Google AdWords Year in Review 2012
For many small businesses, Google AdWords is the biggest single source of website visitors. Although it’s a simple platform, Google relentless improves the features, making it quite a challenge to keep up to date! In case you missed them, here are the main highlights for 2012 January was fairly quite one compared to what came later. Dynamic Search Ads (DSA) rolled out, a lazy AdWords option if ever I saw one! Enable DSA and Google will crawl your website adding dynamic headlines to your ads based on the products it finds, matching those ads with search queries. Perfect for those sites with a large number of products. March saw a big improvement to the targeting options on the Google Display Network. From this point advertisers could bid up or down on individual keywords, bringing the control of search to display In April, AdWords for Video launched, bringing YouTube advertising to the small business owner. All of a sudden a video campaign that reached millions was within the grasp of all. And thanks to Google’s TrueView format, advertisers only get charged if users actually watch the video. The better your ad, the more people want to watch it, and the better it all works. Here’s one of our TrueView ads: Got a mobile app? Want more people to download it? From March, advertisers could promote their app in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) thanks to Mobile App extensions. These are a simple one-line extension beneath your ad which link to your app in the Appstore. A bit like this: Do you run display campaigns using AdWords? These usually take lots of effort, and require you to trawl through thousands of URLs, including or excluding them from your campaigns, based on performance. Thanks to the launch of the Display Campaign Optimizer (DCO) in April, these tasks disappeared, since the DCO takes over the job of monitoring your campaign and focusing it on those placements that are actually working. May saw a major shakeup of keyword matching options. For years ‘exact match’ meant just that – your ad would only show if users searched using your EXACT keywords. But with ‘close variant’ matching Google interprets the matching options more flexibly, meaning advertisers with exact and phrase match keywords are eligible to appear against thousands of new queries with slight variations. A great opportunity for advertisers? Or a great opportunity for Google increase its bottom line? I will leave it up to you to decide… The other exciting update was the addition of the ‘Auction Insights’ report. This lets you know about the other advertisers appearing on the same keyword as you, and how you performed against those advertisers. This is perfect for helping to find out if people have been using your brand name as a keyword in their campaign. Here’s how to find the Auction Insights: June was a busy! For the first time it became possible to use AdWords to advertise within mobile apps, bringing a whole new medium for those businesses looking to promote their own mobile app or site. Google also improved the options for local businesses trying to reach people near to them, with the launch of search ads in Google maps for mobile. For the advanced and technical user Google launched campaign programming with AdWords scripts. These allow you to make changes to an AdWords account by writing simple JavaScript programs. One of the benefits is for those advertisers who have lots of product inventory and some lines that go out of stock. With AdWords scripts it’s possible to use an external inventory counter to pause your keywords – so you’re not promoting a product that you don’t have in stock. We all know that it often takes a TV advert, a conversation with a friend, a bit of online research and perhaps an email before we buy something big. ‘Attribution’ gives marketers insight about all those pre-sales experiences. Thanks to the launch of ‘Search Funnels’ in June, Advertisers can see all the ads and keywords that preceded a sale, even if the customer only saw the ad and didn’t even click on it. Find these in your account under the ‘conversions’ menu: I guess Google spent the summer on the beach, because the next exciting update came in September with the global roll out of enhanced sitelinks. These turn the one-line sitelinks that run beneath your ad into a whole ad on their own – a real boost for CTR and quality score. Here are ours! Do you ever return to your AdWords account after a few days elsewhere to find that one of your campaigns is ‘limited by budget’ whilst others use just a small fraction? This means that you’re not appearing 100% of the time, missing out on potential customers. Thanks to the launch of ‘shared campaign budgets’ this problem goes away, as budget is moved flexibly between campaigns ensuring they’re kept online all the time. If you use Google Analytics (GA) to find out how people use your site, from October it became possible to import GA engagement data right into your AdWords account. This is most useful when measuring display campaigns, which less frequently lead to conversions than their search counterparts. Previously you had to constantly flick between the two platforms, seeing which display placements were bouncing and which were leading to a long onsite time. With all this data sitting right in your AdWords account it’s very easy to pause all of those URLs which are sending you poor traffic. October also saw Google taking its first steps to becoming a bank, with the launch of the AdWords credit. With the continuing difficulty of getting even a small loan from the bank, and cash flow crippling many a small business, this extra flexibility was welcomed by thousands. Advertising has always been about speculating before you accumulate: with AdWords credit you can at least get the cash register ringing before the bailiff is knocking at the door! Having trouble getting
Interview: Fighting Malware with Anirban Banerjee
2012 continues to be a year of great excitement for 123-reg. We are thrilled to announce the release of Site Scanner, powered by Stop the Hacker. For those not in the know, Site Scanner is a SaaS based malware monitoring tool that scrutinises a user’s website, notifying the customer when malicious code/viruses are found via email and in the 123-reg control panel. Furthermore, the software provides the user information on where the damaging code is located (the line of code it starts and ends on) and provides steps on how to eradicate it. Protecting your online business against malicious code couldn’t be more important in 2012. This year has seen the issue of internet security rise to the front pages of the national newspapers. Whilst events such as the Linkedin security breach are unfortunate, they are helpful in educating the market. 123-reg spoke to Anirban Banerjee, Co-Founder of StopTheHacker Inc., in a bid to help inform website owners of the growing threat of malware and detail how purchasing Site Scanner can give you peace of mind. A blacklisted website can have serious implications for any online business in terms of lost revenue, potential customers and credibility. We asked Banerjee about the threats to 123-reg customers who run websites with little or no malware detection service. ‘Malicious hackers are targeting websites in order to compromise them. If your website gets compromised and is misused to distribute malware to innocent visitors, the infected website is put on a blacklist by Google and other search engines.’ The potentially spiralling affects could be disastrous for your online business as Banerjee explains. ‘If your website is blacklisted, users will be blocked from coming to your website. This could lead to a loss of revenue. Moreover, this could result in an irreparable loss to the reputation of your website and business.’ The threat of being blacklisted by Google is one that is not only very real but one that every website owner needs to protect against. Once malware infects a website, it harms both the company and its customers. Website owners typically have no idea they have been infected, and many do believe that anti-virus protection software is enough. However, it is not. ‘9,500 websites get added to the Google blacklist every single day. Given the UK market is quite big; this represents a substantial number of UK businesses. It takes 7-10 days for a blacklisted website to clean up its act, on average, this process can cost thousands of pounds in lost revenue before even considering the potential revenue lost from your brands’ reputation being tarnished.’ Prevention is better than cure, but having said that, Site Scanner also acts as a quick reaction, something users can take heart from. If malicious code is found on the user’s website at any time, they are sent an email detailing exactly where the code is, and just as importantly, how to delete it. ‘Site Scanner incorporates the best of breed technology when it comes to malware detection, Antivirus engines, signature databases and reputation monitoring. It will help 123-reg customers by providing them with peace of mind. Together, we will help fight the battle for them!’ Central to seeking a partnership, 123-reg looked-for a provider with a real passion for the online security industry. What 123-reg customers should also take from the partnership is Banerjee’s passion for helping people secure their websites as well as the quality of product that his company provides. ‘Our goal is to make website security ubiquitous. Having a secure website and not worrying about hackers installing malware on your site and getting blacklisted shouldn’t be a luxury, everyone should have access to a high quality, reliable and accurate malware detection prevention like Site Scanner.’ Releasing a product like Site Scanner highlights 123-reg’s commitment to helping its customers secure their websites. 123-reg is working with everyone involved with Site Scanner to bring website security to millions of users. Remember, you don’t have to be a high traffic website to be targeted. Even if you see yourself as a small site, you are attractive to hackers because your site will have more vulnerable openings for hackers.
Enjoy the next year it ‘Mayan’ be the last
Goodbye. Or at least possibly goodbye in 12 months time. Not that we want to go, but December 21st 2012 is the end of the calendar, there are no more dates beyond this. The ancient Mayan civilization, who once had an empire stretching from Central Mexico to Guatemala, pretty much invented the calendar system – they were a fairly inventive race. Yet, while they built Ancient Wonders of the world and designed an advanced calendaring system way back in the 5 th century B.C. they never thought the world would live much longer than this. You see the calendar they designed ends on December 21st, 2012. Nobody knows why and admittedly it was a very long way away back then, but soothsayers and doomsday merchants are sure to begin making some mischief through it. So if the Mayans were right you have a year to make an impact. What are you going to do in 2012? The term bucket list has become more and more recognised in recent years, meaning a list of things to do before you die. It comes from the term “kicked the bucket” so here are a few ideas from us with a 123-reg slant as to some items to stick on your bucket list: Launch your own blog With 123-reg hosting the world’s favourite blogging tool WordPress comes free as standard included as one of the 123-apps you can install with just a few clicks. If it is to be the last year, a blog is a perfect way to note your thoughts, share your ideas and make new friends. Start a shop With 123-reg ecommerce you get everything you need to build and run an online shop and sell your products effectively – to people all over the world. It is a simple point-and-click-set up, with no technical stuff to worry about so even if you’ve never done anything like it before, you should quickly get to grips with it. Register a witty domain and make the world laugh There really is a world of possibilities from .co.uk to .mx and if you choose a clever domain name, that perhaps uses the domain extension too, you can instantly start attracting some traffic to your site. Grab a personalised email address and make contact with old friends If we only have a year left, then make sure you get in touch with everybody who has ever been important to you. The perfect way is via email and with 123-mail you can get your own personalised email address such as you@yourname.co.uk. Making it the perfect way to make contact after a few years. Design a website Some of you may have done this already, but for those of you who haven’t Sitefusion offers you the perfect way to produce a professional looking site without the need to understand coding. Why not make an impact on your local area and offer to create a site for a local group or charity? Like 123-reg on Facebook and follow us on Twitter and qualify for a range of special offers If it is going to be your last year, you need to enjoy it. Over at the 123-reg Fans Facebook Page there are regular things to keep you entertained as well as offers and competitions for our Facebook fans. So get liking us now. Just like Facebook, over on Twitter @123reg we run regular offers and links to items we hope will interest our customers. Over 6,500 followers can’t be wrong, so come over and join the conversation. Of course we don’t serious expect the world to end in 2012, the Mayan calendar will probably just reset to zero again like a car’s odometer, but the end of a new year and start of another is always a good time to reassess your life and set new goals. So why not create a bucket list, or even just a 2012 list, it might just provide the inspiration you need to make that business breakthrough. Let us know what else you have on your list too.