FAQ: What is Search Engine Optimization?

Google AdSense / Adwords Updates

Change is the only constant in the world of pay per click advertising. Here are a few of the latest changes with Google’s program:

1. Additional Ad Units - AdSense now allows publishers to display more than one ad unit per page, so a publisher could now serve up a skyscraper of ads along the side of the page AND a traditional banner shaped set of ads somewhere else of the page. This has the potential to increase the amount of content targeted traffic you’ll receive through your Google Adwords account.

2. Content Targeted Bidding Workaround - Adwords doesn’t allow advertisers to set separate bids for content targeting, but there is a workaround to this problem. Turn off content targeted advertising in your established Adwords campaign, then duplicate the campaign and turn on only content targeted advertising in the second campaign. Then, set much lower bids for the second campaign.

3. Broad Matching is Good for Content Targeting – After setting up a content targeted focused campaign, consider using broad matching on a larger percentage of your terms. This tends to cause your ads to match with more content.

4. Image Ad Sizes – Adwords allows image ads in four sizes: 468 x 60 Banners, 300 x 250 Inlines, 728 x 90 Leaderboards, 120 x 600 Skyscrapers. Creating quality graphics takes time; so if you want to save a few ticks on the clock, consider only building skyscrapers and banners. In our experience, they receive the vast majority of impressions, which is likely due to the popularity of those two formats with AdSense.

5. Control Image Resizing – The images used by Adwords due not conform exactly to the standard graphic sizes listed above. This is because Google has opted to advertise in conjunction with all of their advertiser’s ads with the line “Ads by Goooooogle” Rather than add this below the standard 120x600 skyscrapers, they resize the ad to 120x578 so their ad within your ad fits within the standard dimensions. This gives you two choices: Either crop or create your ads at 120x578 or load them at 120x600 and let Google resize the ad for you (they resize rather than crop the ads). We recommend doing this in-house where you have more control over the look of your ads.

Overall, the use of pay per click and especially content targeted advertising through pay per click companies is a very young industry, so expect the bidding strategies, reporting, ad sizes, and syndication opportunities to change considerably over time.

Ed Kohler is the President of Haystack In A Needle, Inc., a web marketing firm in Minneapolis, MN, offering search engine optimization and pay per click advertising consulting services.

Related Articles

• Overture vs. Google AdWords

  
  

.

Find this article Interesting? Feel free to link to it, publish it on your site, in your newsletter, or on your blog. Please keep the by line attached, and link back to our site. Questions? Email us at webcontact@HaystackInANeedle.com