Monthly Archives: January 2007

Save Time, Money And Increase Pay-Per-Click Profits With Web Analytics


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by Jeff Martin

There isn’t anything sexy or exciting about looking closely over your campaigns. However, doing so through web analytics can save you not only time and money but can also lead to increased revenues through your paid search campaigns.

It’s no secret the search engines stockpile data concerning anything you do. You can’t perform searches without them knowing what you searched for (of course) what results or ads you clicked on, how long you stayed at a site and then went back to the results and choose another, how many results pages you combed through, where you are located, etc. Their data is broken down day-by-day, click-by-click.

Yet, for PPC advertisers, despite paying to have visits to their sites, advertisers are not allowed to know the particulars of each user who clicks their ads through any reporting from the search engines. The search engines have been consistently under pressure to share the information you have. Google has said that they desire to be more transparent and more sharing in the future, but time will tell. Because this click-by-click visitor and usage information is not made available, it’s important to review your web analytics closely and frequently.

Web analytics can save you time by:

  • Viewing all user activity and their relevant information, for all PPC networks in one console (in real-time)
  • Running custom reports to filter down to specific variables you want to use or data you only want to see, getting rid of the “noise”
  • Helping spot suspicious activity through customized and automated reports rather than combing through raw data to see if suspicious activity exists

Web analytics can cut costs and save you money by:

  • Ensuring that your ads are only showing for geographic regions you have specified
  • Ensuring that your phrase / exact matching settings are being observed
  • Ensuring that ads are not showing for negative keywords you have specified
  • Ensuring that your ads are not running outside of ad scheduling hours
  • Helping you monitor campaigns for suspicious activity and aiding you in seeking credits

Web analytics can help increase revenues by:

  • Finding new negative keywords to use based on all of the queries that generated clicks
  • Finding new niche and tail keywords to advertise on based on all of the queries that generated clicks

Web analytics allow marketers to spend more time marketing and business owners to spend more time running their business rather than pouring through data.

Dallas Extends Warm Welcome to Search Engine Watch


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By Christine Churchill

Dallas welcomed SEW back to Texas. There’s always been a large search contingency in Dallas and it was a sad day for Dallas when SES switched to Chicago. The old Dallas conference was smaller than the Chicago one, but it had a special down-home feel unique to Texas. In any case, Dallas was thrilled to have SEW back in town for the SEW Live 1 day conference on January 25th.

Below is a snapshot of the dynamic Search Engine Watch trio of Elisabeth Osmeloski, Rebecca Lieb, and Kevin Newcomb.

Elisabeth, Rebecca, and Kevin of Search Engine Watch

Here’s a few pictures from the Conference. The first one below is a view of the crowd. The morning training session run by Dan Thies and Christine Churchill had sold out. That session covered the many aspects of keyword research from selection criteria to how to apply those keywords in SEO and PPC. The session also covered many of the popular keyword tools including demonstrations on how to use them.

Picture of the crowd at SEW Live Dallas

There were three sessions in the afternoon. The first was the organic panel consisting of Tony Wright (Kinetic Results), Mark Jackson (Vizion Interactive) and Christine Churchill. Elisabeth moderated all the sessions and kept everything interesting.

The Paid Advertising session (picture below) consisted of SEW Moderator Jeff Martin, Jim Gilbert (KeyRelevance) and Lora Parker (Range Online). Jeff primarially talked about click fraud and related issues, Jim talked about the Yahoo-Panama transition and Lora did a great job of discussing overall PPC.

Paid Advertising Session at EW Live Dallas

The snapshot below is from the Search 2.0 Roundtable. This was a fast paced session discussing the future of search and related topics. The panel consisted of Terry Heaton (Media 2.0), Rob Garner (icrossing), Rebecca Lieb, and Giovanni Gallucci (Kinetic Results).

I confess I was pretty tired by this point after having spent 5 hours on the podium already that day, so forgive me if the most memorable exchange from that session was Gio talking about how hard it was to grow up in Texas with a name like Giovanni. I guess you have to understand the Texas cowboy mentality to really get that joke, but it had the whole crowd in stitches.

Search 2.0 Round Table Session at EW Live Dallas

Here are a few other pictures taken during the day. Below is Bill Hartzer and Heather Reisig Windsor. Bill is one of the founders of the DFWSEM and has been an active member of the search community in Dallas.

Bill Hartzer and friends

A search conference wouldn’t be complete without the meeting in the bar. Seated in the picture below are Durk Price, Tony Wright, Rob Garner, Bill Hartzer, Dan Sturdivant, Jeff Martin, Christine Churchill, and Jim Gilbert.

The After meeting in the bar

Okay, now for the real fun. The day after the conference, Elisabeth Osmeloski and I ran off to have a little Texas style play on horseback. I’m a horse fanatic so I was thrilled to hear that Elisabeth had spent a fair portion of her childhood around horses. Elisabeth was very modest about her experience but I could tell immediately she was totally comfortable around horses. She tacked up her own horse and we went out for nice trail ride around a lake near my home.

Elisabeth and Christine go horseback riding.

SEW Live Dallas was a success. I want to thank Stewart Quealy, Elisabeth and all the great folks at Incisive who made it happen. I also want to say special thanks to DFWSEM President Rob Garner and Bill Hartzer who were instrumental in convincing SEW staff that Dallas was a hot spot for search. I have a few more pictues I’ll put up on Flickr when I get a chance.

Google’s Latest Search Network Partner – MySpace


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by Jim Gilbert

And the word come right from the horse’s mouth… Google

“MySpace Search Traffic
Google’s AdSense for Search has gone live on MySpace.com. Clients currently running ads on Google’s Search Network are now eligible to have their ads served on MySpace.com searches for US-based traffic only.”

If what what they said here has not quite registered, better think about it a little harder.

We will make it easy for you. Adsense publishers who use the Adsense Search Network get ads delivered from Google’s SEARCH Network (NOT the Contexual Network). MySpace is very popular and now has a good search mechanism (Google’s) — not the old terrible one they had before.

What does this mean? Means advertisers in AdWords will have their AdWords ads displayed on MySpace for every search done there — and MySpace has so far proven to NOT be the best converting area for traditional advertising.

THINK THE GUYS BELOW WILL HAVE GOOD CONVERSION RATES ON MYSPACE?

MYSPACE SEARCH FOR NURSING HOMES

MYSPACE SEARCH FOR SENIOR INCONTINENCE

Niche Terms a Thing of the Past?


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by Jeff Martin

Jeff Staub posted at theGoogleCache.com that he believes that the Google Adwords tools he used to research associative keywords may be responsible for filling the previous low competitive ad space with pages of ads.

I agree that it makes sense that Google would be looking to continually increase word associations. I saw a video a few months ago linked to from TW where the speaker showed an example of just the stemming tables they had at the time, of course it was impressive. Makes sense that they would put as much work into associations especially when you consider that more proper word associations equals more clicks in the long run which means more $$$ for Google.

It would seem that Google could do this without you using their research tools. They could discover the same word associations when you insert the keywords into an ad and point it to a landing page. Then cross-reference the other keywords used for the same landing page. Less helpful when you point everything to the home page, but of course we don’t do that, do we? 🙂

SEW Live Comes to Dallas Jan 25


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By Christine Churchill

And the SEM Clubhouse gang comes out to play.

Search Engine Watch Live is a sneak preview of a Search Engine Strategies conference. Its a small informal event that has both panels and networking time where attendees can meet some of the great folks involved with Search Engine Watch and members of the local Dallas search marketing crowd.

Check it out at http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/sewlive/dallas07/

Christine will be speaking on the Organic Panel plus conducting a 4 hour keyword research training session in the morning with Dan Thies. The training is filling up fast, so if you’re interested check it out here. Other folks on the Organic panel include Mark Jackson and Tony Wright.

Jim and Jeff will be speaking on the Paid Search Issues along with Misty Locke of Range Online.

If you are a DFWSEM member you qualify for a 20% discount for the afternoon SEW live event. To Register (use promo code ‘20SEM’ and receive a 20% discount off the pre-registration price):
http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/sewlive/dallas07/registration.html

It should be a fun event. We encourage anyone who can to join in the fun.

SEO Isn’t Rocket Science — The Debate


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by Jim Gilbert

If you even know how to spell SEO and have not seen all the posts associated with the debate surrounding a post a few months ago stating SEO Isn’t Rocket Science, you MUST live under a rock.

Well, I’ve stayed silent long enough — I’m taking sides! Threadwatch brought to my attention a post by Oilman on the subject and I feel compelled to help the Oilman out.

Here are the Oilman’s comments — WITH MY ONE SIMPLE ADDITION AND COMMENTS. Trust me… I could have said a LOT more.

From Oilman:
I propose this list as the useless and easy SEO tactics:
* Title Tags
* Meta Description Tags
* Meta Keyword Tags
* ALT Tags
* H1, H2, H3 (and accompanying CSS)
* Keywords in the content
* Internal Links (images vs. text (keyword rich))

I propose this list as the 5% of useful and more difficult tasks:
* URL Structure (the fixing thereof)
* Advanced Linking
* Appropriate Cloaking (er…IP Delivery)
* Dynamic Template Modification
* Analytics (I mean useful measurable numbers)
* Client Management (agency life)

MY ADDITION (and comment on the Oilman’s blog):
* Usability (aka improving crummy sites so they actually “convert”)

After all isn’t “conversion” what it’s all about? A site with a #1 listing with a shopping cart nobody can use ain’t worth the realestate of the owner’s footprint in quick sand.

Or, how about a navigation system that leads to nowhere but a blackhole?

Okay… some will argue that Usability is not part of SEO. If you claim that then you are an SEO that does not care about your client’s conversion rates — AND, if that’s the case you are:

1) A hell of a poor SEO, or

2) Somebody that just does not understand what professional SEOs do!

Google 8am to 8pm Maintenance?


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by Jim Gilbert
Read the Original Post below and you will understand why I am congratulating Google.

Contratulations Google and Thank You, Thank You, Thank You…. for finishing the AdWords maintenance on Saturday!

“On January 13, 2007, AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 1:00 PM to 6:00 PM Eastern Time due to system maintenance. Please note that your campaigns will continue to run normally during this short downtime. We apologize for any inconvenience”.

Original Post
First, many, many people are reporting fairly severe problems with Google AdWords, AdSense and other mechanisms because of this “emergency” maintenance being performed by Google.

Gotta get on my soap box (being from way back when computers began…lol) and ask the obvious questions…

– 12 hours of maintenance in the middle of the work day?

– Did Google go union on us?

– If it was so critical to do this maintenance, maybe (just maybe) some of the non-union Googlers could have come in and worked during the middle of the night! Hey, we seem to have to work 24 hours a day so why can’t they?

UPDATE: They are doing it again!
On January 13, 2007, AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM Pacific Timedue to system maintenance. Please note that your campaigns will continue to run normally during this short downtime. We apologize for any inconvenience.

– I repeat… maybe (just maybe) some of the non-union Googlers could have worked late last night!

Yikes – I’ve been Blog Tagged


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By Christine Churchill

My link lady friend Debra Mastaler of Alliance Link and blog mistress of The Link Spiel forced me to finally bite the blog bullet. She convinced me that there’s nothing like a good game of blog tag to inspire anyone to finally start a blog. I keep saying I don’t have time, but here goes anyway. Ready? Five things you don’t know about me.

1. I have collapsed my lungs twice in horse related accidents, but I am still a horse fanatic. Horses keep me sane. I find being around horses and doing the daily chores associated with them – feeding them twice a day and mucking stalls is relaxing. I can be stressed out from work, then head off to the barn, and after a few minutes there I calm down. Plus, horsebackriding is excellent exercise. You work almost every muscle in your body when you ride, but you’re having so much fun you don’t think about how physically taxing it is. I’ve become more careful over the years about what I’ll do on horseback so hopefully no more bad accidents. Maturity means I don’t need to jump a horse over a four foot fence to get an adrenalin rush.

2. I’m still a tomboy. I know this because my 12 year old daughter tells me so. Growing up with four wild and crazy brothers, I had to be a tomboy or I’d never have survived. I played tackle football with them, wrestled, and was always treated like one of the guys. In business I’ve had several careers where being a tomboy has been an unexpected benefit; including a stint in the Army where I amazingly managed to get an early promotion to Major and another job in Europe where I “played” missile simulation games for NATO. Great fun.

3. I love the outdoors. I once spent eight months living in a tent in the Panamanian jungle and was totally happy. Another time I almost got killed on a mountain climb in Washington State when I fell on an ice cliff and had to do a self-arrest with my ice pick. (Okay, . . . there was this cute little French guy with tight buns walking in front of me who distracted me so I wasn’t watching where my feet were, but that’s another story.) I also survived living on a remote island in the South Pacific, which at first sounds delightful until you realize the island was barely a half mile across at its widest point. I lived on that rock for nearly two years. Downside? The experience totally burned me out on supposedly idyllic beach vacations.

4. I had a vagabond childhood. My father was in the military and throughout my childhood I moved about every 18 months. We saw a lot of the world and were immersed in many cultures. Before I left home I lived in the Far East, Europe, Latin America, and had traveled to all 50 States. Having a global childhood forces you to be open-minded and teaches you that there are multiple ways to do virtually everything. Another side-effect of constant moving is you learn to be (or act) extraverted or you end up having a very lonely existence. By nature I was introverted, but by sheer will I learned how to walk up to complete strangers and start conversations. Since I was constantly the new kid in the school, I ended up getting a lot of practice.

5. My mom inspired me to start my own company. I was very close to my mom and she lived with me the last five years of her life. She was my biggest supporter and believed in me. After her death, I started my own company partly as a tribute to her. I like to think that she somehow knows that and is still supporting me.

Okay, so who to blog tag next? This is tougher than it might seem . . .

Brad Geddes (http://www.ewhisper.net/) – someone I truly admire and who is one of my favorite panel partners.

Barbara Coll aka Webmama (http://thewebmama.blogspot.com/) – Barb is a long time friend who is a great SEM and humanitarian. Barb is humble about this but she gives a lot of herself to make the world a better place.

Greg Jarboe (http://newsblog.seo-pr.com/) – Mr PR News himself. Greg, time to tell the world about yourself.

Heather Windsor (Grnidone) http://www.greeneyewire.com/ – the lady with the usability eye and a dear friend who is one of the most energetic people on the Web. Tell Sebastian hello for me.

Durk Price (http://www.affgoo.com/) – my affiliate manger friend who has taken on blogging with incredible gusto.

More Grumbling about Yahoo’s Panama


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Hey even I’m guilty of griping from time to time, so I’ll try to give Yahoo the benefit of the doubt on Panama. After all it is a SIGNIFICANT technological improvement over the old Overture system.

However, it seems as more people get transitioned to the new Panama system the gripe factor keeps rising. Make up your on mind — but do read the other post we have made on this subject and bee sure to keep tabs on the Panama Gripe Thread at Webmaster World.

And remember… we already told you this: Accounts are transitioned with “categories” mapped as “campaigns”. WRONG! For years agencies have been building Yahoo accounts from Google accounts and equating “categories” to “adgroups” — NOT campaigns. Yes the transition is messy!

posted by Jim Gilbert