1 Google AdWords Voucher!

This AdWords voucher must be activated by 6th August 2012 and used in an AdWords account that’s less than 14 days old. The voucher entitles you to £75 worth of Google AdWords clicks and also covers the £5 admin fee of opening a new AdWords account, thus saving you a total of £80!

How to apply for this AdWords voucher?

1. Like, Follow or 1+ Search Scientist on Facebook, Twitter or Google Plus

2. Comment below noting that you’ve done so, as well as telling us why you’d like an AdWords voucher.

If you’re not lucky enough to get the £75 voucher this time, you can get a free £30 AdWords voucher by following the instructions here or follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Google Plus for a heads up on our next £75 AdWords voucher giveaway!

To put your AdWords Voucher to good use, check out these Top 20+ AdWords Tips

Best of luck,

Louise

Google’s Analytics help centre hasn’t yet updated their instructions on how to grant access to a new user in Google Analytics so that it’s aligned with the new version of Analytics. I looked online and found other high ranking sites for the search query, ‘grant access Google Analytics’, were still showing the old version instructions.

It’s easy when you know how, so I’ve written out the new version instructions below.

Grant Access to New Analytics User in New Version:

1. In your Google Analytics account, click on the Admin button in the top right corner.

2.  From within the default Profile options, click on ‘Users’.

3. Click ‘New User’

4. Finally, enter the new user’s login email address and set their access level as either a ‘user’ or an ‘administrator’ (the latter has full access).

I hope you’ve found this useful. If you have, please share (e.g. on Facebook or Twitter) and/or comment below. Thanks.

Search Scientist’s AdWords Consultant and former Google employee, Louise McCartan, has passed all of the Google AdWords exams with flying colours!

Louise has passed every one of the official Google AdWords Exams, as below.

• Google Advertising Fundamentals Exam
• Search Advertising Advanced Exam
• Display Advertising Advanced Exam
• Reporting And Analysis Advanced Exam

As such, Search Scientist is a Google AdWords Certified Partner and can offer our clients AdWords vouchers worth £80 to help you get started.  

If you’re interested in AdWords Consultancy, contact Louise directly on louise@searchscientist.co.uk or 07526404106. Based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, servicing businesses worldwide.

Improving your Search Engine Rank on the Most Valuable Search Terms

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the ongoing, process of getting your website to rank more highly in the search results. If you can rank more highly than your competitors, the chances are that when a potential customer searches for your services, he/she will click through to your site before even noticing your competitors. This competitive edge is very powerful, especially as 90% of people find the services or products they’re looking for online through search engines and 70% of all e-commerce transactions originate from a search.

A Typical SEO Consultancy Package includes:

• Initial SEO review of your website
• Discussions on your industry, competition and goals
• Industry Research 
• Competitor Analysis
• Keyword Research
• Onsite and offsite optimisation including optimisation of title tags, meta tags, article submission, copywriting, link building, social bookmarking, sitemap creation, site submission to Google, Yahoo!, Bing and directories, Google Places local listing (where appropriate) and so on.
• Reports noting changes in rank and other updates
• Ongoing advice, including website usability, adding new content and so on.

Each package is made bespoke for you, based on your goals and website. For more information and a free, no obligation review of your website, please contact us.

Please also note that as well as ongoing SEO consultancy, Search Scientist offers an SEO Audit of your site, guiding you on what to do to improve rank. Find out more – SEO Audit.

Contact us for a Free SEO Quote 

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of finding the most valuable search terms that your target audience uses, and then working to ensure that there are no obstacles to your site being found on those terms. Getting your site listed in the first page/position of Google and Bing’s free natural search results can mean a lot of ongoing, relevant traffic to your website.

We can manage your website’s search engine optimisation for you, or we can put together an SEO audit for you, instructing you what to do.

An SEO Audit of your website includes the following:

 - Search term analysis (choosing the best search queries for you to focus on)
 - Competitor analysis (what your competitors are doing and how you can trump them)
 - Guidelines on copywriting and website content 
 - Internal linking
 - External links and link building
 - IT, coding and server recommendations
 - Site credibility & improving conversions
 - SEO to do list for your site 

If you have the time, patience and website access to create new content, tag that content and build links to it, then an SEO audit may be the best value option to improve your website rank and search engine traffic.

Please contact former Google employee, Louise directly on louise@searchscientist.co.uk or 07526404106 to enquire about an SEO audit for your site. Or if you’d prefer, simply fill out the contact form below.

[contact-form-7]

Follow these steps to AdWords Advertising Success…

1. Keyword Research

Your number one go to tool for keyword research is Google’s Keyword Tool. Use it before adding new keywords. Be sure to be signed in and add the ‘Approximate CPC’ column in order to see  how much you’re likely to pay per click for each keyword. Generally, aim for long keywords (e.g. three words or more) that have traffic, are likely to convert and have a reasonable estimated cost per click.

 To research search term trends, use Google Insights for Search (below).

See what keywords and ads your competitors are using with www.keywordspy.co.uk or www.semrush.com. These tools will help you to advertise on the right keywords at the right time. Always do keyword research before adding keywords to advertise on.

2. Set up Tracking – Conversion Tracking & Analytics

 3.  Website Optimisation

Optimise your website to improve conversion rate. Small changes can make a big difference. There’s no point spending money on advertising if the chance of that visitor converting is low.

- Review your navigation and checkout process.
- Make it as quick and easy as possible.
- Ask people what they think.
- Use the Google Website Optimiser tool to run tests.
- Keep an eye on ‘bounce rates’, ‘time on site’ and ‘conversion rates’ in Google Analytics.

4. Separate Keywords into Tightly Themed Ad Groups

Keywords in each ad group should all generally have at least two words in common within each keyword. Each of those keywords should be completely interchangeable. The keywords and ads within each ad group should be highly relevant, as in the example below.

5. Keyword Match Types

By default, the new keywords you add in AdWords are ‘broad match’. They expand to show your ad when users search for ‘similar’ terms. For example, you might have the broad match keyword, digital camera, but Google expands to show your ad when someone searches for slr camera, or phone camera, or camera reviews.

The other keyword match types allow more control. Find out more about AdWords match types here.

6. Add Negative Keywords

Restrict your ads from showing on irrelevant searches by adding ‘negative keywords’. Block searches that include ‘free’, ‘review’, ‘jobs’ etc from triggering your ad to show.

On your Keywords Tab, scroll down to the bottom and click on ‘Negative Keywords’. You can choose whether you want to block your ad from showing on those terms at the campaign or ad group level.

 7. See Search Terms that Triggered your Ads to show

That is, see all the search terms that your keywords expanded to and showed your ads on. With the Keywords Tab selected, choose ‘See Search Terms’.

8. Add Quality Score Column

Google gives keywords a score out of 10 based on relevance and performance, ie. a ‘Quality Score‘. By default, this column is hidden. To show the Quality Score for each of your keywords, when on the Keywords Tab, click on Columns and add the Quality Score attribute.

9. Separate Campaign for Display Network

By default, when you add a new campaign, it’s opted into showing your ads both on the Search Results pages and on the Display Network.

The Display Network is a massive range of websites, from the New York Times to your sister’s blog, that you can place ads on. Unless you want to target your ads to appear on specific Display Network sites (which you’d be best to do in a separate campaign), opt out of the Display Network (in the Campaign Settings, as below).

  {KeyWord: _________}

12. Include Calls to Action in your Ads

13. Include Unique Selling Points in your Ads

14. Make Sure Your Prices are Competitive

15. Use Ad Extensions

16. Can’t See Your Ads? Use the Ads Diagnostic Tool

17. See your ads in a different position to that stated in account?

18. Segment your Data

19. Ad Scheduling

20. Geo Targeting

21. Download AdWords Editor

22. Use an AdWords Voucher

23. Still not getting a good AdWords ROI? Get help

About TargetDry

Target Dry is an outdoor waterproof clothing brand from Belfast. They’ve been producing outdoor jackets and overtrousers to high standards since 1987. Their best known and most loved product is the ‘Mac in a Sac‘, a lightweight packaway jacket that is both waterproof and breathable.

AdWords Training & Account Review

Search Scientist completed a review on Target Dry’s AdWords account and walked through the room for improvement areas during an in-person AdWords Training session. See below for a testimonial from Target Dry’s E-commerce Manager, Matt Shanks.

“Louise was easy to understand, knowledgeable and extremely helpful in progressing our PPC campaigns to the next level”

- Matt Shanks, E-commerce Manager

Hughes Insurance is Northern Irelands largest independent insurance broker with over 200 staff in 12 towns across Northern Ireland. It provides car insurance, home insurance, van insurance, travel insurance and business insurance.

AdWords Training

Search Scientist has delivered several AdWords training sessions tailored to Hughes Insurance’ marketing team. Please see below for a testimonial from the Hughes Insurance Marketing Manager, Laura Maddison.

Louise gave us straightforward, simple and clear training for adwords – going back to basics we were able to come up with a comprehensive plan of attack to improve our adwords accounts, and the confidence to develop new campaigns.

- Laura Maddison, Marketing Manager at Hughes Insurance

When most people add keywords to their first AdWords account they think that Google will show their ads when someone searches on those exact keywords. Wrong.

By default, Google will show your ad on ‘similar’ search queries. Google expands from the keywords you add to your account. If you added the keyword, formal shoes, your ad could also show to people searching for  formal footwear, evening shoes and even cheap shoes or formal dress. The default AdWords keyword match type is known as broad match. Sticking to this default is likely to show your ad on irrelevant terms and waste your precious marketing budget. See below for a run down of the alternative keyword match types and recommendations.

AdWords Keyword Match Types:

Broad 

+Modified +Broad

“Phrase”

[Exact]

 AdWords Broad Match Keywords

This is the default option and offers least control. AdWords expands from the keywords you’ve added to your account to show your ads on ‘relevant search queries’. For example, you could Tennis Shoes as a broad match keyword and your ad would also be shown to those searching for tennis, shoes, tennis rules, tennis racquets, running shoes etc. See other example below.

formal shoes       -> formal footwear, evening shoes, cheap shoes or formal dress

AdWords Tip: Avoid using broad match keywords unless your budget is massive and you want your ad to appear on all search queries at all related.

Modified Broad Match Keywords

This is a huge improvement on broad match, though a lesser known option. Adding a + sign immediately before a word within your keyword means that it has to be in the user’s search query, words that don’t have  a + sign before them are treated as broad match. See examples below.

+formal +shoes      -> formal shoes, formal evening shoes, frmal shoes, formal shoe sale

formal +shoes         -> evening shoes, dress shoes, evening shoe sale, black dress shoes

Note that close variants of the words within your keyword preceded by the + sign are allowed. Close variants include common misspellings, plural/singular forms, abbreviations and acronyms and stemmings (e.g. ‘dance’ and ‘dancing’).  Synonyms (e.g. ‘quick’ and ‘fast’) or related searches (e.g. chairs and sofas) are not expanded to.

AdWords Tip: Modified Broad Match is the new improved Broad Match. Generally recommended to have + signs before all words within your keyword.

AdWords Phrase Match Keywords

Let’s get straight to the example…

“formal shoes”     -> buy formal shoes, formal shoes sale, black formal shoes, formal shoes for sale

Phrase match restricts your ad to only show when a user’s search query includes your keyword words in that order. Other words can be included in the search query before and after, but your keyword phrase has to be included in the search query with the words in the same order. Thus in the example above, your ad would not show on searches for formal shoe, formal dress shoes or shoes for formal. No words can break up the phrase and the words have to be in that order spelt in that way.

AdWords Tip: Be aware of the difference of word order, e.g. ‘horse race’ and ‘race horse’ have different meanings. If using phrase match, try the words in different orders that are relevant to you.

AdWords Exact Match Keywords

Your ad will only appear when the user’s search query is exactly the same as your keyword, no exceptions. This is the most restricted and specific keyword match type.

[formal shoes]    =   formal shoes

AdWords Tip: Exact match keywords are very restrictive. Try using exact match, phrase match and broad match modifier keywords together. Don’t forget to add negative keywords (see below).

AdWords Negative Keywords

You can also block your ads from appearing from certain search terms using Negative Keywords.

For example, you want to prevent your ads from appearing on any search queries that include the words: free, jobs, hire or used.

To do so, scroll down below your keywords (on the Keywords Tab) and click the ‘Negative Keywords’ + box. Then add your negative keywords. You can do so at the campaign level or the ad group level, depending on whether you want to block advertising on that term across your whole campaign or just one ad group.

When adding negative keywords, also be aware that you can use negative broad match, negative phrase match or exact match negative keywords.

-Negative    Use negative broad match keywords if you want your ads blocked from appearing on any search queries that include your negative keyword.

-”Phrase Match Negative”    Use phrase match negative keywords to block your ads from appearing when a certain phrase is searched for.

-[Exact Match Negative]    Use exact match negative keywords to block your ads from appearing when someone searches for exactly that term.

If you want your page to rank well on Google for a certain search term, make sure there’s content related to that term above the fold on that page.

Google’s recent algorithm change is penalising pages that don’t have the content the user wants above the fold on the page they’re brought to. Perhaps your homepage previously ranked well for one of your main terms, but above the fold on your homepage doesn’t actually contain the content that users are searching for. It’s possible that you can then go from having a strong ranking (e.g. on the first page of Google), to being bumped down several pages.

There appear to be two main types of pages being affected by this:

1. Text above the fold not focused on the main search term you want to rank on.

As above, where you’ve been working on driving traffic to one main page of your site (e.g. homepage), but it doesn’t actually contain text above the fold related to the search query you want to rank on. An example of this is the page below.

This page, until recently, ranked highly on searches for ‘Ableton Tutorials’ as that’s the main purpose of the site. However, there’s not much text content on the homepage specific to Ableton tutorials, and so the ranking on this term dropped.

2. Too Many Ads Above The Fold

Other sites penalised by this algorithm change are those with lots of ads above the fold. Now, while it’s common practice to place ads above the fold and it’s understood that they can perform well and generate money for the site owner, it’s those sites with too many ads above the fold that it’s coming down on. So, you’re fine with a normal amount, but if there are too many, it could hurt your ranking on Google.

So what brought this on?

User experience

Where this change stemmed from is basically users complaining that if they click on a search result and it’s difficult to find the actual content, then it’s a poor user experience. Rather than scrolling down the page past lots of ads or irrelevant content, they want to see what they searched for straight away. Seems fair enough really.

So what now?

Update affected pages

Do you have any pages on your site that match the above descriptions? Do you think your page rank for those pages has been affected by this algorithm change? If so, then update your pages so that there’s relevant text content above the fold on those pages that matches the search query that you want to rank on.