You’ll Never Guess What Google Did: Google Livestream Recap

You’ll Never Guess What Google Did: Google Livestream Recap

Google did it again. Yesterday, Google announced their latest and greatest release in AdWords and Analytics 360 Suite for a mobile-first world.

If you were unable to sit in on Google’s Livestream announcement, here are the major PPC takeaways:


1. Longer Ad texts are coming! Get ready to revamp your ad copies in the next couple of months.       Although Google has not revealed a date for the expanded text ads, Google is already rolling out the beta. However, I have a hunch it will be publicly released this July.

With the Expanded Text Ads, the ad copies will include two 30 character headlines and one 80-character length description line.

Google’s product team predicts a 20% increase in CTR due to the shift to longer text ads. So get ready!

2. For get about bidding up or down on the devices campaign settings tab! Google is rolling out with device bidding, which will enable you to have bid modifiers for desktop, mobile, and tablet up to +900%. 

Keep your eyes peeled for this feature, as it will change the way you roll out a mobile-first strategy in the near future! Once Tandem Interactive’s PPC team gets their hands on these devices bid modifiers, our team will be following up with personal findings.Keep your eyes peeled for this feature, as it will change the way you roll out a mobile-first strategy in the near future! Once Tandem Interactive’s PPC team gets their hands on these devices bid modifiers, our team will be following up with personal findings.

3. The experience of AdWords is going to be revolutionized as a whole. Tandem Interactive got a live, sneak peek into the future AdWords layout and let’s just say…Google has yet to meet their match. 

Google is constantly keeping up with both the demands of online marketers and consumers. For those who are in the AdWords and Analytics interfaces daily, you will have more information accessible on user-friendly and visually appealing charts. I know that the entire PPC nerd squad at Tandem is just itching to get their hands on this new interface!

Not to mention, the teasing new rollout of Google Data Studio 360. If you are a PPC guru like the Tandem PPC team, you pull charts monthly, weekly, or even daily and can’t afford the manual labor or headaches from non-OCD formatted reports, you will just die for the new Data Studio 360. The Data Studio 360 enables you to create the most amazing dashboards that are easily shareable. You can pull from several compatible data sources and quickly collaborate with several members of your team. 

Yes, Google has been saying “mobile is the next big thing” for the past couple of years. And we get it Google, everyone has a phone that never leaves their side. Mobile phones are the first thing we reach for in the morning and mobile phones are the last thing you put down at night (unless you wear glasses then second to last). So, it is time for in-house PPC managers and PPC management agencies, to begin efforts to lead with a mobile-first strategy! Mobile is no longer “the next big thing”, mobile is here, mobile is now, and mobile is the most used device for all of the where, what, when, why, and how moments that people are searching for.

“There are trillions of searches on Google and over half of those searches happen on mobile” – Sridhar Ramaswamy, Senior Vice President - Google

Pubcon Las Vegas 2015: Branding, Mobile, and Beyond

Tandem Interactive's Organic Search Manager/Editor Kimberly McSweeney at Pubcon Las Vegas 2015.

This year, I was fortunate enough to attend Pubcon Las Vegas with Joe in the beginning of October, and to say that I learned a wealth of knowledge during those short four days would be an understatement. For those who may not know much about Pubcon, it is the world’s leading online marketing conference and has been named a must-attend conference by Forbes, and I have to say – they hit the nail on the head.

If you missed Pubcon you arguably missed the largest sharing of SEO/SEM and PPC knowledge to ever take place under one roof. With daily speakers, such as the leaders of the search marketing industry, this was the place to be for those who do SEO and/or have a business or startup.

After day one at Pubcon, it was clear that the theme for the year was branding. Pretty much, if your company is not creating content that serves consumers and gets your name out in the world as a reputable company that is not just there to take your business, you are not doing enough to meet the needs of users. Users don’t only want answers to their questions, they want answers that exceed far beyond the question they asked. Although this may sound impossible, with amazingly engaging content – it isn’t. As Founder of Seer Interactive Wil Reynolds put it, if you are not creating the best piece of content ever written on a subject, you are not doing content right. Users want content that will serve them in a way that will make them better. They want to read your content and be able to take something from it that makes them better, smarter, and…well…serves their egos.

“People don’t buy products, they buy better versions of themselves.” – Wil Reynolds

Once you have the most amazing piece of content created – you need to socialize it. Coupled with creating the best optimized content, socializing content will help build your brand. If you write amazing content and no one can see it on multiple social media platforms, your brand is not going to be engraved in their brains. Users’ minds need to constantly see your ads, your helpful content that answers their questions, your videos, your photos, and logos on Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, and whatever the new social media platform will be, in order for them to build awareness of your brand, as well as trust.

Of course, every business with a website wants to know about mobile. As the industry leaders put it at Pubcon, if you are just now thinking about mobile, you are behind. If you are thinking that mobile is going to be big, you are behind. Mobile is here. Mobile is now. If your site is not mobile-friendly you can bet that users are going to your competitor who is mobile compliant. Not only should your site be mobile- friendly already, but if your mobile load times are slow – you can bet users are moving on to a competitor. It may be sad for you and your business, but it is true. With every new generation, attention spans are decreasing and demands are increasing – you need to take the heat and turn it into fire for your company, or get out of the kitchen.

Pubcon Las Vegas 2015 featured the following keynote speakers and hyperlinked is Tandem’s live-blogged coverage for each:

Rand Fishkin: Founder of Moz:  SEO In A Two Algorithm World

Gary Illyes: Google: Generations XYZ

Wil Reynolds: Seer Interactive: The High Cost of Free Traffic

Daune Forrester: Bing: Data is the New Oil

John Brown & Richard Zippel: Google AdSense: Open Format Q&A

Guy Kawasaki: Canva: 10 Tips for Perfecting Your Marketing Campaign in the Age of Social Media

Other Pubcon Sessions Covered by Tandem:

Micro-Moments with Google’s Matt Rogers

Google’s Leo Sei Unmasks AdWords Automated Scripts

Jeffrey Eisenberg (chief Executive at BuyerLegends.com) and Alex Harris (creative director at AlexDesigns.com): High Conversion Landing Pages and the User Persona, The Most Popular Tools for Creating Landing Pages and Campaigns, 8 Measurement Terms for Buyer Legends

Frederick Vallaeys on Google Quality Score: What It Is and How to Improve It

Frederick Vallaeys: AdWords Scripts: Automation and Bid Management, Pubcon Tracks Conversions with Frederick Vallaeys

Michael Gray (Atlas Web Services president and owner of GrayWolfSEO.com): Top WordPress Plugins to Clean Up and Speed Up Your Site

Barry Adams (founder of Polemic Digital): Barry Adams: Crawl Waste & Optimization

Perfecting PPC Ads with Brad Geddes

Google's 100 Most Expensive Keywords: How Geo-targeted Long-tail Keywords Could Be Your Bread Winner

Businesses large and small typically are aware that bidding on the right keywords is the key to a substantial ranking in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) and in return, increased revenue. However, what are the right keywords for your company and can you even afford them? SEMrush (with the help of Google) was able to determine the top 100 most expensive keywords on Google, and 78% of them were all in the “legal” category. So how can your small legal firm in Fort Lauderdale, Florida rank at all? Since the price of a keyword mostly depends on how often it is searched, if you are a small business owner it can be easier for you to dominate a different variation of that keyword.

For example, one thing that Tandem Interactive focuses on when it comes to keywords is LOCATION, something that we call geo-targeted keywords. A location specific keyword can target your area and allow you to rank highly for your industry in your designated area. According to Google, 73% of online activity is local content. When it comes to geo-targeting, it is best to use long-tail geo-specific keywords in order to rank for your precise location.

Some long-tail geo-specific keyword examples for businesses in Florida are:

Hurricane Shutters Sunrise Florida

SAT Prep Class Boca Raton Florida

Pizza downtown Fort Lauderdale Florida

In order to rank for geo-targeted keywords you have to think like a consumer. Thinking like a consumer is one of the best tactics you can use for nearly any part of your SEO and PPC campaigns. If I live in Florida and I am in downtown Fort Lauderdale after a night of partying and I want pizza, I will most likely search in my phone for “pizza downtown Fort Lauderdale”. Whatever the case may be, I am typically not searching for your company’s name.

Keep in mind that your website will also play a part in your ranking in search results. If your company has a well-established website it will organically rank better. If your website is new you can expect it to be one of the very last results. “Pizza Fort Lauderdale” yields 12.4 million results. So if you are a smaller and newer pizza restaurant and you are located in the heart of downtown it is easier for you to rank for “pizza downtown Fort Lauderdale Florida”, which yields less than 500,000 results instead. You want your keyword to still be something that locals would search, but also specific so that it is easier for you to rank in a category that yields less results.

Once you have searched Google to find which geo-targeted long-tail keywords would be best for your company to rank for, Tandem recommends that you keep an eye on your website’s analytics to see if your geo-targeted words are increasing traffic. If your new keywords are increasing traffic through your PPC campaign, find out where that traffic is coming from and then focus more pages and blog content around those keywords to help your organic rankings.

Check out SEMrush’s One Hundred Most Expensive Keywords on Google:

PPC Checklist You'll Want to Keep Handy

Whether you are a PPC guru or a PPC virgin you will want to keep this awesome PPC checklist handy when duplicating a new campaign by copy and pasting an old one.

Within AdWords Editor you can have a copy-and-paste frenzy. Copy and paste entire campaigns, keywords, negative keywords, locations, and sitelinks…copy and paste all the things!

However, copy and pasting leaves room for several errors. If you are not OCD or you are pressed for time, you may miss a crucial detail that can cost you (or worse your client) money. 

Fortunately, Tandem Interactive’s very own PPC Ninja has laid out a checklist of criterion that must be changed when copy and pasting ad campaigns.

AdWords Editor Check List:

Campaigns & AdGroups

□        Rename the Campaign & Necessary AdGroups

□        If location specific, assess the keywords (CRTL + H to find and replace text)

Keywords and Targeting:

□        Evaluate which negative keywords are not inhibiting the new keywords

□        LOCATION! If your campaigns are location-specific, then make sure that you are targeting the correct area.

Ads and Extensions:

□        Change “Final URLs” – formerly known as “Dest. URLs”

□        If necessary, change the Display URL. Making the Display URL specific to your campaign and AdGroup will allow your quality score to increase even further!

□        Sitelinks will also paste across campaigns in Editor; however, if you directly edit the copied sitelink it will affect the original campaign’s sitelinks as well. If the sitelinks need rewording or a different Final URL, then be sure to delete the pasted ones and create brand new ones that are specific to your new campaign. 

AdWords Check List:

       Once the new campaign is posted, there are a few more areas to double check:

□        Callout Extensions: These will not paste over. You need to manually add callouts to your new campaign.

□        Call Extensions: Don’t forget to manually add the phone number to your ad.

       Other miscellaneous options are as follows:

□        Add the new “Structured Snippet Extensions”

□        If you had Day Parting on your previous campaign, double check whether it suits the new campaign.

□        Double check that the campaign is optimized for mobile devices.

Lastly, set a reminder to double check your new campaign 24 hours after going live to ensure that everything is tracking and performing accordingly!

Keywords that Can Actually Increase Traffic to your Site

If you own a business and are currently paying a marketing team to build out your content…make sure that they are building content that can actually increase traffic to your site, WITHOUT keyword stuffing.

As a business owner, you are probably well aware of the negative effects that Black Hat SEO can have on your site and more importantly, on your relationship with search engine master Google.

If you are not aware, here are some tips to avoid a penalty and keep in mind for organic content:

• Google wants websites that produce QUALITY content, NOT necessarily QUANTITY. While it is good to be building your brand with a decent amount of content each month, the quantity of keywords should not be overbearing. If you produce content that has one of your keywords, sprinkled around once every 100-150 words or so, you are on the right track. If your content pumps keywords each sentence, you will most likely be flagged. While it is great that your business is getting a lot of traffic, if you are not giving the searcher the information they want, that traffic to your site is essentially useless and they will leave your page, after they deem you as unreliable.

• Choosing the right keywords for your brand can be more difficult than you think. You may know the obvious keywords, but the truth is, unless you already have an internet presence, you will not rank for those keywords as compared to larger competitors. However, there are ways to determine / find the ideal organic content keywords for your product.

To find ideal keywords, your marketer should be using Google Adwords and MozPro in coordination. Why use both tools you ask? Start in Google Adwords. Search for keywords that have a good amount of AVERAGE MONTHLY SEARCHES and a LOW to MEDIUM COMPETITION STATUS. Then, use MozPro : Research Tools : Keyword Difficulty, to plug in the keyword you found with Adwords, in order to see its DIFFICULTY SCORE and SERP Analysis Report.

You will notice that if the keyword has a Difficulty Score of 60% or more, then it will be a highly competitive keyword that you should not use.

To further explain this: The Lower the Keyword Difficulty Score on MozPro and the Lower the Competition via Adwords, the easier it will be for your company to create individual content pages to achieve top results.

HOWEVER, this only applies for smaller businesses or lower authority domains; meaning a local moving company trying to rank for moving key terms against a large, nationwide moving company.

The SERP Analysis Report will tell you the reasoning behind the difficulty score. So if a keyword has a difficulty score of 60%, the SERP will say “Moderately Competitive: Search results require high authority domains with well-targeted pages OR lower authority sites with powerful individual pages to achieve top results.” Meaning: if you are a smaller business, you can rank for this keyword by using “powerful individual pages”, and if you are hiring the right person to write your content, and they are creating powerful, unique content, you have a higher chance of moving up in the rankings! SCORE!

EX. You own a small, local moving company. You most likely will not rank high for “moving company”, so try searching for “relocation” in Google Adwords. The keyword “relocation” has an average of 14,800 monthly searches and a Medium competition status in Google Adwords. When you go to MozPro, “relocation” has a Keyword Difficulty of 58%, which is lower than 60% so you are in the clear, as a lower authority site, and are able to use this keyword in your content in order to improve your rankings. YOUR WELCOME!

Finding the proper keywords for your specific brand and target audience will take some playing around in SEO tools with, but it WILL benefit your business in the end. After all, who wants to pay for Organic Search Content creation that does not work?!