Archive for the ‘Search Audience’ Category

Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries Visualized

July 5, 2010

I had problems authenticating Google Webmaster Tools several months ago and stopped checking the five sites I had them installed on.

I accidentally figured out how to solve my authentication problem and got them back online today.

Since my last log in, Google Webmaster Tools has added a search queries visualization tool to help webmasters see how many times their pages (Queries) appear within search results (Impressions).

The tool data also shows how many clicks a site received on a percentage basis relative to the total number of impressions it and the other sites on the same page received for the same query.

Sample Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries

Sample Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries

The Click Through Rate and Average Position data for each query can also help webmasters better understand both their audience and Google’s ranking demands.

One of my pages has received a 35% CTR within the last 30 days while another received a 26% CTR.

The 35% CTR page had only 46 Impressions and 16 clicks while the 26% CTR page had 1000 Impressions and 260 clicks.

Both queries were three word phrases describing the same product yet the latter produced over 15 times more traffic.

If those two differences in results don’t illustrate the importance and rewards for understanding search audience demand, I don’t know what does.

Advertisement

New Keywords Data Available From Google Webmaster Tools

November 11, 2009

Google Webmaster Tools is now providing a greater level of detail regarding the keywords most associated with a claimed site.

For instance, below are the most common keywords Google found when crawling this site – SearchMarketingCommunications.com.

The keywords reported here should reflect the subject matter of your site and your search audience‘s search intent.

Keywords Update in Google Webmaster Tools

Keywords Update in Google Webmaster Tools

I was surprised to discover after writing hundreds of blog posts that this site has remained relatively on topic vis-a-vis the keywords most used within this site: Google Search Marketing.

Google Adwords Keyword Tool Beta

September 26, 2009

Google Adwords has added a Keyword Tool Beta to help Adword’s advertisers reach a larger share of Google’s search audience.

Google Adwords Keyword Tool Beta

Google Adwords Keyword Tool Beta

Clicking on Keyword Tool under the Opportunities tab in an Adwords account takes advertisers to an internal page with a Check out the new Keyword Tool (Beta) link.

New Keyword Tool  Interface

New Keyword Tool Interface

Advertisers can then enter keywords or a website to generate a list of keywords to evaluate and explore further.

Twitter Audience: Reaching 1,000 Twitter Followers

September 12, 2009

Today, my Twitter account briefly reached 1,000 Twitter Followers.

1000 Twitter Followers

1000 Twitter Followers

Having reached 1,000 Twitter “audience members” presents an obvious question: which is more valuable – a 1,000 person social media audience or 1,000 person search audience?

Targeting iPhone Users with Google Adwords

October 9, 2008

Adweek reports Google has had discussions with ad agencies regarding advertisers targeting their ads to iPhone users specifically via Google Adwords.

While in Utah yesterday, my fly fishing guide Justin Harding and I noticed when using Google search from his iPhone Google Adwords advertising was sparse.

Initially, I thought it was because of the type of search we had ran.

However, after further investigative searches under highly competitive and advertised keywords, we weren’t ever able to see Adwords sponsored links on the right rail – only above the first search result.

Can a iPhone Google search display more than two Adwords advertisers ads as is now?

We weren’t able to generate any.

How is Google parsing iPhone search ads results for display? If they are, is Google distributing advertising to the iPhone with the same formula they use for displaying search results elsewhere?

Are iPhone screen real estate limitations the reason why we could only get two ads?

Even when we rotated the search results screen for horizontal viewing – under a Google search term that would typically have had up to ten sponsored links ( both above the search results and running down the right rail ) we were only able to generate two Adwords advertisers ads.

Will Google Adwords advertisers soon be able to select “iPhone” as a search distribution option along with “Google Search” and “Search Partners” within their campaigns Networks and bidding settings?

With 10 million iPhones in use and Apple’s iPhone supplying Google with its largest source of mobile search traffic, adding iPhone distribution to Google advertising campaigns will give Google Adwords advertisers another way to target and reach an increasingly mobile search audience.

Google Network Options

Google Network Options

Microsoft and Yahoo vs. Google: The Battle for Audience and Keystrokes

February 7, 2008

The Redmond giant has sprung to its feet from its long and comfortable slumber.

Much like the browser business before it, Microsoft has realized it had better get into the search advertising business before its too late.

I think we all know who won the browser war. We also know how they did it.

Even with its proposed acquisition of Yahoo!, Microsoft may have already overslept and thus lost this battle.

On the surface this acquisition looks like a grab for a piece of the search advertising business.

However, just below the surface lie its real targets: the Internet audience and their keystrokes.

Internet Audience?

Keystrokes?

Both beachheads Microsoft has or has had control of nearly since their inception, keystrokes via the personal computer desktop and the Internet audience via browsers – not from birth but before the web’s infancy ended.

Like their importance to Microsoft’s franchise before, both have an equally and even greater importance going forward. Audience begets keystrokes and vice versa. However, It’s hard to control one if you don’t control the other.

Microsoft’s $44 billion offer to acquire Yahoo and its audience is an admission by Microsoft that if they aren’t able to augment their present audience now with an acquisition the size of Yahoo, they won’t ever be able to stem the audience gains being made by Google and their control of the largest and most valuable part of the internet audience – the search audience.

At this point, Microsoft’s not getting control of Yahoo’s audience is the single greatest risk facing their business – hence their offer price and the need to get the deal done. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but let unabated Microsoft faces continued losses in both audience and keystrokes.

Its not a market position Microsoft is familiar with or comfortable.

Why search is the most valuable audience on the Internet.

There are two types of audiences on the Internet. The old and familiar audience type, which is the one served and supported by display advertising.

Advertisers buy ads to reach an audience based on what content a publisher assembles to attract a particular audience. Ads are then priced and sold based on the desirability advertisers have in reaching that particular audience.

At any one time, a large percentage of the publisher’s audience is inactive – not interested in what the advertiser is selling.

Advertisers still have to pay to reach the publishers entire audience regardless of how many people may or may not be interested in the advertiser’s ads or products. Because display advertising is inefficient i.e., reaches more disinterested audience than audience of potential buyers – it sells for less and thus generates less income for publishers.

The other type of audience available to advertisers on the web is search advertising.

Unlike display advertising, search advertising reaches only an active audience – people who have explicitly requested advertisers information about their products or services – by their clicking on ads.

Search advertisers only incur costs to reach their audience when consumers click on their ads. Thus search advertising is significantly more efficient in delivering advertising messages to the exclusively active segment of the Internet audience – people who are actively searching for information.

By definition, search advertising only delivers advertisements to people actively seeking what the advertiser is advertising and selling. Because of this efficiency in targeting and delivery, search advertisers are able to reach more qualified prospects for less than through traditional media.

In turn, search advertising providers like Google are able to charge advertisers commensurate with the value the advertisers receive from reaching a efficiently targeted and active audience.

The result?

By my calculations, Google’s annualized gross revenue from advertising per visitor is roughly twice that of Yahoo’s and nearly four times Microsoft’s (gross advertising revenues divided by web property visits)

At a minimum, a search driven visit is worth at least twice – up to four times more than a non-search driven visit.

This is why Microsoft desperately needs Yahoo’s audience.

Although there are wide discrepancies over what percentage of search each company gets, Google receives between four to twenty times more search traffic than Microsoft and three to five times more search traffic than Yahoo, combined and assuming no market disruption – the two companies would still only generate one fourth to one half the search business of Google.

This acquisition also assumes Yahoo’s ad platform can continue to harvest one half the value Google does whether through Yahoo! or Microsoft’s search product without cultural distraction or interruption from the merger.

Even with their proposed clean room assembly, Microsoft’s acquisition of Yahoo! does not answer how they will make up difference (search volume + gross revenue per visitor).

By doubling their performance (revenue per visit) post merger to meet Google’s present level of performance, a MicroHoo search advertising business gross revenues per visitor would be half of Google’s.

In order for Microsoft to retain Yahoo’s audience, publishers and advertisers- the combined company will also need to produce:

Highly relevant search results for its audience, a functional ad platform for its advertisers, profitable ad distribution for its publishing partners and most importantly: a greater return on its advertisers’ investments.

Without which any new ad platform and search product may grab the attention of a larger audience and gain its keystrokes only to see it lost after they are unable to deliver what the internet audience has already come to expect, find and get from Google.

Of course, this also assumes Microsoft is somehow precluded from using its expanded platform and footprint to reroute ancillary chunks of audience to its new web properties acquired through the proposed acquisition along with their accompanying keystrokes.

In the absence thereof, there may be no stopping Google’s march.

Google Advertising Seminars

May 26, 2007

I decided to apply for the Google Adwords Seminar leader position again.

Their latest application was slightly different from the first one in December of 2005. After looking over my original application, I am surprised my application was even given serious consideration.

Two Google Adwords Seminar Leaders were chosen in early 2006. I believe they have since presented Google Adwords seminars to over 1,000 attendees.

Spending the last year and a half preparing for and writing my book: For Sale By Google – How To Make Money on the Internet Selling Your Products Using Google Adwords and Search Engine Marketing Strategies has given me an entirely different perspective on the paid search business and search in general.

I believe my answers below do in fact reflect that change in perspective.

Section 1:
Background Info
All fields are required.

First Name: Tim
Last Name: Cohn

Email address: timcohn at gmail.com

Website: Search Marketing Communications

Phone number: 405-842-0163

Current Address:
(Street address) 6403 NW Grand Blvd., Suite 208
(City) Nichols Hills
(State / Province) OK
(Zip Code/Postal Code) 73116

1) How long have you been an AdWords advertiser?

Since March of 2002.

2) Do you have experience with other advertising channels? If so, please explain.

Yes, since 1989 I have been a direct marketing consultant.

I have developed marketing campaigns through nearly every form of advertising media available to the small and medium size business.

I have created and ran advertising campaigns in radio, television, magazines, newspapers, yellow pages and direct mail. No other recognized form of media compares to Google paid search. Word of mouth marketing out performs paid search but the process has yet become measurable and thus manageable.

Since the advent of Adwords, I have focused exclusively on producing results for myself and clients through reaching the search audience through paid search.

I have personally managed the production of 100 million impressions and one million clicks.

3) Do you have teaching or training experience? If so, please explain.

I spoke several years ago about the power of Google Adwords to business audiences in Atlanta, GA and Scottsdale, AZ. I have since accepted a contract to write a book about my Google Adwords experience for John Wiley and Sons. The book, For Sale By Google – How to Make Money Selling Your Products on the Internet Using Google Adwords and Search Engine Marketing Strategies is nearing completion.

As you may gather from the title, the book targets the small to medium size business market with an emphasis on how they can reach their audience more cost efficiently with Google Adwords as compared to their other media options while generating leads and sales in the process.

I believe my direct marketing background which is rooted firmly in advertising accountability and return on investment helps me give proper perspective to the small business owner who needs guidance when it comes to choosing where best to place their advertising dollars.

4) Do you or any of your family members work in the internet search and advertising industry, or for any company that you might reasonably consider to be a direct competitor to Google? If so, please explain.

No.

5) Resume: please paste your resume or a URL linking to your resume into the box below.

As a self-employed marketing consultant, I don’t have a resume per se. However, I do however keep a Curriculum Vitae of the projects and deals I am working on.

Section 2: Short Answers
1) Why do you want to be an AdWords Seminar Leader? (1-2 paragraphs)

A. If I am not constantly teaching others all that I have learned and I continue to learn about Google Adwords, I will be doing both them and my self a disservice.

B. I believe in the power Google Adwords has to transform the small business and the small business owner’s life! I made a commitment to understanding and mastering Adwords to the best of ability long before it became a requisite for being competitive in the market.

2) What is the most challenging situation you have faced when managing AdWords accounts? (1-2 paragraphs)

Being ignorant of any Adwords feature.

3) If you could change one thing about AdWords, what would it be? (1 paragraph)

Add Zip Code Targeting.

4) What is your favorite AdWords tool or report? Why? (1 paragraph)

The Keyword Tool.

Because it rationalizes demand into language.

Section 3: Video Presentation
Please submit one video presentation containing the following 2 components:

a) Introduction (max 1 min.) – Tell us who you are, when you first started using AdWords, and why you want to be an AdWords Seminar Leader.

b) Lesson (max 7 min.) – Choose one of the following two topics and create a lesson as if it were a partial session of an AdWords Seminar. You may use visual aids, but please do not repeat or reuse any materials from the AdWords Learning Center.

* OPTION 1: Your audience is a group of local small business owners with small advertising budgets. They are concerned about competing with large, national advertisers who are also advertising on AdWords. Explain to them how AdWords pricing works, and which AdWords features can help them advertise effectively in this competitive environment.

* OPTION 2: Your audience is a group of new AdWords advertisers. During the Q&A session of the seminar, one advertiser asks: “I’ve been advertising on AdWords for a few weeks. I’ve spent a few hundred bucks, but I’m frustrated because I can’t get my ad to show up on the first page of search results. I’m always in 7th or 8th place on the second page. How do I get my ad to show up on the first page?” How would you address his question?

24 Posts, 10,000 Visitors

May 20, 2007

“The average blog has exactly one reader: the blogger.” Eric Schmidt, CEO Google

I started this blog to see how much traffic I could generate armed with just a few articles and my knowledge of the search audience.

I have posted 24 articles since September 04, 2006.

This blog has now attracted over 10,000 visitors.

Even though I haven’t considered myself a blogger, it appears my blog has now safely exceeded Mr. Schmidt’s criteria for being average.