Identify traffic-stealing competitors
Find untapped keyword opportunities
Create content that ranks higher
Another SMX is in the books! This show definitely had one of the most engaged attendee groups I have ever seen at any conference in recent memory. The polite, attentive search engine marketers weren’t there to just network and enjoy the San Jose sun. They were interested and looking for answers. And on day three […]
In the first post of this series, we briefly explored Bing Webmaster Tools (BWT) with Sr. Program Manager Vincent Wehren. In that article, we discovered that BWT is a well-rounded suite of SEO tools that have the added benefit of the massive amount of search engine data provided by Bing. We also learned from Vincent […]
Over the last decade, search engine marketing has become a multi-billion dollar media channel powerhouse. It currently represents half of the $35B digital marketing budgets in the U.S., and it’s even bigger globally. The marriage between search practitioners and the engines has always been, at best, a work in progress. On one hand, search engines […]
Autobidders. Every SEM management tool has one. The promise is powerful: simply input the performance you’re trying to achieve and sit back, have a sody-pop, and smile as the little robots make your job easy. Ha! If it was only that easy! Most of you reading this post have used one in the past. Have […]
I’ve attended a lot of conferences in my day. I find them to be a great source for inspiration for new ways of thinking and new ways to tap into the industry community to grow my own knowledge. I had no idea, however, when I walked into the South-by-Southwest session, “It’s Nature’s Way: Innovative Tech Design […]
Continuing from last week’s introduction to placement targeting post, today we’ll discuss how you can set up one of these campaigns for your own account. Campaign Set Up Follow my Step-By-Step: Create An AdWords Content Campaign post from a few weeks ago to create campaigns, ad groups and ads. The big difference here is that […]
In the first two posts of this series (PPC Testing Part 1: The Ground Rules and PPC Testing Part 2: Optimization Cheat Sheet), the basic rules have been set and you’ve learned some of the optimization points you have to work with in order to gain more efficiencies in your accounts. However, for some, the […]
So, you’ve actually launched a PPC account! Woo-hoo! I think back to that great IBM commercial from a few years ago where an anxious boardroom launches the company website and the first sale appears on the monitor. They all cheer. Then another sale. And another. The boardroom is going wild. And then, the sales counter […]
Last week, in three easy steps, you uploaded your keywords and ads into your engine accounts. If you did it correctly, you will now have everything posted inside the engine platforms. Now it’s time to check and tweak the settings to ensure that your paid search campaign will launch exactly as you planned. Today, we’ll […]
You’ve done the research. You’ve done the build. Now it’s time to launch!
Well, the first half of this one-year search advertising course is in the books! This column was an idea that I hatched, and thankfully, SearchEngineLand.com’s executive editor, Chris Sherman had also been thinking about something similar, so the timing at the end of last year couldn’t have been better. So far, it’s been a wonderful […]
Throughout this column, the phrase “Quality Score” has popped up on different occasions. Understanding Quality Score is fundamental for successful paid search campaigns, but can be a difficult concept for beginners to understand. So the time has come to cover this topic so you can use Quality Score to your advantage and not fall into […]
So, another SMX is in the books! After uncovering so many great nuggets from last year’s SMX Analytics here in Toronto, I was looking forward to this year’s content. The good news is that there were two tracks, PPC and SEO, so the chance to catch good content was very high. The keynote was delivered […]
Because this column, PPC Academy, is a one-year search advertising course, it made sense to spend the first few months on research. In the real world of tight deadlines and downsizing, it can be easy to want to do everything quickly, but deep research can yield tremendous dividends for your account so it’s important not […]
Here are some tools that aren't specifically related to paid search, but are nonetheless valuable additions to your your search marketing research toolset.
It’s important to keep a well-stocked search marketing toolbox. Third party technology vendors offer a wide variety of discovery and management tools and are absolutely vital in the research phase. A few weeks ago we took a look at some tools that allow you to upload and then track keywords on major search engines to […]
Sometimes the start of a project is the hardest part. You don’t know what you don’t know. There will be questions to ask for which you may not know the answer. If you’re a beginning at search engine marketing, you may even be staring at a blank Excel sheet right now. The first question should […]
Recently, my agency has been putting a lot of time and resources into the ad exchange space. For those of you paid search folks with SEM blinders on, let me elaborate because the opportunity here for those with paid search experience is about to open up tremendously in the next few years. Ad exchanges are […]
Cyber Monday is one of the most important (if not the most important) day to paid search professionals in America, and I’ve got some great tips and tricks to share on how to make the most of it. But first, I thought I’d share some history of the term I found at Wikipedia: The term […]
Already its own specialty of digital marketing and now almost 50% of all online advertising budgets, paid search has fully grown into its own channel. A quick bit of research can quickly uncover a multitude of blogs, books, tools, companies, etc. all focused on the topic and within this channel, there’s even more fragmentation and […]
I took a lot of notes at SMX Toronto earlier this year and posted them in this column as Golden Nuggets From SMX Search Analytics. Looking back at them now, the evidence undeniably reinforces my memory of how much I learned, and I’m glad to say that three days at SMX East this week was […]
Okay, so it’s not curing polio or splitting the atom, but winning my fantasy football league this year was a fairly rewarding experience. Week after week, I racked up the points and left my circle of friends in the dust. My secret? Search marketing training.
In The Trenches is a spotlight of tips, tricks, and news about the tools search engine marketing professionals use to give them a leg up on the competition. My SEM Wish List: All I Want For Christmas is the Perfect Search Tool, Continued In my last column, I explained how much I want a new […]
In The Trenches is a spotlight of tips, tricks, and news about the tools search engine marketing professionals use to give them a leg up on the competition. Today’s in-depth look: Creating a SEM Super Tool and a contest for search engine marketers: Calling all search geeks: PPC management tool vendor Marin is running an […]
Today: thoughts on this week’s news about the Yahoo-Google Ad deal and adCenter updates; in-depth look: the 95 character poet: using variations in ad copy; and “do you hate checking boxes? ” in this week’s free tips and tools.
In The Trenches is a weekly spotlight of tips, tricks, and news about the tools search engine marketing professionals use to give them a leg up on the competition. Today: News from the search engines, today’s in-depth look, “Q&A With Google’s Insights for Search Senior Product Manager” and this week’s free tips and tools.
In The Trenches is a weekly spotlight of tips, tricks, and news about the tools search engine marketing professionals use to give them a leg up on the competition. Today: News from the search engines, today’s in-depth look, “Dynamic Keyword Insertion Pros and Cons,” and this week’s free tips and tools.
In The Trenches is a weekly spotlight of tips, tricks, and news about the tools search engine marketing professionals use to give them a leg up on the competition. Today: News from the search engines, today’s in-depth look, “Google’s Tools Section, Part 1 – Intro,” and this week’s free tips and tools.
In The Trenches is a weekly spotlight of tips, tricks, and news about the tools search engine marketing professionals use to give them a leg up on the competition. Today: News from the search engines, today’s in-depth look, “The Single Best Report in SEM,” and this week’s free tips and tools.
In The Trenches is a weekly spotlight of tips, tricks and news about the tools search engine marketing professionals use to give them a leg up on the competition. Today: News from the search engines, today’s in-depth look, “Geo-Targeting On The Engines,” and this week’s free tips and tools.
In The Trenches is a weekly spotlight of tips, tricks, and news about the tools search engine marketing professionals use to give them a leg up on the competition. Today: News from the search engines, today’s in-depth look, “What You Don’t Know About Quality Scores May Kill You,” and this week’s free tips and tools.