December 2012 Posts from the Internet Marketing Blog
WordStream's Year in Review: Our Best Posts of 2012
Well guys, we did it! WE BEAT THE MAYANS! We got through December and the world didn’t end. Or, if it did, one can hardly tell the difference. I hope you didn’t sell all your possessions or anything rash like that. Awkward!I’m all about looking forward – 2013 Ho! – but before we rush off into next year, let’s take a quick look back at what happened in 2012, the year that was almost the end.
Our top 10 most popular blog posts this year were:What Industries Contributed to Google's $37.9 Billion in 2011 Revenues? – For our first infographic of the year, we found the top 10 industries that lay out the most cash on AdWords advertising and delved in to figure out what it said about the state of economy in 2011 going into 2012.The War on 'Free' Clicks: Think Nobody Clicks on Google A... > Read more
Matching the Google Algorithm to Your Traffic Loss
When website traffic drops, and it’s clear that you were not the cause of it, it’s time to point your finger at Google, rant, and maybe even cut down that 6000 word rant into an informative 3700 word blog post. This SEO is spending Christmas Eve with Google so hopefully you won’t have to.This is the type of early Christmas card you would not want from Google.
“It’s probably that darn Google Panda,”“I feel like it’s Penguin and negative SEO!”or “It might be those directory submissions/paid links that so-and-so did in the past”Before you go on a zealous “Google is evil” blame rampage, I understand that there’s a ton of ways to blame Google (or someone else) without proof. However, empty accusations will not get you your traffic back. Attributing traffic loss ... > Read more
Google Remarketing Cheatsheet: 12 Steps to Set Up a Remarketing List (+ Free Download)
We created a Google remarketing cheatsheet as a take-home for a recent webinar. It’s a handy reference for anyone who is interested in setting up a remarketing campaign in AdWords. Below is the 12-step process to setting up a new remarketing list, and you can click here to download the cheatsheet as a PDF.
Thanks to our SEM Manager Rich Griffin for creating this resource!Define your remarketing strategy.Will you target all visitors to your site?Are you only interested in targeting visitors to a specific page?Create the remarketing code.AdWords > Shared Library > Audiences > + New Audience > Remarketing ListFill in all of the required parameters including membership duration, list name, and a brief description of the tag. Then click “save.”Navigate to the new remarketing c... > Read more
The SEO Interview: Questions to Prepare for Before Your SEO Job Interview
As the founder of a search marketing startup, I’ve had the opportunity to interview, hire and work with some of the most amazing SEOs on the planet. I am so proud to have worked with people like Tom Demers and Ken Lyons, who not only helped me turn wordstream.com into a website that holds its own against domains like google.
com for SERP rankings, they went on to found a successful internet marketing consultancy of their own!Because WordStream’s business is in the internet marketing industry, the competition for SEO keywords in this vertical is incredibly fierce. We’re always competing against other search agencies, or search marketing product companies who obviously know a thing or two about SEO. If you think your insurance or travel industry has fierce competition, try competi... > Read more
The Problem with Marketing Best Practices
Best practices are best practices for a reason – right?You’ve probably heard people say the same thing about stereotypes. There may be a grain of truth behind some stereotypes, but mostly they’re just an excuse for lazy thinking.Marketing best practices – supposedly tried and true guidelines – are the same way.
Some of them are at least partly true; others are based on pure assumption or are so hypothetical as to be basically meaningless to your particular company.Take, for example, the “best practice” that content for the internet should be brief. Many people assume that web readers don’t want to deal with long-form content, so web writers should always favor brevity over depth.Recently, we’ve found the opposite to be true: Our longer blog posts tend to get better metric... > Read more
How Core Values Are Going to Triple Our Revenue in 2013
Today is an important day in WordStream’s evolution. We recently completed an exercise to define our core purpose and core values and we are ready to share them with our employees, customers, prospects and followers.We have been growing fast, with over 30 new hires in 2012 so far. As we grow, having a “playbook” of how we operate becomes more and more important.
These values are the essence of our company. These are not just words on paper, but something we will strive hard to live by, and we expect you to hold us accountable to them.WordStream’s Core Purpose:To bring the power of search marketing to businesses of all sizes.WordStream’s Core Values:The below graphic illustrates our core values. Click to enlarge.How Did We Create These Values?I’ve done this a few different times... > Read more
The 3 Types of Search Queries & How You Should Target Them
Search queries – the words and phrases that people type into a search box in order to pull up a list of results – come in different flavors. It is commonly accepted that there are three different types of search queries:Navigational search queriesInformational search queriesTransactional search queriesIn the search marketing world, we tend to talk more about keywords than search queries (news flash: they’re not quite the same thing).
But today we’re talking search queries. Let’s go into a little more detail on what these three types of search queries are and how you can target them with your site content.Navigational Search QueriesWhat Is a Navigational Search Query?A navigational query is a search query entered with the intent of finding a particular website or webpage. For exam... > Read more
I Will Audit Your PPC Account For Free!
Struggling with PPC advertising? Do you want to take your AdWords account performance to the next level? I can help!I’ll do a complete PPC audit of your AdWords paid search account – for free. Seriously!Next week – on Wednesday, December 12 at 1:00PM EST, I’ll be doing a live webinar with my colleague, Sean Quadlin from Hanapin Marketing (the folks who run the PPC Hero blog!).
Click here to register for the Webinar.During the presentation, I’ll be holding a live PPC optimization clinic – Sean and I will review 2 AdWords accounts and point out areas of strengths, and uncover opportunities to improve your PPC account performance.A few years ago, I used to charge over $1000 for doing a custom PPC audit like this! But we’ll do it live, in-person and at no cost to you (excep... > Read more
30 Fast Facts About the Google Antitrust Case
The Google Antitrust Case: Is Google violating antitrust laws by using its search dominance to favor its own products in search results over competitors? The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is trying to decide whether or not to sue Google for antitrust violations. A final decision about whether to pursue an antitrust case is expected before the end of the year.
In addition to the U.S. Government and European antitrust investigations, there are a number of private lawsuits by Google rivals that make claims of unfair competition or antitrust violations against Google.There is no argument that Google runs the world's most popular search engine, with 67% of the market. But has this market dominance been obtained through antitrust violations?The government’s escalating investigation into ... > Read more
Win of the Week: Focus on Benefits Pays Off
Take a look at the two ads below. If you were looking to buy an insulation blower, which ad do you think you'd click on?PPC Ad #1PPC Ad #2These ads are completely different. Yet one of them performed far better than the other.But which one? And why?The winning ad is ad number two. It was written by BoostCTR writer "deaders," and it increased CTR by 176%.
Where the original ad was producing 1 click, the new ad is producing 2.76 clicks.So why did the new ad win? Let's take a look...The Original AdThe original ad starts okay. The title is clear. The first line repeats the title with the additional word "Blowing." So the first two lines say practically the same thing. This, in my opinion, is a waste of space.Line 2 is a bit strange. I think this is where the ad falls apart. It lists two model ... > Read more
Search Insider Summit: Driving Social Further down the Conversion Funnel
Hello! I'll be speaking on a panel on “Search in the Social Era” at Search Insider Summit 2012. I'll be partnering with other search industry experts to give a presentation on “Driving Social Further down the Conversion Funnel” at the Search Insider Summit on Saturday December 15, 2012, at 10:15 am.
The presentation is one of several that will be hosted during the four-day Search Industry Summit conference hosted at the Stein Eriksen Lodge in Park City, UT. For my “Driving Social Further Down the Conversion Funnel” talk, I will be joined by panelists including Chris Baggott, Chariman at Compendium; Dhiren D’Souza, President and Co-Founder of SearchForce; and Chris Zaharias, Chief Revenue Officer at Triggit. Together we'll examine wh... > Read more
Why Use AdWords? Here Are 10 Reasons
“Why use AdWords” and "Does Google AdWords Work?" are pretty common keyword phrase searched on Google, which suggests that there are a lot of marketers and business owners out there who have heard about Google AdWords but aren’t sure if and how it can work for them. We believe that AdWords – Google’s enormously successful pay-per-click (PPC) advertising system – can work for almost any type of business.
Using AdWords (or any PPC platform) requires time and money, but thousands of businesses have found that it’s time and money well spent, because AdWords delivers measurable ROI. We’ve devoted countless pages to how you should use AdWords. In this post, we’ll answer the question of why you should use it.Before any of our SEO-loving readers get up in arms, let me prefa... > Read more
