Posts Tagged google
3 Million Keywords
Posted by Alan Mitchell in Techniques on November 29th, 2011
Google last month increased the maximum number of keywords allowed in a standard Google AdWords account from approximately 50,000 to 3 million. Yes, that’s right, you can now have up to 3 million keywords in your Google AdWords account.
And while most pay per click (PPC) advertisers are probably already doing a fair job at targeting a large number of relevant searchers through their existing keyword lists, there are massive opportunities for PPC advertisers who take the time to research thousands more keywords than their competitors.
Let’s find out why.
1. More Impressions
To illustrate the first reason, let’s consider Google’s phrase match for a moment. By bidding on the keyword ‘sony bravia tv’, and setting it to phrase match, you are essentially saying to Google:
“Show my ad whenever someone mentions the word ‘sony bravia tv’ in their search query”.
The job of phrase match is to show your ads for searches that mention your keyword phrase. You might therefore think this will enable your ads to appear whenever someone mentions the phrase ‘sony bravia tv’ in their search query.
Wrong.
Just because you have chosen to bid on the keyword ‘sony bravia tv’, does not mean your ad is guaranteed to show for any search containing the phrase ‘sony bravia tv’. You are competing with thousands of other advertisers for Google’s search results page real estate, and Google can only show a finite number of ads at any one time (10-12).
When deciding which ads to show, Google will display the ads that are most likely to generate a high click through rate (CTR), and those that have a relatively high Quality Score.
So when someone searches for ‘sony bravia 50 inch tv black’, PPC advertisers who have chosen to bid on a keyword close to ‘sony bravia 50 inch tv black’, and are able to display an ad which is relevant to Sony Bravia 50 inch TVs, is more likely to be awarded the chance to appear on Google’s search results page, than your generic keyword ‘sony bravia tv’, which triggers a more generic ad message.
The percentage of impressions your keywords receive for all ‘available’ searches is counted in Google’s Impression Share metric. The higher your Impression Share, the higher the percentage of available searches in which your ads appear.
The crucial point is this – by researching thousands of relevant keywords, all other things equal, you are more likely to show for a greater number of relevant searches. By researching thousands of keywords, your impressions and click volume will increase considerably.
4 Practical Ways to Lower Your AdWords CPCs
Posted by Alan Mitchell in Techniques on July 27th, 2011
WordStream last week carried out some fascinating research on Google AdWords CPC prices of different sectors. One key finding was that the finance industry carried high CPCs of up to $54.91, while other service-related sectors such as education, law and health also exhibited expensive CPC prices of over $30.00.
It’s All Relative
Since CPC prices are often closely linked to the potential profitability of a sale from that keyword, the CPC price is often a mute point. A ‘bad credit history remortgage’ could be worth $15,000 profit to a remortgage broker, so having CPCs in excess of $50.00 can deliver a strong return on investment.
On the other hand, the keyword ‘New York weather’ has little commercial intention, so keywords such as this tend to benefit from low CPCs.
While this relativity of CPC prices makes CPC comparisons across sectors rather meaningless, most PPC advertisers would jump at the chance to pay lower CPCs. So below are 4 strategies I’ve found useful for achieving lower CPCs, while still maintaining a strong conversion rate.
Source: Wordstream
3 Steps to Mid-Tail PPC Profitability
Posted by Alan Mitchell in Techniques on November 5th, 2010
The beauty of pay per click marketing is that it allows you to choose keywords which are highly relevant to your business. By only showing ads for search terms which closely match the products and services your business offers, you can ensure a high degree of relevancy and strong return on investment from paid search.
PPC advertisers have abided by this relevant approach since the dawn of PPC, knowing that to maximize PPC profitability, ads should be shown for highly-relevant keywords, and not for irrelevant keywords. If you are a synthetic grass manufacturer, for example, you should only show ads for highly-relevant searches such as ‘artificial grass’ and ‘synthetic grass suppliers’, but not for less relevant searches such as ‘real grass’ or ‘buy grass seed online’. Showing ads for these less relevant keywords would achieve a low conversion rate and yield a poor profit.
Or so the theory goes.
But maybe there is a way to still achieve great results from these less relevant keywords? Maybe there is a way to reach a greater number of potential customers, while still achieving a strong profitability?
There is. But it involves a different way of thinking. It involves a different approach to simply bidding on a range of keywords, showing your best performing ads, and waiting for the sales to come flooding in.
Your Role in Search Engine Relevancy
Posted by Alan Mitchell in discussion on October 27th, 2010
Google is all about relevancy. Their whole business model depends on it. They want to provide searchers with the most relevant and useful results, and provide the easiest and most efficient means for searchers to find the information they are seeking.
So it comes as a surprise to see widespread discussion criticising the quality of Google search results among search marketing professionals, talk of people getting up in arms because they can’t find the information they are looking for, mention of people having to resort to old-fashioned bookmarking to avoid losing track of that golden nugget of an article they found back in 2003.
Are search results really becoming less relevant? Or are our expectations of high quality search results increasing faster that improvements in search quality can keep up? While Google no doubt needs to continue to improve the relevancy and usefulness of it search results, it’s not just Google who need to improve. We can also learn how to better construct our search queries to find the right information more quickly and easily.
The Laziness of Google Instant
Posted by Alan Mitchell in discussion on September 10th, 2010
This week Google unveiled one of their biggest changes to the Google search results page in recent years – an evolution of their Autocomplete feature called Google Instant. In a nutshell, Google Instant predicts what you are searching for, and displays search results for its prediction as you type. Not the results for what you have typed, but the results for what it predicts you are going to type.
All very clever. And a massive time-saver too – reducing search time around the world by a massive 11 hours every second (not per person, in total).
But while this is arguably a change for the better, giving users a greater level of interactivity as they search, the announcement has had some negative reactions from search marketers.
Google’s SSL Page: Why We Need To Be Less Private
Posted by Alan Mitchell in discussion on May 28th, 2010
Last week Google announced they are offering searchers the option to use SSL when they search. SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, and is a method of web encryption. When using Google’s new SSL page, your search terms, web history and other personal information will be encrypted, thereby improving your privacy.
With SSL, you can search and browse in full confidence, knowing that your personal information and browsing habits will never find its way to unscrupulous third-parties. When you click on a Google link, and visit an external site, because your browsing is encrypted, the site you visit will not be able to see that you came from Google – nor will they be able to see what you searched for. Advertisers therefore can’t use your personal information to provide you with ads for things you don’t need or want.
Sounds great, doesn’t it? And the more secure we can make the web, the better, right?
Not exactly.
It is only once we consider the implications for the web businesses that we realise the sheer importance of such analytical data. It is only when this data is threatened to be taken away, that we realise that SSL encryption might not be in the public’s best interests.
Let’s see why.
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