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AdWords Broad Match Modifier Explained

I am loving the Google AdWords broad match modifier! If you aren’t using it yet in your AdWords account this blog post will help you to know why you should and get you going fast.

First, this is what Google AdWords says about broad match modifiers:

“The broad match modifier is an AdWords targeting feature that lets you create keywords which have greater reach than phrase match, and more control than broad match. Adding modified broad match keywords to your campaign can help you get more clicks and conversions at an attractive ROI, especially if you mainly use exact and phrase match keywords today.”

Here’s a link to the full information in the AdWords help center on broad match modifiers to help you understand them better.

For accounts that are getting too many impressions and a low click through rate use of broad match modifiers will better target your AdWords program and get a better result as well as improve your CTR. For accounts that have low impressions, as you are only using phrase match and exact match keywords, broad match modifiers will open up a whole new set of possibilities that can really generate some sales action for your account and increase targeted impressions.

Here’s how you use them. Suppose your keywords are built around booking vacations to Hawaii. In your AdWords account you may have a list of keywords like this:

Hawaii vacations
“Hawaii vacations”
Hawaii travel agent
“Hawaii travel agent”
hotels in Hawaii

With the broad match keywords you may be getting lots of “looky-lous” and clicks on even keywords like rentals or hostels in Hawaii. Or you may not be getting enough action or having to pay too high a price per click.

Here’s what a few broad match modifiers may look like for these keywords:

Hawaii +travel +agent
Hawaii +hotel +reserve
vacation +Hawaii +reservation
hotels +Hawaii +book

For me, I take the most important word in the phrase and put that first then I put a space and then a + (without a space) in front of the keywords that I am requiring for Google to have in the users search query to see my ad. With this approach you can get a lot more traffic that is targeted to keywords you consider important.

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Even Google Itself Says Turn Off AdSense for Mobile

I have been working with the agency team at Google.com in the AdWords division. It seems that we got recognized not for being a Google AdWords Certified Partner, or for being a Google Engage for Agencies Member, but for managing so many accounts with a big ad spend. Yeah, maybe Google will send me a “token” Christmas present again this year.

Really kidding aside, I did want to share one very important point that Suzanne L. at the Google AdWords Agency shared with me.

“We recommend turning off AdSense for mobile in your content campaign. Our customers have found that the conversion rate is very low.”

Interesting! We don’t have too many clients advertising in content, but we do have a few. Of one that she and I looked at together a full one half of the clicks was being delivered in the mobile network. So, take it from the mouth of Google, turn off AdSense for Mobile if you are in the content network; save yourself some cash.

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How to Track the Success of Facebook Advertising

Without conversion tracking tools provided by Facebook, it is hard to justify spending advertising dollars on Facebook ads. However, with a little bit of creativity you can gage how Facebook ads are working for you. Here are a few suggestions you may want to try out as you test pay per click advertising on Facebook.

  1. If you sell products, do a unique coupon code for Facebook and put it in your ads. You’ll be able to see in your store control panel how many times that coupon code was redeemed. Check your sales against your Facebook ad spend to see if continuing to advertise on Facebook makes sense for you.
  2. If you sell services not products, send your Facebook ad clickers to a special landing page, embed in the page a contact form with a subject line that says “Lead from Facebook.” This way you’ll know for sure that the when you get that form that the lead was generated by a Facebook click.
  3. Create a special gift pack to sell in your store that you only advertise on Facebook. This way if you cannot do a coupon code, you can at least get an idea if your investment in Facebook advertising is generating a return.

If you are advertising on Facebook using pay per click advertising, you do need to watch your Google Analytics account to check to see if you can identify a volume of traffic from Facebook. If you see a spike and you are advertising, it makes sense to assume that Facebook is generating these additional exposures.

Many business owners want to advertise on Facebook, especially in the upcoming holiday season, but without true conversion tracking tools we can only hope and guess that Facebook is the “right” place to be. Find out more about our Facebook ad services.

If not knowing if a pay per click service is working for you is too problematic for you, consider using our Google AdWords services. With Google AdWords conversion tracking, we can KNOW what sales have been generated by clicks and can even measure phone calls. Find out more about our Google AdWords services.

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Five Years Ago I Had Great Organic Placement

I have had a rash of prospects tell me that their organic placement has dropped so much after they paid a ton of money for a new website that they want to repost the website they had five years ago to get their old traffic and Google.com placement back. Sorry, but there is no time machine that will take us back to the time you placed highly on Google.com.

A website is not a brochure; you create it once and then hand it out for years. It is a work of art, a puzzle, a tool, a selling machine. It needs care and it needs content updates. What worked three years ago and five years ago certainly does not work now. Even if we could reload a website that performed well five years ago on Google, it would most likely not perform in the same place today.

The Web has changed dramatically in the time that I have been providing professional services and it has significantly changed in the past three years and seriously changed even this past year. What is important for website owners to understand is that now the content is crucial for organic placement, but more than that, it cannot just stop at great content.

A well placed website (in the organic search results) needs:

  1. great content that provides features and benefits
  2. content that is informational beyond what you sell and service
  3. regular updates of interesting articles, white papers, and informational updates
  4. social networking work off site on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+
  5. a blog that is updated a minimum of three times a week and  deep links to pages in your website

That in a nutshell is a web authority site! A website that is beyond a brochure but provides real help and information for readers not only on services and products that are sold but on topics and ideas. This is no five page website that’s for sure.

It takes time and money to build and maintain a web authority site, but the rewards can be big. With a site that is well placed organically, you may not need to spend quite so much in advertising to get traffic to your site. The older your authority site is, the more links you will naturally earn which will continue to improve your placement as well. Additionally, the depth of information you have on your website will let prospects know you know your business and are the go-to person for their needs.

What used to work five years ago for organic placement certainly will not work now, but quality content and information-rich web pages will never go out of style. I invite you to visit our “authority website” and see if we can help you too.