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Back in the not so distant past when I was still wet behind the ears and finding my way, like most newbies I was on the quest for the “perfect PPC keyword”.
I’ll Gladly Pay You Tuesday for a PPC Keyword Today »
Sphere ItEarlier this week I blogged about how the company running the “the algorithm killed jeeves” campaign dropped the ball by not having done some predictive SEO and PPC. It appears somebody got my message and things have changed.
How Small Bloggers Can Affect Big Companies »
Sphere ItThe SEO space is a buzz with “SEO is/isn’t Rocket Science” and “SEO is/isn’t like Baking a Cake” and every other silly analogy anyone can come up with. Here’s the thing it’s stupid argument, not worth the effort and really worth polluting your the SERP’s for your name over. Since I offer reputation management as a service I figured I’ll give a few quick pointers on how to fix things.
Dave Pasternack of Did-it.com How to Fix Your Problem »
Sphere ItI know Werty showed something similar to this at pubcon, but this is as bad as I’ve ever seen it. 12 sponsored ads on a page and almost no way out but to click the ads. Yes I know there are two links in the upper right but well seems a bit like an MFA site to me (screen shot and full shot after the jump) Google MFA and No Way Out! »
Sphere ItI’m not exactly sure what caused all this secondary fuss about no-follow and reviews lately but I think it’s time someone pointed out that Google is being extremely hypocritical about the entire thing and using fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) to corral web publishers to their way of thinking.
Google’s Policy on No follow and Reviews is Hypocritical and Wrong »
Sphere ItI was on Greg Niland’s GoodKarma Radioshow earlier this week talking about a whole bunch of things and dropping some hints, tips and tricks. Sorry about not letting you know before hand but it was all very last minute. Listen to or download the podcast from WebmasterRadio
Sphere ItSince I live on Long Island in New York where some of the Taco Bell E.Coli 0157:h7 food poisoning incidents have occurred the story has been fairly front of mind for me. However I though it might be interesting to share the SERP with some of you from other spots who don’t get some of the geo-targeted advertising. Taco Bell and E. coli O157:H7 »
Sphere ItI know there were a few people who were using site targeting on this blog, and it wasn’t something I had a problem with. However on one of my other websites site targeting was being used so much that my earnings were spiraling downward. Since there is no way to turn of site targeting on a site by site basis (it’s a master account setting) I had to turn it of completely.
As an advertiser I never opt into the content network. Even though I can bid with lower prices I get crappy results. I did however use site targeting for some products where the content was spot on, and the quality of the site was above average overall. So I’ve got mixed feeling about this. I like being able to site target individual websites, but I can see how it can also work against the publisher. Being able to opt in/out on a site by site basis would be step in the right direction.
Sphere ItShoemoney rocks the house, but I managed to get in a name drop and few sentences in an article on Google Arbitrage Bitten By The Google Spider - Forbes.com
Critics say the new restrictions have missed the mark, punishing people like Kris Jones who run legitimate Web sites. Search engine marketer Michael Gray says Google’s new scoring has led to an uncountable number of “false positives,” particularly for coupon and shopping-review sites like Jones’ MarketShareBuilders. “It’s frustrating,” Gray says, “because you don’t even know why you failed the test.”
Sphere ItIf you’re interested in reading what I have to say about the adwords quality score check out An Interview With Michael Gray aka Graywolf I gave over on PPC Blog
Sphere ItSo ReviewMe.com launched last week and I have to say I think it’s an excellent idea. Review Me Review »
Sphere ItA few weeks ago Matt Cuts noticed someone was bidding on his name. Being the snarky wise-ass fun loving jovial type I decided to have a little fun. While it wasn’t an especially nice thing to do hopefully I can make up for that by turning this into a learning experience and showing some stats. Bidding on Matt Cutts as a Keyword »
Sphere ItI’ll admit I’m like the people Guy Kawasaki recently talked with I don’t spend a lot of time watching TV. I watch the occasional Mythbusters, American Chopper and animal planet nature documentary, and a few TV show I run some blogs for, so we’re talking about less than 5 hours a week. Since I spend a majority of my time in front of a monitor I’m pretty comfortable watching video there, especially if it happens to be search engine related news. Looking at Search Video News »
Sphere ItIf anybody told me this I’d say BS but I created some new adwords adgroups this morning and I checked some of them to make sure they are OK and some keywords have already gone into premium positions. I’ve done it in about a week before but a few hours man that’s just crazy!
Sphere ItSo I’m bidding on a keyword where I’m the only person running an ad. It’s getting between 1,000 and 1,500 searches a day and getting between a 3-4% CTR. I’m a little baffled how they come up with the $0.12 a click figure since there’s no one under me.
Sphere ItSo I helped friend set up a new adwords account, and they received a letter saying blah blah we’re having a hard time linking your credit card to your address we need you to fax over a copy of the credit card and a form of id like a drivers license (that’s the summary not actual words used). We wrote back to google (from the adwords site not replying) and they verified it was a legitimate request. I’ve never seen a request like this before (although I haven’t set up a new adwords account for a while to be honest) and the person is understandably worried about phishing and identity theft. So has anyone else ever seen or heard of a request like this?
For the record this is an actual legitimate flesh and blood person who is not me, and is not someone conjured up out of my imagination.
Sphere ItI can’t imagine if you read this blog and haven’t heard of Shoemoney. However if you aren’t listening to his podcast you’re missing out. I can’t listen live because I’ve got some scheduling conflicts but I’m catching up on the podcast archives. My top recommended Shoemoney Net Income Episodes are:
Sphere ItSo I stumbled across a new keyword this friday and put up new ad on saturday morning. The ad did OK but nothing to get excited about over the weekend. Yesterday the ad totally exploded, which is pretty interesting since it’s not something people would typically be searching/shopping for at work. So this morning I went to Yahoo to see what was going on there and I saw a boatload of competition on the top and on the side. However over in Google-land I’m quite happily sitting as the lowest of a total of three other advertisers.
Now I suspect this is do to adwords cleaning house and kicking out the virtual riff-raff a few weeks ago. This house cleaning leaves a lot of wide open spaces for clever folks who can figure out how to get in.
As a side note has figuring out pricing for adwords keywords become the equivalent of reading tea leaves or sheep entrails? If I’m the bottom advertiser of three why do I have to bid $0.30 to get my ad to show? It’s especially puzzling because I’m not getting the “low quality” message you get when you are getting priced jacked.
Sphere ItI’ll admit that when I first saw the new adwords quality score I thought they were crazy, they’ll have to roll this thing back, and was not alone in this belief. However after poking ad proding the beast a little I say it’s here to stay.
Adwords Quality Score - Why It Won’t Roll Back »
Sphere ItThere’s been quite a bit of noise in the SEM space about some of the recent changes made by the Google Adwords Quality Score. I thought it might be interesting to take a more in depth look at some of my site statistics.
Profits Murdered By Google Adwords »
Sphere ItChances are you’ve seen ads like the one below and you’ve wondered where are publishers like eBay coming up with these keywords?
Well if you were listening to WebmasterRadio.fm tonight you would have learned something.
Google Adwords Feeding Keywords Lists to Big Clients »
Sphere ItIt’s taken a few days and a few tech support emails back and forth but I’ve finally been able to get an answer on how to work with the new Google Adwords quality robot.
Working with Google Adwords Quality Robot »
Sphere ItEric Giguère of Make Easy Money With Google Adsense published an Adsense Patent Review and sent me a copy to review. Now I’m not a big fan of overly technical documents or patents but they are something we have to deal with in this industry, so you’ve either got to learn to read them and slog through or wait for someone else to do the dirty work for you. This one is little different than most patent reviews, mainly because it’s not free, it costs $14.95 to download.
Understanding Adsense Patent Review »
Sphere ItSo my buddy Patrick over at text link ads has put out a new tool to help you figure out how much you could get selling ads on your website. I’ve tried a few different websites and it’s pretty cool. However they were clearly having a little fun putting in an Easter Egg when you put in my blog (screen shot below). So go ahead and give your sites a try and see if you’re missing out on some revenue. Text Link Ad Calculator .
Sphere ItI will admit when I first stumbled into MySpace I really didn’t think it was much more than a bunch of horrendously ugly pages with really cheezy music. However if you are willing to dig a little deeper you can find some legitimate companies and organizations who are using MySpace. If you’re ready let’s dive in …
Marketing Examples on MySpace »
Sphere ItIf you’ve been following WMW (see Sudden increase of CPC recently?), the Blogosphere ( see Technorati Search: adwords cpc increase), or even my blog(see Google Adwords Broken or Price Gouging ) you may have seen some some people complaining about increases in min CPC prices for AdWords campaigns. Basic recap of my situation if I bid $5.00 my ads show in the top spot and in some cases even displacing three premium listings, if I bid $4.99 my ads stop showing. If I want to play I have to be willing to play top dollar and be number one, I can’t bid for a lower spot. This happens for brand new advertisements with no history. Because I’m a tinkerer and I like to understand how things work, and because I can be a bit of a nudge and pest I really wanted to figure things out, so I decided to dig a little deeper, and get someone from AdWords to look and I’d also do some recon at Pubcon
Google AdWords CPC Price Increases »
Sphere ItSo I’m creating a new campaign with 40 or so keyword phrases, I submit them and I check and 38 of them are disabled with an “inactive for search increase quality or bid” message telling me I have to up my bid to $5 or $10 dollars. First of all how do they know if my ad sucks or not? It’s been in the system for less than 60 seconds. Since I’m a tinkerer I pick the best phrase and up it to $5. Now at $5 I’m not going to be making a profit, but I want to see what happens. I wait 15 to 20 minutes and there I am in the number 1 spot on the side (no premium results on this one). Ok I don’t want to be number 1, I want to be lower. I drop my bid back down the “increase quality” message is back and my ad goes away. Ok let’s try a $4.99 bid … my ad is still gone and “increase quality” message is back. So at $4.99 my ad sucks, but at $5.00 it’s ok? Clearly something is “broken” here.
This is not a $5 keyword … trust me. Are things getting so bad at the plex they have to have an automated way to force me to pay more than I want if I want my ad to show? Can you only bid on a keyword if you want to be number 1 and pay through the nose for it? C’mon Google what’s the story?
Sphere ItAs we saw in part II AdSense Arbitrage: Keyword Selection, finding the right set of circumstances where AdSense Arbitrage is going to work requires a bit of work. You’ve got to get a large enough set of related keywords, get some prices, and then compare and look for the right opportunity. If you read Rae’s blog then you might remember her post on Legitimate Use of Mechanical Grunts, which is a perfect for this situation. However after you get the keywords, and prices you’re still going to have to sift through all that data. I was talking with Scott (aka Web Professor) last week and he pointed me in the direction of Standard deviation.
Adsense Arbitrage: Automation and Button Pushing »
Sphere ItIn part I AdSense Arbitrage: Tips, Tricks & Secrets we went over the basics of how AdSense arbitrage works. In this part we’re going to roll up our sleeves and look at some actual keywords and see if we can find some areas where we might like to try some arbitrage.
