Category: Google

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Google Places Know the Attributes You Can Change

Don’t be scammed by Google Places optimization services, and here’s why there are only certain fields that Google Places now allows you as the business owner to update. Here is the list:

  1. Name
  2. Address
  3. City
  4. State
  5. Zip Code
  6. Country
  7. Main Phone Number
  8. Five Service Category but only from Google’s list
  9. Five of your own categories
  10. Latitude and Longitude

That’s it! No keyword dense title or business description, nothing  more than the list above. If you are approached by a supposed Google Places optimization service that says you need a special title and more keyword density, understand that they are not selling a program that they can deliver. You can only affect changes to the above elements.

If they say they will load hundreds of reviews, steer clear of them. There is no faster way to get your listing banned on Google Places than to have suddenly a bunch of new reviews suddenly appear. Once banned, you may never be able to get back in and with a strong location focus as the future of search, you could really be creating future problems for yourself.

For more information you can check out the attributes on this Google page.

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Promoting Brand New Products No One Has Heard Of

So you’ve just created a brand new product that you really believe in, got your first container shipment from your factory in China, you’ve launched your new website, and now nothing is happening! What do you do to get sales moving?

Not always is Google AdWords the best place to promote a product that no one even knows exists. If you do want to try AdWords, depending on the product, sometimes the display network is the very best place to use to promote unknown products. Great animated banner ads can communicate visually what you are selling and get some low cost exposure. Using the CPM (cost per one thousand impressions) versus the cost per click model may be best for these types of products. I would not recommend that you use text ads to promote this type of product, but certainly it depends on what the product is.

Some ways that you can promote your brand new product would be:

  • Do a press release and send it to as many news agencies as possible. This may cost up to $1,000 or more but may be a great way to get initial exposure.
  • Get started on YouTube and take videos of your product in action.
  • Consider using Google AdWords to promote your YouTube video.
  • Work your social networks like Twitter and Facebook.
  • Get exposure at appropriate trade shows. If you are selling a new door lock for hurricane protection, make sure to be at home shows and hardware shows. You may need to initially focus on selling to the distributor market first with face to face selling or demonstrations.

Make sure that your business plan has enough money to market your product before you even go into production. Just because you make it, people won’t be lined up to buy it without knowing more about it and how it could benefit them!

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AdWords Recommends Separate Mobile Targeted Campaigns

I sat through a seminar this past week that I found very interesting. It was done by Jason Woods from Google AdWords on Mobile Specific Programs.

Here are a few important points that I gleaned from the seminar that I wanted to share with you:

  1. Google AdWords is recommending that businesses do breakout campaigns to target just high end mobile phones and tablets. Although Jason Woods recommend that tablets be put into the desktop and laptop campaigns I don’t agree with that focus just yet. I’ll expound on that issue later.
  2. Google AdWords is recommending more general keywords in this program due to the types of keywords mobile users will type in.

Here are some of my comments and recommendations that I have seen from client accounts we are already managing that have separate mobile/tablet campaigns.

1. The click cost is typically less, but so are the conversions and activity. But don’t think you shouldn’t do a separate mobile program for these reasons, just alter your budget and click cost accordingly and watch your cost per conversion. So far we’ve have good results for clients in the mobile and tablet arena.

2. I don’t necessarily agree with putting tablets into the desktop campaign. I base this on my observation of tablet users. Most tablet users I’ve seen are using cell phone access to the web, meaning that they are out and about and are using access to the web via Sprint, Verizon or some other service. Although most tablets will connect to wireless networks, the fun of a tablet is to access information anywhere not just where you find a hot spot. Now this may change as more and more mobile service providers reign in big data users, but at this time make your own decision based on what you and your client see. For you, you may want to put tablets in with your desktop program.

It is easy to see if you should try a mobile specific program now by logging in to AdWords, go to your campaign tab, select the segment drop down, then click network. Google will show you the number of clicks and conversions that have come from mobile devices with full browsers and tablets with full browsers. Base your decision to do a breakout program from this data.

If you are looking for a savvy Google AdWords account manager, I would be glad to chat with you about your Google AdWords needs (301-705-7303) or I invite you to visit our AdWords account management services page for our programs and pricing.

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Google to Re Rank Overly Optimized Websites

Matt Cutts from Google dropped a bomb this past week. According to Cutts Google is set, in their upcoming algorithm, to re rank in their organic search placement websites that have been overly optimized in an effort to “level the playing field”.

Here’s what Matt Cutts from Google said in another exchange on the topic:

 “We are trying to make  GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those  who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links  or go well beyond what you normally expect.” Read the full article.

What does this exactly mean to website owners?

Well if you have really worked over your website for keyword density, aggressively worked to build inbound text links with very specific anchor text, your website may be hit with a Google search penalty filter in the upcoming three months as their new algorithm rolls out.

What should you do now?

We recommend a careful review of your home page now before your website is dropped or pushed to the 100th page in the search results to see exactly what may need to be changed to be more Google-friendly with this new content focused push. If you have built strong keyword density on some terms on your home page, now’s the time to remove some of the usages and make the content more readable.