Author: Nancy McCord

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Google AdWords Remarketing Strategies

McCord Web Services is an AdWords Certified Partner.
McCord Web Services is an AdWords Certified Partner.

AdWords remarketing has been around for a while, but AdWords has made some nice changes recently and if you haven’t tried remarketing or tried it previously and did not have success, it is time to try it again.Remarketing audiences are easy to set up. You’ll access the audience creation feature from the slide out library menu on the left of your Google AdWords control panel. Go to the Shared Library and then Audiences. Build a new audience for your needs. I recommend one to target the whole website and then refine to specific audiences using tag rules.

Once your audience is set up, AdWords will generate code. Get your webmaster to install the code in all pages of your website. Make sure to update your privacy policy as you need to be transparent on what you are now doing and allow people to opt out of remarketing. There are some good privacy policy examples out there already for you to use as a starting point for your updates.

Then create a new Display campaign. At set up select remarketing as your option and the steps are very simple you will select your audience (pulled from your shared library) and then create text and display ads using the Display Ad Builder.

Once your audience lists hits 100 people, Google will start to serve ads. I have to say from experience that this process is now so simple and streamlined that it should be used by every account using AdWords. I like to set the daily budget at about $10 a day and pay about $.79 a click for most account initially. I have found that nearly all account are having conversion success with remarketing.

If you haven’t given AdWords remarketing a look, now’s the time to check it out to see if it would work for you.

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More on Google+ Communities and Why I Like Them

I have been doing some testing on running and participating in Google+ Communities. Many SEO’s including myself feel that Google+ Communities may be the next “big” thing for getting SEO placement on Google.com.

Here’s what I’ve found out while using Google+ Communities.

1. I like them! They are interesting fast paced and fun to use. I am involved in several in my industry and the quality of information exchange is excellent. It’s like Quora but focused only in your industry.

2. What a great way to get Google+ followers. With some interaction in your own and other communities you can really build your circle numbers fast. I am now in 400 circles and not only is this great for getting your message out, but this number now appears under your AuthorRank tag in Google.com on anything you write. This really gives your content credibility and may push your content up in the SERPs.

3. By setting up your own communities you widen your circles and add to the ability so share your message plus your message when shared and +1’nd may receive more authority in the SERPs as others in your own industry are talking about you. Additionally, your Community posts may actually appear in the Google index. If you have verified your Author status, you get even more juice and exposure.

Here’s what Google just sent to me this last week about my own authorship status. You can click the image and read the full information.

Google Authorship Status
Google Authorship Status

I like Google+ Communities and see only positives at this point for their use. Although they do take time because there is nothing you can automate for business owners the time investment appears to have really big benefits when it comes to web visibility and web authority.

Join our own Google+ Communities we have two: AdWords Strategies and Bing Ad Strategies.

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Getting Your Listing in Facebook’s Graph Search

You've got to be popular to be shown on Facebook's Graph Search.
You’ve got to be popular to be shown on Facebook’s Graph Search.

You may love it or hate it, but Facebook’s Graph Search is here to stay and just another way that Bing and Facebook are drawing closer together and another way your data is being used to sell products.So, who gets shown in Graph Search results and how do you get there?

The bottom-line is you get there with popularity and good placement on Bing. Here are a few of the things that help your site to appear in Graph Search.

  1. Number of check-ins to your location using Facebook.
  2. Number of shares and likes.
  3. Size of your fan base. This may also include number of subscribers and not just likes.
  4. Relevancy of your location to the searcher. Closer will be better.
  5. Relevancy and interaction from the searcher’s friends.

So in other words your listing and information will show when you have worked your Facebook plan to grow your activity, encouraged share-ability, become meaningful to your fans and subscribers, and have grown your fan base.

If Facebook does not have enough information about a search it will then show Bing.com search results.

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Google+ Local Allows Multiple Locations

Finally Google+ Local has listened to businesses that have multiple people in an office building or location and is now allowing more than one Google+ Local page per address.

Previously if you were a real estate agent located in an office the first person who grabbed that location in Google+ Local owned it and you could not set up an account to show your business. What was worse was if someone other than the legal business owner grabbed the location, you were stuck!

Now Google has allowed multiple businesses who may be in different suites, cubicles or floors to now verify an address. That’s great news for many small businesses and consultants.

Here’s what Google says specifically that is a nice new change:

“Individual practitioners may be listed individually as long as those practitioners are public-facing within their parent organization. Common examples of such practitioners are doctors, dentists, lawyers, and real estate agents. The practitioner should be directly contactable at the verified location during stated hours. A practitioner should not have multiple listings to cover all of his or her specializations.”
“Departments within businesses, universities, hospitals, and government buildings may be listed separately. These departments must be publicly distinct as entities or groups within their parent organization, and ideally will have separate phone numbers and/or customer entrances.”

To find out more about the Google+ Local guidelines, please visit this Google information page.