Updated: August 22, 2018: Google Ad accounts are starting to see the new 3rd Headline (30 Characters) and 2nd Description (90 Characters) for Expanded Text Ads; no, we’re not talking the responsive text ad variations, but actual regular Expanded Text Ads!
Google announced the launch, and eventual changeover, to an Expanded Text Ad format in mid-2016. The Expanded Text Ads gave a boost to the clickable real-estate of the ad, and a longer description for more detail. If you haven’t updated your older ads, you’re missing an opportunity to increase your position and Click Through Rate. Here’s a little more information:
Google Alerts is almost an afterthought to most seasoned webmasters and digital marketers, but let’s retract a minute and zoom back out to ten-thousand feet. What if you, Jane Business, could track/monitor every time a keyword was mentioned in a Google search result? How would you harvest that power?
Here’s how I would take advantage of that – I’d monitor my name, for one, but I’d also monitor topics of interest for me, my industry, or areas where I’m trying to build links back to my website or a client’s website.
Click-Through Rate (CTR) is a simple metric that shows that rate at which an ad impression receives a click. It’s a core measurement in Search Engine Marketing and yet, slightly misunderstood on the surface. Let’s look at this major ad performance metric.
What is Click-Through Rate?
Whenever and however you generate traffic to your app or website — be it through any channel (social, organic, referral, paid, display, email) — your links, banners, or ads will have impressions (views) and clicks. Impressions are the number of times a link or ad was seen, or rather available on the screen to be seen. Clicks are, well, people who clicked the link or ad. Click-Through Rate is the percentage of people who saw the impression and clicked it.
Add Your Business to the Google Maps “Service Area” in Two Easy Steps!
Small businesses are often turned off to adding their business to the Google map, because they don’t actually have a physical address. Logically, this makes sense. You probably don’t want to show your home address or PO Box number to the public, and Google has accounted for this by allowing you to include a “service area.”
(Updated Feb. 8th, 2019) As of 2019, Google Ads (Adwords) allows you to choose between Five different campaign types. They are: Search Network, Display Network, Video (YouTube), Shopping, and Universal Apps. Choosing a campaign type is your first step in getting ads running, so study up. Each campaign type has secondary features that expand and contract the functionality in the campaign (e.g. Standard, All Features, Mobile app installs, Dynamic Search Ads, Call-only, Marketing Objectives, etc.). Fortunately, those features change on-page, as you select, for easy viewing.
On Tuesday, I hosted a “Grow Your Business Online” workshop to 50 working professionals, on behalf of Big Cat Advertising. I presented on the topic of leveraging your local search presence using Google My Business, website SEO 101, and an overview of Google Adwords and best practices. The response to the event was great as we sold out a week ahead. Judging from the feedback and the reactions during the event, the topic generated a lot of engagement from small business owners; as it should, because it’s a powerful tool. I’ve released my presentation notes with links and expanded topics over on the Big Cat Advertising website. I’m enclosing the full presentation slides here to this post.
I’m a big fan of Dashboards in Google Analytics (GA). A dashboard can give you quick access to monitor sections of your website or track an advertising campaign. The options are endless, and you can share dashboards seamlessly between views. Handy, especially if you monitor several websites or in my case dozens! Here is one of my free Google Analytics Dashboards that I’m sharing for tracking blog performance.
Claiming ownership of your social profiles is one of my four covered topics (Local Search). Claiming your Yelp for business page is an easy way to control your branding and manage your reviews. Luckily, it’s easy enough that the average business owner or manager can take do it. In this article, I’ll go over the benefits and how to.
With over several million advertising accounts on Google Adwords, I’d guess that less than 30-40% of them are run by a professional (Google Partner). Given this, a lot of accounts are probably just kinda running and not measuring or seeing any positive results. With that in mind, here are three simple monthly Google Adwords tips the average account manager can use to optimize their campaign performance.
When I speak at events, I always leave the audience with this to-do: Claim your business locations on Google Maps and Bing Places. It’s low hanging fruit that’s free and important.
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Google Alerts is almost an afterthought to most seasoned webmasters and digital marketers, but let’s retract a minute and zoom back out to ten-thousand feet. What if you, Jane Business, could track/monitor every time a keyword was mentioned in a Google search result? How would you harvest that power?
