J.R. Farr - Keep it real.

Now, I can’t give away secrets on this topic, but I can tell you what affects your Quality Score and what you can do to fix that.  I’ll start with an interesting factoid about your quality score.

There are 100 factors that affect your Google Adwords Quality Score.

When you have a higher quality score you gain a huge advantage over your competitors and you pocket.

You awarded in with:

• Lower Minimum Bids
• Higher Placement for your Paid Search Ads

2005 Quality Score implemented by Google – The overall goal was to create a better user experience and of course, more relevancy.

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Search Engine Strategies – San Jose 2008

Whew, so the first day of Search Engine Strategies is finally complete.  What a crazy day, I have so much in my brain right now it’s almost overwhelming.  There are so many things I can apply to what I am doing currently, let alone what I haven’t already implemented.

The sessions I sat in today we’re extremely valuable to me.  I was able to get an insiders look from high end experts deep inside the search engines themselves as well as reputable website conversion experts such as Bryan Eisenberg from Future Now and Grok Dot Com.

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Ok ok ok… this isn’t the real reason but this is better then any other theory.

Apperantly, Microsoft Live Search admitted to being too “strict” on websites and how they were indexed. They are in the process of making the algorithm no so tough on websites.

Quote from a Microsoft Represenative:

The Live Search team is in the process of modifying the algorithms we use to determine which sites are indexed by Live Search index and which sites receive a ranking so our crawlers will visit the site. At the end of September we launched new ranking and indexing algorithms that were stricter than we anticipated, and we are now changing them to bring back many sites that were removed from our index or given a lower rank. We apologize that it is taking so long to remedy this situation, and we are treating it very seriously. Having high quality content is important to us and we want to make sure we get this right.

We do not have an exact date for fixing this issue, but our plan is to have it resolved near the end of spring. This is our number one priority and we have put all our resources into solving it and bringing a better balance to our indexing so it won’t happen again. We appreciate your patience while we resolve this issue, and hope you understand that at this time there is nothing we can do to modify or improve your site’s index or ranking.

Even when it comets to pay per click, Microsoft adCenter is still so far behind Google Adwords and Yahoo! Sponsored Search its not even funny. Don’t get me wrong they have come a long way & are continuing to get better everyday. Not to mention adCenter has created a fair amount of revenue for me and my clients.

I understand that Microsoft Live Search and adCenter are new but It’s just crazy to me the Microsoft can’t even get there algorithim right?

Does anyone else agree with me?

After writing my previous article it got me thinking. A few days ago I was asked a common question by 2 of my web design clients.

“Hey, now that the site is up and going why am I not showing up in the search engines?”

It’s hard to answer because how do you explain everything to them in 1. less then an hour session 2. without sounding like your trying to make an excuse or justify something. Honestly, anyone that has attempted SEO knows it take months before you show up in the search results and you see any type of benefit at all.

Really, most people do not understand all the algorithms given by the search engines, keyword density, age of the domain name, title and meta tags and so on.

Here is a better description direct from Wikipedia

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results for targeted keywords. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it “ranks”, the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

As a marketing strategy for increasing a site’s relevance, SEO considers how search algorithms work and what people search for. SEO efforts may involve a site’s coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site. Other, more noticeable efforts may include adding unique content to a site, ensuring that content is easily indexed by search engine robots, and making the site more appealing to users. Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or spamdexing, use methods such as link farms and keyword stuffing that tend to harm search engine user experience. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques and may remove them from their indexes.

The initialism “SEO” can also refer to “search engine optimizers”, a term adopted by an industry of consultants who carry out optimization projects on behalf of clients, and by employees who perform SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers may offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as a part of a broader marketing campaign. Because effective SEO may require changes to the HTML source code of a site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term “search engine friendly” may be used to describe web site designs, menus, content management systems and shopping carts that are easy to optimize.

Wikipedia Description of PPC

Pay per click (PPC) is an advertising model used on search engines, advertising networks, and content websites/blogs, where advertisers only pay when a user actually clicks on an ad to visit the advertiser’s website. Advertisers bid on keywords they predict their target market will use as search terms when they are looking for a product or service. When a user types a keyword query matching the advertiser’s keyword list, or views a page with relevant content, the advertiser’s ad may be shown. These ads are called a “Sponsored link” or “sponsored ads” and appear next to or above the “natural” or organic results on search engine results pages, or anywhere a webmaster/blogger chooses on a content page.

ROI

The most obvious benefit to SEO is the ROI. It doesn’t cost anything to you when a visitor finds you through organic or natural search. Thats not to say the ROI earned on SEO efforts is necessarily better then PPC though.

Why? With SEO you are limited to a number of things. How you can manipulate the user and where you show up in the search engines is night and day when it comes to SEO and PPC.

With PPC in just a few clicks you can show up in Google, Yahoo, MSN or any 2nd tier search engines. With SEO its just not that easy. It can take months and months before you have made any impact in the major search engines.

A few benefits of PPC -

• Manipulate what position or rank you want to show up in the search engines (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th………..)
• What time of the day you want to show your ad.
• You choose the budget you want to spend.
• Geo Target Specific Locations.
  • Local (by zip code, radius of location, metro areas, etc.)
  • Regional (one region or scattered regions throughout the country.)
  • Nationwide
  • Global
• Most importantly you choose the keywords you want to target.

If you have an experienced PPC specialist running your Paid Search campaign the ROI will always be bigger with PPC and the results and growth of your business will rise tremendously.

Keyword Targeting

Targeting the keywords you want in your search engine marketing strategies is a must.

Obviously, certain keywords are more profitable then others. More specific keywords tend to convert better then more generic keywords. Again, with PPC you have the ability to send traffic to your site with any keyword you want.

SEO is a little different ball game. Maybe after months of hard work you are finally ranked number 1 in Google for the keyword or term, “Apple MacBook Pro” but thats only ONE term, the more popular searched term is actually “Macbook Pro” and you are no where to be found. Plus, say that was three months ago and now that new hot product is the “Macbook Air.” Now what??? All that time, energy & manipulating the search engines weren’t as effective as you hoped.

With PPC you would of course have all of those keywords or terms in your ad groups keyword list to gain the most traffic and revenue.

Flexibility

With PPC you have all the flexibility you could ever want.

• Advertise in any search engine.
• Choose keywords you want to target.
• Point to product detial pages and landing page of your choosing.
• Write the ad copy specific to the user, your product, seasonal etc.

So now when you ask yourself, “Can I afford to spend money on paid search in my budget?”

Ask yourself this instead… “Can I afford not to?”

And for all of the “Search Marketing Gurus”

This post is my opinion. Not anyone else. The points I make are true. I know that the entirety of SEO and PPC are much more then this post but this is more of a brief explanation rather then a Search Engine Marketing Handbook… So just chill out and don’t leave comments on how much you know and what I missed.

I guess this is kind of my first real post about something important so i better make it good.

I have been involved with online/internet marketing industry for several years now. Doing mostly interactive stuff, everything from PPC (Pay Per Click), SEO, Blogging, Web Design, Affiliate Marketing and the list goes on. By far my biggest passions are being an expert PPC marketer and a Web Designer. I am constantly using my skills as a PPC professional day in and day out to make my clients successful as well as myself.

Today I was on a site I visit on regular basis, SEOmoz.org. This site has great content for any level of expertise in this industry. Anyway, this article really caught my eye for some reason.

I really learned an important lesson here, and I wanted to share this lesson with other PPC noobs like myself. My first encounter with AdWords, when we were running our impressions test, was pretty embarrassing. I thought you could just set up a campaign and let it do all the work for you, but that’s certainly not the case. You need to check your campaigns constantly, and you certainly don’t want to be losing money in your advertising attempts. In my experience, it’s imperative to know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em, so to speak. If something’s wrong with your campaign, sometimes the right thing to do is pause your ads and figure out what’s causing the problem, then make those changes and resume for testing. There’s no reason why you should have to dump unnecessary amounts of money on your campaigns, and we’ve now learned that.

You can read the rest of the article here.

It’s just crazy to me that even some of the most experienced marketers can make mistakes.

Most importantly though, I don’t understand how anyone can think that running a successful PPC campaign can be done on “auto-pilot.” Paid Search Marketing is not at the least bit, a set and forget. It is, in my opinion the most powerful online marketing tool today. If you have the right individual or team managing the campaign with the proper techniques and strategies it can turn the success of an online company around overnight.