1. | When Larry Met Sergey

(Select Image to Begin)

2. | Breaking Down Google’s Revenues in 2011

3. | The Millennials: Best Generation Ever

4. | The Power of Mobile

5. | BBB 100 Years

 1 – You’ve got a great reputation in the SEO world. For those readers that  don’t already know you, tell us a bit about your background?

Believe it or not, I was not introduced the “the computer” until 1996 when we purchased our first PC – an AST 133mhz machine running Windows 95. After a few months of “playing around” with this new toy, I thought that there has to be a way to make money with this thing.

After about 6 months, I signed up to be an affiliate of a company that designed websites after attending one of their seminars. It was pretty straight-forward: I’d land the customers, help them decide what they wanted to do and the company I represented would design and host the sites. That worked well for a few months until the web design company forgot what their purpose really was and rather focused on seminars to sign up more and more affiliates (they made a lot of money with affiliate sign-up fees). Long story short – they began to lapse badly in their design work so I bought a copy of Frontpage and learned how to design sites myself.

As far as being a marketer I actually stumbled into search marketing quite accidentally after first starting my “online” career in web design in 1997. We owned (still do in fact) an Arizona construction and home improvement portal that we were trying to market but with zero budget. Therefore I relied heavily on performing what optimization techniques were available to my knowledge base at the time, most likely derived from writings of folks like Danny Sullivan and Jill Whalen. As a result, we were successful in getting that site to rank well in the search engines that were around at that time (no Google at this point).

So, we began to offer these types of “SEO” related services to clients, at first for very nominal one-time fees, until a light bulb went on in my head and I discovered the “retainer” model. We went from a small local web design company whose clients pretty much resided in our own locale – Arizona, to an international company serving clients not only across the nation, but around the globe as well.

Almost 15 years later, my company continues to focus its energies on managing search and social media marketing campaigns for our clients. We also continue to run our own niche websites including that Arizona home improvement one I spoke of earlier. The two I am most excited to currently work with however are Disney-O-Rama, an “all things Disney blog, and Infographic Journal, an “infographics only” blog.

2 – Why another infographic site?

Prior to presenting in the most recent PubCon conference in Vegas, I was looking around for suitable places to submit infographic work. Because I was speaking on the topic of infographic marketing via social media, I thought I’d include a list of sites that accept submission of infographic work. The results I came up with were scarce so I thought, “Why not launch our own?” So we did.

Now, Infographic Journal is not another Visual.ly, that is a self-serving infographics site, but rather a blog where we select some of the best infographics and data visualizations to post on a daily basis. We also accept free submissions of infographic work to be considered for publishing. It’s been a lot of work thus far and the site is still pretty new, but I personally feel that Infographic Journal is the most active site, next to Visual.ly of course, in featuring infographics all in one place on a daily basis.

We soft-launched the site in September 2011, finished its look, feel and structure around the middle of November and really began to publish content on a daily basis in December. In December alone, we published 157 infographics and as of the time of this interview, we have over 220 published infographics. Not bad for only a couple months of hard work.

3 – What are your goals for the site?

To take over the world, what else? No, but in all seriousness, we simply want Infographic Journal to be one of the top sites in its niche. I know it will take some time but I firmly believe that it will eventually hold a top spot as far as “infographic-only” blogs/sites go.

I certainly realize that companies are creating and marketing infographics for their own sites and benefit, but I want Infographic Journal to be a place that combines the best of the best in infographic work, all in one place and then of course provides credit (and links) to the original source and/or designer.

Ultimately, once the site is established, we hope to attract advertisers and possibly even companies who need help in marketing their infographics via social media, link building and the like.

4 – What’s been your favorite infographic so far?

Anything your company has done! All kidding aside, I have enjoyed pretty much all of the infographics NowSourcing has created as they are of very high quality. But I would have to say one of my favorites thus so far has been the “Alternative Holidays: Festivus For the Rest of Us” not necessarily because it is the best one but rather because I am a huge Seinfeld fan. Other than that, I like the infographics that are either humorous in some way such as “Geek vs Nerd” or informative such as “Anatomy of a Killer Facebook Ad Campaign.”

5 – If you’re like us, you’ve probably seen a lot of tech infographics. What’s the most imaginative industry you’ve seen an infographic so far?

If we are referring to what is currently on Infographic Journal, I’d have to say that “Complete Guide to Energy Efficient Home Lighting” did a great job providing useful and entertaining data on a most boring subject – light bulbs. I mean, who wants to know anything about light bulbs? We turn them on when we go into a room and hopefully remember to turn them off when leaving. We hate having to change them and if most are like me, we put those tasks off until the weekend “honey-dos” or something. Whoever designed this infographic did a great job compiling what most would consider boring information into an format that made it interesting to read and visualize. I actually read through the whole thing as well as shared it all over the socialsphere.

Infographics like this prove that just about any industry, no matter how un-exciting or boring they think they might be, can take advantage of this new type of content marketing – visualizing data.

6 – Where’s the future of infographics going? Interactive? Mobile? Video? All of the above?

I think all of the above. We are already seeing this. The vast majority of them will most likely continue to be these large graphic representations of data simply because they are so effective. In our short attention span of a world, a well designed infographic enables people to easily digest data at a much faster rate than say, reading a blog post or even watching a video.

How about infographics that tease the user but then lead them to a more instructive video? Or an instructive video that then provides a checklist format infographic? I can see them all working together in the scope of content marketing.

7 – Anything else we should know?

Anyone who is reading this who would like to submit infographics for consideration to be published on Infographic Journal can visit http://infographicjournal.com/submit-infographics/ and follow the instructions to do so. I’d say that 99% of everything that has been submitted to date has been published so there’s a great opportunity there to gain more exposure for infographic work.

We’ve already received inquiries about advertising on the site but at this point, we are not offering anything. Personally, I’d like to see the site earn some Google PageRank first as well as graduate out of the “new site sandbox” Google won’t admit to, but still has in place. I won’t go into that now as it is an entirely different subject. It shouldn’t be too long though as I feel the site is growing at a good natural pace. We will probably do some more aggressive marketing of the site in the near future which at that time, I’d feel better about actually offering services to paying advertisers.

In the meantime, we will continue to collect and feature as much of the great infographic work that is taking place out there that we come across and continue to accept free submissions of infographic work as well. If you want to support us, please make sure to subscribe to our RSS feed and additionally follow us on Facebook and Twitter. And by all means, if you like anything you see while on the site, share it socially on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and any other social networks you frequent. ~

To follow last years best infographics of 2010, we have put together a few of our favorites from 2011.

Update: we now offer social media infographics to the public.

1. | The Royal Wedding’s Social Impact

2. | Tech Germs

3. | What Does it Take to Get a Job at Google?

4. | Twacked: When Good Twitter Accounts Go Bad

5. | Inside 5 of America’s Largest Data Centers

6. | Global Internet Traffic

7. | Facebook vs. Google

8. | The Top 20 Most Expensive Keywords

9. | Top Online Scams

10. | The Tale of the New Year’s Fail

Infographic by Veracode Application Security

Our next infogrpahic investigates the power of casual dining. That’s right, for all of us that don’t have a Google Master’s income we enjoy the food of the not-Gods. Some of the leaders in this industry, based on sales are: Qdoba, Boston Market, and Panera. So here is a chance to learn something new – and if you do make it to Google, don’t forget who got you there.

What Does it Take to Get a Job at Google?

How Hot is Fast Casual Dining?

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I have been using the new Google + (G+) for the last two weeks or so and while I enjoy it, it still has not taken the place of my true social network, Facebook. Granted, G+ is still in the works and I have not fully taken advantage of all the features – I still have not fallen head over heels, nor do I think I will. When I first heard through the grapevine that there was a new social network on the block I was intrigued, and when I took the G+ tour, I really believed that Facebook may go the way of Myspace – but now that I have it and have the features, I’m kind of wondering what I need this for. For instance: whenever I hear something cool through G+, my first thought is to run and share it with Facebook, that can’t be right.

Facebook gives me everything I want and more, and it continues to surprise me with amazing innovation and new ways to stay connected. With G+ I have to wait for all of my friends to get on board with it – my friends are used to Facebook. Also, the status updates are awkward and have a few flaws, it just doesn’t seem worth it.

Another thing that is funny to me, is how similar G+ is to Facebook. They have all the same bells and whistles they just call it something different. The difference is that Facebook really does seem to have more to offer me when it comes to features and I’m already really comfortable with it.  I have put together a chart of some of the similarities I’ve noticed between Facebook and G+.

G+ is great, and definitely looks better format wise than Facebook, and I am not just going to delete G+ out of my life. I still have a circle of friends through G+ and I plan to check in every now and again -  but all in all, I have a real connection with Facebook, and that is the social network for me.

In a press conference this morning Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook, was asked what he thought of the possibly revolutionary launching of Google+. Zuckerberg admitted that he had used it very little but that he believed it was part of the social networking evolution. However, Google+ is also his competition, it is offering Circles, which basically allows you to label your friends and groups and choose who sees what and which group you publish content to. It also offers Hangouts, which is the video group chat, Sparks, a feed that revolves around you and only videos, articles, and offers you would be interested in, and Huddle which allows you to text as a group. Since the two networks are so similar, but one comes with more features (so far), people will eventually make a choice. There will be resistance at first just as there was when Facebook blew Myspace out of the water, but as of right now, Google+ sounds like the next step and Facebook may not have the technology to catch up.

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Google+ began a beta release for the network last month, giving only a select few people access – this gave off the impression that the network was elite, leaving those who weren’t allowed dying to see what all the fuss was about. Another blow to Facebook’s ego was the group chat offered on Google+ that clearly overshadowed Facebook’s partnership with Skype, who was recently bought by Microsoft for $8.5 billion before they were aware of Google’s innovative software.

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The reason Google+ may not take over Facebook is because despite Google’s Vice President, Vic Gundotra’s belief that they are meeting the needs of the people and their desire to connect, they are really adding a bunch of bells and whistles to a system that was already meeting this need. Also many users may not be ready for the commitment that goes along with another social network.

If Zuckerberg does come out with something innovative or finds a way to at least make group chat available before Google+ is fully launched he may have a shot. However, Zuckerberg recently said they are not focusing on the number of users so much anymore but the features, this was a little unsettling. The fact that Facebook lost around 6 million users in May, may have provoked this comment, and since Google+ is ahead in the feature department it will make a come back even more difficult. The worst thing he could do is reformat the entire network like Myspace did when they saw that Facebook was taking them over – they ended up going beyond their site’s capacity and that helped in everyone’s decision to go full Facebook. Whether or not Facebook survives the war or falls as the social media empire, social networking is evolving right before our eyes and it should be a very interesting change.

Google has evolved over the years to become much more than a white page with a search box, but they haven’t abandoned finding new ways to innovate what got them started. The search giant recently unveiled a few new ways to search the Internet from the world’s number one website. The first new way, voice search, allows users to click a small microphone icon in the search box and say what it is they want to search. Google simply translates the audio into a searchable term and does a search as if you typed it. The second way allows users to upload a picture by dragging it into the browser. Google will then analyze the picture and bring up relevant information to what it is.

Voice search isn’t anything new, as Google made it available to mobile users in 2009 with an update to its Android mobile operating system. Nowadays, Android gives its mobile users many options for searching with their voice. Simple, preset commands followed by a subject will trigger your phone to start playing your favorite song, find directions, text someone, email someone, or many other things all from your voice. These commands have become a part of my everyday life while I’m trying to multitask, but I’m not convinced these same features will be as useful on a full-fledged web browser. Right now I can type an average of 75 words per minute. While this is a bit more than the average user, I would be confident in saying that most people can type reasonably fast. Typing a word or short phrase in a search box would probably take the average user four seconds, max. So what is Google trying to accomplish with voice search on desktops? The only reason I can think of, beside just glamming search up, is to say a word you’re not quite sure how to spell. Many people have a hard time spelling long, complex words, so being able to say them instead of typing them will be great. But wait, Google has suggestions. When you start typing the first few letters of a word, chances are the word will show up in a drop-down list. Users won’t be getting any more help than they already receive. A much more practical use of voice search on a desktop is Google’s Voice Search Chrome extension. This extension adds a button on your browser that, when pressed, you can say a term or phrase and a new tab will open with the results. This makes more sense. It will help those people who often have many tabs open and need to search something quick.

There is one more reason voice search could be useful, and that is for people who have a hard time typing due to age, disability, or any other reason. These people are important too and they need to be able to search the Internet just like every other person in the world. For that, Google, I say good job and thank you, but I can’t see this as much more than a gimmick for the average, everyday user.

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Unlike desktop voice search, picture search is a little more understandable. This too has been around on Android for a while with the use of the Google Goggles application. With Google Goggles, a user takes a picture of something and Google does a search of the object based on what their analysis thinks it is. The desktop version works the same way. A user drags a picture onto the search bar and, after it gets automatically uploaded, Google provides search results on what they think it is. I tested this with a picture of a platypus, and sure enough the results thrown back at me were of a search for “duck-billed platypus.” I could see this being much more useful than the voice search option detailed above. For example, if you go on vacation and take pictures of several landmarks, you might not remember what each one is called. Uploading one of your pictures to Google search will quickly (and hopefully accurately) give you all the details you need. You could also go on a hike and take pictures of mysterious animals, and use Google to find out what they are. While Google Goggles might be the better option for instant feedback, many people still don’t have mobile phones with those capabilities.

While Google probably isn’t trying to change the world with either of these features, it is nice to see that they are adding fresh updates. I don’t foresee either one being a part of my everyday use, but I could be wrong. Perhaps this is the future of search, or just the beginning of a voice automated world that goes beyond mobile. What are your thoughts? Will you use voice and picture search in Google, or stick to old fashioned typing?

Apple made a slew of announcements today at their Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.  Perhaps most expected was the release of iCloud, their cloud computing service.  It allows syncing of just about everything you may store on your multiple devices: apps, email, calendars, contacts, documents, books, photos, and music.  It does this with little effort from the user, following Apple’s “it just works” motto.  The ability to sync all of these things across devices is huge for Apple, but music in particular sticks out above the rest.  Apple helped change the music industry when it introduced iTunes in 2001, and many expected iCloud to do something similar.  With Google’s recently released Music Beta and Amazon’s Cloud Drive, the world has been waiting to see what Apple has up their sleeve.

Amazon Cloud Drive was first to market when it was released last March.  For a price, Amazon allows users to upload their music libraries so they can be streamed down to any device with a web browser.  Google offers the same type of service with a few differences.  First off, it’s free while it’s still in beta.  Google plans to charge for its use at some point, but for the time being it’s free to anyone who receives an invite.  The second big difference is how they measure your use.  Amazon determines how much you will pay based on how many gigabytes your music takes up, giving you the first 5GB free.  Google, on the other hand, currently measure’s by the number of songs.  In Music Beta, you’re allowed to store up to 20,000 songs on their servers.  While Google may change this once it’s out of beta, 20,000 songs should be plenty for the majority of people.  The third difference (and possibly biggest draw) to Amazon’s Cloud Drive is the inclusion of Amazon’s MP3 store.  Any song you buy from Amazon will go directly into your Cloud Drive and be ready to stream in seconds.  No waiting for it to download and re-uploading back to the cloud.

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Unlike Google and Amazon, Apple has chosen a completely different path in regard to music in the cloud.  iCloud won’t offer any type of streaming with their service.  Instead, iCloud will be used to keep music synced between all of a user’s devices.  When someone downloads a song from iTunes, the song will be downloaded to the device they are on, as well as every other device under that person’s name.  This is a great way of relieving the user from having to sync music between devices, but still restricts the library’s size to what will fit on those devices.  Google and Amazon rid the size restriction by hosting all of the music on their own servers and streaming it back to the user.

iTunes Match

In a somewhat surprising move, Apple is not going to restrict the use of iCloud to music only bought from iTunes.  With iTunes Match, iTunes will find all of your uploaded non-iTunes music and add it to your music list in iCloud.  It will then sync it between devices as if it was bought from iTunes.  Unfortunately, iTunes Match does have a price.  It will cost users $25 a year for an unlimited number of songs, much more than both Google and Amazon, assuming you don’t have an enormous library that Amazon will charge you for.

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While iCloud has a lot of potential and will offer some amazing services, it’s still not clear who will win the cloud music battle.  Many thought it would be Apple due to their rumored record label deals, but without music streaming it may not be the best option.  Amazon offers compelling features with a great store for buying music, but the cost of storing a large music library could easily add up.  Just today I received an invite to Google’s Music Beta, and so far it’s performed flawlessly.  With Google’s already successful cloud computing services like Google Docs and Gmail, I’m excited to see how Music Beta will be improved and enhanced.  Not to mention the ever enticing price of free, I think Google Music Beta is going to be the winner of this war. Apple’s lack of streaming simply makes it a fancy way to sync.  While useful, it’s not what people were looking for or expecting from Apple today.   But what I think doesn’t really matter, let us know which ones you’ve tried and liked in the comments below.

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It’s 2:30 on a Wednesday afternoon. You step out from the back office of your business to see three of your employees standing around with nothing to do, and you wonder how much the last half hour of business has cost you without seeing a single customer walk through the door. Whether you work in a bank, a hair salon, or an all you can eat oriental buffet, there are certain times of the day that are just plain slow for businesses, and so far as most of us know, there’s very little we can do about that. Well not for long.

Right now, in a Chicago market trial, deal-of-the-day giant Groupon is testing its Groupon Now concept. Groupon Now allows businesses in the Chicago area to send special limited-time promotional offers to any nearby smartphone with the Groupon Now application. The goal: to help businesses drive traffic to their location with the ultimate in targeted promotional tools. In other words, if your business is typically slow around 2:30 on Wednesday afternoons, you will be able to offer promotions to the consumers closest to you for a one hour window between 2:00 and 3:00.

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Since it’s launch two years ago, Groupon has grown to be the world’s largest daily deals service with more than 85 million subscribers. Groupon has become a promotional powerhouse but, at least until Groupon Now, has been employing a highly imitable business model (as evidenced by the Google announcing the launch of Google Offers following Groupon’s refusal of Google’s 6 Billion dollar buyout offer). With the help of Loopt, a company based in Mountain View, California that produces mobile location-based services, Groupon was able to launch Groupon Now. The rumors are that Groupon is going partner with more location based service providers, chief among them is Foursquare.

Foursquare has been a leader among location-based mobile services since it began interacting with businesses to offer promotions to users who “check in” with certain frequencies. A partnership between Groupon and Foursquare is what many are calling the next “hugely logical step” for both companies. We don’t know when the public will see a product come of this, but it will very likely be coming soon.

While this partnership brings together so much of what businesses want from their marketing efforts, is it what consumers want from their phones? Do you want your phone blowing up with “deals” as you drive from one end of town to the other? Let us know what you think in the comments section!

In the campaign settings you need to turn on the option of allowing SiteLinks.  A little drop down box will appear that allows you to enter text and destination URLs for several text links. Once active, any keyword that qualifies for top positioning on a regular basis will begin displaying the SiteLinks.  A click on any of the links is charged the same CPC as without the SiteLinks.  From initial testing I have found the CTR to be upwards to 20% higher than the same ad without SiteLinks, so it definitely grabs people’s attention.  The higher CTR typically will help your quality score, and assuming you can continue to keep that top position, your average CPC will actually go down.

The links can be changed anytime, but can only be assigned at the campaign level.  If there are ads that you specifically don’t want SiteLinks included on, then you must duplicate the campaign and have a version running with and without them active.  The ads that you do not wish to have SiteLinks enabled must live in the campaign where the feature has not been activated.

PPCHero suggests using links for seasonal products or a direct link to a contact page.  These are great ideas, but there are plenty of more options.  If you have a complicated conversion structure similar to a travel site, then consider adding links to various parts of your conversion funnel to see what can work when the initial pages are bypassed.

This is still in beta, so you may not have access to it quite yet.  If you really want to try it, call the Google customer service line and ask if you can be included.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but either way it gives you a chance to try out a great feature that you may not have otherwise known about.

So far, Yahoo I think has the biggest news.  In a blog post it announced a ton of big updates, include Rich ads in search, Network Distribution reporting (to show which websites are actually serving your ads), and my favorite, the Yahoo Desktop Publishing tool.  FINALLY!

Y! Desktop Publisher

I’ve been part of the beta for quite some time, and it’s been killing me not to talk about it due to NDAs, but now that it has been made public, I can go into a little detail.  It runs on the Adobe Air platform, which makes it look really pretty, but runs fairly slow.  Yahoo makes great use of the real estate with expandable tabs for research and side windows to display secondary–yet still important–data about the campaigns and ad groups.  It’s almost too busy with as much data displayed as possible, but I see that as a feature more than a bug.  In fact, there is so much data being displayed I couldn’t even show screenshots without making it look like a declassified government document that’s been blacked out that it’s virtually useless.  The downside is it’s slow, and still acts more like a Yahoo bulk sheet instead of Adwords Editor.  It’s still a huge improvement over having nothing, but my main warning is to check the error sheet in the upload section of your Yahoo account, because I occasionally find stuff that doesn’t pop up as an error in the Desktop Publisher.  Oh well, it’s still in private beta.

Google Mobile Search & Local Search

There has been a ton of announcements this week surrounding mobile search.  Adsense will allow website publishers to post mobile ads (Adwords has allowed iPhone/smartphone targeting for some time now in the campaign settings), and announced an Android deal with Verizon. This means that Verizon will be the largest American network to carry Google Mobile OS phones.   This also opens up the realms to much better location-based advertising.  However, for any of this to mean anything, Google’s location-based advertising needs to stop sucking.

Meta Keyword Tag is Dead

If you remember search in the 90s, relevancy was often no more than how often the keyword showed up on a page.  This led to someone trying to get to the top of a SERP for the term “shoes” to write a page that went something along the lines of “shoes, shoes, shoes.  We have lots of shoes. We have blue shoes, red shoes, old shoes, new shoes.”  Then they would stuff their meta keywords tag with all those same keywords so engines knew that’s what keywords you thought were important to the page.  Google was the first to stop using it, and even told people to stop sueing each other over it.  Well, during a SMX panel this week, Yahoo said that they stopped considering meta keyword tags for search rankings several months ago, which means none of the big 3 players use it.  What this means to you is if you have a limited time to do your own SEO and can’t afford a pro, don’t bother with the meta keywords tag.  It will literally be a waste of your time.

On a more humorous side, I got a kick out of this admittance from Google’s CEO about how sometimes Larry and Sergey buy companies and don’t tell him until after the fact. Apparently Sergey found Keyhole (now Google Earth) on the web, bought the company, then later walked into Eric’s office and mentioned it.  Eric’s response: “‘for how much, Sergey?’ And it turned out to be a few million.”

For more SMX coverage, you can check out Search Engine Land’s daily recaps for Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.

Regardless of the tips I present below, I firmly believe that last statement.  The quality score is there for the engine’s benefit and not ours as advertisers.  It’s the engines grading us on how profitable we are for them.  If we’re not profitable enough with a high CTR, they charge us more.  However, is the quality score graded on a scale or on a curve?  If it’s on a scale then you can do everything right and get an “A” and be happy with your high score.  If it’s graded on a curve then your final grade is dependent on the performance of others.  If you do better than they do, you score high.  If you do worse, you score low.  In other words, your ability to write better ads with higher relevance than your competitor impacts your quality score.

Consider this: You have a quality score of 5 and your competitor with identical keywords and bids has a quality score of 10.  Since the keywords are identical the relevancy to the raw search query should be the same, meaning the only difference is the ad copy.  They have an awesome ad and you don’t, so their quality score is higher.  Typically, this means that they can get a click at the same position as your ad for a lower cost per click.  If they can spend less money per click, they can afford to go after more traffic, which means they have more opportunity to score conversions.  More conversions means more cash to fuel future Adwords spending and continued sales growth.

Do I have your attention now?  Good.  Here’s how to optimize your ad groups for quality score:

Keep your keyword count in ad groups between 25-50.  This includes match type variations of the same term.  This isn’t a steadfast rule, but is a good rule-of-thumb.  If you have more, make sure that they are keywords that focus around a very tight central theme.

Don’t bid on broad match.  Keeping everything to phrase and exact match will limit how likely it is for Google to match your keywords to an irrelevant term.  Remember, Google’s definition of relevancy may not be the same as yours.  (If you really want broad match, put it in a different ad group).

Separate your misspells.  If you use the dynamic keyword insertion in your ads, misspells will show up in the headline.  This will hurt your quality score, not help it.  Keep them separate and use the correct spelling of the term in the ad copy.

Don’t use dynamic keyword insertion in ads.  Surprised?  Why?  If you keep the keyword counts low in the ad group, you can write the ad to include those keywords.  Having an exact match term as a keyword and in the ad text without Google injecting it shows maximum relevance.  Besides, with everyone and their mother using the DKI these days, it doesn’t have anywhere near the CTR boost that it used to.

Now before you go off and redesigning your accounts to optimize for quality score, consider this: some of your terms will already have a high quality score.  If you have a couple terms in ad groups that score poorly (like 5-7) and some terms that score well (8-10), then simply remove those poorer terms and put them in their own ad group.  Copy your better converting ad from the original to include in the new ad group and bam!  You have a higher average quality score already.

• Grab the searcher’s attention against 10 organic links and 9-11 other paid links
• Describe the product/service you provide in a manner relevant to the search query
• Have an enticing call-to-action that tells the searcher what is expected of them after they click on the ad.

The ads need to be attention-getting and relevant, but also describe who will benefit from the site after s/he clicks on the ad. As an example, imagine each ad being a closed door with a peephole. The relevance of the ad determines the size peephole to look through, and the quality of the ad is how many appropriate people will be enticed enough to walk through the door. If all these are being performed correctly, it should provide the optimum combination of clicks and conversions, which leads to cheaper CPAs, cheaper clicks, and lots of profit.

TIP: It is very rare to want as many people to click on an ad as possible. Writing copy that qualifies an ideal visitor will tell some people that the site is not for them.

There are several online marketing metrics that don’t have the same relevance in search that they do in other fields. For example, CTR is important to banner ads because the advertiser pays for each 1,000 impressions. CTR in search varies based on each client’s goals, and sometimes won’t play a large role in making decisions within an account. The primary reason to use CTR is if you don’t have conversion tracking enabled. If this is not the case the conversion rate and the Return Of Ad Spend (ROAS) should be your key performing indicators.

Character Limits

The engines are more similar than different when it comes to ad display requirements. Here is a basic list of each engine and their maximum requirements:

Writing Effective Ad Copy & Headlines with Calls to Action

Headlines are in a different color and will be the first part of the ad a person sees. Having this stand out will be ideal to get attention. The best method of standing out is to do something that the other advertisers aren’t doing. This may require using a keyword insert function, but it may also mean to not use a keyword insert when everyone else is. It may also simply be to use a unique style of writing that others aren’t incorporating, like asking a question or even being a little silly. Always keep in mind that it has to be copy that you won’t mind if the client sees while doing their own search, so keep it clean and inoffensive. You should also avoid the use of fragment ideas or concepts, because the short number of characters should be used to complete a full sales pitch.

The description line is the place to back up a claim made in the headline, and/or to give detail about the advertised product or service. It is also the ideal place to add exclusive language to ensure that only the quality traffic is coming to the site. For example, if a client is a networking company for large businesses, a lot of the keywords used by a large business will also be used by consumers and small businesses. By saying “Designed for businesses with 200+ employees” a consumer and the small business will instantly know the ad is not for them. At the same time it will make a searcher at a large business more interested since they know they are the targeted audience.

The display URL acts as a mini-branding function by telling the searcher where the ad will take them. It doesn’t have to be the same as the landing page URL (which will sometimes be very long) and gives some leeway into bending some of the editorial policy rules.

Exclamation points and capitalized words are not allowed in ads. Only one exclamation point can be used within the ad copy of an ad, and one shouldn’t use superlatives like “best”, “greatest”, “lowest”, or “cheapest” without the claim being backed up on the landing page of the ad. This can be worked around, since Google only actively monitors terms like “#1″, “Top”, and “Lowest”.

TIP: If you upload ad copy via AdWords Editor for Google, you can bypass some of the regulations for a limited amount of time. It will let you upload individual words as capital letters. So try saying “FREE” instead of “Free”, and see if it has any impact on your conversion rates.

Using KeyWord Insert Functions

All three engines allow the option to include the search term into a headline or ad automatically to increase relevancy. Studies by Google suggest that using keyword insert increases the click-through rate (CTR) for an ad by varying amounts. The search engines want a high CTR because that’s what they get paid on: clicks. Otherwise the ads take up valuable screen space and don’t generate revenue, which is why the engines typically penalize low CTRs.

By adding the Keyword insert function into an ad, it usually guarantees a part of the ad will placed in bold, which often catches the eye of the searcher. However, as the practice has grown and is being used by less experienced advertisers, some use it as a shortcut for not creating tight ad groups and to still get parts of the ad placed in bold.

TIP: Creating a tightly knit ad group gives more reason to use keyword insert because it will make the rest of the copy more relevant to the keyword being included in the copy.

Keyword inserts don’t always work. One must always consider the character limits on the ad copy while considering using the keyword insert feature, since some search strings can go beyond the 25 or 35 character limits. The engines require a backup to display in case the search query is too long. He backup is the description after the colon mark within the brackets:

{KeyWord:Buy Black Shoes}

A space is not needed after the colon because that would tell Google to place a space before the word “Buy”, which will waste a character and will get chopped off anyway.

Google Ad Copy

Google requires two unique lines of text that can run up to 35 characters each. Previous experience shows that ads usually perform better when each line is an independent sentence instead of one sentence running across both lines. Typically the headline serves as a stand-out function that tries to separate it from the other ads. The goal is to be relevant to the search query and visible to the searcher. When an ad has the same keywords as the search query, Google puts those keywords in bold within the ad. This is often done by using a keyword insert function that takes the search query and inserts it into your ad and instantly making it bold. However, as everyone tries to stand out by using this function, they all begin to look the same. In order to truly stand out one can remove that common factor and be a successful ad without having anything in bold.

Yahoo Ad Copy

Yahoo currently allows 40 characters in the headline with 70 characters in the description line. There are two primary differences between Google and Yahoo copy:

1. Google breaks its 70 character limit up into 2 lines of 35 characters, where Yahoo has one line of 70 characters that automatically wraps to a second line as space requires.
2. Yahoo allows for alt text for dynamic headlines. These allow for more control over what appears with a keyword, if the search query exceeds the character limit.

TIP: Yahoo strongly recommends the use of keyword insert to all advertisers. If your conversion rate is starting to dip on otherwise strong copy, try replacing the dynamic headline with a static headline .

Try using the same ad copy on all three engines simultaneously. This will limit the amount of time needed to run statistically relevant ad copy tests due to the higher impression, click, and conversion data.

MSN Ad Copy

MSN took the basic concept of Google’s ad system like testing, geo-targeting, and keyword-insert, and expanded it. The character limits are the same as Google’s, but instead of two description lines of 35 characters MSN has one description line of 70 characters that will automatically wrap to the second line. Visually this makes all of the ads look left justified compared to Google’s which look force justified. Along with keyword insert, MSN allows for a new feature called dynamic text for each keyword. The premise is that one can change the standard order-level ad copy to better fit a specific keyword. This will typically benefit eCommerce sites with large volumes of product pages that want each product page as a landing page for a keyword.

MSN Dynamic Text Example

In the above example the name of the order group was put in the headline as a Parameter to emphasize a larger sale than one that would only benefit the searcher, and help the advertiser know what sale language caught the searcher’s attention. The keyword insert function was used early in the ad to draw attention and increase relevancy to the searcher, showing that the site has exactly what she is looking for. Finally, a third parameter of price was included so that the searcher knows exactly what she will find when getting to the site.

Using Price in Ad Copy

There is a debate of whether one should or shouldn’t include the price of an item in the ad copy. The argument against is that if the searcher has seen it for less somewhere else, regardless if it is not an exact item match, then she will ignore the site completely. This can be bad for both parties if there are additional rebates or other offers that the searcher wasn’t aware of before clicking on the ad. The argument for including cost is it tells the searcher up front what they’re expected to do and what it will cost them, which should increase the conversion rate. However, one would have to test different ad copies to see if the overall revenue generated with mentioning cost is greater or lower than not mentioning the cost. This will be shown in more detail later. Generally speaking, if the price is above certain psychological levels, or above the price of competitors in the same advertising space, don’t put the price in the copy. If the price is lower than competitors, and the average shopper knows that price is a good deal, then put it in the copy.

Whatever you write for your copy, keep in mind that the headline has to relate to the keyword, the copy has to relate to the headline and sell, and the landing page needs to relate to the copy to avoid a disconnect between you and the searcher. If you have suggestions beyond what is written here for successful copy, please feel free to share it via the discussion.

Ad Group Organization:

As in Google this should be done by the similarity of keywords (as opposed to similarity of definitions), however, it should also be done by keyword volume.  For example, if you have a campaign featuring all the colors of cars and trucks in your showroom, you should not just have and ad group for “car colors” and “truck colors”, but break these down even further to “High Volume Car Colors” and “Low Volume Car Colors”.  I haven’t found an advantage of cutoff points at specific limits, but for ease of design, I use 10,000 queries per month as my litmus test.  Keywords with more than 10,000 get into a high volume ad group, and keywords with less than 10,000 go into another ad group.  The query count can be found within the keyword tool in your account.

Ad Copy:

Yahoo has 40 character headlines instead of Google’s 25 character limits.  Use the headline as your call to action, with the body including your normal marketing message.  This inspires those who are attracted to the headline to follow through with the called-upon action.  Calls to action typically include a verb like “buy”, “save”, “order”, and can also include a time connotation like “now”, “today”, or “before 9/05″.

Also, no matter how tightly knit your ad copy is to your ad groups, you should almost always include the keyword insert.  Their systems love keyword inserts and it will almost always raise your quality score.  Like Google, higher quality scores mean better positions for cheaper clicks.

Landing Page:

Keyword-level landing pages is ideal.  Your conversion rate will be higher and Yahoo will give your ads higher quality scores if ALL the keywords within an ad group have a keyword-based landing page.  It can be the same page for all keywords, but they should all have it.  Remember what I said about high quality scores on ads?

The Long Description

Back in the day Yahoo had two types of ads: a short description and a long description.  The long description would allow 180 characters and be shown when your ad ranked high enought to be seen above search results instead of along the right side of search results.  It would also be the default ad copy for the content network.  This is no longer the case.  It’s dead.  Even if you fill it out you still need to write the short description ad, which will be shown for everything.  Don’t waste your time and just leave it blank.

Ad Testing:

Yahoo loves for ads to be tested, even if you know one will perform better.  Try to always have 2-3 ads in there, as it having a test ad does seem to impact quality scores of both ads.  Naturally they want the ad optimizer to be turned on (which optimizes based on how they’re paid: CTR), but I prefer to leave it off.  Play with it and determine which works better for you.

Hopefully this helps you optimize your Yahoo ads.  If you have any questions please feel free to leave them in the comments and I’ll answer them for all to see.

Google:

In the past I always had to submit a claim via my rep at the customer service number. However I recently discovered a specific page buried within Google’s support section that allows you to submit a claim directly to the ad click quality team. It should be done on an ad group basis, but in some cases it is definately worth the time involved.

Check all the boxes that you think may be signs of click fraud. Once you hit the continue button you’ll see links to the help section that might contain articles that explain what you’re seeing. At the bottom you’ll see a question with radial buttons asking if the articles answered your questions. Even if your question was partially answered, click no. Doing so will expand the window to include a submission form. Now it’s time to get down to business:

Fill out all the applicable areas and click submit. You’ll get an automated confirmation from the click quality team and a response several days after their investigation.

Don’t expect a full 100% credit for the clicks in that ad group. Google will more than likely say that a percentage of the traffic didn’t meet their expectations, and give you that percentage as a credit, or possibly even a portion of the percentage as a credit.

Keep in mind that Google will only investigate claims that are filed for traffic received in the last 60 days. Put a reminder in your calendar to do this task every two months to get the maximum benefit and decrease your billable clicks.

Yahoo:

Yahoo offers online data to learn about click fraud and how to navigate it via their Traffic Quality Resource Center. To file a claim you need to log in to your account and click on the customer service link at the upper right hand of the window.  A new window will open up that will allow you to write a message. Be sure to click on the drop down box underneath the type of inquiry request and select “Traffic Quality”.

It also gives you the ability to add attachments like spreadsheets or log files to back up your claim. What I like about the Yahoo system over the Google system is that the response email tells you when you can expect a time frame to have your case reviewed and completed.

To combat future inadvertent traffic–whether it be from click fraud or other unqualified traffic–you can request to receive a raw query search report every 30 days to look at the raw search queries that are producing the impressions for your ads (yes, I’m still talking about Yahoo, not the Google report).  Look this over and see what terms you don’t think should be there. Add those terms as excluded words at the ad group or campaign level and let your money be spent on better quality traffic.

So even though there aren’t daily articles on click-fraud anymore, know that it’s out there, and chances are you’re affected by it.  Fight it, because every dollar saved is one extra dollar towards your next conversion.

Courtesy: BusinessInsider.com

You probably get them as much as I do: those sales calls from people who can “guarantee top positioning in Google and other search engines”.  Little do they know that when they call me, they’re talking to someone who doesn’t mind showing them just how little they know about search engines and business in general.  Heck, if I can keep them on the phone a couple seconds longer, that’s hopefully someone else saved from hearing their snake oil spiel in the first place.  On one such call, I let the gentlemen finish his whole script and he proceeded on the hard sale.  I asked him one question: “What kind of ROI can I expect to see from your services?”

“Oh, our ROI is AWESOME” was his response.

Um…no it isn’t.  Last time I checked, ROI was a calculation where you take earnings minus cost divided by cost multiplied by 100 to get in percentage terms [((E-C)/C)*100], which I’m pretty sure leads to a number…not AWESOME!  The analysis of how that number meets expected goals may lead to the label of “awesome” and high-fives all around, but ROI itself is simply a number.

If you’re wondering why I’m ranting on this, it’s because this is the perfect example of mixing up the difference of results and the interpretation of the results.  This is critical when it comes to monitoring PPC performance.  You could have a 500% ROI, which some might consider awesome, but what if your break-even point required a 750% ROI compared to other activities you could have done with those resources?  Ladies and Gentlemen, in this case “awesome” has left the building and you have some explaining to do.

Since PPC can be factored down to the penny at a keyword level, don’t consider ROI as a goal, but as a floor to build on.  Look at your daily or weekly reports and ask yourself “Can I be happy with these results if they continued for X amount of time?”  If the answer is no, then you just reviewed the actual results, and interpreted them to be insufficient (aka “not awesome”), regardless of what the actual ROI is.
If you know that to break even after shipping, commissions, taxes, and all other costs that you need a 250% ROI from PPC (or $2.50 ROAS…same thing) then you should set your floor at 250% and not your goal.  Set goals in three forms: Ideal, Expected, and Acceptable.

• Ideal is shooting for the moon and really worthy of being called “Awesome”
• Expected is profitable and sustainable.
• Acceptable is north of break-even but you really want it higher.

This is especially critical if you work with agencies because agencies will ask you what your target is, and if you say 250% they’ll give you as much volume as they can at the 250% to spend as much as they can (assuming their compensation is based on percentage of spend).  So remember…awesome is a goal, not a number.  ROI is a number, and not a goal.  Setting a given ROI as a goal is awesome, so long as you know what your results should be.