Google AdWords Do and Donts - Internet Marketing Podcast Number 207

Episode35 min2013-10-30

Google AdWords success requires tightly themed ad groups, conversion tracking, retargeting, and continuous A/B testing, while avoiding generic keywords, overbidding competitors, and unoptimized landing pages.

Cover art for Google AdWords Do and Donts - Internet Marketing Podcast Number 207
Key takeaways
some clicks that cost $8 in the Google search network, that same, I won't say the same click cause it's a different click, but the remarketing click was like 75 cents

About this episode

Welcome to the most popular internet marketing podcast on iTunes, hosted by E-Webstyle! Join us this week as we talk aboutTraining your Social Media Representatives Google AdWords Do and DontsWriting Targeted Ads: Not targeting every single user

Questions this episode answers

Why are tightly themed ad groups important in Google AdWords?

Tightly themed ad groups keep related keywords together under one specific topic or product. This improves quality score, makes it easier to write relevant ads, and allows you to control budgets and bids at a granular level, for example increasing spend on one product while reducing it on another.

How does retargeting help reduce AdWords costs?

Retargeting shows ads to people who have already visited your site, making them more qualified prospects. The podcast cites an example where a click that cost 8 dollars in the Google search network cost only 75 cents through remarketing, making retargeting a cost-efficient default practice.

Should you target high-volume keywords in Google AdWords?

Not necessarily. High-volume keywords tend to attract people who are researching, not buying. The podcast recommends targeting terms that indicate a purchasing decision, such as specific long-tail phrases, and letting campaign data guide which keywords to keep rather than chasing search volume alone.

Why does landing page optimization matter for AdWords campaigns?

An optimized landing page raises your quality score, increases relevancy for the user, and improves conversion rates. The podcast also notes that an optimized landing page may begin to rank organically, giving you additional value beyond the paid campaign itself.

In their words

Testing and measuring is extremely important when doing pay-per-click management. In order for you to accurately know if these ads are working or not, if these keywords are working or not, this landing page is working or not, you have to test and then you have to measure and then you have to test again.

Charles Lewis

Generic keywords generate a lot of traffic, generate a lot of buzz, and in regards to AdWords, usually cost a lot of dollars, and they don't convert.

Charles Lewis

Just because your campaign appears to be performing well, you're getting results, don't stop testing.

Charles Lewis
Terms defined in this episode
Remarketing
A form of retargeting that shows ads to users who have previously visited your site. The episode notes these clicks are more qualified and typically cost less than standard search network clicks.
Quality Score
A Google AdWords metric affected by ad relevance and landing page optimization. Tightly themed ad groups and optimized landing pages help improve it.
A/B Testing
Running two different ads, landing pages, or other campaign elements simultaneously over a set period, such as 30 to 40 days, to determine which performs better before adopting one as the standard.
Schema
An HTML markup using microdata tags that helps search engines identify and display content correctly. Tools like the Yoast plugin for WordPress can simplify its implementation.
Read the full transcript (6,540 words · 33 min read)

Hi, and welcome to the SEO Podcast, Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. My name is Chris Burris, owner of eWebStyle. Charles Lewis, your internet marketing specialist. Welcome back to another fun-filled edition of the SEO Podcast. This is podcast number 207, that number right up there behind us. Just so you know, we are broadcasting on Thursday at about noon. Noon 30. Since we were a day off, we weren't too concerned about actually broadcasting on time. So you know, we are now broadcasting the video of our podcast live Fridays at noon, Central Standard Time. So check us out, join us, put it in your schedule. Should be roughly around lunchtime for, I don't know, two-thirds of the country, we'll say. And so hopefully you guys can check us out. As always, you're probably listening on a podcast anyway, so you can grab and listen to us on a podcast from, you know, whatever device you have. Speaking of devices, if you do have a device, what we'd like you to do is to tweet now. And what you should tweet is, take away... Hashtag, SEO Podcast, that right there, number 207. Be sure to tag us in it at eWebStyle. That way we can link up and follow you back and do all of our social stuff. All right. As always, we have a tip from our previous podcast. It is make sure to train anyone who will be representing your company in social media or use a social media company. Yeah, definitely. You want to make sure that whoever you have managing your social profiles, your Facebook, your Twitter, your LinkedIn, your YouTube, that they, one, actually know what they're doing. And number two, that they're familiar enough with your company so that they can represent you correctly on these profiles. What you don't want to happen is some agency or some intern or whatnot all over Twitter and Facebook posting things about your company that may not be accurate or correct. And so definitely train whoever you're using for your social media. Yeah, you definitely, as

an example, our blank stare or what? At the end of this podcast, we'll give you a good example of why you need to have some good training related to your social media campaigns. Definitely. All right. So that is our tip. Let's see. What do we have next? There are three ways you guys can help us out. We do this podcast. This podcast is free. One of the ways is to write a review on iTunes, which takes only a few minutes. It's only three steps. You go onto iTunes, you create an account, and you write a review. We actually have a solution today. We'll be reading that. So you don't necessarily have to send me an email if you're in another country. That's optional now. And I suggest you go ahead and do it anyway. Let's just make that happen. I'll put that out there. Podcast at e-webstyle.com. And let us know. We'll give you a patoof. That is a punch in the face. And it's a good thing. That's a good thing. That is a good thing. All right. So the next thing you could do for us is go to our G Plus local page and write a review there. There are at least four ways to get there, five ways. The one way that we don't recommend is to figure out what our long URL number slash ridiculous thing from G Plus. What we do recommend you do is go to e-webstyle.com slash G Plus. Or slash G Plus. Or slash Google Plus. Or slash Google Plus. Any one of those will take you to our G Plus local page. There you can write us a review. I do have a review. And finally, we have a review tab on Facebook, which I didn't check before this podcast. So maybe there's already a review there. Our Facebook page is facebook.com slash e-webstyle. Or you can follow us, twitter.com slash e-webstyle. Videos at youtube.com slash e-webstyle. And as always, you can send us an email, podcast at e-webstyle.com. I'm going to jump right to

that review that we've got on iTunes. We've got a, no, that's a question. That's that. All right. So I'm going to, speaking of iTunes, we were just talking about that and the fact that you initially needed to send us an email. Steve Stewart sent us an email. He actually did a video. I need to post that on our... He did us on Twitter, too. Yeah. Hit us on Twitter. Posted a video on how to do what he's describing. So here it goes. Hi, guys. Love the podcast. I have a solution to your problem of seeing iTunes reviews from other countries. We may have already seen a tweet. By the way, I responded via tweet before he sent this email to me. So I had actually seen it. If not, check this video out. So he sends us a video. And if you just go to his website, yes, you can podcast to, that's T-double-O dot com. The first post there, or look for a post, see iTunes reviews multiple countries. And you'll see a video where he does mention us. He's attached to CSV report of all of our reviews. And what this does is there's actually a tool out there. It costs five bucks and enables you to see all the reviews from all the countries for your podcast. So that's pretty cool. He also says, I know when you go to my site, you won't be able to help yourself. But look at the things that I'm doing wrong. Please be kind. This is still a new site. And I haven't been able to dedicate much time. By the way, it's an information site. So kind of in general, you give a pass to a lot of information sites. They're out there doing a good thing. And I gave them a, you know, I couldn't help it. I could not help it. Here we have a review on, this is a question. So let's do the review first. We've got a review on iTunes. The review says, good content, but too much fluff

and self-promotion. And it is only three stars. Who was that? Too much fluff and self-promotion? Yeah. Well, the title pretty much says it all. I'm assuming he's talking about the title of his review. You should actually measure the amount of airtime that contains meaty content compared to total airtime. Listen to tons of podcasts and your meat to fluff ratio is way skewed towards fluff compared to all others. By fluff, I mean spending too much time reviewing reviews and asking for more. Huh? Okay, I don't, if you don't get that, like we want reviews. Is there a problem with that? And talking about news that is often of minimal relevance, are you a Samsung, are you, and here's a question. Are you on the Samsung payroll? If so, please disclose that, that they are a sponsor. Yeah, yeah, we're on the Samsung payroll because I've got this Lenovo device and that's made by Samsung. And I've been using an iPad actually until recently, so that's also made by Samsung. And your iPhone is the, I mean your phone. Well, my phone is Samsung. Oh, it's also Samsung. It's a Nexus, it's made by Samsung. So really, we just like them. They do good stuff. And we have them. And so we talk about them. Prior to them, we was using HTCs because that was the, they made good Evos at the time. Yep. And so, yeah. Absolutely. So, yeah. Samsung could cut a chick. I wouldn't be mad, but yeah. Nah, we're not sponsors. And we would actually disclose that because we are reputable. The implication is that we're getting paid and promoting something and not actually disclosing it, which, eh, almost offensive. Yeah, a smidget. Yeah. So, Remy Tennant, there's your podcast, Punch in the Face, for giving us some feedback. Yeah, appreciate the review. Apparently, it works a little bit. You did leave us a review, so appreciate it. And it was three stars. So, you like the content? Some would, yeah. All right. So, let's get into our question. This question was sent

to us by Brian with PodcastDojo.com. It says, what is Schema.org? Should I be using it? If so, how should podcasters be using it? So, Brian, great question. Schema.org used to be one of those things I've considered advanced SEO. But more and more, it's becoming kind of standard practice these days. Schema is basically an HTML markup that you can use to markup your content in a certain way that search engines will recognize exactly what this content is and what it's for. And that whole process is called microdata. And so, what happens is there's a certain set of HTML tags that you can use to markup your HTML content a certain way. Now, how do you implement it? That's the tricky part. If you're going to code it from scratch, great for you. It's not that difficult. Matter of fact, Schema.org provides tons of dots and resources to assist with that. However, if you're using WordPress and you're using the Yoast plugin, Yoast will make it extremely easy to add a Schema markup to certain pages. That wasn't too loud. The things you want to keep in mind are what you want to markup. Like, what I've noticed, Schema works great with, like, e-commerce sites where you're marking up different products or things like that. Or they work great for local industries. If you want to markup your address and your NAP information, name, address, and phone, and all of that sort of stuff, then that just helps the search engines find it and display it better. So Schema.org, should you be using it? Yes, you should. All right, Brian. Appreciate your question. And for podcasters specifically, as long as, you know, if you're a podcaster, then you've got an RSS feed that iTunes is currently able to read. So in relations to changing that Schema up at all, I don't think you need to do anything. Just make sure that your podcast feed is getting interpreted properly by iTunes. Definitely. And you'll be in good shape. Schema would apply more towards what you're doing on your

website. Than not necessarily on your podcast. Podcast-specific. So, all right, cool. Let's get on to, we got a little bit of news. I thought this was cool. The new iPhone 5C. C, yeah. So you got lots of color. Now, there's a lot of people raving about this fingerprint thing and saying that it's the new, you know, that it's revolutionary and that it's going to change security. And all I know, I've got a, I've had a laptop for five years, probably four years at least. And it's got one of those little sliders that, that you put your fingerprint on and it takes forever. Like it takes forever. So I don't know how quick the iPhone, it just needs to be fast. And when they're talking about, I mean, somebody was talking about, oh, it's, it's going to replace, you know, slide swipes and, and pin codes. I'm like, you know, for me to enter four digits, it's pretty fast. Yeah. Or even for me to swipe, my swipe, you know, is, is. Yours is pretty complex too, right? You like zip back and forth and forward. And so, um, uh, I don't have it memorized. Just know you're like, so, uh, I, I just have a hard time seeing that. It really almost needs to be instantaneous. And that's, you know, it's pretty complex stuff going on there. I'm waiting on, on grip notification. Yeah. Like, yeah. Heartbeat. Yeah. I can tell by, yeah, how his hand feels. Yep. That's, that'd be cool. Uh, did you see the frog photo bomb of the rocket launch? No, I didn't. So there's a rocket launch and usually under rocket launches, there's a pond of water underneath. And apparently there was a frog in the pond. And so one of the still photos that are taking, were taken of the rocket taking off has this frog. He's like Superman frog in it. So frog photo bombed the rocket launch. I think that's pretty cool. That's what's up. Um, this, uh, it's just interesting. The Moto X is actually built

here in Texas, Fort Worth. So we're, you know, we're a little Texas proud here. So go moto. I might have to look. Sounds like a yeehaw. It's appropriate. Right around there. Exactly. It should be the moto Y for yeehaw. Uh, and Google plus adds live question and answer, answer features to hangouts. So now you can do a hangout and actually have live question and answer. So that's kind of cool. We may visit that at some point. Well, what that does is that, that Google hangout is literally take, in my opinion, taking aim at sites like, uh, uh, go to meeting and things like that where those features are available, paid available. Right. Google is giving all this stuff away free. Right. And so, um, yeah, I mean, I love it. Yeah. Like I got to hang out tomorrow with one of our clients and, um, like I can, you know, In the UK, all the way from the UK. All right. So that is the potatoes of our podcast time to get into the meat. Unless we've got any, so any more patoofs or anything? Oh, no, no more questions. No more questions. So we'll get into our content. Uh, my was on search engine journal and, uh, Rocco, Rocco Baldazar posted an article called the 10 do's and 10 don'ts in Google AdWords. And, uh, I thought this was pretty cool because, uh, I've been spending more and more time in AdWords. That's one of my primary job functions here. And so, uh, my, why not share it with you? It was interesting though, because, uh, most of these, uh, we already have in place. And, um, so it just kind of works well. Number one, um, do utilize the keyword planner. Now, let me go to my soapbox for a minute and say, I really don't like the keyword planner. Um, I was a fan of the older AdWords, uh, keyword tool. Now, I will say the keyword planner does have some pretty neat features, like the way it can help you determine

ad groups and do, you know, a different level of a keyword research. Uh, but they did not simplify it. They made it a lot more difficult to do. And the old, the old keywords, uh, selection tool was, was just really easy to use and very simple. So, if you could take the keyword planner and somehow simplify it and give me the same features, then, you know, I don't know if that's asking a lot, but, uh, uh, yeah. It's just asking for what you want. Yeah, but definitely use it because there's information in that keyword planner more than just, you know, how many search queries or, or how much this cost per click is, but it can really help you mine ad groups and, and, and theme your ad groups, which we'll talk about a little bit later. Um, number two, do test and measure. Testing and measuring is extremely important when doing pay-per-click management. In order for you to accurately know if these ads are working or not, if these keywords are working or not, this landing page is working or not, you have to test and then you have to measure and then you have to test again. So, constantly test out ads, test out keywords, test out match types, um, and then measure your results so you can, um, engage accordingly. Number three, um, do attract, gets back to your website by using retargeting. Um, this is key. This is kind of a default practice vial with all PPC clients will eventually roll into remarketing, um, just because it has that much value for, for one, usually the clicks that come from a remarketing ad are more targeted because this client has been to your site before and B, they usually cost a little bit less. And so, I mean, and, and we have actual evidence that, that, um, some clicks that cost $8 in the Google search network, that same, I won't say the same click cause it's a different click, but the remarketing click was like 75 cents, uh, in comparison

to the $8 and for a click from somebody who's already visited the site. So they're, they're a little bit more qualified. They already familiar with you and they, frankly, they know exactly what they're looking for. And so, uh, definitely set up remarketing. Um, it works wonders. Um, number four, do utilize A and B testing. So kind of back to the test and measure deal, um, A and B testing basically means test out two different things at the same time and see which one works better. One of the things we tend to do is when we create ads, we'll do some regular text ads and then I'll do text ads that include like a dynamic keyword insertion and, and let them run together. And then over the course of 30 days, maybe 40 days, see which ad brought the most traffic, which ad generated the most conversions and then remix and reapply and do it all over again. So definitely take advantage of A and B testing and not just ads. You can test different landing pages. You can test, uh, different CTAs. You can test, um, all sorts of different things in regards to your ad. You may want to test a local phone number in comparison to a, to a, to a national number, um, just to see what kind of results you get. Um, number five, do take the time to own your ads that were catered to the needs of your target prospect. What does that mean? That means don't just put out a generic ad, right? So if you sell, you know, if you only sell patent leather, black shoes, make sure your ad sells patent leather, black shoes. Yeah. Don't put out an ad about shoes. Yeah. Or even black shoes. Yeah. You know, make sure your ad targets specifically, um, who your target is. Cause you're looking for people looking for patent leather, black shoes, because that's what you sell. So if, yeah, if somebody is looking for, or, uh, black tennis shoes, right? And they see black shoes,

they could click you and that would be just a waste of money. Uh, because you don't have black tennis shoes. Right. I'm not saying they wouldn't click. Even if you put patent leather, black shoes, you just going to reduce the number of people who click. So exactly. Um, number five, number six, do performing enough keyword research prior to deciding which keywords to use. Um, um, this is, can be taken with a grain of salt, um, especially from a, from a paid search perspective. Because, um, if you're managing that campaign properly, you should be adding keywords all of the time anyway. Adding negatives all the time anyway. I don't want to encourage you to do, um, hours and hours and hours and tons of keyword research up front. Um, allow the data to dictate which keywords you need. I will say, get you a solid set though. Research your main key phrases, the ones that you would think people would search, see what your competitors are doing, what, what, what terms they're showing under. Start there. Put in some good negative terms. Yeah, definitely. And then start there. And then as you maintain and as you prune your campaign, you will come across other keywords that'll be more effective, um, that you can eventually add to your campaign. So something I hear you saying is don't start with exact match and stay with exact match. Do some, uh, some other options so that you start getting some feedback. And you may end up paying for some keywords that you don't want because you, you know, neglected a negative that didn't even dawn on you. But you may also gain a number, you know. Of keywords that you didn't think about. Yeah. That can work. We're actually doing that right now for, for, for Lenny. And so, um, so it, it can work. It can work. You just have to be careful with, with how you choose matches. And also more important to keep your budget in mind. If you're working with a real small budget, then,

then this sort of A and B testing kind of keyword research deal may not be, um, the most, uh, strategic route to go. Right. Because, because you're budget conscious. But if you can afford to, let's say, sacrifice a few clicks for the sake of honing down keywords, um, then it may be worth it. Yeah. Um, it's kind of a, you know, you got to see what your budget is. Um, number seven. It goes back to have a plan. Have a plan. Exactly. Uh, number seven, um, do have tightly themed ad groups. So, so back to our shoe, um, example. Let's say you sell black patent leather shoes and you have black tennis shoes. Don't put them in one group called black shoes. You should have an ad group for black patent leather shoes. And, and, and, and that ad group, you'll have black patent leather shoes, patent leather shoes that are black, um, shoes that are black and patent leather. You have all kinds of keywords in there, all related to that group. And then the same thing with tennis shoes. But what you don't want to do is put them all into one ad group and call it black shoes or shoes or something like that. Um, hurt your quality score. Um, and from a management perspective, it's just harder to manage that. To prune, you use the analogy of the tree. Yeah. It's harder to prune the tree when the tree is actually two trees. Exactly. Exactly. It's easier when they're in themed ad groups where you can come in and maybe you want to increase the budget on patent leather and, and, and decrease it on tennis shoes or, or something like that. But when you have more themed ad groups and, and themed campaigns for that matter, um, then it's easier to manage that, that account. Um, number eight, do utilize conversion tracking. Um, this is key. I mean, people, you're paying for ads and you're paying for marketing, you're paying for promotion. And the best way to find out if

those ads are really working is if you're tracking the conversions, whether that conversion is, um, a, a quote form being filled out or maybe a newsletter registration. Right. Or a product download, whatever your conversion is, track it. Uh, Google makes it, uh, AdWords makes it extremely easy to track and frankly, um, even easier now to sync with analytics so you can track it all in one place. Yeah. Um, that way you can track what's converting paid and what's converting organically, for example. Because remember, if you don't set that up, your, your, your conversions are literally clicks to your website. You don't know what's happening after they get there. Mm-hmm. So you may get tons of traffic from patent leather shoes and tons of traffic from tennis shoes and people only buy patent leather shoes. And if you don't have a goal set for those two campaigns, you're not going to realize you're throwing money away on tennis shoes and you're, you're, you should be taking all that budget and putting it on patent leather shoes. Yeah. So definitely set up conversion tracking. Um, and you can set up different types of conversions, right? So don't, don't just put them all under one, right? Set up one for your quote form, set up another for your contact form. If you sell products, set up another one for your checkout page. And so that way you can gauge what your traffic is doing. You can even take it a step further and create a funnel. That funnel is really important because you can see, okay, 10% drop off when they, when they have to enter their credit card or whatever. And if you get to a point where a hundred percent drop off, the page may be broken, right? Yeah. So you can go look at and go through that process again. So yeah, so definitely set up tracking. Number, number nine with the do's, do set up an exceptional website. Yeah, that's a no brainer. Yeah. Make sure your site looks good, right? Yeah. Number 10,

and this is the last of the do's. Do adjust your bids per geographic location. This is key. A lot of times analytics will show you how much traffic you're getting from different locations across the country, across the world, right? And maybe if you have your conversion tracking set up, then you notice that, that you tend to sell more on in California than you do in New York. Well, if your campaign is set up correctly, well, if your campaign is set up correctly, then you can go in and manage those bids in California, up your budget there. I'll take it a step further and say not only adjust your bids per geographic location, but adjust them per your demographic in that geographic location. What does that mean? I mean, you know, AdWords will tell you, analytics will tell you also, let's say in California, you not only have more sales, but you have more sales to women, right? And in New York, you have less sales, but the sales you do have are to men. Okay, well, then you want to go into AdWords and go to your campaign that's targeting California and maybe increase your bids on women, change up your ad text to be a little bit more female friendly, if you will. And then, and vice versa, go to your New York campaign, increase your mail budget, change your ad text. That's coming back to our previous point. That's one of the reasons you want themed ad groups to give you that kind of control. A good example would be Snowboots, right? Definitely. That's a regional product. Yeah, men and women using them. Yeah, so, yeah, definitely take advantage of your geographic location. Let's get into some of these don'ts, and we'll blow through these. Don't choose keywords that target merely based on search volume. This is a mistake I made years ago when I first got into it, going after the terms that had the most search volume. Everybody that's looking for these, these are the ones I should target. The problem

with that is most of those, most of the widely adopted search terms don't convert. They're information. They're information. They're just people window shopping and researching. Search out terms that actually people are using who are in a purchasing decision. Yeah, cheap patent leather shoes, black shoes is a nice long-term phrase, and they're ready to go provided you sell cheap patent leather black shoes. Definitely. Number 12, don't write your ads to try and entice as many visitors as possible. I actually agree with this. You don't want to necessarily encourage tons and tons of people to come. Well, you don't, I ain't going to say that. You don't want to write your ad to do that. You want to write your ad to encourage clicks from people who may take an action once they get to your site. So don't write it to just open the floodgates and bring all kind of people who will eventually bounce because they don't find what they want. No, you want to target people who will take your action. A PPC ad for black patent leather shoes that says, we have all kinds of shoes. Not a good, not a good thing. Yeah, yeah. Not a good deal at all because you don't. You have black patent leather shoes, so do that. Number 13, don't pay too much attention to keyword popularity metrics. Kind of what we were just saying. Just because this keyword is popular doesn't mean it's the right word for you. It could be, and that's one of the benefits to it. Do some testing, yeah. That's one of the benefits to pay-per-click is you can put some budget on it, you can see, and if it don't work, you can pause it. With SEO, it's a little different. You're going to optimize for that phrase, and you begin ranking for that phrase, and that phrase isn't converting. That's a bigger problem to go and fix than pausing a campaign. So think about that. Number 14, don't try and outbid your competitors. Usually you can't, unfortunately. I mean, most

competitors, especially depending on your product, you may be competing against some national brand, some huge deep pocket brand, and you just can't afford to max bid, number one position, 24 hours a day. It's just not in your budget to do so. So instead, what he didn't put, he didn't put what you should do. And so I'll tell you, try to be smarter, right? If you can't outbid them, maybe you can outperform them. Make sure your ads are written a little better. And a website. Yeah, your landing page is better. And you have, you know, a better, I won't say a better product, but maybe a comparable product, or a cheaper price, or things like that, where you don't necessarily have to top bid and be in this number one position, because it's your budget. Manage your budget, but put yourself in a position that when you do get the click, it actually converts. And so you don't have to get as many clicks to generate revenue as you would if you had a high budget and you were outbidding. I read a really good white paper, I think it was Musical Instruments, and there was a company that didn't sell, like, guitar strings, we'll say. And the company that wrote the white paper sold guitar strings. And so they just started top bidding as much as they could on guitar strings, because this company couldn't even make money off of them. And they were like, well, let's see if we can destroy their budget, and they actually did, and that company ended up closing down. I mean, it's not that surprising if you're mismanaging your PPC campaign, you're probably mismanaging a lot of other things. A lot of other things. But it was just interesting, too. That's how competitive your analysis can get in PPC. What's the competitor doing? Is there really any value of him to do that? And if he's top bidding, well, let's make him pay more for it if he's not going to make any money off of it, drive him

out of business. Yeah, we'll take that spot. Number 15, don't undervalue the effect of your landing page. Landing page design is crucial. And so don't just think that you're sending them to your home page or you've created some landing page form and it's done. Just because it looks good to you doesn't mean it has value, right? You need to make sure that that landing page is getting the desired action that you want. If you want people to purchase this black patent leather shoe, then your landing page should better break them down that path. You don't want your landing page, for example, to go and explain the process of making patent leather and how the shoe is constructed and different locations where it may be available at. Because now your landing page doesn't have any value for what you want them to do. Yeah, that's called a bounce. Yeah, if this landing page was for the construction of patent of the shoes, then it would be a great page. But you're trying to get people to buy. So you want to make sure your landing page has the type of value associated, which is key, associated with the conversion you want people to take. Just to hammer this point a little bit more, you don't want to send them to a page that has, in general, black patent leather shoes, along with other things. You want to send them to a page that is only black patent leather shoes. Yeah. Number 16, don't neglect geo-targeting. Yeah, don't do that. Even if you provide a service that's nationwide, right, it's still not worth just opening it up to the USA. That's what Google would love for you to do, right? But depending on your time and your management skills and your budget, of course, it may be worth breaking this down into, at the very least, regional, and then maybe breaking it down from there. Because your account will perform in different areas. It'll perform differently in different areas, and you need to be able to control

that performance. Number 17, don't put all your keywords in one ad group. This goes back to the themed ad groups. Don't put everything in shoes. Put everything in the specific ad group dedicated to what that particular product or service is. Number 18, don't forget to optimize your landing page. This is key, right, for a couple reasons. One, we've noticed that any time you build a landing page and it's optimized, it may start to rank. From SEO. Yeah, it may start to rank organically. And if this is a landing page and it's built to convert, you want that page to rank. So don't forget to optimize it. Number two, since we're talking AdWords, an optimized landing page increases your quality score. It's relevant, and so, and not only that, when the user clicks and they come to this page, they can also notice and feel the relevancy, and they'll most likely have a higher chance of taking an action. So, yes, definitely don't forget to optimize your landing pages. Number 19, don't rely too much on generic keywords. It's kind of what we said earlier. Generic keywords generate a lot of traffic, generate a lot of buzz, and in regards to AdWords, usually cost a lot of dollars, and they don't convert. Right. So, now, I will say this. If you're in a position to just put your budget forth for the sake of branding, you're just trying to get your name out there, you just want to be seen. National, open it up. Yeah, then you may just want to do that, but I don't recommend it. And the last one, number 20, don't stop testing. Keep testing. Just because your campaign appears to be performing well, you're getting results, don't stop testing. You got an ad, and it's generating clicks and getting conversions. Don't stop testing that ad. Keep that as your, what it is when you're testing, as your standard. Yeah. And then you come up with some other ones that you can test with to test against that standard one. Right. And

as long as the standard is generating the results, keep it there. And keep changing the ones you're testing with because one of those will eventually probably outperform your standard. And become the standard. And become the standard. And so, yeah, don't stop testing. So, yeah, that was 10 do's and 10 don'ts in Google AdWords. I'll post the link on Facebook and Twitter. And so, yeah, hit us up, tell us what you thought about it. Excellent. All right, so now we have a little bit of what? Got some what news. Which begins with what? Yeah, yeah, so we got two what's. First one goes to AT&T, right? So, you know, moment of silence for yesterday, right? 9-11. Yeah. Yeah, so yesterday AT&T posted it. They tweeted a picture of a new device. Really nice picture. Yeah, great picture. Awesome image. And the device had, so it was a picture of the device being held. And in the background was the New York City skyline missing the two twin towers, right? But on their phone, which is in the middle of the image, the towers are there. There are beams of light. There are beams of light that look like the towers. And like I said, cool image, great looking image, great graphics and everything. But just really douchey timing. Yeah. Douchey concept. Like, you know, 9-11 was serious. And negative. Yeah. Like, why would you want your product associated with such a negative thing? Yeah. Right? I mean, you do moments of silence. You keep your kind of name away from that unless you're supporting, you know, people who got injured and the firefighters or whatever. Yeah, things like that. You know, that has a positive spin on it. But, yeah, it just seems like a horrid decision. It wasn't smart. Anyway, the Twittersphere went crazy and then they pulled it down within an hour. And so, yeah. What? Really? Yeah. Or maybe hashtag really AT&T. Oh, and the second one goes to Bing. Yeah. Bing. So, check this out. Anybody, if you logged into Chrome, and

it probably works for Firefox. They did for me with Chrome. If you're logged into Chrome and Chrome is your default browser and you're logged in with your Google account, if you go to Bing, Bing is going to ask you to change your default search to Bing and also make Bing.com your homepage. That was the only option it gave me. And I was like, I don't want to do that. I just want to search. Using an inferior search engine. Yeah. And you're not even letting me do that. Yeah. So, yeah. Bing, come on now. Just let me search, dude. I ended up going to IE and then Bing worked fine. So, yeah. Make me go to inferior browser to use an inferior search engine. Yeah, and if you were on Windows 8, it would be on an inferior operating system. Actually, it would be on one of two inferior operating systems because Windows 8 is two of them. Yeah. All right. Thank you guys for tuning in. You guys have made us the most popular SEO and internet marketing podcast on iTunes. We really appreciate you. We really appreciate when you write us reviews, make contact on Facebook, and send us emails. We really appreciate that. So, until the next podcast, my name is Chris Perez. Bye-bye for now. Remember, next podcast will be Friday at noon Central Standard Time. Slightly raised up eyebrow, high brow.

This episode answers

Matthew Bertram, host of The Best SEO Podcast
Matthew Bertram
AI keynote speaker · Owner & CEO, EWR Digital · President, ModalPoint

Matthew Bertram is an AI keynote speaker, creator of DIG® (Digital Information Governance), and owner and CEO of EWR Digital. He helps energy and industrial leaders win visibility in AI search (GEO and AEO), is President of ModalPoint and CMO of the Oil & Gas Global Network, hosts The Best SEO Podcast, and has authored eight books including LLM Visibility. More about Matthew Bertram.

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Welcome to the Best SEO Podcast! Ep. 546

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