Investments in e-learning in 2022 are up, and there’s no sign of slowing. The global e-learning market will surpass $243 billion in 2022, Statista estimates. E-learning was already a growing segment when the pandemic fueled record numbers in online learning for corporations, people and students. In fact, Coursera reported that registrants to their courses nearly doubled from 2019 to 2020 and has only accelerated from there. ![]() Online SEO training is a great way for companies to train teams on SEO. KPMG reports employees prefer online training because they don’t have to travel and they can learn at their own pace. It also works for people needing to upskill or reskill as they change careers or look for a new job – “digital marketer” is still among the top 10 most in-demand jobs, according to LinkedIn. If you’re looking for SEO training, there is no shortage of courses out there. But what is a good SEO training course, and how do you evaluate it? Here are five things to look for in SEO training. 1. Who created the SEO training?One of the most important things when evaluating SEO training is to understand who is the person or people behind the training. There is no “one way” to do SEO, so you also won’t find strict standards on how SEO should be taught. That’s why it’s important to get to the bottom of who is behind the information. Do they have the experience and knowledge to provide reliable guidance? Remember, bad SEO advice can kill websites, their rankings and even entire businesses. So get to know the qualifications of the teachers you are going to learn from. Pro tip: When evaluating the creators of the course, do some digging into their years of experience – are they authorities in their space? Can you trust their information? Reviews can help here, too. (More on that later.) 2. What material does the SEO training cover?SEO curriculum can go over everything from broad lessons on SEO concepts to niche topics. For example, some SEO courses give a general overview of SEO, while others may take a deep dive into just one area, like technical SEO or SEO copywriting. Using my company’s online SEO training as an example, here is a sample SEO curriculum:
There are many SEO training courses to choose from, and you can check out a list of independently reviewed SEO courses for 2022 to find out what they are teaching and how they compare. Pro tip: Know ahead of time the concepts you want to learn, then evaluate your options. Also, some people really want to have something to show for their SEO training, like a certificate. So if that is important to you, you can find out which SEO courses offer some type of certificate at the end of the course. 3. How is the information presented?Not everyone learns in the same way. Some people like in-person classes, while others prefer videos, podcasts or even reading. Keep in mind that even within the world of online training, the way courses are presented varies. For example, many online SEO courses have a set of static videos that you can watch at your pace, and that’s it. Others might offer more resources as a complement to those videos, for instance, a hands-on project or downloadable content. When we decided to take my company’s SEO training classroom online, we wanted to create an experience that was more than just passive learning. We decided to create an SEO training membership site to help fill in the gap of what people were missing about in-person learning (like collaboration and Q&A) and to cater to different learning styles. For example, our membership site gives students not only access to video lessons but also:
Pro tip: Think about how you like to learn, and then evaluate how the information is presented. For example:
4. How fresh is the information in SEO training?SEO is constantly changing. Yes, we have best practices, but there is always some new algorithm update, some new discovery, and some breaking SEO news. So you don’t want to learn stale content. That is why many of the SEO courses out there can quickly get out of date. And it is not likely that most instructors are going to update their course videos with every new change. Here, you want to find out how dated the SEO curriculum is and how often the material is updated. This may matter less with certain SEO topics than others, but it is still worth exploring before you sign up. Pro tip: Look for information on when the course was created and the last time it was updated. You can even ask the course creator if it’s not obvious. 5. What kind of reviews does the SEO training get?There’s often no better way to evaluate a course than to read reviews and testimonials. Of course, not everyone will get the same results after taking a course. But if enough people are raving about the SEO course, then you can bet it’s probably a good one. Here, you want to look for visible signs of praise on the course webpage or website. How many stars is the course getting? How many people have enrolled? What are the testimonials saying? Then, take your research to Google. Type in “[course name] reviews” and see what comes up on third-party websites. Pro tip: Remember, not every student is going to like any given course. Be sure to read what people didn’t like about it, but balance that with the good reviews as well. SEO training has many benefitsTaking an online SEO training course offers a ton of benefits for people in many roles. So no matter where you’re at, SEO training could help with:
Knowing how to evaluate a course can help you invest wisely in the future of your career or business. The post 5 questions to evaluate any SEO training course appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/questions-evaluate-seo-training-course-387473
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![]() Performance Max campaigns from Google are causing quite the stir in the advertising world. It’s one of the fastest major launches we’ve seen, with the product going from general availability (Nov 2021) to forced migration (Sep 2022) in less than a year. Here we’ll share some of the tips we’ve gathered from talking to a lot of our customers and several PPC experts, including some Googlers in our PPC Town Hall episodes. Control is shifting to the periphery of the ads systemPerformance Max campaigns are one of the most automated campaign types available in Google Ads, and the lack of controls is one of the main causes for concern among advertisers. But as our founder Fred Vallaeys described in his recent book, “Unlevel the Playing Field, the Biggest Mindshift in PPC History,” advertiser controls still exist in the era of automated PPC; they’ve just shifted to be more about the big picture and less about granular details. Think things like:
![]() Automation needs space to learnHistorically, a best practice in PPC was to exert total control over a campaign by using exact match keywords with tightly themed ad groups. In Performance Max, it’s rather difficult to emulate this strategy because there are neither keywords nor static ads. Instead, machine learning determines on the fly what queries could be relevant and then generates a dynamic ad for each. So the knee-jerk reaction to Performance Max’s lack of control may be to seek ways to reign in the automation and make it behave more like what we’re used to from 20+ years of having close control. But some advertisers, like Kasim Aslam, pointed out in a recent PPC town hall that giving the machine more room to experiment may not be such a bad thing. It’s like putting a flea in a small box. Fleas can jump eight inches, 150 times their body height. But if you put one in a box that’s one inch tall, it’ll learn never to jump higher than that, wasting its potential. Could it be the same with PPC automation? Regardless of how tightly you control it, the machine will identify a slice of traffic where it’s comfortably producing the results you’ve asked for. When you eventually want more results and change some of the boundaries, it may prioritize continuing to operate in the space it already knows well because that’s where it has a higher degree of confidence in its predictions. So there’s something to be said for allowing the machine some freedom to test and let it find users who will convert in some unexpected places to achieve the greatest possible incrementality. Here’s a concrete example of machine learning doing a good job for advertisers when it’s not being constrained. When Optmyzr recently evaluated 170 million ads to see the impact of responsive search ads (RSAs) that have now replaced expanded text ads, it was clear that giving the machine more breathing room led to more conversions. The main reason is that ad groups with RSAs got around twice as many impressions as ad groups without RSAs because the machine was able to make ads relevant for a significant new number of searches. And while the conversion rate was around 11% worse, the large increase in impressions more than made up for that. ![]() Set expectations for how long it will take automation to learnBesides the lack of ad control which it shares with RSAs, Performance Max exhibits a lot of other freedoms that can make it a nerve-racking proposition for advertisers to try:
Learning what works takes time for the machine, and it’s frustrating that human insight is relatively hard to add to the equation to help speed up the learning. To get the most out of Performance Max, it needs two weeks of relatively unencumbered time to experiment and learn. Agencies and PPC managers need to ensure their clients are ready for this wait. Setting this expectation requires a bit of client re-education because the industry has long touted a key benefit of PPC to be the immediacy of results and the corresponding ability to do instant optimization. While you can still see clicks being reported in near-real time, making course corrections until the machine has had some time to experiment and learn may be the wrong move. Make sure your clients know your plan for how long you will let the machines learn before you start optimizing. Advertisers must expect to give the machine time and not interfere with constant tweaking of a campaign that is still learning. Optmyzr has some great tools to help advertisers make sense of experiments in Google. Creative assets make or break your campaignOptimizing targeting and bidding have historically been the most important elements of running a great PPC campaign. Sure, ads were important too. But if you had the best ad and showed it to the wrong audience or paid too much for it, you’d get poor results. On the other hand, though, a mediocre ad shown to the right audience at the right price could still do quite well. But now, with Performance Max, advertisers choose neither keywords nor bids. So the creative all of a sudden has become a much more important optimization lever. And for many advertisers used to only writing text ads, the mere fact that they’re now asked for video ads too can be daunting. The advice we’ve heard in conversation with our customers is that it’s more important to have fresh video ads rather than perfect ones. It’s much more like social media advertising, where ads regularly go stale and stop driving results. So the advice we have here is not to overthink video ads. Shoot some quick ads on your phone, or repurpose any assets you might already have. Neither may look beautiful, but the machine has a way of getting audiences to start clicking on these ads. And once the prospect is on your site, all the hard work you’ve done over the years on your landing pages takes over, and those new prospects can become customers. When it comes to optimizing text assets for ad formats like RSAs, Optmyzr can streamline that quite a bit by providing insights into which frequently used assets are performing well, as well as suggesting variations for new copy when your current ones aren’t delivering. You have flexibility with structureAnother control you still have is related to campaign structure. E-commerce advertisers can continue to use shopping campaigns for full control or migrate their Smart Shopping campaigns to Performance Max (this is also happening automatically). The same concepts for structure that have worked well in the past can continue to work. For example, maintain different campaigns based on profit margins so you can set different target ROAS values to maximize overall company profits. Use custom labels in the feed to split products into different campaigns, asset groups or listing groups. With more advanced structures like this, an important optimization step is ensuring the Google Ads account has the right products in the right places. For advertisers with constantly changing inventories or large product catalogs, tools like Optmyzr’s Shopping Campaign Builder and Shopping Campaign Refresher can automate much of the tedious account structure maintenance that ultimately contributes to the success of Performance Max. A few final controlsHere are a few more ways that advertisers can still exert control over Performance Max campaigns: Marketing objectives and goalsMake sure you’re feeding Google the best possible version of what your conversion really is. Set Conversion Value Rules to better represent your conversion values, or use offline conversion imports for even more precise data. Campaign budgetsYou can still allocate budgets to campaigns. Whether that means shifting budget from one Performance Max campaign to another, shifting budgets between Performance Max and a search or shopping campaign — or even shifting budgets between different platforms — there are many ways to ensure you get the most for your money with budget optimizations, many of which are easy to do in Optmyzr. Geo-targetingWith automated bidding, you should be able to get conversions at the right price, even in locations that traditionally underperform. And while geo bid adjustments don’t work with Smart Bidding, you can still create different campaigns for different regions so that each can have better ROAS or CPA targets and creative assets that resonate more in each region. FeedsFeed optimization is a great example of managing PPC at a “big picture” level. Even in “old-school” shopping campaigns, there are no keywords. But the words you use to describe the products in a merchant feed will still impact what queries Google shows your ads for. So feed management is an important optimization technique, and Optmyzr has a beta for its clients who want help optimizing their feed-based data. AudiencesThe original form of targeting in PPC was through keywords, but audiences have continued to take on more importance for targeting. Specifying existing audiences helps Google target new audiences (those not on the list of existing audiences). Or adding audiences you find important to campaigns like Performance Max can help it deliver better results. Account negativesPerformance Max campaigns respect negative keywords so long as you’re able to input them into the system. So ask an account rep’s help to upload negative keywords at the campaign level. And use tools like Optmyzr to set account-level negative placements that can help save thousands of dollars in wasted spend on apps and sites that bait users into clicking on ads and have a low probability of driving good conversions. ConclusionThe introduction of Performance Max has changed how PPC advertisers manage the campaigns that drive conversions for their companies and clients. And while a lot of the management has shifted to the periphery of the system, there are still many things (like we shared here) that advertisers can do to continue to prove their value in the digital marketing space. If you’d like to test out some of Optmyzr’s capabilities and opt in to some of our more exciting betas, start a free trial or get in touch with our support team by writing to [email protected]. The post How to control Performance Max campaigns appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/how-to-control-performance-max-campaigns-387424 Have you ever wondered what kinds of scalable SEO solutions can drive positive ROI year after year? It’s possible using a feature called a “link module.” Now, internal link modules can be built internally by product and engineering teams or outsourced to a third-party vendor. But, SEO implementation managers beware: there are pros and cons to both paths between using a vendor solution or architecting it internally. Even a hybrid approach has tradeoffs. As an in-house SEO at enterprise brands, I’ve been involved with two approaches for optimizing internal linking using a link module. This article is my documentation of the process, retrospective and learnings with the outcomes of each. TL;DR: There’s no single right approach to implementing internal link modulesTo save you some reading time – there is no definitive answer either way. Primarily because there will be different conditions for each website, business and team. From my perspective, it seems the best investment of resources is to build your own solution because this path offers the most control as the SEO architect. Still, I’ve also been in the opposite scenario where the vendor solution was the only option, and it was equally viable. I can only offer my experience and observations, having gone through the process in both cases. Hopefully, these insights will help others determine the best path forward because internal link modules are a powerful SEO lever. What is a link module?The importance of internal linking architecture for a website cannot be overstated. Google’s Webmaster Guidelines stipulate that webmasters “keep important pages within several clicks from the homepage.” That’s where link modules come in. ![]() A link module is a widget inserted into the CSS code of a webpage. It is primarily designed to provide search engine bots easy access to other, prominent internal links as a pathway to finding and passing along link authority throughout the site. Furthermore, the widget:
The value of internal link modulesWhen your goal is new customer acquisition, a link module is invaluable. To illustrate, have you ever heard of palazzo pants? ![]() At the time, until I Googled it, I hadn’t either. They’re a style of women’s wide-legged pants that are typically only seasonally relevant to the search channel. According to Semrush, at upwards of 40,000 searches per month, it’s also a pretty competitive search term. ![]() A solution for most enterprise ecommerce brands is to have a small amount of content on the page to try to capture rankings and clicks for this term. But, if you can bolster your page with an internal link module (“Popular Searches” below) that contains other useful internal site links, you’ll be ahead of the competition. ![]() The one-two punch is that in addition to the optimized, on-page copy, a link module can contain seasonally relevant search terms as anchor text and related internal links. It’s dynamically designed to be as relevant as possible. How to spot a link moduleInternal link modules are typically located in the middle or bottom of a webpage. You’ll recognize the customer-facing solution (below) since it appears to be a grouping or overview of relevant topics on the site. ![]() Once you know what to look for, you can spot a link module almost anywhere. A word on customizationMost vendor solutions allow you to customize their link module product on your website to match your brand guidelines. Alternatively, in-house designers and UX teams should be involved in building a proprietary internal link module. These teams are more familiar with your customer and, therefore, able to reflect their needs and interests in the design and UX of the module itself. That is, if you can get on their design roadmap. The different types of link modulesNow put on your 3D goggles because we’re going to look at the links themselves. If we peel back the visual part of the internal link module that a user sees on the page, there is an invisible distinction between the types of link modules at play. The differentiation is mainly visible to search engines since it pertains to the type of links involved. The two types I’m referring to in this article are:
Related internal links are relevant to the page they are on and point to other pages that are relevant to that page in some way (like the palazzo pants example). Management of internal link equity is about being intentional in directing the page authority through internal links. This means that the link on the page may or may not be directly relevant to that page, but it’s there because its goal is to pass that page’s authority on to other parts of the site. The first type deals with relevance, the latter with managing page authority. Both have different impacts. The first can impact conversions more since you’re ostensibly leading the user to a useful, related page. The latter can impact page indexation and long-tail rankings. This segues into what type(s) of data are needed to feed different types of internal linking modules. What data is neededMuch like the output of a good recipe is predicated on using the best ingredients, one of the critical components of a useful link module is the data input. The types of in-house data that can power a link module is, to a degree, anything you can get your hands on. It can be anything from on-site search queries to an API intake of the company’s Google Ads account. Based on what’s at your disposal to pull in, the ultimate goal is this: The information should be useful to both humans and search engines. Ideally, your in-house data will be better than what a third-party tool can provide. I say this because, hopefully, you have access to your proprietary data as an in-house SEO. However, it’s not uncommon that the data is noisy, unreliable or the mapping is incomplete, which can constitute needing to leverage a vendor solution. On the vendor side, enterprise tools typically either have their own database of keywords and therefore bring things like search volume data to the table (of course, they prefer to use search terms important to your business). Alternatively, they’ll want to tie into your Google Search Console data. If you need to outsource the data inputs be prepared to pay for maintaining those inputs on an ongoing basis. This is why vendor solutions can often become more expensive over time but it depends upon the conditions in which you find yourself (more on this, too, later). Implementation options: Build it or buy itNow that you know what a link module is, where to find it on a page and what kind of data powers it, let’s dive into the high level of what’s involved with launching this feature: building vs. buying. Scenario 1: Build itFor context, below is an overview of the project I worked on when building a link module.
When I came on board, the solution for related internal linking had already been architected by the current SEO Product Lead. I want to underscore that it took him, mostly by himself, the better part of 2 years just to put into place a strategy, resources and data sources for facilitating this type of feature that operated (for the most part) autonomously. My role was to help drive the project toward a fully automated, in-house solution. This took a lot of cross-functional coordination and planning. The hard work is in setting up the intricate processes, product feature documentation and regression tests so that each job runs consistently and seamlessly. There’s a process for internal business teams and stakeholders to be able to adjust or override the link module as needed. Keep in mind, done well, this type of coordination can take a few years to accomplish. If you have the right conditions and resources to support this approach, it’s worth it due to several factors. In terms of ROI, there are no external vendor costs. The main (if not only) costs are the internal teams’ hourly wages for building the feature and then maintaining it in terms of initial performance and iterative optimizations. Another positive factor in building internally is the ability to customize the design and directly manage the data inputs for optimal performance. Here, you can:
The drawbacks are:
Scenario 2: Buy itFor context, below is an overview of the project I worked on when implementing a vendor solution.
In this scenario, it was a 6-month scope of work to update the existing on-page feature. The vendor’s link module product had previously been implemented on the site, and there was finally alignment with the budget and contracts to invest in the project again. My second week on the job was the kick-off call for this project. You can imagine my gratitude for leveraging a vendor that had previously provided this solution and our agency resources. For context, this link module was designed to manage internal link equity. So the biggest benefit was speed to market since we were leveraging their proprietary algorithm that “boosted” or “dampened” internal pages based on our business feedback. The remaining ingredient was identifying the URLs we, as the business, wanted to give more link equity to/from. However, I quickly learned that this was not a simple refresh but a complete revamp. It had been several years since the widget was updated. During that period, the website migrated to a new platform, shed some product lines and acquired new ones. On top of that, it was right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, so we won’t be able to compare pre/post-performance data accurately. While I’m proud to say the engineering team was able to launch the first feature implementation on the site, I learned a lot from this process. Observations A few helpful tips if you’re considering installing a vendor solution:
ResultsOscar Wilde said, “Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.” By this point, I’m sure you can appreciate the caveats and complexities of implementing a link module, as the conditions are different for every business. With that, it’s time for some pros and cons, which should be weighed against your own set of conditions, goals and resources. Building it internallyA proprietary, automated link module that leverages related internal links can deliver ROI year after year. To an enterprise brand with ~3 million URLs and an average of 300,000 organic sessions per week for the linked pages, this correlated to sales and sessions on an annualized basis of tens of millions of dollars (based on an analysis in 2019). It also has value to customers in terms of product discovery. The link module is helpful to shoppers who don’t immediately find exactly what they’re looking for on a particular page. For example, on a broad category page like “dresses,” the widget might include links to variations like wedding gowns, summer dresses, or lace dresses. The customer can click these links to find more pages highly relevant to her search for that perfect dress. The potential drawbacks are the necessary conditions of needing an in-house team with sufficient budget and time to bring a feature of this size and value to fruition. Buying it from a vendorConversely, if your scenario is such that you have a small SEO team or don’t have sufficient in-house data to power a link module of any kind, a vendor solution might be best for you. One drawback is the need to build into your budget and plan ahead a few years for timely upkeep and maintenance. In terms of measuring the impact of the vendor solution for this internal link equity module, the overall results were positive yet not as impressive as we would have liked due to a few internal and external factors. As previously mentioned, the migration, the removal of a significant number of pages, and the addition of new pages largely meant the internal link module update set a new baseline. This was a core project, but it wasn’t enough to provide the impact we hoped for as a stand-alone initiative. It underscores that to drive real and sustainable growth, other factors like creating unique content and improving the user experience should also be addressed. The link module was just a stepping stone without unique E-A-T content to capture non-brand searches. Conceptually, it’s similar to changing out parts of a race car. The goal is to improve overall performance. But, if sequentially, you’re only able to replace just the engine and the hoses with new clean parts that will only address part of the entire system that powers the race car. Other equally important parts of the car also need updating – tires, steering wheel, brakes, the data system and transponder, suspension – all parts functioning at their best keep the car performing at a high level. Back to us tuning up our website, in addition to a platform migration, there were changes in the amount and type of URLs. There was also external volatility as Google publicly acknowledged various algorithm updates. ![]() Deploying a link module is a point-in-time optimization. Subsequently, there was a noticeable +12% increase in sessions in the 30 days following the launch. The impact provides a continuous benefit given that it’s now better optimized overall. As such, there were a few promising trends in the following 16 months, from April 2021–July 2022. All things being equal – where the module was live on the pages of the site and such pages were indexed – the observed positive correlations include:
Furthermore, the pages where link equity was directed continue to show improved performance. What’s also promising is that the new pages added (page type C) were the third highest group that improved in terms of clicks which illustrates that internal links can positively impact long-tail queries and their pages.
In retrospect, for this domain, revamping the internal linking architecture was needed. But in isolation, it could only do so much. To drive real, sustainable growth, all aspects of SEO, from content to technical to user experience, needed to be firing on all cylinders to drive optimal performance. Ask yourself: What are my current conditions?Given all of this input, you’ve probably come to understand there are a fair amount of tradeoffs whether you build or buy this type of solution. It’s worth evaluating your scenario to determine which approach is best. Ask yourself:
Key takeawaysBoth paths require ongoing investment. The question to ask is, “when and how much?” Then, “what resources and support do we have?” The benefit of building a link module is that the initial investment costs are primarily upfront so that by Year 5, the ongoing cost to the business (outside of FTE headcount) pertains to maintenance and optimization. The “buy” solution can deliver more immediate incremental revenue but without internal support, it will need a future investment to update the module to keep it running at its optimal level. When evaluating which approach is best for your business, a visual matrix helps illustrate the level of effort and investment involved. While writing and researching this article, I learned of a third option. If you have the means for a hybrid solution, it could be best to contract a vendor to guide and advise your internal engineering and product teams on building your in-house solution. #nextlevelSEO ![]() Additionally, a cost-benefit analysis between the two offers a perspective of the tradeoffs involved and associated costs against your conditions and resources. Below is a rough, back-of-the-napkin outline designed to get your wheels turning.
Practical note: Over the course of four years, the costs of maintenance for a vendor approach over Years 2 and 3 should be compared to the estimated internal hours of a given SEO team maintaining this internally. In theory, this could tip the scale in favor of a “build it” solution when looking at the costs of both solutions over 3+ years. Final thoughtsSo, the CliffsNotes version is this: if you’re going to play with link flow or crafting equity, prepare for inherent complexities. When I began writing this article I thought the best path was to build a proprietary link module, if time/resources/technology etc. allows because, ultimately, you as the SEO Product Manager will be at the helm dialing in the specifications of how the feature works and performs. I still think that’s true but, it’s myopic to think that solution works for everyone. The same solution might not be right for another in-house team with a different set of conditions. The fundamentals are still true here: SEO is a long game, it requires investment just like any acquisition channel does in order to grow, and it’s interconnected to the online experience as a whole. In addition to improving one aspect (like internal linking) compounding results are driven by an ongoing, collective set of improvements made to other aspects of the site like content, UX, page speed, etc. That said, if you can leverage a vendor to guide your internal teams in the building process, that just might be the proverbial golden ticket. Dedication Sharing inconclusive results about our work is not always easy. I’d like to dedicate this article to the late Bill Slawski, the “Dean of SEO” as he was recently called by his fellow colleagues who I feel share the same respect for wanting to honor his memory. Special thanks to Jacqueline Urick and David Graveline for their contributions to this article. The post Implementing an internal linking module: Should you build it or buy it? appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/internal-linking-module-build-vs-buy-387460 Brad Geddes is no stranger to paid search. And as one of the co-founders of Adalysis, he’s done his fair share of audits. In this SMX Advanced 2022 session, he provides a framework for how to audit your own accounts, or perform audits for client proposals. Let’s dive in. Why perform an audit. There are a few reasons why you’d perform a Google Ads audit:
Asking the right questions. When you’re performing an account audit there are several pieces of information you need to know. Geddes addresses some of the questions you need to ask yourself or the client.
Diving into the account. The audit.The account overviewOne of the first things you should look at is the scope. How big is the account? Is it two campaigns or 30? What is the ad spend? Are there search and display campaigns, or just search? The second thing you want to look at is the sophistication level of the account. Is the account manager new? Will you have to educate that person? If they are a professional then you can address them in a different way than if they’d only been working in Google Ads for a few months. Next, what are you not seeing? What is not being tracked or only used in certain campaigns? Geddes says that the most common conversions not being tracked are phone calls, downloads, and mailto links. Geddes suggests using Google’s conversion action sets and adding different conversions together and applying different activities to different campaigns. This way you can use interaction goals for top of funnel and CPA goals for bottom of funnel. Account settingsOnce you’re happy with the conversions or know what needs to be fixed, Geddes suggests looking at campaign settings. What you’re looking for is consistency in the setup process. Some things to look for are:
Who is managing the accountIs someone actively managing the account? Geddes brings up the point that sometimes an account is spending millions of dollars per month and if it has five changes over the last 30 days, it’s likely that nobody is managing it. Other times it may have a huge number of changes but it’s all done by API, meaning that nobody is overlooking the data. And other times someone is really into the account, actively managing it and you’ll see a ton of changes and what is being worked on. This should give you an idea of how active the management is and what is being used to make changes. Is it API, third-party scripts, a human, or something else? TrendsOnce you have the base level audit complete, Geddes suggests looking at trends. Instead of looking at month-to-month trends, look at year over year. Consider how last March did compared to this year instead of looking at February vs. March. Ask the client if they can provide a few time frames when they were happy with the account for reference. This way you can look at date ranges, compare the visual data, and analyze whether search volume has dropped significantly. If search volume dropped, did someone remove keywords? Is impression share going up? Quality score issues could also be present as well as problems with extensions. Was a new landing page launched? Knowing these factors can help you chase down what happened and isolate areas of change. Looking at the big pictureGeddes makes the point that in a traditional audit, you don’t have time to look at every detail. Instead, you look into what the problem areas are. Impression shareHow often are those ads showing or not showing? Are you losing impression share due to budget? How about ad ranks? If impression share is high and the client still isn’t happy, can you add new targeting with some different display or keywords? If the issue is budget, can you manipulate the budget to get more? If you took the budget from another campaign, would you get more? Budget manipulation is likely the easiest way to gain additional conversions, says Geddes. Is it an ad rank issue? If so, then you’ll want to dig into Quality Score. Is it ad relevance? Is it a landing page issue?Does the landing page match the keywords in the account? Did they launch a new website or page that caused the experience to be affected? Look at the trends and timeframes of when things changed. Have a conversation with the client and find out what happened. KeywordsWhat keywords is the client using? What does their targeting look like? Look at their match type usage and trends. What is their conversion rate by match type? Do they have a lot of broad match keywords with conversions, but no exact match? Is anyone going through the query report and adding those keywords to the account? Duplicate search terms also occur. So Geddes suggests adding a negative keyword to the lower performing ad group can often result in an increase in conversions. Controlled duplicates can often result in additional conversions. Keyword conflicts can also occur if you are blocking your own keywords. However, he points out that Google doesn’t look at match types, campaign negative lists, or MCC negative lists, so you could be blocking keywords that don’t even show up in Google. Geddes points out that Microsoft does, so you can use that to find Google conflicts. Geddes also goes over engrams, more with negative keyword lists, search term reports and queries, and more. Ad group sizesGeddes uses a simple pivot table to look at ad group sizes. How many keywords are by ad group and how many search terms exist by ad group? How are the ad groups being managed? Do the ad groups need to be broken down smaller? Consider the top spending ad groups first. Is there is a large number of them? RSAs don’t cover everything, so Geddes suggests still using granular ad group organization – even with the new ad formats. RSA performance and pinningWhen you get an idea of how that client is managing RSAs, we want to know what’s their overall asset breakdown. What is your overall pinning usage? Are they pinning everything a little bit? Nothing pinned? What’s your ad strengths? And then finally, what’s that asset performance breakdown? So you want that high level of? Are these RSAs unique and are they doing well? How is the client thinking about it? Looking at the overall asset report you can determine how many different ads an asset is in. Is it on purpose? Did multiple people create the pins? Are they consistent? Geddes reminds us that pinning doesn’t conversion rate or CTR. You’ll likely see a lower ad strength because you’re controlling the message. But once you have an idea of how ad groups are broken down and how they are doing, you also need to know who you should be paying attention to. The competitor analysisAuction insight shows you who you’re competing against. What’s that overlap rate? How are different people addressing these search terms? Do we fit the same? Do all the ads look the same? How do we stand out in this crowd? Who are your top competitors? And then looking at how their ads are selling against you, you can devise your own sell against strategy. Once you do that, you can still do ad testing just like you could before. You may have some ad groups with multiple ad types, and some ad groups that are just all RSAs. So when you’re doing RSA ad testing, you may do them by theme, like RSA one is about discounts, RSA two is about prices, etc.. Geddes notes that clients love insights. Multi ad-group testing is a great way to let clients know that they can increase clicks, conversions, or other metrics by doing X. Bid methodsGeddes concludes by saying that there is a lot more that can be done than what he’s discussed here, but you only have so much time to complete the audit. The big methods to look into are:
AudiencesHow are audiences being used across the account? Geddes says that audiences are are so useful and so much reporting and audience bid adjustments can be used with several types of automated bidding. Google doesn’t use audience modifiers to change the bids.They use the audience modifiers to say “you want to show your ads more to this audience group, or less to this audience group.” So use your bid modifier in an ad serving way. But if someone has zero audiences or they have zero search audiences, or maybe they have some display ones for remarketing. But that’s often a place of improvement in accounts. Dig deep into audiences and the ways you can create custom audiences Wrapping upGeddes wraps up discussing ad extensions and closing out the audit. He discusses presenting the audit to the clients, and how some can be 10 pages or even 100 pages. He concludes by reminding us that not every client will read the audit who understands your level of knowledge. They simply want to know what to do. What are the important highlights and recommendations? The post How to audit your Google Ads account like a pro appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/how-to-audit-your-google-ads-account-like-a-pro-387486 My approach to PPC is analytical. I realized early in my career that if I focused on developing my ability to manipulate and interpret performance data, the optimizations become obvious. Leaning into Excel skills can help you become a more efficient worker and improve the quality of your analyses. One of my favorite parts about Excel is that I continuously find ways to be more efficient. Several functions and formulas can help expedite PPC tasks. What follows are seven Excel tips to help you quickly identify high-impact PPC optimizations that will move the needle for your brand or client. Excel 101: Foundational formulasThese are the Excel skills I first introduce to new hires who are expected to take on performance reporting and bulk sheet builds. If you find yourself in a similar role or feel that those tasks are cumbersome, try incorporating the following into your process. Delta![]() Simply put, a delta is a rate of change. For performance marketers, that is half the battle associated with our jobs. We need to have an acute understanding of the changes we see to develop effective optimizations. Notice how large the Click Conversion Delta is in the example calculation above. Nominally, a drop from 5% to 3% could be overlooked. However, using the delta calculation, it becomes clear that click conversion needs to improve, to enhance the campaign CPA. Incremental impact![]() The insights received from the incremental impact calculation will align with the insights from the performance deltas – big deltas will have big incremental impacts. Don’t expect to get any new insights when using these formulas in conjunction. This formula is handy when developing a performance narrative. It helps answer the “so what” question that all stakeholders understand. Incorporate callouts such as “an X% drop in CTR results in Y fewer clicks” or “an X% increase in CPCs drove $Y more spend” to add more color to the narrative. One important caveat is that this formula assumes that all else is constant. As marketers, we know that these metrics are all interconnected. If impressions increase by 50%, CTR will likely decrease. Use deltas first to understand performance changes comprehensively, and only leverage this calculation when it makes logical sense. Concatenate![]() In terms of impact on day-to-day tasks, if CONCATENATE is not a part of your process when creating bulk sheets, this likely will be the most impactful takeaway from this article. This function allows users to combine the contents of multiple cells together in a single text string. Think of it like a glue that can be used to connect cells. The applications of this function are far-reaching. One important note – the function is not limited to cells. Text/characters can be incorporated as fields within the formula using quotation marks around the text. Example 2 illustrates the incorporation of text into a CONCATENATE formula. Excel 201: Preparing datasets for analysisPivot tables are a PPC marketer’s best friend. However, to best leverage pivot tables, you must invest time to ensure the integrity and granularity of the dataset. The following functions/formulas included here are most impactful when preparing a dataset for analysis, but the applications are far-reaching. VLOOKUP![]() Some may argue that this is the most useful function for search marketers, and I would not put up a huge fight. VLOOKUP is a critical function for search marketers to master, as it’s common that datasets need to be augmented or modified with data from other platforms. If “source of truth” reporting sits outside of the PPC platforms, you are likely familiar with the challenges of combining datasets. In addition, VLOOKUP is an easy way to add macro-level filters to a granular dataset. A best practice I recommend is pulling data at the most granular level possible and using VLOOKUP to add filters easily. Start your analysis at higher levels and drill down to the biggest drivers of a change. For example, if stakeholders ask for a breakdown of geographic performance, pull at the city level, build a table associating the cities to states and regions, and add two columns for State and Region to the dataset using VLOOKUP. Transform date to week![]() This IF statement is particularly helpful for PPC because weekly reporting options can be limited when pulling reports directly from the platform. For brands or clients that do not have a traditional Monday to Sunday schedule, pull data at the day/date level. Then add a column to the dataset for Week using this formula. Note that standard settings in Excel indicate 1=Sunday, 7=Saturday. In Example 2, I have used Tuesday as the start of the week. Note that the day of week indicator needs to be updated in both the IF statement logic, as well as the returned value if false. Excel 301: Tools for large-scale datasetsCategorization based on text![]() While it might be complex at first glance, this formula is very practical for search marketers. It allows users to search a cell of text for a particular word or phrase. If the cell meets the criteria, the formula will return text inputted in the ‘text if true’ field. Based on the previous formula we covered, I bet you can guess what happens if it does not match. The formula has many applications within search marketing. However, categorization is rarely binary – meaning you are not categorizing entities into one of 2 options. Example 2 shows how multiple logical tests can be stacked on each other. This is referred to as a nested IF statement. To create a nested IF statement, you repeat the IF statement logic in the ‘text if false’ field with different search criteria. Essentially, this tells Excel to search for the first phrase/text. If it does not find it, search for the second phrase/text. Using nested IF statements, advertisers can quickly categorize data at scale. Joining complex datasets![]() Finally, I want to highlight how the techniques described previously can be leveraged collectively to enhance the quality of analysis. If you’re following the best practice of pulling platform data at the most granular levels, it’s common for data to contain multiple segmentations (a.k.a., attribute columns in the dataset). When combining data between two platforms, the datasets must have the same level of granularity. Otherwise, data that you pull into your original dataset will be inaccurate. To join complex datasets, use CONCATENATE to create an additional column that joins together all segmentations in the original dataset. This should be replicated in the second dataset, using the same order in the concatenation. See Step 1 for an example. The newly formed column now serves as the connector between the two datasets. Using the VLOOKUP function, search for this newly created column in the second dataset and designate which column of data you’d like to append to dataset #1. Double check the VLOOKUP worked correctly by comparing the sum of the newly imported data to the original table it was imported from. Happy number crunching!There’s a lot of information to digest here. Yet, we’ve only scratched the tip of the iceberg here. Don’t give up if you’re struggling with Excel. It takes time to learn the functions and their capabilities. Search for some videos that walk you through live examples – those were particularly effective for me. The post 7 useful Excel formulas and functions for PPC appeared first on Search Engine Land. via Search Engine Land https://searchengineland.com/excel-formulas-functions-ppc-387428 ![]() If you’re a marketing or digital agency, you’ll know that link building is the most important part of search engine optimization (SEO), but it’s also extremely time-consuming. That’s where white label link building comes in. You’ll also know just how time-consuming and resource-intensive it is. Just building a single half-decent link can take hours of phone calls, planning, writing and follow-ups. Unfortunately, your client probably hasn’t asked for just one link. They need tens or even hundreds. If this happens and you don’t have a dedicated in-house team, link building can quickly start to drain your resources. 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April 2023
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