While I’ve written about decoding Google AdWords Quality Score and CTR in the past, I wanted to point out that Google released their official position in their post the other day about quality scores and the ad auction. Within the post they talk about CTR being a primary indicator of relevance in determining quality score which is them multiplied by Max CPC to determine position.
Posted in Google AdWords, Pay-Per-Click ~ No Comments
Foundational to good search engine optimization is the understanding that every search is someone asking a question. Someone who searches for “George Washington’s birthday” is asking, “When was George Washington’s birthday?” Someone who searches for “chicken soup recipes” is asking, “Where can I find chicken soup recipes?” Every search is a question, and every searcher has a unique job to be done.
When we understand that every search is a specific question and every searcher has a unique job to be done, it should change the way we think about creating, organizing and optimizing our web pages. Our pages can’t simply be a collection of facts on a page. Our pages have to become answers to specific questions and solutions to unique jobs to be done.
Posted in Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing ~ 1 Comment
Last week AdAge reported that Google CEO Eric Schmidt, while speaking with a group of magazine executives, referred to the internet as a “cesspool”. What is even more noteworthy, to us a search engine optimizers, is his statement that “We don’t actually want you [as SEOers] to be successful [at gaming the system]”.
The vast majority of us, as SEOers, are still stuck in 2006 when it comes to our SEO practices. We’ve generally ignored that the search engines have built countermeasures to our SEO tactics. As producers of real content have slowly moved up in the results, system gamers have moved down. So what is the solution? Better title tags? More links? In my opinion, it’s none of these.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing ~ No Comments
OK. I don’t normally make this kind of post but, since I haven’t been posting anything lately, I thought I’d share this little jewel (sent to me by Justin Davy).
http://www.searchenginerapbattle.com/
Posted in Other ~ No Comments
UPDATE: THIS POSITION IS CLOSED
http://jobs.scripps.com/details.html?id=7505
Posted in Search Engine Marketing ~ 1 Comment
It takes a lot to get me giddy as a little girl. When my parents gave me a TV for my 12th birthday I said, “Thank you.”. When they gave me my first starter car I said, “Cool. Thanks.”. My mom asked me if anything ever got me excited. She clearly didn’t know what a data freak I am.
The SEM community has had a big data hole when Yahoo stopped updating their Keyword Selector Tool. In grand Yahoo tradition, however, they totally missed the value of supporting, and being a friend to, their customers. First, they stopped updating their tool. Then they pulled it behind their PPC wall so only “paying” customers had access to it.”Hey Yahoo! Have you ever hear of a good faith gesture?”Apparently Google has. They’ve responded by opening up real data to everyone one. Not only does this befriend the SEM community, but it keeps Google’s brand out in front of their potential customers …something that Yahoo clearly hasn’t “gotten” yet.But I digress… Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Yahoo! Search Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Pay-Per-Click ~ No Comments
On Monday, Google announced that “we’ve greatly improved our ability to index Flash.” Since then I’ve heard and seen a lot of excitement flying around the web via articles, comments, instant messages, and even in my Facebook. At the onset, this “upgrade” sounds great, but let the buyer beware. You may not be getting what you think you are. There are potential positives to come out of Google improving their ability to index Flash. However, there are many unanswered questions that scare me any many of us in the SEO community.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing ~ 2 Comments
File under “Not necessarily Search Engine Marketing ”
Those who know me well know that I don’t always stay within the lines. Here’s an example of this bleeding over into the rest of my life.
Posted in Other ~ 3 Comments
The more time I spend in the forums, the more confusion I see about Google AdWords’ Ad Rank (CPC bid × Quality Score). I’m going to try to break this down, not by what Google says it is, but what it actually is.
According to Google:
A keyword-targeted ad is ranked on a search result page based on the matched keyword’s cost-per-click (CPC) bid* and Quality Score.
Ad Rank = CPC bid × Quality Score
The Quality Score for Ad Rank on the search network is determined by:
- The historical clickthrough rate (CTR) of the ad and of the matched keyword on Google; CTR on the Google Network is not considered
- The relevance of the keyword and ad to the search query
- Your account history, which is measured by the CTR of all the ads and keywords in your account
- Other relevance factors
The more you think about this, the more your head hurts. In reality, the formula is quite simple: Ad Rank = How much revenue your ad generates for Google. The more revenue your ad generates, the higher your Ad Rank.
Posted in Google AdWords, Search Engine Marketing, Pay-Per-Click ~ 3 Comments
If you’ve ever setup a Google AdWords account and noticed that the Minimum CPC (cost-per-click) for most of your keywords started around $1, $5, or $10 from the get-go, you may be experiencing a quality score issue around your “Visible URL” …at least that’s what was explained to me by a Google AdWords insider last week. It’s apparently possible, through no fault of your own, to inherit a doomed domain …and possibly ruin your SEM reputation in the process.
Posted in Google AdWords, Search Engine Marketing, Pay-Per-Click ~ 4 Comments