Oh how upset we are about the removal of the old keyword research tool on Google (“previous interface”). We first saw it going away this summer, and we posted how to find a backdoor into it. Alas that’s now gone also. We’re seriously bummed about the new tool. which we think is a Papa/Mama bear thing: too many or too few keywords. And more importantly that you can’t easily get a list of only the keywords you entered, or that are in your account:
PLEASE BRING IT BACK!
Whenever Google rolls out a new search feature – Personalization, Universal Search, Search Suggest, Real Time search, etc. – people go crazy. Blog posts come out saying this is the end of SEO, or you need to do X, Y and Z now, because this is going to change the game, etc. This has always been the case, and probably always will be. Everyone wants to have the first post, the first tweet, about the latest and greatest news in search.
Google Instant is not unlike Search Suggest. That’s all it is – a suggestion to save you some typing time. The main thing it will change is people are probably going to try a lot of different queries before settling on one. Searchers have done this for years, though – refining a query to explore a topic. Now they can do that even faster! What it does do for search marketers, though, is provide an extra source to conduct keyword research. Now we can see not only how many people per month do a particular search, but also what Google displays as they arrive at typing in those searches.
Google Instant didn’t even make a big splash on PPC results. Google Instant also displays paid ads, and impressions incur under 3 different scenarios:
As you can see, the team at Nina Hale, Inc., hasn’t noticed an increase in impressions across the board for our clients. The Google team frequently rolls out improvements and new functionality to search – sometimes they are game changers, but for now it’s business as usual!
Are you going crazy trying to find out where to login and add YouTube videos to your media plan? Have you gone crazy trying to find it when maybe you even used it before and why in the world is it so hard to find? (not that I’m talking from experience, it must have just been the fever that kept me home for the past two days.) Your search is over, here is where to find videos on YouTube to place your ads on: http://www.google.com/videotargeting/aw/addPlacements?pli=1
When you login to YouTube to use it’s placement tool, you can get more specific and in-depth with choosing specific users, channels, and videos to show ads on. Their Video Placement Tool. Once you’ve created this media plan, then you connect it with your Google AdWords account and the ad placements import in. One problem through that is also frustrating is that I can’t figure out how to select some as specific negatives prior to launch – the interface won’t let me, AdWords Editor won’t let me. I’m creating one for a client (The Pillar Procedure) who has a procedure to stop snoring and I can’t believe how many people post videos of thier dogs snoring. The benefit of doing this is YouTube is that rather than targeting just by keyword or channel which are your options from Google AdWords, within YouTube you can drill down to specific videos. Another dog related example. I’m running ads for a client (Irish Setter) for their new rubber hunting boots, and wanted to target videos of hunting and deer hunters, but lots of people post tribute videos of pets killed by hunters, or post videos of deer in their back yard, which isn’t the audience I want even if those videos might be in the Hunting and Shooting category.
What is exciting is that with the inline ads that show at the bottom of the video for about 30 seconds, we’re getting great clickthrough and conversion rates even though they interrupt the video. We always pair them with a compainion square banner ad in the upper corner because I figure “why would I click on the ad, I’m here to watch the video” but after it’s over, the banner is there to click to the site.
And then you may say “but Nina, is this search engine marketing?” to which we say “well, YouTube is the second largest search engine.” And also more importantly, the new targeting features that search engines are creating for their advertising networks takes SEM into a new realm of Paid Placement: highly targeted pay-for-performance advertising based on keyword and shown interests. Booya! (I am feeling all this hunting testosterone).
Our company’s shared account on Facebook is pretty funny. We’ve all “liked” disparate things pertaining to our interests. I’ve like a lot of luxury brands, another person dance troupes, one person follows Christian organizations, and other extreme sports. So each time we log in, there may be something new and different in the feed. Bergdorf Goodman is an active poster to it’s Facebook account. And their followers seem to be rather active as well. This example below shows a nice way to tie in sales with the connection of social media, bringing the virtual salesperson to the interactive realm of connections. Maybe BG will see this blog post and let us know if the woman bought the shoes.
One thing we’ve been doing more of is creating CONTENT CALENDARS for our clients. We combine the most popular keywords with event and seasonal calendars. These are then used by clients to create compelling, timely content on sites, in social media, in PR and articles. The combination of SEO with top keywords, and social with engaging content creates a powerful marketing tool.
