Google Maps is rolling out what it hopes will be a solution to one of the Local Business Center’s longtime shortcomings: the inability for service-based and/or home-based local businesses to use the LBC. Before today, all local businesses using the Local Business Center had to display a business address for their physical location — not an ideal situation for home-based businesses. Further, for plumbers, real estate agents, and countless other businesses that serve many towns in one area, it’s been extremely difficult to have visibility anywhere other than the town associated with the LBC listing.
Those problems appear to be a thing of the past.
When logged in to the LBC, users will see a new tab called “Service Areas and Location Settings.”
After clicking “Yes, this business serves customers at their locations,” a new set of choices appears.
As you can see, at this point the local business owner can indicate that s/he doesn’t want a business address to appear in Google Maps. This is for local business owners who work from home, but don’t want to give out their home address in Google Maps. Until now, the primary advice for business owners in this situation has been to rent a mailbox somewhere and use that address; others have simply spammed Google Maps by using someone else’s address or creating a new, non-existent address to get around this problem.
For service-based businesses, there’s also an option to tell Google Maps how your location should be specified. The choices are “Distance from one location” or “List of areas served,” and you can only choose one.
There’s been no official announcement from Google about this yet, and we don’t know if this is available to all LBC users or if it’s a limited test. We have an email in to Google for more information. In any case, this will be extremely welcome relief for a large group of local business owners who’ve essentially been unable to use Google Maps for search engine visibility.
Google launched a new AdWords reporting feature called AdWords Search Funnels. AdWords Search Funnel shows you all the keywords that assisted in conversions made through Google AdWords, rather than just the last one before a buy or conversion action. This feature is being rolled out over the next few weeks, so keep an eye out for it.
Until now, Google would only show you the last keywords that led to a conversion. In many cases, searchers will go through a searching process that includes research that might not lead to an immediate sale but may assist in a sale after a few more searches.
For example, imagine someone searches for [camera] then visits your site and does some research. They later search for a specific model number that they want to purchase. They end up back on your site and convert based on the specific model number. Google will show you in the Search Funnels report that the keyword [camera] did not specific convert, but assisted in a conversion.
How’s Google gathering the data and protecting user privacy? Good Question. Here’s How:
Funnels are created by noting when someone clicks on an ad at Google. That links their search activity from that click to a particular advertiser for 30 days. If they do other searches in that period after the initial click, even if they don’t click on the advertiser’s ad each time, Google will still track that the advertiser’s ad showed for that searcher and what keywords it showed for. If they eventually click again on the advertiser’s ad and convert, only then is a funnel report created — and only if the advertiser also uses the AdWords conversion tracking code.
This means that no “natural” clicks are logged and reported in the funnel (a potential weakness for those fully trying to understand the research process). It also means that no keywords are reported as part of the funnel unless the advertiser has an ad showing for those keywords — so again, some part of a research process might go missing.
In terms of user privacy, Google’s not reporting actual search queries — the exact search terms entered in the order they are entered — but rather a list of keywords used overall. Further, any “non-popular” search paths are not reported. In other words, you shouldn’t be able to single out a particular individual. Instead, only popular funnels drawn in aggregate from data are reported.
First, only advertisers who make use of the AdWords conversion tracking code will even see tracking reports. Second, someone has to actually convert for a report to be available. Third, someone needs to click on an ad.
There is a summary page that includes total conversion, average days to convert, average ad clicks to convert and average impressions to convert. You can drill down deeper to see specific details.
For instance, you can see the distribution of the number of impressions and the percentage of those searches that led to a conversion (i.e. 45% convert after 1 impression and 20% convert after 2 impressions, etc.). There are reports that show a breakdown of the number of clicks leading to conversions, the time to convert, the top paths to convert and so on. I will post screen captures of sample reports, which should explain most of these reports.
It is important to note that you can set up conversion types to better differentiate between true assisted keywords and fake assisted keywords. For example, if you sell both dresses and cameras, most of the time an assist from a keyword search on [dresses] would not be relevant. So there are ways around that.
Finally, I have asked if the AdWords Quality team takes into account “assisted” conversions. Obviously, as a advertiser, to keep your quality score up, you want keywords that lead to clicks and conversions, but these reports can show you that impressions and non-converting keywords do play a role in conversion. When I hear back, I will update this post. Update: Google told me, “Search Funnel data does not affect quality score. You can see the core components of calculating quality score here.”
Google also discusses them more on their blog here.
Keywords are the search terms (words or phrases) which trigger your ad, and they are critical to the success of your AdWords advertising. This email explains how you can choose the most effective keywords, assess your keyword performance and how this affects the amount you pay.
Top tips for great keywords
A great keyword is:
- Ideally, 2-3 words long
- Specific (keywords that are too broad or general will not reach users as effectively as keywords that are highly targeted)
- Directly related to the text in your ad
- Directly related to the page your ad links to (specified by the destination URL)
What keywords should I choose?
First, look at your website content and write down every word, word combination or phrase that describes each category of your business. This is the starting point for creating your keyword lists.
Include all brand and product names as well as plurals, synonyms and alternate spellings for each word or phrase. Capitalization does not matter. Take out keywords that are very generic, irrelevant, or obscure.
Then, group your keywords into close-knit themes and create a new ad group for each theme. Put your keywords into these new ad groups. For example, if your campaign is for digital cameras, you can group together mini digital cameras in one ad group and SLR digital cameras in another.
Try using negative keywords. Negative keywords prevent your ad from showing when a word or phrase you specify is part of a search term. If you specify the negative keyword -repair, for instance, your ad won’t show for search terms such as digital camera repair.
Want more keyword information and examples?
How can I tell if my keywords are working well?
Check your keyword performance regularly in the ‘Keyword’ tab of your account.
An ‘Eligible’ status means your keyword is eligible to trigger ads. Click on the icon in the status column to get more detail on your individual keyword performance.
Then, one of the most important metrics to assess is the clickthrough rate (CTR), as it shows the proportion of people who clicked on your ad after they saw it. Keywords that produce a relatively low CTR (e.g. less than 1% on the search network) can often be improved. Implementing the tips above will help improve your keyword performance. A higher CTR will help to increase your ad’s position on Google.
Learn more about what keyword metrics to look out for.
How do my keywords impact how much I pay?
If your keywords are well chosen and you follow the tips above, your ads may show in a higher position or at a lower cost.
AdWords bidding works on an auction-style system, with advertisers bidding for keywords that will trigger their ads to appear. As multiple advertisers will often bid on the same keywords, Google must determine which ads will show, and in what position on the page. To do this, it looks at both CPC bids and the quality of your keywords:
- Cost-per-click bids (Maximum CPCs) are the amount you are willing to pay when someone clicks on your ad
- Quality score relates to how relevant your ads and keywords are to searches on Google, which is determined by a number of things, including your CTR.
P.S. Next week I’ll cover everything you need to know to write eye-catching ad texts!
