The Inside AdWords blog posted yesterday about a new AdWords feature called the Campaign Optimizer. The post says that the Campaign Optimizer is and “on-demand AdWords tool that provides personalized campaign ideas in just minutes.”
Since more and more affiliate and non-affiliate marketers are having problems with the AdWords ad serving “black box” this announcement gave me hope that Google was actually going to get specific and tell advertisers what was ailing their AdWords accounts.
In reality, it seems that the report sheds a lot less light into the black box than I thought. You see, the post outlines the types of suggestions that might be made by the Campaign Optimizer. They include:
Change (increase) daily ad budget
Add new keywords
Change keyword matching options
Adjust (increase) keyword minimum cost-per-click bid
Change ad text
Huh? That’s it? What kind of help is that? We all know that if we spend more money on a click or raise our budget we are going to get more clicks to our site. And we know that if we add keywords or turn on broad match we can get more traffic. So what’s the point of the report? You might as well just have a link go to the AdWords FAQs.
So the following words are to my friends at the AdWords team…it’s likely they won’t listen, but it’s worth a try…
I’m not sure what happened this morning over at Yahoo!, but whatever it was, it was a mess. When I was checking our Yahoo! search rankings this morning I ran across the page you see below. I’m not sure if some of the big filters they run at Yahoo! broke or if they pushed an update that made things go haywire, but either way they weren’t winning any fans searching for “auto insurance quotes.”
The #1 spot on the page was taken up by a site that you have to be logged into to view, so you got some type of custom error page when you hit it. The other two highlighted sites on the page, #3 and #5, are sites that help you create a free forum. What that has to do with auto insurance quotes is beyond me…but it certainly isn’t right.
Things seem back to normal now, which is good. It would be interesting to see what the real story behind this mess was…Yahoo! Search Blog, I’m looking at you.
Ironically, today was the day that Danny Sullivan picked Yahoo! as the “Google Free Monday” alternative search engine. Maybe Google’s Matt Cutts was behind the whole thing…I hear the guy worked in the CIA Special Ops and was responsible for numerous missions to destabilize the USSR before the wall came down. Word on the street is that Matt is made of liquid metal.
No matter what industry you are in, there is a pretty good chance that you use a number of acronyms and industry terms when you talk with your peers about work. A good example is my fianc
First off, I’ve got to admit, just like Linda and Shawn, this PopShops video featuring a three-year-old using PopShops caught my attention. I mean c’mon, this kid is cute:
But after watching the video I signed up for PopShops to see what it is all about - and it’s really neat. Straight from the PopShops site, this is what it’s all about:
I love working on the Web. I’ve had all types of jobs, and let me tell you, sitting in front of a computer and cruising the Internet to get things done ain’t a bad gig. If you’re a professional affiliate marketer, I’m guessing you’re a fan of Web work as well.
But if you’re like me, working on the web can get challenging at times. When you’re banging away on your keyboard coming up with keywords, or battling a particularly troublesome stylesheet, its easy to take advantage of the web to, well, screw around a bit. I think we’ve all found ourselves researching that new Aston Martin or looking for hotels in Paris when we should be getting things done so we can afford the Aston Martin or the trip to Paris someday.
Even if you’re not surfing the web to waste time, many of us get sucked into long IM conversation with friends or get caught up in a massive back-and
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, building quality links to a site is hard to do. And while picking up a few links from your latest crazy YouTube video might be somewhat beneficial, it would likely be better to get some quality links from a quality, on-topic site.
But the million dollar question is how do you do that?
Debra over at Search Engine Land suggests that you build up those high quality viral links through conducting surveys and publishing survey results. The post is a good read for any of you SEO affiliates, but not because I think you should be doing surveys.
Actually, I’m not too convinced that surveys would be the best way to get links as an affiliate, primarily because they would be tough to pull off if you don’t have a large number of visitors or a large email distribution list. What this post is really good for from an affiliate standpoint is using lateral thinking to generate viral links.
Read the post and think about what you could do to generate on-topic links for your affiliate site.
The brains over at Yahoo! are currently pushing out some updates to their crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms. The push is supposedly going to be complete by the weekend, so get ready to start checking your rankings on Monday.
So far from what I have seen I like what they are doing…of course that just means that our sites are moving up in the rankings a bit. Still though, we aren’t anywhere near where we were prior to the June update, which kicked the snot out of our site.
While I’m crossing my fingers and hoping for the best, you can read the “weather report” from Yahoo! and the comments about it here.
First off, I’ve got to say I’m pretty excited. One of my favorite affiliates has finally started up a blog called Website Attraction. The author, Magnus, is and extremely bright guy who is always amazing me with his insightful take on online marketing. I’ve been prodding him to start up a blog so other people can benefit from his knowledge, and it looks like he finally got around to doing it.
His most recent post on the blog is titled Google’s Search Query Report unveils the best search terms, and some really bad ones too is on my must-read list for anyone who is doing PPC. Magnus give a detailed explanation of how to use the search query report in AdWords to come up with new keywords and new negative keywords that will make/save you money. He even goes into the precise steps of how he sorts the report in spreadsheet form.
I took a look at the report for a small AdWords account I am running for my future father-in-law and found that he was getting a number of irrelevant clicks from broad matched terms. Just by adding a single negative keyword he’ll probably save 10% on his monthly charges without losing any business.
Check out Magnus’ post to get the full story on the search query report, and then start running it. Oh yeah, and make sure you subscribe to the Website Attraction Blog’s RSS feed.
I wrote about the Search Engine Spider Simulator a long time ago, but since I’ve been looking for something to post all day and haven’t had any luck, I figured this would be a good refresher.
While the Search Engine Spider Simulator might seem like a fairly straightforward tool, I’d say there is nothing wrong with checking your site to make sure that your site is built in a way that is spiderable. It might save you a lot of pain down the line.
For example, I was looking at an insurance related site on Monday at the High TECC conference and I was able to use the SE Spider Simulator to show site owner that his site, as pretty as it was, contained NO indexable content on the page (except for the page footer). Why? Because the whole site was built in Flash.
Doh!
And if you like the simulator, make sure to check out the Affiliate Tools section on the navigation on the left side of the page…
Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking with my amiga Megan to a number of people in the insurance business about the ins and outs of SEO and PPC. While the time we had was nowhere near long enough to really get into much detail about anything, there was one section of the presentation that got me thinking…and it seems like Rand over at SEOmoz was thinking the same thing back on July 10th.
The topic, paid links.
You see, when I was discussing potential ways to get links to an insurance site I mentioned that buying paid links was:
Discouraged highly by Google
Risky (you could get banned)
Completely necessary for a site to rank for almost every highly-competitive, money making term on in the insurance vertical.
Rand’s post, which focuses on how Google seems to reward those people who purchase links, points out five glaring examples of this in multiple verticals. Rand also makes this oh-so-true statement about the challenges of building links to commercial content:
One of my favorite affiliates pointed me to this May 31st press release for metasearch company Infospace that shows that the major search engines aren’t meeting searcher’s needs as well as I thought and that the major engine’s results don’t overlap that much at all. Some of the findings were:
Web searches on average use three search engines a month
Only 0.6 percent of 776,435 first page search results were the same across the top for Web search engines
Between 38 and 46 percent of all searches fail to elicit a click on a first-page search result
Only 3.6 percent of the number-one ranked, non-sponsored search results were the same across all search engines in a given query
I find these results interesting not because it seems that all of the search engines used in this study (Google, Yahoo, MSN Live, and Ask) have very different interpretations of what sites are relevant and what are not. That is pretty obvious when you use the different engines. What I do find surprising is that 38 to 46 percent of users aren’t clicking anything on the first page. I would assume this is mainly because they aren’t seeing anything that interests them.
On the surface, that might sound like a big failure on the search engine’s part, but I would look at it as an open opportunity for affiliates to give searches the sites and pages that they want.
The internet is vast, and the opportunity is endless if you can find it.
You can read the press release here, and there are a few more facts here.
Interesting news out of Search Engine Land. It sounds like Danny Sullivan and team have come out with a site called Sphinn that does for search marketers much of what BUMPzee has done for affiliate marketers. (Yeah, I know BUMPzee has a SEO/SEM community, but I don’t think it is quite as successful as the BUMPzee Affiliate community.)
Sphinn promises to have Digg-like story rating and submission, discussions, and virtual networking - all things that Scott Jango’s BUMPzee pioneered. Coincidence? Not sure. Does it really matter? Probably not.
I’m sure Sphinn will be a smashing success, mainly because Danny has such a loyal following of Sullivanites. I’m excited to see what Sphinn will add to the SEM world.
For the last week or so I have been feverishly preparing for a presentation I am doing with my esteemed colleague Megan Mahan at the High Tecc Conference in Vail, Colorado. The topic is search engine marketing and the goal is to educate a number of insurance industry professionals about the virtues of search marketing.
One thing I’ve realized while I’ve been putting together my section of the presentation is that the teaching the basics of search marketing is a challenge. To give an accurate and complete explanation of all of the nuances involved in PPC and SEO is like trying to explain the US tax code in 90 minutes or less. I mean, you can give a high level explanation of what is what and how it works, but oversimplifying search is like saying that you can build a house by buying some nails and wood. I’ve been studying this stuff for four years now, and I still don’t understand what’s going on all the time…and it doesn’t help that everything is changing.
For an affiliate (or anyone) getting in to search marketing is a challenge, and if you’re new, it’s hard to figure out how to get going. It’s not like this stuff was taught to us in school. I think Todd Mintz was thinking along these same lines when he asked 7 search professionals “what is the best way for a newbie to learn search engine marketing.” The answers vary a bit, but the common theme is getting educated through trusted books, ebooks, blogs and conferences.
I wholeheartedly agree with this, and would point out that if you are getting into search marketing you better like reading/learning a lot. Being a search marketing professional is like being a surgeon, except your patient’s organs tend to change size, shape and location on a fairly regular basis (luckily, no one dies when you mess up). I guess what I am trying to say is that it’s not that easy.
So follow the advice of the experts, read Todd’s post, and start learning…but beware, once you start you don’t get to stop.
Keyword research is the cornerstone of any search marketing campaign, because ranking for an unsearched term is about as useful as putting up a billboard on Saturn.
As luck would have it Danny Sullivan has taken the time to put together a fantastic post and list of keyword resources that should help you get a rockin’ keyword list put together.
Not to shoo you away or anything, but head over to Search Engine Land to get the 411 on keyword research tools. You can thank me later.
I find colors confusing. I mean, sometimes I have no idea why my finacee Kristi refuses to let me out of the house wearing some of the color combinations that I choose. But in the end, I’m glad she sends me back to my dresser to pick out something new…because she is protecting me from looking silly. (Case in point, the picture to the right was taken while Kristi was out of town…just kidding).
It would be nice if we could have a Kristi to help with our web sites, because a lot of us end up designing sites with colors that have no place being anywhere near one another. And in the end, our sites end up looking silly, which is never good for conversion.
Luckily, I ran across a new site while I was reading TechCrunch that helps people pick out color combinations that actually work with one another. The site is called COLOURlovers and is billed as a site that monitors and influences color trends. For online marketers like us, it gives us a way to discover up-to-date color combinations that help our sites look modern and professional.
Some examples of color palates supplied by the site that might look good on your next affiliate project are (my apologies for the naming of the color schemes in advance):
Rae Hoffman over at the Sugarrae blog has written a passionate, affiliate-related post titled How to Survive the Affiliate Evolution. Rae points out that over the next few years the affiliate business will change dramatically, and affiliates need to be looking at their business in a different way to survive.
Rae’s advice is targeted to the professional, mid-sized affiliate who is looking to take their business to the next level. She says that there should be no more of the “one person show” mindset - affiliates should look to build a business, with either a number of outsourced experts (designers, programmers, etc.) or actual employees. She also feels that the days of building one or two sites and being hugely successful are on their way out. Rae calls for affiliates to step up and build diversified, scalable businesses that are built around a product or vertical, and not just a particular vendor with a product.
I found the post to be interesting and her observations reflect the best practices I have been seeing in the industry for the last couple years. The biggest, most successful affiliates are diversified, scaled businesses who take advantage of opportunities in multiple verticals and who are not afraid to outsource or hire when necessary.
If you’re looking to grow your affiliate business and stay ahead of the curve, Rae’s post might help guide you in a productive direction, so give it a read.
[Hat tip to Stuntdubl for pointing out Rae's post]
Affiliate Summit Miami is starting this Sunday, July 8th. Like every other Affiliate Summit, this is shaping up to be another great show from Shawn and Missy. Out of all the shows I’ve been to, Affiliate Summit is definitely the most networking oriented - which means it’s a lot of fun and a great way to meet people. And if there is any one piece of advice that I have heard over and over, if you want to learn how to make money online, the best place to learn in the pub during a search marketing or affiliate conference.
Speaking of networking, our incredible affiliate manager April Hartmeister will be at the Summit looking to connect some names with faces and meet new affiliates as well. If you haven’t had a chance to meet April yet, you should. If you want, give April a call at 800-467-8736 ext. 6120 or email her at [ahartmeister at insureme dot com] to set up a meeting.
Oh yeah! Keep an eye out for our latest batch of silly business cards that will be circulating at the Summit. The front side should look a little something like this:
Just have to share the news - InsureMe was recently named the second best small company to work for in the United States (up from #19 in 2006). Pretty cool, if I do say so myself.
The brains over at Yahoo! are currently pushing out some updates to their crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms. The push is supposedly going to be complete by the weekend, so get ready to start checking your rankings on Monday.
I wrote about the 
For the last week or so I have been feverishly preparing for a presentation I am doing with my esteemed colleague 
I find colors confusing. I mean, sometimes I have no idea why my finacee Kristi refuses to let me out of the house wearing some of the color combinations that I choose. But in the end, I’m glad she sends me back to my dresser to pick out something new…because she is protecting me from looking silly. (Case in point, the picture to the right was taken while Kristi was out of town…just kidding).
Rae Hoffman over at the Sugarrae blog has written a passionate, affiliate-related post titled 
Just have to share the news - InsureMe was recently named the second best small company to work for in the United States (up from #19 in 2006). Pretty cool, if I do say so myself.