The format for Local Business Results in Google has changed. 10 businesses are now listed on page one in the local business results box. Prior to today, or at least until very recently, only 3 businesses were featured. You can see a screen shot from when I first noticed local business results in Google Australia. The screenshot below is what I’m seeing today. Google are obviously experimenting with local business results.

It might not seem like a big deal but a page one spot for a popular search query, in this case a search for accommodation, is valuable and now there are more slots available thus creating an opportunity.

On the other hand it’s putting even more choices on the first page which might not necessarily be a good thing for the searcher. More studies are being done into how people interact with the search pages including this excellent one by Gord Hotchkiss.

The numerous list posts you see on the most common mistakes made by adwords beginners don’t get to the root of the problem.

They focus on the use of adwords features like this:

1. Too many keywords in one ad group
2. Not opting out of content network
3. Only using broad match keywords
4. Not using negative keywords
5. Not split testing ads

Adwords beginners do generally make these mistakes but the lists miss the main point that beginners often have no clue what they are trying to achieve or how the whole process works. And by the whole process I don’t mean how to log into adwords and opt out of the content network, I mean the process that starts with someone searching for something.

A lot of beginners have no idea of the absolute basics of what they are trying to achieve. They don’t understand the fundamental building blocks of search queries, keywords and ads and the relationship between them. This lack of understanding makes discussion on things like keyword match types and split testing ads pretty redundant.

I know this to be true and I’ve seen numerous examples. A while ago I reviewed a campaign set up by the owner of an entertainment website. The business is an entertainment booking service with a wide range of categories from clowns to bands to motivational speakers.

The campaign had one ad group with about 20 keywords and one ad. I explained the need to create targeted ad groups. He made some changes and asked me to take another look at the campaign. He’d created an ad group called “bands” with the keywords “rock”, “country”, “blues”, “world music” etc.

I think Google are at fault for giving the impression that adwords is easy. As Andrew Goodman said in a SEM group I follow, “It sure ain’t “five minutes and a credit card” - as the seductive sales pitch suggests”.

Which adwords topics got the most attention in 2007? Here’s my top 5 list. What have I missed and what will be important in 2008?

1. Quality Score

This is always a favourite for discussion given that it has such an impact on campaign performance. It’s also complex and therefore susceptible to misinterpretation. Brad Geddes does a good job of explaining quality score.

2. New Adwords features – Top Ad Placement

The one that caused the biggest debate ahead of implementation would have to be the changes to the formula for top ad placement. Bloggers and forumites jumped on the idea that it would unfairly drive adwords costs up. Most commentators didn’t even bother to read the announcement properly or stop and think about it but jumped on the bandwagon once the consensus of opinion was reached. I’ve seen hardly any feedback since it was launched.

3. Most Maligned Adwords Feature - Expanded Broad Match

Expanded broad match would have to win the prize for the most hated feature. Here are a couple of “expanded match is EVIL” forum threads.

4. SEO versus PPC

The best posts on this were those describing how they work well together rather than one being better than the other but maybe I’m biased. Here’s a recent post from Dave Naylor with an example of organic and ppc working well together.

5. Pricing Models

How you charge for PPC services is always a favourite for debate. Alan Rimm-Kaufman shared his agency’s model and rates in a bid to open up the secrecy about pricing and structure.

Happy new year to all who read my blog.

I’ve been blogging for just over a year so it’s a good time to think about the achievements and the goals for the coming year.

Benefits

1. I’ve received a steady and growing number of website visitors that I wouldn’t have got without the blog. This is due to a number of reasons including the long tail of search, referrals from sites where my content is syndicated such as webpronews, and referrals from other blogs I comment on.
2. Blogging has enabled easier participation in social media including other blogs, forums and sites like sphinn.
3. I’ve formed valuable relationships and contacts both online and also offline at events like the bloggers conference.
4. I believe I’ve increased my knowledge substantially more than I would have done otherwise because of the need to keep up to date, research topics and articulate points of view.

The hard things

1. Finding the time and making blogging a priority when there‘s a list of other urgent tasks to complete.
2. Breaking through the psychological barriers during the times when you feel unmotivated to post, run out of ideas or feel you have nothing valuable to add to the conversation.
3. Keeping an eye on the goals and not getting sidetracked.

This year

I’m committed to blogging and to doing more in this area. After a couple of months of light posting I’m ready to re-assess the direction of my blog and start contributing again both here and in other places. On that note, a group of Australian bloggers, notably Meg, Andrew and Snoskred have formed an Australian Bloggers Community. It has a forum which has got off to a great start and a group blog which will launch on 21 January. I’m pleased to be part of the community as a forum moderator and a contributor to the group blog when it starts. Hope to see you there!

I’ve posted before that I’m a fan of the search marketing standard magazine. I’m a subscriber and each issue has had some excellent articles. I wondered whether print would work for search marketing especially as there are so many resources available online and it’s a fast changing industry. As it happens I’ve read each issue pretty much from cover to cover and thoroughly enjoyed flipping through the pages of a magazine targeted at my industry.

For the next two weeks there is a 67% discount for new subscribers plus there will be a $1 USD donation to the charity “toys for tots” for every subscription.

It’s a great deal with Australian subscribers paying $6.60 USD for a 1 year subscription (4 issues).

Here’s the link to subscribe (active until 10th December). The coupon is: HOLIDAY67

And just so you know, it’s not an affiliate link. I think it’s a good offer so i’m happy to pass on the information.

An SEO and PPC competition is running from January next year with the entrants judged over a one year period. I’m not entering (for a start the entry fee is $5000 per category) but I’m interested in the criteria and the sample questions for a bit of self evaluation.

In the PPC category, entrants are judged on customer satisfaction, depth of knowledge, reporting methods, internal principles and competitive advantages.

There are sample questions here.

This is worth a read, even on the weekend. It’s Lisa Barone’s live blogging of a webinar with Seth Godin.

To give a taste of what it includes, here are some notes I made but you really need to go and read the whole thing.

• Consumers are starting to expect a lot more direct communication with organisations. The Internet has created channels for this communication and organisations that don’t use these channels will lose customers.
• It’s no longer possible for a company to control their message. Blogging and other avenues have changed the landscape. Now a company better have an authentic story because they won’t be able to hide anything.
• Too few organisations are really embracing the long tail.
• Marketers are obsessed with “how many”. They need to shift their thinking and start focusing on “who” instead.
• The effectiveness of Internet advertsing (ppc) can be measured unlike buying TV ads. That frightens a lot of traditionalists in big companies.
• No-one is forced to read your blog! Blogs need to be a magnet not a microphone.

There is a great thread on cre8asite forums about creating user personas.

The discussion focuses on how to create a better website by thinking about the types of people who might visit the site. The technique is to invent a fictional person or “persona” for each type and then analyse how that person might interact with the site. The more “real” or fleshed out the persona, the better able you are to gain insights into what their experience might be on your site. You then use that information to improve the site and better cater for users’ needs.

That’s a quick summary and there are some good explanations and links to other resources in the thread.

Search marketers could benefit from applying this technique. Here are 10 thoughts.

1. People are at different stages in the buying cycle.
2. Each person will probably be doing multiple searches to find what they want. With each search they may learn something that has an influence on the next search.
3. People notice brand names familiar to them.
4. Some people are looking for aggregators first to make their task easier.
5. Often people get the comparison information they want from the aggregators and then seek more information from individual suppliers.
6. Some people ignore anything that they recognise as an ad.
7. Some people go straight to the ads particularly if they have previously found them more relevant to their needs than the organic results.
8. People trust authoritative sounding sites.
9. Some people will select video or images over text.
10. Some people are looking for free information and have no intention to buy.

Someone searched for the following and got to my blog:

change price in google adword text without reducing “”quality score”"

They probably didn’t find a good answer at the time so I’ll have a go now.

A common concern is that if you change anything at all in the ad copy you start afresh with a new ad and lose all benefits of a good quality score.

Quality score is tied to keywords not ads so in fact you don’t lose the quality score history by changing the ad copy. It’s a bit counter-intuitive. People click on ads. Click through rate is one of the biggest factors in determining quality score. However, it’s the click through rate associated with the keyword that counts. The quality score isn’t reset if you change an ad.

Google has just introduced a new facility in Webmaster Central to record the geographic location of a website.

This could be useful for businesses in Australia because the majority of people here use Google Australia (google.com.au) and Australian websites rank highly compared with overseas ones.

The domain name is primarily used to determine the geographic location so a .com.au site is recognised as Australian. Other factors are also considered such as where the website is hosted. Problems arise when the domain is a .com and especially if it is hosted overseas. The new functionality will allow the correct geographic location to be recorded.

All good except I wonder if we’ll see increased competition in Google Australia and “pages from Australia”?

The new feature doesn’t allow multiple countries to be specified at the top level but it does allow a different country for a sub-domain. So, an overseas site can have www.something.com/australia.

I don’t know whether it will make any difference to the rankings but it will be easier for global companies to nominate a portion of content to be specifically targeted in Australia.

Vanessa Fox has all the details.