Is Your AdWords Account a Hidden Horror?

Posted onApril 28th, 2011 byadmin

Have you ever watched a horror movie and seen a character do something so counter-intuitive it makes your brain explode? The victim walks into a dark basement without a flashlight knowing the killer is in the house. You’re already thinking, “Turn around! Don’t go down there!” But it’s no use, it’s too late. The victim’s fate has been written.

An unmanaged AdWords account is a lot like a B-rated horror flick and every day thousands of business owners walk into their own dark basement. Without a flashlight they are subjecting themselves to the hidden horrors that lurk in the dark. These business owners are allowing themselves to get slaughtered, financially speaking, by setting up Pay Per Click campaigns without understanding Google’s rules.

Pay Per Click is a thousand tiny knives slicing open the throat of your business. A click is a click and they add up fast. This is especially true when you’re paying for clicks regardless of how relevant they are, whether those clicks convert to a sale, or how much your products cost. The results can be savage. Advertisers commonly complain about spending up to $60k on AdWords yet they still can’t make a sale.

When the Keyword Search Pros look inside an unmanaged AdWords account it’s like turning the lights on in that dark basement for the first time. What we find will rattle even the most seasoned bones. (more…)

4 Easy Steps to Reviewing Google Analytics

Posted onApril 25th, 2010 byadmin

Before we jump straight into Google Analytics I want to set the approach strategy with everyone. Sometimes advertisers are forced into making decisions about search marketing from the pressure lacking campaign performance. They’re not getting enough sales, leads, inquires, and often they are paying good money for these limited results which causes them to look for answers inside Google Analytics.

My only disclaimer is that advertisers who are specifically going to Analytics for answers of what to change in their Adwords account might be quick to jump the gun before learning all the answers. I want to remind you guys that Analytics should be used, not as a change agent, but as a tool that allows us to get the entire story about your campaigns before making any decision at all. In other words, we use Analytics to paint the entire picture so that we can process all the information and eventually come to a justifiable conclusion about what is actually happening when people visit our website.

So for the purpose of this segment, I only want to give you tools that might help paint that picture clearer for you. In reality, everyone who follows these steps will achieve different results that will eventually demand different actions. What you learn today might be change the way you see your campaigns and even your business. Once the picture is clearer, what you do about it should become clearer too.

Note: Because Google Analytics contains information about your website from all referring sources, it is important that you observe the correct source segment (Adwords or Google) and compare to others.

1. Explore Bounce Rates in Comparison to Other Referring Sources

2. Explore Exit Pages (Top Exits and Percentages) in Comparison to Other Referring Sources

3. Explore Average Time on Site

4. Examine Content Page Views and Sort by Source

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Great job. By now you should have a stronger approach to Analytics and because you have more of the story, your decisions will be more informed and you won’t put yourself in a bad position because you took action prematurely.

Google Is On The Move Again. Are You Coming?

Posted onJanuary 6th, 2010 byadmin

Google Caffeine and Google Merchant Center is Stirring Up the Pot for Advertisers.

When it comes to Google Search, it becomes increasingly obvious that it’s evolving faster than ever. Advertisers who make a living from either natural search or paid search (or both) are now being forced into evolving with it. If you haven’t done anything NEW with you search marketing in the last year or so, you’re probably in for a rude awakening. Google Caffeine 2010 and the new Adwords updates are basically what’s taking off and leaving lazy, conventional advertisers in the dust.

Caffeine is the name of Google’s new method of ranking websites that has been in beta since last summer and has been tested on at least one of their known datacenters on IP: 209.85.225.103 since then. With it, come some new changes in how Google prioritizes websites. This week, Google is said to be officially rolling out the new changes on a permanent level. At this time, we will be conducting thousands of keyword tests to update ourselves on what strategies we will take to leverage these changes.

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