Keyword Research

Making the Connection: How Duracell Misses the Mark with Daughtry Facebok Campaign

Written December 7th, 2011 by

Making a ConnectionIn marketing it’s all about making connections.  Products and services to messages, facts to value propositions, companies to potential customers these connections are all vital to having you marketing strategies succeed .  Marketers generally assume that the messages they devise will be easily understood by customers and that they will be able to make the connection of why what we are presenting to them should matter to them.  That assumption, without data to back it up, can sometimes be the death of any a marketing plan, no matter how easy you assume that the leap is to make the connection, especially if egos are involved.

Failure to make the connection can also happen when not all of the parties involved are on the same page.  This happens a lot when marketing departments are ‘siloing’ their efforts.  In other words, the PR (pubic relations) department has no clue what the online marketing department is doing and vice versa and they are running separate campaigns in similar venues and the messages are confusing between each channel.  In these situations not only is it confusing for the customer, its damn near impossible for them to make a leap in these messages to make the connections, let alone trust that the company itself understands its own messaging.
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Do You Know Which Blended Search Opportunities Exist For Your Business?

Written August 10th, 2011 by

For several years now, Google has been presenting more than the standard 10 blue links in its search results. What does a search results page even look like with only 10 blue links? I had to get creative to find a good example, since they are becoming rare, so I chose three words from standard “lorem ipsum” dummy text as my search query. Here’s what the old 10 blue links search results look like when I searched for the Latin words quo magna etiam.


These days, videos, images, news, and other non-traditional items are likely to show up in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) for any given search query, and Google continually experiments with these results. This mashup, commonly called “blended search”, combines results from web search and Google’s other properties such as Google News, Youtube, Google Products, and Image Search, as well as results from external sources such as review sites. This gives you the opportunity to work your way into the first page of results through these alternative avenues.

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Audience Research: Don’t Fall for the Counting Trap

Written August 3rd, 2011 by

Traveling and speaking at many conferences, I’m often asked, “How do you come up with a successful strategy for a client? Do you use Twitter, Facebook or YouTube?” I reply that it all depends on my client. Now that may sound like I’m side stepping the answer, but to be perfectly honest, that is exactly the right answer.

There’s No Cookie Cutter Solutions

Photo credit Flickr user coljay72 I know everyone would love to have a “rip open the box and install” solution to creating the perfect online marketing strategy, especially when it comes to social media. However, while a few tactics can be considered to be standard, i.e. securing profiles in social media communities like Facebook & Twitter, how you engage in them can be a totally different story. That’s why research is so vitally important to an integrated marketing strategy in today’s world of marketing to consumers.

There are a variety of different tools you can use to help you with your research. From free to paid, you will get what you pay for. The more expensive the tool, the more information you are going to receive, in both the amount of records and the type of data. From sheer ‘counting’ to actual sentiment analysis, some tools can be very overwhelming in what they bring back – let alone being able to pull actionable insights from that data in order to build a sound strategy for a marketing plan.

Don’t Fall for the Counting Game

When you are beginning to do your research it’s very easy to fall for the counting game. What I mean by the counting game is looking at the sheer number of conversations going on about a particular keyword. Looking at the sheer number, and reporting those numbers as the volume of conversation out there, can be a fatal miss-step if you are planning a strategy around engaging actively interested and motivated audiences.

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How to Create a Google Ad Campaign, Part 3

Written July 6th, 2011 by

In our first two articles we went over how to write a PPC ad and use the web version of Google AdWords to put that ad to work. Now that you have learned the basics, I am going to show you a few more tools to use to make your job easier. The first has to do with keywords.

In previous posts, you have seen how keywords narrow things down, but what happens when you don’t want certain words to point to your website, for example?

Let’s imagine you have an ad that uses the keywords free and trial in various phrases. Let’s take two of these search phrases – free tour and one day trial. Each of these phrases can lead searchers to your ad. What you don’t want to see is any search action containing free and trial leading to your ad. So a search for free one day trial should NOT trigger your ad. The method you use is adding negative keywords.

What are negative keywords?

I. Definition

Negative keywords are a core component of a successful keyword list. Adding a negative keyword to your ad group or campaign means that your ads won’t show for searches containing that term. By filtering out unwanted impressions, negative keywords can help you reach the most appropriate prospects, reduce your cost-per-click (CPC), and increase your ROI.

II. Example

The negative keyword –free trial would prevent your ads from showing on any searches containing the terms free and trial. It wouldn’t prevent your ads from showing on variations of these terms, however. It also wouldn’t prevent your ads from showing on searches that only contain one of the terms. For instance, the search terms one-day trial and free test could trigger your ads, while free one-day trial could not.

Negative keywords are the best way to reach your appropriate prospects, reduce your cost-per-click (CPC) and most importantly, increase your ROI. It is important to note that when writing your first campaign you really want to see what works before adding negative keywords. Yes, this may be a little costly at first, but it will save you money in long run.

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You Can’t Survive on Social Media Alone

Written June 28th, 2011 by

T-Bone Steak on GrillI love steak.  I’m a voracious carnivore with no apologies, with the exception of maybe my two friends, Simon & Alexis, when we go out for dinner.  However, as much as I wish I could survive on steak alone, I can’t. There are certain nutrients and vitamins I need to survive that steak alone cannot provide.  I still need vegetables, starches and even the occasional sugars.  A balanced diet is what helps me continue to be a healthy human being.

Healthy marketing strategies cannot survive on social media alone.  Any marketing strategy needs to be finely balanced based on the “nutritional needs” of its audience.  Therefore, just relying on Social Media can leave your marketing strategy totally unbalanced and weak without other tactics to help support it.

But you hear everywhere that you “NEED” social media.  The mistake some companies make is that they sacrifice other marketing channels to implement social media marketing because they believe it’s going to be the “magic pill” that fixes everything, much like people take diet pills alone in the hopes of losing weight.  Diet pills alone don’t work, just like Social Media alone won’t fix what’s wrong.  There has to be a strong mix of marketing tactics and channels to build a healthy and successful online marketing strategy. Read the rest of this entry »

How to Create a Google Ad Campaign Part 2

Written June 20th, 2011 by

In the first part of this series I talked about how to create ads that get clicks. Any good advertiser will tell you that it doesn’t matter how much you spend on ads. It’s creativity that counts.

We discussed how content for ad writing is vital, and you can get some ideas from studying how other ads are written. Next, now that we have our ads, we are now ready to put them in AdWords and start generating revenue. First, you will need to create a Google AdWords account in order to run your ads. Go to Google AdWords and sign up. Once you are finished with that you are ready to begin placing your ads.

Once you have setup an account it is important to know that there are two ways to set up your ads. The first is via the AdWords website, which is a WYSIWYG/GUI interface, which in real time, shows you what your ads will look like right and doesn’t require anything more than an Internet connection to work. There is nothing to download.

The second option is to download Google’s AdWords Editor to your computer. While not pretty in its appearance it is in my opinion the better tool for both newcomers and veterans. It allows you to easily copy ads, campaigns, keywords, etc. to make your process move a little a faster. It is also the more efficient of the two since it will not allow you to upload your ads unless you have filled in all the required boxes.

In this post we are going to focus on the AdWords website and setting up your campaign this way. The first time you log in to your new AdWords account you will be brought directly to the Campaign Tab (you will also see a Home, Opportunities, Reporting and Tools, Billing and My Account Tabs) with a Welcome to AdWords heading. This will take you through the steps of creating your very first campaign. When creating you first campaign you are then taken to another screen where you are required to fill in the following information. Again we are going to use our travel agency example to fill this out.

    Campaign Name – (Keep in simple remember this is just for you) Tuscany Tours

    Location – (Where do you want your ads to appear?) Miami, FL, US

    Languages – (What Languages do your Customers Speak?) English, Spanish

    Networks and Devices – (What sites and devices do you want the ads to run on) for both say All (as recommended) Later on you can decide to adjust this as your comfort level increases.

    Bidding option – For this we are going to stick to the basic options but this determines how much per click you are willing to bid on each ad. So select Automatic and then select CPC bid limit. Let’s say $2.00

    Budget – How much per day are you willing to spend? They recommend $25 US. A good rule of thumb here is to keep adjusting this over the course of your campaign as you start accumulating data.

    Hit “Save” and Continue to move on. Now that your Campaign is created we need to put in the ads we wrote. So going to the next screen you’ll see “create ad” and “keywords”. Taking the ads we wrote before we can start to fill in the blanks.

Headline – Wine under the Tuscan Sun – 25 Character limit
Line 1 – A beautiful Tuscan walking tour – 35 character limit
Line 2 – sample some wineries SAVE up to 20% – 35 character limit
Display URL – www.tuscansuntours.com/wine
Destination URL – http:// www.tuscansuntours.com/wine

If you noticed, I changed the ads a little for a few reasons. I had characters to spare and nothing attracts customers like savings. Once you have plugged this in, the preview will show you what your ad will look like as either a

Side ad
Wine under the Tuscan Sun
A beautiful Tuscan walking tour,
sample some wineries SAVE up to 20%
www.tuscansuntours.com/wine

or a Top ad
Wine under the Tuscan Sun
A beautiful Tuscan walking tour, sample some wineries SAVE up to 20%
www.tuscansuntours.com/wine

Next up are your keywords. Choose how you describe your products or services. It’s important to add specific keyword phrases (usually containing 2-3 words) that will help your customers narrow down their search to your ad.

So for this example we will add 11 keyword phrases
“Walking Tuscany”
“Tuscan Wine”
“Under the Tuscan Sun”
“Tuscany Tour”
“Tuscan Wine Country”
“Wines in Tuscany”
“Wines in Italy”
“Italian Wines”
“Italian walking tours”
“Wineries in Tuscany”
“Wineries in Italy”

Notice the “” around the phrases. These insure that the keywords are a phrase match. There are 4 different kinds of matches.

Broad Match: keyword
Allows your ad to show on similar phrases and relevant variations
(The broad match modifier may also be used to further refine your broad keyword matches: +keyword.)

Phrase Match: “keyword”
Allows your ad to show for searches that match the exact phrase.

Exact Match: [keyword]
Allows your ad to show for searches that match the exact phrase exclusively.

Negative Match: -keyword
Insures your ad doesn’t show for any search that includes that term,

Once you have entered your keywords you may check your estimated search traffic. However since this is your first campaign you may not get enough data to give estimates.

Next up is placement. Do you have specific places where you want to place your ads? Here you can put your ad on sites that also run GoogleAds. This takes a little bit of research and is very much a hit or miss proposition. Now you are ready to go on to billing. Once you have put in all your billing information, you will be brought back to your campaign screen where you can see your Ad and your keywords. It is important to note that your ad will not run without billing and your ad will not run without the status saying “Eligible”. Congratulations you have created your first Google Ad.

Next time we will go over negative keywords, how to use the Editor Application and reporting and tools.

News Reporter Complains About Keywords

Written June 12th, 2011 by

Many major news agencies train their reporters in the basics of search engine optimization so their stories are competitive in search results. But what happens when they’re asked to overdo it?

Reliable Sources, CNN

In the Sunday, June 11, CNN morning show hosted by Howard Kurtz, Reliable Sources, Kurtz asked several guest journalists their opinions on the reporting of Anthony Weiner’s wife’s pregnancy, and whether or not this was an invasion of her privacy and necessary in lieu of the already exploding news about her husband’s sleazy online behavior.

 

One of the journalists admitted that he’d received an email at work that listed a slew of keywords he was expected to use in his story, such as “Anthony Weiner’s Wife Pregnant”, “Pregnant wife of Anthony Weiner”, ‘Pregnant wife out of the country“,etc. The main keyword had to be “pregnant”, which he found distasteful, not to mention a bit invasive. His personal feelings were being “sad” that he and other journalists had to run the story at all.

The reason I watch Howard Kurtz every Sunday is because he’s a journalist who’s not afraid to force his profession to look at itself and study its practices. Are they hurting or helping society, for example? Did they screw up, get the facts, run a story with no proof, or forcefully turn a weak story into something sensational? This was the first time I saw search engine optimization (SEO) or the practice of adding keywords mentioned by professional journalists, although it’s routinely taught to them. They and their editing staffs are trained to make their stories rank in leading news outlets such as Google News, stay on top and become known as reputable sources by search engines.

So what happens when their editors force them to slant a story a certain way just to get rank? Has link equity now become a goal for journalists? If journalists are unhappy with the reasons behind choosing certain keywords suggested for usage by their editors and publishers, should they have the right to decline and on what grounds?

Social Marketing, Story Telling and Finding Content Relationships

Written January 28th, 2011 by

ancient story tellingHumanity has come a long way since the days of cave living and hunting mammoth.   No matter where we traveled, what technology we developed, or how many monuments to the stars and gods we built, we kept one small, vital practice intact.  Story telling.

We were once quite cozy.  Cave and small dwelling living created tight quarters that left no room for modesty or secrets.   Everyone knew everybody’s business and that’s how we lived.  All anyone had to do was to glance over to the next fire ring to gain new information by sight, sound or scent.  Later, tribes and sects, clans and small societies of people gathered around fires to talk, teach and decide important matters.  These meetings  and fire-side observations were how we communicated large amounts of information.  Today we have a World Wide Web.

Storytelling is at the Heart of Social Media Marketing

The Internet swung the door wide open to a much bigger hearth.   We can pick up a laptop and suddenly be gathered around the Grand Fire.  It’s no longer necessary to dress appropriately in the right colors, or paint your face with tribe stripes.  You can show up stark naked and nobody Read the rest of this entry »

Audience Research: 5 Tips for Gaining Insight From Your Data

Written January 14th, 2011 by

Use Your Audience Research Data WiselyBefore launching into and implementing any online marketing tactic, your company should be investing in doing some audience research. Understanding your demographic and how they are engaging, sharing, searching and interacting online, not just in social media communities or on search engines, is important for understanding how to balance and integrate all of your online marketing channels.  Understanding that helps your company implement their strategies much more efficiently and successfully.

There are a lot of tools that marketers and data analyzers can utilize to help them gain powerful insights.  From enterprise level tools like Alterian’s SM2 and Radian Six, to tools that are affordable to smaller businesses like Read the rest of this entry »

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