Posts Tagged ‘keywords’

Mobile Monday – 10 Commandments of Mobile Paid Search

Monday, November 26th, 2012

Recently, we’ve been writing more about getting the most out of your online advertising. But there is one area we haven’t written enough about: mobile. With mobile advertising it’s just as important, if not more, to optimize your ad copy, landing pages, etc. If you’re not yet paying attention to mobile paid search, it’s time to start: It’s expected that mobile search will surpass desktop web search in 2013, which is right around the corner!

When optimizing your mobile PPC campaigns, be sure you’re not breaking any of the commandments of mobile paid search, or suffer the wrath of poor campaign performance:

1. Thou shalt separate mobile and desktop campaigns. – Some ad platforms like AdWords don’t automatically separate mobile and web PPC campaigns. Leaving this default option as is can impact your campaign’s performance. On mobile, people search with different keywords, different intent, and from different locations and devices. Not optimizing your campaign for these differences can be a waste of your budget. To learn how to create a mobile-specific campaign or convert an existing campaign from desktop to mobile, see this AdWords Help article. (Tweet this commandment!)

2. Thou shalt create click-to-call ads. – Mobile searchers are usually lower in the sales funnel than desktop searchers. They are ready to take action, and want to do it quickly. Your mobile search ads should be focused on decisions rather than information. Google reports that ads with click-able phone numbers have higher CTR than traditional ads, so take advantage of the fact that they’re searching from a phone! (Tweet this commandment!)

3. Thou shalt use ad extensions. – Click-to-call phone numbers aren’t the only way to enhance your mobile search campaign. Other AdWords mobile ad extentions include adding app download links, locations, offers, ratings, sitelinks, and multiple addresses. Which extension is best will depend on your particular campaign, but brick-and-mortar businesses probably want to focus on the click-to-call and location extensions. (Tweet this commandment!)

4. Thou shalt not link to desktop landing pages. – You should create separate landing pages for your desktop and mobile searchers. These mobile landing pages should be optimized differently. They should be lightweight so that they load quickly and focus on simplicity. The page should also have a click-to-call button with a clear call-to-action, just like the ad itself. If you absolutely must have a form, use as few fields as possible. Also make sure it’s touch-screen friendly (big buttons, single column, etc.). (Tweet this commandment!)

5. Thou shalt take touchscreen keyboards into consideration in your keyword strategy. – This is only one of the keyword optimization techniques for mobile search. Mobile searchers are likely to use shorter keywords since typing on touchscreen devices isn’t as easy as on computer keyboards. Because of this, they are also more likely to misspell things. Broad match keywords generally perform better on mobile. (Tweet this commandment!)

6. Thou shalt focus on higher ad positions. – Mobile SERPS are more condensed than desktop result pages. Fewer results are shown, so it’s imperative that you closely monitor your ad’s position. Search Engine Journal says you should aim for position 1 0r 2. This may mean you have to raise your bid, but cost per click is generally lower on mobile so it will be worth it! (Tweet this commandment!)

7. Thou shalt day-part with on-the-go searchers in mind. – This may be obvious to some people, but deserves to be stated: mobile search spikes during off-hours for desktop search. You may think that there are certain times of day when more people are searching in general, so desktop and mobile would both spike, but this is not the case. When people are on the go at night and over the weekend, they are searching from their mobile device instead of their computer. Day-part accordingly. (Tweet this commandment!)

8. Thou shalt focus ads on the product. – On mobile, people are less likely to be browsing for information; they are browsing to make a decision. This means that searchers probably aren’t looking to learn more about your company. They are looking for a specific product and want to take action. Mashable recommends optimizing your ad for this by writing the copy around specific ads rather than your company as a whole. (Tweet this commandment!)

9. Thou shalt not forget to test. – While mobile PPC may be vastly different from desktop PPC, they are still cut from the same cloth. You absolutely can’t “set it and forget it.” It takes time and editing to perfectly optimize a PPC ad. Test different versions to discover what specific tactics work best for your product or service. (Tweet this commandment!)

10. Thou shalt not forget to track. – Once again, this is a best practice shared with desktop paid search. If you are doing any sort of digital marketing and not tracking it, you’re asking for the digital marketing powers that be to smite you! That’s one of the best parts of digital marketing. Everything can be tracked and analyzed and applied to improve future performance. For mobile paid search, some metrics to track are conversions, click through rate, and ad position. (Tweet this commandment!)

By Brittany Berger

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15 Horrifying PPC Mistakes

Friday, October 26th, 2012

October is naturally a month when more attention is paid to things that are scary, creepy, or go bump in the night. Scary (and not-so-scary) Halloween movies are on television every night, trash bag ghosts are hanging out of your neighbor’s trees, and skeletons are in storefronts.

But to anyone in the online advertising industry, none of that is as horrifying as messing up a pay per click advertising campaign. I asked a few members of the eZanga team to share a few of their PPC horror stories and the sales team was more than happy to weigh in.

(When asked which of these horrifying mistakes they’ve made, I got a lot of ‘no comments.’)

Now, onto the most horrifying PPC mistakes anyone can make, ranging from major faux-pas to common PPC misconceptions and rookie mistakes…

From Shane:

  • Accidentally putting a single letter like “s” in a keyword list and putting it on “broad match” for a high CPC campaign
  • Accidentally checking the box for “adult traffic”

From Tim V.:

  • Being scared to test new sources of traffic – there are more converting sources than just Google
  • Not setting up proper conversion tracking and optimization – this is a waste of money!
  • Not being properly educated on PPC advertising – you should know what a quality score is and how it can affect your campaign!
  • Having generic ad copy and unrelated keywords targeted to that ad
  • Linking to generic landing pages – don’t leave it up to the user to search your site for what they’re looking for!

From Rachel:

  • Forgetting to fund the campaign
  • Forgetting to put in keywords
  • Putting the wrong destination URL on a campaign

From Rita:

  • Not turning on a campaign when the client wants it to go live
  • Forgetting to shut a campaign off
  • Forgetting to tell the client to add funds to their account
  • Letting a client run out of funds without telling them
  • Not having the day-parting done correctly.

Lessons Learned:

  • Always, always, always double check all keywords and settings before the PPC campaign goes live!
  • Test different sources of traffic. Every business and website is different, so they will all find converting traffic in different places.
  • Learn the basics of PPC advertising before starting your first campaign.
  • Write unique and interesting ad copy for every ad and enter appropriate keywords.
  • Always optimize your landing pages so that the user can very easily find what they are looking for.
  • Continually monitor and keep an eye on the campaign so that you can re-optimize it, if needed, and know when you need to shut it off or add more funds.
  • Maintain continual communication with your clients.

What was the scariest PPC faux pas or rookie mistake you made? Share your horror story in the comments!

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SEO 101: What is Black Hat SEO?

Wednesday, September 19th, 2012

Black Hat SEOA few weeks ago, we introduced the basics of search engine optimization to increase your visibility on the web. At the bottom of the infographic, there was a section titled “The Crimes of SEO,” which outlined tactics that are referred to as ‘black hat SEO.’ Today we want to talk more about black hat SEO and why you should avoid such tactics at all costs.

What is Black Hat SEO?

Search engine optimization tactics are usually divided into two camps: ‘white hat’ and ‘black hat’ (there’s probably a few muddy areas that could be considered ‘grey hat,’ but that’s a different blog post for a different day).

Basically, white hat strategies focus as much on the users as the search engines and their algorithms. The goal isn’t just for a site to have a high ranking, it’s to have a high ranking and be relevant to what the user is searching for.

Black hat SEO, on the other hand, is like the dark side of search engine optimization. In this case, it’s all about gaming the search engines’ algorithms and ranking as high as possible for as many keywords as possible. A lot of people in the search industry consider black hat SEO tactics to be spam.

What is considered Black Hat SEO?

There are dozens of search engine optimization practices that are considered black hat, and even more that fall into grey areas. We’ll ease you into everything today and just explain the tactics mentioned in the infographic:

  • Paid links: Because search engines see a link to a website as an endorsement or recommendation, links factor greatly into a website’s ranking. Websites try to buy and sell links or exchange links with other websites to increase rankings.
  • Keyword stuffing: Keyword stuffing means to fill a page with keywords, relevant or irrelevant, to try to increase its ranking. This can be used with relevant keywords (i.e. a page about bicycles using the words ‘bike’ and ‘bicycle’ three times in every single sentence), or irrelevant keywords (i.e. name dropping celebrities, brand names, and other high demand keywords).
  • Cloaking: This is to manipulate rankings by showing search engines a different page than you show the users that click on your links on the search engine results page.
  • Hiding: Some websites will hide keywords so that search engine spiders read them but users can’t. It’s a way to put more keywords on the webpage without users noticing, like they can with keyword stuffing. A common way of hiding keywords is to make them blend in to the page’s background (i.e. adding a paragraph of keywords in white font on a page with a white background).
  • Link spam: This tactic refers to spamming other websites, blogs, forums, etc. with links back to your website. Link spam includes commenting on unrelated blogs with links to your website and posting promotional messages in forums.

What are the consequences of black hat SEO?

Search engines are starting to really crack down on websites using black hat tactics to game the ranking algorithms. This is especially evident in all of Google’s recent algorithm updates such as Penguin and Panda. These updates make it harder to game the algorithms and see results from black hat tactics in the first place.

Search engines usually have a section of their website explaining their guidelines, such as Google Webmaster Guidelines, that outline what to do and what not to do. If they look into your site and find that you are in violation of the guidelines, they can penalize you. The penalty may be lowering your site’s ranking or banning your site from the search engine completely.

Even huge companies like JC Penney have been penalized for black hat tactics, showing that no one is immune. Heck, Google even lowered the rankings for one of its own products after a paid link scheme was uncovered.

Moral of the story: fight fair, while wearing a white hat at all times! What other black hat tactics and consequences have you seen? Share your story in the comments!

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Online Advertising in the 2012 Elections

Friday, September 7th, 2012

Without a doubt, this year’s elections will be influenced by digital media more than any past races. Sure, we were entering a digital era back in 2008, but by now the Internet follows us wherever we go and whatever we do. We rely on computers and Internet connections so much more than we did the last time we voted for a president.

Online advertising and search engine marketing have also grown. According to SEMPO’s annual SEM reports, search engine marketing was approximately a $13.5 million industry in 2008. Despite the economic conditions of the U.S., it is an industry that has continually grown.

As people are learning about political candidates and deciding who to vote for, they will go online to look for more information. They will probably start off with a search on Google or another search engine. This has changed the nature of political advertising, and candidates can take advantage of political online advertising and paid search in several ways. Even in May, online ad spend for the election was seven times higher than it was in 2008. This post will explore different tools and strategies that candidates are using to campaign in this year’s election.

Targeting

One advantage of politicians advertising online as opposed to in traditional media is the ability to target advertisements to specific audiences. Politicians can target a specific demographic and then tailor the advertisement accordingly. For example, instead of including the URL for a candidate’s website in all advertisements, different ads can highlight different components of the campaign and his/her stance on certain issues. This can be especially effective in appealing to swing voters. These voters may not know who they are voting for, but know what issues they care about and will search to find out each candidate’s stance on those issues.

A new Google AdWords feature also allows politicians to target ad campaigns by congressional district, which will surely change the online marketing strategies of local politicians. Normally, ads can be geotargeted by ZIP code, but congressional districts change with census results every 10 years and don’t necessarily line up with ZIP codes. This eliminates the risk of paying for advertisements shown to searchers in other districts that wouldn’t even be able to vote for the candidate. In addition to this tool, Google has launched an entire “Four Screens to Victory” guide to help candidates connect with voters via TV, personal computers, mobile devices, and tablets.

Keyword Bidding

The keywords candidates use can also strengthen their political campaign. By effectively bidding on a variety of different keywords highlighting different parts of their campaign, political candidates can both reach larger audiences and lead searchers to specific areas of their websites. For example, a Search Engine Watch article from August looked at the keyword bidding habits of the Obama and Romney campaigns.

The author of the article found that both candidates bid on names other than their own. One example is the Romney campaign bidding on Mike Huckabee’s name. By bidding on the names of other politicians that endorse him, he may be trying to rally the supporters of his allies.

Now, let’s look at Obama. While it looks like most of Romney’s search ads lead to his campaign’s home page, Obama leads searchers to several areas of his website, one of which talks about Romney’s economics. It looks like both candidates bid on keywords related to the other’s name.

Once the conventions are over and election day gets closer, we’ll likely see candidates start to change their strategies and keywords. What do you think they will be?

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Online Marketing for Small Businesses: 5 Tips for Website Content

Friday, December 9th, 2011

Last week eZanga discussed the importance of small businesses being connected online, despite the usual grumbling of ‘word of mouth’ clientele. Today we will talk about how to get started with ‘search engine friendly’ content, also known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

You have a website, you have your information, but do the search engines understand what you’re saying? Yup, that’s right, search engines are reading your content to decide how to rank the most relevance on the search engine results page (SERP). Search engines are able to index content with what is called a ‘spiders‘. Exactly as it sounds, the spiders crawl all over the world wide web deciding what makes the most sense with specific keywords and phrases. The more relevant your content, the higher you will be on SERPs.

Here are eZanga’s top 5 tips when writing content on your site:Small Business Web Content

1. Flash: Stay away from it! Search engines don’t like it, and although it looks nice and pretty it won’t be spider’d, which means no one will find your site. Flash also has a longer load time, which may deter people from staying on your site.

2. Write Unique Content: Meaning, write consistent content that readers will find valuable and will ultimately link back to. You hear it time and time again, “Content is King”…nothing has changed. Keep the fluff to a minimum and make the content scannable. Not all readers ingest every word so the content must be clear and simple. Numbered and bulleted lists are great if you are trying to get a specific point across.

3. Keyword Density: Before you start writing, jot down words and phrases you think people would use to find what you are writing about. Circle the most important and try to place them high on the page, but don’t force and stuff them in. Keywords and keyword phrases should be sprinkled gracefully throughout your content. Search engines know when you are being spammy and that won’t help. Good rule to stand by: 1 keyword for every 50-100 words.

4. Page Links: Try to use links that will lead searchers to other parts of your site (as seen in first line). Links will also lead the spider to crawl other sections of your site.

5. Tags: Very, very important to have your title tag go along with your keyword phrases and general topic of the page, as it will be the title on the results page. Remember to keep this cohesive. This also goes for the description tag which should be no longer than 150 characters. This should entice searchers to click on the link. Make sure the description isn’t misleading, or your reader will leave. Don’t forget your alt-img tags on all relevant graphics on your site.

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eZanga CEO Offers Tips to Build a Successful SEM Campaign

Monday, November 8th, 2010

The search for a product or service often begins online, which means business owners need to think about their companies’ online presence and how they are going to get their sites in front of potential customers. The most effective way to achieve this visibility is through search engine marketing (SEM), which involves advertising on search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes and ask, “where would I look first?” More than likely, your answer is a search engine. SEM puts your company’s site directly in front of the right audience, rather than relying on the search engine itself to decide how your company’s site should rank on the organic listing.

With this in mind, it’s important to market your products and services through SEM; however for the newcomers and busy business owners who either lack the industry knowledge or necessary time may find SEM to be overwhelming. That being said, I decided to put together a few tips to help potential online marketers navigate through the SEM terrain:

Industry Experts- If you’re not SEM-savvy, make sure the people you hire (either in-house or through an agency) know what they are doing. It’s important to remember that not all digital marketing companies specialize in search marketing. Make sure the person or team you hire has enough experience, knowledge, and focus specifically in search engine marketing.

Tools and Reports- SEM is 100% quantifiable, meaning  results can be measured clearly with numbers down to the penny. Whether you’re hiring someone in-house or an outside SEM firm, make sure the right tools and reports are in place to monitor the campaign’s performance. Also, make sure the person in charge of your campaign knows how to interpret and use these tools.

Phone Call Tracking- This is especially important for small businesses considering most conversions start with a call. Phone call tracking helps the SEM expert decide how the campaign should be optimized, and also gives the business owner complete transparency to see performance, conversions, and a return on investment.

Landing Page- This is the first thing a prospective customer sees when they click on an ad on a search engine. Review the landing page where searchers are directed when the advertisement is clicked. Even if the homepage is rich with useful content, it may not convert well. A landing page should be focused and hook the searcher into wanting to learn more about the company and eventually lead to a conversion.

Keyword Selection- When selecting keywords, brainstorm words that you think potential customers would use to search for the product or service you provide, including misspellings. The less competitive the keyword, the lower the cost per click.

Please contact us to learn more about search engine marketing as well as our personally managed eZanga SEM platform.

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