1. Competitor keywords: At this point, it seems elementary to say that appearing for a keyword search of your competitor is a must these days. However, it’s ridiculously expensive as your quality score will always be low. A good way to refine it is to go for “better than Product XYZ” fashioned long-tail terms.People tend to already know brand names; what they really want to know is a good alternative that might make them change their mind about a purchasing decision. I’ve found that “review” keywords can be good, too…such as, “Product XYZ reviews” or “product ABC comparison.” (Just make sure you’re not infringing on anyone’s trademark – read your PPC program’s terms of service to make sure). Create a landing page with a review matrix or something to that effect that caters to those kinds of searches and you might be on to something.
2. Product Model Numbers: Many people (especially myself) will not bother to type in 46” Sony HDTV. We’ll just find the model number and search for deals on that…so, a search for “KDL-46XBR9” it is.Use that knowledge in affiliate marketing PPC: perhaps it makes more sense to gear your ads toward model numbers, product codes or anything else alpha-numerical beyond the actual product name?
3. “Call to action” queries: If you’ve ever dabbled with Google Keyword Tool or played with Google or Yahoo’s “auto-fill” feature within the search bar, you might have noticed that many people type in bizarre terms like “where to buy product XYZ” or “best price on product XYZ.” I don’t think I’ve ever typed such a thing, even during my first year of using the internet. Still, it’s a great long-tail term that might yield clicking customers who are on the verge of typing in their credit card info, if only you could present them with a helpful, BS-free landing page!
4. Seasonal or holiday-based keywords: It’s almost Memorial Day…are you advertising Memorial Day sales on your affiliate sites via AdWords? Consider it – many people search for deals online based on traditional holiday sales periods, mostly because the economy sucks, and they’ve been waiting all year to save $50 on a new refrigerator.Perhaps your lawn & garden store gets traffic spikes during early Spring: why not gear your PPC campaign toward an “early spring” push for gardening tools? Research “spring,” “4^th of July” and “Mother’s Day” keywords for your niches and see what you come up with.
5. Free shipping keywords: It’s one of the hottest topics for anyone who owns an online retail business. Perhaps your affiliate or dropshipping store is running a program that honors this: by all means, go for “product ABC free shipping” keywords and note it directly in your PPC ad itself!There were many times where I’ve bought an item from a store that charged slightly more for a product but gave free shipping, rather than one with a better price plus shipping fees. Customers will do the math and see what the more economical choice is, even if they have to wait longer for it to arrive. Be sure to lasso these customers.

Psychology is a part of PPC – if you know what people are typing as casual internet users rather than marketers, then you’ll be able to give them what they’re looking for. The rest of your newb-ish marketing competition will continue going for generic long-tail terms, and complaining about they spend more on advertising than they actually make ;)

Just today, a 2^nd email blast went out from both services in less than an hour from each other. Yahoo’s email was more informative, actually stating that the companies intend to roll their collaborative PPC program out before the 2010 holiday season, unless they’re unable to create a smooth transition. According to their “window of time” blurb, current clients will be transitioned beginning late summer 2010.

If you’ve been a Google AdWords loyalist all of these years and have never touched Yahoo Search Marketing or Microsoft AdCenter, here’s a little opinion on each:

My Thoughts on Yahoo Search Marketing

Yahoo Search Marketing deviates in ways from AdWords. While there’s a good deal of reporting, there’s one fatal flaw: you can’t compare present data ranges vs. past data ranges. This truly sucks if you’re looking to prove your worth to your boss, or present some comparisons to your group, or to upper management. You’ve got to break out a pencil and paper (and MS Excel) in order to do this.

Yahoo Search Marketing has a bunch of strange metrics thrown into the fray that are entirely worthless: a metric called “assists” tracks the number of times a keyword contributed to the conversion of another keyword. This metric would be worthwhile if we could see what it contributed to,  but we can’t; so, it’s nothing but a number.

Yahoo Search Marketing is also obsessed with dollar amounts: there’s a column for Revenue, ROAS, and an ROI metric. If you’re 100% sure that the number of conversions its reporting is correct (which is never the case) and you’re selling tangible products, this number might give you a clue as to how well the campaign is doing. If you’re simply counting “conversions” to be a brochure going out or a PDF being downloaded with no idea whether or not those actions became new customers, then these are just pretty numbers cluttering the already crowded dashboard.

Yahoo Search Marketing’s GUI is less than desirable, a veritable 1990s-ish looking control panel that’s incredibly boring to look at and difficult to navigate. What’s even more incredibly boneheaded is that Yahoo Search Marketing only allows you to access 6 months worth of data. Everything before that time period goes into the black hole. Great. I mean, being in marketing and all, who needs past data anyway? :/

Don’t get me wrong, though: if you’re in the right market, Yahoo can really perform for you. The same keywords that are insanely expensive and untouchable on AdWords might be surprisingly affordable on Yahoo. As a search marketer, these are all things you’ll want to test out!

My Thoughts on Microsoft AdCenter

Microsoft AdCenter is like the uglier stepchild of Yahoo Search Marketing: equally as flavorless, it’s obvious that Microsoft never even bothered to have a web designer present when this dashboard was put together. It screams “designed by an IT programming team.” Sharing Yahoo’s fatal flaw: Microsoft AdCenter also has no way of comparing previous data ranges to present data ranges. Another thing that annoys the hell out of me is how it constantly logs you out after a few minutes of no usage.

Also, no matter what I do, I can’t get the log-in box to auto-save my username and password like every other website I use. There’s a fine line between security and annoyance, and it crosses this line greatly. Beyond these issues, the program itself is as barebones as it gets: it simply manages ads and keywords, nothing else. If you’re looking for bells and whistles, you came to the wrong place with AdCenter.

Just like Yahoo, AdCenter doesn’t even give you the courtesy of letting you save a custom report as a PDF file with charts, graphs and statistics. I won’t even get into how awful the conversion rate seems to be on Bing.com, because I don’t want to be unfair – it’s possible that my company’s industry simply doesn’t do well on Bing. However, it’s a broad industry we’re targeting, and the conversion rate is far lower than both Google and Yahoo.

So, Is the Merger Good or Bad?

I think it’s a little of both. It’s good because YSM and MAC both suck so badly. They look like crap, perform awfully (sit through the “swirling wheel” of their dashboard tables for a few minutes and you’ll know what I mean), and are the complete antonym of “feature rich.” The reporting features are god-awful, and the simplest things are missing…even printing a simple invoice will involve printing the screen: at least AdWords auto-generates one for you. So, in these respects, I’m looking forward to the change.

On the flipside, there’s one major thing to be afraid of, here: Google, Yahoo and Bing all have different audiences. They all convert differently with different markets. Now, Yahoo and Bing will both be running off of the same ad program.

In other words, the keywords that do well on Yahoo that didn’t do well on Bing will be running on Bing anyway (unless there’s a way to opt out of using certain keywords on either search engine). I foresee this translating to more worthless clicks and missed opportunities.

This scenario can be argued into oblivion. Just think about the mobile market for a second: certain devices use Bing as their default search engine. Perhaps you’ve found some “secret sauce” in reaching the demographic target that typically buys the phones that use Bing. Now, you’ll be forced to show the same ads on Yahoo (once again, unless you can opt-out).

Overall, I’m optimistic about the change. I’ve hated using Yahoo and Microsoft PPC for years, have incessantly wondered why neither program ever seemed to get an upgrade, and have cursed their lack of features, praising Google AdWords for their 2010-ishness and overall embrace of Web 2.0 function and design. Time will tell if these two competitors will fuse together to form something equally as effective.

Yes, SEM Can Be Outsourced…To A Box

I suppose the first taste of this came when my corporation hired a multimedia agency to redo our TV campaign and re-structure our in-house conversion management. One of the steps they recommended was to use systems like DART for Advertisers, and virtually make it so that there’s no need for me to sit here and babysit AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing or MSN Ad Center anymore.

Aside from the whole outsourcing thing, have you noticed any trends with SEM platforms? AdWords alone has new features including Conversion Optimizer, which basically turns off your ability to set maximum CPCs for your keywords, and automates them based on an algorithm so that better ads are shown more often during better times of the day, where conversions are more likely to happen. Yes, it does work like a charm, too.

Let’s face it, SEM isn’t an 8 hour a day job. Unless you’re running a short term hyper-local campaign, you’re probably only doing major work once a month by checking up on keyword trends, pausing keywords that haven’t converted at all, or added new ones that have shown up on Google Keyword Tool or Google Insights for Search. Maybe you’ve thrown in a newly written ad or two. Beyond that, you were probably reading the news or playing Mafia Wars.

SEM Automation is Here To Stay

Even if you’re only slightly paranoid, you have probably seen this coming. SEM accounts by their very nature need little babysitting aside from keyword research. They set daily budget limits, so, it’s not like you have to be there to pause the account at 4:00 PM when you’ve spent enough money for the day. New conversion-based options and automated bidding tactics leave the grunt work up to the algorithms and settings, leaving you to be a totally replaceable employee.

The best resolve here is to build a case for your company’s need to ramp up social networking to build relationships, and mini-site building for the sake of getting more conversions. They’ll keep you busy, and nobody knows what the hell those things are besides you (it’s your chance to explain it and to raise some eyebrows in one of those upper management “yeah, we need this!” revelations).

Conclusively, a SEM/SEO/Social networker holds much more value than “the guy who runs those Google ads.” That task is quickly heading toward full automation – like it or not!

One of the best stories I can tell about this topic relates to a past job of mine. All I can say is that it was in a niche legal field, and I was managing the company’s AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing accounts. Our prized two-word keyword had an astronomical price tag – we had set a bid of $20.00 per click for this particular keyword in order to appear within position 1-2 for it on Google search.

The problem with this company’s niche is that it was so brand new, that there literally weren’t any relevant long-tail terms for it yet, making this a truly unique situation. We had also tried the Google Content Network (which includes all of the regular people like you and me who have AdSense on their website), which wound up being a complete waste of money. The bids for these keywords were far less expensive, but the conversion rate was horrible (keep this statement in mind for what I’m about to write, next).

There were, in fact, times when we paid well over $10 for a single click. However, this only happened for ads that appeared on Google.com, where multiple pages of competing AdWords ads appeared for this two-word keyword. Ads on the content network barely reached heights that went beyond pocket change.

Why do companies pay so much per click? It’s a principle of ROI: pay $15 per click to occasionally get a client who will net $25,000 for a single service purchase, and the benefit is obvious.

Skip ahead several months. The company sold out, I found another job, and had a great idea – why not take all of that knowledge of the business, as well as my knowledge of the niche’s keywords, and create my own site?

How I Pursued a High-Paying PPC Niche

At the time, that two-word keyword’s plural version was available as a .com domain name, as well as a “reversed” version (i.e., if the term was “legal training,” I was able to get traininglegal.com – in my case, the reversed term was also a valid keyword that had an ample amount of searches), of which I registered. I used these to create a MFA (that’s Made For AdSense) site with about ten 500-word articles about the niche, SEO’ed the site, put AdSense in the sweet spots, and started getting backlinks from a variety of sources, including one professor who ran an .edu*, who was nice enough to give me a backlink directly from his site’s front page — and wow, did that make a difference (*check out my article about getting .edu backlinks!)

As of now, I’m #6 on page 1 of Google for this two-word keyword and #1 for its ‘reversed’ variation. I’ve even beaten out my old company and all of their competitors (one of my favorite strategies is to compete with big corporations who still don’t know what SEO is). It was truly one of the crowning achievements in my at-home SEO career! Regardless of these successes, my clicks typically ranged in the $0.15-$0.40 range. Occasionally, I’d get a $1.50 click, although it would be once a week or every two weeks. The highest click I’ve ever gotten was $4.30 for a single click.

Given the fact that I *know* this term warranted a very high bid, I was disappointed to see how actual search network clicks were so low, even though my site was almost on page 1 of Google for a very difficult term that is dominated by .gov sites. In fact, I’m convinced that it is impossible to rank within the top three on Google page 1 for this main keyword, as three .gov’s are cemented there and don’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon.

So, What Is the Highest Paying AdSense Keywords List?

My personal opinion is that those infamous “highest paying AdSense keyword lists” are nothing more than price lists for the Google Search Network, or, the ads that appear on Google.com and other Google services. They have nothing to do with the Google Content Network (ads that appear within AdSense on webmaster blogs/sites). The dream is over for all of those who had their hopes up, and their time spent on debt consolidation, auto insurance and mesothelioma blogs.

I’m still an advocate of one thing, however. Getting your site to Google page 1 for a search term and advocating an “advertise” section that explains Google placed ads is your key to success. Most people don’t know this, but companies can place their ad on a specific site and within a specific position (skyscraper, sidebar, box, etc.) on your AdSense spots though AdWords. Google even made a tool so that companies could find sites in their niche that have AdSense on them, and this tool is called Google Ad Planner. Type out the directions on how a company can buy placement in your AdSense ad positions, and include it on an “advertise” section for your site.

Who knows, some Fortune 500 company may want to dominate all of the ads on your site for a high-paying click price! After all, anything that gets to Google page 1 for a profitable term is a worthy investment to a company of any size.

I can honestly say that in every instance, the most annoying part of creating a website is accommodating ad spaces. 100% of the time, the biggest culprit is the 728×90 pixel ad, which has historically been the most successful, most clicked ad I’ve ever placed across all of the websites I’ve worked on. But…why does it have to be such an incredibly inconvenient size?

According to traditional heat maps, the optimal place to put your primary banner is on the upper left. Since your website logo traditionally goes there, a popular place would be directly under the logo (although many web designers tend to put it to the right of the logo, which is technically less effective, as eyeballs instinctively go from the top-left downward…but that’s just some deep thinking for you).

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:

Nice theme, right? Well, all that’s needed is to fit in that 728×90 banner ad that I want (or that my client wants):

Great…so, I got my 728×90 banner, and now I have a massive gap to the right of it that simply cannot be left as is. The only resolve is to create yet another box ad to the right of it to fill in the space, whether I like it or not. If I don’t know what to put in there, I’ll have to think of something. If I’m freelancing for a client, I’ll have to let them know that they’ll have to think of something within their site that they want to advertise to the right of their advertisement. This is absolutely stupid.

Is it horrible? No. Is it what I originally wanted? Once again, no. I don’t think I have ever seen a case where a 728×90 ad simply “popped” into place like a puzzle piece within a website template. Have you ever designed a website’s body content area to be exactly 728 pixels wide, just so the banner ad fit perfectly above it and below the site logo? I have.

I really think it’s time that the IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau – the organization responsible for deciding on official, universal ad sizes across the web) realize that it’s time for something wider. What I’d truly love: 960×90. Why? It’s a very common width for the body + sidebar area of a website, as seen in most web templates.

I have a feeling that all hopes of seeing an ad size like this is nothing short of wishful thinking…

In other words, if you search for “tire rotation,” and AdWords ad might show up on the results page that lists an auto body franchise chain, with the center nearest you right under the ad. That’s an AdWords Local Extension.

If you’d like to set this feature up, simply go into your AdWords account, and select a campaign. Then, click the “Settings” tab, and look for the “Locations, Languages and Demographics” sub-section. Within it is a [+] dropdown link for “Show relevant addresses with your ads (advanced).” Click it, and choose “Business owners” if you have a Google Local Business account. Upon clicking “Edit” next to this option, AdWords will automatically sync with your Local Business account, and should start syncing all of the businesses from that account within 24-48 hours. Otherwise, choose “Non-business owners” if you’d like to input manual addresses.

(Above) Setting up AdWords Local Extensions

In essence, this won’t cost you any more than before, but it will definitely get you some more qualified clicks and hopefully reduce your bounce rate. Think of it this way, people are no longer clicking an ad not knowing how near or far a service is to their location; rather, they’re clicking a link after seeing exactly where it is.

Take a look at this AdWords ad that appeared on a search result page. The top ad was displayed while I was logged into my Google account, and the bottom one, when I had logged out and repeated the same search query:

The top ad is a typical AdWords unit, along with a trailing URL pointing to a landing page (top image), WITH an icon to SEMrush.com providing statistics on the link, and yet another icon pointing to Google Keyword Tool. My guess is that the additional link pointing to “../landing/gen_trial.htm” is a Google AdWords Site Link, although I could be wrong.

The puzzling part is why an icon for SEMrush and Google Keyword Tool appeared. The SEMrush icon looks up the landing page’s top 5 keyword rankings. The Keyword Tool icon simply takes you to the service’s home page. It’s not pre-loaded with a query string. Perhaps the new AdWords algorithm figured that I could look up the landing page’s keywords in SEMrush, then do my own keyword research in Google Keyword Tool.

Underneath it is the same ad that appears when I’m not logged into my Google account. It’s just a plain AdWords ad.

My question is if these icons appear because I am, in fact, a visitor of SEMrush. Had it noticed a cookie? If not, then why would it show these icons? If you’re not an internet marketer, SEMrush and Google Keyword Tool are of no value to you. On that note, I decided to delete the cookie for SEMrush, then re-load the page and see if that icon still appeared:

When re-loading the page, neither icon was there anymore. Perhaps it was working off cookies…or, it could just be that the ad only shows those icons X amount of times per day…who knows!

On the flip side to the icon debacle, it’s an annoyance to the advertiser. I sure don’t want anyone looking up the top 5 keywords that I rank for, on one of the pay-per-click ads I’m running!

Working in similar fashion, AdWords lets you choose up to 10 links within your site that can be displayed within a “yellow box” AdWords placement (that would be a page 1, position 1 placement that appears in its own little highlighted yellow box at the top center of the page). These sitelinks are set in “priority order;” that is, the ones at the top get placement precedence above the ones underneath them.

Google AdWords’ own algorithm determines which of these sitelinks will appear for which query result/ad combo.

The sitelinks themselves have a 35 character maximum limit, with a 1024 character limit for the URL it points to. It’s a great way to advertise the major sub-sections of your site. Don’t forget to throw in a link to your “order now” or similar page, too. Be sure to use strings on these site link URLs for advanced tracking through Analytics (i.e., mysite.com/buy?cid=adwords:buypagesitelink) – that’s how I set mine up, at least.

I know what we’re all thinking: Google has found yet another way to make more money. Yes, it’s true. However, those sitelinks might help filter out worthless clicks and front-page bounces by helping people get to something more specific to what they were looking for. I’m all in for that.

In essence, it’s extortion: you have a heavily-hit search engine with its own advertising program, that allows anyone and everyone with some green stuff to bid on any keyword. Bid on your competitor – bid on their domain name, bid on their misspelling, you know the drill. Most importantly, bid on your own name so that nobody else beats you to the top position for these same things. Why on earth should anyone have to pay to appear on paid search for their own name, especially if it’s trademarked?

Trademark Protection in Google AdWords (Kinda)

Recently, Google began a new policy stating that AdWords users can successfully use trademarked brands within their ad text, regardless of if they own the trademark or not. So, feel free to throw in the actual brand name of that affiliate ad copy to your eBay store. It’s good for some, but murder for others. As for my company: a good $300/day is spent advertising just on our own company name, which is unique, and, of course, trademarked. If we ever stopped doing this, our bitter rival would take over their current 2nd spot as the 1st spot in all wild card search results for our company name.

Give or take, that’s a 6-figure expenditure per year, just to advertise for our own company name. Seriously. Morality has lost to money once again.

There actually is a measure you can take to “register” your registered trademark with Google Adwords, it’s perhaps the only way to protect your trademark in AdWords. By filling out a lengthy form and including your registered trademark serials, Google will block advertisers’ abilities to use your trademarked term in the title of an AdWords ad.

A good resolve would be to look at how Facebook tackles trademark infringement. If you’re a trademark owner, you’re entitled to own that trademarked name as a Facebook Page name (Facebook.com/whatever) – nobody else can have it. When it comes to Google search results, any search for your company’s registered trademark should yield a page with no PPC ads whatsoever. That’s in an ideal world, though.