This month, I was profiled in Sage Pay’s Moving Money magazine, which is quite exciting in itself. But in addition to interviewing me they also sent a Photographer; Will Amlot to do the photography to go with the profile. To be honest, I thought this would be a guy with his camera just quickly snapping a few photos, boy was I wrong, Will and his assistant rocked up with two crates of photography equipment and rigged up in the communal area of our offices. I must admit I quite enjoyed the photo session, and I loved the “oh so forgiving” camera lenses even more. Will was fabulous and made me feel quite at ease. In addition to all the photographs he also did this video interview with me; about setting up my own business and general chat about the search industry. As usual it didn’t take me long to get me ranting about Search and business.
So for anyone that is remotely intrested in my ramblings, here’s the video:
Posted
on February 8, 2010, 1:18 pm,
by Lisa Myers,
under Lisa Myers.
A quick post to welcome our new Verve Search employee; Freya Jones. Freya has been working in Search for 2 years, mostly within Pay Per Click adverising. At Verve Search she will be doing both PPC and SEO and of course also some Social Media. When I interviewed Freya it was clear from the start that she was going to fit in well with the Verve Search team. She has bundles of passion and drive and most importantly; she’s excited about search. In fact, she wrote her first “paper” on Search Engines when she was only 10 years old, how cool is that??!
So from everyone at Verve Search; Welcome Freya, let’s kick some traffic butt!
We are turning 1 year on the 28th January, and to celebrate we are giving away 2 places to ourSEO Training Course. Worth £499 per place!
Interested in the chance of WINNING a place at the SEO Training Course on the 28th Jan, 2010? ALL you need to do is FOLLOW us on Twitter AND retweet the following:
RT @VerveSearch We are giving away 2 places to a 1 Day SEO Training Course on the 28th Jan, to enter visit http://is.gd/644WV
We will pick 2 winners on Friday (15th January) and contact you via DM on twitter.
NB! The place is not transferable and you must be available on the 28th January 2010. The prize does not include transport to the Verve Search offices, which is in Kingston Upon Thames (20 min from Waterloo station, London)
Are you running your own PPC campaign? Has Google told you it’s as easy as 1 2 3? Even gave you £50 to start spending?
I’m shocked at how many advertisers take the bait, it really isn’t as easy as 1 2 3. I’m not saying PPC advertising is ‘rocket science’, but what I AM saying is that Google makes it look too easy. I believe businesses are wasting bucket loads of cash on Google AdWords for traffic that is NOT relevant.
The misconception that Google AdWords is still based on an auction model is blinding people. You might think when bidding for the keyword “office furniture” your ad will only show up when someone types this keyword? WRONG. The default setting within your AdWords account can also make your ad appear when someone searches for: “office design”, “cheap furniture”, “office furniture designers”, possibly even appearing for “Ricky Gervais” due to association.
Google AdWords have advanced settings to determine how accurate the connection is between; what you are bidding for and the key phrase the searcher uses, called “keyword match types”. A keyword match type is the rules the search engines use for controlling when and which ads are displayed, dependent on the search query entered by the user. The most common match types are: broad match, phrase match, exact match and negative match. The default match type is broad match.
Having all your keywords default to Broad Match means your ad can be displayed for keywords/phrases in any order or combination, with additional words. In fact, it can even be just one of the words you are bidding for and another word that is Google “associates” with the keyword you are bidding for. The real issue is the association Google makes with words, I have seen ads displayed for “Mac Air” when searching for “flights” as the words “flights” and “air” are associated. You could argue that if someone searches for “Ricky Gervais” it’s unlikely that they will click on an ad that mentions “Office Furniture” but would you like to bet money on it? That is what you are doing.
I’m not saying that “broad match” shouldn’t be used as a match type, but you should be aware of the consequences. And if doing so you should be monitoring carefully using the “Search Query Report” within AdWords to see what actual queries your ads show up for. In fact, I urge you to check your Search Query Report, right now! Go to your AdWords campaign => Reporting => Reports =>Create a New Report and then chose “Search Query Performance”. This will give you a list of all the words your ads showed up for in the previous month!
We are back from the A4UExpo and I have stumbled, wearily I hasten to add, into a new term. Step forward “EXPO LAG”, far, far worse than jet lag in my opinion and highly confusing considering the majority of the two days was spent sitting down listening to other people. Very peculiar.
I attribute it to not only the after party that happened on the last day of the expo but the constant churning of ideas circulating in your head about how the information you learnt in the sessions can benefit your clients, your company and also what a squirrel has got to do with the people at Conversion Rate Experts. I should ring the R.S.P.C.A.
I must admit the expo was the best I have attended. I went to the expo as a blogger for Search Cowboys, so without them I wouldnt not have attended, so a massive thank you should rightly go to them and mainly Bas van den Beld. The organisation in particular was spot on; there was plenty of time in between sessions which allowed you to walk to the next room with plenty of time to spare. Not to mention great food and drinks all day.
Before I attended the expo I had reviewed the agenda and pencilled out the sessions I wanted to attend and thankfully managed to attend them all. Not just search related either, as I chucked a couple of curves balls in by attending a few affiliate presentations and sessions on how to improve your conversion rates, an important aspect no matter what sector to operate in. I came away from the conference feeling inspired and wanted to get stuck in to some work as soon as possible, after the obligatory drinks of course :0)
We are back from the A4UExpo and I have stumbled, wearily I hasten to add, into a new term. Step forward “EXPO LAG”, far, far worse than jet lag in my opinion and highly confusing considering the majority of the two days was spent sitting down listening to other people. Very peculiar.
I attribute it to not only the after party that happened on the last day of the expo but the constant churning of ideas circulating in your head about how the information you learnt in the sessions can benefit your clients, your company and also what a squirrel has got to do with the people at Conversion Rate Experts. I should ring the R.S.P.C.A.