There’s no denying the synergy between SEO and paid search marketing, and paid search marketers would do well to take away a lesson or two from the world of organic search engine optimization to improve their campaigns. 1. Keywords! Keywords! Sherlock Holmes exclaimed, “Data! Data! …I can’t make bricks without clay.” And likewise, keywords are […]
Are in-house search engine marketers taking full advantage of all the features and tools at their fingertips? Being more organized, efficient, or better informed may not require additional special tools or staff, but just better utilization of the fantastic features already provided for free by search engines. In-house marketers are always under pressure to do […]
Many in-house search marketers operate within a seasonal framework, whether a retail high season culminating in Christmas, a peak summer travel season, or another cyclical ebb and flow of sales time. Additionally events, like the Olympics or a presidential election, can impact search engine marketing for many businesses. Staying on top of these trends and […]
While search engine marketing conference attendance for agency staff is almost a given of the job, in-house search engine marketers may find themselves more challenged to justify the expense, both in time and money of conference attendance. Conferences like Search Marketing Expo (SMX) provide a host of benefits that more than justify the cost; the […]
Looking back on 2011, as always, there’s lots of change in the search engine marketing world! New ad products, new features and new media keep in-house online marketers ever on their toes to stay up on the latest and greatest opportunities in an increasingly complex field of online marketing. What were the most interesting and […]
Google’s early gaffe of not adequately addressing the demand for brand pages for Google+ has quietly given way to several new business-oriented Google+ features for in-house marketers to utilize. Brand pages, social extensions and a trusted verification process are all features in-house marketers should immediately engage with to increase their Google+ counts and brand profiles. […]
When Q4 rolls around, in-house search marketers, like me, probably feel a heady mix of anxiety, dread and oddly, excitement. All this can only mean one thing, it is annual budgeting time! Stressful deadlines, aggressive goals, but also great ideas and opportunities all roll into a couple of intense weeks (and I feel for those […]
The second largest search engine on the web after Google is YouTube. In-house search engine marketers often overlook the promotional possibilities of YouTube, but with the relatively recent proliferation of cheap and easy video filming technologies (iPhones, Androids, Flips), leveraging YouTube’s massive search volume is something in-house search engine marketers should give at least as […]
If there’s one complaint that is universal for in-house search marketing managers, it’s that there just isn’t enough time or resources to get everything done. And usually, this complaint is valid; rare is the case of over staffing for search marketing. Often, one person may handle SEO as well as paid search and hey, for […]
After years of minimal change to the format of AdWords ads (some ad extensions are the only radical change), all paid search ads now have the +1 button right after the headline on their right side. How will this new social aspect impact paid search marketing? And what can in-house search marketers do now to […]
In early May, Google released version 9 of AdWords Editor, with some fantastic new changes for in-house search marketers engaged in hands-on management of campaigns (and one annoying alteration). Today, I’ll show you how to get the most out of these new features! Manage Negatives More Efficiently In prior versions of AdWords Editor, negative keywords […]
At search engine marketing conferences, I am often asked for advice on how to hire people for in-house search engine marketing jobs. Usually over lunch a business owner turns to me and says something like, I came here to learn more about all this search engine stuff and what I learned is that I need […]
After Yahoo’s 1st Quarter 2011 earnings call, quite a bit is being written about whether the Microsoft-Yahoo deal is a failure or success for Yahoo. In my opinion, the more compelling question to ask is: has the deal been a success for search engine marketers — especially those in-house? The Results Nothing screams marketing success […]
In-house search marketers are often struggling to find ways to grow their responsibilities. For many, the search engine marketing program itself will only get so big or complicated before it settles into a healthy size for the organization that runs like a well-oiled machine. In-house marketers who are looking to grow their skills, expand their […]
In preparation for my upcoming appearance at SMX West as a PPC pro in the Paid Search Tune-up Clinic with the SMX Mechanics session, I’ve been thinking more about quick fixes for paid search marketing accounts. Next time you are waiting to get your oil changed, login on your laptop and consider these three 5 […]
Got a new mobile app that needs marketing? I wish I could say there’s an app for that, but for in-house search engine marketing managers, marketing a new mobile app involves a lot of the same elbow grease and detailed, tactical campaign work as a search engine marketing campaign. The App’s (Finally) Approved After a […]
Every day in every way, you can become a better search engine marketer. Here are some resolutions to start 2011 off right! Stop Making Poor Mobile Choices There are still many search marketers out there who are running the same desktop search campaigns in mobile. Remember when you did that for content targeting five years […]
Now is the time of year for putting together wish lists for Santa, and it got me thinking about what I’d most like to get as an in-house search engine marketer. While the gifts search engines send advertisers are sometimes appreciated (does another USB drive mean I was naughty or nice?), I think all in-house […]
About a year ago, (October 2009) Google inked a $15 million Twitter deal to include tweets in search and finally, the day has come where AdWords advertisers can take advantage of real time Twitter feed access in their Google display ads. Google Twitter Ads Twitter ads follow a standard Google display template for all supported […]
If you’re an in-house online marketer like me, no doubt your inbox also seems to be coming increasingly inundated with solicitations to try the exciting world of retargeting or remarketing or remessaging solutions. In the seemingly endless sea of provider choices, are any of these types of retargeting worth the technical effort involved and how […]
If search engine marketers are only using AdWords Placement Performance reports to exclude sites, they’re seriously under-utilizing the information Google is giving them. Read on for additional ways to leverage the goldmine of data in placement reports. The basics: add site exclusions & managed placements The AdWords Placement Performance report is available in the Reporting […]
As part of the continuing series on expanding in-house search marketing efforts beyond traditional search, this week the focus is on mobile search marketing campaigns. Read on for a guide to getting started and mobile search marketing best practices. Mobile search share Some marketers argue that mobile queries still represent too small an overall volume […]
If your in-house programs for Google, Yahoo and Bing are running like well-oiled machines, it’s time to start poking around for new online marketing channels to test. An option many online marketers report increasing success with is Facebook ads. Facebook advertising doesn’t work quite like a search engine does, so read on for a primer […]
There are few topics in search engine marketing with such varying, vehement opinions as affiliates and PPC marketing. Allow affiliates to bid on brand terms? Allow them to buy search engine marketing at all? In-house search engine marketing and affiliate program managers should debate the issues and benefits below and define search engine marketing policies […]
Still managing your paid search marketing accounts through the online interfaces? If so, you’re about to discover more efficient ways to work offline with Google, Yahoo and Microsoft desktop tools and revolutionize your paid search account management. Desktop tools download complete paid search accounts into an offline management tool for easier editing. Bulk updates, searching […]
In-house search engine marketers, even at a large company, are usually a very small group of people. Your team of one (or a few) needs to manage multiple search engine marketing platforms efficiently and effectively. One strategy for success is to become a rock star at recycling the search engine marketing work you’ve already done. […]
As Twitter results become increasingly commonplace on search engine result pages, there’s no time like the present for in-house marketers to help spice up unpaid search efforts with some Twitter action. As brand names are quickly claimed, the marketer who hesitates may be lost. There are lots of wonderful branding and customer communication benefits to […]
If sitelinks, product extensions and plus boxes are still sounding like Greek to you, read on for a primer on implementing Google Ad Extensions as a part of your paid search strategy. Testing these new extensions is a great exercise for any in-house search engine marketing manager. Sitelinks Sitelinks launched with wide availability in November […]
While it may feel like 2010 is already whizzing by, now is a good time to take a step back and think about the big to-do list items for in-house search marketers this year. We’ve all got a list of million little search optimizations that need doing, but here are some larger tactics to think […]
The most wonderful time of the year is upon us, the fourth quarter. For search engine marketers focused on retail this is their time to shine, but for others (like travel), Q4 is the low season. Whether Q4 is a good time for you to do some SEM house cleaning, or to fire it up […]
When an in-house search engine marketer lovingly crafts a new paid search ad, spends time testing multiple ad texts, labors over search term lists to pick the perfect words, the last thing the advertiser wants is to have all that work help another site’s search engine optimization efforts. And yet, increasingly, I see AdWords ad […]
There’s no going back for me now, I’ve made the compulsory switch to the new AdWords interface. While I have my gripes, there are also some useful new features which can help in-house search engine marketers save time and streamline account management tasks. The real question is, do the improvements outweigh the loss of some […]
In a large organization there is always pressure to automate certain functions. Can people spend less time on mundane tasks or remove them from human hands all together? Often, organizations take for granted that automation is always better in terms of accuracy and efficiency. There’s plenty of room for automation in search engine marketing, but […]