Web Marketing Stuff » Google

Google Insights for Search Tutorials, ultimate YouTube learning experience

Chris — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 21:40:17 +0000

There is a reason that YouTube is the now the #2 search engine. It’s because of how great it is to learn from watching rather than from reading. Although it’s fun to read others opinions of what to do for Google optimization, how to follow the rules, what’s a rule and what’s a suggestion etc., it’s always better to hear what Google has to say. Earlier I talked about following the official search engine blogs and this is a follow up to that post with a little video insight. May I present, Google Insights for Search -- Tutorials:

httpv://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=75DA300B7F68590A

Google’s sense of humor, from a geek’s perspective.

Chris — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:34:06 +0000

Now that the holidays are behind us I’d like to take a step back and showcase some humorous, artsy, googlish things uncovered in December at Google.com. We are all familiar with the special occassion logos Google is now famous for and which Yahoo, Ask, MSN all copy but what about regular search results. Did you get a chance to search the December seasonal keywords at all?

Christmas:

Searching on the term "Christmas"

How about Hanukkah?:

Google Results for Hanukkah....how sweet.

Kwanzaa:

Kwanzaa and Google

Now the humor comes from the fact that nothing was overlooked, not even the all important FESTIVUS (thank you Seinfeld)

Festivus is also taken care of by Google

Just when you thought Google couldn’t be any better they add a little something to the search results for the holiday season. Now I have no idea what the added “features” did to Click-Thru-Rates (CTR) for advertisers on those terms or if many people noticed the aluminum pole, candy cane or candles but at least someone at Google still has fun with the search results and the fact that Google gets to do whatever they want with their product. Happy Holidays and here’s to a successful and enjoyable 2009!

Google does tell you everything, if you ask (or search hard enough).

Chris — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 20:53:29 +0000

As a website owner and business man (self proclaimed) I find myself getting caught up on what others say about search engine optimization, landing page optimization, paid search optimization, do this or else, don’t do this unless you’ve done that etc. The fact of the matter is, most of the comments and articles are written by professional writers. They know how to search, email and put together a wonderful story, outline or how-to. Those that actually practice what they preach, like Aaron Wall at SEOBook.com, share their experiences and what they are noticing on their own sites more than what they think should result from changing something. I hope this is making sense.

It’s important as a new online marketer or even as a business owner trying to make sure not to screw up too badly, that you pay attention to a few key points. Google shares everything and you can find their official stance with a littel bit searching (sometimes a lot of searching) so here are some helpful links…from Google….to help you better understand the web and what they think you should do with your site, analytics and paid search. Remember, if Google tells you do not do something and you do it, you probably won’t rank as high as someone following the Google rules. And if you are doing exactly what Google tells you to do, you will probably experience the brighter, happier side of Google Quality Score and Google rankings.

An article in today’s WebProNews is a classic example of why you need to find answers to your questions by asking the holder of information. To find out how Bounce Rate works and how it can affect your Adwords Quality Score, the staff writers asked Google reps. Although some of the responses are less than helpful, by asking multiple reps and reading exactly what Google says in their Webmaster Central, we now have a better idea of what Bounce Rate is and how it affects Quality Score.

Now to the helpful things Google has and can teach you:

Google Analytics Definitions

Google Interviews about AdWords Metrics

Google’s own Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide

Google AdWords Learning Center

The point is that there are a lot of resources available from Google about Google and you can spend as much time as you need learning the right way to do things OR you can guess and listen to article writers and hope you are doing what’s you are supposed to.

Using Google Trends to Discover and Improve Localized Marketing

Chris — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 01:27:36 +0000

Anytime you travel to another part of the country you are reminded that people are all different. Tomato, Potato, Out (Canadians) and countless other subtle differences make each area unique. The same is true business, whether it’s service descriptions, product descriptions or describing problems. There is no need to travel around the country to figure out the words consumers are using to describe what you offer, you can use Google Trends. Here’s an example: “Potty Training” vs. “Toilet Training” (yes I do have children and a potty training website)

I went to Google Trends and typed in “Potty Training, Toilet Training” and pressed Search Trends. Here’s what I got:

Google World Trends for Potty Training and Toilet Training

Did you realize that the UK is pretty well split between the two and that Australia is exactly the opposite of the US? Now if you don’t sell products to Australia or the UK this is just interesting information that hasn’t helped your business, but if you do, please consider yourself educated. If you don’t you need to FILTER RESULTS. On the top right, of Google Trends you can filter by country, then region, then year.

Below is the 2007 trending for “Potty Training” (red) and “Toilet Training” (blue) for the US. I call this interesting information:

Google Trends for 2007 in the US for "Potty Training"

I now have a list of the top states (Utah, Oklahoma, Kansas) and cities (Salt Lake City, Louisville, Denver) searching the term “Potty Training”. If I want to do any offline marketing, radio marketing, event sponsorships etc., I should probably look focus on one of the top 3 States and/or Cities (all from one search).

Now what happens when we look at the trending for “Toilet Training”?

Google Trends in USA 2007 for the term "Toilet Training"

You can see that “Toilet Training” is always the less used vocabulary for teaching a child to use the bathroom (in the US) but you now have an idea of where Ad Testing “Toilet” vs. “Potty” by region could start to make sense. Adwords has some slick tools to focus your paid search marketing by region which is how you start to utilize this information.

Because I do have a potty training website that sells dvds and books for children and parents, doing this type of trending analysis helped me think about regional ad targeting options and reminded me of the importance of ranking for all the terms related to my industry, not just what I call it. There are lots of other uses for Google Trends and this is just one, but it helped me and hopefully you have a new tool in your web marketing arsenal.