On September 8, 2010 Google caused an uproar in the PPC community with the release of Google Instant. Would fewer long-tail words be seen? Would broad terms become more effective then exact terms? Well it’s been 2 months and PeterD of PPCBlog has written a post on exactly how Google Instant affects PPC campaigns. His article summarizes the findings of a study of Instant search effects conducted by Marin Software. While these analyses are still in the early stages, the results of this study is a must read for anyone working with PPC.
Google Adwords is 10 years old this month, and is asking you to send them success stories. Be it written or in video form, the team at the Adwords blog wants to hear how Google Adwords has worked for you. Aside from this being a birthday present for Google, this video can no doubt serve as a way to show your ad agency’s success with a client or to get your name out there in video format.
The more comprehensive the Internet gets, the more valued local results have become. Google has recently capitalized on this by releasing Google Place Search. Now, when searchers type in queries, many times a floating map will appear in the right side bar…which moves as viewers scroll down. So what does Google Place Search mean for PPC? Erik Whaley of Search Engine Journal provides an insightful breakdown of the change, and he touches on the trend of localizing PPC. There is still testing to be done, of course, but this new tool is just another sign that local results are more important than ever for getting your ad found.
When you’re looking to tweak your PPC account, it’s always tempting to pause those non-branded keywords that aren’t converting. For the most part, branded terms are excellent converters, but don’t assume that your general terms aren’t influencing your customers early in the buying cycle. Many customers will need to research a bit with general terms before they become familiar with your brand. Analyzing your keywords with the Adwords conversion funnel is a handy way to see campaigns, ad groups, keywords and queries that are contributing to conversions from branded terms according to Joseph Kerschbaum’s Search Engine Watch post.
Last month, you may have been one of the many unfortunate Adwords advertisers who came into work, the sun shining, the day holding countless PPC promises and BAM! Your quality scores are in the toilet and your minimum first page bids are something from a nightmare. Two weeks later, is the problem fixed? In his PPCBlog post, Geordie recaps the details of what went wrong and gives us an update on the problem.
