that keeping the adgroups relevant and organized will do more than just help you work faster. Google puts a lot of weight on relevancy. The more relevant your adgroups are, the better your quality score will be. Quality score is one of the metrics that effects how much you pay for your position. A higher quality score yields a better average position and a lower cost per click. This is really where structure becomes important for any dental ppc account.

See our next post on great dental PPC ads next week!

Sterling Green

Dental PPC Account Manager

Employee turnover within a company is such a mix of emotions.  Our previous Office Assistant that helped me keep track of finances, billing, paperwork, and scheduling has moved on. Her husband got a job somewhere east of the Mississipi. We will miss Shally!  We really wer sad to say goodbye. 

But like I said, it is mixed feelings because while we are sad to see Shally go, we are really excited to introduce you to Courtney Rosemeyer (her last name will soon change as she is engaged to be married) and to have her on the Get Found First team!  Courtney is a firecracker!  Her bubbly personality, organizational skills, and talents have already been very helpful to have around the office.

Courtney's true love is music.  Boy can she sing!  Check out a youtube video here: http://youtu.be/_btVHay-tNk

So when she isn't teaching voice lessons at BYU-Idaho, or planning her wedding with her fiance, she is probably either sleeping, eating, or doing something for Get Found First, and we like it that way!

Welcome aboard Courtney.  

-Stu and the Team 

Microsoft announced today a new upgrade to the adCenter user interface. I was particularly excited given that I've been frustrated with adCenter's interface and I've also given feedback to Microsoft on how it could be improved. Did they hit a home run or did they strike out(again)? Here are the changes they made and my thoughts:

1. Campaign Management
   1. The Answer Bar- This has quick links to Support/Videos/Chat. meh. Seems geared towards someone who has never done PPC in their life. I tried chatting but it said "No Representatives are Available".
   2. Bid By Position- Google got rid of this a few months ago for a reason. No one uses it.
2. Budget Management
   1. "There will be just three budget options: Daily Standard, Daily Accelerated and Monthly Accelerated." I really like the idea of "Monthly Accelerated". Most of our clients are on monthly budgets so this will be helpful.
3. Account Management
   1. Simpler navigation to billing info, multiple accounts associated with one credit card, and "adCenter will increase the number of email alerts sent to customers". In the blog post they state "these features will be particularly helpful for self-managed advertisers". I'm at an agency. Enough said?

What they should have changed:

• Improved Dashboard- Their campaign trends/performance graphs on the Home tab are clunky and frustrating to use. I feel like I get better information when I am in the campaigns tab. It would have been helpful to have the graphs and campaign info in one tab so I don't have to go back and forth(like Adwords).
• Data on the Customer Selection Page- Microsoft's comparison to the MCC is useful to have your clients in one place. Now if they would just toss some data for individual clients in that view we all would be happy!
• Better Navigation- navigating between campaign/adgroup/keywords/ads is frustrating. I DON'T want to have to save whenever I make bid changes(just save them automatically). Creating ads is a pain also because I have to write them from scratch every time(give me a copy of an existing ad).

Overall I'm disappointed with the changes. This announcement has been months in the making and it was a let-down. I was hoping for more practical changes specifically in the UI. Maybe next year we'll get them?

-Luke

Have you noticed how much HUGE mistakes have resulted from TINY errors around the world recently? Anthony Weiner accidently sent a public message instead of a direct message on Twitter and now his career and possibly personal life is ruined. It happens often now with rapid-fire social media and it can happen with rapid-fire PPC too! One of the most important and underutilized tools for any PPC manager is a second set of eyes. Imagine if Weiner had a second pair of eyes looking at him tweeting... for one they may have stopped from being stupid at all, but they definitely would have told him to DM it.

Having a second set of eyes can save your from big or little mistakes that could simply lower your CTR or cost your client 1,000's of wasted dollars. Here are some ways we avoid these mistakes at GFF and take advantage of a second set of eyes:

• After a brand new setup we have another PPC manager review every setting/adgroup/ad/bid to make sure everything is in place.
• A few times each month we have look over every account to make sure things are on track.
• When we feel like we've optimized an account perfectly we have another PPC manager look over it and find something else we can improve. This always works!

No matter how much experience you have this can help you avoid mistakes. When you are dealing with dozens of adgroups, hundreds of ads, and thousands of keywords it's easy to make small mistakes.

Any other advantages you have found in having a second set of eyes check your account?

-Luke

Photo From: http://goodlifegear.spreadshirt.com/shop/designs

Too often, potential clients come to me unprepared.  If you manage PPC, or work for or with a PPC Management Company, you know what I am talking about.  They call, email, or fill out a form, and all they know is that they need to be advertising or improving their current advertising on Google and that your company's website says that is what you do.  More often than not, they haven't thought through exactly what the PPC Agency will need to do for them in order for them to be happy.  

When a company goes to hire a new employee, they have set questions they ask the candidates after they have seen their qualifications in resume format.  We'll consider the website the resume of the PPC Agency.  Once they come to you to request a proposal as an agency, here are the 10 questions that I think they should ask: 

1. How long has your agency been handling pay-per-click marketing?
2. How many dedicated account reps do you have managing PPC campaigns hands-on? Do they work on anything outside of paid search?
3. Do you offer other services (SEO, web design and development, etc.), and, if so, what’s the ratio of people who work on those services to those who focus on PPC?
4. How active will you be in sharing data with me and my organization?
5. Does anyone at your agency specialize or have experience doing PPC in my particular business niche?
6. Do you offer services across multiple PPC platforms, or just AdWords?
7. What standard reports do you provide, and what types of metrics will I be able to ask for “on demand”? Will I have independent access to reporting?
8. What types of tools do you use to manage campaigns and generate reports? Are they proprietary? If I were to switch agencies or move PPC management in-house, what
would happen to my campaigns and the processes and reporting you’ve put in place?
9. What if there are specific tasks or components of my campaigns that I want to manage in-house while you handle other components? Is that possible? How do you typically
handle that situation?
10. How do you determine which metrics and goals equal success for my PPC program? How do you plan to work with me to refine and ultimately reach those goals?

(Source: wordstream.com)

Unlike an interviewee for a job position that hopes and prays they can hide any flaws they have by the way they simply respond to the questions asked, I strongly believe that as a ppc management company and a Google Adwords Certified Partner Company, we have an ethical obligation to help the potential client think through everything before they blindly get signed up for something they are too unfamiliar with.  I would even go so far as to say that if the company doesn't ask these questions, we should be so kind as to go ahead and tell the potential customer the answers.  

Some may disagree, and most sales books teach otherwise.  You know, they say things like, "strike while the iron is hot," and "Close! Close! Close!"  Well, yeah, if you don't close sales you won't make any money.  I don't disagree with that, but I do disagree with closing a sale with a client that due to lack of understanding, puts 90% of their decision base on trust, and 10% on sound knowledge of what is going to happen once they sign the dotted line.

There are mutual benefits in taking time to answer these 10 questions for the client, whether they care to hear them or not.  For example, if you have not determined which metrics and goals equal success for their PPC program with them, then one or two months later they will be calling to complain that they aren't seeing the results they hoped for, and it will be simply because no time was taken to set goals together.

What do you think?  Am I over the top?  Are the questions over the top?  Am I missing any questions you think are critical?

-Stu

Just wanted to take a minute and celebrate the 4th of July here on the blog.  All of us here at Get Found First are so grateful to have been born and raised in the beautiful and blessed United States of America. 

We wish all of you a HAPPY and SAFE happy birthday America!

We at Get Found First can confirm a sighting of the “Ghost Stats” that have been plaguing Adwords advertisers across the nation. These Ghosts Stats show up on the Adwords interface when you hover over the graph and then will follow you around the interface. We’ve been able to get screenshot evidence of these phantoms, which to our knowledge has never been done published publicly:

There are thousands(or maybe just a couple) of theories as to why and when the Ghost Stats show up and decide not to go away. Are they Googlers watching our every move? A stray “Panda” that escaped from the Organic results? Here are what some others had to say:

"Ghost stats in the middle of my Adwords data makes me wonder what Google is trying to hide." @mel66

”I had to leave my home, I thought the Ghost in the machine was out to get me.” @warrenj

“First they started showing up in my Adwords account. They would hang around for a couple days, then go away. Each time a new one came up, the CPA was higher. Then they started showing up in my adCenter account too.  Then they would show up as floating orbs in my pictures. Now I can't watch TV without them popping up. I apparently have a CPA of $2054.78 on Law & Order: Criminal Intent.” @michellemsem

Be careful and weary of the Ghost Stats PPCers. We’re not alone in Adwords.

Ad relevancy is something that I have preached since my first day in the internet marketing industry.  I will continue to preach it until the day I die.  I always chuckle when I see ads that are ridiculously irrelevant to me and what my interests are.  On the other hand, I always take time to look and admire ads that really get me.  So the other day while working on a Facebook page I came across an ad that really caught my eye:

Quick off-topic rant: How did they get away with all those caps-lock letters in a row?!

Getting back to ad relevancy and why this caught my eye, did you know that I served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints?  I went to Argentina for two years. @LukeAlley went to the Dominican Republic. @Mattchstik went to Pennsylvania. You would be surprised to know just how many guys there are in our industry that at some point in their life were Mormon Missionaries. This picture caught my eye of two mormon missionaries on Facebook.  Not suckering for the $9/week special, or the fact that an insurance company can give me preferential treatment because of my religion, I decided I had to click to see if the landing page would go on any more into why being mormon would save me money on car insurance.  Heh:

Right.  Come on!  Who is really going to believe that because they are Mormon or Catholic or Baptist or Jewish or Buddhist or [insert other religions here], that they are going to get a special discount on car insurance, but that is beside the point.  

These guys have stayed on track.  They caught my eye with a relevant ad to me and my interests.  The image, the caps-lock (any tips on how to pull that off?), and the ridiculously low offer.  Then, when I clicked, they sent me to a landing page that continues to correlate with the relevant ad.  Another side note, isn't that arrow BEAUTIFUL!  Arrows on landing pages work, but that is a post for another day.

There is one disconnect, and it is kind of a deal breaker.  Can anyone guess what it is?  I'll give you a hint; I live in the state of Idaho, and I am aware of the fact that insurance pricing varies based on the state you live in.

This post isn't about religion, although I love speaking about the subject.  This post is about ad relevancy, and making sure that your landing page correlates to your relevant ad.  With Facebook Advertising, it is important to work hard, but it is more important to work smart. Target the right demographic, show relevant ads, get clicks, and then be certain that your landing page correlates or you will wind up paying for some unwanted clicks like www.BestNewQuote.com did in this case.

If you've ever ran a pay-per-click campaign on any of the search engines, you've probably asked yourself, "How do I optimize my Google PPC ads?" Doing PPC Management here at GFF I ask myself that question everyday! Today I stumbled upon the perfect resource for that, Google's Optimization Center. Here's what they say about themself:

"Want to attract more customers to your business with AdWords, but need some inspiration? We've gathered together some of the top tips and strategies used by our AdWords specialists who have worked with advertisers of all sizes. Now you can take advantage of these same tips to make your search advertising more effective."

They offer three ways of viewing tips: by level of expertise, by account feature(ads, keywords, etc), and by advertising goal(ROI, ad position, etc).

MY OPINION: I can't see how long it's been around but it looks like a good resource for most PPC managers. I say "Most" because the tips and suggestions are for beginner to intermediate PPC managers. I thought by reading the "Advanced" tips that I would find out some things I didn't know about, however they were tips that I started using after only managing PPC for less than a year.

I would add one tip that they did not suggest; as far as the SERP goes, look at what everyone else is doing and do something different. On competitive verticals usually the ads all look the same with DKI in the title, keywords stuffed, calls to action, and similar offers(often something free). Make yourself stand out by being the odd man out. More often than not you'll find yourself with great click thru rates and high quality scores.

-Luke

On April 26^th I had the chance to visit Google at their Mountain View headquarters and give feedback on their new Adwords tool called 

“Google Engage”. It is a program that helps ad agencies learn how to better use Adwords and sell it to potential clients. Google invited out a few dozen reps from agencies across the country and we were trained, consulted on their platform, and discussed the ins and outs of Adwords and using Engage within an agency. I met smart and motivated owners from other ad agencies, and the people within Google who are making Engage and Adwords a success. Google has a great team built around it’s PPC platform and along with the success it has had thus far, it is positioned to have even more success in the future!

Initially I signed up for Engage for the 20 vouchers of $100 in free clicks, which in and of itself rocks, but as I’ve used and become more familiar with the program there is so much more. Here’s everything it offers:

In case you haven't watched any T.V. lately, been to CNN.com, or viewed any major news publications, you may not know that Get Found First is now an accredited member of the Better Business Bureau in Idaho. Go ahead, check out our home page. You'll see our BBB link on the right side bar, just waiting to be clicked. Should you choose to succumb to that urge to click and verify our claimed accreditation, you will find that we have an A rating. Yes we have only been accredited since April 1st, and no, it is not an April fools day joke by the BBB. We recently applied for the accreditation and April 1st just happens to be the day they approved us. At least they have a sense of humor over there.

As of 1:30 p.m. today, Get Found First has its first adExcellence member! Looks like we are the first company to be AdCenter Certified in Idaho too. Is it weird that I'm talking about my own certification? Probably, but we just wanted to let everyone know!

Get Found First now has employees certified in both Adwords and AdCenter. I'll have to say the test was much easier than Google's. You get 1 hour 30 minutes to answer 100 questions, compared to Google at 1:30 for 120 questions. There were more basic questions, i.e. "What happens when someone clicks on your ad?", answer: "You pay for the click", with some tougher ones tossed in there.

If you are looking for a company that has employees who are AdCenter Certified in Idaho, let us know!

-Luke

PPC managers are like Iron Man. Iron Man is brave, willing to take on the some of the hardest tasks known to man, solves problems, and works well with his clients(the U.S. government). Managing multiple PPC clients at an agency is similar to defending the world from bad guys because it is not an easy task. You have to be brave, take on difficult and low performing accounts, solve problems daily, and work well with all your clients. Tony Stark has his Iron Man suit to help him out. What do PPC managers have? Let me tell you.

Here are 10 things every PPC Manager needs at their desk(at least this is what I have at my desk):

1 – Note Pads- I have 4 note pads. One I write daily to do lists on. Another has new clients whose accounts we’re getting up and running smoothly. The others are for taking notes when I strategize with the clients or co-workers.

2 – A Drink- I prefer water because it’s healthy, it doesn’t fatten me up(like soda), and it keeps me awake for some reason.

3 – A Computer with the MCC open- Can’t miss this one can you?

4 – Work Phone- Gotta talk with the clients. That phone allows you to plug headphones in to keep your hands free while talking.

5 – Personal Phone(I'm taking the picture with it)- Gotta talk with the wife. Happy wife=happy life!

6 – Microphone- I use it to talk with clients over Skype.

7 – Headphones- Good for listening to music and for talking with clients. Keeps the conversation between me and the client… not me, the client, and the office!

8 – Trash Can- Gotta throw the notes and apple cores away somewhere. If you can put it far away from your desk, you can use it as a basketball hoop to shoot your notes at!

9 – Snacks- I usually mix it up with some healthy and some not healthy. Here at GFF we have a sweet stash of the not healthy stuff, although I find the healthier stuff keeps me more focused!

10 – Comfy Chair- Ok, my chair's not that comfy but it’s comfy enough. I prefer a stiff backed chair.

With all these items at my disposal, I take on PPC Management daily. Like Iron Man gets all the ladies once he beats the bad guys, I too get the lady(my wife) at the end of the day.

What can't you live without at your desk when managing PPC or SEO? Let us know!

-Luke

Image from: http://filmpopper.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Iron-Man.jpg

There has always been an argument among PPC managers in regards to the best way to use the "AD ROTATION" settings in Google Adwords.  My opinion has always been that both settings have their proper place and time to be used.  As a quick reminder or for those who may be unfamiliar, within the settings tab at that campaign level, you can choose the way the Adwords platform chooses to display your ads if you have written more than one per adgroup (which in my opinion is a MUST because with PPC you should always be testing).  Until yesterday, there were just two options to choose from for ad rotation: 

When you mouse over the question mark to the side of "Ad Rotation" in the setting of an Adwords Campaign, it says this:

"Your ad rotation selection determines how often we deliver your active ads in relation to one another within an ad group:

• Optimize for clicks (default): Ads expected to provide more clicks are delivered more often.
• ....
• Rotate: Each of your ads will enter the ad auction an approximately equal number of times. This allows ads with lower clickthrough rates and conversion rates to show more often, so this option could result in a lower average position or fewer clicks and conversions."

My tendency has always been to select the "Rotate" option for new campaigns.  The thought process behind this was that until the ads have all ran for a while, we don't have enough statistically significant data to determine which ads have improved.  Similar to conversion optimizer not being available until you have 15 conversions (which is arguably not enough), I don't believe you should use the "optimize for clicks" option until your ads have ran for a while. Unless you know that you are not going to monitor your campaign very close (not recommended), then I would not use the "optimize for clicks" option until your ads have thousands of impressions and thousands of clicks, at which point I think you would be crazy not to rely on Google Adwords algorithm that determines which ads will get you the most clicks.

As of yesterday, though, Google Adwords announced that it is providing a third option for Ad Rotation:

• "Optimize for conversions: Ads expected to provide more conversions are delivered more often. If there isn't sufficient conversion data, the system will optimize for more clicks."

This is the best option available, but it is for seasoned campaigns and seasoned PPC managers. Luke Alley, one of our Google Adwords Qualified Individuals goes on and on about the conversion optimizer tool and just how effective it can be.  We consider ourselves to be pretty savvy PPC managers, but we both agree that we don't have the time and energy to do everything to an account that the conversion optimizer tool can do for us, nor can we expect to consider all of the things the conversion optimizer algorithm considers when it makes changes to think like bids, time of day an ad appears, which keywords deserve more of the budget and more impressions, etc.  

For that same reason, my recommendation is that you do use the optimize for conversions setting, but only after your campaign has run for a long time and you have tested your ads and found a few that are proven successes.  This is still a very new feature and we will for sure be testing to see how well it works for us.  Best of luck to all who do the same!

-Stu

"Program Policy Enforcement and Non-compliance

Google will enforce policies through compliance audits as well as through investigation of complaints that it receives. Complaints can be filed by filling out this form.

If we find you in violation of any of the above program policies, you'll receive a warning. If you fail to correct the violation within 30 days, your membership and access to Google programs will be reviewed for corrective action.

Corrective action can include disqualifying you from Google Certification Program, Google Engage for Agencies, AdWords API preferred pricing, AdWords API access, and/or terminating your AdWords accounts if violations of these policies continue.

As noted in Section (8), some egregious violations will lead to immediate suspension without notice, and/or termination of your AdWords accounts, all qualification status, and AdWords API access." 

"We believe that most agencies, resellers and other third parties that sell AdWords already meet these policies and will need to make minimal or no changes to their systems. Proactive audits for selected third parties will start on April 1st 2011, although you are strongly encouraged to start complying with these requirements today. Note that we will continue to investigate any complaints and take appropriate actions."  

 What do you think?  Were recess aids enough or is Google smart to hire "Google Police?"

-Stu

Image From: http://images.thecarconnection.com/sml/pulled-over-by-the-police_100180482_s.jpg

Remember when Google AdWords was easy? Remember when all you needed was five minutes and a credit card to advertise to millions of people? Yes, those were the good old days, back in the early 2000s when Google launched its revolutionary pay-per-click (PPC) platform AdWords.

But in the 10 years since its launch, has Google AdWords become too complicated for SMBs?

It Wasn’t Always This Complicated

I’ve worked with AdWords accounts for over six years now. My first foray into PPC was a group project in my Internet marketing class. My team was handed a shiny American Express gift card worth $500 and told to create an AdWords campaign for a local company. We did some keyword research, wrote a few ads and unleashed our creation into the wild. To this day I don’t know if the project had a positive ROI for the company, but at that point in time, using AdWords was so easy five college kids with no experience could do it.

After graduating from college I started working for a software company that marketed almost exclusively online. I was in charge of an AdWords budget of several thousand dollars a month and got much better at using it. My keyword lists became more refined, my ad copy had laser-like focus on getting the click, and I was landing users on the exact page that would deliver on their intent. With the robust reporting, all I had to do was focus on the numbers and let them direct where I put in my efforts. AdWords was so easy a new college grad could do it.

Eventually I moved on to work for an Internet marketing agency where I was the one-man PPC department. I was now managing multiple accounts and tens of thousands of dollars in clicks. Sounds like a big deal, but the basic principles were still the same. Pick good keywords and write good ads to keep Google happy with your high click-through rate (CTR). Send people to landing pages that convert to keep the client happy. AdWords was so easy that one guy could run a whole agency’s PPC portfolio.

The changes were almost imperceptible to me because I was working on multiple accounts every day and reading numerous industry blogs. But to the SMB owner, Google AdWords was evolving faster than a virus in a sci-fi movie.

The Interface

AdWords started beta testing a new interface in November 2008. They expanded the beta during the first part of 2009, and on July 30, 2009 they said “Bye, bye, beta.” Personally I didn’t mind the new interface, but for someone unfamiliar with AdWords, I can see how it had an intimidating appearance. Here is a screenshot from early 2009:

Look at how many options you have from this one screen:

• 6 top-level tabs, 4 of which have drop-down menus
• 6 more tabs inside the main campaign area of the page
• 2 scrolling menus in the left sidebar
• Other links scattered around the page

That’s a lot of options, and that was in 2009. Looking at the interface for one of my clients today, there can be as many as 10 tabs in the main campaign area, and many basic functions (like reporting and the keyword tool) have been moved in the last year or so. Not very friendly to the novice user.

New Features

If you visit the Official Google AdWords Blog you’ll notice that virtually every post is about something “new” or “improved.” Here’s a short list of new features AdWords has launched in past few months:

• Search Funnels
• Ad Extension
• Seller Ratings
• AdWords Campaign Experiments
• Remarketing
• AdWords Automated Rules
• Enhanced CPC
• Broad Match Modifier
• Call Tracking
• AdWords API

Each one of these features is powerful, but at a rate of nearly one major feature added per month, how is the SMB owner supposed to keep up?

Quality Score

Quality Score (QS) isn’t new in AdWords. It’s been around for years. However, the factors affecting QS change frequently, and even the best PPC managers in the industry struggle to decipher what exactly goes into the QS algorithm, how much weight each factor receives and how QS differs based on placement (since QS is calculated differently for search vs. display). Since this seemingly magical number influences if/where your ad will be displayed and how much you’ll pay for a click, you can’t just ignore it. But can SMB owners really invest the money/time necessary to hit a constantly moving target?

K.I.S.S

No matter how complicated AdWords gets, success will always depend on the basics.

1. What pain do your customers have? – Choose keywords related to this pain.
2. How can you fix their pain? – Write ad copy that offers a potential solution.
3. What do they do next? – Send users to a page that clearly explains how you’ll solve their pain and what they need to do (Buy Now, Sign Up, etc.).

While simple, this approach should guide all your AdWords efforts. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes by imagining that you have a problem and typed it into Google. You see multiple ads and search results. Which ones stand out? Is there an angle not being utilized? Go to your landing page and see how well it matches up with the search term and ad copy. Once you’ve mastered this basic process you can augment your efforts with new features, but keeping it simple will help your business benefit from Google AdWords.

This is a guest post by Robert Brady which originally appeared on the Small Business Trends blog. Robert is the owner and head PPC wizard at Righteous Marketing, a Google AdWord Certified Partner. You can follow him on Twitter @robert_brady.

Aside from his impressive martial arts skills, huge budget, and tricked out batmobile, everyone knows that what makes Batman so effective is all the cool gadgets he has. Well, here at Get Found First, we’d be lying if we said we didn’t use some pretty sweet tools to combat appease the search engine gods. In an effort to spread the SEO love, I’ve created a list of some of the best SEO tools that we use in the Get Found First bat cave on a daily basis, and best of all, they are all free! Here they are(in no particular order):

1. Firebug – This gem is mostly a web development tool but comes in super handy when doing on page optimization. You don’t have to be fluent in HTML but it will definitely help. Firebug allows you to not only inspect elements on a page but also make changes to the code so that you can visually see what a page will look like with an image moved, an H1 added, or text changed. You can also view page load/speed issues. It's ranks right up there in awesomeness with the Batarang.

2. SEO Book Rank Checker – Okay, so you know your site isn’t on the first page of Google for the term you want it to be, but where is it exactly? Instead of searching page by page on Google indefinitely, just add the URL of your site and the keyword in question and viola, instantly know where you rank. Rank Checker lets you save all of your keywords so you can come back and check them whenever you wish.

3. SEO X-Ray – Though not as powerful as superman’s x-ray vision, this is yet another handy add-on from the fine people over at SEOBook. Want to check the Meta tags or see what heading tags are on a page quickly without having to go into the page source of a site? With the click of the mouse, SEO X-Ray provides a heads up display of the webpage displaying Title, Description, and Keywords while highlighting and marking all the heading tags on the page. Internal and external links are also shown and a keyword density report can be run as well (if you decide that keyword density is important).

4. Hubspot Website Grader – This is a nice tool that crawls your site and gives you an overall grade of your website compared to other sites on the web. Some nice features include telling you if there are missing alt tags on images, too many images, if a blog is found, and how many links you have. Great tool to give you some ideas on how to make your site better for those.

5. Yahoo Site Explorer – Rumor has it that this tool may soon cease to exist due to the Bingahoo merger. So far it is still active and working. It gives a great view of your backlinks and allows you to export the list. I use it mostly to count the number of links for tracking purposes. Word on the street is that Yahoo site explorer is not crawled as often these days so links may not be as current.

6. SEOMoz Opensite Explorer – If/When Yahoo site explorer gives up the ghost, Opensite Explorer will most likely be the dominant backlink tool. By filtering only external links on competitor sites and exporting the data to a spreadsheet, you can get a good idea of their strategies and adopt them for your own site. Of note, I have noticed that links on here are not always an accurate measure of actual links, but it will still give you a good idea as to where you stand. So just because a link isn't showing, doesn't mean you don't have it.

7. Majestic SEO – Awesome tool for doing backlink analysis on your own site or competitor sites. Big help when you want to get an idea of how well your historical link building efforts are going.

8. SEM Rush – Good tool for organic and adwords competitor keyword research. Also one of the few tools I know of where you can enter your competitors URL and it will spit back the organic and Adwords keywords they are ranking for.

9. SEOMoz Tool bar – This is probably one of the coolest SEO gadgets and the closest thing to having a H.U.D. like the inside of the batmobile. Includes everything from SERP and analyze page overlays, one click highlighting of no follow links, and instant access to some great SEO tools, this is must have for any SEO.

10. Keyword Spy – Another great tool for doing competitor keyword research. Keyword Spy allows you to enter a Keyword, a domain, destination URL, or even ad copy, to do research on. Great way to get an idea of what your competitors are up to and how much they may be spending on.

For those with more of a Bruce Wayne budget, stay tuned. In my next post, I'll put together a list of some of the best paid SEO tools.

-Matt

Adwords Editor(AE) can make managing an Adwords account a lot easier. If you haven’t discovered and starting using it yet, here are some Adwords Editor Tips and Tricks that might convince you to download that little program and start using it... They'll also make you smile like the lady in the picture! We’ve found AE to be most handy in accomplishing these everyday tasks:

1. Grouping Related Keywords- Have you ever done keyword research for hours and found yourself with a long list of keywords that needs grouping? AE has a function that breaks your keywords down into related terms. Simply add all your keywords into an Ad Group, select “Tools” then “Keyword Grouper” and PRESTO, keywords are grouped!
2. Create Variations of Ads- Testing ads is an essential in any PPC campaign. In AE you can simply copy an ad and change any part of the ad to create a simple split test. Here’s what we usually test: Titles, Capitalization, Calls to Action, Wording, and Display URL.
3. Find and Replace- When you have a campaign that has dozens of Ad Groups, you probably aren’t writing specific and unique ads for each Ad Group. After you write a first round of ads for an Ad Group, you can copy those same ads into the next Ad Group and use the Find and Replace function to replace “Key” keywords. Super handy!
4. Adding Multiple Match Types- Want to have more than one match type on a keyword? AE makes this easy by allowing you to copy all the keywords you want, paste them and all at once change the match type. Rather than having to do each one individually with all selected you can change them all at once.
5. Append Text- Google best describes this tool, “The Append Text tool enables you to add text before or after existing text in a particular column, for all selected rows. For example, you could use this tool to add the word 'new' at the beginning of selected keywords or ad headlines, or add 'Order now' at the end of your text ad description lines.”
6. Export Campaign/Account to Adcenter- Do you manage an account in Adcenter along with Adwords? If you create an account in Adwords you can export it right into Adcenter without the hassle of having to redo everything. Use the “Export Spreadsheet (CSV)” in the File tab for this. WARNING – Adcenter doesn’t always recognize Geo-Targeting and Bids here, so make sure and double check everything!

These are some of the best Adwords Editor Tips and Tricks that we’ve found. They’ve saved me hours while doing PPC Management! Got any other tips? I’d love to hear them!

-Luke

The guys are making me write my own post, so I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Sterling Green, I have a background in web development/design and experience in SEM and E-Commerce. I am excited to be a part of this great company and am excited for the opportunities to work with other great companies. I have a love for this industry and a dream to impact it is a special way. 

I grew up in Northwest Montana and now have a beautiful wife and daughter, whom I love and adore. Family is a big part of my life. In my free time I like to hit the slopes when there is good snow and spend time behind a boat in the summer time. 

I am an "easy going" kind of guy and look forward to working with the Get Found First crew and their great clients.                                                                                                                                                          

Can you get found on the Google Maps for free?  Yes you can, but first let me do some explaining.

Above is an example of a Google ad that really frustrates me.  It just seems to me that the ad is a little misleading.  Sure, the clicks don't cost you anything, and Google doesn't charge you to claim your listing that they have most likely already created for you.

Here is what the ad should say:

"Do you own a business?

Be found SOMEWHERE on Google for free

Google Places

Claim your free listing on Google today"

The ad makes it sound like your business really is going to get found on Google, but the honest truth is you could claim you listing and get found on the Google map, but more likely than not your listing will be buried 6 or 7 pages down the list of local competitors.  

I AM NOT SAYING YOU SHOULD NOT TRY TO GET ON THE MAP AND CLAIM YOUR FREE LISTING. All I am saying is that you should not expect as a do-it-yourself local business owner to do the right things to get your Google maps listing on the first page of results.  Frankly, an ad like this usually helps my business out.  You as an SMB see the ad by Google and get excited that you have found your golden ticket to page one on Google.  You take the time and claim your listing.  2 or 3 weeks go by and you start realizing the ticket to the first page of Google wasn't so golden.  Then you ask friends and family if they know how you can get your maps listing to the first page of Google.  They guess (but they tell you like they really know) that it takes time and agree it is a good guess.  You wait a year and then go looking for your listing only to find that you are still not on the first page of Google.  You realize you need help so you do a Google search for Online Marketing Experts and you find my company in the #3 spot on the first page.  We explain that it is much more complex than what Google had portrayed in the ad.  You become our new client.  A few months later you are on the first page of Google and everyone lives happily ever after.

Yes. It is free to get on the Google maps.  No. They don't charge you for clicks to your website if you are on the maps listings, but they don't tell you what it takes to get to the first page on the map. Ask us, or a company like ours, and they can help.  It will cost you money for our help, but remember: Yes. It is free to get on the Google maps.  No. They don't charge you for clicks to your website if you are on the maps listings so it is a great idea to claim your Google Places listing.

Best of luck to all who try, especially to the do-it-yourselfers who try to rank higher on the first page than my clients.

-Stu

Yep, a young entrepreneur like me couldn't be more honored to celebrate National Entrepreneur's Day on my birthday (can you guess how old I am?).  Coincidence?  I think not! In fact, the proclamation starts out: "To honor Stuart Draper, and other amazing entrepreneurs like him...."  I crack myself up!

On a more serious note, you can read the official blog post from the White House here.

Here is the best part of the Presidential Proclamation:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim November 14 through November 20, 2010, as National Entrepreneurship Week. I call upon all Americans to commemorate this week with appropriate programs and activities, and to celebrate November 19, 2010, as National Entrepreneurs' Day.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand ten, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fifth.

It is fun and neat for me to have this special day on my personal birthday, but I've got to tell you, I have felt very little support from the Government in my entrepreneurial efforts.  Having a day set aside is neat, but I think entrepreneurs would like more support than they are getting.  I AM NOT ASKING FOR SOME SORT OF BAIL OUT OR MONEY INFUSION FROM THE GOVERNMENT, JUST LESS HASSLE (meaning to get out of the way) IN GETTING A BUSINESS OFF THE GROUND AND RUNNING. And, less hassle when I try to qualify for a loan.  The regulations on the banks from the government are making it impossible for them to lend money to SMBs and self-employed individuals looking to buy a home. 

The proclamation also states,

"I encourage aspiring entrepreneurs and other Americans interested in promoting innovation to visit www.SBA.gov for resources and information."

So there you have it, they have created a website for us.  Not sure how much of a help it will be, how user-friendly it really is, and who qualifies for help, but it is there.  I did notice that they don't mention on the page that you will owe us a ton of taxes if your business succeeds so start looking for write-offs. If it is there, I missed that part.  ;)

HAPPY ENTREPRENEURS DAY EVERYONE and HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Just saw this video today for the new advertising product from Facebook called Facebook Deals and it has me excited to try this with some of my clients that have local, brick and mortar businesses.

Watch the video here.  I was surprised to see that Facebook didn't provide a way for me to embed the video, or share it any other place than within Facebook.  Trust me, I would have embedded it if I could have.

According to Facebook, "We launched Places to let you share where you are with your friends and see who's nearby. Now with Deals, you also can see what offers are nearby and share those deals with your friends."

You can read the official Facebook announcement on their blog.

Here are my top 5 reasons I am excited about Facebook Places and Facebook Deals:

1. Location-based marketing is all the rage.  Foursquare (have tried) and Gowalla (have not tried) have received a lot of hype, but the fact is that no one likes to manage a bunch of different social networks.  Think about it, in real life, between church, work, friends, and family, it is hard to manage all of those relationships.  Facebook, the largest social network in the world, now has a way for you to "check-in" so you don't have to login to any other account to tell the world where you are.
2. New, shiny, bright thing effect.  Every internet marketer likes to be one of the first ones to try the latest way to get you or your client's name out there.
3. More than ever before, consumers are asking their friends about products before making purchases.
4. Facebook is already awesome for targeting specific demographics, and now it is better at targeting specific geographics, even down to the actual location.  Why?  Because now Facebook users are telling the world when they walk into a store.
5. I can't wait to get the deals.  It will be cool to check-in at Target and see what discounts I can get just for being okay with letting all of the world know that is where I am.  Seriously, do you think I would be ashamed to let my uncle Dave on Facebook know that I am at Target if it means I am going to save 30%?

Even after all the hype and excitement, and having 5 reasons to love Facebook Deals, I will probably hold off a little longer before I test the waters.  If you haven't read the blog post I linked to above, it talks about who the early adopters are to this new advertising technology.  I am anxious to hear how it goes for them, and let them teach the world how it works, before I use it on my own stuff.  As soon as I do, I'll let you know how it goes.

While doing some optimizing in an account several weeks ago I noticed a small spelling error in one of my ads. I had misspelled "known" to "know" and the sentence read "Uncover How a Little Know Secret Maximizes Tax-Free Retirement Now!". Despite the error the ad was the best of the 3 or 4 that we were running in that adgroup, with a CTR of around 5%. Rather than be content with that CTR I took that ad, made a copy, and changed "know" to the correct spelling of "known". Here are the results:

From that small change we saw an increase in CTR by 2.48%! It makes sense in this case that the proper spelling would increase CTR, however the principle applys to every ad we make. Always test to try and get better performance out of your ads and improve your Pay Per Click account! At any one time we have around 2-5 ads running side by side in each adgroup to find what searchers really prefer, while all the time pausing the low-performing ads.

-Luke

For my PPC management clients I have always touted the fact that because we are a Google Adwords Certified Partner Company we have a direct phone line to speak with a human being at Google.  Google has recently put a huge emphasis on local search and in more ways than one. Rather than go into the details of all of the changes, I will stay focused on the one change that to me is HUGE!  Google is giving out their phone number. They are reaching out to the meager budgeted, small businesses in small town USA.  We help a client show up on the Google Map in Salem, Oregon.  Just to day I got the following email from Google reaching out with a special offer they have been pushing for a few months now:

So what's the big deal, you ask? Well, do a Google search for "Google's phone number."   You will see that their number is buried about 7 results down, and the phone number is provided by Yahoo!  And not even directly from Yahoo, it is from Yahoo Answers where a guy shares a number he has been given by Google.

I am personally very excited that Google is being more proactive about Local Search and the little guy in small town America.  I don't blame them for dealing with all of the deep pockets in big, corporate America first, just refreshing to see them reach out and give out the phone number to Google.

By the way, I called the number, you do get an operator, not a live human (so it is not as cool as the phone number they have given us permission to call), but with patience, you can get through to a Googler.

Google has been using me!  Well, really, it's nothing new, they have been using me since the day I chose to use their search engine.  They use me to see what I search, and where I click, and how long I leave their site when I click on one of the search results they have provided. Used and abused I tell you.  But now they have taken it to a whole new level!  When I do a search now they aren't just changing small things.  Oh no.  Now they are making massive changes to see how I react.  It is like I am some sort of a test rat.  Okay, maybe I am not the only one.  Have you guys been "chosen" as a Google lab rat?  Let me know if you feel used and we'll let Google know together.

You have most likely seen this one by now:

The local results are intermingled with the organic results which had a negative effect for some, and a positive effect for others.  The map is showing in the top right.  This is a change that is universal, and I don't believe I am being used as a Google Lab Rat any more. The following I know they are still testing.  Have you seen it? You likey, or no likey?

In this case sticking with the "7-pack" at the top just like the old Google Maps listing, but the map is up in the right hand corner.  Has anyone seen where they have gone back to A-J instead of just A-G.  As a lab rat I saw it, took a screen shot just the other day, and I can't remember where I save the file.  Doh!  The following is something I presume we are all Google Lab Rats on now, but they are still testing this and I am not sure they will stick with it forever:

Note that in the screenshot above the map on the right is eclipsing the ads on the right. Speaking of which, did you notice that MAJOR CHANGE!  It doesn't say "sponsored links" any more!  Google does away with their bread and butter "sponsored links!" So they haven't actually gone away from their roughly 20-Billion-a-year bread and butter, but they did leave the name at least for a little while to test the word "ads" on lab rats like me.  Are they testing this on you too? A few days ago my co-workers were still seeing "sponsored links."  Now they are lab rats as well seeing "ads" instead.

In the ad below, while the SERP is showing as a local serp with the map on right, something is different, what is it?

You guessed it.  Google is giving less priority to the "7-pack" moving them down the page below some of the first organic results.  My guess as a seasoned Google lab rat is that this is due to the fact that the maps results have very few reviews and for that reason are given less relevance. What is your guess?  Or, do you know something I don't about what is causing that?

Now let's look about what is different about what shows up beneath the fold in the Google serp.

Just 5 organic results!  Ouch!  They cut the results down from 10 beneath the map to just 5!  But wait, check out this next one:

See, I am a Google Lab Rat, and maybe you are too.  Now I see 7 organic results beneath the "7-pack." Go check.  How many are showing up for you?  Do a couple different searches and see if you get a different number each time.  Are you one of Google's rats?

Below is a screen shot of something they have done to conditioned Google rats like me.  Can you guess what it is? 

They quit showing ads on the top.  This is nothing new.  I have had more people than I can count on my hands and toes ask me how come Google shows ads on the top and sometimes they don't.  This is what happens to conditioned Google lab rats.  If you don't click on the ads after multiple searches without a click-through, they stop showing ads to you on the top.  Google wants to show ads to people that are going to click-through.  If you won't they quit showing you as many ads for a couple reasons (Matt Cutts, correct me if I am wrong):

1.) User-experience.  They don't want to show you something they begin to assume you don't want.

2.) It effects the advertisers click-through rate and quality score to keep showing ads to someone who doesn't ever click-through.

Have you ever seen when only 2 ads show on the right for a search that you know has multiple advertisers willing to pay to be there? I haven't been able to get it to happen ever since Google Instant came about.

So, you little rat, what other crazy changes have you noticed with Google.

That sounds similar to my excuse for blogging!  The fact is that I don't make time as often as I should, and I am sorry about that!  It all comes down to self-discipline, right?  Well, maybe.  If you work 60 hours a week, why would you want to discipline yourself to spend another hour working?

A lot of small business owners are tired after working 60 hours in a week and don't want to do something they don't enjoy.  I can't tell you how many times I have heard dentists, and other SMBs with websites say something like, "I just don't have time to manage my Google Adwords account like I would like to, and like I know I need to."

Well, in an effort to help these busy SMBs more quickly and efficiently spend their money with Google (take note of the fact that Google is VERY good at making it EASY to give them your money), they are in the process of creating Google Boost Ads, according to Greg Sterling of Seach Engine Land.  Google Boost Ads is supposed to create a new way to "set and forget" your Google Ads and let it work for you, so long as you have the right budget.  At first glance, this seems like a nice route to take for the busy SMB, but here are my concerns:

1. This will only be effective and affordable on keywords that are NOT very competitive.
2. If you do "set and forget" your campaign, Google does not promise they won't forget you.
3. From the screen shot in the article, it only allows for 1 advertiser per search result.
4. High demand + small supply = EXPENSIVE
5. Google takes total control of your online ad.  They can pick and choose when and where your ads show up.

Most SMBs will never consider these concerns because they won't think of them when they go to sign up, but it won't be long before they quit when they don't see the returns they are looking for.  SMBs will then turn to small business consultants for help managing their online marketing efforts, and trust me, I'm not complainin', just sayin'.  

The fact is, we all have to have time for things besides work, or we become robots, and don't have time for "life." In my case, I have a beautiful wife and two kids I love to spend time with, and the Idaho outdoors to enjoy (even if it is below freezing temps. in October).  That is why everyone should do what they do best, and leave the rest to the experts.  

Wondering what you can do with Google's Enhanced CPC Bidding setting? I was too until after I watched Google's webinar introducing the feature. Here are my notes from it:

What the heck is Enhanced CPC Bidding and why was this developed?

• Enhanced CPC Bidding takes the likelihood that a keyword will convert and either raises or lowers the bid.

• Some advertisers want CPC bidding control, normal conversion optimizer is incompatible with 3rd party software, and it is easier for people managing bids daily.

How exactly does it work?

• Enhanced CPC predicts a conversion rate for your ads every time they are eligible to appear. This is based on past conversions and the data from those users who converted, such as the search query, broad vs exact match, user location, operating system, browser and language. These are just "some of the factors".

What are the benefits?

• Increase profits, retain control over bids, and easy and safe to try out(they claim that results will be neutral or better).

Why use this over Conversion Optimizer?

• Enhanced CPC is compatible with advanced campaign settings and 3rd party management systems.
• It can complement what you are doing manually with your campaigns, i.e. focusing on advertising goals, and unique info about the company, then Google uses data we can't see.

This is another good feature that Google has rolled out with. They seem to know how to use all the data that they are collecting effectively(at least in Adwords) and it can pay off in your PPC Campaign. If you have any questions you can email me at luke@getfoundfirst.com and I will try my best to answer them!

-Luke

Last night my Ohio State Buckeyes started their season of with a 45-7 romp of Marshall. It was no surprise but I still had to wear my Ohio State shirt to work today to celebrate. As I expect many more wins from my Buckeyes I'll need to get some better gear to represent them! So while I'm shopping and as Stu promised in his last post, I'll sort through the ads and landing pages and show you the good and the bad... From a PPC managers perspective!

I decided to go with a jersey, so I Googled "Ohio State Jerseys". If you want to follow along, do the same:

The Good:

• Ad Text- Ohio State Buckeyes Shop   Shop Ohio State Apparel & Gifts - Jerseys, T-Shirts, Caps, Souvenirs.   CollegeFootballStore.com/Ohio_State
  • Good:
    • Ohio State mentioned and bolded 3 times which makes the ad stand out.
    • Jerseys also mentioned and bolded.
    • Google Checkout Option- Makes the ad stand out more, gives an option to buy quick.
  • Bad:
    • No Call to Action.
    • Not focused just on jerseys.
• Landing Page- http://www.collegefootballstore.com/COLLEGE_Ohio_State_Buckeyes
  • Good:
    • Clean looking, well organized.
    • I can easily find the jerseys I want to shop for.
    • Good selling points/confidence builders on top.
  • Bad:
    • I wasn't taken directly to jerseys, which is what I wanted.

The Bad:

• Ad Text- College Store Gift Shop   Every major Schools Gift Store We sell for less free Shipping too!   www.SportsNutsOnline.com
  • Good:
    • I had to think for a second to find something good here, but their ad stands out because they have 0 keywords in there. However, I am probably the only one that would click on that ad because I think about things like that as a PPC manager! So this might actually be a bad.
  • Bad:
    • Ohio or State or Jerseys not mentioned once!
    • I don't really know what they are selling.
    • No Call to Action.
• Landing Page- http://www.sportsnutsonline.com/
  • Good:
    • Again, hard to find... At least you feel some confidence with the "secure" logo on the right.
  • Bad:
    • Homepage as a landing page, usually a no no. Definitely a no no this time.
    • Where is your NCAA stuff?
    • Where are your jerseys?
    • Where is an Ohio State Jersey???
    • Navigation is hard to look at.
    • The logo looks trashy.
    • In all the whole website looks thrown together and I would not trust these guys with my CC info.

In order to sell online you have to have it all! Like a good pass from Terrell Pryor(the Buckeyes quarterback), you have to catch your customers and keep em until you score, or in this case sell! By having all the pieces together starting with your ad and finishing on your webpage you can make Online Marketing work for you.

-Luke

So you have been wondering: "Should you advertise on your competitors' names as keyword searches?"

"NEVER SAY NEVER!" This post isn't going to answer that question yes or no, because like most everything in internet marketing, it is very subjective and there are lots of variables that must be considered.  We do ppc management for life insurance companies.  One client that just got started is generating leads for their whole life insurance company.  

Take a glance at their numbers (click to enlarge):

The "insurance companies" campaign (referred to as the "IC" campaign moving forward) advertises only on keywords related to, or exactly, the competition's company names. The "whole life insurance" (referred to as "WLI" from now on) campaign advertises on keywords that relate to the clients actual product/service offering.  Based on these numbers alone, it is easy to see that the WLI campaign is doing much better than the IC campaign.  The CTR is under .4% (for search) and the cost per conversion is a NASTY $237!  Sure, IC has a lower cost per click, it is showing up in a higher average position, with 64 more clicks, and about 34,000 more impressions, but that conversion rate and cost per conversion are horrific.

The biggest "tell all" number from above is cost/conversion, and obviously, if one campaign costs 3x as much to generate the same conversion, most likely you don't have to question which one is performing better, and which one you should pause or adjust.

So the question still remains: "Should I advertise on my competitors' names as keyword searches?" My answer is: "Do you have enough info to draw any conclusions?" "What don't you know still?" 

Here are the other factors still not considered, THAT MUST BE, before you make any rash or hasty decisions:

--How is the ad copy? Do the ads really stand out and tell the "smart researcher" why they should not go to the competitor and come to you?  You have to be VERY convincing because online searchers aren't dumb anymore, and don't you forget that!!!  If they searched for your competitor, that is who they were looking for, and you need to be extremely careful that you look for "out of the box" ways to catch their eye.   Sorry, I can't show you the ad copy of the ads related to these campaigns to respect the privacy of my client.

--What is the Quality Score looking like?  More often than not, when you advertise "off of your own turf," you get beat up with bad QS.

--Are the landing pages convincing?  Okay, so you caught the searchers eye, which tells us that he may not be so loyal to the company he was searching for, now what? Are you going to convince him why you're better and specifically state reasons focused on why he should choose you? Do you have a strong value proposition, and a powerful call to action?

--Are these numbers statistically significant?  What kind of a time frame are we looking at? I wish I had paid more attention in Professor Brown's Stats 220 class! With or without being a stats genius, we all know that four conversions on 168 clicks is bad, especially because the CPC is over $5. BUT, what if you get four more conversions before you hit your 200th click?  Now the campaign is headed in the right direction, and not doing as bad as it had originally looked. Make sure that your campaign is given a fair chance before you give up on it! Too often, campaigns are paused, when really all they needed were a few adjustments.

--What about budget? In the numbers above, Google tells us that our campaigns are limited by budget. If that is the case, my recommendation is to put all of your money into the best performing campaign.  Just like when people ask me about whether or not they should be advertising on all three search engines, I tell those with small budgets that they should not because they spread themselves thin, and it takes longer to learn from the data.

--Who else seems to be having success advertising on their competitors' names?  What are they doing? My partner Luke will do a post that analyzes the ad copy and landing page with screen shots of some of those out there that are doing it the right way.

But wait, the question still remains: "Should I advertise on my competitors' names as keyword searches?" My answer, "What do you think? I have given you a lot to consider, and feel that until all things are considered, you shouldn't make up your mind."

-Stu 

First a confession. I lied. Every PPC campaign should NOT have all these negative keywords. Most should. Let me remind you why negative keywords are important, courtesy of Google:

"A negative keyword is a special kind of keyword matching option that allows you to prevent your ad from appearing when the specific terms are a part of the user’s search."

Here at Get Found First we've added very specific negative keywords to our pay per click clients accounts. For example, most of our dentists have terms such as "school", "university" and "education". Why? Because those terms often are searched with the word dental and our clients are not selling educational services.

What we are experimenting with now are much longer and thorough negative keyword lists. Our clients have many of these terms, but we have been adding more that are not already listed in their campaigns. We want to see how much performance will increase simply by adding these terms. Now if you are going to do the same remember a few things:

• Some of these terms should not be added to all campaigns. Free should be added to most, but not a client offering free 7 day trials.
• Traffic should decrease. Irrelevant traffic will decrease, but traffic will become more targeted.
• This list is not comprehensive and you should have many other negatives.

The keywords we are using for MOST campaigns:

General-

craigslist        
directions        
ebay      
facebook          
free      
free sample       
game      
games     
lyrics    
map       
maps      
myspace   
nude      
porn      
recipe    
samples   
sex       
sexy      
utube     
you tube 

Job Seekers-

opening
openings
career    
careers   
direct hire       
direct placement          
employer          
employers         
employment        
freelance         
freelancer        
freelancers       
freelancing       
full-time         
head hunter       
hiring    
independent contractors   
intern    
interns   
internship        
internships       
job       
jobs      
part-time         
position          
positions         
positions         
recruiter         
recruiters        
recruiting        
resume    
resumes   
salaries          
salary    
staffing          
temp      
temporary
interview
interviews
search
monster
human resources
opportunity
opportunities
government
staffing     

Reference Keywords-

about
definition
diagram
example
examples
history
map
maps
sample
samples
what are
what is
article
articles
association
associations
blog
blogs
book
books
bulletin
bulletins
case studies
case study
data
define
forum
forums
guide
guides
image
images
info
information
journal
journals
learn about
magazine
magazines
meaning of
metrics
news
newsletter
newsletters
newspaper
newspapers
photo
photos
picture
pictures
report
reports
research
resource
resources
review
reviews
term
terms
terminology
theories
theory
tutorial
tutorials
FAQ
logo
logos
statistics
stats
success stories
success story

Research and Stats-

association
associations
book
books
case studies
case study
guide
guides
journal
journals
magazine
magazines
metrics
news
research
review
reviews
statistics
stats
success stories
success story
tutorial
tutorials
white paper
white papers
wikipedia
wiki
blog
blogs
blogger
news
press
article
articles

Education-

class     
classes   
college   
colleges          
conference        
conferences       
course    
courses   
education         
institute         
institutes        
program   
programs          
school    
schools   
seminar   
seminars          
training          
universities      
university        
workshop          
workshops

We'll stop there. If you want more ideas I compiled these from Solomon Rothman, Clix Marketing, and Andy Komack. Stay tuned next week as we look at the results from adding these lists to all of our clients!

What was your first thought/reaction when you read the title, Web Marketing in Idaho?

My guess is that it was one of the following:

1. Chuckled under your breath.
2. LOLed.
3. ROFLed.
4. Thought, "they have computers in Idaho?"
5. Thought, "Sweet! I'm going to read this to get tips on how to buy potatoes for cheap online!" 
6. Or, maybe, you were one of the few, who thought, "Cool. There are even dudes in Idaho who are paying the bills with web marketing."

I'd love to hear what your *honest* reaction was so don't forget to leave yours in the comments.

I just recently attended Blue Glass LA, an amazing internet marketing conference where some of the best SEOs in the country attended.  I personally got to meet and speak with Rand Fishkin.  Yeah, it was that cool. 

Anyway, when ever I met someone new at the conference they would ask me where I was from, and I would say, Idaho.  The reaction I got was usually #1 & #2.  No one was so mean they did #3, but #4 & #5 are close to some of the reactions that I got. So, I am here to say, with more pride than ever before:

"The web marketing industry exists, and is actually alive and well in southeast Idaho." See for yourself by checking out our Meetup.com page.  James Zolman, @jameszol on Twitter, started our group just a few months ago and we have over 30 internet marketers attending weekly now in an area with a very small 

Isn't that the beauty of the internet? If you have a computer, an internet connection, and an understanding of web marketing, you can make money from anywhere in the world.  Yes, even in Idaho!

Want to start keeping tabs of what goes on in the Idaho part of the web world? Follow me on Twitter @getfoundfirst. Who knows, you may learn a thing or two from a Google Adwords Certified Partner company in Idaho, but if not, you can at least connect with a guy that can hook you up with anything Idaho outdoors: flyfishing, horseback riding, mountain biking, camping, mountain climbing, hunting, & touring Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park.

The goal of my website is to generate leads.  To do this, the site teaches people about my company, and explains how we can help them.  In the process, and as you go through the pages (that need some serious seo attention by the way) you will see that the site brags and is very biased because we created the content.  What company would write bad things about themselves anyway...right?

I saw this Google Adwords video along time ago:

You will note that rather than brag about themselves and how great Adwords is, they let a client that has had success tell their story and recommend Google to everyone why they should use Google.

Well, at Get Found First, we are changing our approach!  We are no longer asking that you take our word for it, or trust that just because we are a Google Adwords Certified Partner company that we are the greatest.  We have followed Google's example, sort of, with a smaller budget, but with real clients, recommending our services:

Let me know what you think!  I'd love advice on what we should do with future testimonial videos!

A business owner recently contacted us concerned because his Cost Per Clicks had doubled in the last month! His problem? Quality Score. He knew that it had been dropping, but didn’t know what to do to stop the pain.

So what do you do when quality score is sub-par? Here is a list of items to troubleshoot to make sure you’re doing everything right for your pay per click campaign:

1) Improve Click Through Rate In Ad Groups- Write some more ads and always test them. I always have at least two running and sometimes more if keyword popularity and traffic is high.

2) Improve Click Through Rate in The Account- CTR of the entire account will affect the quality score of every keyword in an account. We have made entirely new accounts at times when CTR was so bad for clients.

3) Add Negative Keywords- This is basically improving your CTR, but it also weeds out irrelevant searches.

4) Add Keywords to Your Ads- Matching the keywords from an adgroup to its ads improves the relevancy of the ads. Because Google bolds these words it usually improves CTR too.

5) Add Keywords to a Landing Page- Make sure your landing page is relevant to the keywords you’re advertising. Adding the keywords to a respective landing page will help.

BONUS TIP: Improve Your Click Through Rate More! I’ve read that historical CTR could factor up to 60% of a keywords quality score, while the next highest factor only counts for 10%.

We took on the client with the bad quality scores. After troubleshooting his account and making some changes we saw quality score improve for almost every keyword. With a little TLC you can improve your quality scores too!

Here were my takeaways from Dave's portion of the Link Building portion of the amazing BlueGlass Conference.

Links are the key to domination on the web. Get high quality links first that will convert, but also, just go get links!

Links are the core concept of the internet, and don't forget that.

Here is what Dave thinks (I agree fully. Dave is the man on this stuff!):

Don't just go spam everything! Link acquisition boils down to two concepts:

1.) Monetary Response - People love money and will do disgusting things to get it

2.) Emotional Response - Anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, anticipation, acceptance, and joy.

Step 1: Mine Data

-What are people linking to in your vertical? (linkscape)

-How are they linking? (linkscape)

-What topics are people emotional about now? (google and twitter trends)

-How have people historically interacted with content? (linkscape)

Step 2: Create Your Reason for Linking

Step 3: Craft Outreach Strategy from Data

-Create an outreach list

-Look at social venues that have led to links in the past

-Make lasting relationships within your vertical that can be quickly and easily leveraged based on trends

Step 4:?

Step 5: Outreach

-Quantify and inventory the links

Step 6: Data Collection and Categorization

Step 7: Rinse and Repeat...No...Seriously!

Approach link building with this in mind:

Will this link increase my traffic and share my content with correct audience?

Typing super fast so please accept my apologies for typ-o's.

As part of my new hire initiation, I have been asked to introduce myself as the newest member of the Get Found First team.  I am a red head, and because of that I have been lovingly given the nickname, "the red man". As part of my welcoming in the office, Luke played a clip from Peter Pan where the Indians sing about the red man being red.

I grew up in the great state of Colorado close to Denver. I graduated from Brigham Young Univesity - Idaho in 2008 where I studied Business Management with an emphasis in marketing. I was introduced to the internet marketing world by a business professor of mine in 2007, and shortly after graduating I started an internet marketing company called Matchstick SEO. I have learned much since then and I am fortunate to work with the great staff of Get Found first!

Today is a special day. Not only is it Social Media Day, but also our fellow comrade Luke is experiencing his first day as a daddy! Luke is one of our Google AdWords Certified Professionals. His newborn son arrived safe and well on June 29, 2010 at 8:30pm. His name is Max, and weighs in at 8lbs 2oz and 22in. long! Feel free to congratulate him via twitter @lukealley. He’ll need all the support he can get for what lies ahead…late, late nights or early, early mornings, and lots of diaper changing!

You're probably thinking that the heading is an oxymoron and that it's impossible to get free clicks from the paid search results, but it's not!  Google just introduced seller rating extensions that will allow you to get free clicks.  The ratings will be shown by golden stars and will show up next to your PPC ad on Google (just like the one shown below), and the best part is when somebody clicks on the reviews, it DOES NOT cost you anything.

However, there are some caveats that we should all be aware of.  Those catches are that not all merchants qualify.  There are certain criteria that must be met before those beloved golden stars will show up.  Google explains in their post Introducing seller rating extensions on Google.com.

"If your online store is rated in Google Product Search, you have 4 or more stars, and you have at least 30 reviews, you’ll automatically get seller ratings with your ads...At this time, seller rating extensions will show to English-language users searching on Google.com."

So now you might be asking where these ratings come from and how to improve them.  Google has said that they include Reseller Ratings, Bizrate, ReviewCentre.com and Viewpoints.  However, in their answer to that question, it only said includes, so it would probably be good to assume there are more out there and not to just focus on those ones alone.

All in all, the merchant rankings will probably improve click-through-rate for those merchant's with high rankings, but does not mean that all the clicks will be free.  Google has done a great job at making the link rather small and the headline stands out much more than the reviews link.

So, still focus on maintaining good customer relationships and delivering exceptional customer service because those ratings will help, but don't count on all the clicks being free!

-Mitchell

Have you ever set up a campaign for a client and got the question, “How much will I be paying each click?” How do you respond? Many times you might turn to Google’s Keyword Tool and look at CPC’s. But how accurate is Google’s Keyword Tool CPC estimator?  We’ve taken a look at actual CPC’s from our clients and matched them up with what Google’s estimates.

Before we look at the stats it’s important to note a few things about Google’s CPC Estimator. In Google’s words:

“If you don't supply a Max CPC and Daily Budget for these estimates, AdWords will estimate your performance using a CPC that is predicted to always place your ad in positions 1-3 with an unlimited budget to capture all available impressions.”

Based off of that, we made sure that the words that we looked at were all in the 1-3 spot. Here are the stats for just 6 of our words:

Between them all there was a 44% difference between actual CPC and Google's estimated CPC! It's obvious that there are other factors in the difference in numbers. The AdWordsPro(a Google employee) clarified this on the Adwords help forum:

"Please know that it is simply an estimate - and in no way intended to be a guarantee. Your actual cost per click will literally vary from one click to the next, and depend on many factors that the tool can not know - such as how well targeted your ads are to the keyword, how well written the ads are, how many competitors you have in the moment the ad appears, etc."

We can conclude from this that YOU CAN'T TRUST GOOGLE'S NUMBERS! Next time you're looking for estimates on average CPC you might be out of luck. Although this can be a good place to start, you can only really know once you start your PPC campaign.

-Luke

Yes! This logo was officially provided to us after we officially passed the tests, met the other criteria regarding amount of spend managed and amount of time managing accounts, and now

Get Found First is a Google Adwords Certified Partner!

Google used to have a Google Adwords Qualified Individual Status, and a Google Adwords Qualified Company, and for a few more months companies can rest on those laurels. 

Rather than wait around, and to be a leader in the industry, we went ahead and became one of the first Google Adwords Certified Partners.  Here are the criteria to become a Google Certified Partner:

"Google AdWords Certified Partners are not Google employees, but rather are online marketing professionals, agencies, and other individuals such as search engine marketers (SEMs), search engine optimizers (SEOs), and marketing consultants. They have been certified by Google to manage AdWords accounts. To become qualified, professionals must demonstrate an in-depth understanding of AdWords by passing exams, and they must meet all our qualification guidelines, Different professionals have different areas of expertise, so you should talk to them or look at their profile page to get a better understanding of their service levels and specializations."

To elaborate, the Google exams are timed for 120 minutes and there are 120 multiple choice questions.   The first is a Fundamentals exam, and the second is an Advanced exam.  Each company must have 2 individuals connected to the account that pass with an 85% or higher score on each test.  Having taken the tests, I can assure you that they make the test hard enough that not just any Joe Schmoe can sign up, pay the $50 to take the test, and pass.  Questions relate to language targeting, trademark laws, bidding, adrank, quality score, and much more.

So what does all this mean to you? Get Found First has all of the tools to be your PPC management outsource solution.

While I was logging in some web browsing miles the other day I came across Wayne A. Kurzen, a dental practice consultant out of Georgia.  He had written a blog post that immediately caught my attention titled, “How Much Should Your Practice Invest in Marketing?” Great question I thought, one that many Dentists find themselves asking on a regular basis.

Wayne suggests, “Basing your marketing budget off of a range between lasts years collections, and this years projections at an estimated 5%. Therefore, if you are projecting to bring in $700k this year, then your marketing budget should be $35k.”

Now to make things interesting, two of our dental practice clients have been working with a $4k a year budget in online advertising and getting 14 – 18 new patients a month from it. At $4k a year, that’s only 11.3% of their originally projected budget of $35k. If a dentist really has that kind of a marketing budget, they need to go and get more advertising space online, and probably spend some money in the yellow pages where return on investment will be minimal, but probably still significant enough to go and get it.

- Trevor

Who wins in a Google fight? A paid listing or a map listing? A first page natural listing or a #1 paid listing? You might be suprised what we found...

We have been advertising for a dental client over the last year on Adwords, and Google Maps. We have also done his SEO. This client has what we like to call the Google TRI-FECTA (they rank high with all 3 listings). With one website performing well in all 3 spaces, we were curious how each medium performed against each other. We took results from the last 4 months, and dug up some info in Analytics. Here’s what we found:

This dentist's campaign is focused on lead generation. Customers come to the website and sign up on a form that offers web only discounts on dental services. Overall there were 59 goal conversions.

We broke down these conversions even further:

Total Conversions:

• Organic- 28
• Paid- 12
• Direct Traffic- 10
• Facebook- 3
• Other- 5

Not coming as too much of a suprise, organic traffic and conversions easily beat out paid traffic. What is most suprising though, is how the map listing performed:

From a simple business listing with Google Places, there was a 3.54% action rate, with a 2.38% click through rate for visits to the website. That compared to .84% click through rate with Adwords. Obviously, a limitation in this reporting is that we don't have conversion tracking for the map listing; however, the amount of traffic to the webiste ads up to just 80 out of the 491 total organic clicks!

What conclusions can we draw from this? Let's break it down:

• Organic Listing- The main source of conversions for this dentist. Limited in the cost and time it would take to optimize for multiple keywords. Appeals to majority of internet users.
• Paid Listing- Minimal conversions, but covered many more variations of long tailed keywords than organic. Appeals to clients wanting to cover hundreds of keyword variations.
• Maps- Great cost efficiency (depending on what local seo company you use). Not as trusted as the organic listings. Appeals to searches that want a map to see where a dentist is located/how close they are.

So can a Google maps listing beat out a paid and natural listing? Not in this case. But the traffic generated from the combination of these three mediums together may be unbeatable. We will post in a month or two on the results without any paid listings.

-Luke

In Star Wars Anakin and Luke Skywalker brought balance to the force. In Lord of the Rings it was Frodo. Now for search and display markets balance is being brought back with the formation of the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance (sorry there probably won't be any movies made about this one).

"When the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance is implemented, both companies will continue to have differentiated consumer search experiences. However, Microsoft will manage the technology platforms that deliver the algorithmic (powered by Bing) and paid (powered by adCenter) search results."

 In an email sent out to current Bing and Yahoo advertisers they outlined a few details:

• The program will start in Fall and you will be able to reach over 15 million searchers.
• All accounts will be transferred beginning in late summer and will be ready by the time the holiday season rolls around. If any account has the possibility of missing the holiday season, their transfer will be put off until after the holidays.
• Big budget clients will have customer service by Yahoo and small budget clients by Microsoft.
• Regular communication and tools will be provided to aid in the transition.

What will this mean for advertisers? It means that Google is now going to have some more competition. According to the most recent statistics on search market share, Bing controls 11.7%, Yahoo 16.9%, and Google 65.1%. After the alliance it will be 65.1% VS 28.6% for the big two search engines. The competition will be GREAT for us advertisers. Competition spurs growth, right?

What are your thoughts on the search alliance? Will YaBing! outperform Google? Will market share decrease for the alliance? Keep checking back to the Get Found First blog and we will keep you posted!

-Luke

Have you ever thought about reaching those people who have visited your website, browsed around, but ended up not buying or signing up? You know they were at least a little interested in what you had to offer but after they leave they may never come back. Goodbye, adios, ciao!

Now you don't have to say goodbye to them forever with Google's new Adwords feature called Remarketing. These feature allows you to target people who have visited certain parts of your website and display your ads to them on other parts of the internet. You might be asking yourself, how could I use this? Well let's look at some examples:

• If you're a dentist you can target people who have visited your "Services" page and tell them to signup again if they still haven't been to a dentist.
• If your a loan company create urgency in your ads by emphasizing the low rates that are available now only.
• If you are selling a product offer a lower discount than was originally offered in their first visit.

The possibilities are endless but according to Google early tests have seen great results.

What could you use remarketing for? Rather than saying goodbye to customers, you can now say hello, hola, and bonjour, again!

-Luke

If you're a small business then undoubtedly you have Googled your own name and probably even setup a Google Local Business Center account. You may have even looked at the map listings and wondered how you might show up higher or stand out more on the Google map. Well, if my last sentence describes you then today is your lucky day! Google recently announced new changes that will take place in Google Maps that allows you to make your listing stand out more with tags.

For example, if you are a local dentist showing up on Google maps along with 6 other dentists you can make your ad stand out by adding a video of your office. The new feature costs $25 a month and for the time being is available only in 10 cities with plans to roll it out to the rest of the U.S.

Here's an example from an optometrist in San Jose.

Stay tuned and soon you will start seeing this feature in YOUR city!

-Luke

Inspired by Andy Beal of MarketingPilgrim.com, I wanted to take a break from my normal "Good Word" about SEO and PPC this Easter season, and talk about the most important "Good Word" for the whole world to know about, whether you care about internet marketing or not.

Take 3 minutes and enjoy this video about our Savior and Easter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpFhS0dAduc&feature=channel

Have you ever walked into a conversation where the two speaking you could tell were speaking your native tongue, but because they were speaking about their niche industry, nobody else in the conversation had a clue what they were talking about?  I remember as a young boy listening into conversations my dad was having about politics and/or business and hearing lots of words I had never heard before, and none of them were swear words.  And as I am known for never cussing in my circle of friends, I promise to not do so in the following short paragraph, but take a second to read it, and pay close attention to see if you feel like I did as a kid:

After focusing on SEO for a few years now, we have decided to launch our first PPC campaign to see what kind of conversion rate we can get from paid search in comparison with the organic traffic we are already getting. Once we have done that for a little while and seen some ROI, we are going to code some new landing pages that we have created to do some multivariate testing.  Obviously that is down the road and based on seeing good click-through rates and figuring out which keywords, products, and ad copies are causing the traffic to convert.  But as I was saying about the multivariate testing, we want to do that and watch our analytics and learn from the market research that...

In a room full of Internet marketing experts, hearing this would be just another day at the office (home office in a lot of cases), but for the average businessman, this is a whole new language.  Unfortunately for the average businessman, the above average businessman has already become well-versed in this online lingo.  They may not be doing their own online advertising, but they have at least enough knowlege that they were able feel confident hiring outside help.  If you are like most american businessmen, it is time to get caught up!  To help here is a quick vocab lesson:

SEO is search engine optimization.  Optimizing a website so that it can easily be found on the first page of search engines.

PPC is pay per click advertising on search engines. It is free to show up in the sponsored links of search engine results, unless someone clicks on your ad, then you have to pay per click.

A conversion is when a website visitor does what you wanted them to do on your site.

Paid search are the "sponsored links" or the results on search engines that don't come naturally.  These are usually the ads seen on the right side of search results.

Organic refers to a website naturally showing up on the left side of search results because the search engine deemed the site to be the most relevant search result. "Organic" clicks to your site are free.

Organic traffic means those visitors to your site that get there by finding you on the left/free/natural side of search results.

Landing pages are new pages designed for a site to either see how they perform in comparison with the old site, or for a specific product/service that doesn't have it's own page yet.  Landing pages are also used for testing different offers and web layouts.

Multivariate testing is when you use pay per click advertising to test different landing pages and/or different ads to with multiple variables to see which ones provide the best results.  There is more to learn about, if you care to learn more, check this out.

Click-through-rate (CTR) helps an advertiser determine which ad is the best.  The ad that gets the most clicks for the least amount of times showing up wins.

Ad copy are the words within the ad.  Great online advertisers will tell you that just changing one word can make the difference between whether you get clicks or not.

Analytics is a software that gives you info about how your website and ads are performing.  Google offers a free software called Google Analytics.

A new language, right?  Bookmark this post so you can refer back to this small set of internet marketing vocab the next time you feel like your web developer or IT guy, or marketing guru is speaking a different language!

You've heard of them, you've probably joined a few of them, now you can learn the top 10 ways to use a Facebook fan page! The tips that we are suggesting are focused towards dentists and the healthcare industry but they can be used universally!

1.       Getting People to Join your Group

a.       Invite Your Friends.

b.      Add links to your fan page on your website, or a widget.

c.       E-mail existing customers and invite them.

d.      In the office make people aware of the fact that you have fan page. Invite them to share their experience on the fan page.

e.      Possibly pay to advertise your fan page.

f.        Search for customers using Facebook search.

2.       Post on the Wall

a.       Write about anything your fans want to know about. Make it relevant!

b.      Make sure these are relevant to the Fan page you are promoting.

c.       Respond when possible to comments on your posts.

d.      Consider doing a “Spotlight Post” once a week that is more robust than anything else you post in any given week. Make the post the same time every week so fans can expect it.

e.      http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-better-engage-facebook-fan-page-fans/

3.       Post Videos/Photos

a.       These help make great content.

4.       Giveaways

a.       An occasional giveaway for a free service, i.e. free massage, or free checkup.

5.       Exclusive Discounts for Fans

a.       Offer something that only a fan can get.

6.       Breaking News

a.       Make your Fan page an exclusive outlet for news about your company.

7.       Make Effective Use of Events

a.       Organize some type of event that fits your business.

b.      http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/10-tips-for-creating-buzz-with-facebook-events/

8.       Encourage Your Fans to Act and Interact

a.       http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/13-ways-to-move-your-facebook-fans-to-action/

9.       Invite Your Fans to Invite Their Friends

a.       Phrase it something like this, “If you’ve liked our (service/product) tell your friends about us by inviting them to become a fan.”  Sometimes all people need is a little nudge.

10.   New Content Over and Over Again

a.       Start from step one and do everything again!

We at GetFoundFirst.com hope that these top 10 tips on how to use a Facebook fan page help. Let us know if you have used other methods that have worked!

-Luke

On any given day someone will use Google search 14.6 times, that according to myself, my best guesstimate, and the number of times I actually use Google each day! Really, the number might be competely off but the fact is we use search engines often in the day. What happens when we use those search engines though? Do we analyze the results that come up? Do we read the abstracts of each result and then pick out which result we like best? The answer, not suprisingly is no! We trust the first results of what comes up more than anything else the search engine gives us.

A fairly old study from the University of Indiana tells us that we trust rank more than relevance. The abstract of the study states:

An eye tracking experiment revealed that college student users have substantial trust in Google's ability to rank results by their true relevance to the query. When the participants selected a link to follow from Google's result pages, their decisions were strongly biased towards links higher in position even if the abstracts themselves were less relevant. While the participants reacted to artificially reduced retrieval quality by greater scrutiny, they failed to achieve the same success rate.

Further, one search shows us the difficulty in getting to the second page of Google. Let's look at the word "Olympics", go ahead and Google and see if you see the same thing. Here are some facts we can draw from this one search:

• There are 14,100,00 results. I look at the first 3 or 4 when deciding what I want to click on.
• The first things I see are the "natural" and "sponsored" search results. 
• There are a total of 9 different websites that I could visit.
• Halfway through the page are "news" results.
• Then before I even get to the link to the second page, MORE "related searches" are given to me implying that I wasn't able to find what I wanted on the page so I should try another search!

We can conclude from all this how important it is to be on the FIRST PAGE of Google! Even if you have the best website, with the greatest offers, and services the world needs... if you're not showing up first no one will ever know. So if you are on the second page of Google or even further back it looks like it's time to invest in some SEO or some PPC! Contact me if you want to know the name of a great company ;)

-Luke

This morning I was in a Google Adwords webinar and the question was asked, "Why would I ever want to use anything but broad matched keywords in my campaign? Don't I want lots of traffic to my site?" The answer to his question is YES you want traffic, but NO you don't want non-relevant traffic.

She's happy... but not because of free dental work.

For example, let's look at the keyword "dentist". At Get Found First we manage several dental PPC campaigns, and this is always a word we include with a broad match. Many people will use the search term "dentist" when they want to see a dentist. However, many people are looking for free dental work so they search "free dentist" or "pro bono dentist". Our ads show up for both terms but our clients aren't really the dentists giving out the pro bono work... I've only heard of that for people living in poverty in 3rd world countries.

So what do we do? Use Negative Keywords! I found a good article from http://ppcblog.com/ with some great suggestions. Many of these we do already here, but some are new and very helpful:

Generally you should avoid these keywords:

• Diagram
• Meaning of
• Map of
• What is
• Free
• Bargain
• Sales
• Low Price

All these words are either information inclined or have a "want something for nothing" feel. These types of searchers do not convert.

Although this list GENERALLY should be avoided, that is not always the case. For example if you have an offer for something free, you may want to advertise for that free offer.

Negative keyword lists should always be included in accounts, especially when using broad match keywords. This type of campaign takes time and close monitoring. Frequent checking of search terms will be neccesary to be effective.

In conclusion a campaign with many broad terms will drive traffic to your site, but if you are looking for relevant traffic you will need to toss some negative keywords in there.

Happy PPC'ing!

-Luke

The most important pillar for PPC is the one I am going to discuss today. "The 8 Pillars of Success with Paid Search," by Josh Dreller, talks about 8 of them, and we all know that no roof can be held up by one pillar, but I am here to discuss the strongest pillar.

With all due respect to Josh, he kind of just threw this pillar somewhere in the middle of his post, and it deserves more attention than that.  First, here is what Josh said:

"Test. Optimize. Then test again. This is the absolute mantra of the industry. What we do is find trends and act on them. We don’t know if the new creative will work or the bidding experiment will be a big waste of money. However, it’s the only way we can fine-tune paid search accounts. Just make the best analysis as possible and test your hypothesis for long enough to know if it’s working but not so long to disrupt the entire project. Over time, you’ll have enough insights to keep your account humming."

Okay, he did use the word, MANTRA.   That does give it some much needed emphasis.  Here are a few thoughts on testing, optimizing, and testing again:

• ONLINE ADVERTISING IS SUBJECTIVE.  There is no one "right way" for all online ads.  This isn't calculus.  This is Google Adwords.  This is Yahoo! Sponsored Search.  This is Bing Ads (or whatever they call theirs). 
• TEST - Even when you don't need to.  So you have a killer CTR.  That is great, but is that the best you can do?  Are there more keywords that will have a higher conversion? Is there another landing page to try out?
• DON'T BE A WUSSY!  Take risks with broad match and try different bidding techniques.  If you don't try, you'll never know.
• DON'T FORGET YOUR EXPERIMENT. It is okay to try new things.  You need to all of the time, but don't forget the changes you make so that you know what to look for.   In my younger days as a PPC manager, I would make changes and then forget what I wanted to learn from my experiment.
• KEEP GOING. The game isn't over till the fat lady sings.  If you still are running online ad campaigns, you should never stop testing and optimizing.

To help you remember, repeat after me: Test - Test.  Optimize - Optimize. Test Again. Test Again.

If that wasn't enough to help you remember, maybe an example will help.  Have you ever read the instructions on a shampoo bottle?  I always thought it was fairly obvious what to do with shampoo, but the shampoo companies feel a need to tell you just in case you don't remember what to do with shampoo.  Have you thought what the instructions were yet?

Rinse. Lather. Repeat.  To help you remember your best PPC management practices, think shampoo instructions.  Rinse.  Lather. Repeat. 

Test. Optimize. Then test again.  WARNING: You should never try to apply shampoo to computers!  And avoid getting shampoo in your eyes! 

-Stu

As Adwords experts it is important for Get Found First to stay on top of changes in Google Adwords policy. A recent change that may affect your advertising pertains to pharmaceutical policy. Straight from the Google Adwords blog we learn:

Only VIPPS and CIPA certified pharmacies will be allowed to advertise
We've made the decision to further restrict the ads we accept for online pharmacy sites in the U.S. and Canada. Starting at the end of this month, Google AdWords will only accept ads from online pharmacies in the U.S. that are accredited by the National Association Boards of Pharmacy VIPPS program, and from online pharmacies in Canada that are accredited by the Canadian International Pharmacy Association (CIPA.)

Pharmacies can only target ads within their country
These pharmacies may only target ads to users in the country in which they are accredited. This policy change does not affect our online pharmacy policy for countries outside the U.S. and Canada.

If you would like to read the full post, vist: http://adwords.blogspot.com/

We'll keep you up to date on any changes relating to Adwords!

-Luke

Tom Bennison wrote a great article on why companies should outsource their pay-per-click campaigns.  He gave eight reasons why and here they are, some direct quotes and some paraphrased using our name and company for the agency (For the full article and references, click here):

• Get Found First has unique relationships with search engines.  This allows us to get quicker resolutions and answers to questions as well as upload data quicker.
• We have advanced tools and methods that allow us to fully optimize your campaign and achieve a better return on investment.
• Pay-Per-Click is what we live and breath each and every day.  We also experiement with all the new tools and we are always up-to-date on the latest software.
• Get Found First's Pay-Per-Click specialists use the latest bid-management software to ensure all keyphrases are performing well at a low cost-per-click.
• On average agencies achieve better click-through-rates than marketers, with agencies at 3.4% and marketers at 2.8%.
• We provide comprehensive reporting and ROI analysis.
• Pay-Per-Click achieves higher conversion rates, for both Search Engine Optimization and Pay-Per-Click in particular, with agencies achieving an average of 6.8% and marketers achieving 5.4%.
• "Good Pay-Per-Click companies are well worth the cost as they will always make you more money than you would otherwise make."    -Jill Whalen, Search Marketing Columnist

The above reasons are spot-on as to why companies should outsource their Pay-Per-Click marketing campaigns.  However, this not only applies to businesses looking to advertise through PPC, but also for businesses that offer PPC as a complement to their main service.  This could include website developers, business consultants, Search Engine Optimization companies, etc.

Outsourcing to an experienced Pay-Per-Click management company not only saves you time, but will save you money and most likely make you money.  I really like how Tom points out the fact that we are here to get you a low cost-per-click.  This is the part that saves you money, then you will make money by letting us get you better conversion rates and click-through rates, after all, this is what we do each and every day.

-Mitchell

About 10 years ago I had a buddy who used Google for his searches... I found it interesting that he wasn't using Yahoo, AltaVista, or MSN. The Google page only had a place to search, no entertainment news, no email services, etc. I just didn't understand what it was that he liked and millions of people like today. What was it that he liked? Relevancy. When he searched for something he found exactly what he wanted in the first results. 

Relevant searches have put Google in the position they are in today, with both searches and paid advertisements. However, for paid advertisements Google must now balance the relevant ads and the ads for which people are willing to fork out the big bucks. How they do this is with a quality score.

The quality score tells us how relevant your ad is to what people are actually searching for. Are a flower shop advertising on the keyword flower? You will have a HIGH quality score. Are you a multi-level marketing company advertising on the keyword flower? You will have a LOW quality score. Google then rewards those with high quality scores with lower prices to be in the number one spot. Yes, the multi-level marketer can still get the number one spot, they will just have to pay more.

It pays to have a High Quality Score on Google Adwords!

So courtesy of the Google Help Center, here is the list of what makes up the Quality Score and things you should focus on in your Adwords campaigns:

• The historical clickthrough rate (CTR) of the keyword and the matched ad on Google; note that CTR on the Google Network only ever impacts Quality Score on the Google Network — not on Google
• Your account history, which is measured by the CTR of all the ads and keywords in your account
• The historical CTR of the display URLs in the ad group
• The quality of your landing page
• The relevance of the keyword to the ads in its ad group
• The relevance of the keyword and the matched ad to the search query
• Your account’s performance in the geographical region where the ad will be shown
• Other relevance factors

Best of luck raising those quality scores!

-Luke

According to Barry Schwartz of clickz.com, Google is planning a "Google Store View". Currently in Google Maps you can see traffic, a normal map, a satelite map, a terrain map, and as you zoom in more you can even do a "street view". This allows you to see what the area looks like if you were actually on the street itself. Google accomplishes street view with a fleet of cars mounted with cameras. They simply drive around the streets with sophisticated camera equipment constantly taking pictures. If you're interested in seeing what it looks like here is an article with some up close pictures of the equipment.

So this brings us to the point of this post... Googles "Store View". Apparently now Google is planning on entering stores and taking pictures of everything going on inside. A store in NYC called "Oh Nuts" tipped Clickz to Googles plans and supposedly came in and took pictures. It makes me wonder if this is really plausible. Would the ROI on hundreds or thousands of photographers taking pictures be worth it? It will be interesting to see what Google comes up with... Stay Tuned!

-Luke

Looking for a good way to get your blog found by the hundreds of millions of internet users that are surfing around daily? Well look no further... Technorati.com is your answer. Technorati is a website that allows you to index your blog to make it easier for readers to find. It allows you to add your blog to several categories and put dozens of tags for your blog; making it much easier to find when someone searches for a blog.

If you're not a blog owner but want to read blogs, Technorati does that too! It allows you to search blog posts, or entire blogs for the content you are looking for. We are currently adding our blog to Technorati so look for us soon on there.

9CEPGQ58CDBV

(That's our Technorati claim token)

Today Google formally announced the launch of clickable phone numbers for its mobile ads. "Click to Call", as the phrase will officially be called, will be available only for high-end mobile devices or phones that allow full HTML browsing. It allows users to search on Google as they normally would and rather than have to click through to a webpage and find the number, the number is included in the ad copy.

What does this mean for businesses advertising on search? Greg Sterling of Search Engine Land expounds on it in his article. Here are a few of the points he makes:

• The presence of a phone number in the ad significantly improved ad performance. It gives a greater sense of credibility for the advertiser and then trust for the user. It also makes the ad stand out more.
• Calls can be tracked and show up  in reporting.
• Advertisers can make mobile specific campaigns with mobile targeting and ad copy. Very effective!
• The feature is now basically a pay per call system at bargain pay per click prices.

As the feature becomes increasingly popular we can expect to see prices increase as advertisers bid against each other. For now though, it is a steal for what businesses are paying. Just another exciting and innovative way that advertising is evolving.

Check back to the Get Found First blog for more news on any internet marketing related news!

As I read and watched the news results and videos for the hyped Apple iPad, I couldn't help but wonder what affect this might have on internet searches.  Does this mean that the iPad will increase search volume because it would be more accessible due to the iPad?  Will the larger display of the iPad (basically an enlarged version of an iPod Touch) allow people to see more sponsored links causing more people to click on those links?  Or, will is the iPad not quite what we hoped and will have no affect at all?

First, I think the iPad is a pretty neat device for the educational sector.  Universities could use the iPad for textbooks and possible subsidize it.  This might cause searches to increase because instead of using a textbook in the classroom, all the students would be on an iPad and have the ability to surf the web.  This also means that students would be reading and doing homework from an iPad, meaning they would be more tempted to connect to the internet because it would be right at their fingertips.  So, I could foresee the frequency of searches increasing if the education field began using the iPad.

I could also see that more people would click on sponsored links if they were using an iPad versus an iPod Touch.  I say this because of the larger screen.  I think this would make the links more visible to the user and as Scott Forstall, the Senior Vice President of iPhone software, said, "If you see something, you just reach out and tap it, you don't even have to think about it."  If you saw a sponsored link, maybe you'll just reach out and tap it without even thinking about it.

However, I could only foresee an increase in searches and the clicking of sponsored links if many people buy the iPad.  I do not know how many people will because the iPad won't fit in your pocket, but then again, Apple could not get Amazon's customers that are using the Kindle.  If Kindle users switched to the iPad, along with all the iPod Touch users, I could really see an increase in the amount of searches and the clicks of sponsored links.

All in all, these are just really my thoughts and speculations, but I could really see some of these things happening and the iPad adding power to the power of search engines.  Thus, it is becoming more and more relevant for businesses to advertise online and to really have a web presence in order to gain business and to succeed.

Is it any surprise that Google continues to attract the majority of searches on the web? According to Jack Marshall of Clickz.com over 2/3 of worldwide searches happened on Google sites(google.com, youtube.com, etc.).

What makes this fact even more interesting is that 46% more searches were conducted this December than last! In one year, the number of people searching on the web has increased almost by half. This fact emphasizes the role that online advertising is going to have in the future. Everyone is going online and searching for the things that they need! Even my Grandma is using the web now more and more... she's 80 something!

What does this spell for advertising in general? G.O. O.N.L.I.N.E. Marketers follow the people and where they are... and where are they now? On the net.

You can read the full article at http://www.clickz.com/3636277.

We posted last month about November's search results... Here is the latest:

Working closely with the three major search engines, Google, Yahoo, and Bing, we often get asked the question: how much traffic does each of the search sites get? To answer this question we turn to the latest results courtesy of Experian Hitwise:

Percentage of U.S. searches among leading search engine providers Domain Nov-09 Dec-09 Month-over-month percentage change www.google.com 71.57% 72.25% 1% search.yahoo.com 15.39% 14.83% -4% www.bing.com* 9.34% 8.92% -4% www.ask.com 2.65% 2.54% -4% Note: Data is based on four-week rolling periods (ending Nov. 28, 2009, and Jan. 2, 2010) from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. Figures are for web searches only.  
*This includes executed searches on Bing.com, Live.com and MSN Search but does not include searches on Club.Live.com.

Source: Experian Hitwise

So what does this all mean? For one it shows us that Google has found a way to increase its share of searches despite recent intense competition from Bing. It also shows that Bing is going to have to figure a way to increase its popularity now that the honeymoon is over for searchers! 

Will anyone be able to dethrone Google from its search engine throne? Only time will tell.

Being in the internet marketing arena, there are a lot of blogs that I read every day.  I frequently read www.ClickZ.com.  Just today, I read an article from one of their bloggers that I haven't followed very closely, Augustine Fou.

Apparently, Augustine considers himself to be the God of internet marketing as he is the one that has put together the 10 commandments that we as marketers should follow.  Here they are, in his words:

1. "Thou shalt not target customers with messages they don't want.
2. Thou shalt be truthful.
3. Thou shalt respect your customers.
4. Thou shalt make it easy for people to find you.
5. Thou shalt be useful.
6. Thou shalt make it easy for people to pass along.
7. Thou shalt measure and optimize.
8. Thou shalt listen to customers.
9. Thou shalt remove any organizational barriers to speedy, collaborative innovation.
10. Thou shalt not do brand-ing. "

You can read his reasoning behind each commandment at http://www.clickz.com/3636027.

I don't know that I will ever follow rules that some guy comes up with about marketing, but I can obey Augustine on these 10 commandments.  Not only am I already obey for my exisiting clients, but I plan on continuing to do it for myself and future clients. 

Jack Marshall of Clickz.com answers a question in his recent blog post, Yahoo and Bing Lose U.S. Search Share in November, that I am asked all the time.

The Question: What percentage of online searches begin with Google versus Yahoo and Bing?

My answer, per Jack Marshall:

"Google accounted for almost 72 percent of all U.S. searches conducted during the four weeks ending November 28th 2009, according to data from Experian Hitwise.

The search giant grew its overall share of searches by one percentage point in that period, while its closest competitors in the space -- Yahoo and Microsoft's Bing -- both experienced a decline, dropping 5 percent and 2 percent respectively."

I love Jack's title because rather than focus on Google's triumph, he focuses on Yahoo and Bings loss.

Brent Turner brings up some great points about online advertising now generating more and more phone calls.  The old thought has always been, when someone is using the internet to research something, why would they turn to the phone to get answers?

Here are my two cents on quality score:

Penny #1: It's like your credit so watch it carefully.  If you let your credit score slip, it is very difficult and it takes a long time to improve.  With your bills, missing payments on one account will have a negative effect on your credit score. Quality score is similar in that it only takes one bad keyword to effect your entire campaign.

Just yesterday I spoke with a man that can't figure out how come he isn't seeing more sales from his website.  As soon as I read this article from Marketing Pilgrim, I thought of him because his website just isn't that easy to use.

More than half of Get Found First's clients are Local Business Owners.  They need to be optimized incredibly well for local search and we help them out!

We always stay abreast of what is new and exciting, and what may be disruptive to the success of our clients online presence.

Please read Kevin Lee's article and know that Get Found First can help you when and if Google decides to add more sponsored links to search results:

As Get Found First continues to grow, we are looking at offering to customers that qualify, a cost-per-lead pricing model where our clients only pay us when we help them get a new patient.

One of the worries that we have is that a lot of our potential clients won't have a clue what a new patient is worth to them.

With Get Found First Google AdWords Qualified Professional status, we are able to guarantee that all of our clients show up on the first page of Google within 24 hours of when they sign up for our services!

Yes.  I specialize in PPC management.  I help people "Get Found First" on Google through paid advertisements.  But, as you may have already seen on our site, we help website owners get on the first page of Google through natural, organic or free listings as well that show up on the left side of the page.

Recently, I read an article calling "SEO Best Practices" bunk.  Bunk means bogus; not the real deal, if you will.

I TOTALLY AGREE (but believe there are exceptions).

Jack Marshall of www.Clickz.com said the following in a post on Sept. 1st, 2009, "Not only does Google continue to dominate the global search market, it's also growing faster than any of its competitors, according to data from comScore.

What do people do when they are online?  Pew American Internet Study says that, "91% of all internet users say search is the number one activity they do online."

WOW!