The negative keyword is a word that is used to tell Google which terms will not display when searchers are trying to find a product or service. A few examples of a negative keyword include:

• Ads that are geared to a local market but not every town or city within. For example: a plumbing company that includes Toronto’s GTA but does not offer service right in the city could include keywords such as plumbing Markham, Plumbing Scarborough,(surrounding cities),etc.These terms would be left out of the negative keyword list while “Toronto” would be added to a list, possibly titled, “Excluded Service Locations.”
• For sellers that are trying to avoid people looking for information, they may want to include negative keywords such as:” example,” “sample,” and “definition” in their list of excluded keywords.
• It’s common to not want to attract customers looking for bargains. Include the keywords: “cheap,” “overstock,” and “liquidation.”

Once you have compiled negative keywords learn how to use them to further enhance your marketing strategy:

1. Supplement your PPC Campaign with SEO and Vice Versa

It’s important to not think of internet marketing strategies as entirely separate services. If your business discovers from its Google Analytics that certain keywords are keeping customers on the site and leading to sales then by all means, integrate these findings into your PPC keywords. A profitable keyword in a PPC campaign can easily be woven into your website’s content, while negative keywords can be removed. This will help to increase your ranking in Google. Let your campaigns and strategies feed off each other and grow as a single entity.

2. Don’t just use Negative Keywords for Ads, Make Lists

A negative keyword list gives the business the ability to use their negative keywords across their entire PPC marketing campaign. This assists with easy management of a campaign level PPC marketing strategy and negative keywords can be added, edited and applied to the entire campaign at once.

3. Understand the Usefulness of Google’s Keyword Search Tools

Google offers keyword search tools for their customers and they are accessible to anyone signed into their Google account. This is a great place to start finding keywords that you do not want your ads to be found for in search engines. Use this tool to begin building a list and for brainstorming phrases and words that best describe what you do and what products or services that the business is offering.

Using too many negative keywords will result in a market that is limited but not using them at all will waste click-through potential. By finding the right balance, using tools and lists while integrating any progress into your content’s SEO, negative keywords can be an extremely valuable outlet for your PPC campaign and overall Internet marketing strategy.

1. The Highly Competitive Market

Businesses such as insurance companies, law firms and real estate agents are in saturated markets, on and off the web. Even with the best Internet marketing behind your website, a PPC campaign will provide your business with an enormous boost that displays your site to thousands of qualified leads.

Should you bid on competitive keywords? Absolutely but keep a few tips in mind:

• Have a Landing Page. If your business has a maximum threshold of $10 per click, potential customers should be directed to exactly the product or service that enticed them to click on the ad in the first place. Do not send them to the home page, where they have to start the search again. Chances are they won’t even bother. The customer has already found what they are searching for, now reel them in! The landing page is not a pitch, it’s the close! The best way to measure the success of your ad in relationship to the landing page is to track the bounce rate and average time spent on the page. This can easily be monitored via Google Analytics.
• Be very specific. Use only the keywords that are relevant to your business. This attracts customers that are looking for the exact product or services that you offer. Use keyword tools and match types to generate the best keywords for your campaign. Bidding on keywords that match the content on your landing page also significantly increases the quality of a business’s PPC campaign.

Injured in a Car? < Should take clients to a landing page specifically for car injuries. Include a clear contact.
Our Law Firm Focuses Exclusively On
Auto Injury Cases. Call Us Now! < Very specific!

http://www.personalinjurysample.com

• Have a Great Website. Marketing budgets are completely wasted if the site is not: aesthetically pleasing, well-organized, clear and friendly. A company can throw a million dollars into their PPC campaign, but if the site is off-putting, a back-click is an easy tap away.

2. Location Specific

One of the best ways to hone-in on your target market is to be location specific. There are many competitive online businesses (online degrees, online insurance) but if you deal locally, you’re in luck! PPC ads that specify their service location are using one of the best strategies to tap into qualified leads.

Toronto Condo Listings < Very specific in terms of location and service (condo specialist)

Start Your Search Here. Find The
Toronto Condo Of Your Dreams.
http://www.realestatesample.com/

3. When you want Results…Right Now!

Whether you have just launched a website and your SEO results have not taken effect, or you have a limited-time promotion, PPC will deliver immediate traffic. Even if your sale ends in a couple of days, with the approval of ads, your business will be visible to millions instantaneously. The added bonus of PPC is that your ads will be displayed on fringe keyword categories where SEO may not rank as high.

Pay per click campaigns that are managed effectively and monitored routinely produce the best results for competitive industries, location specific businesses and companies that want instant traffic. If your business falls into one of these categories, a PPC campaign will get your website noticed, and provide you with quick, qualified leads. Achieving instant results is not easy and it’s a major reason why digital marketing agencies are crucial, as they eliminate wasted time and help maximize your marketing dollars.

Let’s Get Started…

Google’s Guidelines

The components of an ad include:

1. The Headline - The title can be up to 25 characters. It should include the keywords that your business would like to be searched and found for.

2. Two Lines of Text - These two lines are 70 characters combined. They are used to best describe the product or service. The second line is also used as a “call-to-action.” This is an enticement or incentive to click on the ad (i.e. “for the best price visit…”).

3. URL Line - The last line will include the website’s landing page address.

Now that the basics are in place, you can begin to unleash your creativity by writing a variety of ads for your products and services.

Once you have created your ads, it’s critical that one monitors that these ads are approved, disapproved or are being limited. There are a host of reasons why your ad might not be serving and there could be a 24-48 hour delay in approval from Google. For more specific information regarding Google’s ad policy please review the following link:

Google Ad Centre

Top Three Tips for Writing an Effective Google Ad

1. Stand Out from your Competitors

What makes your business unique? Let’s take lawyers as a popular example of an AdWords customer. If your firm runs a smaller, affordable practice, focusing on cases regarding unlawful dismissal, let the customer know. A generic Google ad for, “Lawyers in (your city)” will never stand out amongst the others in this saturated marketplace.

Save On Employment Lawyer
Wrongful dismissal? Expert Advice
Toronto, We Will Help. Contact Us…
www.samplelawyers.com

2. Avoid a Call-to-Action Offering Freebies

Customers will want to know what’s in it for them. Of course, you have to be truthful. Remember, customers will critique and investigate your site before making contact. Offering free products and services when there are none, is a very poor customer experience and Google will penalize your ad accordingly. Ideally the landing page that your ad will point to will speak to a particular discount, promotional price, or a coupon offer.

Actually, advertising for free services isn’t the wisest approach to writing ad copy. Remember, you are trying to draw in qualified, paying customers. Not bargain hunters looking for freebies. Only mention free products and services if they help your business to stand out, such as a free gift with purchase. Mentioning cost-saving solutions and affordability is a much better approach.

Commercial Property Law
20% Less than the Competition
Building. Financing. Save today…
www.samplelawyers.com

Bonus Tip – You can weed out unqualified leads by mentioning a starting price, service area or specific services. Copy stating “From As Low As” will also protect the legitimacy of your ad copy as long as the numbers quoted match your landing page.

3. Spell Check Your Ads

Grammatically incorrect AdWords are more than a faux pas, it’s going to wreck havoc on your marketing spend due to wasted impression. This also includes formatting and proper casing issues:

• Don’t write the entire ad in lower case
• Don’t use slang
• Run spell check and edit

Wrong Ad

OnTaRiO cOrPoRaTe LaWyEr <- Never do this to stand out.
Inventory Financing/Due Diligance <- spelling error.
free consult! fast results! call us! <- All lower case
www.samplelawyers.com

Also, Google will not accept an abuse of punctuation. Limit the use of “$”, “!”, and “&” in your copy as your ad will not be approved thus not shown on the Google content network.

Correct Ad

Ontario Corporate Lawyer
Inventory Financing/Due Diligence
Free Consult. Fast Results. Call Us
www.samplelawyers.com

In addition to standing out, having a creative call-to-action and being grammatically correct, every ad should be different. Use more than one keyword to target your business in an ad campaign. This will increase your audience reach and your chance of success. As your campaigns mature over time, the more relevant your ads are to a landing page, the adgroup and the list of keywords associated, the more likely your ad will be served over your competitors.

Let’s not forget that this is only the introduction to Google ads. Businesses still have to set up and manage their PPC campaigns on a daily basis. This is why so many companies hire a web marketing firm to compose their ad copy and to manage their accounts. Pay-Per-Click is a talent and expertise that not many individuals do well. If venturing into a campaign for the first time, expect some trial and error, but have patience, AdWords are definitely worth overcoming the learning curve. They yield some of the best internet marketing results at the lowest cost vs. most traditional channels.

PPC is by far and away the best bang for your buck when it comes to any type of advertising period. Not only can you deliver your message to a primed audience, but you also have an entire suite of tools to measure and track your campaigns. This means there are no grey areas of “did that newspaper ad work?” or “I wonder if that radio ad drove traffic to my website?” With PPC it’s all there, you’re in full control to ramp up spend when something’s working and cut the strings when it’s not.

PPC for SMBs (Small to Mid-Size Business) differs a lot from many of the PPC ads you’re used to seeing. With PPC for SMBs your keywords are likely going to be very focused; because you do one thing and do it well. If you’re totally new to internet marketing and your business is primarily brick and mortar…

How Do You Track Your PPC ROI (return on investment)?

• Drive people to your lead forms (see “setting up your conversions” for how to track these).
• Try putting a trackable phone number in your ad i.e. different from your regular phone number, this way you’ll know how many people called you as a result of your PPC ads. You can also track click to call functionality if you have that on your site.
• Offer printable coupons unique to your PPC campaign and keep track of when they’re redeemed.
• Encourage People to sign up for your newsletter.
• Set goals and objectives in GA (Google Analytics) to set benchmarks for success of your active campaigns.
• Use annotations in GA to mark start dates of your campaigns and subsequent changes you end up making.
• Keep a record of the bounce rate of your pages, if it’s too high you may need to make the page more relevant to your keywords.
• Pay close attention to all the KPIs (key performance indicators) in Google AdWords: CTR (click through rate), CPC (cost per click), click to conversion, and the biggest one: cost per conversion.

Setting Up Your Conversions

So many small businesses fail to implement proper conversions for their PPC campaigns. Many simply choose their keywords, write their ad copy and let the campaign drive traffic to their site (hopefully). Sure, you’ll be able to see the increase in visitors, but how will you know that who filled out your lead form, or bought a product as a result of your PPC ad campaigns.

This is where conversion code becomes very powerful. Conversion code is a little snippet of code (provided by Google) which you paste into your thank you page (or any other page that you want to drive people to). Now every time someone clicks on your ads and follows through to your thank you page it’s recorded as a conversion. This gives you a crystal clear picture of how many people are actually converting as a result of your PPC campaign.

See What PPC Can Do For You

You can get started with PPC by using this $75 free Google advertising coupon, but if you find that you’re spending your budget too quickly or in the wrong areas a TechWyse PPC expert may be able to help you.

Why Create a Landing Page for Every Service You Offer?

• Usability and the probability of higher conversions and lower bounce rates are an obvious benefit because your message is clear and focused.
• Your Quality Score will increase the relevancy of your landing pages. A high Quality Score will decrease the cost of your ads and allow them to be displayed more often.

How Does Google Calculate Quality Score?

Only Google knows exactly how Quality Score is determined, but here are some probable factors:

• The keyword’s CTR (Click Through Rate).
• The ad copy’s relevance to your keyword and a user’s query (this is the copy displayed on the ad itself).
• Landing page’s relevance (how relevant your landing page is based on the keyword).
• The performance of your ad and landing page. Are people visiting and staying on your landing page for some time? Does the page have a high bounce rate?

Why Does Google Care About Your Quality Score?

Having users click on AdWords ads is Google’s #1 priority, because if people begin to lose trust in the ads i.e. finding that ads are irrelevant, it’s a big threat to the whole system (and its lifeblood). On the other hand if your ad is highly relevant it’s useful to users, it may even pick up a few +1’s further adding to the landing page’s performance and its relevancy. It’s also important to note that the more +1’s an ad gets, the higher the potential click through rate becomes and along with it, an increased Quality Score!

How Do I Increase My Ad’s Quality Score?

A high Quality Score will result in a lower CPC (Cost Per Click) as well as a lower bid price (because the ad, page and keywords are all relevant). So, with that here are some ways to increase your Quality Score:

• Take your keywords and group them together by topic and determine how many different landing pages you’ll need to create.
• Use your list of keywords for that topic in your landing page content. If you know the fundamentals of on-page SEO you’re off to a good start, if not, keep reading.
• Aim for 4-6% keyword density, write a few paragraphs at least. Try and find the median between useful copy and information overload.
• Don’t keyword stuff your copy, make sure it reads naturally.
• Use headings with your keywords and use them throughout the body text.
• Also use variations of your keywords, play with synonyms, variations and syntax.
• Try using your keywords in the domain address of your landing page. Also use vanity URLs with your keywords.
• If possible use your keywords in the title tag, footer, image tags and hyperlinks.

Getting the Most Out of Your PPC Campaign

Creating and optimizing pay per click landing pages may seem like an added time and financial investment, but the returns can be very impactful – especially if the quality score of your competitors is low. Although you may garner some PPC traffic without an optimized landing page, you’re still putting yourself at a disadvantage; not only in terms of ad positioning, but also in terms of your budget! If you’d like to speak one-on-one about how TechWyse can help you develop PPC landing pages and manage pay per click campaigns give us a call at 1.888.808.0015

What Does This Mean For AdWords Advertising?

Start by building a +1 button into your landing page. If you have a bunch of +1’s on your page you will likely fair better when your ads run. The reason you’ll need to put a +1 button on your landing page is that once a person clicks on your ad, it’s unlikely that they’ll go back to the search page to +1 your ad. It’s important to note that +1 for ads and +1 for regular (non-paid) pages are linked, the two work together and benefit each other.

How Does +1 for Ads Work?

Let’s take Google’s fictitious example of “Brian Walker” who types in a search for hotels in Madrid:

The next time one of Brian’s contacts performs a similar search where the same ad displays they will see that Brian has +1’d the page (below). This is a powerful word of mouth recommendation that takes the user by surprise and 9 times out of 10 will result in that ad being clicked.

Getting as Many +1’s as You Can

It seems that getting as many +1’s on your landing page before you run your ad will go a long ways to benefit your click through rate; but it’s important to note that Google will only display +1’s from people who you’re connected to. Google likely has IP tracking in place to ensure people won’t be able to jack up the +1’s before they run an ad.

So now the strategy becomes directing as much traffic to your page so that your +1 numbers will increase. The +1 button is relatively small, so be sure to make it visible. Also use social media to share your page, or simply ask people you know to +1 your site.

The +1 button will play a factor in your organic page ranking, Google won’t tell us how much, but the fact that it does, is significant in two ways: having strong SEO as part of an overall internet marketing strategy will produce more +1’s on your site. The other side of the coin is that now Google AdWords can play a factor in boosting your organic page ranking, whereby the more +1’s you garner through AdWords now positively affects your organic page rank.

Make Sure Your Ads Are Relevant

The more relevant your ads are to your keywords, the more +1’s your ads will garner. Having an ad that doesn’t quite match your ad copy will not only get you fewer +1’s, but likely result in a high bounce rate.

Conclusions

This is obviously big news and although the +1 is still in the early adopter phase, its unobtrusive design may mean slower traction at first, but with the integration of the newly announced Google+ social network it seems that a new social media ecosystem may be brewing under us.

The event was hosted by our friends at Google, and they brought out some of their brightest minds to speak on a number of topics including Google Search Advertising, Display Advertising, and Analytics.

Although these topics were well known to me, a few new features stood out as true game changers. The big one dubbed “remarketing,” is not well known to most people (even within the internet marketing community). It's a feature that is guaranteed to attract attention as it gains traction. Google is excited about it, and I must admit to sharing their enthusiasm. Remarketing is a fairly new feature of Google AdWords. In a nutshell it allows website owners the ability to maintain contact with visitors. For example, you can display different ads to people depending on their behaviour on your site. Let say person A fills out a form an person B only fills out the form half way. You can now display different ads to person A and person B as they visit other sites throughout the web. This is definitely an exciting feature we’ll be using to enhance the service of our pay per click customers.

All in all it was a great day of learning; we got to meet some great people who were equally passionate about internet marketing as we are at TechWyse. My thanks go out to Google for hosting the event and in particular to our AdWords Account Managers: Beth, Jonathan and Abby. Also, many thanks for the delicious breakfast and lunch buffet, it was great; I can only imagine how well they eat at the Googleplex.

For more information on remarketing keep reading our blog or talk to a Solutions Expert or your Campaign Analyst. We're working on finding the best ways to deliver this to our clients, we strongly believe website owners will want to take full advantage of this exciting opportunity and we’re looking forward to harness this powerful technology.

The Google Ad Academy event takes place today and is invitation only, so there isn’t a website that we can link to; but the one-day event promises to:

• Give 1 : 1 access with Google experts where they’ll be teaching us the latest tips and tricks for using AdWords.
• Show attendees the best ways to use Google’s tools to reach more customers, drive website traffic and generate more conversions.
• Provide in-depth coverage of Google`s ever-evolving Analytics platform.

Probably the most valuable opportunity will be the 1 : 1 chance to sit down with an AdWords expert right in from of your computer screen and your AdWords accounts!

We’re looking forward to it and we’ll report back highlights next week in our blog.

Landing your ideal job

In mid-2010, New York based copywriter Alec Brownstein wanted out of his current job. His strategy for doing so was quite ingenious. Alec decided to buy the keywords for the names of top Creative Directors (and potential bosses). He relied on the hope that these Creative Directors would perform “ego searches” i.e. Googling their own names, and sure enough they did. Each time they Googled their own name a link to Alec’s portfolio appeared. It worked so well that he landed 4 interviews and was offered 2 positions. The entire strategy cost him $6. Watch the video for more on Alec’s strategy.

Test-Marketing Book Titles

A title can often make or break a book. Author Timothy Ferris discovered a great way to get an accurate assessment of how people would react to his potential book titles. He purchased relevant keywords and tested 6 book titles including Millionaire Chameleon and 4-Hour Workweek. The latter had the highest clickthrough rate, he used it, and wound up with a New York Times Bestseller!

Damage Control

During the disastrous gulf oil spill of last year, BP found themselves in a PR nightmare. To combat negative sentiment the company bought popular keywords and displayed an ad that linked to their Response Page which contained information on how BP is working to clean up the spill.

Finding Love

Just Recently an Arizona man decided to use the precise demographic targeting capabilities of Facebook ads. At 75 cents per click 30 year-old Matt Simpson took out ads searching for a date with local women. So far he has generated thousands of impressions and several “leads.” Compared to the monthly cost of an online dating site, Matt seems to have made a very wise investment.

But now you can tag each account with labels!

Say you wanted to sort your AdWords accounts by budget size, Account Manager, or business category. Well, you can now apply a label to that account in your MCC, and then sort by label to save you the time of searching for each one.

Let’s take a look.

Many readers of this blog will know Jon, one of our Campaign Analysts and resident Analytics expert. I have labeled all of the clients he is responsible for with the label “CA:Jon”. I have also done the same with clients looked after by Thomas, another Campaign Analyst.

When I open the MCC, this is what I see with these labels applied to the accounts.

Now, if I want to view only Jon’s accounts, I simply click on the new “Find” pull down menu below the main tabs and select “CA:Jon”, and the page now displays only Jon’s accounts.

Alternatively, I could create labels such as “Budget $1000+”, “Chiropractors”, or “Top Performer” for higher monthly budgets, chiropractors, and accounts that convert well or have a high Click Thru Rate.

There’s more about this MCC Labels feature at the Official AdWords Blog. Check it out.