Dan London » Paid Search

Merchant Ratings in Google AdWords

Dan — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 14:00:51 +0000

I recently noticed that Google is now adding merchant ratings to Google AdWords listings. The link within the ad leads directly to the Google products seller rating page.

I have seen a few ads in the “premium slots” that have contained a ratings link as well. The ads with rating information stand out significantly. I have not seen one with the Google checkout icon and the rating link yet, but if those are in existence, the CTR of those ads could be huge.

One ad I found with a rating link was for a company that did not list any items within a shopping feed, so this could enable service companies, restaurants, etc. to have their rating links added to AdWords ads.

According to the Google AdWords Blog, the ratings will show up if:

You have 30 reviews or more
You average 4 stars or better

With more and more information being placed on a search page (maps, product listings, social features, etc.) and AdWords ads becoming larger, the organic results keep being minimized. How long before Google gets rid of them on some searches?

SearchExchange 2010

Dan — Wed, 26 May 2010 18:43:54 +0000

I recently spoke in Charlotte during the SEO and PPC conference, SearchExchange. It was a great event and the location couldn’t have been better. The only issue I had with the event was the lack of WiFi within the event, but I was able to hop onto a few open signals outside of the theatre in between sessions.

The RavenTools team was in attendance and kept a running blog of each speaker. (My PPC session). I was lucky enough to have Benjamin Rudolph, David Kyle and Kate Morris present during the same session.

This was my first time presenting this topic, and while I felt I did well, I plan on adjusting some of the information and flow. My presentation was also radically different from almost all of the other presenters. Jason Keath’s (SocialFresh – Social Media Conference) presentation on Social Media was somewhat similar as he just used graphics and minimal text as well. Wayne Sutton didn’t even have a PowerPoint presentation. He chose to read his notes of his iPad and actually converse with the crowd. I hope to be able to give an updated presentation soon in the RTP area.

The amazing drawings in my presentation were created by Rachel Nabors She offers web design/web development services via The Pink Crow. I plan on having her add more “people” to the presentation in the future.

In House SEM: How to Get What You Want

What has been amazing is that hardly any of these issues occur at my current employer, FTP site for business and virtual data rooms provider ShareFile.

SEO Meet-Up: My PPC Presentation

Dan — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 20:19:08 +0000

I was recently invited to speak at a local SEO meet up put on by Ashley Berman-Hale and Phil Buckley. I shared the stage with Media Two‘s Michael Hubbard and we gave a basic overview of paid search and took questions. The event was held at Isaac Hunter’s Oak City Tavern (which I have heard was a former brothel).

My presentation:

PPC Basic

View more presentations from Dan London.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments.

Google Trends and Paid Search

Dan — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 13:17:12 +0000

As a paid search marketer, I am always tweaking and always looking for a new avenue to push my campaigns. One new method I have found is using Google Trends. If you aren’t familiar with Google Trends, it is a list of the most searched terms on Google on the current day. The top terms of the day are labeled Volcanic, On Fire and Spicy and are ranked from 1 to 100. Each term will have a daily time frame showing when during the day the most searches are occurring, a list of related terms, search results, any new articles and some have a list of where the terms are happening the most.

I have found that I can take advantage of a hot topic by checking the top 15 or so in the morning and seeing if any of the terms make sense for any products I am pushing. For example, A few weeks ago I found that the term “Susan B. Anthony” was Volcanic. I did a search through my product list and found that I had a number of books about Susan B. Anthony available. I quickly created a campaign and was able to push a number of sales through a term that I wouldn’t normally have in my account (my specific industry is a bit different and does not really fit into the mold of having the long, long list of long-tail keywords).

I take a look at the campaign after a few hours and decide to kill it or keep it going. This is 180 degrees from my usual campaign management. I like to run for a week before I tweak, but in this case, I make a quick decision.

There are a few other great search trend tools that I use and will be writing about in the next few weeks.