Adwords Extensions – Sitelinks Extension

Have you ever sat in front of your computer, staring blankly at the rows and rows of exported Adwords data and wondering what you’ve done to your life and what your skills would amount to in the inevitable zombie apocalypse? Me neither – I love this job!

Also - I got my zombie problem solved.

 [Image via unrealitymag.com]

One of the best parts of this industry is that it seems to advance at a fast enough rate to keep you constantly on your toes, which is especially true, if you’re trying to be competent in SEO and PPC on several search engines. This post was supposed to go out on the week of June 6 2011 but got a bit delayed, and then Google started testing a new version of sitelinks and then it got delayed a bit more.. you get the picture. Anyway – Google Adwords Extensions..

Here’s an at-a-glance guide to Adwords Extensions. And the posts about longer titles in Adwords and Location extension.

Regarding the Sitelinks extension- let me make this as clear as possible:

YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE NOT TO USE SITELINKS EXTENSION IF YOU’RE ADVERTISING ON GOOGLE SEARCH.

Adwords Extensions – Location Extension

As mentioned in last weeks post, the Location extension in Google Adwords can be a great way to attract more potential clients from the local area. The best bit is that you can link it with your Places page and get the full version, which adds a nice touch to your ad:

Location Extension in action

Here’s how to do that:

Adwords Search Ad Title Extension

Last week, while doing research for a client on Google I noticed a peculiar ad along the lines of:

Replace 'in Toronto' with 'Petroleum Industry' and 'Workopolis.com' with 'Reed.co.uk'

Didn’t think much of it at the time, with Google playing mind games all the time, but then I came across this post. Google’s rolling out a new addition of Adwords ads in the search results – adding domain names to the title. At the moment it’s reserved to select ads that show up above the organic search results.

But back to the point – yesterday I posted an article about the use of Adwords ad Extensions and it ended on a cliffhanger. Here’s a reminder:

Let’s say you’re using the extensions already (or don’t wish to use them) and want to increase the prominence of your listing in other ways. There is, of course the good old ad optimisation, where you try to find the best possible ad for a query, but you don’t want to look at the percentages and goals and all that boring stuff – you want your results NOW!

Here’s a simple method that not many advertisers are using: longer titles.

Getting Results in Google Adwords Part 2 – Extensions

Got 100’000’000’000 impressions but a click ain’t one? Unless your client asked for that specifically (which would mean that you’re servicing Dr. Evil), you need to raise the visibility of your ad.

100 Billion Impressions!!!

Enough with pop-culture references.. Here’s how to use Google Adwords nifty ad add-ons:

Google Analytics Tips and Tricks

This post is about Google Analytics (GA)– if you don’t have an account set it up now… How to Set Up Google Analytics.

Imagine that one day Google decided to go into politics and run for president/prime minister/clan leader of your local government. Knowing that most elections are won by whoever can dig up more dirty secrets about the other candidates, there’s only one way that would end:

I, for one, welcome our new search engine overlords.

And it’s all thanks to Google Analytics – the single largest data gathering system on the web today. It’s free and it gives lots of information to website owners and managers – and if you know how to customise it this information can become even more useful.

Tools for Online Marketing – Charity Edition

Charities, like any organization can and should engage in online marketing activities, especially, since in most cases it’s much easier for them to attain results with smaller investment.

Take Twitter, for example- a charity can generate a strong following much faster than a commercial company just by virtue of people being more emotional and interested about a good cause than they are about an iPad (in most cases at least).

Who needs pandas anyway? It’s not like they can connect to Wi-Fi..

Every charity should ask themselves ‘Are we gaining the maximum benefit from online presence?’ For many charities the answer would be a definite ‘no’ and that’s a pity, because now, more than ever, there’re more low cost tools and resources at a charity’s  disposal than ever. Here are some of them:

Facebook Moving Into Search… Not

There was an article earlier today on AllFacebookLand, where a user posted about Facebook possibly testing a second search box with a ‘Search the Web’ label. This is not true! Facebook later commented that this may be a third party app or malware.

I’d suggest to run some virus or malware scans, if you see this, just to be safe.

 

The fake search box on Facebook

 

Getting Results in Google Adwords Part 1 – Keyword Match Types

Google Adwords can be the best thing that happened to your business or charity since the demise of animated gifs on websites.

I miss the 90's

It can also be a big headache and a mire of costs, spreadsheets and loads of unqualified visitors to your site, if it is setup or managed poorly.

One Step at a Time #2 – Engage and Track

This post is a part of the One Step at a Time series. View previous post here.

In the last installment, I talked about the first steps of a new website. That is registering your brand name on social networks and getting your site indexed on the major search engines, thus probably saving a couple of quid. Today let’s take that further- start “engaging” and “tracking”.

Engagement

One of the main things in any marketing campaign is consistency and it’s no different in the case of social media. Create a persona and stick to it. Do you want to be official, friendly or act like their high school buddy? Do you keep an air of authority, try to generate discussions or just want your followers to laugh at every update? The recommended approach is to go with what seems the right image for you or your organization, just don’t break the character you’ve adopted.

The major buzzwords in the social media marketing circles is ‘engage the audience’ or ‘engage the following’ or even ‘build a following’.

Afterwards just set to 'follow'

State of Google – Latest Trends March 2011

“The world is moving – either move with it or watch it float by.”

/Someone./

The above is also true to search engines and especially for the biggest of them all (cue drum roll) Google. The reason why they moved to the top is that they were changing and adapting faster than other search engines of the time. And they’re still at it, dragging the internet with them on the way to complete their mission: ”..to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful”.

Google - helping you access the most useful gossip since 2000