Author: Nancy McCord

Posted on

Google Boost Looks a Lot Like Yahoo Local

Google Boost Ad Image

If you’ve been around for a while you will know what I mean when I refer to the now defunct Yahoo Local, but Google Boost sure looks a lot like it!

That being said, I am really watching Google Boost carefully. Google Boost a new monetization tactic being used for Google Places aka Google Maps and is currently being tested in Chicago, San Francisco, and Houston. If you use it, you set up your account, add your credit card and select one of three click levels for a month. Google does the rest. It creates pay per click ads, keywords, manages your cost per click. All you do is pay.

And pay you will, with a totally automated ad serving and automated click costs don’t expect Google Boost to be saving you any money. In the Yahoo Local model, you selected how many clicks you wanted to get each month and Yahoo delivered. You even tied up the top spots in organic-looking placement on the Yahoo Local search engine. So far in the beta testing the Google Boost ads are differentiated only with a blue map icon. They look similar to an organic listing.

Additionally, Google Boost ads will appear on Google Places, Google Maps searches and even on Google.com. My feeling is that this will never replace Google AdWords, but that Google is looking to sop up the market when it comes to Mom and Pop shops with low budgets that don’t want to get into AdWords or users who think AdWords is so complicated. Google Boost is a step below even the Google Starter Edition.

But Google will make tons of money off of this new vehicle and this is why I am really watching Google Boost. You should be too!

Posted on

Our November e-Newsletter is Posted

We’ve published our November e-newsletter and wanted to share it with you. Topics in this month’s issue are:

Preview of Facebook Business Pages Demystified for Business Owners

I have been working hard on a new white paper that helps business owners understand how to get the most from Facebook Business Pages. My new easy to understand guide titled “Facebook Business Pages Demystified for Business Owners” is previewed in advance of syndicated release to you, our newsletter subscriber. The paper won’t be syndicated until later this week. Read more…

Yahoo as We Know It Was Retired in October

If you go to Yahoo.com there is still a search engine there, so what do I mean when I say that in October Yahoo was retired? Although there is a “Yahoo” still there, the search results and sponsored ads supplied are all being delivered by Bing.com and Microsoft adCenter. The final change over took place at the end of October.

This means that there is no longer a Yahoo algorithm that drives search results – it is a Bing algorithm. There is no longer a Yahoo advertising control panel – now you use the Microsoft adCenter control panel to place, bid, and change ads that appear on both Yahoo.com and Bing.com. It also means that Google finally gets some real competition when it comes to advertising and that is good news for you! Read more…

Inflating Your Daily Budget to Force Clicks on AdWords Can Get You In Trouble

You may say this never happens, but as I review all AdWords accounts that are running when a new prospect comes to me looking for a new account manager, this happens fairly frequently. Personally, I do not recommend this action.

What I am speaking of is when an AdWords account is in trouble and an account manager cannot get clicks for the client. The account manager sometimes gets desperate and tries to force clicks. Here is the common scenario. The actual client wants to spend $1,000 in clicks a month. They typically will be in a business that has a high click cost auction. The acting account manager has decided not to set the cost per click in the account to a level that Google will consider the account in the AdWords auction and so as a result AdWords serves the ads infrequently. The client may be then spending only $200 or so of a $1,000 click budget. Read more…

Posted on

Facebook Business Pages Demystified for Business Owners

I have just published earlier this week my most recent white paper. This one is called Facebook Business Pages Demystified for Business Owners. You can download or read this white paper online from our website.

This interesting white paper will help you to get started reaching new business prospects on Facebook fast and understand why Facebook is the new place for businesses to be. With Facebook being more popular than Google.com and the place where 50% of registered users login every day, Facebook is the place to be for your business too.

Here are some fun facts from Facebook:

  1. Facebook has more than 500 million active users.
  2. 50% of the active users login once a day.
  3. The average user has 130 friends.
  4. People spend over 700 billion minutes a month on Facebook.
  5. The average user creates 90 pieces of content each month.
  6. More than one million websites have integrated with the Facebook Platform.
  7. Two-thirds of comScore’s U.S. Top 100 websites and half of comScore’s Global Top 100 websites have integrated with Facebook.
  8. There are more than 150 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
  9. Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events.
  10. More than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each month.

That is 10 super reasons your business should be on Facebook. 

I have another white paper, a longer and more detailed one that spells out how to use Welcome pages and FBML which is Facebook’s simple code. You can download it, “Facebook Business Page How-To Guide”, now. To get the PDF you will need to subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter.

Posted on

Google Boost for Google Places, A New Advertising Model Being Tested

Here’s what Google says about Google Boost:

Google Boost is a new online ad program that lets business owners build search ads from their Google Places account. The goal is to make the ads contextually relevant.

Google is really putting some muscle behind moving to strongly monetize Google Places or as it used to be known Google Maps. Google Boost is currently being tested only in Chicago, Houston, and San Francisco. The new program will allow business owners to create AdWords-like ads but from inside the Google Places platform. The client will be able to set a budget and Google Boost will do the rest creating a keyword list and serving the ad when relevant. The price model is pay per click, in other words you only pay when someone clicks into your Google Places page.

Google expanded the Google Places tag recently out of selected markets and is now offering the mini yellow icon for $25 per month to Google Places businesses who want their map marker in the local list to stand out. I consider the Google Place tag a grab for cash by Google, but I am testing to see if the little yellow marker does generate extra activity and will let you know at the end of my testing period.

In the meantime, with new management moving into Google Places, Google Boost testing being done now, and Google emphasizing local search placement above Google.com organic listings and in some cases even above existing AdWords ads I expect to see even more efforts to further monetize this important listing for local serving businesses.

If you aren’t even on Google Places now, make sure to check out our Google Places set up and placement services.