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As most of you online marketers have probably heard already, Microsoft and Yahoo have stopped all talks for good and Yahoo may partner with Google to outsource their paid search. Yahoo has been struggling with paid search for years trying to compete with Google, and now eventually they are giving in paid search.

Personally, I’m not sure if this will be a good thing or bad and whether it will be a good thing or bad thing. I was thinking about how this could affect my campaigns considering I’ve had some very good success with Yahoo that I haven’t had with Google because of quality score issues for the most part. Yahoo has been good to me for the simple reasons that it was very different than Google in its paid search platform.

Don’t get me wrong, Google has proven great for me as well but it actually has kept me from launching some campaigns because of quality score issues where Yahoo has been less restrictive in that respect.

An example is an eBook campaign I have run. When I first launched it months ago, Google proved to give me results in terms of good quality score but no real conversions. Yahoo has always converted with lower cost-per-clicks. I spoke to a Google Adwords rep and she told me because of user experience, ebook sites are ranked with poor quality scores and bids start from $5.00. You may get away with a good or OK quality score, but I’m talking in general.

I’m not exactly sure how the partnership will be handled in terms of Yahoo panama disappearing or Yahoo just using Google for content paid search which Yahoo has lacked for…well, since always.

We’ll see how this affects us search marketers in the coming weeks.

From the Financial Point of View:

It was about 2:15am this morning when I was up watching Countdown with Keith Olberman on MSNBC. A commercial came on which was about scanning and repairing your PC for spyware, registry errors, and more. I found it rather interesting since I think it’s a great product because we all have problems with our PCs. It’s a site called FinallyFast.com and it is free.

Anyhow, it got me interested to see why this site, out of all sites that do this, decided to market on TV. I started looking around in Google a few minutes ago and typed in keywords such as “repair pc scan”, “scan pc for problems”, “remove spyware”, “check pc for problems”, and so fourth. I couldn’t find an ad for FinallyFast.com but I’m sure they do have search engine marketing, just probably not a very effective campaign (I’ve only used Google to search for ads)

I went to compete.com to see what the traffic stats were for FF and its main competitors online. I choose two companies I saw most in Google and of course, Finally Fast, here are the results:

FinallyFast.com is growing in traffic and could most likely be from its TV ad, but look at PCTools and the other site.

PCTools.com bids on 2,132 keywords
PCDocPro.com bids on 181 keywords
FinallyFast.com bids on 78 keywords

I couldn’t find FinallyFast.com almost anywhere on paid search so it could be a mistake that those are the numbers of keywords those companies are bidding on, they could also be from organic search.

My point from this post is if you’re an online company providing an online service, I think the most effective strategy before going on TV is to make sure you have your online marketing well in place to really compete against the competition. Could have been a very smart move to make a TV commercial where no competitors are in that space, I’m not saying its not. I just think you have to look at what will be more effective and wondering what kind of research the company did before deciding to go the TV route.

One thing people are quick to base their success with search engine marketing as they first launch a campaign is conversion rates. Sure, conversion rates is probably the most important aspect of your campaign but the way to make sure you get good conversion rates meeting a good ROI is making sure you pay as little as possible for that click.

If you read the post below, #1 Quality Score Factor in Google: Quality Ad, you will see that the campaign I'm working on started decent…actually…pretty good CTR's but my quality score was still not what it could be with those numbers. Within 24 hours of that post, here is what happened (image shows pertaining to one particular ad group):

I was never TOO concerned about my conversion rate cost at first, but rather making sure to have a good CTR so Google would allow me to pay as little as possible for a click with good ranking. I am now seeing the reward and making tweaks to pay as low as I possibly can per conversion. Again, it does all come down to ROI (Return on Investment), but make sure you are willing to go through the motions to get there.

**For further information on Quality Score, you can read a post I did for the Search Engine Journal, Ads in a Quality Score World.

No matter how many things you try to figure out to see how Google is judging your ad to determine your cpc (cost-per-click), YOUR biggest concern should be the quality of your ad.

Maybe you really haven't thought about it, but what you should worry about most is creating the most compelling ad for searchers and THAT will result into clicks and hopefully conversions for you. So, what is that you may be doing wrong? For one, I used to create campaigns and let them be. We're so busy with so much stuff that we forget that tweaking certain things in your ad can make the biggest difference to an eye and turn into a click.

Let me give you an example. I created a campaign that had decent clicks but I thought I should get more…way more. As time is always a factor, my ads were pretty decent but I didn't really see what my edge was vs. the competition. Why would someone click on my ad and not their ad? What makes my ad different then the other guy with the same product at almost the same price? Do I offer free shipping? What do I have that they don't? WHAT MAKES ME STAND OUT?
**The image below is in a 4-hour span.

{please note I cannot specify what product I am selling and what my ads are for some obvious reasons to readers, hope you understand =)}

Anyway, I did research into the product itself and how the brand identified itself and how I would be able to do the same. I posted a new ad to compare CTRs (Click-Through-Rates) and of course, the results were great. My click through rates were way better and yet to make more tweaks. What's your edge? Your identity? Ask yourself those questions when creating your ads.

Sure, Google can give you a POOR quality score result for certain keywords but with a QUALITY ad, you can change that in days. Make sure you give yourself a chance but bidding enough to place in the front page.

So, if you thought you had everything figured out with Google’s quality score and they wouldn’t be making any changes anytime soon, think again.

Inside Adwords announces sites with slow loading time will be penalized by its quality score algorithm.

“As part of our continuing efforts to improve the user experience, we will soon incorporate an additional factor into Quality Score: landing page load time. Load time is the amount of time it takes for a user to see the landing page after clicking an ad.

Why are we doing this?
Two reasons: first, users have the best experience when they don't have to wait a long time for landing pages to load. Interstitial pages, multiple redirects, excessively slow servers, and other things that can increase load times only keep users from getting what they want: information about your business. Second, users are more likely to abandon landing pages that load slowly, which can hurt your conversion rate.

When are we making this change?
In the next few weeks, we will add load time evaluations to the Keyword Analysis page (we'll notify you when they are available). You will then have one month to review your site and make necessary adjustments.

After the one month review period, this load time factor will be incorporated into your keywords' Quality Scores. Keywords with landing pages that load very slowly may get lower Quality Scores (and thus higher minimum bids). Conversely, keywords with landing pages that load very quickly may get higher Quality Scores and lower minimum bids.”

One way to put make sure your page loads quicker then it does now is to make sure your images aren’t too large in size. There is software that makes image files smaller for faster loading times.

One of the key components of running a PPC campaign (for bidding purposes) is knowing when your target audience is searching the web. Granted, the web is the one place that is open 24/7 with millions and millions of people jumping around from website to website so a lead/sale can come at anytime.

If you notice in the engines, your competitors switch positions due to CTRs but also bids during certain times. There are competitors that know exactly when they want to be on top and others just always stick to their positions.

One way you can find out when you may want to up-bid your keywords is through Google Trends. Let’s say you have a website that sells college football t-shirts. Tonight, Ohio State played and if you think about it, you’ll have people searching for buckeyes info and gear.

Keyword: ohio state football roster
Time: 11:06pm
Hotness: Spicy

Related searches:
lsu football roster, ohio state roster, ohio state football, ohio state football players, lsu roster

Peak:
4 hours ago

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