An often overlooked and undervalued aspect of the SEM campaign is the negative keyword.  I don’t think I even used negative keywords in the first few SEM campaigns I worked on many years ago.  However, neglecting these is a rookie mistake that can result in poor click through rates and wasted clicks. Negative keywords exclude [...]

There is so much to say about keywords, I can’t possibly put it all in one post – they are that important.  Once you’ve fleshed out your goal, you need to dive headfirst into your search for keywords.  Establish the most important keywords for your campaign and use them as the cornerstone of your account; [...]

I decided to start an “SEM for Dummies” style series to help teach SEM novices how to build, develop, and optimize a viable paid search campaign, without all the boring, obvious, and typically unnecessary prattle you’d get in a webinar or multi-day conference. If you think the place to start is the keywords or even [...]

In one of the many blogs I read recently a surprising statistic jumped out at me; unfortunately, I can’t remember where I read the stat.  It said that 47% of online marketers use analytics to measure campaigns.  When I read this, my jaw dropped.  What are the other 53% doing? Randomly guessing? Basing optimization decisions [...]

There are hundreds of specialists in pay-per-click marketing, but for inexplicable reasons there are no specialists in post click marketing.  Post-click doesn’t sound familiar?  Well that’s because most marketing teams ignore the premise of post click marketing – whether it’s accidental or on purpose.  Search engine marketers worry about keywords, negative keywords, and ad copy, [...]