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.
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Posted in Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing ~ 2 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

http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6111

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.

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Posted in Google AdWords, Search Engine Marketing, Pay-Per-Click ~ 2 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.

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Posted in Google AdWords, Search Engine Marketing, Pay-Per-Click ~ 4 Comments

There has been a lot of news and blog buzz this week about PageRank changes at Google. Everybody’s PageRank bar is a little less green and mass hysteria has ensued. I can’t say I blame anyone for this, as there is a lot of misinformation about PageRank …with the worst offender being Google itself!

If you are that guy who is freaking out, this is really going to surprise you: PageRank is not as important as you think. Here’s why…
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Posted in Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing ~ 3 Comments

Google AdWords Campaign Optimizer Optimizes Something
…but not Campaigns

Considering Google’s track record in releasing quality products, I’m a little bit disappointed with their recent release of Campaign Optimizer. Wanting to test this new tool, I set up a nationally targeted test campaign for “Tampa Plumbers”. I was careful to make sure the campaign was about as poorly optimized as the average campaign generally is.

The results might surprise you. Not only did Google AdWords Campaign Optimizer fail to offer any helpful optimization, its recommendations made the campaign less optimized. In addition, one can’t help but notice that all suggestions the tool made would help increase Google’s revenue from this campaign (generic keyword additions, increase bid prices, and copy changes that increase click-through rates). It also ignored optimization tactics that would benefit the advertiser in terms of driving qualified traffic and eliminating budget waste. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Google AdWords, Search Engine Marketing, Pay-Per-Click ~ 1 Comment

Well… I figured since I’ve been leaching off the knowledge of the search engine marketing community and not contributing, it was about time I gave back. I’ve been involved in search engine marketing in some facet or another for the past 15 years. Over that time I’ve lived through a lot of changes in the techniques that drive traffic and I’ve made my share of mistakes, so I hope there’s a little I can add to help others avoid my pitfalls. More importantly I think there’s a lot of crap out there to be found. Probably as much as 75% of what is out there is just plain bad advice or several year old practices.

For now, the focus of this blog will be geared toward the pay-per-click side of search engine marketing. I just think there is a big gap that needs to be filled in terms of solid resources of information. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Pay-Per-Click ~ 1 Comment