Saturday, March 31, 2012

Google Ads Display Advertising Model - The 2012 Enhancement

Published on by: James H. Hobson

The Google Inside AdWords Blog posted an article this past week which introduces substantial enhancements to the display advertising model. The changes that were unveiled are designed to make this advertising option more effective, and much easier to use

Within your Google Adwords dashboard you will now find a new tab, specifically for the Display Network. The new Display Network Tab is an interface built from the ground up to run display campaigns, and will enable you to bid, target and optimize display campaigns all from a single place. Here is an excerpt from the Google blog post:

A Revved-Up Contextual Engine

The contextual engine, which matches ads to pages based on keywords, is at the heart of display-buying through AdWords. We’ve been hard at work behind-the-scenes to give this engine its biggest enhancement ever, the ability to combine the reach of display with the precision of search, using Next-Gen Keyword Contextual Targeting. This means that you can fine-tune the performance of your contextual campaigns down to individual keyword level, which will help you take the performance of your marketing campaign to a completely new level. It’s now easier for you to extend search campaigns to display and more efficient to run the two types of campaigns together.

For example, let’s say you’re running display campaigns for a Travel Agency who offers a vacation packages in several Caribbean islands. In the past, you would have created themed ad groups targeting vacations to Turks and Caicos and the Caribbean. Now, with this new keyword level transparency you might realize that the keyword “Turks and Caicos vacations” is 4 times more profitable than the keyword “caribbean vacations”. You can optimize your campaigns to aggressively target these high performing keywords, and be more conservative on “caribbean vacations”.

Giving a Visual Edge

And like the writers of the best fairytales know, sometimes pictures communicate better than words (or numbers). Along with the new Display Network Tab and contextual engine, we’re introducing a way to visualize the reach of your campaigns, and see how that reach is impacted by combining multiple targeting types, such as keywords, placements, topics, interests or remarketing.

These changes are some of our biggest steps to date towards bringing together the science of search advertising with the art of display. We hope they give you some powerful new tools to connect with their customers and deliver engaging and relevant display ads.

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We're excited about this new approach, and will be among the first PPC management agency to leverage this for Ads clients. Check back for our thoughts and comments on the new changes to the Google Ads Display Network interface.

Monday, March 26, 2012

BuildMyRank.com Smashed By Google De-Indexing

Published on by: James H. Hobson

The ever-present slugfest between Google and service providers that offer "white-hat SEO link building" to improve organic rankings recorded a solid hit on one of the "better" link builders, BuildMyRank.com.

On March 19, Google deindexed a large majority, almost all of, a blog wheel network which served as the backbone of the link building services offered by BuildMyRank.com. The effect was so pronounced that BuildMyRank.com has opted to cease operations, and amend customer billings. Obviously the net effect includes ranking hits on a multitude of websites that had subscribed to their link building services.

You have to wonder how many customers of BuildMyRank.com will now see their rankings fall, lead generation decline, and ultimately lose sales and layoff workers. You also have to wonder how many hard working people in overseas shops are now looking for work because BuildMyRank is no more. Regardless, the punch has been delivered and the ranking shuffle is underway.

There are rumors that other link building networks may have been tagged. If your website has been affected by this event you will definitely see significant across the board ranking drops, and may (if you use it) find a message in your Google Webmaster Tools dashboard that mentions "unnatural links detected".

There is no doubt that countless companies have outsourced their SEO work, and given very little thought to the process being used, and simply enjoyed the ranking ride. I personally think that Google understands this and will not have any particular dislike for businesses at large. If you're curious as to why all of this matters so much to Google, you may be interested in reading an informative post at Hospitalera's Blog.

If your site has been affected, our recommendation is to brush it off and march forward. It would be a good idea to ask more questions to the next SEO company you hire so you don't waste your internet marketing budget or get ambushed down the road.

We are very curious to see which of these types of services will be hit next, and how it all will play out. If you, or your SEO service provider, is on top of their game this will create some superb opportunities to move up. It is quite obvious that any SEO strategy needs to focus on user value, be based on a wide array of SEO tactics, and be flexible enough to react quickly to market changes. Let's call this, the "Google Spring".

Friday, March 16, 2012

Social Media Use Grows, Facebook Timeline Shines

Social Media Management 2012


Published on by: James H. Hobson

Our clients are continually asking about how to use social media for business, and ask us about current social media trends. New numbers have been released which shows substantial growth in user activity, and suggests that recent social media changes are having a positive impact on usage.

Facebook Timeline

Facebook Timeline is being well received by most users, and is generally perceived as a very positive change, if not a great upgrade. With this change, Facebook is anticipating pushing their 2012 growth up from the 13.4% growth in 2011, after enjoying a 38.6% growth spike in 2010. Additionally, Facebook has introduced major improvements to its advertising platform. Facebook Premium is intended to extend the reach of paid advertising which will in turn increase impressions. Another new feature is Facebook Offers which offers users the opportunity to post special deals. We believe that these new features are designed to position Facebook as a viable local search tool for consumers on the go.

Twitter

Twitter use in 2011 grew by over 31%, and is expected to continue on the path of high usage. Twitter users now total over 465,000,000, with over 175,000,000 tweets per day worldwide. The greatest number of users are located in the United States, Japan and Brazil.

Google+ or Google Plus

Google's new social media site offers a slick interface, and nifty tools to connect with friends, family, acquaintances and associates. The ability to target messages to your "Google Circles" means that you have greater control than Facebook, and the added ability to easily share media content such as videos. We strongly recommend that every business establish a Google+ presence, and integrate the Google+ badge into their website's pages.

Google+ Help, or assistance with any social media sites, is available at affordable rates from a reputable social media management company in Atlanta.