OUR BLOG

Featuring marketing tips, tech news, digital wonders, some personal things and everything in between . . .

Category: adwords

LegitScript Standards and Off-Site Linking


Thursday July 26, 2018

Reading Time: 5 minutes

legitscript addiction certification

For those treatment centers that have been certified by LegitScript – congratulations!

For those that are still applying, listen up.

We’re finding that one of the most overlooked standards listed in their certification standards is #10.

It states:

Applicant must disclose all physical properties and corporate entities under its control and/or to which it refers participants. Any such properties or entities that provide addiction treatment services must also adhere to these standards. 

Digitally, this means that approved centers may not link to any other treatment centers who are not LegitScript certified from their website, as it is considered “referring.” This means centers can’t link to a.) centers that are sub or sister brands of a facility that haven’t also been certified and b.) any treatment center in the US who they have linked to for a variety of reasons who are not LegitScript Certified.

Why They Aren’t Allowing Outbound Links to Uncertified Centers 

This certification standard prevents a certified treatment center from running ads on behalf of or for an uncertified treatment center. For example, if treatment center A is certified and their friends at treatment center B are not, they could feasibly get a kickback by directing their Adwords traffic via linking to the uncertified center.

What this means for your website, PageRank and SEO? 

All centers who are or want to be certified can use this tool to see their outbound links. Centers who have applied or will apply to be certified should remove links to centers who are not LegitScript certified. You can see certified centers by using the website legitimacy search tool on their website.

When pruning links, you may lose some inbound links to your website, especially if they were reciprocal links. This may impact your PageRank, so be sure to create a new link building strategy to maintain the volume of quality inbound links. This strategy can include getting links from parallel industries, individual practitioners and online industry publications while also making sure you’ve taken advantage of all local and general citations.

Thoughts? 

What do you think of this standard? We think it is a smart standard hedging against any unscrupulous players trying to survive in the new – and hopefully improved – landscape of internet advertising in this industry. Feel free to reach out with any questions or tips on your outbound/inbound linking strategy.

Reading Time: 3 minutes
Yahoo Search Marketing, the Pay Per Click (PPC) division of Yahoo! Inc has been historically behind the 8-ball, or more specifically behind Google AdWords for the last 3 to 5 years of PPC advertising.
 
Yahoo’s argument was, we were the 1st on the scene and Google has since leap-frogged us by taking our model and improving upon it- an argument with some validity.  But now 5 years down the road, Yahoo is still playing catch-up.  This is even after the famous ‘Panama’ launch that was to solve everything.  Not to be confused with your favorite South American canal, or a Van Halen song.


Well Yahoo has taken a small step in the right direction by now including a full ad scheduling feature.  Previous to this upgrade, Yahoo’s scheduling was all of, start date- end date.  Now, like Google, the PPC advertising can be scheduled to the hour, every hour of every day of the week.

For example, I want to push my Ad’s in the morning only, Monday, Wednesday and Friday but have evenings only on the weekend.  You can customize and specify exactly to the 1/4 hour when your ads will run and when the won’t.  The trick now is deciphering when and when not to run your ads.

Do you feel like you want to utilize this type of tool, targeting only parts of the week where you see your best results?  Let us help- Webconsuls.com.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

In pay per click marketing, in most cases I find myself defining the typical internet user/searcher/customer in very specific terms. I must assume that the potential customer is looking only for the particular item/service searched– nothing more nothing less. Therefore, specific landing pages corresponding to that search term are a must, while sending a searcher to your homepage is not optimal.

To quote the linked article, “The first and most important objective of the landing page is to convince the visitor that they’ve come to the right place.” In my opinion this must be done, clearly, simply, and above the ‘fold’ or without making the searcher scroll. The Szetela article uses the metaphor of going to a Sears department store. When you know the specific item you are looking to purchase, you can go directly to it by parking and entering the store in the door leading to that particular department. You then find, purchase and leave the store creating as efficient and seemless an experience as possible.

If the searcher then stays to browse or comes back later for similar items, it is all gravy. But the conservative, strict approach assumes this is not the case and in my experience, it is not. Secure the immediate sale- any other objectives cannot be campaigned for with statistical confidence.

The browser or the type of person who enjoys shopping and spending time do so is not the person we are concerned with as previous topics have covered. In short, the browsing shopper will either find the product regardless of what ‘department door’ they arrive in or aren’t looking to buy in the 1st place. They are simply browsing.

Please read the article for another point of view and as always- share your experiences, tips and tricks by replying and helping out the rest of the viewership.

http://searchenginewatch.com/3631984

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Google AdWords has in a beta test a bidding tool called Smart Positioning. The function of this tool aims to place your ad in the most cost-effective position each time it’s displayed. Here are Google’s words in how it works.

How Smart Positioning works.

Here’s an overview of what happens when your campaign is opted in to Smart Positioning:
1. Smart Positioning calculates incremental CPC’s to evaluate the effects on cost and click through rate that would be associated with a higher position for your ad.
2. Once our system determines the incremental CPC for putting your ad in a higher position, it compares the incremental CPC to your maximum CPC bid.
3. Your ad is placed in the highest position possible, as long as both the actual CPC for that position and the incremental CPC are less than your maximum CPC bid.

So essentially, this Google AdWords tool attempts to give its advertisers the best position given recent click data and the bid landscape. It then actually changes the max CPC in the account to reflect the bid it deems most ‘efficient’.

I hate to always be the cynic, but with my history in working with one of the major search engines, I know that ‘helpful’ tools may or may not be as helpful as they are described, but they always work in the favor of the search engine.

Here are some things that make me question the tool and therefore whether I will use it or not in the long run.
1. Since my bids can be changed without my specific knowledge, I am dissuaded.
2. Because Google is providing this ‘help’ to multiple advertisers in competition with each other on the same keyword, I can see a problem developing; either the tool won’t be very effective or certain advertisers will be favored and/or others hurt.
3. Google only provides help in ways that increase revenue as I stated earlier, so I cannot see this costing me less, but quite the opposite.

In conclusion of this early evaluation of a new bidding tool, albeit before it is in wide use, I prefer a bid to position model where I am paying the least possible for a particular position and I have real expectations on my cost and display position. When things can be open ended, Google can take advantage of the account without having to defend their actions. I know what their defense would be when you finally reach a customer service rep- ‘in the terms and conditions it clearly states we can raise your bids’.

I am out.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Website Optimizer gives us the opportunity to create different versions of our website pages and to test how they are received by actual visitors. There are many well documented design theories out there. If you want to move past theories and test your actual visitors going to your pages Website Optimizer is the tool with which to do it.

Color Theory Color theories, which colors will appeal to your audience and have a specific affect or mood. As fascinating as color theory is, it can feel about as scientific as a horoscope. Cultural differences, variations of shades, and the ebb and flow of fashion can be influential in shaping a viewers perception of your color scheme.

Eyetracking Human testing has established that content with pictures of people appears more professional to viewers of websites. Eyetracking studies have collected results which indicate that viewers are drawn to the line of site of the person in the picture. If you want to highlight specific text or a call to action on your site it is recommended that you use pictures in which the person is looking towards that text or call to action.

Unlike print work, where you would choose your paper stock and give a final okay to the printer before production, in website design we do not have control over the final viewing. Different computer operating systems, different browsers, and even different levels of technical proficiency on the part of the viewer are variables we have no control over.

As we make changes to our website how can we be sure that the results from the changes are not due to seasonal changes, adword campaigns, social media posts or a variety of other variables? There are so many interacting variables.

Website Optimizer allows for a more truly scientific experiment. Visitors are randomly sent to the different versions of the same page and their activities can be tracked and data collected to make your design decisions based on the visitors’ actual response to your website and the actions you wish to encourage. No theory!

If you would like to look into staging a truly scientific experiment with your website design we would be glad to help.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Microsoft and Yahoo have yet to work out a deal for Microsoft to takeover Yahoo via a stock bid in the $30 range. We at Webconsuls are not noting this in the slight chance that you hold Yahoo stock or in my case stock options. It is significant to note the impact of re-merger of the 2 giants in the search results category.

That is, Yahoo and MSN used to have a search marketing partnership which ended about 2 years ago. With Google the clear market share majority player, it would be nice to see Yahoo beef up its partners, especially for MSN who since the split from Yahoo has yet to be a formidable opponent.

In a perfect world, Yahoo Sponsored Search would give us the option of eliminating the partner network with the exception of MSN, should a merger ever be completed.

We’ll keep you updated.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

What is Pay Per Click ‘Quality Score’ and how is it calculated?
Quality Score is a dynamic variable assigned to each of your keywords. It’s calculated using a variety of factors and measures how relevant your keyword is to your ad text and to a user’s search query, according to Google.

About Quality Score

Quality Score influences your ads’ position on Google. It also partly determines your keywords’ minimum bids. In general, the higher your Quality Score, the better your ad position and the lower your minimum bids.

Quality Score helps ensure that only the most relevant ads appear to users on Google and the Google Network. The AdWords system works best for everybody—advertisers, users, publishers, and Google too—when the ads we display match our users’ needs as closely as possible. Relevant ads tend to earn more clicks, appear in a higher position, and bring you the most success.
For calculating a keyword’s minimum bid (PPC only, not content network or content targeted ads):

  • The keyword’s historical click-through rate on Google
  • The relevance of the keyword to the ads in its ad group
  • The quality of your landing page
  • Your account history, which is measured by the CTR of all the ads and keywords in your account
  • Other relevance factors***

Unfortunately, that is all Google will tell us, partly to avoid people gaming the system and partly to be less accountable. The ability to control earnings this way (in my estimation) will keep Google (and Yahoo in their shadow) from ever completely erasing the veil.

All we can do is play by the rules and put ourselves in the best position to pay the least for the desired position. This includes rotating ads, writing the most direct ad, and having the site back both of those points us with our “call to action”, or what we are looking to have the user/searcher do. This must be done clearly, easily and within the top fold of the landing page.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The following linked article from The Register accuses Google’s AdWords, namely the ‘automatic matching’ feature to be untargeted and an outright waste of funds in most instances.

In short, automatic matching weakens the parameters and rules of defining ‘targeted’ in PPC terms. If I sell Adidas shoes, the articles explains, I don’t want to come up for a search on slippers. That would simply be a waste of money. I would go as far to add that in today’s world of short attention spans, anything not directly or literally an Adidas shoe is not targeted enough- let alone slippers.

Pay per click is too reliant on the ‘conversions to dollars spent’ ratio to allow for any more leniency than exactly what I typed in. Again, attentions spans generally don’t allow for it. Additionally, if the search term in question is on the general side where this rule may not directly apply, then the traffic itself will be of the browsing type not the converting (purchasing, buying, targeted lead) type. So in this case my clients probably aren’t interested in the 1st place.

But that is a whole different argument in itself.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/18/when_google_does_evil/page2.html