SEO vendor to you, the content creator: Our keyword target for this month is: “floor washer”. We need content with this keyword. Go!

…

What the heck are you supposed to write about “floor washing”?

We’re talking about washing. For a floor. How exciting can you really get with that?

Well… what would you say if I were to say, “Extremely exciting”?

Seriously! We can find some fun topics to write about for just about everything.

OK, try me.

(Your Suggestion Here)

How (Your Suggestion Here) can help you survive a zombie apocalypse. (ok, the zombie thing is played out, I know)

(Your Other Suggestion Here)

Five reasons why (Your Other Suggestion Here) can help you win over Charlize Theron’s heart.

(Your Silly Suggestion That You Suggest Because You Want To See How Creative I Can Be)

Ok, ok, ok, you get the picture. Let me spell this out in plain language:

You can make any topic entertaining.

Any topic, anytime, grandma. All you need to do is think outside the box a little. Put on your thinking cap and start thinking a little creatively. Go to your creative place –

In no particular order: my wife, child, hockey, soccer, Indian food & unicorn

- and think about how your topic might relate to something people know, like, etc. You can seriously tie almost anything together with, well, anything.

Case in point: The Oatmeal. Just see a sampling of what he produces to see the crazy things he comes up with. While he’s not doing it necessarily for gain in search engine rankings, you can still get some ideas as to how loony his brain works to come up with ultra-creative stuff.

How does he come up with this stuff?!

People like entertaining. People like weird. Naturally, this means people love weird, entertaining content. But not everything needs to be entertaining; it can also be informative.

Kevin Rose is looking at something a different way. And people found that interesting.

Hey, this is stuff I already know… but it’s presented in a cool and interesting way (great job with this, Search Engine Land!). SHARE SHARE SHARE

Let your mind wander when brainstorming topics to write about a certain subject. You can tie almost everything together in some way, shape or fashion.

Well…

Ok, maybe almost everything together…

So at the end of the day, you can make any topic fun or entertaining or even a little thought-provoking and informative. It’s all about how you shape it and present your content.

Image via CrunchBase

Google made an announcement this week that they’ll no longer be passing search query (keyword) data along to a Website when a user is signed-in to their Google account and performs a search on Google. In short – this means that Google is blocking access to organic keywords data. Not just in Google Analytics – but in any Web analytics package.

Explaining the Change

1. Signed-In user does a search on Google
2. Signed-in user clicks on an organic result
3. Website owner sees “Not Provided” in their Web analytics reporting instead of the keyword that brought the user to the site

Get the idea? They’re not reporting on organic keyword searches anymore. However, if a signed-in user clicks on a paid search (PPC) advertisement, then Google will pass the keyword data through. Keep that fact in mind…

If you believe the party line, then according to Google, this move was done in the interest of making their search engine a more secure & safe place for users to search by protecting search query data & personalized results. If you’re a conspiracy theorist, then this is just another way that Google is forcing site owners to use AdWords… which is how Google makes money. In other words – the message might be “if you want to know which keywords are the best for your Website, better pay for them.”

Either way, if you’re a Website owner or Internet marketer, particularly an SEO, this could be a game-changing move re-setting your level of sophistication to the mid-2000′s.

How it Affects Site Owners & SEO’s

As explained above, Google will no longer be passing search query data to Google Analytics if the user is performing a search via SSL. This means that while you will be able to view that a visitor from Google organic search came to your website, you will no longer be able to see what search query that user typed in to find your site. In place of the keyword in Web Analytics reporting, you will now see “Not Provided” instead.

How big of a deal this is to a Website really kind of depends on how much of your search traffic comes from Google organic search, and whether the sub-set of that traffic is significant. A lot of that has to do with your target audience, how technically savvy they are, whether they have a Google account and stay signed-in, etc. In other words – it depends.

Google claims that “…the change will affect only a minority of your traffic.” So, out of curiosity – I took a look at the keyword reporting for our site and a few of our clients. Granted, this change only took place a couple of days ago – but for every single site we work with including our own, “Not Provided” is a top 10 keyword result. In most cases, it was a top 5 result. Doesn’t seem so minor to me.

Example "Not Provided" result from a client's keyword referrals. Since the change, "Not Provided" is showing up as a top 10 result for ALL of our clients.

How pervasive is the problem? As expected, Google organic traffic makes up the bulk of our client’s search traffic falling somewhere between 88% – 93% of search traffic. If a substantial portion of those Google users are signed-in, then you aren’t going to be getting much information from your organic keyword referrals…

This is a typical organic traffic breakdown for our client sites. Guess which search engine makes up the blue slice of the pie? That's right – Google.

Why I Think Google’s Privacy Claim is a Bad Joke

Google Analytics (or any kind of Web analytics package) is fairly good at not really disclosing too much about the user. Sure, we are able to get information such as the proximity of where the user was located, the browser that was used, the search query that was used and other information… but what we’re not able to get is:

• First and last name
• Mother’s maiden name
• Name of family pet growing up
• Favorite food

Basically – when we’re looking at the keywords that drive our client’s businesses and are looking for ways to make their content more relevant and drive a better experience, we aren’t really getting anything “private”.

Further Reading, Takeaways & Thoughts

1. There’s been a substantial backlash to this announcement. I could be wrong, but I’m betting that Google doesn’t budge on this one.
   1. Google’s Announcement: Making search more secure: Accessing search query data in Google Analytics
   2. Dear Google: This is war
   3. Google Invests in Privacy for Profit
   4. Search Engine Land: Google To Begin Encrypting Searches & Outbound Clicks By Default With SSL Search
   5. Avinash Kaushik – THE Web Analytics guru – posted a Google Analytics custom report you could use to keep an eye on Google’s https keyword change trend. Get it here
2. Google Analytics user? Create an annotation in GA and note October 18, 2011 as the day that Google started blocking organic SSL searches. Believe me – if you’re at all accountable for reporting & analyzing on search traffic, you will likely be doing a lot of explaining and will be glad you pegged the date.
3. Are you an SEO? You’ll likely be taking your level of focus to a broader-level perspective than focusing on specific keywords. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing… Create & use advanced segments. Get used to using multi-channel attribution. Get used to relying on AdWords data…. and trying to make sense out of Bing referrals.

I’m sure some more things will come to mind over the next few days and weeks. I can’t WAIT to go to my next search marketing conference and watch every Google speaker take Q&A. It’s gonna get ugly.

I’m looking forward to YOUR comments, thoughts, takeaways and links.

Amplified Gold Posts

• I love checklists. They are an effective way to manage PPC tasks. Seer Interactive shared 5 Things to Watch in New Campaigns this month. I have already used this checklist to monitor performance of new campaigns for clients.
• How do you prioritize your time? Search Engine Land has a great post this month, Time Management Tips. The post is targeted at in-house searh marketing managers but there are great take aways for agency folks too. The main take away is to focus on tasks that have the greatest ROI.
• It seems every playlist I include a post from The Eisenberg’s. What can I say? I’m a fan. Bryan posted a video of a presentation titled, 21 Secrets of Top Converting B2B Websites The video is an hour long but has some CRO nuggets for B2B search marketers.

Amplified Platinum Posts

• I love this post from Annie at Blue Glass, Making Data Sexy. Great Excel tips and full of personality. I’m exited to see future posts in the series. Glad to see Annie “Bringing sexy back” to data.
• What’s your favorite Adwords filter? Search Engine Watch has a great post this month on 5 Filters Everybody Should Use in Adwords. Filters are a powerful way to identify quick wins in your PPC campaigns.
• Another good one from Search Engine Land, 3 Great Questions That Can Improve Your PPC Campaigns. A very simple and effective way to audit your campaigns.

Amplified Diamond Posts

• Warning: Lots of math and nerdy stats talk in this post from 37 Signals, A/B Testing: Determining Sample Size. If you’re testing or considering testing ensure you have all of the elements to make data driven decisions. If you lack the volume to test I’d suggest you not test at all.
• Word Stream’s blog is a must read for PPC managers. Here’s a great post by Tom on their blog, How to Identify Undervalued Adwords Assets Assisted Conversions & Channel Groupings.
• I’ve always been a fan of PPC Hero. They consistently offer valuable content. Check out this PPC Task Checklist for Account Success from PPC Hero this month. I use a similar checklist as a reminder of regular PPC tasks and this one had some great additions to my existing list.

What checklists or reports do you use to save time?

Temps have been dropping and rain has been falling in Portland this week. For me that means Radiohead station on Pandora. Here are a couple songs from my playlist this month. Nevermind the disturbing kids in the first video

This is no longer the case. Optimizing Google Display/Content campaigns is similar to tactics you employ for Google Search Network campaigns. I followed the process outlined below for a client recently and in the first 30 days the campaign accounted for 30% of the conversions across the campaigns. Read up on how you too can launch a text ad campaign on Google’s Display Network:

1. Copy and Paste in Google Adwords Editor

I’m pretty sure copy and paste is the best shortcut evah for computers. First step is identifying your highest performing campaign and ad group that is NOT a branded campaign. In my experience there is usually a campaign and ad group that is driving more than 50% of conversions and is highly relevant to your product or services. I prefer to use conversions as my primary metric for “high performance” but maybe for you it’s clicks or click through rate. Here are the steps you need to take in Adwords Editor:

• Highlight your selected campaign in Adwords Editor and select Edit < Copy Special < Copy Campaign Shell and hit Ctrl+v to paste the campaign shell into your Adwords Editor account.
• Highlight your selected ad group in Adwords Editor and hit Ctrl+C and then Ctrl+v the ad group in your new campaign.
• Campaign settings-For simplicity reasons I would suggest renaming your campaign by just adding “-Content” to the end of the existing campaign name. Set “Search Network” to “None” and “Display Network” to “Relevant pages across the entire network”. I would check and double check the budget setting you have set up for the campaign. The Display Network is a fast way to spend a lot of money if you’re not careful. Set your bids at the ad group level and at this point just use the same bid you have in the “Default Max CPC Bid” and copy this over to the “Display Network Max. CPC Bid”.

I prefer allowing Google to identify relevant websites because you’re casting the largest net possible for conversions as opposed to you selecting specific websites to advertise on. I’d rather not guess the websites my prospects are browsing but make that judgment based on the performance metrics. After you have all your settings dialed in I would suggest launching your campaign and be prepared to monitor the performance very closely over the next few days.

2. Bid Adjustments

After you’re showing impressions, clicks, and other metrics it’s time to adjust your bids. I like to compare the average cost per click to your default bid. Bids are made on an ad group level for Display Network campaigns. If your default bid is high compared to the average cost per click I would suggest lowering your bid closer to the average. Consider increasing the bid if your average cost per click is near or slightly higher than your default. You want to ensure your campaign is getting enough exposure in terms of impressions and clicks to optimize your campaign.

3. Review Automatic Placement Reports

Under the “Networks” tab in Adwords select “show details” in the “Automatic Placements” section of the window. This report will show you every website your ads have been running on across the Google Display Network.

First I prefer to sort the report by cost. You can then view websites that are costing you money but not offering a return. Any sites that have a high cost and no return I suggest you add these websites as an “Excluded Placement” in Adwords. If you would like to get more granular Adwords allows you to see the exact URL in the website where your ads are showing and you can exclude URL’s from a website instead of the entire website. To see the exact URL’s in Adwords select “See URL list” in the report. You will probably see websites in the report where you are getting multiple impressions but no clicks. At this early stage of your campaign I would not worry about high impressions and no clicks since it’s no cost to you.

Also keep in mind click through rate is not as critical on the Display Network as it is on Google’s Search Network. You want to be more concerned about cost per conversion. When you start adding sites as excluded placements, please ensure you have adequate impression, click, and conversion volume which is relative depending on your campaign. But use your best judgement.

After you’ve got your campaign set up and optimized you should continue to monitor the campaign to add new excluded sites to the campaign and adjust bids as necessary.  Now that you’ve got your first campaign set up you can expand your reach on the Google Display Network with other search campaigns. Take advantage of the relatively cheap clicks and impressions the Display Network has to offer.

This past month was difficult to find blog posts that were NOT about Google +. But don’t fret, I’ve found the best the web has to offer in PPC and listed them below.

The biggest theme that stood out to me from this month’s playlist was testing. Ongoing testing and optimizing is critical to the success of any PPC campaign. So put on your lab coat, read up, and get er’ done.

Amplified Gold Posts

• 5 ways to increase CTR with your PPC ads.
• Brad Geddes provides a quick way to identify ways to increase exposure of you PPC campaigns.

Amplified Platinum Posts

• Choosing a PPC Agency: 10 Questions to Ask A great list of questions you should be asking. I wish I had this list several years ago when I was on the other side of agency PPC management.
• Data is a powerful tool when used properly in PPC. This post shares 5 powerful PPC tips to make sure you use data correctly to improve your campaign performance.
• Remember the days PPC conversions were cheap and competition was non existant? I do. If you are in a semi competitive niche this is usually no longer the case.  Here’s a good post on why “You Can’t Buy More Conversions“.  Bonus is there is a pic of a terrifying baby after the jump. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that face from past managers.

Amplified Diamond Posts

• I LOVE THIS POST! Bryan Eisenberg outlines a simple set of 3 guiding principles to lift conversions and click through rate . Writing PPC ads can be  the most difficult part of a PPC analyst job. Use these three rules and make your life easier.
• Another gem from this month. Wordstream’s blog is a must read for PPC peeps. Check out this post that provides estimates on average PPC bids ranked by industry. This explains how Google can justify continued failed attempts at social networks like Buzz and Wave. Let’s hope Google + doesn’t go that direction. But if it does I’m sure it won’t be Google’s last try.

Chime in the comments with any posts that you thought were required PPC reading in the last few weeks. Or if you are looking for PPC management services give us a shout.

In the spirit of the playlist theme I’ve queued up a YouTube playlist of 3 songs that have got me chair dancing in the last month. There’s some new stuff with a classic at the end. I recently added a Beastie Boys station to Pandora and have been loving it. I’ll plan on queueing up new songs for each playlist post in the future.