Many of the lessons we learn in childhood stay with us into adulthood, enriching our lives and providing much needed guidance. Sometimes Oregon Trail was the game you played primarily to shoot rabbits instead of learning about America’s pioneers; but other times it instilled important reminders that still ring true today, especially in managing PPC campaigns.
1. You Can’t Always Caulk the Wagon and Float - PPC requires constant maintenance, and sometimes that means rolling up your sleeves, getting messy, and forging the river. Just floating along can result in a water-logged PPC campaign, in which you lose 2lbs of flour, two wagon axels, and Quality Score.
2. Know When to Pause and Rest for (3) Days - Sure, you want to get out of those Colorado hills before snowfall, but if a team member has a snakebite or moral is down, you should take a rest. Similarly, it’s important to recognize when to pause poorly performing keywords. Having the wrong keywords in your AdWords account wastes your money and might even cause your campaign to croak.
3. Don’t Hunt All the Buffalo - My 2nd grade class had a bad habit of hunting down as many buffalo as they could find in the first 5 minutes of the game, obliterating the herds and resulting in starvation later. Instead, you need to ration your hunting, just as you would ration funds in your AdWords account. If AdWords costs aren’t controlled, they can quickly eat up your funds, and then the game’s over. Using negative keywords and implementing long-tail keywords instead of broad phrases can help control costs, making sure you have enough sustenance to reach your destination.
4. Get Help - Every now and then in Oregon Trail, some Native Americans offer to tow you across the river for a price. You could brave the river on your own, but you might be better off with a guide. PPC can be just as a challenging as the rushing rapids of the Columbia River. Some marketers will be much better off with PPC software or services to aid them in their advertising adventure.
5. Don’t Die of Dysentery - Dying is the ultimate disaster of Oregon Trail, with dysentery being an especially cruel ending. The solution to avoiding sickly PPC campaigns? Regular check-ups of course! WordStream offers a free AdWords Performance Grader that serves as your own personal PPC audit, pointing out the parts of your campaign that could use some healing medicine.
6. Visit Trading Posts to Ask Locals for Advice - On your journey west, be sure to stop at trading posts and talk to the surly locals. There are numerous blogs across the web covering all sorts of PPC tips and learning resources. Experts are often more than happy to dispense advice for the eager learner, so take advantage of their knowledge and expertise.
7. The Path to Oregon is Long and Hard - PPC is not quick and easy, it requires real work and commitment. But if you put in the time and effort, you’ll make it to Oregon, the land of golden ROI. It should be noted that this post primarily refers to actions available in Oregon Trail II, my trail-blazing adventure game of choice. Hopefully this doesn’t offend any players dedicated to the original.
About the guest author: Megan Marrs is a blogger and copywriter at WordStream, a provider of PPC software and keyword software for discovering and organizing keywords for SEO and PPC. She is an avid videogame enthusiast, but has never actually been to Oregon.
Posted by Crissy Campbell | Email to a Friend | Of course, you should follow me on twitter here
In the post, we outline 5 common web design mistakes that kill search engine optimization and why teamwork among SEOs, web designers, marketers and developers is critical during a blog redesign process.
Here are 5 design mistakes to avoid:
1. High-traffic pages are removed or deleted
2. Top-level keyword terms are omitted from new copy
3. The new design does not leave enough room for copy
4. The beautiful design takes longer to load
5. CMS changes affect URLs
Google Search Results have changed significantly over the last 3 months, and if you haven’t been following along, here’s what you need to know.
Google has made a ton of changes to how search results are displayed. These are big changes.
Imagine that Google is your favourite grocery store and you know exactly how to navigate the aisles, that the deli is always labelled “Deli” and that the aisle end-cap promotions are the same whether you have a carry-basket or a cart. Then one day you walk in and all the aisles are rearranged according to what your friends like, the deli sign sometimes says “Deli” but other times says “Cold Cuts” or “Lunch Meat”, and the aisle contents vary depending on the mobility of your chosen device (carry basket or cart). This is the new Google Search.
Here’s a recap of 5 recent changes that affect Google search results.
Jan 12, 2012: Google implements “better” titles in search results
Google will now change the meta title displayed for your webpage in search results if it feels that it can improve the relevancy between the content of your webpage, the search query and the meta title in search results. There’s no report for when Google does this or what title they choose to use, but HTML Suggestions in Webmaster Tools will provide suggestions.
Recommendation: If you are using a meta title not specific to your page content, you are likely to see Google search results displaying a different title than your meta title to create more relevancy in search results.
In Google Analytics, set the advance segment to Non-Paid Search Traffic and use the Site Content > Page Title report to see what pages get the most visits from organic traffic. Add a secondary dimension to see Keywords. Is the keyword found in the page title? If not, you might want to revisit how your meta title is generated and talk to your SEO expert.
Jan 10, 2012: Google Search plus Your World launches
Users logged into Google see a different set of search results than those not logged in. In particular, those with a Google+ account see a big difference. The search results are specific to you and the things shared with you or amongst your Google+ circles.
Name searches auto complete with people and pages in your network so that People and Pages are easier to find within a few clicks (the assumption is that this is what you are seeking).
In some ways it reminds me of the bad paperclip that used to “help” me in Microsoft Word. For example, searching for “John Battelle SOPA” before he wrote his recent post only displayed his Twitter, Google+ and other social media accounts. I could not find a result for his blog. Here’s what SEOMoz to say (with examples).
Recommendation: Social sharing and a solid social media outreach plan have always been important. Now more than ever, socialization in addition to optimization is required to show up in results. Local search guru Andrew Shotland believes aggressive social sharing is the future for brands.
Dec 15, 2011: Googlebot-Mobile crawls webpages
Smartphones and tablets are on the rise. Googlebot-Mobile is a spider that crawls your website to see if it is optimized for mobile. The bot is looking specifically for mobile-optimized webpages. Mobile optimization does not mean “I think my site looks ok on the iPad and I can zoom in to see it on my phone.” Mobile optimization means do you have a mobile version of your website because Google search results on phones and tablets will skew towards websites that are mobile optimized, meaning your webpages might not show up in mobile search results.
Recommendation: Visit Google Analytics’ Audience > Mobile report. If more than 14% of your traffic is from mobile, you need a mobile optimization plan. Doing nothing is not an option—That’s like running a 7-11 and randomly closing 1 day a week. Check out the GoMo initiative, and if you run a big ecommerce site, definitely talk to our friends at Mobify.com.
Dec 14, 2011: Authorship introduced
Google search results now show annotations for authors. See below. This happens only if you verify ownership of the sites where you blog. Stats appear in Google Webmaster Tools under the Labs tab.
Recommendation: If you are going to blog seriously, you want to verify your authorship so your webpages stand out more in Google search results. The avatar is your Google+ icon so there is some linking that happens between your posts, your Google+ profile and what appears in Google search results via a snippet of code . Google Support offers some simple steps for verifying authorship here.
Nov 11, 2011: Mobile Advertising, Mobile PPC
Google launches the mobile site development portal mentioned above, HowToGoMo. The push for mobile optimization is not going to go away. Adwords, into January, is still adding new features to improve the granularity and targeting available to mobile search advertisers. And remember Google owns Android. They have a vested interest in mobile usage and sites optimized for mobile experiences.
Recommendation: If you are running Google Adwords, separate your Mobile campaigns from desktop campaigns as the landing page for mobile ads needs to be optimized for mobile otherwise visitors will have a poor experience and are likely to bounce at a higher rate, which affects your quality score, and ultimately what you have to pay per click in order to have your ads appear.
Those are just 5 recent changes to Google search results in the last 3 months. That’s a lot of change quickly, especially when it comes to mobile optimization and social search, and the pace of change is likely to continue.
Want insights into the grand plan for Google search? Watch this 6-minute video on the evolution of Google.
Search marketing, as part of the online marketing industry, is operating at lightning speed. If you don’t have someone on your team who is staying on top of it, you’re going to fall behind quickly.
Wordstream has a great infographic this morning on “What Industries Contributed to Google’s $37.9 Billion in 2011 Revenues?” If you’re running PPC campaigns on Google Adwords, then you might want to check this out because 96% of that $37.9 Billion came from advertising. Is your industry among the top 10 industries that spent the most on Google Ads in 2011? And, are you also bidding on the 5 commonly used keywords? If yes, check out the average cost per click—$1.20 to $43.39 depending on the industry and keyword phrase.
Play with the Google Zeitgeist to see mattered to use in 2011. The Zeitgeist sorts the billions of Google searches from last year into the 10 fastest-rising global queries and it lets you drill down by country and month. Seems like 13-year-old Canadian musician Rebecca Black was #1 fastest-rising search globally and in Canada. Take that Justin Bieber.
Posted by Monique Trottier | Email to a Friend | Of course, you should follow me on twitter here
This infographic from WordStream is a great breakdown of how Google’s AdWord auction works. It outlines how keywords are entered into the auction, how Google decides which ad is shown where, and how Google determines how much you pay for your ad.
Posted by Crissy Campbell | Email to a Friend | Of course, you should follow me on twitter here
We’ve spent the first week of 2012 here at Boxcar Marketing struggling with Google products—in particular, how to link an AdWords account to a Google Analytics account.
Below are the steps that worked for us to link our two accounts. Hopefully, by following these steps, you’ll have an easier (and less stressful!) experience.
Why Link AdWords To Google Analytics?
Linking your AdWords account to Google Analytics gives you data on what people do on your site after they’ve clicked your ad. For example, you can see how long visitors from your ads spend on the site, where they leave, and what percentage of these visits lead to sales.
This information gives you a better understand of the value of your ad spend.
Before You Start
In order to link your AdWords to your Google Analytics account, you need to have the same Google Account email address for both. If they are different, give your AdWords email address admin access to Analytics. (Here’s how.)
If you’re linking an AdWords account that is part of a My Client Center account, you’ll need to add a unique Google Account email address as an admin that that AdWords account. This is because a Client Center account can’t be linked to an Analytics account. Again, if this email address isn’t an admin of Analytics, you’ll have to go in and give it admin access.
How To Link AdWords To Analytics
1. Log in to Google Analytics.
2. In your Account Home page click on the gear icon in the top right corner.
3. Here you’ll be taken to Account Administration. Click on the account that you want to link to AdWords.
4. On this page, click on the Data Sources tab. In the AdWords tab follow the instructions to link accounts. We kept the auto-tagging turned on so that Analytics will automatically tag our AdWords links for tracking.
Note: you can also link your accounts through AdWords by clicking on the Tools and Analysis tab > Google Analytics. Click on the gear icon in the top right corner and follow steps #3 - 4 above.
Once your accounts are linked, you can access information about your ads in Analytics under the Advertising tab or in AdWords under the Tools and Analysis tab > Google Analytics.
Questions? Post your comments below.
Posted by Crissy Campbell | Email to a Friend | Of course, you should follow me on twitter here
Last night I presented to the SEMPO Vancouver meetup group on the different perspectives of generalists and specialists when it comes to Search Marketing.
In summary, marketing generalists are under a ton of pressure to understand and create effective marketing strategies that address the growth of marketing channels and device choices, on top of dealing with the explosion of marketing data and financial constraints. Search marketing specialists can play a key strategic role in answering business questions like “how should I allocate budget among each marketing channel,” “how can I get more leads,” and “what can I do to get more sales?” But specialists need to understand the social approach to winning support from generalists.
This presentation offers tips for Search Specialists looking to gain support from clients, managers, executives and other generalists.
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