Update: So it's been almost two years since I wrote this post and with the Bing Yahoo merger approved there is rumor of Yahoo's Site Explorer being done away with. There have definitely been a number of link analysis tools that I've used since 2008 and I have finally found one that I can say is the best I have used in all the years I've been SEOing. Check out Market Samurai (they have a free trial) and while, I don't usually recommend paid programs (there are far too many great free tools) I think this tool is worth every penny! From keyword research, to keyword ranking to competitive analysis to link building this tool covers it all.
Every SEO knows that links are the secret sauce that promotes a decent website into a SERP dominator. Now, I don't often say "this is the best" simply because there are countless link developing/analysis tools out there but .... honestly, this is quite possibly THE best link analyzer tool I have ever seen.
The Link Diagnosis tool uses Yahoo Site Explorer data and is currently in BETA testing. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a paid version in the near future.
Considering it is still in BETA there are still a few bugs being worked out. For instance, to take advantage of all the tools features, a firefox plugin needs to be downloaded. Occasionally, when I run a report it asks me to download the Firefox extension to get the full report even though I have already downloaded and installed it.
According to the programmer, there is a limit of 5000 calls to yahoo per day per user(IP)- that should roughly be around 50 reports per user per day with the current setup. In all likelihood, that is the source of the bug.
Despite that one small problem, this is a seriously must-have tool in any SEOs toolbox!
Geotargeting in Google Adwords
Ok, I'll say it. "I love Google Adwords." Let's be honest. They have a better interface that is more user friendly. They offer more tools that display better results whether it be for initial research or campaign management. Adwords easily drives more traffic than Yahoo and MSN. Most importantly, Google Adwords provides better geo-targeting options than any other pay per click vendor out there. All of that is, of course, my own personal opinion.
So you're running an AdWords campaign for your business, but you only want to target specific locations. How can you do that? Easy. You just go into your campaign settings and set the location to the area you want to target. But what options do you have? Simon Heseltine over at Search Engine Guide has put together a number of ways you can utilize geo-targeting and Google Adwords to benefit your business.
Google recently updated their interface to catch up with Yahoo Search Marketing's panama release in December 2006. This new release nicely integrates maps into the existing targeting system. In fact, the new features not only help them catch up with Yahoo!, they've moved them way ahead of Yahoo!.
So how granular is the targeting on Adwords?
Continent level? Country bundling is a new feature, and allows you to quickly select a group of geographically similar countries, which you can add to and subtract from as needed.
Country level? Most companies will go with the default of US, but consider your audience. If your products are targeted towards armed forces personnel you may want to add countries like Germany, Afghanistan and Iraq.
State level? Even apart from state-wide business possibilities there are interesting options here. Consider a politician aiming to influence people in certain states during the primary season.
Metro level? In the old system you had no idea whether metro level encompassed a specific suburb. Now with the map you can see for certain. (Note: The zoom capability gives you much more visibility than that in Yahoo!.)
City level? You can add as many cities as you want from to the list, not necessarily contiguous.
Radius around a point? Just don't try to go down to a 3 mile delivery radius for your pizza place.
Custom shape? - In case you wanted to target those 'inside the beltway' politicians.
So what else is new? You can now exclude areas within your target. So say you want to target the entire US except for Tennessee, you just select the entire US, then select Tennessee as an exception. Here's an example with bits of New Jersey taken out of the Philly Metro area.
Of course, you still have all of the existing issues with geotargeting, in that the ads will be shown to users based on where their IP address resolves to, which may or may not be where they're physically located, or based on the content of their search (if someone is in Peoria searching for Atlanta Restaurants, then it makes sense to show an ad for a restaurant that geotargets to Atlanta). However, these features do make the process of setting up geotargeting for your campaigns much easier.
Hey Yahoo!, Google's made the move; it's your turn to try to jump over them in this game of leapfrog.
SEO Strategies for New Websites
SEO strategy for new websites
Starting a new company is extremely hard, which is probably why most businesses fail within the first couple of years.
Challenges such as marketing and hiring the right staff are some of the major issues that even good managers struggle with.
Beyond that, starting a website is no small challenge either! It can be just as hard or even harder! As if things weren't difficult enough, Google gives people an extra hurdle which is sometimes called the "sandbox".
When you launch a new site, Google doesn't trust it at all. Even if the BBC launched a new site it would start off without any trust and would receive very little traffic.
As the site attracts links from other sites, it gradually earns enough trust to start ranking for some long tail search terms. Think of links as 'votes' that tell the Search Engines what your site is about and that it is trustworthy.
If the site gains enough trusted links it may start to rank highly for competitive keywords (ie keywords with lots of PPC advertisers) but this can take up to 24 months.
You are probably thinking that this is a harsh move by Google, but with the sheer volume of sites being launched it needs to have some method of making sure only the really good ones reach the top.
Luckily e-consultancy put together a couple of simple initial rules to follow to ensure your new website gets off on the right foot and reach the top quicker.
1. Your first links
When you launch your brand new site the first few links can make all the difference. Linking to it from other trusted sites right out of the gate can dramatically shorten the time it takes to build trust. Conversely, starting a site off with low quality links is suicide.
Submit to a couple of trusted directories such as Business.com and the Yahoo! Directory and maybe link to the site from some of your other company's websites (link from the news sections to appear more natural).
2. Spin-off sites
Sometimes a new site is a spin-off from a particular section of an existing site. For example, a car insurance site might have a caravan insurance section but then decide to launch a dedicated caravan insurance website.
In this case, the best method would be to create the new site on the new domain and not allow Google to access it. Then once the site was ready you would 301 redirect the old pages to the new pages and hope that the rankings and trust from the old domain passed across.
3. Building trust
Most people try to get relevant links to their sites, which are great for improving rankings in a particular niche but not quite as good for building trust. The ideal links for building trust are from major blogs and news sites.
These can also be quite relevant as usually the article linking to you is related to your niche - even though the rest of the site isn't.
Sites that receive a lot of attention from the mainstream press almost always start ranking a lot more quickly than sites that don't have the benefit of a large PR budget.
200+ Negative Keywords for B2B PPC Campaigns
If you are a B2B pay per click advertiser this is a must read! Actually, even folks reaching the B2C market can surely pull some ideas from this list as well. As a paid search engine advertiser, I use negative keywords extensively in my Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns and/or Ad Groups to weed out unwanted clicks and an un-targeted audience.
Negative keywords are words and phrases that you do not want searchers to associate with your products and services (see Google’s AdWords blog for some high-level information on this topic).
When you add negative keywords to your PPC campaigns your ads will not be served if those words are part of the user’s search query.
Not only does this benefit you by directly saving money on wasted clicks, it also improves the click through rate (CTR) of your keywords/ads, which helps improve your ad quality scores in Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Improved quality scores can help you with bidding strategies by allowing you to bid less than a competitor and maintain a high/higher ad positions on a search results page.
Andy Komack, through 6 years of pay per click advertising, has put together quite an impressive list of negative keywords for various types of B2B search marketing campaigns and I have found this list to be an extremely important tool in building my own campaigns.
This list is by no means exhaustive, and each company has its own unique market positioning. So, do not use this list of negative keywords indiscriminately!!! The list of B2B negative keywords below is meant to be a resource for you, and a starting point when you are deciding which words you do not want associated with your ads.
Avoiding Job Seekers
Prevent your ads from appearing for common employment and career-related searches:
career
careers
employment
hiring
intern
interns
internship
internships
job
jobs
recruiter
recruiting
resume
resumes
salaries
salary
Reference Keywords
Don’t waste money on people looking for information that is only loosely related to your products/services or industry:
about
definition
diagram
example
examples
history
map
maps
sample
samples
what are
what is
No Research & Stats
Assuming you have a limited advertising budget, avoid people doing research, and make sure your are using your advertising $$ to generate sales and qualified leads:
association
associations
book
books
case studies
case study
guide
guides
journal
journals
magazine
magazines
metrics
news
research
review
reviews
statistics
stats
success stories
success story
tutorial
tutorials
white paper
white papers
We Don’t Provide Education
Prevent your ads from being shown to people looking for classes and education:
class
classes
college
colleges
course
courses
education
school
schools
training
universities
university
No Bargains
These negative keywords will help if you are positioned as a premium provider. If you do want visitors for these keyword concepts, create an additional campaign or ad group to focus on these discount concepts, and specifically bid on keywords that contain these words. And then make sure to add this list of negative keywords to the campaigns or ad groups that do not target the discount audience:
bargain
cheap
clearance
close out
close outs
closeout
closeouts
discount
discounted
free
inexpensive
liquidation
odd lots
overstock
remainder
remainders
Avoiding Price Shoppers
You may want visitors to your site looking for pricing and/or quotes, but if not, make sure to add in these words as negative keywords to avoid prospects who may be more concerned with price than with quality or service:
price
prices
pricing
quote
quotes
Avoiding DIY
In many industries there are “do-it-yourselfers” or hobbyists who are searching for information on how to take on a project themselves. It’s a good idea to screen out this audience if you do not cater to it:
craft
crafts
create
creating
hand made
handmade
home
homemade
how to
make
making
Selling Commercial Software
This is a tricky one. If you are a company selling commercial or enterprise software, a) you are likely to want to avoid the thousands of software developers who are looking for free resources, and b) you want to avoid confusion with consumers looking for tools and home-use products. Use this list as a starting point, but also brainstorm and use keyword suggestion tools to find potential negative keywords that are specific to your software space:
burn
burner
cd
code
community
desktop
developer
developers
disk
download (if you don’t have one)
downloads (if you don’t have any)
dvd
error
file
files
forum
free
freeware
game
games
gnu
hack
hacks
libraries
library
microsoft ( 
open source
public domain
retail
retail
retailer
retailers
shareware
shortcut
shortcuts
template
templates
tip
tips
video
windows
Manufacturing & Industrial
This is a very broad list of words, covering many different concepts related to manufacturing and industrial companies. Use this list to start the process of generating negative keywords specific to your industry, product lines, and business model.
antique
consumer
export
exporter
exporters
hobby
import
importer
importers
measurement
model
models
regulations
rent
rental
repair
repairs
retail
retailer
retailers
rules
safety
specifications
specs
standards
store
toy
toys
used
vintage
Product Materials
Obviously not all of these materials will apply to one business. I created this list of product materials as a reminder to screen out searches for product types that a company does not offer. One might wonder if it is OK to not screen for these in the hopes that someone will search for one type of product, but be convinced to buy a different type once they see what is available. Most B2B marketers have limited PPC budgets, so usually it is a better idea to only show your ads to people who don’t have a specific alternative to your products already in mind:
aluminum
ceramic
cotton
fabric
glass
gold
iron
leather
metal
paper
plastic
rubber
silver
stainless steel
steel
stone
vinyl
wood
Legal/Law
It is probably a good idea to prevent your ads from being shown to people looking for information related to legislation and regulations. There will be cases where this might not apply, especially if your product/service solves a regulatory/compliance issue (and if you have a landing page on your site that speaks to the legal issue AND provides a conversion action right there on the page):
act
act of
compliance
law
laws
legal
legislation
regulation
regulations
Other Negative Keywords B2B Marketers May Consider
Here are just a few more words that seem to come up in B2B search advertising campaigns…
club
clubs
consultants
consulting
gift
gifts
online
photo
photograph
photographs
picture
pictures
send
sending
Remember, the list above is not comprehensive, and does not apply to all B2B marketers.
While you're at it, check out this free trial for Market Samurai - it truely is one of the best keyword research tools available!
The Power of Anchor Text and SEO
So, I was browsing through one of my favorite blog sites, Search Engine Land, and stumbled upon a pretty cool posting.
It is always a struggle to explain SEO and its intricacies to clients with little to zero knowledge and even more so when you get down to the minute details - such as anchor text and why it should mention a keyword instead of your company name.
Below is a quick illustration that can help explain anchor text to anyone!
Having relevant keywords as the anchor text of a link is extremely beneficial to an SEO campaign. Because search engines depend on links as a sort of pathway around the Internet, anchor text helps categorize what a destination page will be about as well as what it may be relevant for in a search result.
This week's infographic demonstrates what anchor text is and how it can positively affect your rankings:
Graphic by Elliance, an eMarketing firm specializing in results-driven search engine marketing, web site design, and outbound eMarketing campaigns. The firm is the creator of the ennect online marketing toolkit. The Search Illustrated column appears Tuesdays at Search Engine Land.
Delicious Bookmarks Integrated into Yahoo Search
I just got word that Yahoo is testing the integration of Delicious
An example is here
I have previously written that Delicious search is one of the best ways of searching for things when a standard search doesn’t pull up what you are looking for. After Google, it is my favorite “search engine.” Adding this information into Yahoo search is a great idea.
What isn’t clear is if Delicious results are impacting search rankings, or if Delicious data is simply being integrated into the existing rankings.
Yahoo Conversion Code Expires After 45 Days
One of my favorite blogs for pay per click information had a great article this morning regarding Yahoo! Conversion Code - or lack thereof after 45 days if zero conversions are recorded.
Here is the low-down:
“They’ve never really explained to me why this happens, it just does”, says my Yahoo! rep about my conversion tracking being automatically turned off because I didn’t generate any conversions within a 45 day time frame.
This came up about a month ago when I noticed the conversion column was missing in the Dashboard of my Yahoo! account. I knew I had not only turned on conversion tracking a while ago but you also have to enable it, which I did. You must complete both of these steps in order to get the conversion code in the first place.
I have a client that doesn’t generate very many conversions but when he does, it generates quite a bit of revenue. However, when I noticed one day that the conversion column was missing, I checked to make sure the conversion tracking was on, and indeed it was turned off…not by me or anyone on my team, but by Yahoo!
When I called my rep from Yahoo he stated that for ‘safety measures’ the conversion tracking is automatically disabled if you don’t generate any conversions within a 45 day time period. Why? I asked. He said no one had ever really explained to him what the safety measures were that made disabling conversion tracking a good idea.
I tried to think of the best way to prevent this from happening, and all I could come up with is to start generating more conversions! However, it could be as simple as setting a reminder in Outlook to turn conversion tracking back on every 45 days if you haven’t received any conversions. I personally think it’s a little strange that they don’t explain this in the Yahoo! help section. What other things are they hiding from search advertisers?
Google Analytics 101 - Part 1
In the past, we've often mentioned Google Analytics as a great tool that helps you learn more about how visitors reach your website and what they do once they get there. But now's a good time to take a step back and talk about how to get started with Google Analytics from the very first step. The Google Analytics Blog is providing a series of "Analytics 101" articles that will walk you through sign up, installation, and using reports.
What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a free, hosted web analytics service that provides useful data for website and marketing optimization. Site owners and marketers can make better informed decisions about their sites and campaigns by using metrics from Google Analytics reports. Google Analytics works by collecting information about your site traffic and advertising campaigns, combining this with e-commerce and conversion information to provide insight into the performance of your marketing efforts and site content.
Anyone can sign up using a Google account by visiting http://www.google.com/analytics/. You don't even need to have an AdWords account beforehand.
How do I sign up and install Google Analytics?
After signing up for a Google Analytics account comes the most important part of installation -- the tracking code snippet. Every Analytics user is given a unique piece of JavaScript code to insert in all site pages immediately before the </body> tag. The code snippet may look like something like this example below:
<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js ' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-#####-#");
pageTracker._initData();
pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>
(For illustrative purposes only.)
Your "UA-#####-#" number will be unique to you. It's important to insert the code on all of your site's pages; otherwise Analytics won't be giving you the whole picture of what's going on.
If you're not ready to insert the code now, you can always retrieve this code later. Depending on the size of your site and the number of pages you need tagged, you may want to discuss installation with your webmaster, if you have one.
How do I view my reports?
After you've finished signup, you'll be taken to the Analytics Settings page. The Status box on the right side of this page will let you know whether the code has been properly inserted. It's important to note, however, that it takes anywhere from a few hours to a full day after code installation for your reports to start gathering and showing information.
Once the Status box in the Analytics Settings page says that you're receiving data, you can click the View Reports link to receive reports about your website traffic.
That's it for this first installment of Google Analytics 101. Try playing around with a few reports. If you want to learn more right away, the Analytics Help Center is a great resource for information. Look for the next installment soon, when we'll explain more about administering your account and using your reports.
New Adwords Seminars
AdWords Seminars coming near you
I posted a quick blurb on Yahoo's free search marketing webinars yesterday so I thought I would give Adwords seminars a shoutout as well.If you are ready to kick-start your AdWords account in 2008, be sure not to miss these AdWords Seminars. The seminars are offered by search marketing professionals who are also Qualified Invididuals in the Google Advertising Professionals program like myself. Sessions have just been added in St. Louis, Miami, Las Vegas, Denver, and San Francisco.
If you sign up 7 days before the seminar date Google is even throwing in a $50 AdWords advertising credit. (View the terms and conditions of advertising credits.)
You'll find more information about these seminars, including dates, course outlines, and registration instructions at http://www.google.com/awseminars. On the site, you can browse through the schedule of upcoming seminars in the new handy calendar. If you would rather be informed when AdWords Seminars become available in your area, simply fill out this form.
New Search Marketing Webinars
New Search Marketing Webinars
By popular demand, Yahoo is continuing their live webinar series designed to help make you a more successful search marketing advertiser. The best part? They are free!
This batch of webinars covers a variety of topics and will run from January 15 to February 5, 2008.
Webinar topics include:
- Introduction to Your Account Interface, Key Terms and Structure
- Key Terms, Account Interface - Overview and Structure
- Creating a New Campaign
- Keyword and Ad Tips and Best Practices
- Quality Index and Bidding
- Reporting
To register to attend any of these free webinars, visit the Help Center and click the appropriate Register Now button.
You can also access an archive of past webinars here.
Google Q&A on Google Sitemaps
Google's Webmaster Tools Team published a synopsis of the questions they received at Chicago's recent Search Engine Strategies Conference during the Sitemaps: Oversold, Misused or On The Money? session. If you have ever had a question about Google Sitemaps and the effect they may or may not have on your site, this is a helpful read.
Get the answers to the following questions:
- I submitted a Sitemap, but my URLs haven't been [crawled/indexed] yet. Isn't that what a Sitemap is for?
- If it doesn't get me automatically crawled and indexed, what does a Sitemap do?
- Will a Sitemap help me rank better?
- If I set all of my pages to have priority 1.0, will that make them rank higher (or get crawled faster) than someone else's pages that have priority 0.8?
- Is there any point in submitting a Sitemap if all the metadata (, , etc.) is the same for each URL, or if I'm not sure it's accurate?
- I've heard about people who submitted a Sitemap and got penalized shortly afterward. Can a Sitemap hurt you?
- Where can I put my Sitemap? Does it have to be at the root of my site?
- Can I just submit the site map that my webmaster made of my site? I don't get this whole XML thing.
- Which Sitemap format is the best?
- If I have multiple URLs that point to the same content, can I use my Sitemap to indicate my preferred URL for that content?
- Does the placement of a URL within a Sitemap file matter? Will the URLs at the beginning of the file get better treatment than the URLs near the end?
- If my site has multiple sections (e.g. a blog, a forum, and a photo gallery), should I submit one Sitemap for the site, or multiple Sitemaps (one for each section)?
Optimizing Title Tags in Blogger
Update: see my updated tips on hacking your design code to transpose your title tag in blogger.
Personally, I chose Blogger as my 'free Blog' of choice without a lot of research. I figured, "Hey, Google, owns it. It must be good, right?" Well, the answer is yes and no. For a publishing platform it is easy to use, edit, incorporate Adsense, change templates, etc. From an SEO standpoint, however, it is very limited.
By default Blogger templates come with a “smart” tag inserted that automatically places the Blog Title before every post title in the title tags on the actual post pages. This “smart” tag also displays only the Blogger Title for the main page of the blog - meaning your Blog title is shown on EVERY page.
So, here you go!
Installation
Find the following codes, near the top of your template:
Use the above code in place of: <title><$BlogPageTitle$></title>
That's all for now! Happy Blogger optimizing:) You can click through some of my other posts to see how the code transposes the title tags.
Optimizing Blogger Title Tags
One of the challenges when choosing a 'free Blog' is the SEO implications based on your decision. There is a host of choices out there - Wordpress, Blogger, Moveable Type, etc.Personally, I chose Blogger as my 'free Blog' of choice without a lot of research. I figured, "Hey, Google, owns it. It must be good, right?" Well, the answer is yes and no. For a publishing platform it is easy to use, edit, incorporate Adsense, change templates, etc. From an SEO standpoint, however, it is very limited.
By default Blogger templates come with a “smart” tag inserted that automatically places the Blog Title before every post title in the title tags on the actual post pages. This “smart” tag also displays only the Blogger Title for the main page of the blog - meaning your Blog title is shown on EVERY page.
So, for most of you involved in SEO, I’m preaching to the choir when I tell you that title tags are important and that they could very well be the most important piece of your blog. For those of you not familiar, here are a couple of things about title tags.
- Title tags describe a page. They are a one line summary of what the page is about. The common understanding of the tag is to wrap the title of the site. Unfortunately for many people, the title of the site is completely un-descriptive of the content of the blog. For example, my blog is called "Search Marketing Blog Online”. If I put this in the title tag, search engines really have no clue as to the content of each post on my site. It would be much better for SEO to place a keyword-rich description (e.g. “Optimizing Title Tags for Blogger”) in the title tag.
- It’s the Title Used in SERPs! The content of your title tag is what will be displayed in search engine results.
So, here you go!
Optimizing Blogger Title Tags - Beta Version
This is written for Blogger's Beta version and so it only works in Beta.Installation
Find the following codes, near the top of your template:
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>Replace with the following code:
<!-- Start Widget-based: Changing the Blogger Title Tag -->
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == "item"'>
<b:section id='titleTag'>
<b:widget id='Blog2' locked='false' title='Blog Posts' type='Blog'>
<b:includable id='comments' var='post'/>
<b:includable id='postQuickEdit' var='post'/>
<b:includable id='main' var='top'><title><b:loop values='data:posts' var='post'><b:include data='post' name='post'/></b:loop> ~ <data:blog.title/></title></b:includable>
<b:includable id='backlinkDeleteIcon' var='backlink'/>
<b:includable id='feedLinksBody' var='links'/>
<b:includable id='backlinks' var='post'/>
<b:includable id='status-message'/>
<b:includable id='feedLinks'/>
<b:includable id='nextprev'/>
<b:includable id='commentDeleteIcon' var='comment'/>
<b:includable id='post' var='post'><data:post.title/></b:includable>
</b:widget>
</b:section>
<b:else/>
<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>
</b:if>
<!-- End Widget-based: Changing the Blogger Title Tag -->
Optimizing Blogger Title Tags - Classic Version
<title><br /><mainorarchivepage><$BlogTitle$></mainorarchivepage><br /><itempage><blogger><$BlogItemTitle$></blogger> - <$BlogTitle$></itempage><br /></title>Use the above code in place of: <title><$BlogPageTitle$></title>
That's all for now! Happy Blogger optimizing:) You can click through some of my other posts to see how the code transposes the title tags.
Google Can Read Flash!
In a recent interview with Stephan Spencer, Matt Cutts admits that Google is using Adobe Systems' Search Engine SDK technology to 'read' flash website content.
That fairly definite confirmation of how Google reads text within Flash files makes it possible to create Flash .swf files with some level of search engine optimization.It used to be the case that we had our own, home-brew code to pull the text out of Flash, but I think that we have moved to the Search Engine SDK tool that Adobe Macromedia offers. So my hunch is that most of the search engines will standardize on using that Search Engine SDK tool to pull out the text. - Matt CuttsThere has been suspicion by Flash developers and SEO professionals concerned with .swf files, but this is the most direct and clear confirmation to date.
So, what does this mean? The implication is important: if Web developers--and specifically Flash developers--have the ability to test .swf files during development for textual SEO parameters, then Flash files can be designed to offer specific text to search engines and achieve quality rankings in the SERPS.
Stay tuned!
Updated 7.1.08Adobe Says, Flash Now Search Engine Friendly
Can Changing PPC Ad Copy Hurt You?
As most of you know, success or failure in PPC advertising depends on a number of factors: the keyword list, keyword matching options, the bidding strategy, the landing page choice, the selection and price of the offerings, the ease of shopping or registering on the site and much more. Often times, ad copy is one of the last things PPC advertisers mess with - despite the fact it can help qualify the visitor before they even reach your site.
As George Michie of the RimmKaufman Blog writes, tinkering with ad copy too much can cost you, however. Here’s how:
- Quality Score Erosion: The three biggest components of quality score are Click-Through Rate (CTR), bid, landing pages and historical performance (CTR) for the account. The CTR measured is based on historical data for that combination of keyword and copy. Interestingly, the data is not retailer specific; if Google knows that the combination of a keyword and copy block have not performed well for one retailer, they expect it not to work well for others, either. Every time a retailer changes their copy, they lose the Quality Score they’ve built up on the old combination. If the old combination was doing better than average, the change will immediately either increase CPCs or lower position on the page, or both. If the new combination turns out to be better, great, but if not you’ll never recoup this loss. It’s very difficult to materially improve copy after the first few tests, so the odds of doing harm are pretty good.
- Hanging Offer Copy: You can minimize the Quality Score damage by running the new copy as an additional version, rather than a replacement, but that can result in two other problems. First, the new copy is randomly interchanged with the old copy on a rotational basis. Second, it’s compelling to constantly roll out new versions on the theory that the best version will win out, the problem is if offer copy is in the mix it is all too easy to leave those offer text blocks running after the offer has expired. That can really get you in hot water.
- Opportunity Costs: This is often the most costly piece. Many firms get so wrapped up in frenetic copy changes that they stop paying attention to those other factors that have far more impact on the campaign’s performance. Careful analysis of the data may not be as easy to demonstrate to the corner office, but the benefits that flow into smart, subtle adjustments to bid strategy, scrutiny of search strings and match types, and extra attention to the performance changes going into and coming out of a holiday generate much greater return on the investment of time.
Some bad reasons to change copy?
- Because the overall performance of the program is heading south. If the big numbers are moving in the wrong direction the problem is not the ad copy, it’s bigger than that. Look to your bidding, keyword lists, match types and landing pages to find the real problem.
- Because you’re “tired” of the old copy. Remember most of the folks who search for your products have never seen the copy before. They’re not tired of it, and they’re the ones that matter.
- Because you don’t know what else to do. Here are some ideas on additional ways to improve your existing campaign:
- Increasing Quality Score
- Improving Quality Score in Yahoo
- Improving Retail Ad Copy
- Understanding the "Insert Keyword Feature"
- Because it’s important to look busy. We think it’s more important to generate results, and you’re more likely to make progress by analyzing data and adjusting the big levers as the analyses suggest.
Robots.txt - What Is It and How Do You Use It?
Robots.txt files are often mentioned as being an important foundation of a search friendly web site. To site owners and small businesses who are new to search marketing, the robots.txt file can sound daunting. In reality, it's one of the fastest, simplest ways to make your site just a little more search engine friendly.
What is Robots.txt?
Robots.txt is a simple text file that sits on the server with your web site. It's basically your web site's way of giving instructions to search engines about what how they index your web site.
Search Engines tend to look for the robots.txt file when they first visit a site. They can visit and index your site whether you have a robots.txt file or not; having one simply helps them along the way.
All of the major search engines read and follow the instructions in a robots.txt file. That means it's a pretty effective way to keep content out of the search indexes.
A word of warning. While some sites will tell you to use robots.txt to block premium content you don't want people to see, this isn't a good idea. While most search engines will respect your robots.txt file and ignore the content you want to have blocked, a far safer option is to hide that premium content behind a login. Requiring a username and password to access the content you want hidden from the public will do a much more effective job of keeping both search engines and people out.
What Does Robots.txt Look Like?
The average robots.txt file is one of the simplest pieces of code you'll ever write or edit.
If you want to have a robots.txt file for the engines to visit, but don't want to give them any special instructions, simply open up a text editor and type in the following:
User-Agent: *
Disallow:
The "User-Agent" part specifies which search engines you are giving the directions to. Using the asterisk means you are giving directions to ALL search engines.
The "disallow" part specifies what content you don't want the search engines to index. If you don't want to block the search engines from any area of your web site, you simply leave this area blank.
For most small web sites, those two simple lines are all you really need.
If your web site is a little bit larger, or you have a lot of folders on your server, you may want to use the robots.txt file to give some instructions about which content to avoid.
A good example of this would be a site that has printer-friendly versions of all of their content housed in a folder called "print-ready." There's no reason for the search engines to index both forms of the content, so it's a good idea to go ahead and block the engines from indexing the printer-friendly versions.
In this case, you'd leave the "user-agent" section alone, but would add the print-ready folder to the "disallow" line. That robots.txt file would look like this:
User-Agent: *
Disallow: /print-ready/
It's important to note the forward slashes before and after the folder name. The search engines will tack that folder on to the end of the domain name they are visiting.
That means the /print-ready/ file is found at www.yourdomain.com/print-ready/. If it's actually found at www.yourdomain.com/css/print-ready/ you'll need to format your robots.txt this way:
User-Agent: *
Disallow: /css/print-ready/
You can also edit the "user-agent" line to refer to specific search engines. To do this, you'll need to look up the name of a search engine's robot. (For instance, Google's robot is called "googlebot" and Yahoo's is called "slurp.")
If you want to set up your robots.txt file to give instructions ONLY to Google, you would format it like this:
User-Agent: googlebot
Disallow: /css/print-ready/
How do I Put Robots.txt on my Site?
Once you've written your robots.txt file to reflect the directions you want to give the search engines, you simply save the text file as "robots.txt" and upload it to the root folder of your web site.
It's that simple.
10 Simple Steps to Achieve Social Marketing Success
Top 10 Tips to Achieve Social Marketing Success
I found yet another great column over at Search Engine Land. Lets Get Social appears every Tuesday.
Below is a quick run-down of Chris Winfield's top 10 tips for social marketing success - taking approximately 5 minutes a day. I utilize a number of these currently, but there are definitely plenty of additional tips to take away from the column. (PS check out the article there are some great additional suggestions in the comments).
#1 - Connect. Add 2 contacts per week on either LinkedIn or Facebook. It's a great way to connect with people and get opportunities flowing. If you simply add 2 people per week, that will be 102 new people per year that are in your network and who you can possibly work with. Time Spent: 1 hour per week.
#2 - Master a Forum. Find one active forum (check to see how often people are posting) in your niche and create a real profile there. Introduce yourself and get involved - use the private messaging features to introduce yourself to other influential members (DON'T sell). Once you have made contributions, then feel free to share your products or services with the other members of the forum. Time Spent: 2 hours per week.
#3 - Cut Down & Move Up. Get rid of most of the blogs in your feed-reader. Unless you are running a site that relies on that latest news, you probably don't need to read hundreds of blogs each day. Instead focus on a handful in your industry that are viewed as highly influential. Comment at least once per week on each of those. After a month, email the author to let them know how much you enjoy their blog. When you have something good that you are looking to build links to, email them. It's no longer a "cold-call" now. Time Spent: 5 hours per month. Time Saved: 10 hours per month not reading everything.
#4 - Meet a Digger a Day. Spend 15 minutes per day (during the week) contacting a new person from Digg via instant message and forging a bond. You can usually locate this information right on their profile page and add them to your IM program. This simple task will do more for your chances of success at Digg than anything else you can ever do. Trust me. Most of the active diggers also have profiles on a lot of the other social networks so you are killing many birds with one stone. Time spent: 15 minutes per day.
#5 - Get Universal. Take advantage of Google Universal with video optimization. Create 1 video for your business and put it on YouTube. Build links to it. Hey, if a chiropractor can do it, so can you. Time Spent: 5 hours to create the video and 5 hours to get links to it.
#6 - Think Globally. For each submission that you make to Digg or reddit - use the same exact title and description and translate it to Spanish and submit to meneame (a "Spanish digg") and Scoopeo (a "French digg"). You'll be surprised at how much traffic and links they can generate (and you don't even have to translate your content). Use a quick translator to make this super easy. Time Spent: 10 Minutes Per Submission.
#7 - Focus. Stay away from the over-hyped, all-purpose social networks that don't drive traffic or influence people. They are out there and they want to suck your time up. Don't let them. If they can't get you decent traffic or links, don't waste your time. This is why it's so important to track your work closely and make sure you see where results are coming from. Time Saved: Countless Hours.
#8 - Answer. Answer 5 questions per day in your niche on Yahoo! Answers. Link drop to one of your sites every 5th answer. Time Spent: 15 Minutes per day.
#9 - Join the Conversation. Once per day, use a tool such as Google Blog Search or Serph to search for your name and your company. See where people are talking about you and join in on the conversation. Time Spent: Varies on your company but should be less than 20 minutes.
#10 - Year in Reviews. If you own a business or work for a client that does - there's a good shot that user generated reviews can play a big part in your life. Find out all of the places that are featuring your company and create a review there. Whether it's Amazon, Epinions, Yelp, CitySearch or Google Local they should all have reviews of your company from the people who know it best. Time Spent: 15 minutes per review + 5 minutes per day asking customers and contacts for reviews.
MSN AdCenter Adds New Tools
MSN Add New Tools To AdCenter
Optimize your campaign with the adCenter Add-in for Excel 2007
The adCenter Add-in is a keyword research and optimization tool in beta testing at the moment. Based in Excel (only operates on Excel 07) it includes the Ad Intelligence model, which enables you to:
- Easily and quickly build out or expand keyword lists.
- Effectively plan keyword strategy based relevance, cost history, volume, demographics, geography, and more.
- Forecast monthly and daily keyword impressions and future trends.
You can Download the adCenter Add-in to start researching keywords. There is also a free webinar that will give the run-down on the new tool and its features. You can register here.
New Campaign Daily Budget Option:Microsoft adCenter now provides daily budgeting options for your campaigns with a maximum monthly budget.
You can set a daily budget target by following these easy steps:
Go to the Pricing page (for a new campaign) or Keywords tab (for an existing campaign).
1. In the drop-down list next to the Campaign budget box, select per day.
2. In the Campaign budget box, type your daily target amount.
3. In the Maximum monthly budget box, type the maximum amount you want to spend each month.
Additional articles on MSN adCenter:
1. Importing Campaigns into AdCenter
2.Writing Compelling Retail Ad Copy
3. Increasing MSN Quality Score
Ask Sponsored Listings to Give Click Fraud Refunds
So, I have been receiving some interesting e-mails within the past week. Both Ask.com and Looksmart have sent me e-mails about a click fraud settlement. If you purchased online advertising from IAC Search & Media and/or ASK Jeeves from August 2005 to now, you are entitled to some form of reimbursement for click fraud or other invalid or improper clicks.
The details can be found at AskSettlement.com, which contains a PDF of the settlement notice, the online claim form, a method to contact someone, and frequently asked questions.
Here are the immediate details: There is a fund of $820,000. Of that, $258,333 will go to the lawyers and the rest will be given to those who qualify for the settlement. No, you won't be getting cash, but you will be getting advertising credits to spend more money with Ask Sponsored Listings.
You must submit your claim by February 2, 2008. If you do not opt out, you will be included in the class action lawsuit.
Here is a copy of the e-mail I recieved:
Re: Legal Notice of Class Action Settlement Affecting Your Rights
Legal Notice:
If you purchased online advertising from IAC Search & Media, Inc. and/or Ask Jeeves, Inc. (collectively "Ask") between August 1, 2005 and the present, you may be a class member in a class-action lawsuit, Lane's Gifts and Collectibles et al. v. Ask Jeeves, Inc. et al., Case No. CV-2005-52-1, in the Circuit Court of Miller County, Arkansas. This notice advises you of your legal rights.
You should review the detailed Settlement Notice as soon as possible, as there are several important deadlines that you must meet to take certain actions in connection with a proposed settlement of the class action lawsuit. Your legal rights are affected whether you act or do not act. The deadline for filing an objection or excluding yourself from the proposed settlement is February 2, 2008, and the last day to file a claim under the proposed settlement is February 2, 2008. For further information, please refer to the Settlement Notice.
The Settlement Notice informs you of the Court's certification of a class for settlement purposes; the nature of the claims alleged; your right to participate in, or exclude yourself from, the class; a proposed settlement; and how you can claim an award of advertising credits under the settlement or object to the settlement.
The proposed settlement will provide advertising credits to class members who certify that they were the victims of "click fraud" or other invalid or improper clicks on online advertisements purchased from IAC Search & Media, Inc. and/or Ask Jeeves, Inc. on or after August 1, 2005.
The proposed settlement will resolve claims that IAC Search & Media, Inc. and/or Ask Jeeves, Inc. breached its contracts with advertisers and violated other laws by failing to adequately detect and stop "click fraud" or other invalid or improper clicks on online advertisements.
If you are a member of the class, your legal rights are affected by whether you act or do not act.
For a copy of the Settlement Notice, click on the link, or visit the case website at www.AskSettlement.com.
To file a claim for your award of advertising credits under the settlement, click on the following link: AskSettlement.com/claim. Each advertiser will be allowed one claim per account.
The details can be found at AskSettlement.com, which contains a PDF of the settlement notice, the online claim form, a method to contact someone, and frequently asked questions.
Here are the immediate details: There is a fund of $820,000. Of that, $258,333 will go to the lawyers and the rest will be given to those who qualify for the settlement. No, you won't be getting cash, but you will be getting advertising credits to spend more money with Ask Sponsored Listings.
You must submit your claim by February 2, 2008. If you do not opt out, you will be included in the class action lawsuit.
Here is a copy of the e-mail I recieved:
Re: Legal Notice of Class Action Settlement Affecting Your Rights
Legal Notice:
If you purchased online advertising from IAC Search & Media, Inc. and/or Ask Jeeves, Inc. (collectively "Ask") between August 1, 2005 and the present, you may be a class member in a class-action lawsuit, Lane's Gifts and Collectibles et al. v. Ask Jeeves, Inc. et al., Case No. CV-2005-52-1, in the Circuit Court of Miller County, Arkansas. This notice advises you of your legal rights.
You should review the detailed Settlement Notice as soon as possible, as there are several important deadlines that you must meet to take certain actions in connection with a proposed settlement of the class action lawsuit. Your legal rights are affected whether you act or do not act. The deadline for filing an objection or excluding yourself from the proposed settlement is February 2, 2008, and the last day to file a claim under the proposed settlement is February 2, 2008. For further information, please refer to the Settlement Notice.
The Settlement Notice informs you of the Court's certification of a class for settlement purposes; the nature of the claims alleged; your right to participate in, or exclude yourself from, the class; a proposed settlement; and how you can claim an award of advertising credits under the settlement or object to the settlement.
For a copy of the Settlement Notice, click on the link, or visit the case website at www.AskSettlement.com.
To file a claim for your award of advertising credits under the settlement, click on the following link: AskSettlement.com/claim. Each advertiser will be allowed one claim per account.
Top List of Search Marketing Associations
Not a day goes by when I don't hear the statement "I wish there were more organizations that helped increase my SEM knowledge". Ok, maybe I don't hear that exact statement but I would say that statement sums up the on-going need of our industry. There are far too few certifications and 'formal' SEM organizations out there that promote knowledge expansion and provide resources to the SEM community.
Luckily for you (and me!) Lee Oden over at Online Marketing Blog has done a lot of the research for us and collected a quite comprehensive list of Regional Search Marketing Associations! I hope you find one in your backyard!
Luckily for you (and me!) Lee Oden over at Online Marketing Blog has done a lot of the research for us and collected a quite comprehensive list of Regional Search Marketing Associations! I hope you find one in your backyard!
In the interest of developing a good list of search and interactive marketing organizations, I am posting this list of interactive and search marketing organizations as well as a few organized meetups. If you are aware of others, please leave a note and URL in the comments. I’ll review and add them to the list.
115 Social News and Bookmark Sites - Reviewed!
With all of the hullabaloo over social bookmarking and social news it is only fitting we start the year off with a comprehensive review of some of the higher quality options out there. Here is a collection of 115 social bookmark and news sites ranked by PageRank, number of links and value of each site courtesy of SocialMediaTrader.com
If you need quick spikes in traffic, backlinks, etc social bookmarking will give you a jump start - provided you are passing along quality content of course:)
We used dnScoop to gather the data for all these sites. This is what the dnScoop data is based on:
Page Rank- Google PageRank
Inbound Links- The total number of pages that contain links to www.sitename.com
Site Value Report - This value is calculated based on several factors shown above, including: Links, Traffic (Alexa), age of the domain, site category, domain keyword popularity, and overall occurrences of the domain name on the web.
The list was based on this social bookmarking list . We added a few more sites, such as, Shoutwire.com, Plime.com and PixelGroovy.com.
The dollar value of the sites are a bit misleading (is Simpy.com really worth $302,332,960 more than Digg?), but this list should hopefully provide you with some data on social news and bookmark that you haven’t seen before. If anybody knows of any better online tools to roughly estimate the value a site then leave a link in the comments section and we’ll update this list over the next few weeks and compare the data.
| Site | PR | Inbound Links | $ Value |
| 9 | 28,018,962 | $25,787,200 | |
| 8 | 370,943,962 | $521,172,000 | |
| 8 | 148,233,993 | $276,243,000 | |
| 8 | 137,000,000 | $215,992,000 | |
| 8 | 132,924,191 | $178,934,400 | |
| 8 | 59,888,074 | $39,723,400 | |
| 8 | 3,272,642 | $11,241,440 | |
| 7 | 99,028,154 | $188,853,100 | |
| 7 | 49,881,588 | $35,890,400 | |
| 7 | 47,039,214 | N/A | |
| 7 | 13,766,114 | N/A | |
| 7 | 7,171,958 | $13,336,150 | |
| 7 | 3,694,298 | $11,226,880 | |
| 7 | 2,593,905 | $9,965,880 | |
| 7 | 2,503,342 | $13,613,600 | |
| 6 | 34,419,253 | $32,200,000 | |
| 6 | 23,405,771 | $518,324,960 | |
| 6 | 9,672,510 | $10,667,840 | |
| 6 | 7,481,362 | $14,925,880 | |
| 6 | 6,095,828 | $11,243,680 | |
| 6 | 3,987,085 | N/A | |
| 6 | 1,536,589 | $4,281,340 | |
| 6 | 808,351 | $2,237,900 | |
| 6 | 733,144 | $2,463,550 | |
| 6 | 315,219 | $459,980 | |
| 6 | 309,115 | $3,691,950 | |
| 6 | 284,654 | $216,910 | |
| 6 | 270,738 | $100,000 | |
| 6 | 261,216 | $197,160 | |
| 6 | 141,521 | $2,305,350 | |
| 6 | 59,146 | $75,210 | |
| 6 | 15,661 | $245,204 | |
| 5 | 998,006 | N/A | |
| 5 | 890,014 | $3,090,150 | |
| 5 | 559,084 | N/A | |
| 5 | 547,675 | $1,377,760 | |
| 5 | 505,338 | $1,457,890 | |
| 5 | 448,091 | $474,360,000 | |
| 5 | 363,661 | $529,000 | |
| 5 | 322,076 | $442,900 | |
| 5 | 238,271 | $227,900 | |
| 5 | 57,701 | $38,160 | |
| 5 | 49,341 | N/A | |
| 5 | 34,057 | $424,020,140 | |
| 5 | 30,719 | $20,600 | |
| 5 | 27,015 | $29,536 | |
| 5 | 25,443 | $29,468 | |
| 5 | 12,618 | $17,222 | |
| 5 | 11,756 | $6,322 | |
| 5 | 7,095 | $1,600 | |
| 5 | 6,017 | $8,236 | |
| 5 | 739 | $1,039 | |
| 4 | 588,860 | $1,313,340 | |
| 4 | 192,408 | $111,180 | |
| 4 | 169,135 | $120,772 | |
| 4 | 112,111 | $115,000 | |
| 4 | 99,808 | $107,744 | |
| 4 | 93,751 | $74,200 | |
| 4 | 59,588 | N/A | |
| 4 | 55,414 | N/A | |
| 4 | 41,778 | $19,080 | |
| 4 | 41,654 | $29,664 | |
| 4 | 27,567 | $12,900 | |
| 4 | 27,251 | $13,100 | |
| 4 | 18,872 | $7,434 | |
| 4 | 17,084 | $6,650 | |
| 4 | 13,188 | $16,274 | |
| 4 | 11,959 | $5,600 | |
| 4 | 10,564 | $5,668 | |
| 4 | 10,518 | $8,618 | |
| 4 | 9,218 | $6,500 | |
| 4 | 8,427 | N/A | |
| 4 | 3,962 | $2,507 | |
| 4 | 2,926 | N/A | |
| 4 | 2,236 | N/A | |
| 4 | 2,236 | $3,193 | |
| 4 | 2,196 | $1,792 | |
| 4 | 1,914 | $848 | |
| 4 | 1,329 | $368 | |
| 4 | 1,097 | $1,397 | |
| 4 | 1,049 | N/A | |
| 4 | 874 | N/A | |
| 4 | 399 | $339 | |
| 4 | 269 | N/A | |
| 4 | 135 | $458 | |
| 3 | 559,683 | $1,854,160 | |
| 3 | 43,855 | $56,180 | |
| 3 | 35,627 | $7,500 | |
| 3 | 17,204 | $27,772 | |
| 3 | 11,934 | $11,124 | |
| 3 | 8,545 | $1,620 | |
| 3 | 7,742 | $42,728 | |
| 3 | 4,553 | N/A | |
| 3 | 4,026 | $25,070 | |
| 3 | 3,893 | $1,120 | |
| 3 | 1,030 | N/A | |
| 3 | 633 | $5,702 | |
| 2 | 15,012 | $5,974 | |
| 2 | 4,693 | $510 | |
| 2 | 2,786 | $11,766 | |
| 2 | 2,382 | N/A | |
| 2 | 598 | $100 | |
| 2 | 371 | $694 | |
| 2 | 127 | $1,081 | |
| 1 | 911 | $515 | |
| 1 | 284 | $145 | |
| 1 | 67 | $42 | |
| 1 | 41 | $10 | |
| 1 | 38 | $21 | |
| 0 | 50,781 | $38,720 | |
| 0 | 50,090 | $18,500 | |
| 0 | 28,192 | $11,872 | |
| 0 | 1,516 | $3,050 | |
| 0 | 9 | $650 | |
| N/A | N/A | N/A |
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