Archive for January, 2010
January
28
TV Bay Article 4
By Ben Kelly
In our 4th Article, we look at how Google Adwords Campaigns can compliment your Search Engine Optimisation.
Here's an except:
The complimentary way of getting Adwords and SEO to work together:
Plan to start your Google Adwords campaign a month before your SEO campaign.
The data you get during this month will inform how you focus your SEO campaign:
Your highest converting keywords become the keywords you focus on for SEO.
Your best headlines become page titles and headings.
Your best body text becomes your META description tag (a bit of code that describes your page to search engine robots and other websites). Whilst META descriptions no longer have much bearing on Google, they are often used when other sites link to you. By using text you know works in your META description tag, you ensure a better quality of traffic from these links.
Geographic results will give you a good idea of how popular your website is in specific regions. Use this data to focus local SEO on the regions where you are selling well.
For the full article, get your copy of TV Bay Magazine at http://www.tv-bay.com/subscribe
January
28
Open Office Bullets on Mac
By Ben Kelly
Not web related, but if you've found this post on Google you'll know how frustrating it is. On Mac versions of Open Office 3.0, bullet points are interpreted incorrectly from Word documents.
It's actually a problem with the way bullets are encoded with Word, compounded by the way the Symbol font set works on mac. But, there's a fix.
All you need to do is substitute the Symbol font set with OpenSymbol. To do so, follow these steps:
- Go to preferences
- OpenOffice.org > Fonts
- Check "Apply replacement table"
- In the left box, select Symbol, in the right box select OpenSymbol.
- Press the green tick, and select "Always"
- Save and you are done.
You can now open and save word document with bullets with ease.
We are big fans of Open Source software. Google Docs is great for collaboration and reading most types of document - but absolutely rubbish for creating documents to be printed. Open Office is great too, but niggles like this worry us. Still, at least this time around there's a fix.
Ben
Posted in: Open Source 0 comments
January
24
Google Adwords Qualified Status
By Ben Kelly
I've just gained accreditation as a Google Adwords Qualified Individual. But what does that mean? This article looks at what this qualification means, and how Google Adwords Qualified Individuals and Companies can better help their clients.
What is the Google Adwords Qualified Individual certification?
To become eligable for certification, Individuals must:
- Manage an account (theirs, or a client's) for 90 days
- Attain a spend of no less than $1,000 during this period
- Pass the Google Adwords official exam.
The exam is hard. It requires 85% correct answers, and the software the exam uses prevents access to other websites so you can't lookup answers during the test. As well as this less than 80% of the questions are technical, meaning you can have expert knowledge of how Adwords works and still fail. As at least 20% of the questions are focused on real-world application of Google Adwords within a marketing campaign, it does mean those that pass have an understand of not just how the tools work, but how to use them to get results.
As Google says:
Because achieving Qualified status is no easy feat, we reward these professionals with an official programme logo and Professional Status page which tout the title.
A Qualified Company differs from an individual, in that it employs at least two Qualified Individuals, and has a higher spending threshold within the 90 day period.
How does it benefit me?
Google Adwords Professionals have a clear understanding of how to build a marketing campaign that works. Adwords is a tool, and one that is easy to understand but difficult to use profitably. As Qualified Individuals have demonstrated a good knowledge of how to build campaigns properly, you can expect the following:
- A complete analysis of your marketing goals, website and industry.
- A budget that's suitable for your business, geographical location a
- A list of the most profitable keywords.
- Ad copy writing
- Help improving landing pages.
- Ongoing campaign monitoring.
And this matters, as it means an Advertising Professional can:
- Save costs and improve profitability.
- Allow you to concentrate on your business, not the search engine campaigns.
- Get excellent results without you needing to take on another employee.
- Assure you that your campaign is working to its best.
How can I tell if an individual or company is qualified?
Companies are required to provide a link to their status page on Google. Our is here. This page shows the companies information, and verified that their qualification is up-to-date. Qualification lasts 18 months before it needs to be renewed - and to gain renewal all the above requirements must be met.
To find a Google Adwords Professional near you, Google suggest using http://local.google.com/ and searching for "google advertising professional" near you.
There is also a registry, though this is not a Google run resource, whoisagap.com.
Ben Kelly is Alpha Wave Media Ltd's Google Adwords Qualified Individual. Our company profile on Google is here.
