Category: Google

Posted on

Google AdWords Callouts – What Are They?

New just this past week, Google AdWords callout extensions are the new way to draw attention to what you are promoting and a way to differentiate yourself from other ads.

AdWords decides when to show this new extension based on relevancy but that does not mean you should brush it off or not set it up.

Google Partner Badge
McCord Web Services is a Google Partner.

Use callouts to highlight something special like:

  • Free shipping
  • We match prices
  • 20% off for first time customers
  • 24/7 Service
  • Daily deals

Google will show your callouts underneath your ads where sitelinks or your business address may typically go. These blurbs are not linkable – they just add more ad text and selling points. When you do set up make sure you stay within the 25 character (including spaces) character limit and create a minimum of two for your AdWords account.

Google recommends sentence case versus capitalizing each word’s letter. They say they’ve had better results, but it may be a factor that Google shows two or three at a time and so they simply look more like an extension of the ad versus an after thought.

To find our more information and tips on using AdWords callouts make sure to check out this great article.

Posted on

AdWords Enhances Phone Call Tracking for Websites

Google Partner Badge
McCord Web Services is a Google Partner.

AdWords has rolled out a nice improvement for call tracking that every business owner who is using AdWords should implement.

This new conversion tracking feature allows website owners to code their website phone number to auto insert an AdWords call forwarding phone number. This new feature now allows for website visitors to use the auto generated phone number to improve lead tracking that happen back on the website but originated from an AdWords click.

This new conversion feature will give website owners a more accurate picture about how AdWords is driving lead phone calls that had previously not been recorded as AdWords generated activity.

Implementation of the code is really a three step process:

  1. New code is generated from within the AdWords account from the conversion tab.
  2. Two bits of code are installed in the <head> tag of the web pages and then these codes are called into the page using an onload function in the <body> tag.
  3. Code is then created to tag each incidence of your old phone number in the page content with a dynamic insertion call to the two scripts.

What happens after implementation is the following:

  1. A person clicks your ad and lands on your website.
  2. When your website page loads, the scripts go into action and instead of showing your default phone number on the page, AdWords inserts dynamically a special unique phone number tied to that specific search query action/ad click.
  3. The customer then phones you using the phone number they see on your page and AdWords records the action of a call lasting 60 seconds (you can select the duration in set up), as a conversion back in the AdWords control panel.

This is really a revolutionary improvement for AdWords conversion tracking. I found that when Google first started call tracking clients were surprised how effective AdWords was in making their phone ring. This new enhancement will surely boost metrics even more proving that AdWords is driving more lead conversions than previously expected.

I highly recommend this implementation on your website if you are using AdWords to drive lead generation. If you are looking for a savvy AdWords account manager make sure to check out our pricing and services.

Posted on

It’s Time to Put Your Website on a Diet

Put Your Website on a Diet!
Put Your Website on a Diet!

Well what I really mean is to put your website on a content diet. In months and years past, it was a great idea, and SEO strategy, to build some really great content to help build site authority. This was a winning strategy when Google was counting links and in counting inbound traffic.

Now however, Google is watching relevancy and that means click through rate and bounce rate of your website. Content that was informational in nature that gave your site a 75% and higher bounce rate is now a liability for organic placement.

As an example, before my own cleanup due to some of the content I was carrying, my bounce rate was around 75%. After my cleanup, my bounce rate is now 39.07%. I simply redesigned my site, revamped my content and actually dropped pages that were just built to be informational, instructional or to build authority.

As you make site changes you should at least shoot for the overall global average bounce rate of 46.9%. What used to be great to fluff up traffic and boot organic placement may now be dropping you in the SERPs!

If you would like more in-depth information I suggest this article that mirrors my own recommended strategy for websites in today’s world for Google.

Posted on

Google My Business Explained

Cover of my own Google My Business Page.
Cover of my own Google My Business Page.

If you have been using Google Places or Google+, Google has a new property call Google My Business that you need to be looking at and migrating to.

First notice that even if you have been posting on Google+ pages you may not have a Google My Business site. For that matter if you’ve had a Google Places or Google Maps page, you may still need to re-verify to migrate that page to Google My Business.

Here’s what I’ve found out. I have a number of Google+ pages that I routinely post to as well as a personal Google+ page. I even had one Google Places page. When I set up my own Google My Business page, it was a different URL than any of them. Sigh… that means I had to start all over in building a fan base as any of my existing pages did not migrate into the new Google My Business page.

The Google My Business pages even look different. You’ll know you have one if over the cover image you see things like your office hours, your address, and website URL. You can see the cover image of my own in this post and view my site online.

Google is really pushing the Google My Business pages. My Google AdWords account rep even told me this past week that Google AdWords will be doing away with the ability to add business addresses manually in AdWords and using only the Google My Business  page for locations in the near future. This means that it is time to get going on embracing this new Google product.

Personally I hate that the migration did not allow me to pick up one of my existing pages about my business that had a nice number of followers, but this is Google, it is their way all the way.

So, better get prepared for the future, as it is clear that Google will want to only deliver Google Maps and Google organic results pointing to a verified Google My Business page in the very near future.