Although Google has a strong bias towards argumenting the value of search marketing, the underlying message of this document is absolutely accurate and worthwhile. When times get tough, marketing studies consistently confirm that while ROI suffers, those advertisers who pull out of or scale down their marketing efforts have lost market share by the time the economy rebounds. Any seasoned marketer or advertiser knows that the battle of market share is significantly won and lost during economic downturns, not in flourishing economies.

This is a true business principle for the ages, not nervous talk. Check out these essential points:

“‘Brand that increase advertising during a recession, when competitors are cutting back, can improve market share and return on investment at a lower cost during good economics times. . .’” says Professor John Quelch, Harvard Business School.

“‘We see more people turning to online because it’s much more efficient in terms of time and money’” according to Michael Boylson, CMO, J.C. Penney.

“25% of senior marketers would increase online spending in a recession, while only 13% would cut it.”

“Analyst say search marketing will be the fastest-growing segment for 2008.”

“50% of searchers are ‘Brand Advocates.’”

Could new consumer trends emerge amidst a recession?  Hmmm, I wonder . . .

This idea is absolutely wrong!  Websites and companies need to be less egocentric by bridging the gap between visitor needs and shifting towards a consumer centric message.  But how?

The answer is much easier than its implementation.  I’m not sure if that is comforting or not, but it should be.

Users are more likely to interact with websites when they are treated as YOUsers; when messaging is about THEM and THEIR needs.  Messaging should proceed in this order:

1. Address what the user needs to accomplish and why
2. Present the solution accompanied by detailed benefits and cost justification
3. Establish unique credibility and reinforce security
4. Optional - prompt urgency if appropriate

Begin with headlines that simply, boldly reinforce relational relevancy.  Headlines can be brief, factual indicators of the topic. Follow up with a heavier lifting subheader that transitions into necessity relevance which begins the transition from empathizing with user needs to exploring potential solutions.  As the subheader feeds into the first paragraph of content, the messaging can move the reader further and further away from the problematic issues related to their needs while simultaneously approaching principles and/or features that fill in the void.

As a general best practice, website pages should begin by addressing the user and empathizing with the need.  The middle of the page should be capable of convincing the user that your product or service can resolve their need.  By the end of the page, your content should be solely addressing why your website is the best place to get it.

Of course, it may be most effective to address these items through a multi-step process.

So what is involed? What are the new changes going to do to jack up my minimum bids now? According to Google - nothing! So what’s the catch?

This new tweak to the thorn in all of our sides just may ease the infectious results that have been coming on gradually. Minimum bids have just been bumping up all over the map, irregardless of industry, CTR, Quality Score or even account history. In removing the AdWords minimum bid structure, Google still isn’t willing to take us back to the more auction-style bidding system we were so fond of. And they aren’t necessarily going to start showing your ad again all of a sudden just because the playing field has been brought back down to ground floor.

As part of this development, the search Goliath is also “replacing [their] static per-keyword Quality Scores with a system that will evaluate an ad’s quality each time it matches a search query,” potentially indicating that Quality Scores will become far more dynamic. Yeah, ’cause that’s what we all needed, more dynamicism and increased ambiguity.

The good news is that the keyword status will not display different information, specifically a “more meaningful metric: first page bids. First page bids are an estimate of the bid it would take for your ad to reach the first page of search results on Google web search,” which I certainly perceive to be a tremendous benefit. Additionally Claiborne adds that “[t]hey’re based on the exact match version of the keyword, the ad’s Quality Score,” most advertisers, including professional search marketers, haven’t seem to have caught on to.

Finally, the one benefit that I am willing to get excited about IF (wow! what a big IF) this means 2 things:

1. It may be easier to improve a Quality Score faster if you can string several quality days worth of CTR together, and
2. Even if a keyword or ad is still unjustly handicapped by the remnant of the minimum bid philosophy, at least it may still show somewhere down the line if displaying on the first page is of a lesser concern.

Before I present a partial list of items to work around, the main exercise encouraged here is to question every single aspect of your existing landing page process - or lack of process. Several unoriginal caveats are powerful to online marketing strategy. Among those are “If you build it, they will come” and “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.” The latter can be challenging to argue or justify, but will be revealed to be the crutch of the less creative.

So without further ado, here is at best a partial list of what you want to avoid:

• DON’T send PPC visitors to a standard page on your website
• DON’T give your users options
• DON’T create a page designed for more than one objective
• DON’T try to sell your brand BEFORE you sell them on the solution to their need
• DON’T assume a good conversion cannot be improved upon with concerted effort
• DON’T ask for a first name separate from a last name (collecting user info)
• DON’T use generic text on your buttons, like “Submit” or “Register”
• DON’T let visitors think unsupervised
• DON’T assume that the status quo is acceptable now, just because it was yesterday
• DON’T start designing a landing page using your current landing page as the model template

More to come . . . (my posts are never finished).

As Gord Hotchkiss so clearly debates (7/17/08) the deeply psychological programming of the human brain, making human interaction with machine meaningfully predictable, the answer comes. No surprise. Bummer. I like surprises.

Hotchkiss separates search designations of shopping versus information-gathering. The exploration came to a head when the question presents itself “What happens when there’s both an organic and a sponsored listing for the same site on the same page?” Good question, Gord. We’re listening now.

I have repeatedly argued for the magical synergy that is ignited when a search engine optimized listing displays along side of a pay per click ad. But “will one cannibalize the other” as several of my clients and colleagues have argued?

So what result comes from such a test . . ? Tune in next time for some valuable test results.

While browsing is far more common among in search, it leads to far less satisfaction. Browsers often get up from their computer feeling largely empty, having accomplished little if anything. They are largely without meaningful purpose. They are actively being passive. Like passer byers at a county fair, they are hollowly walking past adventurous opportunities utterly dominated by their practical nature. They pretend to themselves and their audience that if the right attraction comes along they will bite on it. The reality however, is that one side of their brain is starving for fun, stimulation of entertainment and the buying of goods. The problem is that marketing to this bunch of browsing consumer yahoos is waiting for something that the other side of their brain will never allow.

Search browsing will get your company very little at a tremendous cost and loss. Now search discovery actually might get you somewhere.

Discovery on the other hand stimulates a completely different chamber in a brain that is already active in an alternate sense. Discovery is euphoria to boredom. Discovery is without expectation. Discovery consumers are not proactively being passive, they are proactively being proactive. They are making surprise happen and this process is unhindered by false expectations. Anticipation is realistic. These users will engage the sights and sounds, thereby becoming active participants without the duality of browsers - the entire goal of marketing. The scope of discovery itself is engagement.

Discovery may also have a dash of social media. Perhaps a very large dash. Think BIG! Discovery does not have to be predictable in the least; succeeding more so when it is not. Websites like StumbleUpon.com excel it providing the randomness that entertains and brands. Does it sell? I doubt it. However, like any unclicked ad, I believe that were users to find your company’s brand markings in discovery such as this they will remember it the minute they in true fashion “stumble upon” your search marketing ad. Something deep inside of them somewhere will remember your brand identity.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is basic Pavlovian law. The endorphin bells will resound in their head.

Discoverers will engage. Present your company in front of discoverers again and it will increase the likelihood of meaningful clicks conversions because once upon a time, when they didn’t have purpose or a care in the world, you were a small part of their discovery experience.

Thank goodness search engine marketing for small business is not like traditional print advertising. For anything professionally printed, there is a saying that “We didn’t release it, it escaped,” or something to that fashion at least. Usually this is said because the end product could have benefited from perpetual optimization and improvement. Once in print, it cannot be altered. New versions can be released, but the older versions live in infamy. The problem is that at some point the ad needs to go to print, and by then the avenue for publishing, whether it be a newspaper, magazine, mailer or anything else, has been determined and at least partially paid for. There is no turning back; something needs to printed, so it might as well be your latest version of the ad.

In print advertising, you receive data that indicates demographically percentage breakdowns for each segment of possible audience. To a greater extent the audience can be described and categorized into nice, neat little boxes and therefore can be addressed in a manner that is expected to illicit a favorable response. While this is comforting on one hand, I think it would drive an optimization oriented fiend like me crazy knowing that print is chiseled in stone.

Search marketing campaigns can be optimized on the fly and nothing escapes due to dead lines. Were anything to escape, the pit crew can make modifications to the race performance as the car (campaign) makes it laps. Rarely if ever, does the campaign require pulling off the track into the pit itself. Changes can be concurrent to running live.

This should be of incredible comfort to your business. While past experiences and perceptions of searchers cannot be reversed, you can rest assured that the best of your best are out on the playing field right now. Updates to performance can enhance campaign effectiveness within seconds. Can a NASCAR pit crew change out tires without the car pulling off the track?

That fact of the matter is that no level of experience is going to put the perfect strategy together the first time, that doesn’t need optimization as time goes on. The faith-restoring qualifier to that statement however is that there is arguably more science and art poured into a campaign after it goes live than before. I am more hesitant towards advertising that once released cannot be optimized to morph into an efficient course of interaction between a company and its potential customer base. Relish the idea that its going to be better over time. Soon enough the engines will come to authoritate (made up word, make you an authority) you and find your website favorable and consumers will appreciate you for it.

So when you here that tests need to be performed, and that testing variables is how accounts are optimized, be thankful that nobody can say “it is what it is” at the end of the day, because all of it can get better. If it can be measured, it can be optimized.

Now for some of you super-fancy and aged SEM professionals who have been quietly, expertly going about your own business since the bygone days of yore - YOU may not be surprised at this. Then again, you may be the most surprised of any group.

There is one Quality Score calculated solely for the purpose of determining your minimum CPC bid. The other Quality Score determines your ad positioning on a fluctuating basis. So then why does Google AdWords only show (hide) one Quality Score? This is just as dark and mysterious as Google itself?

Minimum CPC Bids Quality Scoring

This Quality Score comes gift wrapped to you as a house warming gift as soon as the keyword is added. According to Google’s own verbiage, “If you were to add the same keyword three times to your ad group, each with a different match type, they would all receive the same Quality Score.” If the giant scary web monster stamps you with a poor quality score, res assured that it will most likely remain for at least a good while, so make sure you take heed to set up the best of the best when it comes to establishing your keywords’ relationship to Google.

Ad Positioning Quality Score

This specific Quality Score is in constant flux because it depends upon your keyword relevance, using the actual search query as the benchmark or measuring stick. While the match type does not directly influence the over all scoring, it has a tremendous amount of influence in this regard. For example, if you were to broad match the keyword search marketing small business while the query of small business search engine marketing is searched, your instantly conditional score should be lower than your competitor who is phrase matching the keyword small business search engine marketing. For this reason, exact and phrase match should provide, not just individual bidding strategies but, more favorable ad positioning.

I just know you want to learn more about these two Google AdWords Quality Scores. Perhaps I should write more. . .