We knew Google’s numbers were correct but why such a big disparity between our analytics reports,  after taking the top position n Google’s organic search results, and the current monthly searches Google was showing in their Keyword Tool. Well just the past Friday Sept. 24 Google revised the Keyword Tool’s search numbers and explained it this way:

“…we’ve also changed how we calculate Global Monthly Searches and Local Monthly Searches. Statistics in these columns are now based on Google.com search traffic only. Previously, they also included traffic from search partners.

So as you see, we can now see pure search numbers coming from Google Search. This is great for us as SEO’s and for everyone who was looking to the tool as a baseline of how certain keywords will perform.

To see the press release from Google Click Here

The text that is used in the links that point to your website has a major effect on the position of your website in Google’s search results.

For example, if many people use the text “buy blue widgets” to link to your website, then it is very likely that the linked web page will get high rankings for the keyphrase “buy blue widgets” in Google’s search results.

The link text (also called anchor text) is the text that is used in text links. Example:

<a href=”http://www.example.com”>this is the link text</a>

Unfortunately, not all anchor texts will be used by Google. Check the following things to make sure that the links to your website pass the correct anchor tag:

1. The nofollow attribute

This is a no-brainer. Links to your website that use the rel=”nofollow” attribute don’t pass the link text to Google. Example:

<a href=”http://www.example.com” rel=”nofollow”>great keyword</a>

There are some automated tools that you can use to help you find out if the websites that link to your site use the nofollow attributes.

2. Invalid characters in the URL

If an URL contains invalid extra characters then chances are that search engines won’t be able to index the link correctly. Example:

<a href=”http://www.example.com “>great keyword</a>

In this example, there’s a space at the end of the URL. Some webmasters found out that anchor text is not passed to Google if the link contains an extra space character.

Note that most browsers are able to correct this link and they will display the web page correctly. Unfortunately, search engine spiders seem to have more difficulty with malformed links (or they take them as a signal of low quality).

3. The links use 301 redirects

Google’s Matt Cutts recently confirmed that Google won’t consider all anchor texts that are used in 301 redirected links. Example:

<a href=”http://www.example.com/page.htm”>great keyword</a>

The web server redirects “http://www.example.com/page.htm” to “http://www.example.com” with a 301 redirect. In that case, it’s likely that Google won’t use the link text.

4. The first link passes the link text

If a page links twice to the same page then Google will use the first link text and discard the other link texts. Example:

<a href=”http://www.example.com”>This</a> is an example. The link text <a href=”http://www.example.com”>great keyword</a> will be ignored by Google.

The first and the second link go to the same URL. In this example, Google will use the link text of the first link, which is “This”. The link text of the second link will be ignored by Google.

If the second link points to another page of the linked website, then both link texts will be used by Google:

<a href=”http://www.example.com/page1.htm”>This</a> is an example. The link text <a href=”http://www.example.com/page2.htm”>great keyword</a> will be ignored by Google.

Links are the most important factor when it comes to getting top 10 rankings on Google and other major search engines.

No matter how good your company is, some people will always write something negative about your site, even if you tried your best to help them.

Some customers might write negative comments about your company in their blogs or some of your competitors might like to damage your reputation by creating fake comments about your site.

What can you do if web pages with negative comments appear on Google’s first result page for your company name?

1. Fix the problem

If people write negative reviews about your company, the first thing that you should do is to fix the problem that caused the negative review.

2. It doesn’t hurt to ask

Send the webmaster of the web page with the negative review a polite email and ask for removal of the negative comments. Many webmasters will cooperate if you explain the issue.

3. Give web pages with positive comments a boost

If the webmaster does not want to remove the negative review, find websites that contain positive comments about your site.

Link to these pages from your own website to increase the link popularity of these pages. The more links the pages with the positive reviews have, the higher they will be ranking in the search results.

If appropriate, bookmark web pages with positive remarks about your website on social bookmark sites such as Digg and Delicious.

4. Ask for testimonials from happy customers

If you receive positive feedback from customers, ask them to write a review on ConsumerReview.com, Epinions.com or similar sites.

5. Add your website to company wiki pages

Websites like AboutUs.org allow you to create an article about your company. If your company is important enough, you might even create an entry in Wikipedia.

These Wiki pages will also appear in the search results when someone searches for your company name.

6. Make sure that your own website tops the search results

If your own website comes first for your company name then most people will click on your link and don’t look further. Use the expert services of companies like Click Farther Media, to help you fix these problems. We use a hollistic and systematic approach to remove or push negative results away from the eyes of your customers. Call us at (561) 301-2424.

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.

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.

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!

I know I’m not the only person that remembers the line “just set it and forget it”. Those were the good ol’ days—the days when you could just set up a search marketing campaign and leave it alone.

Not anymore. Users are more sophisticated in their searches now, and we’ve seen that up to 20% of searches in any given month can be search queries never seen before by a search engine. This means if you leave your campaign untouched, you could be missing 20% more traffic.

So what’s the best way to keep up to speed with the changing search tide while maintaining your sanity? Here are our four simple steps that will help your Search Engine Marketing campaign keep pace.

1. First, let’s set up the campaign properly.

Start by making sure you have selected the proper match type-(Google) or if Yahoo, make sure your campaign is opted into Advanced Match (this is the default setting). Broad Match types in Google can be used if you need more traffic but can’t seem to find it, and when used with negative keywords can get you maximum traffic.

Advanced Match campaigns in Yahoo will display ads for a broader range of searches relevant to your keywords, titles and descriptions,than you may have thought of yourself. Thus taking the guesswork out of keyword research. (although I would continue to do the research)

Yahoo uses very sophisticated keyword or phrase intelligence which includes concepts that are related to your keyword, but that do not necessarily contain your keyword. Think of Advanced Match as the sales guy that’s going above and beyond to bring in great leads where you least expected them.

Which keywords should you start with first? Well, if you have a big budget and want to focus on driving traffic, then you may want more high-volume search terms (e.g. car) in your campaign. If your objective is getting higher conversions, you may want to include more tail terms as they are more product specific (e.g., new 2010 Toyota Prius hybrid car). Make sure to use excluded words (or negative keywords) to avoid matching to terms that are not relevant to your product or service.

2. Monitor your campaign regularly

Because search habits constantly change, you should tune your campaigns as regularly as possible. The frequency really depends on you and what your objectives are, and if you’re meeting those goals or not.

The best way to determine your campaign’s performance is through the myriad of reports available through the search engines reporting tools. It’s kind of like when you check traffic in the evening to determine the best route to take home. You may choose to take the shortest route but sit in a little bit of traffic (or a lot if you’re on highway 101). Or you may choose a route that is longer but less traveled, and gets you home 15 minutes earlier. The same logic applies to your campaign. Know your objective, and look at the reports to help you get there.

Once you have some insight about which campaigns and keywords are performing, here are some things you can try:

* Work with your consultant or search engine account manager to identify additional keywords and bid opportunities.

* Take advantage of our keyword suggestion tools & discovery tools to supplement your existing keywords. I recommend Keyword Research Pro. Its inexpensive and easy to use.

* Use organic search results to optimize campaigns and expand your keywords or add excluded words to avoid future matches. Google Analytics provides the keywords used when people find your website.

3. Tune your campaign

By now you have a pretty good idea which keywords are doing well in your campaigns, and which ones are lagging. It’s time to take action. Separate lower performing keywords from higher performing keywords so your high performers aren’t dragged down by your low performers. Create a “low budget” campaign that includes all of your low performing keywords, and use lower bids so that you continue to participate in the marketplace.

Another tuning technique is to separate keywords that get a lot of clicks from low-volume keywords. This allows you to tweak your ad copy for the greatest impact on the high-volume terms. Mixing the two may dilute your campaigns overall performance, and make it difficult for you to determine which keyword is negatively affecting your campaign’s Quality Index.

4. Sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor…but don’t get too comfortable

Now that you’ve tuned your campaigns, give it some time to see how each campaign performs, but don’t let it simmer for too long. The duration really depends on how much traffic you’re getting. You may notice changes taking effect immediately, or you may have to wait a few days or weeks to see the full impact.

At the end of the day, where does this cycle of keyword addition, monitoring, separating, tuning, re-running your campaign take you? It allows you to improve your ad quality and your campaign performance. The better a campaign’s performance, the less it’ll cost you to participate. And who wouldn’t want a few extra dollars back in their pockets?

Besides, if you’re not managing your campaign regularly, you can bet your competitors are—and possibly taking traffic away from you. To protect your traffic and your business, we encourage you to actively manage your campaign. Don’t just set and forget it!

Yahoo said the implementation will begin in the next “days.” Here is the announcement:

Implementation of the deal is expected to begin in the coming days and will involve transitioning Yahoo!’s algorithmic and paid search platforms to Microsoft, with Yahoo! becoming the exclusive relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers globally. Once the transition is completed, the companies’ unified search marketplace will deliver improved innovation for consumers, better volume and efficiency for advertisers and better monetization opportunities for web publishers through a platform that contains a larger pool of search queries.

Several Yahoo blogs have discussion around this. They include the Yahoo Search Blog, Yahoo Search Marketing Blog and Yahoo Developer Blog.

My Take Away: Notice is says “better monetization opportunities for web publishers”? Well there are several advantages to this merger and I will be sharing those with you soon! Stay tuned…

• Allows you to turn your WP blog into multiple sales pages
• Create different squeeze pages
• Create different page designs
• Create different campaigns
• etc.

Basically you never need to buy squeeze or landing page templates. You can create all of them under one domain name and control all of them from one location. Cool stuff.

You can buy the plugin or the theme that they offer or save some money and buy both of them. I suggest getting both of them because they work together seamlessly and allow you do do more.

To get just the plugin go here:

To get the bundled theme and plugin go here:

The main sales page is here:

Enjoy it!

Gary

It still amazes me that this would get ANYONES attention. Especially considering that we are all not complete idots right? Wrong! Yes there are a few of those out there who just can’t help themselves and have to see what the “Aliens” gave to this guy to turn him from homeless to millionaire. Its just plain human nature….we have to see what’s behind door number 2. We crave excitement and intrigue and that will never change. Oh and we also want to be millionaires.

So my point is there are many ways to get someones attention using headlines. I just wish we could move on from the stupid ones. Not all of us were raised on Jerry Springer episodes.