Hello and Welcome!

It’s the holidays, and we at WebRanking have spent a little time recently reflecting and appreciating what 2011 has brought us. From our great colleagues, both new and old, to our great clients, both new and old, we feel incredibly blessed to work in this amazing industry and eagerly look forward to what 2012 has in store.

But just because we are happy with 2011, it doesn’t mean we are getting complacent. With that, we bring you the 2011 SEM Wish List!

This year’s search engine marketing wish list contains almost 200 wishes, wants, desires and must-haves from over 30 esteemed search marketing professionals. SEM topics covered range from SEO and PPC, to Web Analytics and Social Media. Some of our SEM’s biggest wishes were regarding AdWords Ad Extensions and Search Partners, greater adCenter Admin and UI improvements, and of course, for Google to give search marketers back their (not provided) keyword data!

We hope you enjoy!

Wish List Topics

Search Engine Marketing (13)
Social Media (5)
Pay Per Click (9)
Google AdWords (100)
Microsoft adCenter (31)
Google Analytics (24)
Holiday Extras (7)

Continue reading “The 2011 SEM Wish List” »

A new Google AdWords combination headline has started to show up in recent PPC text ads for select queries. This new ad headline format is an even longer version of the extended headlines that include the ad’s first description line, and also contain the text ads display URL (domain name).

Google is either seeing a significant increase in clicks for ads in the top 3 positions with these new longer ad formats, or, depending on your conspiracy theory views, this is another step towards disguising their pay per click to look more like organic listings:)

Continue reading “Now Showing: Longer Google AdWords Extended Headlines Featuring Display URLs” »

In June of 2010, Google AdWords released their new keyword matching option called Broad Match Modifier. They did so without offering a simple or easy way for PPC advertising professionals to convert existing keywords to these new BMM versions.

Pay-Per-Click managers know that creating or converting keywords into BMM versions for Google AdWords can be a major pain in the @$$. You typically would have to either edit each keyword by hand or use a one of the existing keyword modifier tools. These tools would require you to copy your search term list into an excel spreadsheet or web-based form that would help to perform the modifications, then you would have to copy them back into AdWords or AdWords Editor. These are handy and have a couple of interesting features, but I’ve never found one that is as easy to use as the process I discovered almost by accident.

Continue reading “How to Change Keywords to +Broad +Match +Modifier Using Google AdWords Editor” »

The new Google AdWords “Communication Ad Extensions” have started to appear in search results for limited queries and searchers. These new extensions provide additional options for searchers to contact the advertiser that go beyond the click. Surfers now have the option to Request Call or Request Email. Communication Extensions are intended to be a simple lead generation solution that helps connect potential clients and customers (searchers) with businesses (advertisers) right from the search engine result pages.

Request Call “Leads”

Continue reading “Communication Ad Extensions for Google AdWords” »

Ladies and gentlemen: the story you are about to read is true. Not even the names have been changed to protect the innocent. What follows is an account of what at first seemed like a few fraudulent leads, but upon closer inspection included stolen personal information, unscrupulous AdSense publishers and a blind eye turned by those making money through these deceptive means.

Following, are just the facts…

Leads for top level, well known brands, at least for our boutique search agency, don’t come around every day. Or even every month for that matter. And when they do, they usually don’t fill out the “Free Consultation” request form.

And you certainly don’t get 9 in a one week time period.

In The Beginning…

Continue reading “Is Lead Fraud, Click Fraud 2.0? A New AdSense Scam Targeting Google AdWords Display Network Advertisers” »

Hummm. It is Friday afternoon so I guess this falls in line with the timing of most of Google’s tests and new feature roll outs, like when they tested their left side search tool on Friday, April 2nd that was Officially Launched on Thursday, May 6th or when they Tested Olympic Logos in Search Pages on Friday, February 19th.

The following screen shot indicates that Google is testing a new “Related to” pay per click text ad segmentation format in the search results pages. While, IMO, these look a little out of place, they may actually function better for users to help identify ad groupings that may interest them.

Continue reading “Google Testing New “Related to” Sponsored PPC Ads Segmentation in SERPs?” »

Yes! It finally happened. Earlier this week, on July 14th, Google AdWords rolled out their new Broad Match Modifier (BMM) keyword matching option to all of their advertisers in the United States. Since BMM had previously only been available to AdWords advertisers in the UK and Canada, it’s release to US campaigns is something that has been eagerly awaited.

When AdWords first announced the new modified broad keyword matching, they released an infographic to help marketers visually understand how BMM works and relates to existing match types. The infographic shows a very small set of examples of keyword matches that you can expect to have your text ads displayed for.

New Pay Per Click Keyword Match Types

After spending a month running and analyzing modified broad match keywords in a few Canadian AdWords campaigns, we developed a few matching techniques and initial bidding strategies that are represented in the following infograph. We feel that this is a better representation of the tiered levels of match type bidding, traffic potential and keyword matching. In particular we have expanded upon the new BMM match types with 3 possible levels of matching that we call: “Anchor Modified Broad Match“, “Dual Anchor Modified Broad Match“, and “Fully Modified Broad Match“.

Continue reading “Understanding Google AdWords Pay Per Click Keyword Match Types: Exact, Phrase, Broad, and +Modified +Broad” »

First off, before I get into praising _(below) the new Google AdWords’ Broad Match Modifier (BMM), let me state for the record that I have been extremely disappointed with Google’s “Expanded Broad Match” since it’s inception!

Why?

Well, when Google AdWords first changed their normal Broad Match keyword targeting to this Expanded Matching option, I half jokingly referred to it as their new Pay Per Click “Money Algorithm”. This term seemed to fit very well because this “Mo-gorithm” took perfectly good broad keywords and corrupted their individual intent by algorithmically matching them to many different words for the sake of displaying higher bidded terms over many queries, thus inflating competition for search impressions and causing AdWords advertisers to lose a substantial amount of control of their targeting capabilities.

Here is an example of the loss of control and “Expanded Targeting” that Google’s current broad match triggers:

Continue reading “Google’s Keyword Broad Match Modifier: The AdWords PPC Targeting Savior” »

At WebRanking, we are dedicated to enhancing our own knowledge in the industry we love. So on Thursday and Friday of this week, July 16th & 17th, I will be out of the office attending the Google AdWords™ Seminar for Success in Minneapolis. This is an Advanced Level Training Seminar designed to educate experienced advertisers in the successful management and creation of premium Google AdWords Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns.

Continue reading “Google AdWords Pay Per Click Seminar for Success in Minneapolis” »

Google recently added a new “Local Search Volume” metric to their AdWords Keyword Tool that provides additional keyword search data for the country that you are targeting.  This is a great feature for determining keyword versions for geographic targeting of campaigns.
Continue reading “Google Changes Keyword Tool, Adds Local Search Volume” »