Google’s New Keyword Planner: Positives & Negatives

Google Keyword Planner

 

The once useful and efficient Google Keyword tool is no longer in use. It has now been reincarnated as Google Keyword Planner. This has earned a mixed response from its users, and there are both positives and negatives to be found with this new Keyword Planner application.

The Keyword Planner function is a combination of the Keyword Tool and the Traffic Estimator, which aims to give you results for both through one platform. Here is a breakdown of the positives and negatives of this new Keyword Planner.

 

 

Positives of Keyword Planner:

• A major development in the Keyword Planner is its ability to provide the volume of a keyword search at a city level, which enables organisations to segment their audience to specific geographic locations for optimum results.
• Users can now upload up to 10,000 keywords from their own list to get performance data.
• The Keyword Planner also allows users to categorise results by ad group, landing page, among others.

 

Negatives of Keyword Planner:

To use the Keyword Planner, users must now login to a registered AdWords account.

The Keyword Planner doesn’t offer the following;

• Match type data for search volume.
• Global vs. Local monthly searches.
• Device targeting.

Are you having problems with the new Keyword Planner?

At WebResults, we have a team of Adwords experts who know how to best use the Keyword Planner tool for optimum results. Please contact us, and we can help you set up an effective Adwords campaign, among our many other services.

An Overview of Mobile’s Importance in Digital Marketing

Rise in Mobile: An Overview

                                                                                                                

Mobile is growing faster than any other technology before it. Smartphones are quickly developing with 47% Irish people currently owning one (Mediascope, 2013). Smartphones are the perfect medium for those wanting to access the web while on the go enabling people to always stay connected. Approximately 1.2 million Irish people go online using a mobile device (Mediascope 2013). This creates an ideal opportunity for marketers to attract those browsing the web on their phones through mobile marketing.

This means companies must make their websites mobile responsive so these potential customers can access your site through their phones. Those browsing on their phone do not want to have to pinch and grab their way through a site. On clicking through to a site on their mobile, they should be brought to a site which is fitted to suit the size of their screen. Once set up correctly this will be done automatically.

Google have also been quick to consider mobile devices when delivering search results. If Google is aware that a search is being conducted on a mobile device, then it filters search results to cater for those on the go. This is particularly effective for those with paid Google Adwords campaigns.

Tablets such as Ipads are also constantly growing in use with 12% of Irish people currently going online on a tablet device (Mediascope 2013). These devices are known to be used more frequently at home, particularly in the evening time for browsing the web.

This rise in mobile should also be considered when using email as a component of your marketing strategy. In research done by Litmus, they found that email opens on smartphones and tablets have increased 80% over the last six months. People who are opening emails on their phone are unlikely to download any image attachments which accompany emails. This means that your email campaign should aim to get its information across textually without relying on fancy imagery, as to accommodate your mobile audience.

Why use Mobile Marketing?

Reach a wider audience:

When using mobile marketing as a part of your marketing strategy, you can now reach a wider market of consumers who are constantly on the go. This is a very specific type of consumer, but also a vital type.

Stand out from the competition:

Mobile marketing is growing fast however a majority of sites are unresponsive to mobile; it would therefore be refreshing for a mobile consumer to come across your page which caters to their needs. A small improvement such as this can reflect well on your business.

Bridge the gap between Offline and Online:

Mobile marketing is unique in that consumers can instantly react to traditional advertising campaigns. If a person where to see a poster advert at a bus stop, by placing a QR code on that poster, then the customer can scan it and be taken directly to a specific area of your site.

If you have any enquiries about mobile marketing or any other digital marketing services, please contact us

Final call for enhanced campaigns

This coming Monday July 22^nd is the date when all adwords campaigns will switch over to “enhanced campaigns”. Google announced the change back in February saying that any campaigns not already changed over will be moved over by them.

Enhanced campaigns bring many new features to PPC advertising on the adwords platform including new bidding features across all devices. When you first switch over it seems you are required to target mobile devices but you can adjust the bid to -100% of your bids for your desktop/laptop campaign, which basically turns it off.  You can also place higher or lower bids for tablets and mobiles as it may be more or less competitive on a different device.  It even gives you the ability to bid higher when showing your ad on mobile devices to users who are within a certain distance of your business. Other new features include optimising your ads for varying user contexts – ability to show the right sitelink, app or extension based on the context of the potential customer and the device they’re using. There are also new advanced reports available in enhanced campaigns such as the ability to track new conversion types.

Google strongly advises businesses using adwords PPC advertising to make the switch to enhanced campaigns themselves rather than it being automatically switched over.  Otherwise, if you don’t manage the switch over yourself, you may show in results for mobile even though you previously had mobile targeting turned off as your site is not mobile friendly.

Our advice is to ensure that you do make the switch over before Monday and put some time into setting up your enhanced campaign and take advantage of the new features. You will otherwise waste valuable budget, paying for irrelevant clicks.

At Webresults.ie we set up and manage Google Adwords campaigns. We can move your PPC Advertising campaign for you and ensure you are getting the most from your advertising budget. Contact us now to find out more.

WebResults.ie offers a wide range of web marketing services. We identify which activities will drive the best results for your business based on your business objectives and your target market. Whether it is a PPC advertising campaign, Social media activities or SEO Services, contact us now for a free consultation and we will get the web generating sales for your business – (01) 207 1872 or email info@webresults.ie.

PPC For Dummies

 

 

Are you confused about what Pay-Per-Click is? Are you considering entering into the world of paid internet advertising but do not fully understand how and why PPC works? Read more on PPC here to understand it and have your questions answered.

To read the full article, visit PPC For Dummies.

For more information on pay-per-click advertising and web marketing, contact us.  For more information on this topic, click here.

Adwords Custom Alerts will become inactive soon

Google plan to discontinue the sending of Adwords Custom Alerts on the 30th of June. These were notifications that you could set up within Google Adwords to alert you whenever certain things happened within you Adwords campaigns; things that you would wish to act on in a certain way.

Google now feels these are no longer necessary. To find out why, read the full article on our website: Adwords Custom Alerts will become inactive soon.

For more information about Pay Per Click campaign management, please call us on 01 2071872 or contact us via our contact form.

 

Changes to the Google Adwords Even-Rotation Setting

Changes to how ads are displayed recently came into effect. Google decided to restrict the period of of time ads could remain on an even-rotation setting. After 30 Days ads within ad groups would be optimised, i.e. the better performing ads would automatically be displayed more often.

However, this caused uproar among advertisers who wanted to retain more control over their ads.

Read the full article on our website: Changes to the Google Adwords Even-Rotation Setting.

Adwords – Tips on Improving Your Quality Score

Google Adwords Quality Score

Improving your Adwords quality score can improve your ads’ positions and reduce the cost per click. So it’s worth doing your keyword research properly and splitting your ads into different ad groups focusing on keywords, ensuring that the landing page is very relevant to the keywords.

Through split-testing your ads, over time you should, over time, be able to increase your quality score by making your ads as relevant as possible to the keywords you are targeting.

Read the full article for Adwords – Tips on Improving Your Quality Score on our website.

What Can be Learned from SEO to Improve PPC Campaigns?

Search marketers can learn a lot from SEO research. The most obvious lessons can be learned from reports done for organic search so as to get ideas for keywords to include that might not necessarily have been discovered through keyword research using keyword tools. It is worth noting though, that some of these keywords may be too general and too expensive use in PPC campaigns.

Read more on this topic on our website.

For more advice about PPC campaigns or Adwords campaign management contact us.

Improving Exact Match and Phrase Match matches in Adwords

Sometimes it can be difficult to find a balance between using Broad Match keywords on your Adwords campaign – to generate more impressions in the hopes of getting clicks – and using phrase match or exact match in the hopes of reducing the number of clicks that don’t convert because the person was searching for something different.

However, using phrase match or exact match meant that you might miss clicks from people searching for exactly what you are offering, bu they have simply misspelled a word or used a slight variant of the word that still means the same thing.

Well, that is about to change. Read more about Google Adwords’ Phrase and Exact Match update.

Can Your PPC Campaign Change Your Organic Rankings?

Have you ever wondered if your pay per click campaign is pinching traffic from your organic search engine listings?  Chief Economist at Google Dr. Hal Varian and his team recently released a set of results which web marketers the world over have been struggling over for some time, “Why pay for advertising for terms associated with our brand when we already rank on Googles first page?”

Well thanks to Google we now have an answer. Google have stated they believe there is value to be gained by paying for a click that you may be ranking well for organically. Read our full article here to find out what effect your PPC campaign is having on your organic listings.