The SEM Blog

Search Engine Marketing for Online Lead Generation and Conversion - by White Hat Ops

7 Takeaways from the #Bingle Panel at #SXSW Featuring both Google & Bing

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Google has done a fantastic job of putting Matt Cutts out there as the face of the web spam team – and he is also the face who delivers updates about Google’s work and algorithm updates to the web at large. The crowd at the “How to Ranke Better in Search” #bingle panel at SXSW was reflective […]

ASAP Utilities: One Tool to Rule Them All

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4 ASAP Utility functions that will make you love Excel even more… As a senior production manager at PPC Associates, I spend a great deal of my day working in Microsoft Excel, whether that be manipulating data for reporting or prepping an upload sheet to load into AdWords Editor (Google AdWords’ offline editing program). When […]

Adwords, Simplified; Quality Scores, Not So Much …

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Adwords are surprisingly complicated – a side effect of having LOTS of user options and the TON of data google collects and crunches to optimize user experience (ie, the likelihood of internet searchers to quickly find relevant ads).  Infographic by pulpmedia: Awesomely Accessible Lesson in the Basics of Adwords 1) What you pay (CostPerClick) depends on: […]

Schedule Your Reporting in the New Google Analytics

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They say change is a good thing, but it isn’t always easy. SEOs everywhere are experiencing the big change taking place with Google phasing out the old version of Google Analytics. It seems like Google is itching for the “old version” of Analytics to go away. The only way to even get to the old […]

Quantitative Effects of the Penguin Police

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Penguin sparked fear in many SEOers, with blog posts like Anatomy of a Disaster, Penguins, Pandas and Panic at the Zoo, and innumerable accounts of sites losing over half of their traffic. Penguin is Google’s latest search algorithm update, and is supposed to level the playing field – increasing ranking for websites that have great content but […]

The Familiarity Effect: PPC vs Organic Search

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Dave Underwood of Topspot Internet Marketing spoke on “Improving Website Measurement & Analytics” at the HiMA luncheon last week in Houston, Texas. He offered useful insight for successful marketing, some of it surprisingly simple. For example, recording and listening to phone calls: if your sales people give inaccurate information or fail in some other way […]

3 Google Adwords Editor Tips to Manage Your PPC Campaigns

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Guest Blogger:  Laura Rodnitzky is the Director of Production for PPC Associates, a search engine marketing agency with offices in San Mateo and Chicago. AdWords Editor is a go-to tool for anyone managing large accounts or campaigns in Google AdWords. But even if you’re only dealing with small campaigns, it’s worth checking out this free […]

HOWTO: Use the Dimensions Tab to Improve Your PPC Campaigns

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Guest Blogger:  Laura Rodnitzky is the Director of Production for PPC Associates, a search engine marketing agency with offices in San Mateo and Chicago. If you’re running paid search campaigns in Google AdWords, and you don’t already use the Dimensions tab, you’re missing out on a ton of useful data. Rolled out in mid-2010, the […]

Google Updates AdWords Keyword Research Tool and Introduces New Features

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By far the best free keyword research tool around is Google AdWords Keyword Research Tool. If you haven’t noticed already the interface may look a little different. Google has been busy rolling out changes for not only Google Analytics, but now the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. Here’s a brief overview of some of the changes […]