Improve the Quality Score of Your Landing Pages

Google is treating paid search more and more like natural search. More specifically, they are giving preference to "quality" pages that provide a positive user experience. Of course, "quality", as defined by Google, mainly refers to providing unique, useful content.

Many of us marketers have long followed conversion optimization guidelines of summing up content in bullet points and removing navigation from landing pages to laser focus the pages on the conversion action. While this may be good practice for maximizing conversion rates, it's not the best practice for pleasing Google and moving your ads to a higher position for a lower bid amount.

One problem with "conversion-focused" landing pages, so to speak, is that they will often have high bounce rates. The bounce rate of a landing page directly affects quality score. By removing navigation from the landing page, those who do not perform a conversion action (i.e. filling out a form) will bounce from the page (leave the website without viewing a second page).

Additionally, by summarizing information into bullet points to relay the main messaging easily to the user, you may also be compromising quality score. Much the way Google loves lots of content in natural search, they are placing more emphasis on this in paid search. The more quality information you provide, the higher your ads will show on the search engine results page.

With all this in mind, the obvious question is "How does one optimize for conversion without sacrificing quality score?" The answer is fairly simple. Think of your landing page as a microsite. By creating a "microsite" for your pay per click campaign, you can provide lots of quality content, decrease the bounce rate, and still display a conversion-friendly layout.

In most cases, you will still want to remove the main website navigation to prevent users from getting lost or distracted from the action you want them to take. Rather, replace it with several pages that split up the content.

For example, on the main landing page you can have a few bullet points, maybe an image and/or video, and a form (if submitting a form is the action you want users to take. In addition, you can have links to other pages, all of which having the form in the same place. This way, if users don't fill out the form right away, they may view a second page rather than bouncing.

Some possible additional pages of your microsite could be testimonials, broader product/service descriptions, and company information. Make sure to test different pages to find what works best for your campaigns.

PPC Keyword Research Evolving

Google updated their keyword research tool to enhance previous features and add some new ones based on customer feedback. Some of the new features include greater flexibility in search options, simplified refinement of keywords, avoiding duplicate keywords, and ability to add negative keywords.

Greater Flexibility in Search Options
With the enhancements to search options, you now have the ability to combine keyword, website, and category queries and receive a single set of keyword results. Previously, you were only able to do your search one way at a time.

Simplified Refinement of Keywords
You now have the ability to filter your keyword results by both word and/or match type (i.e. broad match, phrase match, exact match). This will require you to do less manual filtering than with older versions of the tool.

Avoiding Duplicate Keywords
Now, when you are logged into your Adwords account, you will be aware of what keywords returned in your query are already being bid on. This will save you time on reviewing your results since you won't have to scroll through keywords you are already bidding on.

Adding Negative Keywords
Google's keyword tool was always a great way to identify negative keywords. With the new upgrades, however, you can add negative keywords to an ad group or campaign right from the keyword tool interface by clicking a button. Previously, you would have to take note of possible negative keywords and return to the campaign interface to add negative keywords.

Can you help me give away a $406 solid gold bar?

I'm a bit embarrassed, let me explain...

I normally have catchy titles for my presentations. The first one, "The Ten Golden Rules of Online Marketing" gave birth to our company.

My newest presentation is called "Turn Your Social Media Traffic Into Gold". I am presenting at Affiliate Summit New York on Monday August 16th.


It is a bit of an old-fashioned sounding title and I think we need to jazz it up to get people interested. So, I went on eBay and I bought this 10 gram solid gold bar to give away using Social Media.





Here's how you can help.

How would you give away a $406 dollar prize to build interest in a presentation with a bit of a funny name? How can we use Social Media to prove that Social Media works? Please comment below with your ideas.

I also have 5 second place prizes, $75 Google AdWords Gift Certificates and 5 copies of my book "The Ten Golden Rules of Online Marketing".

Please comment below to help me decide how to socialize this prize :)

New Keyword Matching Options

Google has long supported keyword matching options in Adwords pay per click campaigns. For those of you who are unfamiliar with keyword matching, the standard options include:

Broad Match
Ads will be displayed when any combination of the words in your broad match phrase (or synonyms or related phrases) appear in a search query, regardless of the order.
Context: keyword phrase
Example: search engine optimization
Ads will show up for search queries including: search engine optimization, search engine optimization company, optimization for a search engine, seo company

Phrase Match
Ads will be displayed when any combination of the words in your broad match phrase appear in a search query, in the exact order you specify.
Context: "keyword phrase"
Example: "search engine optimization"
Ads will show up for search queries including: search engine optimization, search engine optimization company, google search engine optimization

Exact Match
Ads will be displayed only when the exact phrase you specify is searched. The words must be in the exact order you specify and no other words can be included in the query.
Context: [keyword phrase]
Example: [search engine optimization]
Ads will only show up for the search query: search engine optimization

Google's new keyword matching option, called broad modifier, gives slightly more control over what search queries your ads show up for than with traditional broad match. The modifier will limit the synonyms and related searches that your ads will show for when using broad match. To use the modifier, insert a + symbol before one or more of the words in a broad match phrase. For any word with a + symbol preceding it, a search query must include that word or a very similar variation in order for an ad to be displayed. Below are some examples:

If your broad match phrase is red diamonds then your ad may show up for phrases including:
red jewelry, colored jewelry, cheap fake red diamonds

If your broad match phrase is +red diamonds then your ad may show up for phrases including:
red diamond, red jewelry, red necklace

If your broad match phrase is +red +diamonds then your ad may show up for phrases including:
red diamond, cheap diamonds in red, red elegant diamonds

Basically, using broad match modifiers will give you more reach than using phrase match, but more control than using traditional broad match.

Advertise on the Go

Who has time these days to go to their office every time they want to optimize pay per click campaigns, check on performance, or add keywords? Well we no longer have to thanks to AdWords for mobile.

AdWords for mobile is now fully available and gives you on-the-go access to all of your campaigns, alerts, and statistics. The interface is also fully customizable so you can streamline the most important aspects of your account. For example, you can set up a custom alert to let you know when a campaign is close to reaching its daily budget. You can even set up alerts to inform you of things such as a drop in clicks compared to a previous week.

The AdWords for mobile interface does not have all the features of the desktop version, but we can certainly expect many updates from Google in the months to come.

AdWords for mobile is currently available on iPhone, Android, and Palm devices.

Pay Per Click Advertising Tip - Define Customer Personas

When setting up a pay per click advertising campaign, a very important key to success is to break your campaigns into tight, granular ad groups. One way to carefully segment campaigns is to identify customer personas.

As internet users, we don't all search for the same products and services the same way. Different demographic groups may use slightly different search phrases and respond differently to offers. For this reason, it is important to understand what groups would be interested in your product or service and how to speak to them through your advertising.

Identify your customer subsets and give them names (i.e. high school students, soccer moms, etc). Think about the words each segment would search that would result in a sale/lead. Set up a different ad group for each customer segment and focus on the phrases that specific group would likely search. This will also allow you to present different ad copy/creative and landing pages to each segment.

Adwords Report Center On Its Way Out

Remember having to go into the Adwords Report Center to find out what phrases people were searching to find your ads, what content placements your ads were appearing on, and whether your ads were performing better on search or content networks? Well, those days are near over as more and more advanced reporting is becoming readily available right in the Campaign Management tab.

It was always a hassle to go into the Report Center, set up a report, run the report, and analyze the report just go go right back to your Campaign Management tab to make adjustments. As part of Google's latest Adwords interface, this problem is quickly being solved with great data being available without running reports.

For example, instead of running a report to see what keyword phrases people are searching, you can just click on the "See Search Terms" button on your Keywords tab and get the complete list of search phrases that generated clicks on your ads. Right from that screen, you can add phrases as negative keywords with a click. You can also add well performing phrases to your campaigns with all matching options very easily.

The new Networks tab displays all the content network placements your ads appeared on along with click and conversion statistics. You can easily remove any content placements that are performing poorly or you just do not want to be associated with.

I am sure that I am not the only Adwords advertiser that is waiting patiently to see the Adwords Report Center disappear altogether.

Google Introducing New Ad Formats for Search

Anyone advertising in Google Adwords probably knows that Google typically only displays text ads on their search pages, while other ad formats (video, image, etc) can be shown on Google's content network. Well, somewhat behind the scenes, Google has been testing additional ad formats to be used in search, so don't be surprised when you start seeing videos, images, and products in the paid search listings.

For example, you may start seeing individual products with prices and links within a single Google ad as this is something they have recently been testing aggressively. Another ad format Google is experimenting with is the comparison ad. Great for consumers, comparison ads are designed to compare rates/prices of different advertisers within an ad.

As most of these new ad formats are of great benefit to the consumer, they can hurt the advertiser who does not stay on top of the changing landscape. Being competitive in paid search will require staying aware of new ad formats and using them effectively to reach your audience.

Product Plusbox Beta Test Commencing

You may have seen a plusbox below some AdWords ads that displays several products right on the Google results page. This is because Google has been giving certain advertisers a chance to participate in their beta test of combining AdWords ads with Google base to display product feeds directly below ads.

If you want to be a part of the test, however, you are out of luck because the test is coming to an end. Google will now be assessing feedback from the advertisers that participated. Look out for availability of this feature in the near future.

Test Your Business Plan in AdWords

Thinking about starting a business? A great way to test your business model and get some quick data is through Google Adwords. Using the AdWords Keyword Suggestion tool, you will be able to see how competitive the phrases related to your business are, and how much it will cost to generate traffic from them. For example, let's say you were interested in starting a search engine optimization company. Using Google’s Keyword Suggestion tool, you would know that the phrase “search engine optimization company” would cost you about $11.69 per click, there is a high amount of advertiser competition, and the phrase is searched about 27,100 times per month. You will be able to find all of this data before you spend any advertising money.

By running some small test campaigns with conversion tracking, you will quickly be able to see the return on investment of bidding on keywords. This is also a great way to test your creative, including ad copy and landing pages, because you can control your budget.

In addition, research has shown that of pay per click traffic in general, 80-90% of the visits are new visits. This indicates that there is little overlap with other advertising channels so you will be bringing in a high percentage of fresh leads.

Free Workbook for AdWords Beginners

For those of you who are new to Google AdWords, there is a free workbook that will help you get started using the AdWords interface and creating pay per click advertising campaigns. The free downloadable pdf file is a bit lengthy, but provides some great insight into the basic steps of using AdWords.

The main topics covered in the workbook are organizing campaigns, picking the right keywords, writing targeted ads, and putting it all together. Each topic is complete with definitions, tips, and screen shots.

The workbook is by no means your answer to getting the most out of your advertising, but it is a good way to get started if you have a small budget and are doing things on your own. For a more in depth strategic guide to online marketing, try the Ten Golden Rules of Online Marketing Book.

New AdWords UI a Hit

The release of the new user interface for Google AdWords is in most areas a large improvement from the previous interface. The question is, how easy will it be for AdWords users to transition to the new interface? Well, if you use AdWords Editor, the transition will be virtually seamless. The new interface is structured almost identically to AdWords Editor and gives more features with less clicks than the previous interface.

Some of the key improvements include

• Viewing all ad groups, ads, keywords, or placements at once - now you see all the keywords in your account without drilling through campaigns and ad groups, allowing you to quickly find that keyword that is driving up your overall conversion cost.
  
• "See Search Terms" button replaces the need to run a search query report. You can use this on selected keywords or all keywords and it returns all of the phrases searched that resulted in clicks. With the results, you can easily add phrases or add negative keywords to your list simply by clicking the check box next to each phrase.

There are a number of other improvements expected as the new UI continues to mature. All in all, I give the new interface a thumbs up.

AdWords Trick - Dynamic Keyword Insertion

Many pay per click advertisers are now using dynamic keyword insertion in their ad copy. Many, however are no getting the most out of this trick because they do not understand the capitalization techniques. The way you use capitalization in your keyword insertion command will directly affect the capitalization in the ad that appears. Here are some ways to control capitalization in your keyword insertion ads.

Lets say a user is searching "ten golden rules". Here is how it will look using different keyword insertion capitalization variations:

If your ad uses this command: {keyword:Internet Marketing}, the ad will read "ten golden rules". (no capitalization)

If your ad uses this command: {Keyword:Internet Marketing}, the ad will read "Ten golden rules". (only the first letter of the first word is capitalized)

If your ad uses this command: {KeyWord:Internet Marketing}, the ad will read "Ten Golden Rules". (the first letter of each word is capitalized)

If your ad uses this command: {KEYWORD:Internet Marketing}, the ad will read "TEN GOLDEN RULES". (all letters are capitalized)

In most cases, it is best to capitalize the first letter of each word (KeyWord:). Play around with some different variations and see how they work for your campaign.

Improve Your Quality Score

When advertising in Google AdWords, quality score can mean the difference between profitable and break-even campaigns. Small tweaks to your campaign can be enough to improve your quality score enough to lower your cost per click. Especially if you are in a field with growing competition, you may see the cost per click of your keywords rising to the point that you just can't make any money. By raising that quality score, you may just be able to get the cost back down and start making money again.

The simplest way to improve your quality score is to take the time to break your campaigns down to highly specific ad groups. Instead of a single ad group with 20 somewhat similar keyword phrases, break it into four or five ad groups with four or five keyword phrases in each. For the ads in a specific ad group, include the keyword phrases in the ad copy. On the landing page for that ad group, include the wording you used in the ads. By simply separating keywords into ad groups, you will improve the relevancy of your ads and landing pages and effectively lower your cost per click.

Get $1,000 Worth of Advertising from Google

In an attempt to create some buzz around their new Display Ad Builder Tool, Google began a contest to see how creative advertisers can be using this tool. The tool was created as an easy way for advertisers to create static image and animated ads for use on the AdWords content network. Using professionally designed templates, people with little or no design experience can build display ads for their business in minutes.

The first place winner, based on the creativity of their ad and innovation in using the tool, will receive $1,000 in AdWords credits. Put on your creative hats and enter the contest by simply filling out their entry form. Hurry up because the contest ends March 24.

More Work for Google Advertisers

If you are advertising in Google AdWords, you may have a new task at hand. A recent policy change now in effect by Google is disallowing multiple display URL domains within a single ad group. If you currently advertise multiple domains in a single ad group, you will have to go in and change your ads.

This policy change only applies to ad groups that display different domain names. Different subdomains and domain extensions are still acceptable. For example, if you have an ad group with the following display urls:

www.tengoldenrules.com
marketing.tengoldenrules.com
tengoldenrules.com/marketing

You will not have a problem because all of the above urls have the same root domain (tengoldenrules.com).

However, if you have an ad group with display urls like these:

www.tengoldenrules.com
www.10goldenrules.com
www.tengoldendeals.com

The ads are no longer accepted by Google because the root domain differs in each.

Fixing your ads to comply with this new policy could be a large, arduous process, especially if you have a large scale account. The easiest way to find out which of your ad groups cause an issue, you can contact your Google rep or call 1-888-246-6453 and they will be able to tell you exactly which ad groups you need to change.

AdWords Tip: Identify Negative Keywords

A useful PPC optimization strategy that is often overlooked is including negative keywords in your campaign. Negative keywords are used in AdWords to prevent your ads from being served for irrelevant searches. To paint a clearer picture, assume you are bidding on the term “bass” because you sell bass guitars. If you are bidding on “bass” with broad match, your ad could be served in searches for “bass fishing”. Anyone searching for “bass fishing” is unlikely to purchase a bass guitar from your site. If you included the term “bass fishing” in your negative keywords, you would not be wasting the impression and possible click. In addition, by adding negative keywords, your cost per click is likely to decrease as your click through rate increases.

Understanding negative keywords is only half the battle. Many advertisers know about negative keywords but do not utilize them because they have trouble identifying them. Common sense can certainly get you a starter list of negative keywords, but to really be effective, you will need to constantly be adding negative keywords to your campaigns.

The first way to identify negative keywords is to look for them in your current campaigns. Run a keyword performance report to see which keywords convert poorly over time. Add those phrases to your negative keywords.

There is also a very simple way to identify negative keywords you may not have thought of. Just run your broad keywords through any keyword suggestion tool, like the one provided in AdWords. Look through the list and identify any phrases that include your keywords but are irrelevant to your business. For example, you may have never considered that when bidding on “packaged food”, your ad will be showing up on searches for “packaged food poisoning”. However, if you ran “packaged food” through a keyword suggestion tool, “packaged food poisoning” would be right there for you to see.

Google Automatic Match

When everyone logs into their adwords account on May 20, 2008 they will see a new option, a new checkbox (prechecked and autoenabled) for a new feature 'Automatic matching" Many of you may have heard about auto-matching and are already not looking forward to this new option. For those of you not familiar with this new "feature" auto match works like this (as per an email I received in my inbox, just a little bit ago-

I. About Automatic Matching

Automatic matching shows your ads on relevant search queries not already captured by your keywords. It works by analyzing the content of the landing pages, ads, and keywords in your ad group. It then shows your ads on search queries relevant to this information.

The system will continually monitor your performance on these queries and adjust its matches accordingly. Automatic matching aims to show your ads only on queries that yield a high clickthrough rate (CTR) and a cost-per-click (CPC) comparable to or lower than your ad group's current average CPC. This way, your ads receive additional targeted traffic at a similar cost to your current traffic.

Automatic matching won't allow your spend to exceed your budget, and it also won't affect the traffic you're currently receiving. In addition, automatic matching will have no impact if your campaigns already capture the majority of relevant traffic.

To summarize auto-matching, you were previously not bidding on a keyword phrase as you didn't think the keyword was relevant or important to your bottomline (this is after you used Adwords numerous tools to get keyword additions that Adwords thought would be relevant, and in your wisdom you did not listen to the campaign optimizer tool to add semi-relevant terms). Well that was good enough for Google, Adwords will now be displaying these keywords in ads for you when an individual conducts a search, and then you will be charged for the click, as Adwords thinks that term might be beneficial to you.
As an example, I sell widgets on my site, someone does a search for widget accessories and because i have widgets on my site, Adwords will display my ad as it is "close enough' (my quotes) to what you sell and my be relevant to the searcher. Its besides the point you don't sell widget accessories or want that visitor coming to your site, you still pay for the visitor.
I may be the only one, but I am not really that interested in Automatic match, and the fact that Adwords auto enables this function, leads me to believe that the company that benefits the most from this new "feature" is Google itself.