Most people know you can target gmail in your Display Network campaigns. But what if Gmail is performing really well for you in your campaigns? Can you directly target Gmail in either a placement targeted campaign or an enhanced campaign, segmenting Gmail out into its own ad group or campaign. Finally most people see the ads in gmail to the left of the email they're typing. But what about the box directly above the email? Check out the quick video below to see how to do all of the above!
Good ad copy or technical terms in your tags-Which is Best for SEO?
You've probably searched for an item, be it a new hard drive, a cable for your HDTV or maybe you were trying to find an energy saving bulb to lower your bills. You likely saw a alot of technical jargon in the search results. That's great if you know exactly what you are looking for, aka a 1TB Seagate external hard drive, etc. But if you are trying to find which bulbs are more energy efficient or environmentally friendly often all the technical jargon in the search results are useless to you.
Turning the tables a bit, if you're the owner/marketer of a site what should you write in your title & description tags when trying to get rankings for your product or service- the technical specs or ad copy and keywords that are less technical and more targeted to solutions? Really, which is best? This post is about the keywords that are used in the meta keywords, especially the title tags as far as more technical terms vs. non technical.
The object of the title tag is twofold:
1. to rank as high as possible for relevant keywords that convert and
2. to get a searcher, really as many searchers as possible, to click on your search result instead of your competitors. This may include a feature/benefit and a call to action.
The keywords that are included in your title tags are the ones that have been proven to not only drive traffic but result in sales in your PPC campaigns. The wording of the title tag is also designed to get the searcher to click on your search result instead of your competitors. Both of these goals including a feature/benefit and call to action all have to be fit into only a 67 character title tag limit. The keywords you include from your research doing PPC may seem a bit more generic than the actual technical specs of a product there are couple of things to keep in mind:
1. As the business owner, you have a much more in depth knowledge than most searchers as you are the product expert. It may seem tempting to put in all technical specs. However the person who types in a search is often trying to either get information or solve a problem such as "which bulb replaces the bulbs in my living room?" or "How can I save money on my energy bill?" or "What green options are out there for lighting?" . Having a title tag that speaks to them may cause them to click on your ad instead of all the others that have technical specs, even if they are in positions 1-3 and you may be in position 6.
2. You will have plenty of opportunities to speak to those searchers who are interested in technical specs in two places if you want to: 1. Your description tag. 2. (More importantly) The page they land on after clicking on your result.
Another thing to keep in mind- Even though they work together, there are significant differences between PPC & SEO:
1. Unlike PPC you aren't spending any money on people who click on your result. So you want as many people to click on your result than your competitors. Get them to your site, then let them decide if what you have fulfills their needs. If it does, great. If not, they click away and you don't pay a dime. This is very different from PPC where you want to encourage the right person to click on your ad but discourage others who may not be your target audience because you're paying for all those clicks.
2. PPC is directly related to the keywords and ad copy you choose. Your search result includes your title & description tags along with Google crawling the entire internet (including your site) to find the answer to the searcher's query. So if a person searches for a more generic term such as "led replacement bulb" you may rank for that. But if a searcher types in "Nexxus - Array Quantum LED R30 Medium Base Lamp 50w replacement" you can also rank highly if the page you feature this product on your site has this info on it because Google will crawl this page.
It may be for certain items having technical details is relevant. For instance if you sell well known products such as hard drives having a title of 1TB Seagate external drive with automatic backup- free shipping! may be perfect. But if your product is not as well known frankly the majority of searchers may not yet know what to type in so their searches will be more generic.
Bottom line:
With a limited amount of space for your title & description tags a balance is needed. Balancing the goals of your title tags and achieving maximum results for your business should be the decision maker in this process.
iAd, Adwords, App Inventor & More: Which is best for your business?
We all know iPhone was the first on the scene but 2010 can really be called the year of the smartphone. iPhone, Android and others are leading the way for mass adoption of smartphones, not just by corporate types but by everyone. What does this mean for marketers?
Apple: Largest App store & iAd
App Store: It's well known that Apple has the largest App store with over 233,408 apps as of this writing. Businesses and marketers have been creative with making apps for businesses large and small. Even if you're not a programmer you can find sites that will create an app for you or your business for a reasonable price to connect you with your loyal customers.
iAd: In addition, with their iAd platform Apple is introducing in-App marketing, very interactive and slick. This is great if you're Nike, BMW, etc. But if you are a small business that installs sunrooms is it reasonable or cost effective to go this route? Not at this time-see link:
http://www.penn-olson.com/2010/04/30/apple-iad-not-for-small-businesses/
The iAd platform is at this time simply to complex and pricey for small businesses. Perhaps in the future they will open things up to the little guy, we'll see.
Google:Adwords, Click to Call & Android App Inventor
On the other side of the coin Google as introduced a number of options that allow both large and small businesses to advertise on the mobile platform.
Adwords & Click to Call: In the Adwords interface you can simply choose show your ads on mobile phones. In addition, not too long ago they also added a Click to Call option where when a user searches for, say Pizza, San Diego on their smartphone they will not only get your add but if you include it the number right below where they can call right from the ad and not have to go to your site.
Android App Inventor: Finally last week Google introduced Android App Inventor. This program, not in public circulation yet will let anyone create an app just by dragging and dropping different pieces of the app around. Some have feared that this could potentially flood the Android app market with tons of junk apps. On the other hand it could allow schools and businesses to create apps that are useful and create buzz about what they have to offer. Links: http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/
Here is a video of the app inventor in action. It is pretty lame as it just shows a person making an app of their cat meowing. It is pretty obvious that the App Inventor can do alot more so this is not a great video of what it can do. But many people love cats so who can blame them?
Bottom line: Smartphone have caught fire and Google, Apple, marketers and businesses large and small are scrambling to get a piece of the action. How do you think things will shake out for not only big business but the smaller ones such as restaurants, painters, electricians etc?
How to Highlight & Find PPC & SEO Keywords Quickly Using Excel
Sometimes the littlest things save the biggest amount of time. So this will be a quick post on a time saving tip for either SEO's or PPC professionals working in excel. We all know excel is a fantastic tool. It seems everytime you use it, there is something new it can do to speed things up or make things easier. Perhaps no program is better at easily handling thousands of keywords, organizing and rearranging them to interperet data quickly.
But have you ever downloaded thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of keywords from either Adwords or server logs and wanted to see just a certain segment of them quickly? For instance you downloaded 20,000 keywords from different campaigns for say, "pet toys" in Adwords and only wanted to find the keywords that contained "dog pet toys". Or you did the same in downloading your server logs and wanted to do the same. You could write a complicated formula but here's an easier way (this is for Excel 2007 but its basically the same for the other versions):
How to Highlight & Find PPC & SEO Keywords Quickly Using Excel
Excel: Find & Highlight Keywords
Handy for finding CPC, search terms, etc.
1. Select Row/Rows
2. Hit Ctrl + F
3. Enter word(s) you want to find in find field
4. Click options Button
5. In the "Replace With" row click Format
6. Select color you want cells to be highlighted (like yellow)
7. Click Replace all: Your cells with these words will be highlighted
8. Click filter and filter by color to see just the highlighted keywords.
9. Just click undo to undo this.
That's it! Please leave a comment if this helped you or you would like further clarification.
Great New Functionality for Google Analytics
About a month ago Google Analytics showed up with a bunch of new reports. This is a bit old new for some but if you haven't checked out these new features you're missing out on some fantastic info we've all wanted for years.
For instance, people have been hoping to know exactly how much money different Adwords keywords were bringing in, what the best days and times for their campaigns but it sometimes seemed that to a degree Adwords and Analytics were separated. Well, no more! Google has just announced a few new reports that will help you to know what keywords, campaigns & more are performing good (or not so good). These reports are very valuable and this is just scratching the surface! For full info, check out the link and video below.
Analytics blog post: New Adwords Reports in Analytics
Video: