by Mike Fleming If you manage a PPC account, you know that for several years now AdWords has had three match types: exact, phrase, and broad.  You also know what they mean and how your keywords are matched to search queries.  Up until a couple of years ago, broad match meant that the keywords in your phrase were matched to queries that had all of your words in any order . Then, broad match became “expanded broad match” where Google’s algorithm was given free reign to decide if search queries were a close enough match in search intent to show your ad.  Many of the results were not even close.  Your keyword could be business cards and your ad would show on state ids and business plans . The overwhelming advantage of broad match of course is that you get more impressions, clicks and conversions; although you most likely would have a lower conversion rate that will make you pay more for each conversion.  So for some it works and for some not so much.  The major disadvantage is that you have to spend time going through your search queries very often to weed out those that are not applicable to your business because you paid for clicks state ids and business plans . But now, Google has given us another option that offers more flexibility in balancing the tension between traffic and relevance; the old broad match and expanded broad match.  It’s called modified broad match .  This option has greater reach than phrase match, but is more controlled than broad match.  How? With this match type, if you put a plus (+) sign in front of a word in your phrase, AdWords will only match your keyword to search queries that contain that word exactly or contain a close variation of the word . Google defines a close variation as “misspellings, singular/plural, abbreviations/acronyms, stemming (like “floor” and “flooring”) and synonyms.  They say related searches like “flowers” and “tulips” are not considered close variations. So basically they are allowing advertisers to choose between the old broad match, newer broad match, or a combination of the two.  You can choose to “bring in the reins” so to speak on broad match and decide which words in keyword phrases are necessary in the search query for their ad to be triggered.  So, you could do this: business +cards This means card will not be matched with id or plan but only cards exactly or close variations of it (card, etc.).  Now, this still means that you could get matched to id card; so if you want to further filter your possible matches, you could go with: +business +cards This functions like the old school broad match.  Now business will always mean business and cards will always mean cards. This really takes the realistic number of possible match types up to 6 or 7.  Here’s a really cool graph that shows the match types, their relative reach and an initial bidding strategy for each. If you would like to test these match types out, choose a couple ad groups where you are struggling, copy them and use the new ad groups to replace your broad match keywords with modified broad match.   Modify your broad match keywords and set their bids between the your broad match and phrase match keywords.  Then, after enough data has collected you can analyze search queries and conversions of each ad group to see the results and adjust using your reports. Be sure and visit our small business news site.

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Google Improves Control of PPC Exposure With Modified Broad Match

by Sage Lewis This is a question I get asked all the time. Get the final answer right here. Inspired from this article at Search Engine Roundtable Be sure and visit our small business news site.

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Do Keywords In Your Domain Matter?

by Stoney deGeyter In my last post, I talked about training your text to “engage”, “inform”, “speak” (call to action), and “convert”. The first step is to make sure the content doesn’t overstay it’s welcome . In this post, I’ll provide some of the tricks you can teach your content; training it how to do all of these things by making it skim-able, scan-able and provide exits to where the visitor needs to go next. Teaching tricks the audience likes There are two kinds of tricks you can train your text to do: the kind of tricks you like or the kind of tricks your audience likes. Obviously, training your text to do the tricks you like will make you happy… but it won’t make your audience happy. You think the tricks are cool, but nobody else does. And… that’s just not cool. Most people who visit websites scan them first, then skim the text. But, they only skim read if they get intrigued by their initial scan, and they read it only if they find something compelling and interesting that warrants their full attention. There are four easy ways to train your text to be scan-able: Paragraph headings: Your page should have a proper heading and your content should be broken up with paragraph headings throughout, depending on length. Don’t get carried away by placing a heading before each paragraph. That overkill. But the longer your text is, the more it needs to be broken up into easily digest chunks that allow your readers to consume it. Internal linking: One of the biggest missed opportunities on business websites is linking their content to other relevant areas of the site. That’s what the navigation is for, right? Yes and no. Your navigation needs to do a proper job of allowing people to find what they are looking for, but relying on it too heavily forces the visitor to know what they are interested in finding. But, adding links into your content streamlines both of those issues and also helps the visitor get to where they want to go much quicker. This is more intuitive and requires little thought or effort on their part. Bolded Text: Bolding key words, phrases, and sentences can also allow your visitors to find key points as they quickly scan your content. Note that I said “key words”, not “keywords”. There is nothing wrong with using keywords in your bolded text, but that should not be the reason for using bold text. You bold text because it’s important , not because you want to get a keyword in bold font. Bullet Points: Bullet points are another way to get your visitors to read key information without having to read every word of content. Most readers will read bulleted lists while ignoring everything else on the page. Bullets provide a very easy way to read quick bits of information that otherwise might get lost in a single paragraph. Bullet points also break up your content, which also makes the text more scan-able and skim-able. You can also use bullet points to link to other areas of your site that provide additional information without mucking up the current page content. Or, to put it another way, bullet points: Provide quick bits of information Break up content to be more scannable and skimmable Provide linking opportunities to related content People love tricks. But, they don’t like to be tricked. These tricks that you can use to train your content are not and should not be used as a means to deceive your audience. They are tricks that help you communicate with your audience in a way that is more to their liking. Giving people what they want isn’t deceptive, unless you are pulling the rug out from under them later. You can train your content to do things that other sites are not doing. By teaching it to keep your audience engaged with the site, and training it how to direct your readers to other areas of the site they are interested in, you’re just helping people find what they need. If they don’t find it with you, they will with someone else… likely because their content has learned these tricks. This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx’s Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert’s Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions . If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for “inconceivable content” on this blog to find them all. Be sure and visit our small business news site.

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How to Train Your Content to Get Your Audience’s Attention

by Stoney deGeyter One of the most important things business owners often fail to do is to make their website remarkable. It really doesn’t matter what industry you’re in or how many other websites you’re competing against, making your site stand out from the pack is absolutely essential. Take the movie Avatar. Plot: Tired. Story: Been there, done that. Acting and directing: Nothing special. Special affects: Absolutely outstanding. Worthy of a “Best Picture” nomination: Not by a long shot. Worthy of a “Best Special Affects” Oscar: Without a doubt. So, how is it that a story we have all seen played out in 100 different movies and “message” Star Trek episodes turns into one of the most popular movies of all time? It’s because James Cameron took a great heaping pile of “Meh.”, and made it all, “Oooh, shiny!”. It’s uniqueness overshadowed the complete and total hollowness of everything else on the screen. A lot of business owners out there feel that their business is just the same old, same old. Nothing special there. But in reality, they can take what they are doing and turn it into something remarkable. And the easiest way to do that is through the content. A vast majority of internet searches are informational. That means people are not looking for your products or services, they are looking for information about them. They want to learn something new. And, you can be the one to give it to them. The key to creating unique content that searchers are looking for is keyword research. Let your keyword research become your idea generator for blog posts, articles, e-books, and whatever else strikes your fancy. When perusing your keyword research here are a few things to look for: Easy to Rank Phrases: When looking for good traffic, you can always start with phrases that have little or no competition. Find queries that match what you provide that others have not yet optimized for. This gives you a chance to build up some rankings and traffic for good (yet lower traffic) phrases. You can immediately start siphoning off traffic from your competitors and start building a loyal audience that will keep coming back. Niche Areas: Look for an area within your industry that your competitors are not covering or not covering very well. Find obscure topics that people are interested in, but, after conducting a few searches of your own, show that the available content on the web isn’t sufficient. This creates an opportunity for you to fill in the gaps and create authoritative information of your own. Highly Targeted Phrases: These are long-tail phrases that are very targeted for your audience, addressing specific areas of interest. Highly targeted phrases are generally pretty easy to get ranked but they also bring in an audience that has a very specific need. Write information that targets these searchers by providing new information, a new spin, a new take on, or a new way of looking at things. Info Queries: These often fit into the categories above, but are queries performed by people looking for information and nothing else. They are typically the queries with a question that answers questions, such as “how to…” or “what is…”. These queries provide a great opportunity to provide content beyond simple text. “How to” videos, diagrams, flash animations, and podcasts are all great ways to provide this type of content in a way that people find valuable. Telling someone how to do something is great, but showing them how to do it is even better. Just because you are providing a product or service that someone else is, that doesn’t mean you have to provide content that someone else has. There are plenty of ways to step outside of the box and provide valuable information that nobody else is providing. Look for these opportunities, and take advantage of them . . . before someone else does. This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx’s Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert’s Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions . If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for “inconceivable content” on this blog to find them all. Be sure and visit our small business news site.

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How to Write Content That No One Else Has

If you’ve ever wondered how to make sense of the long lists of keywords that appear in your reports, this week’s tip is for you. Look at the bottom of most tables in Google Analytics and you’ll see an Advanced Filter option. With this option, you can filter the data in your table according to almost any set of conditions you wish. Let’s say you’re only interested in keywords that brought in visitors who spent at least 2 minutes on your site. When you enter the condition for Avg Time on Site, you’ll need to use seconds. So, here, we’ve entered 120 seconds (=2 minutes). Or, perhaps you only want the keywords with a bounce rate of less than 30%. (Make sure you use .3 for 30%. So, for example, .05 is 5%, .25 is 25%, and 1 is 100%.) You can even enter multiple conditions. In this case, we want to weed out all the low traffic keywords as well. Advanced Filters are a great way to focus on your most important keywords. To see this example in action, watch this short video . Posted by Alden DeSoto, Google Analytics Team

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Back to Basics: Filtering Keywords

by Stoney deGeyter Remember the movie Old School with Vince Vaughn and Will Farrell? Yeah, me neither. That’s because, while I’m sure the movie has some funny scenes, it just didn’t have the staying power of, say… Tommy Boy . Of course Tommy Boy had a very distinct advantage out of the gate… it didn’t star Will Farrell. You really can’t come back from that kind of thing. In the SEO world there is “old school” and then there is “old school SEO nonsense”. In case you haven’t figured it out, in my world, the “old school SEO nonsense” stars Will Farrell. In your world, it might star Colin Farrell, Lindsay Lohan, or the entire cast of Big Bang Theory –all viable alternatives. Like the actors noted above, “old school SEO nonsense” gets a lot of buzz, but underneath the surface, there just isn’t anything there. People are drawn to it like a mosquito to a bug light because it feels safe. It looks easy. It’s simplicity wrapped in a complexity. But, in the end, it’s hollow, useless, and generally leaves you feeling a little bit ripped off. Let’s look at a few common “old school SEO nonsense” tactics that keep coming back to bite anybody that’s still stuck in 1998. Keyword Density The idea here is that you need to have the perfect keyword-to-text ratio on your pages. A 7% keyword density means you have your keyword 7 times for every 100 words. “Perfect” keyword densities range from 5-10%, and if you just get that magic number, your rankings will soar. Of course, you gotta wonder what happens once 10 other people find the perfect keyword density, too. If you hear someone talk about getting the right keyword density on your site, shut them down faster than you would a “friend” offering to rent the Will Ferrell disaster (yeah, I know, that was redundant,) Land of the Lost . Keyword Count Keyword count is the Step Brother of keyword density (see how I worked in another Will Farrell movie reference there?) The theory goes that there is a minimum number of times you have to have your keywords on the page in order to rank well for it. Doesn’t matter how much text you have, just get your keyword in there 3 times, 5 times, 7 times, or whatever. Yeah, your keywords should be in the page if you want to rank for them. But in truth, it doesn’t absolutely have to be. If you have enough incoming links pointing to your page with that keyword in the anchor text, that can get you the rankings you want in certain circumstances. But, in a competitive field, that’s usually not enough. There is no magic number of times your keywords should be on the page. Sometimes you use your keyword more frequently, while other times you use related words. It really just depends on the content. Keyword Positioning Where you position your keywords in your content does have some merit. (Yes, I’ll admit that I enjoyed both Stranger Than Fiction and Talladega Nights so I’ll give Will Ferrell some credit.) But as so often happens, a single good idea often turns into 20 really, really stupid ideas. ( Bewitched , anyone?) Yes, you want to use your keywords in key places such as your title tag, meta description, headings, and body content. But, does it really matter if your keyword is the third word in the first paragraph or the second sentence of the last paragraph on the page? Do you have to add an additional instance of your keyword in your third heading tag on the page even though it doesn’t really work? The answer is NO. It doesn’t matter, much like most Will Farrell movies. Old School SEO Without the Nonsense Old school SEO nonsense is just that. Just a bunch of blubbering directions that have no meaning other than to make the person uttering them feel smarter than you. Real old school SEO is altogether different. It’s SEO that says, “we’re going back to the basics, back to what works.” There is nothing wrong with SEO that looks at a lot of fancy data. That’s all very important. But, old school SEO was true 10 years ago, and it’s still true today. The methods used to achieve SEO may change a bit here and there, but the same basic principles apply: Write good content, work in your keywords, and build a quality site worth linking to. Of course, that’s easier said than done. Kinda like expecting a good Will Farrell… naw, too easy! This post was inspired from The Princess Bride themed presentation I gave in early 2010 at SEMpdx’s Searchfest titled Inconceivable Content: The Dread Pirate Robert’s Guide to Creating Swashbuckling Content, Pillaging the Search Engines, and Commandeering a Treasure Trove of Conversions . If you enjoyed this post you also might enjoy other posts inspired from the same. Search for “inconceivable content” on this blog to find them all. Be sure and visit our small business news site.

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It Isn’t "Old School SEO" If It’s Just Nonsense SEO

Starting today, we’re reinstating the Back To Basics series. Each Wednesday, we’ll share a Google Analytics tip, usually something that you can try right away with your own data to gain new insights. This week, we’ll illustrate a quick way to see how many visits you get from different keyword/landing page combinations. A friend of mine recently created several new landing pages that she hoped would attract traffic. She wanted to see at a glance whether people who searched on her top keywords were seeing the new pages. While she knew that she could use the Top Landing Pages report to analyze each individual landing page, she wanted to see keyword/landing page combinations in a single report. There’s an easy way to do this. Go to the Keywords report under Traffic Sources. Look over to the right above the table and you’ll see Views : followed by a set of buttons. Click the Pivot view (5th button from the left). Now, look to the left, above the table, and you’ll see a Pivot by dropdown menu. Select Landing Page from this menu. Voilà! The keywords will be listed down the side and landing pages will be listed across the top. You can now see how many visits you received for each keyword/landing page combination. You can see up to five landing pages listed across the top of the report. You can scroll horizontally (across the landing pages) using the arrow buttons at the top right of the table. The pivot view is also really useful for seeing at a glance how many visits you get from each keyword and search engine combination. To do this, you’d use the same Keywords report and pivot by Source. That’s this week’s tip. We’ll be back next Wednesday for another Back to Basics post. Posted by Alden DeSoto, Google Analytics Team

Originally posted here:
Back to Basics: Keyword/Landing Page Combinations

Starting today, we’re reinstating the Back To Basics series. Each Wednesday, we’ll share a Google Analytics tip, usually something that you can try right away with your own data to gain new insights. This week, we’ll illustrate a quick way to see how many visits you get from different keyword/landing page combinations. A friend of mine recently created several new landing pages that she hoped would attract traffic. She wanted to see at a glance whether people who searched on her top keywords were seeing the new pages. While she knew that she could use the Top Landing Pages report to analyze each individual landing page, she wanted to see keyword/landing page combinations in a single report. There’s an easy way to do this. Go to the Keywords report under Traffic Sources. Look over to the right above the table and you’ll see Views : followed by a set of buttons. Click the Pivot view (5th button from the left). Now, look to the left, above the table, and you’ll see a Pivot by dropdown menu. Select Landing Page from this menu. Voilà! The keywords will be listed down the side and landing pages will be listed across the top. You can now see how many visits you received for each keyword/landing page combination. You can see up to five landing pages listed across the top of the report. You can scroll horizontally (across the landing pages) using the arrow buttons at the top right of the table. The pivot view is also really useful for seeing at a glance how many visits you get from each keyword and search engine combination. To do this, you’d use the same Keywords report and pivot by Source. That’s this week’s tip. We’ll be back next Wednesday for another Back to Basics post. Posted by Alden DeSoto, Google Analytics Team

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Back to Basics: Keyword/Landing Page Combinations

Starting today, we’re reinstating the Back To Basics series. Each Wednesday, we’ll share a Google Analytics tip, usually something that you can try right away with your own data to gain new insights. This week, we’ll illustrate a quick way to see how many visits you get from different keyword/landing page combinations. A friend of mine recently created several new landing pages that she hoped would attract traffic. She wanted to see at a glance whether people who searched on her top keywords were seeing the new pages. While she knew that she could use the Top Landing Pages report to analyze each individual landing page, she wanted to see keyword/landing page combinations in a single report. There’s an easy way to do this. Go to the Keywords report under Traffic Sources. Look over to the right above the table and you’ll see Views : followed by a set of buttons. Click the Pivot view (5th button from the left). Now, look to the left, above the table, and you’ll see a Pivot by dropdown menu. Select Landing Page from this menu. Voilà! The keywords will be listed down the side and landing pages will be listed across the top. You can now see how many visits you received for each keyword/landing page combination. You can see up to five landing pages listed across the top of the report. You can scroll horizontally (across the landing pages) using the arrow buttons at the top right of the table. The pivot view is also really useful for seeing at a glance how many visits you get from each keyword and search engine combination. To do this, you’d use the same Keywords report and pivot by Source. That’s this week’s tip. We’ll be back next Wednesday for another Back to Basics post. Posted by Alden DeSoto, Google Analytics Team

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Back to Basics: Keyword/Landing Page Combinations

Starting today, we’re reinstating the Back To Basics series. Each Wednesday, we’ll share a Google Analytics tip, usually something that you can try right away with your own data to gain new insights. This week, we’ll illustrate a quick way to see how many visits you get from different keyword/landing page combinations. A friend of mine recently created several new landing pages that she hoped would attract traffic. She wanted to see at a glance whether people who searched on her top keywords were seeing the new pages. While she knew that she could use the Top Landing Pages report to analyze each individual landing page, she wanted to see keyword/landing page combinations in a single report. There’s an easy way to do this. Go to the Keywords report under Traffic Sources. Look over to the right above the table and you’ll see Views : followed by a set of buttons. Click the Pivot view (5th button from the left). Now, look to the left, above the table, and you’ll see a Pivot by dropdown menu. Select Landing Page from this menu. Voilà! The keywords will be listed down the side and landing pages will be listed across the top. You can now see how many visits you received for each keyword/landing page combination. You can see up to five landing pages listed across the top of the report. You can scroll horizontally (across the landing pages) using the arrow buttons at the top right of the table. The pivot view is also really useful for seeing at a glance how many visits you get from each keyword and search engine combination. To do this, you’d use the same Keywords report and pivot by Source. That’s this week’s tip. We’ll be back next Wednesday for another Back to Basics post. Posted by Alden DeSoto, Google Analytics Team

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Back to Basics: Keyword/Landing Page Combinations