Legal Search Marketing Blog

Change to Google Adwords URL Policy

From Google Adwords as of 4/01/08



Important Change to URL Policy Enforcement
Starting in April, display URLs for new ads will be required to match their destination / landing page URLs, without exception. Please adjust your URLs accordingly when creating new ads.

Based on feedback from both our advertisers and users, and consistent with our efforts to present relevant results, we'll no longer allow certain exceptions to our display URL policy. These include, but aren't limited to, redirects and vanity URLs. In line with our existing policy, we'll continue to require that your ad's display URL matches its destination URL (the URL of your landing page). This policy will be strictly enforced for new ads, regardless of previous exceptions.

While no immediate action will be taken on existing ads, we encourage you to make the necessary changes to all ads within your account. This will ensure that your ads run without being disrupted by future disapprovals related to this policy enforcement.

For further details visit Google adwords

How To Save a Client $200 on Day 1 and $1000 in Week 1 with Google Adwords

Usually when I take over pay per click accounts, the person is usually overpaying for visitors to their sites.

Ive had many occasions where the person is paying $20 or more to much per click, usually because they set one high amount for their max bid on all keywords.  If you say you will bid a max of $60 per click, there's a good chance you will and that can really add up.

In the case of this client, who is a Boston criminal Dui lawyer, he was paying a high amount per click so that he could be at the top of the sponsored matches. 

$25 A CLICK SAVINGS IN FIRST WEEK, $1000 SAVED

You can see in the chart below that on Feb.12, 2008 he was paying on average $35.83 per click and he was on average in position 1.3. Yet on Feb. 14 the first full day after I took over and made changes, he got the same # of clicks but was only paying $10.69 per click and the only downfall, is he slipped to ad position 2.3, no big deal but what a savings of $25 per click.

Then if you look at the totals for the first week where I took over compared to the first 10 days of February, we got more clicks for over $1,000 less. This is only one campaign of 5, so just a portion of the overall savings.

Looking at the amount spent on 2007 ($45,000+) we would wind up saving the client over $25,000 at least just for this one campaign, and probably wind up getting more clicks.

Part of the reason he is getting more clicks for less is because when you set your bid to high, you might meet your daily budget much quicker, so your ads will be taken down until the next day.   

Here are the stats for the first 7 days of when I took over, the 10 days prior and then the totals for Jan. 2008 and the entire 2007.

DATE RANGE:	CLICKS	IMPRESSIONS	AVG. CPC	TOTAL COST	AVG. POSITION
FEB. 12, 2008	8	864	$35.83	$286.67	1.3
FEB. 13, 2008	2	504	$ 3.27	$ 6.54	1.8
FEB. 14, 2008	8	1609	$10.69	$ 85.49	2.3
FEB. 15, 2008	7	1135	$10.23	$71.59	2.9
FEB. 16, 2008	12	711	$ 8.46	$ 101.51	3.0
FEB. 17, 2008	18	543	$ 7.08	$ 127.44	2.7
FEB. 18, 2008	14	675	$ 8.14	$ 113.91	2.5
TOTALS (2/12 - 2/18/08)	69	6,141	$11.49	$793.15	2.4
TOTALS (2/1 - 2/10/08) PRIOR TO MY DOING THE UPDATES	65	2,926	$28.84	$1,874.37	1.3
TOTALS (1/1 - 1/31/08)	253	11,600	$29.60	$7,489	1.2
TOTALS 2007	1,885	93,634	$24.77	$45,942	1.3

These are some huge savings and it won't always be that much but usually I find that there's always some room for improvement on pay per click campaigns. You really have to pay attention to them and track the progress and it helps to hire someone who does it all the time.

If we can assist your law firm with pay per click marketing, contact us today and we will review your campaigns and help save you money.

We will be helping this client save even more money once we do his organic optimization work. It makes sense to have top 10 rankings for keywords your bidding over $25 per click on! Once that is achieved, then you can reduce the amount spent on pay per click.

Google Adwords Can be Very Expensive

Google adwords is by far the best place to bid on keywords for your legal practice BUT you have to be very careful that you don't overbid.  I have had more then one lawyer who has paid 10 times the amount per click then they had to.

Some people are under the impression that the more you bid, the better your results but thats not true.  You might be guaranteed of a higher placement but in the long run you will waste a lot of money.

Sometimes you have no choice but to bid a high amount if you have a lot of competition and you want to be in the top 3. Yet usually you can get in the top 3 and not pay a premium price.

An example is the term Boston DUI lawyer, if you bid a max CPC of $60, you would probably pay around $20 per click. Now if that same person had lowered the max CPC to $10, then they would only pay around $3-4 per click and still be in the top 3 positions at adwords.  The savings over time can be $1000's of per month and more.

With a savings like that, you could then hire an organic SEO specialist like myself and save even more money in the long run!!

Google Adwords ads appearing on Mobile Devices

Search Ads on Google Mobile Search pages

Your text ads may appear on mobile browsers when users search Google from a mobile phone. When users see these ads, they can click the link to your website. Ad displays with more than 70 characters are adapted so that only the Headline and URL is displayed when the ad appears on a mobile browser. Your website's landing page may also be adapted so that it's better displayed on mobile phones that do not have rich internet browsers, thereby enhancing the overall web experience for you and your potential customers.

How do my search ads appear on mobile devices?

Your text ads may appear on mobile browsers when users search Google from a mobile phone. When users see these ads, they can click the link to your website. Ad displays with more than 70 characters are adapted so that only the Headline and URL is displayed when the ad appears on a mobile browser. Your website's landing page may also be adapted so that it's better displayed on mobile phones that do not have rich internet browsers, thereby enhancing the overall web experience for you and your potential customers.

To see what your landing page looks like on mobile phones, click the 'Preview' link at the bottom of the "Performance Data: Search Ads on Google Mobile Search" page and type in your URL in the blank field. Click 'Go' to finish and see the result.

Your text ads have an opportunity to reach a wider base of potential customers for free. Ads running on Google Mobile Search pages can:

• Provide another way to drive revenue - the mobile version of your text ads offer yet another way to connect your business to customers.
• Read and interpret performance statistics for text ads running on Google Mobile Search pages.
• Reach over 200 million US mobile phone subscribers that are looking to connect with your business while they’re on the go and away from their computers.
• Drive more traffic to your site

You won't be charged for the clicks you receive on these text ads until after November 18th. Running these ads until the end date may give you more performance data, which can in turn give you more insight on whether you want to run search ads on Google Mobile Search pages after November 18th.

Read more at Google

Google Shares More Click Fraud Numbers

Invalid clicks on Google AdWords ads have consistently remained under the 10-percent mark, and are generally in low single-digits, Google revealed. In addition, the amount of invalid clicks that are not proactively detected and are caught by advertisers is less than 0.02 percent, according to Google's Shuman Ghosemajumder.

Google advertisers have been clamoring for a hard number to put on click fraud for years, but Google has been unwilling to share specifics. The company has often said that revealing too much would make it easier for fraudsters to take advantage of the system, which has frustrated advertisers who want to know where their money is going.

This revelation is the latest in a series of moves designed to offer more transparency to advertisers, Ghosemajumder said. Google has come under fire from lawsuits, click fraud reporting firms, and advertisers in recent months, all looking for more granular details on the level of invalid clicks occurring in the AdWords system.

Google is also undertaking several more click fraud-related initiatives in coming months. Among these are IP Filtering capabilities for advertisers, enhanced invalid click reports, educational initiatives, and an improved reporting format. The first three initiatives are expected to roll out this month, while the improved reporting format will come later this year, he said.

SOURCE: Search Engine Watch

New Google Adwords Ad Delivery Options

Google has added a new budget option, so that you can choose to either show your ads evenly over the course of a day, or a new accelerated option, which will show your ads as much as possible, until your daily budget is reached.

This will explain why sometimes your ads wont show up when you do a search. Its either that your budget has been reached, or your ads are just not being shown all the time.

Which ad delivery option is best for my campaign?

When you select a budget for your campaign, you can choose standard or accelerated delivery for your ads. This choice will affect how quickly your ads are shown each day, but in each case your selected budget will apply. To learn more about budgets, click here.

Standard delivery

This option is automatically selected for you, and is best if you want your ads to reach a wide range of users over the course of the day. We'll spread your ad impressions across the day to make sure you don't accrue all of your clicks early on. However, if your budget is set below the system-recommended budget, your ads may not receive all possible impressions.

For example, if you want to spend US$30.00 over 30 days, your daily budget would be US$1.00. With standard delivery, your ads would appear throughout the day, from 12:00 a.m. to 11:59 p.m.. If your system-recommended daily budget is US$3.00, you may receive only one third of all impressions possible during that time.

Accelerated delivery

This option is best if you want to increase the likelihood of spending your full budget each day. We'll display your ads as often as possible until your budget is reached. If your budget is set below the system-recommended budget, your ads may not receive all possible impressions.

For example, you might choose to spend US$30.00 over the next 30 days, with a daily budget of US$1.00. If your system-recommended daily budget is US$3.00, you may receive all possible impressions until your budget is reached. Therefore, you could spend your entire budget between 12:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m.. In this case, your ads wouldn't appear again until 12:00 a.m. the next day.

New! AdWords site demographics

New! AdWords site demographics.
Google now has a way to target specific groups of people to focus your legal adwords campaigns on.  I will test it out and blog about the best ways a law firm can take advantage of this new feature.

From Google Adwords....

Want to reach 18-24 year-olds, or women with children? Site tool demographics match your ad with your audience. Available now for campaigns targeting the United States.

What is demographic site selection?

Demographic site selection is a way to find and run your ads on sites with the right audience for your AdWords campaigns.

A demographic group is an audience that shares a particular trait or characteristic. This trait might be age, gender, income, or some other factor. If your product appeals to young women, for instance, you might want to target sites popular with the female demographic, the 18-24 age demographic, or both.

With the AdWords site tool, you can pick your preferences in up to three different demographic categories. The system will analyze your preferences and create a list of available Google Network sites that are popular with that audience. If you select multiple demographics, the AdWords system will look for sites that match all of your preferences. For instance, you might ask the site tool to look for sites popular with users who have children, or for sites popular with men earning a high income. The site tool will then return a list of sites whose audience tends to match those demographic descriptions.

Saving Money On Google Adwords

HOW TO SAVE MONEY ON GOOGLE ADWORDS

If you have an existing Google adwords account and don't pay much attention to it, odds are pretty good that your paying more then you should.

Ive had a number of clients accounts that Ive taken over and each time it amazes me how much I can save them just by making a few adjustments.

An example is a new client that I just looked at today, they have an existing adwords account and they spend about $3,500 per month.  Just by looking at it, I could see that they had set their Max CPC (Cost Per Click) very high at $10 per click. Sometimes people will do this in the beginning  and then never change it, so it carried over to all campaigns and keywords.

What this means is that you can pay way to much for certain keywords and while bidding high is a good way to get to the top and be the #1 listing, sometimes it can be very expensive and doesn't really make much sense.

Just making one adjustment to the account, by bringing the max CPC down to $2, I saved them over $90 per day and the estimated clicks per day are basically the same. This would add up to over $2,500 saved in the first month, just by making one adjustment. We will be able to save them a lot more then that once we make further updates and tweaks.

BOTTOM LINE

Its important to monitor the bids and make adjustments and Its better to adjust your Max CPC to a lower amount and then work your way up. Also make sure that you set a maximum spend limit per day. 

We can assist you with your pay per click marketing needs, contact me for further information.

Covering Your Firm At The Search Engines In Both Organic AND Paid Listings

Usually when you first launch a legal web site, your going to do a more aggressive Pay per click campaign at Overture and Google adwords because it takes some time to get good organic or free listings, especially at Google. Over time you can draw back on your PPC campaigns once your organic listings come in, but its usually best if you can have both going.

This way you get the most exposure on the search engine page. When you have your firm listed in the organic listings on the left side and then also the sponsored listings on the right side, it gives you a better chance of someone clicking on your site and finding your firm.

An example of a law firm that has dual exposure at Google is The Law Offices of Don Thompson. If you type in the search of Chicago Probate at Google, his site comes up #1 in the organic listings on the left side, then the same site comes up on the right side under "sponsored listings".   

Sometimes it might not make as much as sense to bid on keywords that are very expensive, especially if your already coming up in the free organic listings but if the pay per click keyword is less then 50 cents per click, then I would suggest it.

Getting listed in the PPC engines is easy, the real trick is getting your law firms site in the top 10 in the organic listings.  We have helped many lawyers achieve this and as a result they have gotten new business and many new clients.  Contact us if we can help your law firm succeed on the Internet.

Tune Up Your Google Adwords Campaign

Tune Your Google Ad Campaign from Kevin Lee at ClickZ provides a lot of useful tips, especially for those who have not updated your adwords campagins for awhile.  It can really make a difference in your campaign when you monitor and tweak your keywords.

Ive tweaked many clients Google Adword campaigns and it has always resulted in a substantial savings in money. Its important to have someone monitor the campaigns, especially if your bidding on expensive keywords or have multiple campaigns running.

Deleting Disabled Keywords In Google Adwords

Post from the Google Adwords Blog

To give you the chance to review and activate previously disabled keywords after the launch of our new keyword evaluation system, disabled keywords have remained in your account for the past several weeks. Next week, they'll be deleted.

So, what should you do? You don't have to make any changes to prepare for this --- your previously disabled keywords will show up as deleted in your account, and you can still choose to re-enable them. However, if you'd like to keep a list of your previously disabled keywords on hand, you can create and save a custom keyword report.

New Google Adwords Blog

Google has launched a new blog specifically for people who use the Google AdWords pay per click program.  The new blog has all the latest info and tips on how to best utilize the Adwords program.

Organic Listings At Search Engines Are Better Then Paid Listings

SOLVING THE PAY PER CLICK PROBLEM BY GETTING INTO THE ORGANIC LISTINGS

I blogged last month about the legal client who setup his own Google adwords account and made the mistake of bidding to high and wound up paying $39 for one click for the keyphrase of "chicago estate planning lawyer".

We wound up getting the cost down to $1.30 per click BUT the best solution to that problem is getting listed in Googles organic or free listings or what I call "the gift that keeps on giving". It takes time and effort to get listed in the top 10 at Google but we have achieved this and the client is now #7 for chicago estate planning lawyer, as well as #3&4 for chicago wills, #3 for chicago estate planning, among many others.

Its a good idea to still maintain the pay per click listings though because it gives the law firm more overall exposure at Google, but its not as important now and can be cut back on.   

The best way for a law firm to get good rankings in the Google organic listings is by having good content, content that changes, listings at the key directories and links from other high rankings legal sites.    If your law firm wants to achieve long term results in the search engines, contact me.

Response From Google AdWords About $39 click

I had blogged last week about a legal client who made the mistake of setting his bid to high for the term "chicago estate planning lawyer" and got charged $39.52 for one click. 

I got a response from Google adwords (see below)and like I thought there's nothing that can be done because of the fact the maximum CPC (cost-per-click) was set so high and other variables were in play.  Once I took over the account, I was able to reduce the max CPC and got the click charge down to $1.30 per click, from $39 per click. 

Here is the response from Google Adwords:

After reviewing your client's account, I found the keyword 'chicago estate planning lawyer' was charged $39.52 on April 3, 2005 because his maximum CPC was designated at $39.88. He was charged a lower amount of $1.30 per click this month because his maximum CPC is currently set at $2.00. These clicks are not charged the full designated maximum CPC because our AdWords Discounter automatically keeps your actual CPC at the lowest possible cost needed to maintain your ad's position on the page.

Additionally, the position of your AdWords ad varies per keyword and is determined by various factors such as your maximum cost-per-click (CPC) for the matched keyword, your clickthrough rate (CTR), and your ad text in relation to other advertisers' CPCs, CTRs, and ad text. Because Google AdWords doesn't rely solely on your CPC bid to rank your ad, it is not possible to know what your competitors are bidding.

The bottom line here though is that if you set your max cost per click so high and have competitors that are also bidding high, there's a very good chance you will overbid. 

I usually start with a lower bid and then see how the keywords perform and then raise the bid when needed. Google adwords is more complicated and harder to manage then Overture (now Yahoo Search Marketing) but much more effective, if setup and managed correctly.

Difference Between "Search" and "Content" In Google Adwords

When you setup a Google adwords account, your ads are automatically 'opted in' to run on the entire Google Network.

Search Total and Content Total, which appear in your Campaign Summary and Report Center reports, represent the two types of sites where your ads can be displayed within the Google network. 

Search Total shows the impressions your ad has received from search results pages generated by Google and by Google Network search partners. On these sites, your ads are displayed alongside the results from searches matching your keywords. (If you opt out of Google Network search sites, then the Search Total numbers will reflect results only from searches generated by Google.)

Content Total shows the impressions that your ad receives on content sites or products in the Google Network. On these sites, your ads are displayed alongside content relevant to your keywords. Your ads may appear on news sites, personal web pages, emails or many other types of content sites and products.

See examples of where your ads may appear on the Google Network.   You can opt out of the Google Network at any time by editing your distribution preferences.

You can get more exposure by leaving them as they are but sometimes you might want to turn off the content part.

Ive just always thought there's more chance for click fraud and sometimes the cost per click is higher, which doesn't seem right, plus you never know exactly where the ads are showing. Sometimes though you want as much traffic as possible and this does give you more exposure.

Valuable Lesson For Lawyers Who Want To Use Google AdWords

$39.52 for one click for the term "Chicago estate planning lawyer"?

I had a lawyer client who setup his own Google AdWords account and made the mistake of setting his maximum CPC (Cost per click) at $40.00 for every key phrase he setup.

The thing that stood out to me when reviewing and updating the account, was that he only got one click for Chicago estate planning lawyer but he was charged $39.52, which seems crazy since at Overture the top bid for that term is $1.51 and you can get into the top 5 for 14 cents.

Now once I took over the account and adjusted a few things, especially the max CPC, the average cost per click is now only $1.30. 

I'm waiting for Googles explanation but I think it comes down to setting the bid so high, then having competitors who were also bidding high on that term.

Its a valuable lesson for lawyers to learn that its important to understand just how Google AdWords works before setting up an account and bidding so high, otherwise you might be in for an unpleasant surprise.

New Form Of Google AdWords Click Fraud

Another story from Pay Per Click Universe talks about click fraud and how it only applies to Google Adword accounts because Adwords is the only PPC to use a complex algorithm to determine how high your overall ranking is.

This is where a lot of people get confused about Google adwords. Its not as simple as Overture, where whoever bids the highest, gets the top spot.   At Google adwords, its different because your CTR / click through rate determines how high your position is.  The article goes into more detail with a good example.

"For example, if you get a 5% CTR (50 clicks out of 1000 impressions), but your maximum bid is only 50 cents, and your competitor bids 80 cents but has 1% CTR, you WILL appear higher than him. With AdWords, though, if your CTR is less than 0.5%, your ad is disabled and disappears until you make some changes to bring your CTR back up."

The story goes on to talk about how certain click fraudsters will artificially inflate the number of impressions for certain keywords and what happens is your CTR will go down and if its under .5%, your ads will be disabled and then when your sites out, someone else moves into your position.      

Now I don't know how illegal that is since they are not clicking on ads. I would be more concerned about your competitors who might click on your keywords.

Its key to have someone pay attention to the pay per click traffic and monitor the stats and make sure the same IP address isn't visiting your site multiple times.  This is usually only an issue when you are bidding on high valued keywords like "vioxx" or "mesothelioma lawyers".

Top 10 Pay Per Click Search Engines

Pay Per Click Universe is a free resource dedicated to providing unbiased information to the small-to-medium sized business owner interested in exploring the world of pay per click advertising (PPC).

They have a section where they review each of the pay per click search engines and give what it considers the top ten pay per click engines.

They don't really list them in order but give each PPC search engine a rating. Google ad words has an overall rating of 8.4, Overture 7.5, Findwhat 4.0 and Kanoodle 1.0. Those are what I always have considered to be the top 4 and really only Google and Overture seem to produce real results. So I would probably agree with those ratings, even though I would put Google at about a 9 and Overture a 7 at best.

They give Searchfeed a rating of 8.2 and the user reviews are all pretty favorable, so that might be one to check out. I will sign up for an account and see how it works out and write a review next month.

When doing pay per click projects for my legal clients, I usually try and test out the smaller pay per click engines, but normally what I find is that I get a lot of so called clicks and visitors but no real conversions.

I've also had problems in the past, where the pay per click engine says I got 30 clicks at 25 cents a click BUT my stats program doesn't back that up.   Ive never had a problem with that at Google or Overture and no doubt those two are the ones to focus on when doing a pay per click strategy.

Google AdWords coming to AOL Europe

Forbes.com has a news brief about Google expanding their relationship with AOL in Europe. According to the story, Google AdWords will now be visible on search results pages from AOL in the UK, France, and Germany.

Google fighting PPC Fraud

Click Fraud Looms As Search-Engine Threat 

In a recent AP click fraud article, it refers to the recent lawsuit Google filed against Auction Experts International, over the estimated $50,000 in "illegitimate commissions by clicking on the ad links that Google delivered to its Web pages."

The suit won't be Google's last to combat click fraud, said Palo Alto attorney David Kramer, who represents the company.

Estimates vary widely on how much click fraud is going on in the $3.8 billion search engine advertising market.

"Click fraud exists, but it's mostly a big paranoia," said Chris Churchill, chief executive of Fathom Online, a San Francisco firm that studies the spending patterns on search engine ads.

I personally think click fraud exists, especially for keywords that have high bids. I always watch all of my clients pay per click accounts very cloesly and make sure to view the stats on a dailly basis to make sure theres nothing out of the ordinary.

Google lands big Adwords client

Word in a Reuters story that Google has landed another large client for AdWords.

VNU Business Media (Billboard, AdWeek, The Hollywood Reporter, and many trade publications) will now use AdWords on their web sites. A bit more info in the news release.