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Are you referring to a CDN?  We use a CDN for our images.  However we are contemplating using the image url from the manufacturers website, instead of downloading and hosting the image on our domain.

We are building several sites for several clients which will be using images from the manufacturer.  Our dev team wants to insert the manufacturer's url for the images, instead of actually downloading the image and hosting on our server.  There are thousands of images, so downloading images to our server will be time consuming, so we are looking for a shortcut.... however I'm concerned this will cause other issues.

Is using manufactueresdomain.com/12345.jpg going to cause SEO issues?  will this generate Google penalties?  Since we are not able to control the image file name, we cannot optimize it.  We will add Alt text and Title tag for each image, but the file name is random characters.  How important is the file name for SEO?

First, yes it's an issue if 80% of the content is duplicate.  Panda will not like this at all.

There are a few strategies that will fix the issue... primarily write new content.  I know its time consuming, but content is king.  Take the old description and reword it, tweek it, change it. ...anything to make it different than last years product content.

You can also iframe the old product description on the new page.  This will prevent Google from indexing the old content on the new page.  But then your new page might have too thin of content...back to the original solution...write more content.

Rand had a video about this issue a few weeks ago.  http://moz.com/blog/handling-duplicate-content-across-large-numbers-of-urls

Hope this helps

866 2 Google

Hi Dave,

Yes you can test conversion tracking...its the first thing I do when launching a new campaign.  You will need to go to Google.com, search for a keyword, click your text ad, and perform an actual conversion on your site.  I recommend performing this test for each individual conversion page on your site. Use a different keyword for each conversion page. This way you can verify each thank you/conversion page has the AdWords conversion tracking code installed correctly.  Wait until tomorrow (There is a 12-24 hour delay in AdWords conversion reporting), and verify AdWords and Analytics are reporting each conversion was tracked.

Hope this helps

Branden

Hey Erik,

You want separate AdWords accounts for separate businesses.  You should keep them separate for a variety of reasons...billing, reporting, conversion rates are different, different goals, etc.  You will need to have 2 separate email addresses for the 2 accounts.  However you can manage both of the accounts inside 1 account called an MCC.  An MCC allows you to have several separate accounts inside 1 master shell.

Hope this helps

Branden

Our site has gone down twice in a week...hosted by Fat Cow. So we're going to switch hosts this week.

We currently have 2 WP sites on a Fat Cow VPS.   8 GB file size and 2 GB data transfer monthly.  We use a CDN and video hosting company (Wistia) so the file sizes are small.  I've contacted several hosts and narrowed it down to WP Engine, Rack Space and A Small Orange.

I care about fast page load time (1 second), 99.999% up-time and great support.  Price is a secondary concern.

I'm leaning towards WP Engine, but wanted to ask Moz community before making a decision.  Any other hosting companies I should call?

Bing Ads (AdCenter) is the only other network that's worthwhile.  People still use Bing and Yahoo for search, so you will get some traffic, and AdCenter network is less competitive than AdWords, so AdCenter CPC is cheaper.

I've tried out a handful of the other search networks besides AdWords and AdCenter and have never had any success.  I've been doing PPC for over a decade and the only networks I spend any money on is AdWords and AdCenter.

ask google adwords this question.  1 866 2 Google

Marin is the best.  I've used Acquisio and WordStream before, and my campaigns perform best when using Marin.  Acquisio has better charts/reporting than Marin, but my campaigns perform best using Marin.  Also use Mongoose if you want to track inbound phone calls back to the keyword searched for.  Mongoose integrates into Marin seamlessly.

Marin Enterprise will cost 3-5% of your spend, which comes with a dedicated Marin rep who will help you with all of Marins features/tools.  If money is an issue, you can use Marin Pro for 1% of spend, but you wont get a dedicated Marin rep.  I started with Enterprise and then switched to Pro after I understood all of Marins tools.

Marins bidding algorithm is awesome.  Marin allows for various keyword attribution, A/B split test for text ads & creative, different bidding based on cpl, cps, roi, margin % etc.  You can also bid different for various conversion types...purchase, lead, facebook like, newsletter signup, phone call, etc.  It also stream lines your work flow which allows me to manage 2X more campaigns.

Do both!!  Send a personalized email and then follow up with a phone call.  Phone calls generate a better response than email, and if the phone call is a few days after the email, its not completely a cold call.

Vista Print and Office Depot don't have Quality Score of 10 for all of their keywords...but I imagine they have QS 7-10 for tons of keywords.  They have a huge budget to test things with, many PPC tools (marin, hubspot, mongoose, analytics, omniture, etc) and a team of PPC managers/designers/programmers who have been optimizing their campaigns for years.  They also have a high CTR because of their brand name recognition, which raises their QS.  However you can compete and win!!  You just need to pick your battles.  What are your advantages over Vista and Office Depot?  Higher quality, faster turnaround, local service?  Focus on the areas you beat the big players.  Do you get a lot of business from local companies?  Create campaigns focused on local geography.  If your business is well known in your hometown, Office Max/Vista print don't have an advantage.

QS is the most important long term metric, which is primarily based on CTR.  Create compelling text ads that get people to click them.  Use as many extensions as you can.... site-link, phone extension, location extension, social extension, etc....these all help increase CTR & QS.  When I am trying to increase QS, I only use exact, phrase & broad modified match type...no broad match type.  This will generate more targeted keyword traffic and increase CTR and conversions.  I also use dynamic keyword insertion, which increases CTR & QS.  Also remember that QS is a long term metric, so if you increase your CTR today, you QS will increase in a few weeks/months.

Chris and Mat gave some good areas to start out with for SEO and social media.  If you are getting into PPC, I recommend starting with Google AdWords certificate...its an online class that reviews many aspects of PPC and is a good starting point for any PPC manager.

On a side note, you mentioned that you are a 1 man band and your asking some really big questions, some dealing with creative writing, some involve mathematical analysis.  In my experience 1 person can't effectively write content, optimize on page seo, build links, manage PPC campaigns and engage in social media conversations.  Nothing against you, but there's just not that many hours in a day for 1 person to do everything.

A good question for you to answer is " whats more important to you, time or money"?  If time is more important, I would consider working with an agency who specializes in SEO, PPC, social media etc. There is a learning curve with online marketing, and a good agency is already over the curve.   If money is more important, you will need to roll up your sleeves and prepare to tackle several major projects. I got thrown into the deep end years ago, and I figured things out, so it can be done, but it took 60+ hours/week.

Hi Meghan,

Broad modified keywords are a new variation of broad match.  They are a hybrid between broad and phrase match types.  Broad modified keywords must use all the keywords.(like phrase) but they allow the keywords to be in any order.   Broad modified keywords main benefit is they will not be triggered by synonyms or keywords the Google/Bing believe are 'relevant".   Synonyms and 'relevant' keywords are what cause trouble for broad match...sometimes they are relevant, but often they are not relevant...broad modified does not have this issue.

To create broad modified keywords you just need to put a "+" in front of each word, and have a match type of broad.   While this can be time consuming to create manually, here is an awesome broad match generator.  http://www.acquisio.com/ppc/google-adwords-modified-broad-match-keyword-tool/

Use Editor... just export to excel ...all of your keywords, campaign, group, match type & dest url.  Make sure your keyword column in Excel is set to "text"...if its set to 'general' it will create problems when you paste '+keyword" back later.  Copy your keyword column, paste into the above Acquisio page, click the 'generate broad match button" , copy the new broad modified keywords and paste them back onto your spreadsheet.  Make sure all keywords have broad match type.  Save excel file and import back into AdWords editor.  You now have all keywords with a broad modified match type.  Should only take 5 minutes.  I would then recommend pausing broad match types...you will begin receiving much more targeted traffic, and will not need to micro manage your negative keywords.

By the way, I offer a free PPC marketing review.  Do you have 30 minutes to chat with me?  I can really help your PPC campaigns.  Private message me if you are interested.

Branden

Competitor campaigns work very well.  Just make sure you are targeting a competitor offering a similar product.

Brian gives good advice...I structure my competitor campaigns similarly..separate campaign...separate groups for each competitor.  Be careful about Dynamic Keyword Insertion....I've used it before in competitor campaigns, and it generated high CTR, but also generated complaints.  I do not use DKI for competitor campaigns any longer.

I found that I can get high CTR if I show why my product is great, not focused on my brand or my competitor.  ie. I will use Coke vs Pepsi in an example.  If I am Pepsi, and I am targeting keyword of "Coke"... My text ads would say thing like, Cold Refreshing Soda, Summer Soda Sale, Refreshing Beverage, #1 Taste Test Winner, Caffeine Free Beverage, etc.  Focus on the product, not the brand.  Why is the customer looking for this product? They are thirsty... show how your product can help the customer...they will click on your ad and buy your product.

My competitor campaigns perform very well...they are a great way to gain market share.

The best way I have found to create negative keywords is by going through the search queries.  I do this every month for my clients.  It takes some time to do this, especially at the beginning, when you don't have a large negative keyword list. But as time goes by you will have developed an extensive negative keyword list.

Set a broad date range, go into an ad group >>>  keyword tab>>  Details drop down >>  select Search terms All.  This will show you every search term that triggered your keyword.  Sort by impressions and start with the most impressions.  If this is a term that you don't want to show your ad for, just check the box and click "add as negative".  This will add this term as a negative exact match for this ad group.  It takes a while to go through all of the search terms, but it will pay off in the long run.  This is also a good way to add keywords.

Another thing that will help you is to stop using broad match for your keywords, ..broad modified, phrase & exact match are the only match types I use for keywords. This will give you much more targeted search queries.

I use Marin for my keyword research.  It combines keyword suggestions and search query reports from both AdWords and AdCenter into 1 tool.

Hi Brett,

EGOL is correct...PPC is really competitive, especially for high volume / expensive products.  John is correct that Re-marketing, PLA and branded keywords are the most profitable.  I also recommend going after competitors names / product name.  PPC is the only way to rank for competitors terms, and since competitors keywords are targeting people looking to buy your type of product, they will convert well.

PPC takes time and money to determine the best keywords for you...it will also take some time/money to establish high Quality Scores, which are essential to the long term success of a PPC campaign.  However I always recommend my clients start with PPC because you can rank at the top of page 1 today; and SEO can take months to get to the top of page 1.  Even when you rank on page 1 organically, having multiple ads in the SERP will increase your overall clicks (1+1=2.25)  i.e. 1 PPC ad + 1 SEO ad = more clicks than  you would achieve with just 1 organic ad.

I also recommend using a high quality PPC manager who has the knowledge, experience and ppc tools to make your ppc campaigns profitable quickly.  There is a learning curve with PPC, as with SEO, or any other marketing niche.  Its better to use a ppc manager who is already over the learning curve. You should also look for a manager that uses Marin Software to manage their campaigns...Marin's bidding algorithm optimizes keyword bids better than any person can.  A person can't optimize millions of keyword bids daily...that's what computers / PPC software is for.

If you would consider working with a PPC manager, please private message me.  I offer a free AdWords review, no strings attached.  To demonstrate my PPC skills, I will give you a handful of actionable ideas that will improve your ppc campaigns.  If you think I am worthy of managing your PPC campaigns, we can start a marketing relationship. If not, you will have a handful of PPC strategies that will improve your campaigns.

Have a great day

Branden

One way to get your new webpage page indexed really quickly is to write a post on your Google+ page with a link to the new page on your website.

yes Devanur is correct, Google will not serve 2 ads for the same keyword in 1 account..  The solution is to create a new AdWords account ...1 AdWords account for each domain.

With 2 accounts , you can have your ads appear in position 1 & 2, and yes you will be competing against yourself.  This is a really aggressive tactic, but it can be successful.  Just be aware that you can drive up your own costs.  Make sure to look at both your bids and Quality Scores.  The keyword with a higher quality score should have a bid that generates position 1.5.  The keywords with a lower quality score should have a bid that generates position 2.5.  If you closely monitor your bids & positions, you can be successful.

Adam has provided good advice already, but here's a few things that jumped out to me.

You mentioned that you have 4 few campaigns that target both Search & Display.... which is a major red flag.  Search and Display are very different and should always be separate campaigns.  They have very different Click thru rates, conversion rates and CPC, so they should always be separate campaigns.

You really need to focus on Quality Score & Click thru Rate...Quality Score is Google's primary metric to determine CPC and position.  Quality Score of 7-10 will lower your CPC and move you into a higher position.  Quality Score of 1-4 will increase your CPC and lower your position.  Quality Score is a metric for Search Campaigns that is primarily based on CTR..its a long term average, so if you improve your CTR today, your quality score will slowly increase over the following weeks/months.

You mentioned 8 clicks from 3712 clicks = 0.2% CTR.  This is OK for Display, but if this metric includes search, this is a red flag.  To achieve a high Quality Score you will need a CTR of 5-25%.  Less than a 1% CTR will lower your Quality Score.

There are a few ways to improve CTR & Quality Score... create better text ads, use extensions, create negative keywords, use dynamic keyword insertion & stop using broad match type.

Use Dynamic Keyword Insertion in your headline.. {KeyWord:Credit Card Processor}.  This code will make your headline appear as whatever keyword the person searched for.  This will make the visitor think that you have exactly what they are searching for...increasing your CTR.

Use all site link extensions..this will make you are appear larger and make it stand out...site link extensions ( use 6 or 8).  Phone extensions, location extensions, social extension,etc.  The more extensions the better.

Stop using broad match, especially when you are trying to improve your campaign metrics...broad modified, phrase & exact match are all I use, which deliver more targeted traffic, higher CTR, higher conversion rate, etc.

Also make sure your average position is above 2.7.  At the beginning you will need to bid higher to achieve this. I know this takes a healthy budget, but this is a long term game, and will pay off down the road.  If you ads appear on top (position 1-3), you will have a higher CTR and your Quality Score will improve, which in the long run will lower your CPC.  If you ads appear on the right side (position 4-10), your CTR and Quality Score will drop, which will increase your CPC.

I would also recommend running separate campaigns for each country.  In Editor, you can just copy/paste your current campaign into your new campaign..groups, keywords text ads, etc.  Then just change targeted geography.  This is a quick fix. and will give you the ability to change budgets & bids per country.  You will then be able to determine which countries perform better/worse for you.

I hope these ideas make sense...I know its a lot to take in at once.  By the way, have you ever considered working with a PPC Agency?  I own an Advertising Agency that specializes in PPC with a decade of experience managing over $30 million spend in AdWords.  I offer a free PPC campaign review, where we'll review your current campaigns, and I will provide several in depth action plans to improve your PPC campaigns.  Is this something you are open to?  Usually take 30-45 minutes, and has no strings attached. Private message me if you are interested

Hope this helps...Have a great day

Branden

You cannot target campaigns by device type any longer.  You have already done it as best you can.  Set mobile bid adjustment to +300% and set keyword bids low.  This is the best way to do it so far...until Google improves this aspect of 'enhanced' campaigns.  You can then create ads that target mobile, and point traffic to the mobile url.  Just make sure not to set destination urls at the keyword level, since keyword urls trump text ad urls.

Something you might want to consider, is to redesign the website to use 'responsive design'.  This will allow all of your traffic to go to 1 domain, instead of having a subdomain for mobile.  I know this is a major overhaul, but a much better long term solution.

Start by no index you tags and categories.  This will reduce your links and duplicate content penalties.

You should also look at reducing any random tags and categories.  Make sure they are all highly relevant to the article.  The more links you have, the less juice each link passes

I use Marin also.  You can setup sub MCCs for various access...Marin, Adobe, HubSpot, etc. I have run into a few issues doing this, as AdWords has limits on how many managers can be linked thru an MCC.  Or you can also create individual email accounts for each account, and grant Marin access to each account individually.

yes no-index all ppc landing pages, so they wont impact your seo.

You should keep meta title relevant to the ad group/keywords, as this will slightly impact your quality score.  However remember that quality score is primarily based on click thru rate...very little of your quality score comes from text ads or landing page relevancy.  My AdWords rep told me that if I have the keyword in the text ad, meta title, and a few times in the page content, you are good.  After this, just focus on click thru rate.

tags default setting is 'follow".  You need to change to no-follow.

Its standard practice to set tags to no-follow.  Search Moz for 'should I no-follow my tags"?  you will find a bunch of answers to this question.

Use no-follow for tags, category tags, portfolio tags, etc.  This will cut your links dramatically , and will also remove duplicate content.

Quality Score is primarily related to Click thru rate.   text ad and landing page relevancy is a very small part of quality score.  Focus on CTR.....3% is OK, but  5% - 40% is where you really want to be.

Make sure you are also using all 3 extensions. phone, location & site-link extensions.  These will increase CTR.

Also use Dynamic keyword insertion...mainly in headline.  Also use punctuation at the end of line 1 description, because this will cause description to be included after headline.

Are you using broad match type?  I highly suggest not using broad match type in adcenter.  I stopped using broad match type in all of my clients account a year ago and have seen quality scores increase dramatically....my lowest scores are 7...mostly 8-10.  I just use broad modified, phrase & exact.  AdCenter has a horrible keyword matching algorithm, and will match search queries that are not really relevant to your keyword.  Look at your search query report and build out a robust negative keyword list.  Make sure to import/export negative keywords from adwords to adcetner and vice versa.

The realization that you are being tracked on the internet doesn't sit well with some people.   I personally am OK with re-marketing because I am served banner ads related to the products I have already been looking at, so my perspective is that I receive a web experience that is closely aligned with my tastes.  However I believe that most people are not aware of what is going on.  Remember this is probably a conversation that most people have never had before, and they are not aware of how Google works.

You do however have a few options to stop re-marketing.... just clear your cookies.  This will remove all re-marketing cookies from your machine.  You will still continue to see banner ads, they just wont be related to the websites you have previously visited.  You can also surf the web 'incognito', which does not allow tracking cookies.

I do however recommend setting max impression per day for your re-marketing campaigns.  7-9 impressions per campaign per day is a good range.

Mike gave a ton of links to re-marketing info, so I'll just throw in my 2 cents...REMARKETING ROCKS!!!

It allows your ads to follow potential customers around the web for the next 30 days....at a significant discount to search CPC.  I suggest setting up re marketing campaigns specific to each product.  So If a visitor was on Product A's web page, you should have a re-marketing group for Product A, with a banner/text ad promoting product A, pointing to products A's page on your website.

setup an A/B test......measure results ...then pick a winning strategy for your product.

I have clients that perform better pointing traffic to a relevant page on their website (usually products with longer buying cycles).

And I have other clients that perform best pointing traffic to a landing page with no other click options...all clicks lead down the conversion path.  These are usually impulse buys, "free trial" signups, low cost products, etc.

The real question is , what works best for your product/company.  Setup an A/B test..measure results ...then pick a winning strategy for you

Here is a good list of directories ...but the link is currently broken...probably from the transition to moz.com.

http://www.seomoz.org/directories

I also recommend finding the top ranked directories within your niche...and top directories for your location, if local rankings are important.

Interesting...I deactivated Platinum SEO plugin and the blog page title changed to "homepage title | Blog page title"

I then reactivated the Platinum SEO plugin and the blog title went to 'homepage title"

Any solutions? ideas?   What SEO plugin did you switch to?

Hey David,

I am using Platinum SEO plugin.

the url of the page in question is www.jkradvertising.com/blog

I have an issue with a few page titles not matching the title I have In WordPress.  I have 2 pages, blog & creative gallery, that show the homepage title, which is causing duplicate title errors.  This has been going on for 5 weeks, so its not an a crawl issue.  Any ideas what could cause this?

To clarify, I have the page title set in WP, and I checked "Disable PSP title format on this page/post:"...but this page is still showing the homepage title.  Is there an additional title setting for a page in WP?

There is definitely something going on. AdWords & Analytics numbers are usually off by a few %, but not 95%.  My guess is that you are missing data from Analytics, since its numbers are much lower than AdWords.

did you enable auto tagging in AdWords?  Is your Analytics code on all of the pages in the funnel?  are your Analytics conversion goals setup?  Are you seeing a discrepancy in your adwords search campaigns? ...is this problem isolated to your PLA campaign?

Are you an affiliate of franchise?  Are you actually selling the TM product? If yes, you can apply for approval for the TM term. https://services.google.com/inquiry/aw_tmauth?utm_source=policyhc&utm_medium=contact_tmauth&utm_campaign=6118

If the TM owner will not let you use the term, then you cannot use it in your ad... but you might be able to bid on the keyword.  If there are other companies using the term in their text ads, they have either received approval, or their ads are very old and were approved prior to Google enforcing the TM restrictions.  You could report them, but that's you call.

Look for high quality directories specific to your clients industry.

Hi Meghan,

If you want to change bidding by location, you will first need to add lots of cities to your campaign.  Then let the campaign run for a while, so you can accumulate data for each city.  Once you have clicks & conversions for several cities, you will be able to make decisions about conversion rates for each city.  Does this make sense?

After time goes by and you have enough data, just click on the campaign >>  settings>>>  locations.  Do you see the column 'bid adjustment"?  This is where you +/- bids for that location.

Branden

If you want to keep things simple, just go into settings and add more countries to your targeted locations.  However if you want to be able to control separated budgets & bids for each country, I recommenced that you have separate campaigns for each country.  Just create a new campaign, copy/paste your current keywords & text ads into the new campaign.  This will allow you to have separate budgets & bids for each country, which should result in better performing campaigns.   I also recommend that you exclude countries that you are not targeting (both the high risk countries you mentioned, and other countries that you do not want to target).

If you want to make your campaign perform even better, I recommend that you take advantage of the enhanced campaigns 'bidding by location'.  This will allow you to +/- bids based on location.  For example if you have a higher conversion in 1 city, you will want to increase keyword bids in that city.  To be able to achieve this, you need to be targeting lots of cities, not just the entire country.  It will take some time to add all of the major cities in a country, but this will allow you to +/- bids for each city, which is a major improvement.

There are several ways to increase your keywords.

1. keyword spy will show cometitors keywords.

2. AdWords keyword generator can scrape your competitors website.

3. You can also look at your Search Query reports to see what actucal searches triggered your keywords.  I recommend doing this every month, so you can grow your campaigns.

There is no relationship between AdWords and organic.  I've spent over $30MM in AdWords, and have several relationships with dedicated AdWords reps, and have never been able to get anything special from the organic team  (I've tried several times, with 0 success).  I could not even get the organic side to expedite a reconsideration request.

Yes its ethical...and highly effective.

you just need to use punctuation at the end of line 1 description.

look at your example...there is a period (.) at the end of the long headline.

I use accelerated ad serving for all clients campaigns.  It's the only way to get 100% impression share.  For example, a campaign set to standard ad serving, with a daily budget of $240, will stop serving ads when you spend $10 in an hour.  $240 daily budget is really $10 hour.

I have recently been using social extension for my clients Adwords campaigns. I havn't noticed an increase in CTR, but my clients have been receiving more google plus 1s, which will help with the new Google Map results.

I run PPC campaigns on both platforms.  Bing's CPC is cheaper than Google, and will result in lower CPA / CPL.  However Bing/Yahoo only have 20% of the volume that Google generates.  I recommend just taking your AdWords account and upload it to Bing.  Same campaigns, ad groups & keywords.  The only thing you will need to change is the text ads...different structures between the platforms.  Other wise its definitely worth it.  Bing is less competitive and produces cheaper leads & sales.

congrats, you did it correctly

Here's an good article on anchor text & over optimization.  ... exact match vs partial match.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/beyond-exact-match-anchor-text-to-next-generation-link-signals-whiteboard-friday

I have a client that has been penalized for over optimization.  We've been focused on partial match links for a while.  We've even used a few links that were the actual url, and 'click here'.  Anything that makes your link profile look natural.

From what my dedicated AdWords rep tells me, Quality Score is PRIMARILY based on CTR...however there is a small weight to text ad and landing page relevancy.  My rep has told me that if my landing page meta title, H1 & content use the keyword, then the landing page will have a good relevancy rating....beyond this, don't worry about it.

I've asked him several questions about improving On Page SEO items to improve my Quality Score.  He told me to focus on CTR, since this is primarily what determines Quality Score.

I recommend optimizing your text ads to increase CTR, which will result in a high Quality Score....use the keyword in your text ad headline, line 1 or 2 ad copy, and the display url.  I also recommend using dynamic keyword insertion...preferably in headline.

Also go through your search query reports, identify keywords that generated lots impressions & low clicks, and add these keywords as a negative keywords.  This will increase CTR & Quality Score...especially for your broad match keywords.

You can even go a step further in your campaigns to ensure high quality score... Stop using broad match...just use exact, phrase, & broad modified match type for every keyword.

Also remember that Quality Score is a long term metric, Google is looking at the CTR for the week, month & year...so don't expect changes you make today to impact your Quality Score tomorrow.