Well done, Search Engine College graduates!

Posted on September 19, 2011 by Kalena Jordan

I’d like to express hearty congratulations to our latest graduates on behalf of staff and tutors at Search Engine College.

All students named below have successfully completed a course at Search Engine College and attained official certification status (requiring a passing grade of 70 percent or higher.)

Search Engine Optimization 101

Jonathan Tressler
Louise Marshall
Christy Hicks
Debbie Moore
Jessica Kennedy
Michelle Macken
Liang Wang
Dorothee Balas
Suzanne Robinson
Paul Havey
Deborah Neighbors
Ajay Nair
Donna Pineau
Dino Basaldella
Rob Whyte
Amy Brockman
Kindra Cotton
Puja Dakhera
Michonne Rose Proulx
Terry Del Percio
Sarah Harlock
Robert Rivera
Darlene Sojka
Carmen Rivera
Louie Zanoni
William Smith
Nicholas Fokianos
Steve Ollington
Jacky Hill
Fredrick Johnston

Search Engine Optimization 201

Debbie Moore
Jacqueline Christian
Christy Hicks
Suzanne Robinson
Paul Havey
Ann Merrill
Deborah Neighbors
Jonathan Tressler
Dino Basaldella
Jessica Kennedy
Amy Brockman
Kindra Cotton
Puja Dakhera
Brandon Bergmann
Robert Rivera
Carmen Rivera
Nicholas Fokianos
Steve Ollington
Ajay Nair
Joseph Santia
Rachel Haber
Lewis Husbands

Pay Per Click Advertising 101

Debbie Moore
Rebekah Pettigrew
Bryna Davidow
Deborah Neighbors
Amy Brockman
Brandon Bergmann
Jessica Kennedy
Nicholas Fokianos
Yvonne Brandon
Jacqueline Christian
Ajay Nair

Pay Per Click Advertising 201

Debbie Moore
Bryna Davidow
Deborah Neighbors
Matthew McGee
Amy Brockman
Puja Dakhera
Yvonne Brandon
Linda Le
Brandon Bergmann
Jacqueline Christian
Shane Cummiskey

Web Site Copywriting 101

Rebekah Pettigrew
Ann Merrill
Leann Phoenix
Shane Cummiskey
Birgitt Olsen
Robert Garvie

Web Site Usability 101

John Rodrigues
Christy Hicks
Karen Numoto
Debbie Moore
Matthew McGee
Bev Asllanaj
Maha El Refai
Michonne Rose Proulx

Link Building 101

Deborah Neighbors
Robert Rivera

Article Marketing & Distribution 101

Dave Lobo

Copywriting for PPC 101

Bryna Davidow
Amy Brockman

Certified Search Engine Optimizer

Ann Merrill
Christy Hicks
Puja Dakhera
Bev Asllanaj
Robert Rivera
Jessica Kennedy

Certified Pay-Per-Click Marketer

Matthew McGee

Certified Search Engine Marketer

Deborah Neighbors
Bryna Davidow
Debbie Moore
Amy Brockman
Leann Phoenix
Brandon Bergmann
Shane Cummiskey
John Cullen

Congratulations everyone! Please contact your tutor if you are still waiting to receive your hard copy certificate, Status Page or certification seal.

Also, don’t forget to fan of our Facebook page and follow our Twitter profile @secollege for College announcements such as lesson updates, press releases, new courses, events and milestones.

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Q and A: How can I attract more inbound links to my site?

Posted on September 16, 2011 by Sarah Parker

Dear Kalena,

We have a plant seller nursery website that contains mostly product and contact information etc. How can I attract more links to my site?

Thanks in advance,
Trish

Dear Trish,

In order for your site to be considered ‘linkworthy’ you need to build some good-quality, industry-specific content that people in your niche market will find useful. If your site is purely product-based there are fewer reasons for other sites to link to your site.

Building links is all about obtaining online referrals. A good link building strategy considers internet users and website owners. The ultimate aim is to obtain more referrals for your site from other website owners and ultimately to get more customers to your site.

Think about the people that view your website (in your case plant growers and gardening enthusiasts) what would they find useful? What would make them want to revisit your site? A searchable database containing photographs and general information about the plants that you sell would be an appealing addition. Or an article library/blog – filled with gardening ideas, advice and resources could keep your customers coming back to your site again and again.

When it comes to attracting inbound links, content is king. If your site contains good-quality, industry-specific information, people will come to your website not only to buy things, but to find information. Also other websites may refer to information contained on your site in order to be associated with your quality content. In this way you will develop an authoritive presence within your industry that will attract good quality inbound links over time.

Sarah Parker
Parker Communications

Search Industry Job of the Week

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Sarah Parker

Job Title: Virtual Marketing Internships
Job Reference #: Unknown
Position Type: part time, unpaid with benefits
Name of employer: Reinventing Life Enterprises
Location: virtual
Date Posted: 9 September 2011
Position description:

Two Part-Time Virtual Marketing Internships Available – Applicants can live anywhere and will work with the Reinventing Life Enterprises international virtual team from your home office.

Reinventing Life Enterprises has two part-time marketing internships open.

RL Enterprises is a small women owned and operated international firm offering all employees personal life flexibility within an upbeat virtual office environment. Work together with them from the comforts of your own home office.

The two successful applicants will work together and with the rest of the international virtual team to continue ongoing social media and article marketing while designing and implementing new marketing strategies.

This is a great way to build your CV or resume with real experience, and their previous intern (reference available) found work as a result of the real work skills developed with them. Work hours are flexible and communication, tracking outputs, are primarily at the time of the candidates choosing.

While this is an unpaid position at this time, it is offered with the intention that for the right applicant it will mature into part-time employment.

Tasks and Responsibilities include:

Social network marketing for three websites.
Spinning content, and managing article marketing campaign.
Building backlinks relationships with other sites.
Participating in Search Engine -Optimization (SEO) research and decision making.
Development of newsletter and video marketing strategies.
Web research on a variety of topics to develop into web content.

Qualities Desired:

Interest in/knowledge of marketing – especially internet marketing through the use of social media, article marketing, shared links and advertising etc.
Interest in/knowledge of SEO, website analytics, web advertising etc.
Proficient in Excel/word or Open office equivalents.
Ability to (or interest in learning how to) analyze marketing data and present to the team in a simple clear way – along with presentation of suggestions for future action.
Interest in involvement in building a web presence for innovative startup internet businesses.
Flexible.
Comfortable with web meetings/skyping and other forms of internet communication.
Ability to work independently without constant supervision.
Desire to work as part of an international team working toward growth of the organization.
Attention to detail.
Comfortable sharing ideas, suggestions and being a full contributing member of a team.

NOTE: While this is an unpaid position, all expenses are paid and active team members do accrue benefits such as availability for holiday home in Kinsale for no cost, etc.

The three websites you will be developing marketing strategies for are:
www.reinventinglife.org
www.futureofeducationproject.net
www.doctoralnet.com

Interested Applicants Should Email Their CV’s to: Dr. E. Alana James: [email protected]

Salary range: Unpaid to begin with.
Closing date: Unknown
Contact: Send resumes to: [email protected]

For more search industry job vacancies, or to post a position, visit: Search Engine College Jobs Board.

Q and A: Can competitors use my company name in their AdWords ads?

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Kalena Jordan

Hi Kalena

I have a question. I talked to my Google rep who once said that putting my company’s name in an ad violates Google’s terms. However, in another post on here, you seem to suggest bidding on a brand name is also a violation is that correct? I was under the assumption that was common practice. Is it not? If I could report that to Google, that is important information.

Dom

Hi Dom

I’m not sure if you are referring to your own ads or those created by your competitors, but putting your own company name in your ad is certainly not a violation, it’s encouraged, particularly if yours is a well known brand/name. If you follow this link about Use of Trademarks in AdWords, you’ll find an authorization form you can submit to be able to use your brand / trademark throughout your account.

Now use of your trademark by competitors is where things get complicated. It differs between region and differs again between ad text versus keyword bids. Google actually opened up trademark keyword bidding two years ago, however AdWord’s trademark policy is now dependent on the region your trademark is registered in and the region/s your billing account is located in. So here are the main regional trademark policies:

In certain regions, Google allow some ads to show with a trademark in ad text if the ad is from a reseller or from an informational site. There is a separate trademark policy for resellers and informational sites.
For regions that are NOT included under Google’s trademark policy for resellers and informational sites, if their investigation finds that the advertiser is using the trademark in ad text, Google will require the advertiser to remove the trademark and prevent them from using it in ad text in the future.
In most regions covered by the Trademark policy (including UK, USA and Canada), Google will investigate ad text only. They will not disable keywords in response to a trademark complaint in these regions. Furthermore, their investigation will only affect ads served on or by Google rather than those served on partner sites.
In EU and EFTA regions, Google does not prevent the selection of trademarks as keywords. However, in response to a complaint, they will do a limited investigation as to whether a keyword (in combination with particular ad text) is confusing as to the origin of the advertised goods and services.
In some limited regions, Google may investigate the use of trademarks in ad text, in keywords, or in both ad text and keywords. These regions include: Australia / Brazil / China / Hong Kong / Macau / New Zealand / North Korea / South Korea / Taiwan

Because Australia and New Zealand are included in the above list (and these are the countries in which I operate), I have witnessed a few keyword trademark infringements and represented some clients who lodged complaints procedures based on this policy.

So the short answer is, unless they have your explicit permission, your competitors generally aren’t allowed to use your brand/name in their own ads, but if you’re located outside the limited regions mentioned above, they ARE allowed to bid on your brand/name as a keyword. But it’s not all bad news – it means that you are allowed to bid on their brand/name as well.

Hope this clarifies things!

Kalena

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Q and A: Which is more important, the number of clicks on each ad or the CTR of each ad?

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Kalena Jordan

Hi Kalena

I have some questions about Google Adwords campaigns.

When evaluating ad performance in a Google Adwords campaign, which is more important: The actual number of clicks on each ad or the Click Through Rate (CTR) of each ad?

What is “% Served” and should we be paying attention to the “% Served” of our ads?

Finally, I read in the PPC101 reading material about Google’s “Average Position” but I’m a bit confused by this because the ads running in my campaign that have the lowest Average Position are not the ads that are performing the best. In fact, there seems to be no correlation between the ads that are performing best and their Average Position. The ads that are performing the best are not the ones with the lowest Average position. I don’t understand how to utilize this “Average position” if it’s not indicating how the ads are performing. So, I guess the question is: How should we utilize an ad’s “Average position” in the grand scheme of things?

Thank you,

Wendy

Hi Wendy

To answer your questions briefly:

1) The CTR and conversion rate are always the figures you should be looking at when it comes to measuring the effectiveness of your ads. So ads that attract more clicks will have a high CTR, but this doesn’t mean much unless the clicks end up converting to customers / sign ups.

2) % served shows the rate each ad is served compared to other ads. So if one ad has 70% served against it, that means 70% of the time one of your ads is shown, it’s this one. The other ads make up the remaining 30% of ad displays. Google only show the best performing ads over time, so they will gradually phase out ads that don’t attract many clicks in favor of the ones with a higher CTR. That’s why the percentages seem much higher for some ads.

3) Average position relates to your ad position within the search results. So if your bid is high enough, your ad will appear in a higher average position. Ads that don’t perform well or don’t have a high enough bid rate on their trigger keywords will show in a lower average position. You don’t control this particular metric – it is controlled by your ad positions as determined by Google.

Hope this helps!