Archive for the ‘Google AdWords’ Category

Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Bid on Your Company Name or Brand Name in Google AdWords

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011

Should you bid on your company name or brand name on Google AdWords? I am asked this same question all the time from many of our clients and it’s a logical question that I’m glad to answer. The short answer is yes, I strongly recommend bidding on your brand name in Google AdWords for several reasons:

1. You will be able to control more space on the screen and more importantly, space that is above the fold. Even if you rank number one for your brand name, having a sponsored pay-per-click listing above it ensures that anyone searching for you has to scroll a lot further to find someone who isn’t you. Getting your name to dominate like this should mean that you’re not just paying for clicks that would have been free; you’re actually increasing the number of clicks overall. This is especially important for ecommerce websites for well-known brands since their products are available on other major retail websites such as Amazon, Walmart and Target who all rank very highly in the organic rankings.

2. Your competitors can bid on your brand name anytime. If your company was not bidding on your brand name, those clicks and potential sales would go to the other major competitors that I listed above along with smaller direct competitors trying to take advantage of your brand name for pennies on the dollar.

3. It’s extremely cheap. Often less than a dime or even a nickel per click. Meaning you could get 1,000 highly targeted clicks a month for $50.

4. You can gain invaluable insights for keyword research. It’s impossible to predict every single different misspelling or variation of a brand name related keyword phrase that users search for, so by bidding on the company name we can look at the data to see all of the keywords the ad was displayed for and make changes as necessary.

5. It gives you more control over your message. With organic search results, Google usually picks up your meta description or the first bit of text on your page – but not always. With pay-per-click ads, you get to craft a bit of copy specially designed to increase click-through rates. Also, with pay-per-click ads, you have the flexibility of constantly testing new ad copy and seasonal promotions without worrying about losing your organic rankings.

These are just five reasons why I strongly recommend bidding on your company name in Google AdWords. This post was highly influenced by this article about 10 reasons why it’s a good idea to bid on your brand in Google AdWords so I encourage you to check it out if you’re still not convinced!

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Top Negative Keywords for B2B Pay-Per-Click Campaigns

Tuesday, October 26th, 2010

If you are running a pay-per-click campaign on Google AdWords, Bing/Yahoo AdCenter, or any other PPC network to bid on Broad and/or Phrase match keywords without using Negative keywords, I can guarantee you are wasting a good chunk of your budget on keywords that will never convert into sales for your company or your clients. Below is a list of negative keywords that I have personally added to various B2B campaigns that you should consider using for your campaigns:

Education/Employment-related keywords:

career
careers
certificate
certification
conference
conferences
course
courses
degree
degrees
education
employment
grant
grants
job
jobs
journal
law
laws
resume
resumes
salaries
salary
school
schools
training
wages

Information-related keywords:

article
articles
blog
blogs
book
books
calculator
calculators
definition
define
game
games
guide
guides
guidebook
guidebooks
information
instructions
manual
map
maps
models
news
newsletter
picture
pictures
photo
photos
schedule
schedules

Bargain-hunter related keywords:

bargain
cheap
cheapest
download
free
inexpensive

Free Google AdWords Voucher Worth $100 for New Clients

Monday, July 26th, 2010

Since I am a Qualified Google Advertising Professional, I am given free AdWords vouchers worth $100 for new clients interested in trying out Google AdWords. I have been managing Pay-Per-Click campaigns for numerous businesses and organizations over the past five years and have had achieved much success for them. Feel free to check out some of the search engine marketing results we have achieved for our clients over the years. If you are interested in trying out Google AdWords for the first time and would like to use a free $100 AdWords credit to get started, please contact us today!

AdWords Conversion Rate Optimization Tip – Add Keyword to Landing Page with Dynamic Keyword Insertion

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

One of the most effective ways to boost conversion rates for Google AdWords campaigns is to make sure to include the exact keyword that the user searched for to get to your site on the landing page. Not a slight variation of the keyword they searched, but the exact keyword they searched! The easiest way to do so is by utilizing Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI).

Let’s say we want to set up an AdWords campaign to advertise musical instruments for sale. Here’s how I would set it up from the beginning.

1. Create a new AdWords campaign called “Musical Instruments”. Configure the campaign settings so that the ads only show up on Google search results.

2. Create an Ad Group called “Guitars”.

3. Bid only on Exact Match keywords, such as [guitar for sale], [buy guitar], [buy American Standard Telecaster guitar], etc. It is critical that the keywords are Exact Match! Otherwise, there runs the possibility that the keyword the user searched for and the keyword you bid on are different, and thus the keyword inserted on the landing page with DKI will not match what the user searched, which may end up confusing and discouraging the user.

4. Create a new text ad. Add the DKI keyword to the end of the Destination URL. For example, if my landing page is www.mymusicstore.com/guitars.php then I would make the Destination URL www.mymusicstore.com/guitars.php?kw={keyword}.

The AdWords campaign is ready, now we just have to add some code to the landing page itself.

5. If you’re using a PHP-enabled page, place the following code at the top of the page to grab the keyword parameter from the URL.

6. Now that you have grabbed the keyword from the URL and stored it as a PHP variable, you need to add it to the content of the page. Here is an example that I have used on several sites with much success:

The code above checks to make sure that a keyword parameter is actually in the URL. If there is, it echos a DIV container which outputs the exact keyword that the user searched for:

This is just a simple yet very effective way to maximize the relevancy of your AdWords landing pages and as a result, boost the conversion rates and ROI of your campaigns.

Streamline Metrics Attains Recognition as a Qualified Google AdWords Advertising Professional

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

I am proud to say that I have been officially recognized as a Qualified Google Advertising (Google AdWords) Professional. In order to be recognized as a QGAP, the following requirements must be met:

To become Qualified, this individual has:

• Accepted the terms of our program.
• Managed at least one AdWords account in a master account for 90 days.
• Built and maintained our 90-day spend requirement.
• Passed the Google Advertising Professional Exam.

You can view the official Qualified Google Advertising Professional profile page for Streamline Metrics at https://adwords.google.com/professionals/profile/org?id=015187405271492007149&hl=en. To find out how we can help your business with your online marketing efforts, please contact us for more information.