By now we will all be a little bit more familar with Google’s recently introduced search results page redesign.
Unless you’ve been walking the Kokoda trail for the past 2 weeks, you’d have seen that Google has included a left hand navigation to target different types of searches.
What does this mean for your search optimisation strategy?
Google are innovating super fast.
There are lots of new tweaks to the format of the Google AdWords ads that are currently being tested, or are in the process of being rolled out.
Lets take a look at one of them: Introducing the Wonderful World of Sitelinks, which can increase click through rates (CTR’s) by 2 to 3 times!
Your ad copy is the only part of your AdWords campaign that the visitor actually sees!
Obvious, yes. But we find many folks get too bogged down in the detail of managing a campaign. Max CPCs, CTR%, quality scores, conversion rates, cost per conversions, campaign settings… the list goes on. The quality of your ad is absolutely critical.
Here is a refreshing short video from Google on how to improve your ad copy writing.
SMX Session Review: Facebook Pay Per Click Advertising.
Keynote: The State of the Search Union (SMX Sydney, Day Two)
Review of the panelist discussion. Chris Sherman, Andrew Goodman, Gillian Muesig, Alex Parsons and Marty Weintrub.
Review of “Advanced Google AdWords” afternoon session.
1. Advanced Landing Pages
2. Improving your quality score
3. Google Optimiser
Review of the “Advanced Google AdWords” session.
1. Long Tail Keywords
2. Advanced Campaign Settings
3. Ad Copy Techniques
SMX Sydney, Day 1. 2nd Afternoon Session. Advanced SEO
1. Universal
2. Local Search
Search Marketing Expo (SMX) Sydney is THE search marketing event of the year in Australia.
Search legend Chris Sherman kicks things off with a great keynote.
You probably already know how helpful Google Analytics can be – it can show you the number of visitors, how they found your website, keywords they used to find you, what they did on you website etc.
But, there is one really powerful functionality Google introduced a while ago called “customised advanced segmentation” that can save you heaps of time, and provide some extremely useful insights.
The advanced segmentation customisation functionality lets you easily create a profile for a certain type of visitor that will allow you to understand so much more about their behaviour AND save you heaps of time in the long run.
For example, as the prime goal of your site is attract new business, you’re probably most interested in the behaviour of potential customers – but this data is currently being diluted with lots of other types of traffic.
I recently presented at a vibey Working Women’s Network workshop, run by the charismatic Angela Raspass. It was a one-day online marketing event, and I spoke on how to attract customers to your business.
It was a fantastic day with some great speakers covering topics like planning website development, email marketing, blogging and social media.
One of the questions I asked was: “What is the one thing that is holding you back from CRUSHING it online?”
Pure and simple, the Content Network presents a huge opportunity to get profitable leads.
But because there are many poor content websites that will not convert into a lead (well, it’s the undesirable visitors of those sites really…) you will waste your budget unless you have a solid strategy.
Google’s default setting is to show your Search Campaign on the Content Network. And then advertisers see no need to turn it “off”. Big mistake.
This is a worthwhile 7 minute video interview with Brad Geddes about Google AdWords Quality Score.
Brad is the only Google endorsed Advanced Adwords trainer. I have completed his training course and he really knows his stuff. Recommended viewing.
I attended a very useful panel discussion hosted by Anthill Magazine last night in Sydney called Online Marketing by Design (Twitter hash tag #mumhill). The focus was online marketing (duh!) and social media. The panelists clearly knew their stuff, and there were lots of laughs. Drinks flowed for everyone (except me… damn detox…)
The last question posed by James was one of the most interesting of the night. It was about a mini case study, but as time was running away, and the bar beckoned, the panelists were forced into short answers.
While lying awake in bed when I got home, I got to thinking about how would I address the mini case study… and so a blog post was born:
The question from James went something like this: “Say you’re a solar panel company with a $500k online marketing budget, and you make $10k gross margin on each sale. What areas of online marketing would you focus on, including staff hire etc?”
Every Friday morning from 10am to 12 noon during the month of February, CleverClicks will be operating a free help desk to resolve your online marketing queries.
In life it pays to be positive. With AdWords it pays to be negative. Using “negative keywords” can be the difference between a pile of profits, or depressing losses.
As important as it is to get clicks, it’s crucial to get the right clicks, and negative keywords help weed out people who aren’t your target market.
We rarely see Google AdWords campaigns that are making use of this incredibly effective technique to boost AdWords profitability.
It’s not difficult and is so easily overlooked.
A website exists for ONE reason only: to get your customers to take action.
For most websites it is FAR easier and MUCH cheaper to increase your conversion rates from 1% to 2% than to double your traffic!
Scott from Google interviews people in New York to find out if they know what a web browser is.
They don’t.
Google AdWords seriously rocks! But of course you already know that.
Besides getting immediate targeted visitors to your website, there are some benefits of AdWords you may not be aware of.
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