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PPC Review - Low Keyword Competition Does Not Equal Cheap Clicks

I was reading through some Google AdWords quality score guidelines and posts on the AdWords blog and thought I would dispel a rather common misconception in PPC marketing.

Part of a good PPC managers job is to continually look for “long tail” terms - or key phrases that generate cheaper clicks, but high conversion rates. Often, these terms don’t have a lot of advertiser competition and thus, one would conclude that the average cost per click is also very low. Unfortunately, in Google’s AdWords system, it isn’t that simple and the average CPC is not only determined by how many advertisers are on the page.

From the Google AdWords support site:

Remember that competition is only one of the variables that determines your actual CPC. The price you pay for a click is also determined by your relative keyword Quality Score for that query. If your keyword has a low Quality Score relative to the other ads on that page, you may find that your actual CPC is close to your maximum CPC, even though there is low competition for that keyword. Keep in mind, though, that you’ll never be charged more than your maximum CPC for a click, no matter how low your Quality Score.

For some excellent tips on quality score management and a really great comprehensive guide, read through this excellent compliation of PPC quality score info.

Also, take the time to watch Google’s excellent video explaining their auction model and how the various factors affect ad position.

Google Strengthens It’s Video Offerings With the Purchase of On2

Google has announced it’s acquisition of On2 Technologies - a leading developer of video compression technology.

Google is always on the march to improve it’s position in all areas of content. Video is one of those areas that continues to grow in popularity. Recently Google added HD content to YouTube and they can certainly benefit from stronger video compression. The On2 acquisition will help them obtain that technology and bring even better video services to the general public.

I’m looking forward to seeing what comes of this new $106 million dollar deal!

Read More: Google to Acquire On2 Technologies

Coming Soon to an OS near you - Google Chrome

It finally happened - Google decided to cross over and start playing in Microsoft’s back yard, well perhaps that isn’t an accurate analogy - Google will be playing in Microsoft’s living room, with its toys and eating its chips (better :)). Google announced it will be releasing a Chrome OS, due for shipping in 2010. Here it is, directly from the horses mouth:

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we’re already talking to partners about the project, and we’ll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

I wonder if Chrome the browser will come pre-installed and defaulted to Google’s search page… and I wonder if they will make it difficult to run Microsoft Explorer… inquiring minds want to know.

Rich Snippets From Google- We’re Investigating Their Usefulness!

Google has announced the introduction of Rich Snippets. A new way of detecting microformats on a web page, such as review data and displaying that in the “snippet” portion of a listing in the search results page.

We here at Spark have been using basic microformats for various reasons including SEO for some time. This new feature is extremely interesting to us because of the value it could have on user experience and click through rates. Over the next several weeks we’re going to dig deep into this new service from Google to see how we can use it’s advantages for our customers!

To see the full explanation of the new functionality visit the Google Webmaster Central blog post “Introducing Rich Snippets“.

Google Webmaster Tools Interface Update!

Google has anounced an updated user interface for Google Webmaster Tools.

Webmaster tools is an extremely valuable resource every webmaster should be familiar with. It provides a host of features which help you ensure Google is interacting with your website in the most efficient and effective means possible. Over the years since its launch it has grown in popularity and due to overwhelming feedback from users, Google has updated the interface to make it even more convenient to use.

Some of the new features include:

• One-stop Dashboard: We redesigned our dashboard to bring together data you view regularly: Links to your site, Top search queries, Sitemaps, and Crawl errors.
• More top search queries: You now have up to 100 queries to track for impressions and clickthrough! In addition, we’ve substantially improved data quality in this area.
• Sitemap tracking for multiple users: In the past, you were unable to monitor Sitemaps submitted by other users or via mechanisms like robots.txt. Now you can track the status of Sitemaps submitted by other users in addition to yourself.

The only interface is available for a few more weeks to aide with the transition, and you can get the new interface by logging into http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/new.

Sergey Brins “2008 Founders’ Letter”

Sergey Brin wrote and published Googles 2008 Founders Letter on May 7th.  I had a chance to read it and I encourage you to do the same. Sergey reflects on the past decade and how Google has evolved over the years to improve search and add new services and systems. In his letter Sergey also talks about the next ten years and what may be in store for Google and the millions of people that user their services each and every day.

If you want a concise overview of what Google is about and where they are headed you should read the 2008 Founders’ Letter yourself. Here is a few paragraphs to whet your appetite!

Search

Search remains at the very core of what we do at Google, just as it has been from our earliest days. As the scale has changed dramatically over the years, the presentation and quality of our search results have also undergone many changes since 1998. In the past year alone we have made 359 changes to our web search — nearly one per day. Some are not easy to spot, such as changes in ranking based on personalization (launched broadly in 2005) but they are important in getting the most relevant search results. Others are very easy to see and improve search efficiency in a very clear way, such as spelling correction, annotations, and suggestions.

While I am proud of what has been accomplished in search over the past decade, there are important areas in which I wish we had made more progress. Perfect search requires human-level artificial intelligence, which many of us believe is still quite distant. However, I think it will soon be possible to have a search engine that “understands” more of the queries and documents than we do today. Others claim to have accomplished this, and Google’s systems have more smarts behind the curtains than may be apparent from the outside, but the field as a whole is still shy of where I would have expected it to be. Part of the reason is the dramatic growth of the web — for any particular query, it is likely there are many documents on the topic using the exact same vocabulary. And as the web grows, so does the breadth and depth of the curiosity of those searching. I expect our search engine to become much “smarter” in the coming decade.

So too will the interfaces by which users look for and receive information. While many things have changed, the basic structure of Google search results today is fairly similar to how it was ten years ago. This is partly because of the benefits of simplicity; in fact, the Google homepage has become increasingly simple over the years: http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2006-04-21-n63.html. But we are starting to see more significant changes in search interfaces. Today you can search from your cell phone by just speaking into it and Google Reader can suggest interesting blogs without any query at all. It is my expectation that in the next decade our searches and results will look very different than they do today.

One of the most striking changes that has happened in the past few years is that search results are no longer just web pages. They include images, videos, books, maps, and more. From the outset, we realized that to have comprehensive search we would have to venture beyond web pages. In 2001, we launched Google Image Search and via Google Groups we made available and searchable the most comprehensive archive of Usenet postings ever assembled (800 million messages dating back to 1981).

Larry Page’s University of Michigan Commencement Address

I took a moment to read Larry’s commencement speech primarily because I am interested in what he has to say, but also because I find these kinds of speeches to be very inspiring.

Larry’s speech is no exception. It may not be a power house of motivational tips but it was very personal and covers his one experiences.

Of particular interest to me was his description of how he came up with the idea which later became Google:

You know what it’s like to wake up in the middle of the night with a vivid dream? And you know how, if you don’t have a pencil and pad by the bed to write it down, it will be completely gone the next morning?

Well, I had one of those dreams when I was 23. When I suddenly woke up, I was thinking: what if we could download the whole web, and just keep the links and… I grabbed a pen and started writing! Sometimes it is important to wake up and stop dreaming. I spent the middle of that night scribbling out the details and convincing myself it would work. Soon after, I told my advisor, Terry Winograd, it would take a couple of weeks to download the web — he nodded knowingly, fully aware it would take much longer but wise enough to not tell me. The optimism of youth is often underrated! Amazingly, I had no thought of building a search engine. The idea wasn’t even on the radar. But, much later we happened upon a better way of ranking webpages to make a really great search engine, and Google was born. When a really great dream shows up, grab it!

I’ve had my own share of dreams which were either new business opportunities or solutions to problems I’m facing. I guess it’s the lack of other stimulus that lets my mind think clearly, focusing on just the one issue which allows me to come to a solution.

I think you should take a moment and read Larry’s speech. You just might find something inspiring i there for yourself!

Google Site Links Explained & One-Line Site Links Launched!

I recently had a great chat with a client about site links in the Google Search Engine Results Pages.  Turns out Google has a nice little post explaining what they are, and how they are obtained. In addtion they announce the launch of one-line site links. I think this new feature will bring an increase in traffic for those sites that obtain these one line sitelinks. To read more visit the blog post on one line site links.

Here is an example of how they look:

Will It Lens? Google Staff Have Some Fun!

In case you were worried that Google staff spend too much time doing actual work a post has come out to allay your fears.

Some Googlers pooled their cash to buy a Fresnel lens (AKA Giant Magnifying Glass) and test out heating (errr, burning) various objects up. If you’ve ever played with a magnifying glass before you should really check this post out!

Will it Lens? Click to find out!