I was just doing some keyword research and decided to compare what Wordtracker, Microsoft and Google all had to say about some of my major keywords. Just using the term “genealogy” here is the information they all provided. Google said that they had they had about 2,740,000 searches for this term last month. Microsoft said they had 11,000 searches for it. And Wordtracker predicted 4,700 searches per day for Genealogy accross all search engines (whatever that means) or about 141,000 per month.
So a few observations. First, genealogists are 249 times more likely to use Google than Microsoft. I think this shows that most genealogists are used to doing complex and numorous searches and that they greatly prefer Google to Microsoft. Second, no one claims the wordtracker tool is anyware close with their prediction tool but this is way off. They might as well use a random number generator 
. Anyway I think Wordtracker has the same problem as Microsoft for the Genealogy space. Because they take all their data from 2nd or 3rd tier search engines that no one in the genealogy space would ever use. Third, Google rules the world!
Lastly it is interesting to note that last month (July) we had a total of 2.8 million searches done on WorldVitalRecords.com (our genealogy search site). More than Google had for the term Genealogy during the same time frame! This is comparing apples to oranges but anytime I can feel like we are competing with Google I will take it.
It is getting late and my brain is about off. So here are some random thoughts on improving PPC campaigns:
1) Local search is done by IP mapping. Mapping by country is 100% accurate. But state IP mapping is only 50% accurate. Then City IP mapping is only 30% accurate. This is due to many reasons such as AOL traffic all coming from one spot. That type of thing. So the suggestion is to have a general national campaign then have local campaigns to target local traffic. Local targeting is shown to have higher click through rates and higher conversion rates. But if a user does not get IP mapped correctly then the national campaign will catch them.
2) Use “Day-Parting”. This is the idea of figuring out what time of the day you have the best conversion rate and bid high during that time. Then bid low on the poor converting times. Also some days of the week are better than others. All the search engines have the ability to automatically change your bids based on time of day and day of week. The hard part is to figure out when to raise or lower the bids. You can get this info from log files or analytics programs. Companies are seeing great returns by using this technique. Day-parting works well if you have competitive bid conditions, limited sales windows, identifiable demographics by time, business compatibility and if existing stats point to the success of a day-parting technique.
3) Target the long tail keywords. The long tail are those millions of words that have little traffic. We need to do this better at World Vital Records. But you need a good system to help manage this. Long tail volume can really add up. Users here also have very clear intentions (usually more search terms in the query). There is also less competition for these words which means that bids are lower.
4) Steps to take action on. First calculate your click value and what is the probability of conversion. Model your market and track everything for profitability.
5) Don’t put your words into “buckets”. You can always break them down by geography, by product, or by request. It is tempting to group keywords this way. But the best way is to do every combination. IE location-product-request all together. You can do this by tagging your keywords.
6) Use dynamic keyword insertion (sometimes). DKI is a powerful tool that can make things easier. But it can also decrease your CTR. It is not the solution for everything. If you are using DKI use phase matching and not broad matching. It is good for phrases that have 1 dominant keyword.
7) Think of keywords as investments. Don’t get emotional and don’t get attached to keywords. Either they work or they don’t. Set rules and objectives for each keyword. If these objectives are not met get rid of them. 
Diversify your keywords. More keywords leverage the long-tail.
9) Lowering bids or turning off your ads does NOT affect your quality score. I have always wondered about this. But everyone agreed that Google understands differences in bid placement and does not penalize you for adjusting your bids.
How the paid search systems ranks ads has a long history of changes. The ranking algorithms of paid search have gotten increasingly complex over the years. Now it is more complicated than ever. Not only do they look at the maximum bid amount, the click through rate and the quality of the ad but they look at campaign history and landing page quality as well. On top of that they look at your overall account history and quality. Then on Google the top 2 ads have a different ranking algorithm all together.
First there are actually 2 types of quality scores. One that affects the minimum bid and determines if the ad is on or off. And then there is one that affects the bids or the rank in which the ads show up. There are 2 types of quality when it comes to an ad. One is the quality of the keyword and how good your history is with that word (or group of words). Then the quality and relevancy of the landing page. This is automated with a crawler by Google. Yahoo and Microsoft are expected to soon follow with an automated crawler of the landing pages.
It is important to understand what the quality score actually affects. Lets look at Google. First the quality score affects ad placement on Google search. Second it affects ad placement on Google content. Third it affects all bid amounts. The premium spots (the 1 or 2 ads in the yellow box at the very top of the page above the results) are ranked by the overall quality score and then actually ranked by maximum bid amounts.
So the first question is whether the spider can crawl your landing pages. If not, you are sure to get a bad quality score. And can the crawler actually read the content on the page? Then does the site look like a “bad” site? Does it look like a spam site or a site with little content?
Here are some tips to improve your quality scores
- Run a keyword report in Google and then sort it by minimum bid. This will show some trends and problems that can be worked on.
- Reorganize your ad groups and make them smaller. So they will be more targeted and have more relevance to your ads.
- Test, test and retest your ad copy. The CTR is still the cornerstone of the quality score!
- Test landing pages and make sure they match up with your keywords and ads.
- Is your suggested minimum bid over $1? Then you have landing page problems in your quality score.
- Ignore the quality score. If you are getting traffic and results don’t worry what your quality score actually says. Focus on the user experience and the quality score will follow (so Google says).
- Test ads by using different match types. Jonathan Mendez from Otto Digital (an Offermatica company) claims this is one of the best things you can do to improve your results.
- The worst problem with most campaigns is simply poor keyword selection. Make sure you have the right keywords in your campaigns.
I have been intimidated by the new quality score algorithm. But it is not as complicated as it may seem. It just takes more work and more optimization to your account to do it right.
I am happy to say that I am at SES this week. It will give me a great opportunity to immerse myself in search and to catch up on what is happening in the search industry. There have been a ton of changes in the last 6 months. So I will be blogging about each session I attend. I am doing this for multiple audiences. First because my boss Paul Allen told me to provide a report. This is my way to do it. So everyone at WVR and FamilyLink.com can learn more about the search engines. Also I will be informing my affiliates about the posts so they can learn what I learn. Lastly to all the rest of the readers of my blog. So check back often this week for many updates to the blog.
