Google TV Ads

Have I been sleeping at the wheel? While looking around our Google Analytics Account I stumbled on Google TV Ads

Amazing service and it was the obvious place for Google to go next and I am guessing a great way for the TV companies to fill remnant TV ad spots. Google TV Ads allows you to use all the targeting (region, demographic, TV network, prgrammes, dayparting) thats standard on AdWords but for TV. Not sur eif the service is available in the UK yet however.

You upload you're TV ad there and then. If you don't have an Ad you can search through recommended agencies that will create one for you.

Ads are charged by 1000 impressions (cpm) and you can set your daily budget as with AdWords. As you would expect everything is measureable and TV ads integrates directly with Google Analytics so you expert web analysts out there will have plenty of data to campare with other campaigns.

There's loads more information on the Google Lets Take It Offline blog When we've recovered from the Christmas break we'll get back to you with more information on this new potential marketing strategy.

Oh My God! Search is Changing Forever! SEO is Doomed! Run for the Hills!

I saw an article by Aida Edemarian in the Guardian Saturday 6th December on the subject of search engine optimisation and the dark arts of the blogger.

"Can some artfully placed keywords attract billions of bloggers and instant fame? Not any more, say the experts. The dark arts of the web have grown more subtle, and new media are not so different after all"

It reminded me of a recent blog by randfish at SEOmozBlog.

"With the release of their new yippdy goobledy wobbledy, Google has changed the search game forever. Forget classic SEO, from now on, it's going to be all about blah blah blah"

But the name of the game is still the following:

It's not that Google's other shifts haven't had an impact on SEO, it's just that they haven't been earth-shattering or groundbreaking or given us new paradigms to conquer. SEO remains, at its core, remarkably similar to what it was in 2002:

-Make pages accessible
-Target with keywords that searchers employ
-Build content that users will find useful and valuable
-Earn editorial links from good sources

It's just common sense - nothing much has changed. Research your keywords and write relevant content - its good journalistic practice to include keywords in titles, headings, image labels etc.

But what most organisations forget is the measure the success of your SEO campaign using web analytics. Not only will web analytics tell you how much traffic you are getting from search engines and individual keywords but it will also give you information on bounce rates. Bounce rate may or may not be part of Google's algorithm but they sure are a great way of establishing whether users are finding your content interesting and are a proxy for landing page quality. If your bounce rates are high for specific keywords - you need to look at your content in all the usual places: page titles, headings, body text, images, images tags, anchor text. If you're running an SEO campaign get yourself an web anlaytics expert.

Google Adwords Keyword Insertion

Using dynamic keyword insertion into any field of your Google AdWords ad variations is an important driver of click through rate (CTR) and therefore an important determinent of the average cost per click (CPC) you will pay to maintain your ad position.

The Keyword Insertion Tag Format

The keyword insertion tag format is as follows: {keyword:default text}. Use only one colon, with no spacing, in the keyword insertion tag. The AdWords system will not recognize the tag otherwise. Correct: {keyword:videoconferencing}Incorrect: {keyword : videoconferencing}, {keyword::phones}, {keyword,phones}
The text after the colon (:), shown as default text, appears if AdWords is unable to insert an appropriate trigger keyword for the user's search from your ad group keyword list.

Keyword Capitalization

There are various ways to insert keywords using capitalisation

• keyword - simply inserts the keyword with no capitalisation
• Keyword - sentence (first letter of first word)
• KeyWord Initial (first letter of each word)
• KEYWord Entire first word and First letter of each remaining word
• KeyWORD First letter of first word and All letters of each remaining word
• KEYWORD All letters of all words

AdWords ads cannot include excessive ad text capitalization (for example, SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION). Capitalization may only be used where the natural spelling of a word requires full capitalization, such as in acronyms, technical terms, and trademarked terms such as SEO.

Nielsen Online: Nov. 2007 Search Stats See Google On Top

According to Nielsen Online, formerly Nielsen NetRatings in November 2007, Google is leading the pack, (no surprise there) followed by Yahoo and Microsoft. You'll find the press release here (PDF format), showing the top ten most popular services. Here are the top five:

• Google: 57.7%
• Yahoo: 17.9%
• Microsoft: 12.0%
• AOL: 4.5%
• Ask: 2.7%
  

The figures above are the percentage of all US searches handled by the leading search engines.