Mike The Internet Guy’s Blog

I just did a search for “bay area liposuction on Google” and the same website came back with the top 2 listings. While the indented listing was clearly a page about liposuction, the meta tag described it different as a page about “labiaplasty”. Now this could have easily turned off a user from clicking on the indented listing, even though the content behind the link was appropriate. Nothing against labiaplasty here, just an old click through analysis here. So next time you copy and past your meta tags, be sure and edit them before going live!

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Recently Google rolled out the Search Query performance report which showed other keywords your broad and phrase matched terms were generating impressions for. Well what do you know….. people started seeing what crap their ads were showing up on which I am sure prompted the smart ones to stop using broad match or at least add some negative keywords. My inital reaction was great, this is a really useful tool that not only helps me improve my ROI (keep customer happy) it also improves quality for Google.

So what does Google go and do but turn it off! Thats right folks these queries are not visible in the reports anymore and any report that you previously generated is gone from your account!! Now we all know that broad match can really get you in trouble mostly due to crappy technology which shows someone’s ad for ’summit county kitchens’ when the broad matched term was ’summit county homes’ (using a ton of negatives I might add, though of course kitchen was not one of them!) If you don’t know what I am talking about go see Rich from Apogee.

This is the second useful tool I have noticed removed by Google this week, that could really help improve campaign performance for Google’s customers and improve quality across the network. What is the deal. Did these tools really impact revenue, or was there a different reason for turning these tools off such as a competitor being able to reverse engineer some of the matching algorithms. I guess we’ll never know for sure, but I do know I would like to see these tools come back, and may even be willing to PAY a premium for this access!

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A few weeks/months back when Google released the Negative Keyword Tool as part of the Adwords Keyword Tool, the tool would show an estimated “% traffic excluded” for each proposed negative keyword. This number made some of my clients very happy, because as soon as I ran the tool I could say, “we just reduced your impressions by an estimate XX%”. Now the number no longer shows, and it is pissing me off. Does anybody know where it went? Am I just not seeing it on certain accounts? The Adwords help docs show no sign of the data being removed.

Why does Google consistently take away tools that increase quality for their users? Another recent example is Google removing the supplemental query. Implementing negative keywords that an advertiser truely should not be showing up for only improves quality. Sure a little revenue may run away, but Google has always put quality first, supposedly.

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Some of you may recall my November post about using Grand Central to track calls from internet marketing campaigns. I made a suggestion to Grand Central several months ago on how to improve their service. Now that Google has aquired Grand Central, here are some of my suggestions that I think will be put into effect.

-ability to place a ‘Click to Call’ button on your own website
-ability to track calls from an Adwords campaign (and hopefully cross channel tracking eventually)
-more widespread ability to use click to call direct from an Adwords Ad

Most of these features have been available through various services for a while. However they were not all available together at a reasonable rate small businesses could afford. This acquisition by Google I assume will provide solutions for all my suggestions and more. This will greatly enhance the ability for small businesses to support and track telephone communication sparked by internet marketing campaigns.

If anyone would like a free Grand Central account(now by invitation only) just leave a message in the comments. Those linking to me first will receive priority of course

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No I am not talking about the infamous Google Page Rank meter. I am talking about the newer search volume meter shown inside Google’s External Keyword Tool.

You read in my last article on keyword research for local businesses, that Google’s tool was shown to be the most likely source of reliable keyword data when a local modifier is involved.

Let’s say you want to build a blog focusing on Denver restaurants. Of course it will probably take you a while to bust out the “sandbox” so you would be better off targeting some less competitive terms that are still highly relevant for your site. Typing in ‘denver restaurants’ to the Google Keyword Tool returned the following results.

As you can the relative volume of the search query is displayed. Now we need to pick some keywords with decent volume that are also a little less competitive. You can pick keywords by clicking the add link next to each phrase. This will create a running list for you on the right column of the page. If you click the “txt” link under “download these keywords” you can grab a quick text export of your list.

Take this list on over to Aaron Wall’s Keyword Competition Tool. You’ll need a Google API Key for this one so if you don’t have one try this tool which will help you create a manual report. Aaron’t tool reports, for the phrase, the number of results returned, the number of links with that exact anchor text, the number of pages with the exact phrase in their title tag, and the number of pages with both the phrase in anchor text and in their title together.

Ok, now we know some relative volume data about a set of keywords and we also know about how pages are truely “optimized” for each keyword. So let’s pick some winners. (Hint, my winners are in green above).

First possible flaw in this theory: We don’t know how accurate those little green volume bars are. We just don’t know enough about them.
Second possible flaw: Many other powerful websites are obviously ranking for some of these terms, and even tough they may not be in their title tags or anchor text, they may still be hard to beat.

So good luck finding your local keyword “gold nuggets”!

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John Ellis has a great post detailing 7 characteristics of highly effective pay per click advertisers. I really like some of the points John makes in this post, specifically #1 (seperate content and search), and #6 Bid Exact, Avoid Broad). These are two very typical mistakes I see “non-effective” PPC advertisers make on a regular basis. Of course if you aren’t doing #6, then you probably aren’t doing #3 (Create a negative keyword list), because you don’t understand the crap broad match can bring with it.

Speaking of broad match, I have to say I am bit impressed with Google’s new negative keyword tool embedded in their keyword research tool when you are logged into Adwords. The thing I appreciate most about the tool, is the numbers it gives in regards to the percentage of impression volume a negative candidate is generating in the campaign. I don’t have enough data yet to see how accurate these numbers are, but it is nice to be able to tell a PPC clean-up client we already reduced their unwanted impressions by 15% simply by adding negative keywords.

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Many new SEOs will learn at the beginning that keyword research is the corner stone of every SEO project. I of course would not argue with this fact. In addition most new SEOs go on to learn that keyword research means depending on and using major keyword databases such as Keyword Discovery and Wordtracker. Again in most cases I would say while I wouldn’t depend entirely on these databases they are a good place to start. Keyword research for a ‘local’ website though can be an entirely different ball game. In this post I’ll give examples of why you should not depend on these major keyword databases for local keyword research and also give you some alternatives with more accurate data.

Major ‘Paid’ Keyword Databases Stink when it comes to Local
When it comes to keyword research for a ‘local’ business, the major keyword databases are spotty at best in delivering quality data for keyword research. Everett, at First Page Fitness, recently wrote a blog post on seo for chiropractors in which he discussed keyword research for local chiropractic clinics. In his experiment Everett found that Wordtracker (which returned one result), and Keyword Discovery (which returned a few results of varying quality) did not cut the mustard for this project. The best results were returned from the free Google Adwords Keyword Tool which displayed relative data about search volume and competition levels (in PPC at least). I could not agree more that in this case the Google Adwords Keyword tool is one of the better sources of data.

Why Major ‘Paid’ Keyword Databases Stink when it comes to Local
The reason the major keyword databases ’stink’ when it comes to local is they obtain their data only in samples which are not representative of the general population. Where they get the samples is not 100% clear (because it is proprietary) however, one can assume that ISPs might be a likely source in some cases. So if you are a chiropractor in Cincinnati, the chances of you getting good sample data collected for you by a database such as Keyword Discovery is between slim and none. For more ‘national’ based keyword searches such as ‘golf cart parts‘, the major paid keyword databases work great.

‘Local’ searches with a ‘national’ appeal may not be skewed
A possible exception to local search data being somewhat accurate in the major DBs is a search for tourist or relocation information about a certain area. For example I am sure there are plenty of people across the country who search for ‘summit county real estate‘, which is the home of Colorado ski resorts, Breckenridge, Keystone, and Arapahoe Basin. In fact there might be as many or more people outside of Colorado who search for this type of real estate as there are in Colorado.

The Best Local Keyword Research Tool
The only way I know of to get close to 100% data on the volumes of local keywords is to use pay per click (PPC). To do this first you take the data you get from a variety of sources (major KW DBs, your own ideas, your competitors keywords, keywords from your log file, etc) and then place them all into a big keyword list. Then you open an account with a major PPC engine (I recommend Google Adwords). Organize the campaign into tightly knit ad groups and compose relevant ad copy for each group. Dump the ad groups you created into Google as exact match terms. Make sure your max cost per click bid and daily budget are set high enough that each keyword is ensured to show on the first page of SERPs each time it is triggered. Then let your campaign fly for a while and see what happens. The one for sure thing that you will learn is keyword volume. However what you also might find is volume and your ROI don’t always mix. For example you could get a ton of impressions and maybe even clicks on a certain keyword, however no conversions are stemming from that particular phrase. At the same time you have another keyword with lower volume but a much higher conversion rate and a higher number of overall conversions. This my friend means you have found your ‘gold nugget term’

The ‘long tail’ of local keywords
One last thing to consider when developing your keyword list for testing in Google Adwords is the ‘long tail’ of local search. Just like in ‘regular’ search local search has a huge potential to optimize for lower competition, highly relevant, and highly converting keywords. To find these local searches think of neighborhoods, land marks, major streets and intersections, and other similar ‘locations’ that may be near your business. Append these ‘locations’ to some or all of the keywords you found in your discovery process to make an even longer list. A good place to find neighborhood names in your city is Trulia.com a Web 2.0 style real estate mash-up. In addition if your business targets a wider local area such as the nearest towns around you, you may want to try the free local keyword list creator tool at 5minuteSite.com.

Good luck with your local keyword research. If anyone else has tips I would encourage you to leave them in the comments on this post.

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Now that I am back in the office after a short hiatus due to my new baby, things are picking up again. I have looked at 6 small business PPC accounts in the last two days for potential clients. Not one of them had anything but broad match in use. Almost no negative keywords existed in any of the ad groups or campaigns. Also every single one of them had content targeting turned on which was performing terribly and sucking up some major budget.

When I propose PPC to many clients 6 times out of 10 I get some push back. Typically they say they’ve either directly had a bad experience with PPC or someone they know has had a bad experience. I now know where these bad experiences originate. While I don’t doubt there are people touting PPC management services out there that also don’t know what they are doing, self managed PPC campaigns can be a disaster.

People I am hear to tell you that PPC can work. It probably won’t work if you spend 10 minutes learning about it, or if you use the starter edition of Ad Words. You need a professional to manage your campaigns. I manage small and large PPC campaigns and I make it very affordable to small businesses. If you don’t use me, please use somebody. There is traffic to be captured out there, and money to be made. Don’t leave it on the table for your competitors!

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My first child Emma Belasco was born on Friday. Mom and baby are doing well. Posting will continue to be light for a week or two, and then once my post idea list can’t get any longer, I will resume Enjoy the video

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Aaron from FindBuffalo has a great “faceoff” interview on his blog with Local Search superstars Matt McGee and Paul Jahn. Check it for tips including what a local business should do with a budget of less than $100 a month for search marketing!

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