LinkedIn is another massively popular social web platform. It has similarities to other social platforms, but some key differences as well. The primary difference is that it’s centered on people’s jobs, careers and businesses. It’s the go-to place for displaying your...

Citations I know what you’re thinking: “Citations… what the heck are those?” Well, it’s good to know what citations are because they are an important part of a good Internet marketing strategy—especially for businesses that operate locally. In a nutshell, citations...

The very first thing your website needs to accomplish: Make them feel that they are in the right place! It should look and feel relevant and credible for what you do. If it looks professionally made, your business will look professional. If it looks like you made it...

Introduction: Phineas Taylor Barnum, commonly known as PT Barnum, is one of the most colorful and controversial figures of American history.  His life spanned most of the 1800’s, and his career was long and legendary.  He is thought by many to have been a crook, and...

Ad extensions are bits of information and sometimes links that get displayed along with your ad. To succeed with AdWords advertising, it’s very important to use ad extensions. They can make your ads stand out from the competition, they can make it easier for users to...

Sitelinks are an ad extension in AdWords that shows several links under your ad to different pages in your website. Normal ads, of course, direct users to one particular landing page. Sitelinks give the user more options, depending on what they’re looking for. For...

Google Shopping is Google's online platform for finding products that you might want to purchase. Over the years, Google has changed its strategy for online products several times. For the last couple years however it has consolidated its approach into the sleek and...

The engineers at Google who develop AdWords are constantly busy, looking for ways to give advertisers more options. This is generally great because it gives us a better system and more control. No doubt, though, it also leads to some confusion. Flexible bid strategies...

Google Merchant Center is the back end of the Google Shopping system. By creating a Google Merchant Center account and uploading a data feed, merchants can gain the ability to advertise their products on shopping.google.com, and for product inquiries on the Google.com...

In AdWords call extensions are a way to make it easier for your ads to drive phone calls-- whether a user is on a desktop computer, tablet computer, or mobile smartphone. How they change by device When they appear on a desktop computer or tablet computer, they are...

Google Merchant Center accounts and product listing ads in AdWords are most commonly used for products sold on websites. However, Google offers a method to advertise products sold in local stores called “local inventory ads.” To make this possible, merchants must...

Location extensions in AdWords allow you to add additional information to your ad, including your business address, phone number, and a map marker with your ad text. On a mobile device, they include a link with directions to your business. Why you might want to use...

To manage your product listing ads in AdWords, you create product groups. Product groups exist within ad groups in AdWords. The purpose of product groups is to separate and organize groups of products in a way that makes sense for your business. After you create your...

The Sitelinks ad extension shows links to specific pages on your website beneath the text of your ads. This helps customers get to what they're looking for on your site with just one click. Sitelinks are limited to 25 character spaces After enabling Sitelinks and...

Ad extensions are an important feature for successful AdWords advertising. Although you never have full control over when and how ad extensions appear, many of the most useful extensions require either that you set them up, enable them, or that particular elements are...

The basics of CPA bidding CPA bidding is an advanced bidding feature in AdWords. The "CPA" stands for "cost per acquisition". By "acquisition", what they really mean is "conversion". Conversion tracking is a requirement to use CPA bidding. Conversion tracking, of...

When using Google AdWords, it is important to understand the different levels that exists in an account. Here are some things to understand about both keyword level and ad level in an account. Choices for keyword level settings When you click on an ad group in...

Flexible bid strategies are created and set up in the shared library section of your AdWords account. They allow you to override the traditional structure of having only one bidding method applied for each campaign. They also allow a greater variety of strategies that...

AdWords advertising can be very effective for two different types of goals: direct response and branding. If your goal is branding, you want the right target audience to be reminded of your business on a regular basis. You care about lots of impressions, and are not...

If your AdWords account is signed up for the automatic payments or post pay billing option, you will be billed at regular intervals based on time, or billing thresholds. A billing threshold is a level of spending that, when met, will trigger you to be charged for...

Account structure and ad group basics Understanding AdWords account structure is crucial for ad word success. In an account, you must have at least one campaign. Each campaign must have at least one ad group. And each ad group must have at least one ad and keyword (or...

An AdWords account is made up of different levels. Each level has a different purpose, with different settings and options. There are certain settings that live at the campaign level. In general, those settings apply to every ad group in the campaign. A few of the...

What is meant by account level? An AdWords account has different levels. There’s the account, and within the account you have campaigns, and within a campaign you have ad groups, and within ad groups you have actual ads, keywords, and/or other targeting methods. This...

Basic bidding options Primarily, AdWords is pay per click system— meaning advertisers only pay when someone clicks on their ad. That means appearances of their ad— called “impressions”, are free--no matter how many there are. There are two options for pay per click...

Enhanced cost per click is a bidding feature that gives AdWords a degree of flexibility in the ad auctions. Namely, it allows Google to raise your bid if it determines that a conversion is more likely. Enhanced cost per click allows Google to raise your maximum CPC...

A CMS, or content management system, is a software system that lets you create and control a website through a simple interface. This is a perfect solution for those of us who want to be able to manage our own websites without having to learn programming code. CMS...

I know what you’re thinking: “Citations… what the heck are those?” Well, it’s good to know what citations are because they are an important part of a good Internet marketing strategy—especially for businesses that operate locally. In a nutshell, citations are simple...

So you have a website. Perhaps you have other Internet marketing methods working for your business as well, such as a blog, a Facebook page, YouTube videos, or Google AdWords ads. This could be an effective set of marketing initiatives. Question: what would make this...