Google AdWords recently introduced a new keyword match option called Modified Broad Match. At a high level, modified broad match fills in the gap between phrase match and broad match. Which is great news, especially for companies using Google AdWords in highly competitive spaces. So let’s begin the Google AdWords Training!

• What exactly is modified broad match?
• How do I use modified broad match?
• What does it mean to my AdWords Campaign?

What is Modified Broad Match?

Modified broad match provides more flexibility with the targeting of your AdWords campaign. You will find Modified Broad Match to be more useful if you are currently using both broad and phrase match types.

This new match type option allows you to better control your broad match targeting and in the case of long tail keywords – you can select which keywords you want to apply the modified broad match rule to.

By placing a + sign in front of a broad match keyword, your AdWords ad will only be served for search terms that contain the exact keyword or contain close variants of the keyword. Google defines close variants as misspellings, singular and plural forms, abbreviations and acronyms, and stemmings. Related search terms like apple and fruit, or synonyms like smart and intelligent are not close variants.

So you can now tighten up your broad match keywords or even portions of your broad search terms that contain multiple words (i.e. cakes, chocolate cakes, red velvet cake).

Google AdWords Training – How Do I Use Modified Broad Match?

The implementation is pretty straightforward. When you add a new keyword, you put a plus symbol in front of your keyword.

For example:

+Google +AdWords +Training

Applies modified broad match to all three individual words for the keyword: Google AdWords Training

You could also elect to put a + sign in front of one or two of the individual words in any combination you choose.

Incorrect examples of applying modified broad would be:

+Google+AdWords+Training or…

+ Google + AdWords + Training

What does Modified Broad Match mean to my AdWords Campaign?

Well, that depends on your campaign(s), your industry, your budget and a whole host of other questions. But modified broad match appears to offer a much needed tool to fill the gap between phrase based and broad match types.

You will need to test this new match type for yourself and determine what is best for your business. I have seen clients that run AdWords campaigns in competitive markets where phrase match was the best option. Broad match produced too many generic, unqualified clicks, phrase match worked well but their budget could support more clicks. Modified broad match presents an opportunity to expand reach to qualified impressions without serving ads to unqualified surfers. Especially if you are targeting multi-word keywords that are fairly generic “tree houses”.

Google AdWords Training for Modified Broad Match

If you are a highly proficient Google AdWords professional, I would recommend setting up structured tests to evaluate the effectiveness of modified broad match on your AdWords campaigns.

If you are learning your way in Google AdWords and are not sure how to most effectively use this new keyword match type, here are some recommended resources:

Google’s Official Page on Modified Broad Match

Inside AdWords Google’s blog and explanation of the new match type

Read, test, monitor and improve. If you need to learn more, you may want to consider some Google AdWords Training. Or hire a Google AdWords Professional to improve your AdWords performance.

Google AdWords has allowed image ads (display ads) on its content network for some time now.  But you may have noticed image ads ocassionally showing on Google AdWords search network.

So what is this all about and more importantly, how can you start showing images ads within your own search network campaign?

Example of Image Ads on AdWords’ Search Network

Recently I did a search on Walker Trays in Google and these results were shown:

I know it’s a little tough to read but trust me, the word in those red circles is Target.  They are showing in the #2 position for the Google AdWords text ad.  And Target has the first and third position on the right hand bar – typically reserved for AdWords text ads but currently displaying Image ads on the search network (i.e. PlusBox ads).  Not bad if you are Target, but if you are trying to sell walker trays is not a good sign if Target owns 3 of the top spots – and two ads are images!

Also note the Google Shopping results for Walker Trays – the five small boxes below the shaded sponsored links box.  Guess who has three of those five images – you got it, Target.

The Google AdWords PlusBox Ad

Image ads on the search network are called PlusBox ads.  And they are appearing more frequently in searches. So how is this done?

According to Google, PlusBox ads are part of a small Beta test offered to select advertisers. So outside of asking your AdWords account manager to try and get you in, it’s on an invitation only basis.

But here’s basically how it works:

The images that are displayed are fed from your Google Merchant Center Account.  So you need that first.

Then, by selecting Ad Extensions in your Google AdWords account, you allow the product information in your Merchant Center Account to by shared with your AdWords account.

Google summarizes how to run a PlusBox ad here: Plusbox Ads. Search Engine Land also covered this topic a while back, that article can be found here: Google Continues AdWords Product PlusBox

Images Ads for the AdWords Search Network

In my opinion, it’s a huge differentiation to  show an image ad among a sea of text ads – so hopefully this will be expanded beyond the Beta testing stage.  Or the testing will stop so the select advertisers who can run images don’t continue to benefit from an uneven playing field.  It depends on the product (or service) but I know several clients that would love to serve image ads on the AdWords Search Network.

One of the most devastating things that can happen to a small business – especially a business that generates leads and business through the internet – is a Google penalty.
A Google Penalty is often difficult to diagnose and fix, especially if you have recently made multiple changes prior to the suspected website penalty, such as a complete redesign or if you are not completely aware of what your SEO company is doing.  I’ll provide you with some practical advice on how to diagnose and fix a Google Penalty.

What Was Done Before Your Website Rankings Dropped?

I suggest you apply the scientific method of eliminating variables here as well as ask yourself some honest questions. Let’s presume your website previously ranked well in Google for select keyword searches, and now it doesn’t – ask yourself this:

• Did your website really deserve to rank for those terms?
• Have you, your web design firm or your SEO firm recently made changes to your website?
• Where does your website rank for a Google search of mywebsite.com? How about site:mywebsite.com?
• What do you see in your Google Webmaster Tools account?
• Has your organic search traffic dropped on all search engines or just Google?
• Do you buy or sell links (or both)?
• Do you run an affiliate program?

Review and understand exactly what has been done to your website prior to the suspected Google penalty.

Google Penalty or Search Engine Algorithm Change?

Sometimes your website may lose it’s rankings because of an algorithm change. OK – sometimes Google makes a change to it’s algorithm and that can impact your website, the rules do change and that’s a good reason to diversify your small business’ marketing exposure, as well as hiring an SEO firm that stays on top of this activity. Sometimes this happens for other reasons, for example new websites that rely on rankings because of keywords in the url.

In my experience, sudden dramatic drops in small business website rankings are not algorithm changes, but it’s possible.

Fixing a Google Penalty

Here are some of the things I recommend you consider to diagnose and fix a Google penalty:

1. Check your website for Malware and Viruses (every directory, every file, every line of code – start with .htaccess and your web logs.
2. Look at your links – use Xenu or a similar product, a bad link profile can crush a website.
3. On page content – could you be keyword spamming? Using excessive anchor text? Loading your footer with keywords and links?
4. Consider a reconsideration request with Google as a last resort.

Resources for Fixing a Google Penalty

Having seen this with several clients, I understand the frustration and real revenue consequences that come from a penalized website. I recommend the follow websites as resources as well as for more tips on diagnosing and fixing a Google penalty:

• A great flowchart and article on diagnosing a Google penalty by Rand Fishkin at seomoz.org
• Ann Smarty’s post on How to Diagnose the Reason of Google Penalty
• Andy Beard’s article on his experience submitting a Google Reconsideration Request
• Please review the Google Webmaster Guidelines
• Marketing Practicality – my firm, that specializes in small and mid-sized business SEO. We understand the seriousness, urgency, responsiveness needed to restore your website rankings.

If you suspect you have experienced a website penalty, I recommend you either plan on spending a lot of time analyzing exactly what changes potentially triggered the change or hire a professional, qualified SEO company. In order to properly diagnose and fix a Google penalty it is critical to understand what caused it.  More important is fixing the penalty, and restoring your business’ website traffic.

After you create a new web page, do you wonder how how much time it will take to get in Google’s Index?  It’s something I constantly check for my own website as well as for my clients’ websites.  But over the past several months, I’ve noticed ultra fast Google indexing when you combine blog posts, Google Caffeine and FeedBurner.

And I mean ultra fast – my posts are indexed by Google in three minutes.  The group at Hobo-Web also wrote about this phenomenon.

(Update) In this case – Google indexed the web page in two minutes:

Formula for (Almost) Real Time Indexing

Here’s how I’m set up:

1. My blog is WordPress
2. The RSS feed is connected to FeedBurner (which pings Google Blog Search)
3. My FeedBurner is also using the Socialize feature to update the post on my Twitter account

Here’s what I have observed:

1. Blog post is submitted
2. Search for the targeted keyword(s) appears in SERPs (search engine results pages) almost instantly as in 3 minutes
3. Rankings bounce around for a few days before stabilizing

Google Caffeine, FeedBurner or QDF (Query Deserves Freshness)

Admittedly, this post raises more questions than it answers, but hopefully you will share your own observations and experiences.

The time to get in Google’s Index is likely tied in to the Google Caffeine infrastructure change, FeedBurner integration and the QDF or Query Deserves Freshness part of Google’s algorithm.

QDF – which is covered in more detail by SEOmoz here – deals with a part of Google’s algorithm which identifies certain topics which are deemed to require more frequent updating.  So webpages covering topics which fall into this category get indexed more rapidly.

However, I believe Google Caffeine, FeedBurner and technology advancements have more to do with this than the QDF part of the algorithm.

Google Does Not Index all Web Pages at the Same Rate

No kidding right? But seriously, in the last two weeks, I’ve experienced three very different indexing situations.

1. Blog Post Indexing
   • When connected to FeedBurner, new posts on my WordPress blog are indexed within a few minutes.
   • When the blog posts are not connected to FeedBurner, it takes significantly longer.
2. Non-Blog Web Page Indexing
   • A client’s home page was revised – content, title and meta information only, not a redesign
   • 12 days later – the changes are not reflected in the SERPs
   • Standard (not a blog) HTML webpage – not connected to FeedBurner or RSS
   • Bing picked up the change after about a week
   • This is a Page Rank 4 website that gets a respectable amount of website traffic
3. New Website
   • Created an e-commerce website for another client two weeks ago
   • Website was added to Google Webmaster Tools
   • Sitemap was submitted
   • Links were added from authoritative, established websites
   • Website is not indexed in Google, Yahoo or Bing after 2 weeks
   • This is what is referred to as “The Sandbox” effect

Shorten the Time to Get in Google’s Index

If you want to shorten the time to get get in Google’s index, hook up your blog to FeedBurner.  Whether it’s the new Google Caffeine infrastructure, FeedBurner or a refinement to the QDF portion of Google’s algorithm is a technology question.  If you want your blog posts to get immediate visibility – consider adding FeedBurner.

This is the third article of a three part series on Successful Web Marketing – this article provides web marketing ideas on how to increase website visibility. Because, at the end of the day, no matter how good your content is, what does it matter if no one can find your website (and your content)?

How to Increase Website Visibility

In order to successfully increase your website’s visibility you will need to learn certain tools. Like most things – you will be able to pick up a basic knowledge of these skills with a moderate time investment. If you want to develop expert-level skills, count on 1,000’s of hours for each of these web marketing tactics – or hire a qualified professional. The following 5 tactics can be employed to increase visibility to your website – generating more web traffic – and exposure to that valuable content you have already created.

Increase Website Visibility Idea #1 – Search Engine Optimization – SEO

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the practice of developing and managing your website so it ranks well for targeted search terms in the major search engines. An effective SEO marketing strategy will significantly increase traffic to your website. Search engine optimization consists of both on-page SEO and off-page SEO. I strongly recommend you perform search engine optimization within the search engines guidelines if you intend to build a website for the long haul. When done effectively, search engine optimization is the best tactic in your toolbox to increase website visibility – and a critical component of successful web marketing. Don’t overlook this web marketing idea. And use a proven, qualified SEO marketing consultant if you’re not sure how to do it internally.

Increase Website Visibility Idea #2 – Pay per Click Marketing – PPC

But like most things, you don’t want to put all of your eggs in one basket, so if you completely rely on SEO for website visibility, you may be very disappointed if a search engine that sends you a large amount of organic traffic changes an algorithm or otherwise stops sending you the website traffic you were accustomed to. Pay per Click Marketing (also called paid search or PPC) involves targeting certain keywords and paying for search engine listings. This is a great tactic to increase visibility to your website, but of course costs money. So carefully evaluate your marketing metrics and monitor your PPC campaign performance. It only makes sense to carry out a PPC marketing campaign if it produces a positive ROI.

Increase Website Visibility Idea #3 – Social Media

Social media continues to gain momentum as a tool for increasing website visibility as well as developing online relationships with your customers or prospects interested in your products and services. Social media also ties in with search engine optimization as it provides a medium where your website can garner inbound links, thus increasing your website visibility.

Increase Website Visibility Idea #4 – Referring Websites

When I say referring websites, I mean websites that link to your website and direct traffic to your website by means of an inbound link. This also ties in with SEO, but if you build up a network of quality, referring websites that are synergistic with your website, you can increase visibility to your website and quite likely, improve your conversion rates. Generating a network of referring websites takes work; it’s best to reach out to other webmasters and establish a level of trust before simply asking someone for a link.

Increase Website Visibility Idea #5 – Networking

Old fashioned networking and personal relationships can go a long way for small businesses trying to increase website visibility. Think about who could link to your website – starting with your personal network. Vendors, customers, suppliers, business contacts, friends, consultants – there are likely a host of people you already know that have a business website. If you already have an established level of trust, and it makes sense, why not ask that person for a link in to your website?

Successful Web Marketing – A Blend of Old and New Marketing

In today’s competitive landscape, successful web marketing really requires a blend of old and new marketing tactics. Staying on top of rapidly changing technology and how it impacts your business market efforts is critical to successful web marketing.
Ask yourself:

1. Are you getting the most out of your search engine optimization?
2. Have you fully tested pay per click marketing?
3. Are you effectively using social media marketing?
4. Do you know the top ten websites referring traffic to your website?
5. Do you routinely discuss web marketing with your network?

If you take these 5 web marketing ideas and deploy them effectively. you will see positive results. In order to increase website visibility, you need to work at it, or hire someone who will. Successful web marketing depends on knowing what to do, how to do it and then putting in the hard work to ensure success. So get going!

View the first article in the “Successful Web Marketing Ideas” series:

Web Marketing Ideas

View the second article in the “Successful Web Marketing Ideas” series:

Creating Valuable Content

By Marketing Practicality

Keyword selection is a crucial part of developing your internet marketing strategy.  Many factors come in to play, such as:

1. What is the search volume for my targeted keyword?
2. What is the relative competition for the keyword?
3. What is the relevance the targeted keyword to my website’s content?

Presuming you already selected keywords with (ideally) high search volume and relatively low competition, then it’s time to answer how relevant the keyword is to your site’s content.  This can be a deceptively tricky process, so here’s a keyword selection tip as well as a great tool to validate your keyword selection strategy: Google’s Wonder Wheel.

Google’s Wonder Wheel

The Wonder Wheel is a free tool that is easily accessible within Google – no need to log in to a Google account.  Simply perform a search (in the example above I searched on “internet marketing”).

In the light blue bar (below the search box) you’ll see “Show Options”.  When you click on Show Options, a sidebar opens up and about two-thirds of the way down the list of options you’ll see Wonder Wheel, this is where the fun starts.

Once you select Wonder Wheel your search term will be graphically displayed in a hub and spoke pattern – similar to a mind map pattern.  The spokes are based on actual Google searches and represent a visual display of how people searching on Google refine their search terms, switching from short tail terms to long tail terms or even switching search terms entirely.  Again, in the image above, I searched on Internet Marketing and selected the spoke Internet Marketing Company.

For example, if someone searched on the term Apple, the intent of the searcher is difficult to fully understand (i.e. is the person looking for computers, phones or fruit – or something else entirely).  Using the Google Wonder Wheel can help you identify terms that are highly relevant to your product or service, and if your web page is optimized effectively, you will attract more qualified traffic.

Keyword Selection Tips – Keyword Relevance

The concept of keyword relevance should not be casually overlooked or assumed. Just because you believe a specific keyword is relevant to your business does not mean the masses searching on Google will use that term to find your service or product.  So start by casting a wide net and then use Google’s Wonder Wheel to refine your keyword targeting.

And note – although this post is mainly covering the Wonder Wheel and Keyword Relevance in SEO – this tool also works well for identifying long tail keywords for your Google AdWords campaign (pay per click marketing).

More keyword selection tips will follow in future posts (search volume and competition) – in the meantime, try using Google’s Wonder Wheel – let me know what you think of it and if you think it is a useful tool.

The Importance of Meta Keywords and SEO

Meta Keywords Tag is not important in search engine optimization – or not in the way you want it to be.  Many high ranking websites don’t even use them.  I admit, I still use them sometimes, perhaps it’s just an old habit and often clients insist meta keywords are important – but consider the following if you choose to use the meta keywords tag:

1. Keep the keywords short – 5 or so is fine
2. Use relevant meta keywords – don’t add keywords that aren’t in the web page’s content
3. Meta keywords should be unique to each page
4. Understand meta keywords won’t help the ranking of your page but overuse or misuse can negatively impact rankings
5. Your competitors can easily view your meta keywords and know which terms you are “trying” to target or rank for – think about that

If you, your SEO resource, or staff thinks that meta keywords are a way to improve your search engine rankings – well, they are not.

The Importance of the Meta Description and SEO

The meta description however is an important meta element – because, as shown in the picture above, the meta description is what search engines typically display to describe your website.  While the meta description does not have significant SEO value, it does influence whether or not someone may click on your website’s search engine listing.

For that reason alone, care should be taken to craft relevant, meaningful description that are unique for each page.

In some cases, a search engine will choose to display a description other than what you have carefully worded as your meta description.  The most common example is Yahoo! is a Yahoo Directory description (if you have one) or search engines electing to use a DMOZ description (if you have one). Though I have even seen Google use alt tags as a web page description.  Yahoo! directory and DMOZ listings can be easily controlled (by using another meta tag!).  If Google is using other on-page elements for your description you need to understand why and fix it.

Your Website’s Title Tag and Search Engine Optimization – SEO

OK – the title tag (which is not a meta tag) has significant search engine optimization value and they influence whether someone will click on your website’s search engine listing.  So website titles should be crafted carefully and well, to target the intended keywords, provide a meaningful description of your website’s page and influence someone to click through your website’s search engine listing.

The title tag is probably the most important on-page seo element and one of the easiest to modify and improve.

SEO Marketing Services – Pricing and Value

So if you are shopping a search engine optimization partner, and you see a variety of different rates and service levels, and you don’t really understand what kind of value you are getting for your investment, I’ll offer these points for your consideration.

• If the seo service provider is planning on changing your meta tags, title tag, submitting your website to a bunch of search engines and directories – the rate is probably low, for a reason.  There will be little return (albeit some) for that sort of service.
• If your seo marketing resource is charging you a high rate for doing the above, look elsewhere.
• Many seo marketing agencies offer tiered plans – and while it’s good to see a list of what will be done for your marketing investment, understand you are purchasing a pre-packaged seo plan – which may not fit the specific needs of your business.
• If your resource provides seo marketing services which include on-page and off-page optimization; stays current with search engine trends; understands the different algorithms and has a successful track record with other clients – you may be on to something.  If you can effectively determine that seo provider’s professionalism and responsiveness, well then, now you may really be on to something.  Just be sure to use a qualified seo marketing consultant.

Meta Tags and Search Engine Optimization – Recap

So to summarize, here’s the real search engine optimization value of meta tags:

Meta Keywords – They will not help your search engine rankings. If used improperly, they may have a negative impact on your search engine rankings.

Meta Description – Important for your search engine listing and can influence whether or not people click on the listing and visit your website.

Title Tag – Very important for both search engine optimization as well as gaining traffic from search engine listings.

By now, most SEO’s are very familiar with Google’s new infrastructure update, referred to as Caffeine. The new infrastructure is expected to roll out after the 2009 holiday season.

Why Caffeine? Because of the way it indexes websites is like old Google jacked up on caffeine (and the old Google was already faster at indexing than the competing search engines).

As of this post, Caffeine results can be seen at this data center: 209.85.225.103.  The Caffeine search results appear about 50% of the time so you may need to refresh your search if the results are the same as current Google.  Try a search by clicking on this link:

http://209.85.225.103/search?hl=en&q=marketing+practicality&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=

So What Does This Mean For Your Business’ SEO?

Well, your rankings may change.  Caffeine is not necessarily believed to be a change in the way Google ranks website pages, but it does enable Google to crawl more pages more quickly.  So if more competition enters the rankings, it may affect how your business ranks.

On the plus side, I have seen websites jump in rankings.

The websites that improved rankings with Caffeine were a result of changes or improvements to web pages I would have done if Caffeine was there or not.  But the indexing speed is currently incredible – hours, not days.

Optimizing your Small Business Website

No one will really know until everything goes live after the holidays, but your SEO should be working on your website rankings now and checking them in the Caffeine datacenter.