Posts Tagged ‘google adwords’

PPC For Small Business – Google Provides Dedicated Forum

Saturday, August 21st, 2010

Google have introduced a special area in their Adwords forum specifically targeted towards small business. Appropriately named ‘Small Business Corner’, it allows small businesses that use Google Adwords to come together to discuss what works, what doesn’t work, and how to get the best out of their ad campaigns. PPC for small business can be difficult as business owners tend to manage their own campaigns rather than employing professionals.

The Google small business blog best sums up the forums intentions stating:

The Small Business Corner is designed to give those of you who are running your own AdWords accounts the opportunity to share best practices in discussions with your peers so that you can make sure your AdWords account is doing all it can to support your business goals.

Areas of interest that small business owners can share include tools used to help with PPC campaigns and measuring results, and how to craft winning ads.  In the offline world, small businesses have regularly come together to form associations where they can discuss and share business ideas. Google’s Small Business Corner is only one of a number of small business forums, however, as it’s directly related to Adwords, it may make for an interesting place to share ideas.

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Posted in PPC for Small Business | 6 Comments »

Two Google Keyword Tools You Must Bookmark

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

Google has two keyword research tools (actually three, but I won’t count the Google AdWords internal toolbar) and you should be aware of how to use them.

The first tool is the Google AdWords External Toolbar. This is essentially the Google AdWords internal toolbar except that you don’t have to be logged into your Google AdWords account to use it. It’s a great tool if you are just doing cursory research that you don’t think you are going to use right away or you don’t have a Google AdWords account and want to do some keyword research.

You can generate ideas in one of two ways – using descriptive words and phrases or by associating them with a website. If you are generating a keyword list for a specific website that have already built then be sure to check the box for Website content.

Next, enter some keywords in the box and check “Use synonyms”. You can also filter your keywords to exclude unwanted words that you don’t want to target. For instance, if you are searching for keywords related to “widgets” but don’t want anything related to “red widgets” then you can exclude the keyword “red” or the phrase “red widgets”.

After clicking the box to generate keywords, you’ll see your keyword list pop up with the following columns:

  • Advertiser Competition
  • Local Search Volume (month specific)
  • Global Monthly Search Volume

The match type will also be set to broad. You can change it to exact, phrase, or negative. I recommend starting with broad and you can narrow it down as you do more research. You can also expand the columns that are displayed, but if you aren’t planning to do any PPC advertising then the other columns won’t help you much.

You can use this list to see which of your keywords are the most popular from month to month and to judge what your competition for those keywords is. It’s a good tool to use.

Google’s Search-based keyword tool is slightly different. With this tool you can actually get more specific in your research initiatives. Since the data is based on actual searches rather than broad research data it should be more accurate, but that doesn’t mean it will benefit everyone. This tool is a great tool if you already have a website built and you want to expand your list of keywords for specific pages on your site.

The search-based keyword tool allows you to compare keywords generated for a specific web page on your site and the keywords in your Google AdWords account. If you are currently running a PPC campaign then you can find new keywords to target. It is a great tool for showing where you might be missing opportunities.

I challenge you to learn more about these to keyword research tools. Use them when the time is right.

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Posted in search engines | 4 Comments »

The Best Keyword Tool In The World Is Free To Use

Thursday, September 11th, 2008

If you are just starting out online then you might be wondering about all of this keyword business. How do you find the best keywords? Where do they hide? Doesn’t it cost a lot of money?

To answer, you research them. They’re not hiding. No.

Keywords are not hard to find, but it is hard work to find them. The best keyword research tool online is actually one owned by a search engine company – Google. Yep, the Google External Keyword Tool.

It’s called “external” because it exists outside of Google AdWords, which is the tool that search engine marketers typically use for keyword research. But if you don’t have an AdWords account then you’d have to gain access to the keyword tool by signing up for an account. Now you don’t have to. Not that you’ll never do so, but it’s just that you can do so when it’s time to do so and not before.

The Google Keyword Tool will allow you to research your niche concept and find synonyms for your keywords. By finding the best, and most profitable, keywords for your niche site concept, you can figure out how people search for information related to your niche. Then you can use that research to provide the information they are looking for. It’s smart business. And the best keyword research tool on the market is free.

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Posted in Market Research, Tools for Small Business | 2 Comments »

Google Changes Quality Score

Friday, August 22nd, 2008

If you’re a Google AdWords user then you’ll definitely want to know that Google has changed a few things about how it analyzes quality score.

Specifically, these are the changes:

  • Calculated at the time of a search query
  • Not marked ‘inactive for search’
  • Replacing ‘minimum bid’ for ‘first page bid’

I like what Andy Beal has to say: These changes are intended to bring in more revenue for Google. But if it also results in more revenue for advertisers, it’s a good thing. Right?

I’m willing to accept that calculating quality score at the moment a search query is made will result in more accuracy. How would I know? But I’m not sure the other two changes will benefit advertisers much.

The ‘inactive for search’ message for your keywords was intended to help advertisers by not showing ads based on those keywords because they weren’t going to help you much. If that was the case then why are those ads going to be shown now? Will that increase untargeted clicks? If so then it will eat into your ROI. It means advertisers will have to take more responsibility in choosing the proper keywords.

Changing ‘minimum bid’ to ‘first page bid’, however, is a bit more clandestine. This is an attempt to increase bids. If you know that your minimum bid to be approved by Google is .50 and you have a small budget then you are likely to spend .50 or a little more, but not much more. But if you are blind regarding the minimum bid and you know that it will cost you at least $1.00 to get on page 1 for your keyword, what are you going to do? Psychologically, most people will try to bid well enough to get on page 1, but not necessarily high enough to capture No. 1. As more people compete for page 1 listings, a bidding war ensues. It won’t be long before that $1.00 minimum turns into $2.00. But what if you’re satisfied with a page 2 listing? You’re in trouble.

I think it won’t be long before small businesses trying to nudge their way into pay per click advertising will have to use a provider other than Google. They’re quickly going by way of eBay and creating policies to help the big spenders by cutting out the smaller competition.

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Posted in PPC for Small Business | No Comments »