Product Listing Ads
Google AdWords Product Listing Ads are separate from text ads, as they appear in their own box on a Google Search. They allow advertisers to promote special products with an image, promotional message, title, price, or their business’s name.

Product Extension Ads
Google AdWords Product Extension Ads are additions to text ads on the Google search engine results page that include a product listing and price of a product that a certain user has searched for. At the end of this month, a user will no longer see these Product Extension Ads on Google. For example, if a user searches “furniture,” the following Product Extension ad will no longer show that http://www.overstock.com is promoting three specific furniture items.

I believe that Google has decided to discard Product Extension Ads because they have seen a higher Click-Through Rate (CTR) with the Product Listing Ads as opposed to the Product Extension Ads. At this time, they have not made any announcements about removing any other ad extensions. To learn more about extensions, visit the AdWords Help Center.

I am intrigued about this recent change; therefore, I plan on keeping an eye on Google Shopping over the next few months. I predict that this will drive more traffic to Google Shopping, in turn increasing the cost-per-click (CPC). What effect do you think the removal of Product Extension Ads will have on Google Shopping?

Sure, other large domain name and web hosting providers have thrown their hats in the online marketing game as well. Network Solutions even went as far as branding their online marketing with a Gorilla (where did they get such an idea!?). At least they have the smarts to feature various plans that are hundreds of dollars (even though it is outsourced).

GoDaddy takes this ridiculousness one step further. Not only are they trying their hand at SEO (and PPC for that matter), they are doing it for a grand total of…$2.99 per month! Yes, the decimal point is in the correct place, it really is two dollars and ninety nine cents. I guess that means game over for everyone else, right?

What exactly does that $2.99 get you? Well, it can get you a coffee at Starbucks, possibly a beer during happy hour, and apparently now SEO. Let’s see what GoDaddy lists on their website as “SEO”:

Improve search engine rankings with keyword and suggested topics tool? How brilliant! Increase traffic to your website with higher rankings? You don’t say! How has no one thought of this before? GoDaddy is really changing the game here.

What this really comes down to is the fact that SEO is seemingly becoming such a trendy buzzword these days, so everyone is trying to hop on the train and capitalize of it. Throwing the words “SEO” and “PPC” on a website does not exactly make a company an expert, no matter how large it is. I’m sure it is certainly easy for GoDaddy to take advantage of their large customer base and convince small business owners to sign up. However, when companies assume they can be successful at online marketing without any kind of experience, they inevitably make their customers feel ripped off and unhappy. That gives the entire online marketing industry a bad name. Let people use your company for what you’re good at, like registering domains. Let people use companies like us for what we’re good at (because after all, it’s kind of all we do), SEO and PPC.

Identity

When you’re creating a persona, it’s vital to mold a good target for their unique role in the industry.  You can then start with the basic details that your character would need such as:

• Name
• Job title
• Niche/expertise
• Picture
• Profile accounts (Twitter, About.me, Google+, etc…)

After these elements are determined, it will be easier to build value from it, which will often come from the persona’s perception and influence.

Authorship and AuthorRank

It is said that Authorship markup (rel=’author’) might turn into one of the strongest types of artificial links one can build in the near future as well as one of the most significant factors that Google might use in selecting authority pages/websites from their indices.

Since search engines reward great authors with more prominence in their search results, you should try building authors that will distribute authority and influence through guest post or other content contributions on different blogs in your industry.  Just like with quality and trustworthy websites, search engines will give credible authors higher positions in their SERPs.

SEO & Personas

We are all aware that SEO is a slow-burn process.  However, there are still lots of ways that you can speed up the process of accomplishing the campaign’s short and long-term goals with personas.  I’ll explain how you can get the most from research, content development, engaging, distributing content, building relationships/alliances, and scaling.

Research

Research only takes 2-3 days to be completed and will involve these processes:

• Link prospecting

Find different sites, blogs and influencers in the industry that your persona will engage and try to earn a link from using a variety of tools and Google search commands.   Tools like Ontolo, Cognitive SEO, Open Site Explorer, Follorwonk, etc. can all help with the-link prospecting phase.

• Content Strategy Development

Your persona will help when it comes to developing content that their target niche will find compelling.   To begin this process, you can list 15-30 titles for your posts that will cover a variety of interesting topics from basic to more complex ones.

You can then organize your list into a couple different categories.  One category is for the company’s own blog under the persona’s name.  The second is for speed guest blogging where you can easily submit a guest post to a site.  And the third is for the more authoritative blogs that are more difficult to acquire a link from.

As a side note, constantly following and subscribing to news sites in your industry can help when it comes to generating news-related content ideas.

• Linkable Asset Inventory

It’s also helpful to have a hub of highly linkable content/assets on your company’s site that your persona could send along as writing samples when requesting to contribute a guest entry.  This will definitely better your chances of getting link commitments from your prospects, as they will see you are capable of generating unique, well-written content.

Content Development

Deciding who will product the content for your persona is key.  If it’s not going to be you, is it a third-party vendor or someone else on the content team?  This should be step one.  If someone else is creating it, be sure to provide descriptive outlines for each of your topic ideas before assigning them so it’s easier for them to meet your needs.

Whoever it may be, they’ll need to write it to promote the persona as well as use as a writing sample once the link outreach begins to other blogs for guest posting opportunities. 

It would also be wise to continuously create content for the entire period of the campaign, as this will enhance the persona’s influence across the web.

Engage

They’re a few ways to start attracting your prospects that are influential and authoritative.

• Discussion participation

By just reading your target prospects and leaving a thoughtful remark really goes a long way.  You can easily build conversations with them through their posts’ comment thread in the campaign’s first month if you engage 10-20 people.  The idea is to be interesting, catchy and intelligent.  These qualities will draw people in and cause them to become more and more invested in you.

• Sharing is caring

In terms of social networks, this is absolutely true.  If you’re mentioning your target prospects through tweets and shares, just make sure to really personalize them to make it more alluring.

Content Distribution

Consistency applies yet again here in terms of developing and growing a strong social following for the persona.  This should fall around the second week of the campaign, which by this time you already have enough content from your pool that you can disseminate it in a constant rhythm.

Building relationships

By using social mention tracking tools like SEOmoz’s Fresh Web Exploer you should track the individuals who are sharing your persona’s content.  The reason being that these influencers can further assist with your content marketing campaign if you have them on your side sharing your future posts.

Cultivating these kinds of connections will help you to semi-automate your content promotions in the future.  This can be pursued by sharing their works on social networks as well as conversing with them about shared interest or simply thanking them for sharing your content.

Scale

Once the persona has established an authoritative presence for your brand, you can expect to appeal to more influencers, which will help create more linking opportunities.

What you can do to make sure that your persona stays at the top:

• Follow where other influencers in the industry contribute content
• Create Google alerts for your persona’s name
• See if you can become a regular contribute for an authoritative blog

As with any SEO strategy, you can assume you’re doing everything right if you start earning links and social mentions organically.  If you are, continue with the momentum.

So what does this upgrade all mean?

Google's new data collection is vastly improved.  A new analytics.js code snippet is used as the primary collection method for sites. This new JavaScript according to Google "is more flexible than previous the Google Analytics ga.js JavaScript, giving you more customization options of your data."

They have also made configuration easy.

"Universal Analytics exposes options in the Analytics admin interface that were previously only accessible through the development environment. With Universal Analytics, it’s easier to customize configuration settings, like your campaign timeout handling and search term exclusions. Custom dimensions & custom metrics: Custom dimensions and custom metrics are like default dimensions and metrics, except you create them yourself. Use them to collect data that Google Analytics doesn’t automatically track." According to the search giant.  This gives users the ability to truly disect campaigns efforts far more granular than ever before.

They also highlight Multi-platform tracking, which is a game changer.  With Google's Measurement Protocol, they have suped up their collection methods; users are able to collect and send incoming data from any digital device through their Analytics account.  It's not just websites anymore,  any connected deviced like your vehicle, point-of-sale systems, etc. would be able to have the ability to truly integrate with Google Analytics. 

To learn more about Unversal Analytics, visit https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2790010?hl=en

• Consumers are shifting from desktop to mobile browsing faster when it comes to local searches

In its report, the LSA shows that non PC web traffic is growing rapidly. This in itself isn’t breaking news, however the 15 miles/Localeze report depicts a very interesting trend: Local searches performed on PCs are declining 3 times faster than non local desktop searches. These declined by 17% between Dec 2011 and Dec 2013. In the meantime Local searches performed on mobile devices grew by 26%. As mobile traffic keeps growing, what used to be optional became mandatory and SMBS must provide customers with a mobile friendly version of their website.

If you own a brick and mortar business, the mobile version of your website should always clearly display the location and driving instructions to your business as its a top priority for mobile searchers.

• Consumers are using apps on their mobile devices to search for local businesses

According to both reports, app based local search is becoming more and more popular on mobile compared to browser based searches: “Over 60% of smartphone owners access local content via applications”.

Making sure that your business is properly indexed on local listings services (such as Yelp or Google Maps) is key to show up in these services’ respective mobile apps.

• Mobile searches are closer to the end of the customer buying cycle

According to the study, customers who performed a local search on their mobile device were more likely to visit the store or purchase online that the ones who searched on their laptops. Another interesting fact is that searches performed on tablets are more likely to drive expensive purchases than their desktop counterparts.

If your business sells services or goods online, having a mobile friendly website isn't enough, you also need a mobile optimized online shop to convert these mobile visitors into customers.

• Search methodology differs per vertical

Depending on the type of business that consumers are searching for, they are not interested in the same type of information. It turns out that consumer reviews are more important to people searching for department stores, auto services or hotels than pharmacies or doctors.

Not all businesses are born equal in terms of SEO opportunities. Depending on your industry, your customers may be less likely to have a specific business in mind when they look for your services. According to Comscore, people looking for Restaurants are twice more likely to have a business name in mind when they are browsing than the ones looking for home services.

Check the graph below to see how important Improving your organic ranking on general keywords related to your industry is in order to drive new leads to your business.

Soon after the announcement, Louis mused over these changes and how they will affect the SMB marketer.  Now that we have had a few weeks to explore the new campaigns and test out a few features we wanted to give a few pointers on where these features exist within the AdWords platform, and how to set them up.

Location, Device, & Ad Scheduled Bid Adjustments

While ad scheduling bid adjustments were available previously, Google has added the location and device based bid adjustment features, and has centralized these settings all in one place (simply click the “settings” tab on any campaign).  I will walk through each of these, and where/how they can be used to optimize an AdWords account.

First, locations.  One AdWords report I frequently found underutilized by clients, and one which is especially useful for local advertising, is the Geographic Report.  Found within the “Dimensions” tab, the Geographic Report allows advertisers to see performance data on specific locations within their geo-targeting settings.

Armed with this data, advertisers can now leverage the new AdWords Geographic Bid Settings to set bid multipliers on specific geographic areas.  You can find this within the “Locations” sub-tub found under the “Settings” tab.  If you see a specific geographic area tends to perform better than others, or if you want to increase the bids on a particular radius around a physical location, this is where you can perform these tasks.

Similar optimizations can be made for specific days of the week, and hours of the day.  Right next to the Geographic Report within the “Dimensions” tab are the “Day of the Week” and “Hour of the Day” reports.  Like the Geographic Report, this data can be leveraged to set different bids on time segments you select.

Just like the location settings, you can adjust the ad scheduling bid settings within the "settings" tab on any campaign.

The final dimension on which you can set these bid modifiers is based on Device.  What makes optimizing for devices a bit different than location or day/hour, is that you will not find this data within the Dimensions tab.  Instead, navigate to the campaigns or ad groups tab.  Select the “Segment” pull-down and “Device.”  Now that you can see conversion data on different device types, head on over to the settings tab, where we made the geographic and ad scheduling bid adjustments, and simply select the “Devices” sub-tab.

Quality score is essentially Google’s scoreboard for your Adwords account. It also is a good indicator of the overall strength and health of your Adwords account. The higher your quality score (on a scale of 1-10) means that Google’s system thinks that your ad, keyword, and landing pages are relevant and useful to a users query.

How does Google determine quality scores?

1. Keyword relevance – If a high number of users click on your ad from a certain keyword search term, Google will find it relevant and award a higher quality score number.
2. Ad relevance – Ad’s are vital because attaining high click though rates will eventually result in better quality scores. You can have a relevant keyword to the query searched but a poorly crafted ad. Ads need to assist the keywords and get the users to click.
3. Landing page relevance – The landing page is the least important of the factors determining quality score. Though still an important part of the equation, Google has said that it doesn’t score landing pages on a 1-10 scale, but rather a yes or no scale. In other words, the landing page is either good or not good.
4. Time – When a new keyword is added to an account, Google gives it a quality score based on historical data. Once that keyword begins accruing statistical data, the quality score is likely to go up or down. So if your new account or new keywords seem to low quality scores – don’t worry too much. Give it a little time and you will probably see the scores rise.

Why is quality score important?

Simple: the higher your quality scores, the better your ads will rank, and the lower you will pay for clicks. For example – a keyword with a quality score of 3 might pay $5 for a seat in position 2, while the same keyword (in another account) with a quality score of 7 could pay $4 for the top position.

Google has made it clear that they want its users to have the best experience possible. Therefore, the quality of the keyword-ad-landing page will often beat out the highest bidder.

How can I improve my quality scores?

Start with the structure of your account. It is important that your ad groups are tightly themed and focused on one particular product or service. For example if you’re selling mens running shoes, do not have an ad group with keywords like kids shoes, womens tennis sneakers, and mens work boots. The mens running shoes ad group should contain keywords such as mens running shoes, running shoes for men, and best running shoes for men.

Make sure your landing pages contain the keyword you are bidding on, as well as call-to-actions and offers you are using in your ads. So if your ad looks like this:

Men’s Running Shoes
50% Off Men’s Athletic Shoes.
Order Online for Free Shipping!
RunningShoes.com/Mens

Be sure to include content on mens running shoes. And don’t forget to mention the 50% offer. If your landing pages are not specific, consider building out a custom landing page for each ad group.

Constantly monitor your campaigns and cut out the keywords and ads that are not performing. Pause keywords which have low click through rates, use negative keywords to make broader terms more relevant, and test ad copy to ensure you are serving ads that attract the right users. Keeping your click through rates high is imperative to achieving higher quality scores.

Though quality score isn’t an exact science, it is an important aspect to running a successful and efficient Adwords account. If your ad groups are tightly themed, keywords match the ad copy, and your landing pages have relevant content – you’re on the path to high scores!

Valentine's Day

Noun “February 14, observed in honor of St. Valentine as a day for the exchange of

valentines and other tokens of affection.”

It got me thinking though about how even the best relationships can always benefit from a little extra ‘oomph’ from time to time and that maybe a day devoted to love and affection isn’t such a bad idea after all.  How does this relate to PPC you ask?  Well, just like all relationships need a little extra lovin’ from time to time, there are several things you can do within your PPC account to help put that spark back in there as well.

Choosing the “right one”

How do you know which match type is right for you? Google advises that when choosing the appropriate match type for a keyword, to follow a broad-to-narrow strategy.  As your broad matches quickly gather impressions and clicks, you'll be able to monitor which keyword variations triggered your ads by reviewing the search terms report. The "Match type" column in your search term report tells you how search terms that triggered your ads on Google are related to actual keywords in your account. You can use this information to improve your keyword list. Identify new search terms with high potential that you want to add as keywords, and weed out any terms that aren't as relevant to your business. If you find that most of the variations shown in the search term report are irrelevant, consider making your keyword match types more specific.

To view your search term report:

1. Sign in to your AdWords account.

2. Click the Campaigns tab.

3. Click the Keywords tab.

4. Click the Keyword details button above your statistics table.

o Select “All” from the drop-down menu to analyze all search terms or to only see search terms for specific keywords, first select the check box for the keywords you want to see, then choose “selected” from the menu.

Keeping Score

Most relationships won’t last if you are constantly keeping score, but when it comes to your PPC Accounts, it is actually a good thing!  Quality Score is an estimate of how relevant your ads, keywords, and landing pages are to a person seeing your ad. Having a high Quality Score means the systems thinks your ad, keyword, and landing page are all relevant and useful to someone looking at your ad.

An easy way to check your quality score is to enable the Quality Score column. 

1. Click the Campaigns tab at the top.

2. Select the Keywords tab.

3. Click the Keywords tab.

4. Look for the Qual. score column in the statistics table. If you don't see this column in your table, you can add this column by doing the following:.

o Click the Columns dropdown in the toolbar above the statistics table.

o Select Customize columns.

o Select Attributes.

o Click Add next to Quality Score.

o Click Save.

Too bad this type of report doesn’t exist when it comes to dating 

Variety is the spice of life…and relationships

It is important to perform statistically sound ad variation testing.  It is best practice to have two ad variations active at any given time, pausing ad copy that does not perform as well and continuously testing new ad copy to increase account efficiencies.

In order to grab the attention of the person searching for a term, an ad must be relevant, accurate and engaging.   Below are some best practices to consider when testing ad copy:

• Include a call to action –Using strong verbs like “Start Your Search!” or “Get Your Free Quote!” will tell the customer what they can expect to do when they arrive on your website.

• Highlight what makes your business, product or offer unique – This can include highlighting things such as “No Obligation”, and “Free Trial” for example.

• Include prices, promotions and exclusives – Examples would be “Free Shipping” and “Valentine’s Clearance Sale”.

Don’t be Negative

Nobody likes negativity in a relationship, but when it comes to your PPC account, being negative can be a good thing. A vital part of managing a PPC account is the proactive addition of negative keywords.  These keywords give the advertiser control over which keyword variations will not trigger their ads.  It is important to frequently run a search query report and evaluate it for irrelevant and wasteful keywords and add them in as negatives.

Give it time

All relationships take time to grow and find its groove.  You will not see improvements overnight, but by doing these small consistent changes; you will product the best results over time, seeing steady results within 30-60 days.

Google officially announced yesterday that it will be rolling out Enhanced Campaigns, a major Adwords update going to impact both device segmentation and bidding strategies of online advertisers.

The location-based mobile market is expected to grow from $300 million to 4.7$ billion in the next 5 years and Google wants to respond to this trend by providing advertisers with the appropriate tools. There is a second explanation to the update: customers are not just going mobile anymore, they are adopting a multi channel browsing behavior. The Adwords campaign structure is now going to reflect these two fundamental changes.

Let’s dive into the enhanced campaigns features and how they are going to impact SMBs:

• Triple dimension bid adjustments

Enhanced campaigns will make contextual bidding possible. A max CPC will be set depending on the location of a potential customer, the time of its search and the device he is using. This will become very handy for businesses whose customers’ buying intent and purchasing behavior changes with their location, device and time of the day.

Google gives us the example of a pizza parlour:

‘A pizza restaurant probably wants to show one ad to someone searching for “pizza” at 1pm on their PC at work (perhaps a link to an online order form or menu), and a different ad to someone searching for “pizza” at 8pm on a smartphone a half-mile from the restaurant (perhaps a click-to-call phone number and restaurant locator).’

• Contextual Ad Copy

The enhanced campaigns will deliver “smarter ads optimized for different user contexts”. This means that a different ad will be displayed depending on the same three parameters affecting the bidding process (device, time of day and location). Another great improvement comes with the update: scheduled Ad extensions.

• Device based and location based ROI optimizations will get tricky

Let’s take the example of a regional florist who has a few shops across Virginia, a website with basic contact information and a small online shop. Now let’s say that the mobile version of the online shop is smaller than the regular one and drives a lower ROI. With the enhanced campaigns the florist shop won’t be able to make independent, keyword level bidding decisions for his mobile devices.

This update brings good news for small and businesses in terms of user friendliness and scaling simplicity. The aggregation of mobile and regular campaigns might however increase average mobile CPC prices and advertisers may loose a bit of control over device performance segmentation.

Those things certainly aren't going away. However, it now seems that all those features everyone's grown to love will now be working together to provide search results that are more personalized than anything we've seen thus far. Take this example that Facebook provides:

Graph Search and web search are very different. Web search is designed to take a set of keywords (for example: “hip hop”) and provide the best possible results that match those keywords. With Graph Search you combine phrases (for example: "my friends in New York who like Jay-Z") to get that set of people, places, photos or other content that's been shared on Facebook. We believe they have very different uses.

These Graph Search results will be displayed based on such factors as the number of likes a restaurant may have, the location of a friend, and more, and will be able to get filtered down by a variety of different parameters (click image to enlarge).

Naturally, businesses are going to want to get a leg up on their competition and try to optimize and outrank the others for a search similar to this:

But how would that be possible considering this search is based off of where the user's friends have been to? Do not be surprised to see a giant increase in businesses rewarding customers for checking in to their locations, as the more visibility a business has on Facebook, the greater the chances they get discovered by someone who would otherwise be unaware. Considering the enourmous userbase that Facebook has, it goes without question that businesses will start trying Facebook search optimization.