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I couldn't agree more with Julie, she really nails it on critical areas like:
"Search marketing is a game of persistence. Strong organic rankings or a cost-effective paid campaign that meets your goals doesn't happen overnight. It requires an ongoing commitment, which requires manpower and funding."
In light of that, she's right on the money when she says that you typically get what you pay for when working with search marketers.
Interesting topic - Sun Tzu would be proud: Make your enemies think you are weak, when you are strong.
Not sure what the adoption rate of tools like spyfu is given the lack of accuracy. Most search marketers I know take the data at face value and use it to get a rough idea.
Just the same, I appreciate the machiavellian thought that went into putting this post together.
Wonder how long it will take for Google and the other engines to shut down these black hat PPC techniques?
I guess that this problem is not too widespread yet, but as more and more people embrace PPC, the attraction by less scrupulous advertisers to put these strategies into play could cause the engines to take notice.
In the meantime, keep an eye on "your" ads!
@bwelford
It definitely is an excellent eye opener and luckiliy it's a very clear and easy to understand usability vs. web design example that can hurt your online business.
Might require a bit of head butting with a designer, but really drives home the point of pretty vs. performing.
Looks like Adwords advertisers are going to have to pay even closer attention to their quality score. It's amazing how much the PPC game has evolved in just the last 12 months.
Not all changes are positive, but one thing's for sure, lazy advertisers who don't master the essentials of managing PPC campaigns are really feeling the squeeze.
Story: Interview with Neil Patel
Once again Neil reaffirms that content should be the primary focus before trying to monetizing a blog. Makes since since poor content will = less visitors.
I'm not convinced about eating loads of fast food and watching lots of TV, but in Neil's defense, he's not encouraging people to do that! :)
@boorishamerican I'm surprised that they even mentioned it given the lack of understanding and awareness academia has in this area. That's sure to change in the next couple of years given the demand for search marketing and power it offers as an effective and measurable means of advertising.
As my alma mater's motto claims "Real education for the real world" - That's a huge statement to live up to especially when the real world moves so fast and the digital one even faster. We'll see how they do.
With all of us pro search marketers eagerly awaiting some sort of adwords editor-like tool for Yahoo and Microsoft's platforms to make rapid and mass changes to campaigns, no doubt Microsoft's adCenter desktop tool will put a dent in Yahoo's revenue once it gets out of beta and goes mainstream.
Having used the new adCenter desktop tool personally, I can say with confidence that Yahoo better get their act together fast because Microsoft just made it easier for Search Marketing agencies to manage campaigns and larger budgets on their network. Now Microsoft has to continue to figure out how to get more traffic to their engine to make it even more attractive for advertisers...
What can I say! Twitter is such a great concept with its simplicity and ease of use that we're willing to put up with the outages because there is no better alternative. The early adoption rate doesn't hurt either, but it would still be very wise for Twitter to continue to evolve and stabalize their infrastructure.
Purchasing summize and integrating other such tools would definitely make a lot of sense, more so if uptime is more robust and reliable. Twitter with a lot of bells and whistles which don't work properly will continue to frustrate a lot of users and invite a competitor to come up with a more stable substitute.
Great online resources to aid with keyword research. Once you've done this initial and critical step then you can move on to using paid search (PPC) to refine your keyword lists and optimize your content to increase site performance and conversions.
Great reminder that a little research can go a long way in success and saving money.
Interestingly enough we see a lot of this type of ego-bidding strategy in the paid search side of things as well so as pittfall already pointed out, "education is one of the most important aspects of the SEO [and PPC] client relationship".
I remember once doing some keyword research for a potential client in the student loan consolidation industry that wanted to get an idea of what bidding on the word "loans" would cost if they targeted the nationally across the USA on Google. Needless to say, it didn't take long to convince them that this wouldn't be a good strategy since just the broad-matched keyword "loans" would cost over $200000 a day for a top 1-3 position!
I didn't even have to get into a relevance and targeting discussion with them - if only all common sense arguements were so easy to illustrate!
5 easy steps to achieve blogging success! Definitely one to print out and live by!
Excellent review of how to properly use the content network. This is the approach that we've taken with it and the results have been very positive.
To take things one step further, you can use the data from the Placement Performance report in adwords to isolate better performing websites in the content network and then target them individually by placing them into a separate campaign and setting a seperate budget for better control and performance.
Great points made: networks need to be nourished not mined.
It's all about building relationships and adding value - try to take away before contributing/participating and you'll be bound to alienate and diminish your network.
@chiefmartec - Excellent comment, this is exactly the message we continously work to get across to our clients engaged in paid search. You're exactly right about reframing the language from being click-based to being landing page experience-based. It definitely changes the way people might view the role and importance of the landing page.
We often tend to explain the difference between pre-click and post-click strategies and how the two are directly connected and must work together in order to get optimal results. So I couldn't agree with you more when you say that "post-click marketing is where the real battle is fought"!
When inheriting a poorly managed adwords account, as Andrew pointed out sometimes starting afresh can save you time and money while the account is in Quality Score Hell. Here are a couple of other things you can do:
KEYWORDS WITH A POOR QUALITY SCORE ARE LIKE A CANCER
Another thing you'll want to do immediately is hunt down all keywords with a "poor" quality score. These are like a cancer in the account. Put them on pause until you can build up the score and then reintroduce them a few at a time to test at first.
CHECK YOUR CAMPAIGN SETTINGS - LET GOOGLE OPTIMIZE (For now)
You'll want to make sure that the Ad Serving setting is set to: Optimize: Show better-performing ads more often. This goes counter to what we normally recommend since you'll want to have this setting to: Rotate: Show ads more evenly to allow for proper ad text split testing however the immediate goal is to boost the CTR once you've cleaned up the account (pause generic keywords, resctructure adgroups, rewrite text ads if needed, send traffic to appropriate pages, revise bids, etc.).
The above two tactics have been instrumental in turning around accounts in Quality Score Hell that we inherited. For an overview of a few additional things you can do to turn around poorly managed campaign check out a post I put out a few weeks ago: http://sphinn.com/story/47781
Hi Ahmed,
This is a great reminder that usability standards usually go a long way to increasing conversion rates. In this case, eliminating any friction or guesswork on the visitors' part is effective in avoiding confusion and frustration, but it's still surprising to see the amount of sites that ignore this.
It's always interesting to see what developments and discoveries are being made in post-click strategies on websites. Looking forward to reading other posts from you on this topic.
Story: The Ontology of Social Media
Great work on clarifying the meaning of ontology within a business and web marketing context and for shedding some light on the true benefits of social media for businesses.
With so much talk about what social media is good for, it's nice to find an article that takes seemingly complex ideas and simplifies them for all to understand and make use of.
It's clear that social media is here to stay and those that use it to open a line of communication and interaction with their customers and clients will reap the benefits of its reach and power. Those that focus on using it as a direct means of marketing may very well be disappointed in the results and may even further alienate and annoy potential customers.
Again great work - I really enjoyed it!
Thanks for bringing this issue to light.
Stephen Heise did a great job at explaning the negative implications of this and how harmful it can be to an advertisers image because of "false advertising" and the potential for client identity theft.
Hope Google shuts down this loophole soon!
I've heard a few months ago from Yahoo that they have been thinking of cancelling the Ambassador Program and I guess it may finally be happening.
Rumor has it that they intend to replace the program with a more robust version similar to Google's MCC (My Client Center) where you can manage multiple accounts from one access point and interface.
Maybe they are about ready to release their own editor tool that I've been hearing about as well...
Nice catch, let's see how this plays out.
Have seen this take effect earlier this week as a few clients have seeked our help to remedy the situation. Looks like Yahoo is playing the "me too" game again and is copying Google's quality score type grading to assign minimum bids. Not much to worry about at this point if your campaign is performing well by their index, but with inconsistent decisions made by Yahoo's editorial team, it will be interesting to see how this plays out as more accounts are affected.
Definitely something to keep a close eye on!
Post about how short(er) tail keywords can have a positive effect on your PPC campaigns and on the performance of longer tail keywords.
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Story: The Value of Good Search Expertise