Google AdWords Ad Extensions Can Improve Performance

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Ad extensions allow you to show additional information on your Google AdWords ads such as displaying map with business locations, linking to additional pages within the site, showing a click-to-call phone number, connecting your Google Plus account +1s, and showing product images, titles and prices (from Google Merchant Center). Google has reported that using ad extensions can increase CTR by 30% on average. Setting up Ad Extensions is fairly easy to do, simply check the “Ad extensions” tab in AdWords and look through the options there to set up. After implementing these options, keep an eye on performance to see what differences the extensions provide, and be aware you can check some of these performances by using Segment->Click Type in each AdWords page.

Read the full article here:
6 Ways Google Ad Extensions Can Improve Your AdWords Campaign – SEOmoz (blog)

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Google’s First SERP Down To 7 Listings

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Google appears to be testing some changes to the first page of results. The first listing is getting additional “sitelinks” underneath in many cases, from two links to as many as six additional links. For search results that have the first listing containing these sitelinks, there is now only seven listings total on the front page. It doesn’t matter how many sitelinks, it’s still seven listings. For an example, Google “ebay” and check the results.

Another change is that Google is not limiting the number of results appearing for a single domain to two per page – it looks as though one domain can potentially dominate the entire front page now, without limitation.

Whether or not these are permanent changes or just tests we’ll see as time progresses.

Read the full article here:
7 Is The New 10? Google Showing Fewer Results & More From Same Domain

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How To Refine Google Display Network Ad Targeting

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People seem to think that the Google Display Network (GDN) is like drinking from a fire hose: turn it on and get a ton of traffic. But as a campaign manager you need to control the stream of visitors or else your GDN campaign will drown in unqualified clicks. Within Google AdWords there are number of tactics to exclude specific traffic from your GDN campaigns. These exclusion methods are of two types: behavioral and demographic. Behavior Exclusion includes Targeted Keywords, Ad Placements, Webpage Topics and Remarketing (more effective). Demographic Exclusion includes Age and Gender and Excluding Users by Interest.

Read the full article here:
Google Display Network Exclusion Tactics: Don’t Drink from the Fire Hose – Search Engine Watch

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Client Center Changes in Microsoft adCenter

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Advertisers can know change or add agencies without losing their entire account history, thanks to the updated version of adCenter by Microsoft. Microsoft are now calling that “Agency Enablement”, through that the agencies can link or unlink to client accounts, control billing preferences and manage client accounts at the account level, et al. This will provide immense flexibility for advertisers.

Read the full article here:
Microsoft Revamps AdCenter For Agency Relationships

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Google Shopping Accounts Now Editable In AdWords Editor

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Google made an update to AdWords Editor that allows for changes to details with Product Listing Ads, ads that are used in line with Google Shopping accounts. Now businesses that use Google Shopping can make changes to the advertisements that display on search results using AdWords Editor. Actual content for the ads come from the product feed set up in Google Merchant Center, but other details are now adjustable inside AdWords Editor.

Read the full article here:
Google Shopping Updates

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Does Social Media Work For Businesses?

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A lot of businesses do not think they need social media or in some cases, even any online marketing. They see it as a way to talk to friends and nothing more. The thing that must be realized is that in order to properly take advantage of social media, a business will realistically need six months or more. Usually the basic level of interaction is set at 7 times of contact before business can be done, but some say as many as 21 interactions before a close can happen.

There are five good approaches to take to make sure this can happen if you want to get started in social:

  1. Put some money in to get a solid web site.
  2. Do proper keyword research.
  3. Start congregating with target customers online, learn their language, their questions.
  4. Use a blog, share your expertise there.
  5. Share all types of content, become a valuable resource for your customer base.

If you do these things, it’ll be a solid start to using social media for business in a productive way.

Read the full article here:
When Social Media Marketing Doesn’t Work for You

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Google Says If You’ve Blocked GoogleBot

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There are many webmasters who have their reason to block GoogleBot from their site. Your site can still be listed, but if you’ve prevented the GoogleBot from crawling your pages Google will display it clearly in the SERPs. Instead of showing the standard description tag (or another snippet) it will say, “A description for this result is not available because of this site’s robots.txt – learn more.” This may be worth knowing if you care about what displays on Google when people find you there and you’ve been blocking the GoogleBot.

Read the full article here:
Google Search Descriptions Now Say If GoogleBot Is Blocked

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3 AdWords Features To Help Manage Campaigns

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There are three options inside AdWords that many don’t see or realize that can help hugely to save time and effort.

1) Bulk changes to local business listings – you can actually change multiple location extensions at once using AdWords Editor. Just use the “Make multiple changes” inside the Extensions tab in the Editor to do this.

2) AdWords labels. Want to sort through campaigns, ad groups, keywords or even ads with a specific category that doesn’t exist natively? Add a label. You can label anything to be able to quickly see what parts of your campaigns you want to focus on.

3) Automated rules. There are other tools available that do this, but automated rules inside Google allow you to change CPC values, pause ads, or even change a budget based on progress that happens inside the campaign. This can reduce micro-managing your campaign to a huge degree.

Use these three AdWords abilities to cut time and improve efficiency for your own campaign management.

Read the full article here:
3 Tips To Manage Complex Paid Search Programs – Search Engine Land

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Google and Oracle Both Pay Bloggers, Now Ordered To Reveal Who

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A United States judge has demanded that Oracle and Google reveal paid bloggers. The two firms must provide the information by August 17. It is already known that firms pay commentators, but the information on who the paid commentators are must be revealed. Unfortunately however, it is unclear to both firms what will qualify as payments, as there are many ways they send out payments. Where is the line between bloggers and professional journalists, and is it distinct enough to clarify?

Read the full article here:
BBC News – Oracle and Google are ordered to reveal paid bloggers

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Facebook Hack Help and Fixes

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There are some steps one may take to retrieve their Facebook when it is hacked. First and foremost, one should change their password, along with having a secondary email and phone number submitted to Facebook in case of a hacker changing the password. One should also verify their identity on Facebook, and utilize the two-step login process. Also, to see if anyone has hacked into an account, one can check their Facebook sessions. If you do all of these, you can recover your account and prevent future issues.

Read the full article here:
Steps to Take When Your Facebook is Hacked

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