Google's Ultimate Power

Recently, I decided to make some adjustments to one of my Google PPC campaigns. ...normal stuff like adjusting bid prices, adding keyword phrases, and adding broad-match or exact-match phrases. Next thing I know, Google dropped my quality scores on just about every keyword in that campaign. ...from around 7-8 to 1-2. That's the difference between life and death in the PPC world. And then the ads weren't showing. Was it something I said?

A few months back, I attended a seminar on SEO that told me to use a domain name that matched my ad copy. So, I did. I bought domains that matched my keywords and ran ads back to landing pages on those domains. It seemed to work. I don't really know if worked better than if I didn't use a matching domain, but I was getting results. Then, Google decided to un-list my site. Why? Because it saw two domains with the same content and determined that to be fraud. I found this out only because I happened to be in the Google Webmaster Tools. Luckily, I removed the alternate content, applied 301 redirects, went through the objection process and they re-listed the site. What a Hassle.

Google has the power to effectively shut down a business if that business is relying on web traffic. And they don't give you a rule-book to play by. So, it's a game of hit-and-miss. And web has become the de-facto mechanism for B2B research. You don't use a phonebook or rely on the physical mailbox to find an enterprise software solution. You use Google. As a marketer, my audience is screaming at me to NOT use email and NOT use (cold) phone calls. So, we are choosing to limit our options to Google. It's dangerous.

Google is essentially limiting your choice to companies who have savvy-enough web marketing to survive. And sometimes simple mistakes or misinformation cause a de-listing. It's bad for sellers and buyers. I think it's time to start advocating a better way. I'm not saying that Google should do anything different. They're good at what they do and provide a fantastic service for navigating the billions of web pages out there. But as a B2B buyer, I can't rely on Google to help me find my best options. And I don't know where else to go.

Pay-Per-Click Success: Improve PPC Results

It's actually pretty easy to get good results with Google's Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising if you do things the right way. Google's top priority - they're mantra - is Relevancy, Relevancy, Relevancy (so I've heard). That's why they're #1 to the point that they're almost a monopoly. Early on, they realized that people will use the engine that returns relevant results most often. And that is certainly the case.

So, even if advertiser A is willing to pay more per click than advertiser B for a given keyword, B will still be at the top of the results list if it's page is more relevant. So, the question is, how does Google's PPC engine determine relevancy? Well, three ways primarily:

- Good SEO: All the things you do to get your site to show up in Google's natural search results should also be a part of your PPC campaign pages as well. Think page titles, heading tags, good coding techniques, content, absence of cheat techniques, etc.

- Common Thread: There needs to be a common thread between the keyword searched, the ad copy, the campaign keywords, and the landing page. This may create a lot of work, but it's effective.

- Inbound Links: Google does its own analysis of whether your content is relevant for a given search term, but it also relies on other people's viewpoint. If they link to your page, your page's relevancy goes up. If their link contains a keyword, your relevancy for that keyword goes up even higher. The power of inbound links is why people are tempted to cheat and create their own inbound links. But, don't get caught or your relevancy scores could be wiped out for good. The best way to get good inbound links is to provide valuable content. When publishers find content of value, they will share it with their audience. And ultimately, that's the kind of traffic you want.

Keyword Research Tools

I've been wondering about keyword research solutions like SpyFu and KeywordSpy. SEOCorner recently provided a nice head-to-head comparison of the two. I also read this explanation of how SpyFu works and where/why the data might be wrong. For, now, I think I'll stick to my current process. I don't see these tools really helping me out all that much. I'd love to hear real-world stories about how these solutions actually helped someone.