FTC Do Not Track Policy: SEO & PPC Implications / News Roundup

A few weeks ago the Federal Trade Commision made a call for a "Do Not Track" option regarding online privacy.  We all remember the Do Not Call list that many of us added our numbers to, avoiding many irritating telemarketing calls during dinner. 

Many articles were published in the last few weeks regarding this topic but we didn't see a whole lot about how this would affect PPC advertisers, SEOs, and those who use Analytics software to track visitor behaviour, conversions, repeat visitors and more.

Alot of questions come up:

Is this the end of website analytics, Adwords conversion tracking, bounce rates, time on site and geo-targeting?  Or is this a step toward protecting people privacy so that you don't have to worry that Facebook will change its privacy settings again and confuse you into having all your info across the internet?  Its really too early to tell.

We though we'd select a few articles about this new FTC proposal.  They are kind of all over the place in their opinions. 

If you have any comments on how this will affect SEO, PPC, Analytics or online marketing in any way we'd love to hear your thoughts.  Here are a few news articles on this subject:

USA Today:  'Do Not Track' online privacy measure under consideration

USA Today:  Don't Track technology is simple, experts say

Chicago Tribune:  FTC proposes 'do not track' list to protect internet users

bnet.com:  The FTC's "Do Not Track" Proposal Already Having an Effect

Reuters:  Why Web Giants would benefit from a 'do not track' policy

ITBusinessEdge:  legislators regulators consider do not track mechanism

Rostin Ventures:  FTC Do Not Track List Guidelines Support SEM SEO Strategy, Mobile SEO & Social Media Marketing

Need to Track Calls? New Phone Call Tracking Feature in Adwords!

For many business owners a significant number of people who visit their site to learn about them call or visit their store to get more info their products or services instead of emailing or buying something straight from their site.  Tracking whether a person came to your store or called your business because they saw a traditional print ad or they came to your site has been a thorn in the side of a lot of business owners. 

For a while now there have been a number third party call tracking solutions.  But there is definitely a monthly fee for using these, not to mention implementing call tracking reporting so you can see if the visits from PPC are generating new customers and sales. 

Just the other day Google has come out with a form of call tracking for Adwords.  It generates a unique  number that a user can click on from either their desktop or smartphone and Adwords will track this.   It also uses the technology behind Google Voice to track this info.  Currently this is in beta. 

How this new feature could be useful:

Think about a call you get to your business.  How do you know where it came from?  Did it come from your Adwords accounts, someone viewing your ad and then coming to your site?  Or somewhere else?    You could ask but this is rarely accurate (even with people who swear they have their receptionists ask each caller where they "heard about our business").  Why?  Someone from your business could forget to ask where the caller heard about the business OR the person doesn't really care and either gives the wrong answer or forgets.  After all they just want to get what they have to get done by calling you. 

With Adwords call metrics now at least you'll know where people who call you after viewing one of your Adwords ads came from.  That is, as long as they use the number they see on your ad.  Which brings us to the potential downside.

Why this feature may not be a complete solution:

If the person clicks on your ad, goes to your site and uses the number on your site instead of the number in the ad, as far as we can tell right now it won't track this.  So you still don't know if those calls are coming from Adwords.

If a person comes from organic search to your site and calls you this feature won't track this.  You would still need some kind of call tracking solution for this. 

Conclusion

So all in all, Google Adwords call metrics is an interesting first step to something many of us have wanted Google to do for a long time but not the definitive solution to call tracking.  Ideally it would track all calls from Adwords, organic search and anywhere else and report that data in Adwords and Google Analytics.

Google has put out a kind of strange video about this.  It is on the short side and you can view it below.  For full information on Adwords call metrics and to see if it is available in your account to use, follow the links below:

Adwords call metrics help page.

Inside Adwords Blog Post on Adwords call metrics.

How to set up Adwords call metrics:  Google Ad Innovations

How to easily find and delete all instances in Microsoft Excel

Many PPC managers, SEOs and internet marketers use Microsoft Excel all the time to manage keyword lists and so forth.  Many of you liked the tip on how to find & replace keywords quickly and filter by keyword in this post we wrote previously:

How to Highlight & Find PPC & SEO Keywords Quickly Using Excel

Now, let's say you want to find and delete any instances of a keyword in a column or spread sheet.

Why would you want to do this?

    For instance you may have a huge spreadsheet of keywords for shoes you got from Wordtracker or the Adwords Keyword tool on Men's shoes.  In that list you have men's leather shoes, men's casual shoes, men's hiking shoes and many many variations of these terms.

You may want to only keep the keywords having to do with men's shoes such as men's red shoes, men's leather shoes, buy men's shoes, etc.  Why?  Because you already have a spreadsheet from doing research on men's casual shoes but your keyword research tool included that term along with the target phrase men's shoes.  You don't want to duplicate things, especially if you are doing keyword research for Adwords.

So you need to delete the keywords that are either already in another keyword list you're working on or have nothing to do with your target keyword men's shoes.  Maybe your tool also came up with men's clown shoes, men's old shoes and you don't want to target them so they have to go!

I know that many people have searched and searched for this answer only to see crazy formulas that only the super intelligent can use.  Well, there is a simple way.  Here goes:

How to easily find and delete all instances in Microsoft Excel

1.  Select row/rows hit Ctrl F to find all & enter the words or numbers you want to find.

2.  When the box comes up click Find All.  In the same box you'll see all the instances of that keyword. 

3.  Click Ctrl A in that box that shows up to select all of them.

4.  Click close then hit the delete  button and they're all gone.

That's it!  Now you can quickly find and delete all the keywords you don't want fast!

Special Thanks goes to Excel Magic Tips Excellent Youtube Channel.  Below is their video.  It is well worth watching the whole thing but the tip mentioned above is at about 3:25 into the video.  How did this tip help you out?  Let us know with a comment below! 

Where did they go? How to Find & Use New Adwords Reports fast.

Everyone knows that running the right reports are crucial to making the right decisions when it comes to PPC.  We were all used to the Adwords reports being in the same place but you may have noticed the report page now showing the following message:

"We're updating AdWords reporting. As a result, some reports are no longer available in the Report Center. By creating new reports from the Campaigns tab you can find and act on advanced statistics more quickly."

Where did all the reports go?  Before you start biting your laptop in anger like the lady on the right please note the following to avoid frustration:

Soon you'll only be able to get Adwords reports from the actual campaign interface.  How to do this?  Check out this informative post byBrad Gettes, writer of the excellent PPC book Advanced Google Adwords:

http://searchengineland.com/how-to-navigate-googles-new-adwords-reports-and-avoid-losing-valuable-data-52343

The video from his post is below and is certainly worth the time to watch as you'll save at least that much time not hunting around for where the new Adwords reports are.  Enjoy!

Free Tool that Automatically Counts Title & Descripton Tag Lengths

No doubt you agree that any tool that simplifies or speeds things up in doing SEO is always welcome.  Here's a great little tool that you can use when writing title & description tags.  It automatically keeps track of how long these tags are so they fall within Google's guidelines.  After all you want to have nice well formatted tags and avoid the dreaded search results where your tags trail off...

You can find the tool by clicking To use this cool too click here.   This page courtesy of the good people at INT.  Best of all its free and works right on the page!

Do you have any suggestions on tools to speed title and description writing?