Google Keyword Planner – What you need to know

Google Keyword Planner

If you’re a domainer like me, you have probably tried to utilize Google’s Adwords keyword Tool recently and was redirected to Google’s Keyword Planner tool instead. As you are likely aware, Google’s Adwords keyword tool is going away in the coming months and Google is already trying to wain people off the Keyword tool and onto the Keyword Planner tool. Over the years, Google’s Adwords Keyword tool has been utilized extensively, especially since Yahoo retired its Overture tool and Google became the big boy on the block. In any event, domainers need to know how to utilize Google’s new Keyword Planner tool as an alternative, especially if you’re not paying a company to assist you in your research. Since I starting playing around with the tool a couple of weeks back, I thought I’d write an article and share what I have learned.

If you need to build a new Search Network campaigns or work to expand some existing ones, then I think you will be pleased with Google’s Keyword Planner. With the Keyword planner, you can see ahead of time how a list of keywords might perform, you can create a new list of keywords by combining several lists of keywords together and Adwords users can even search for ad group ideas in addition to keywords. The Keyword Planner allows anyone to choose budgets and competitive costs per click to use with your campaigns.

At the end of the day, there is a lot of efficiency to be gained by using the Keyword Planner, whether you are an experienced pro or you are new to online advertising, as it provides you with in depth insight into which keywords, bids, budgets and groups. Using the Keyword Planner is really the way to go to lay the groundwork for a successful campaign.
can quickly get traffic estimates and historical statistics, such as search volume and estimated clicks, making it easy to choose which keyword terms are best for your landing page, service or products with a certain budget and cost per click.

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Keep in mind that somewhere between five and 20 keywords per ad group is recommended by the most successful advertisers. For those who already have existing campaigns, the Keyword Planner is a great way to discover “long-tail” keywords that don’t have the high competition and search volume, which tend to lead to more conversions, which is what we are all after. The smart Keyword Planner provides a list of suggested related ad group ideas and keywords that you can choose and save to your account.

To start off, if you already have a list of keywords and you want to see how well they perform, you can easily upload them as a CSV file or simply enter those keywords manually. Search volume data and estimated click counts are provided for each of the keywords and keyword strings chosen. Once you have done that, it is a breeze to actually multiply different keyword lists, which can save you a lot of time. This is a really neat feature that I’m sure you’ll like the most. As an example. Let’s say you’re advertising a chain of dry cleaners. You might have one keyword list of geographical locations and a second list of keywords that describe your drycleaner as follows:

Keyword list 1 Los Angeles New York Boston
Keyword list 2 dry cleaners dry cleaning cleaning services

The Keyword Planner quickly combines the keywords from these lists to create new keyword phrases, like Boston dry cleaners or Los Angeles cleaning services, and provides both traffic estimates and historical statistics for these new keyword strings.

While it may take you some time, the Keyword Planning tool is really easy to use and experiment with. After a bit of time, you’ll get used to the categories and the flow of the planner.

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With Keyword Tool, we got used to seeing statistics for broad match by default, with the ability to get statistics for phrase and exact match, which was always helpful. With Keyword Planner, you’ll get historical statistics only for exact match, which is what really matters anyway, IMO. You can add the keyword ideas to your plan and review the traffic estimates for each match type, in order to help you decide what match type to use with your keywords. Google says that you’ll notice that the average search volume data is higher in Keyword Planner as compared to the exact match search volume data you got with Keyword Tool. The reason for that is because Google will now show the average number of searches for a keyword idea on all devices, including, but not limited to, desktop and laptop computers, mobile phones, tablets, etc. With Keyword Tool, by default, Google showed you average search volume for desktop and laptop computers only.

However, like anything, changes were completed and data columns are now slightly different. Some of the difference you’ll quickly notice include the following:

Local monthly searches and global monthly searches: These two columns have been replaced by the “Average monthly searches” column, which is specific to your targeting settings, and you can get data for an entire country or individual cities and regions within a country. Note that you can still get global monthly search data, but you have to target all locations.

Ad share: This column has been removed. Google is reportedly working on a new column that will give you insight into ad impression share data.

Google Search Network: This column has been replaced by the network option within the targeting settings. In order to get data for the entire Search Network, you must select the “Google and search partners” targeting option.

Search share: This column has been retired.

Approx. CPC (Search): This column has been replaced by the “Avg. CPC” column. Here, you’ll get more accurate data in the average cost-per-click column than you did in the approximate cost-per-click column, for a variety of reasons.

Local search trends: This column doesn’t appear in the Keyword Planner interface, although you can download historical statistics and still get search volume trends sorted by month.

Extracted from webpage: This column has also been removed from the Keyword Planner interface. However, historical statistics from Keyword Planner can also give you what you need. However, it should be noted that this data is only accessible when you search for keyword and ad group ideas based on a URL, like a webpage on your website.

Lastly, it makes sense to touch upon what the historical statistics mean, as they are your new free research tool within the Keyword Planner.

You will see that when you search for ad group ideas or keywords, or if you choose to get historical statistics for a list of keywords, historical statistics will be presented in a table. Remember, all of these statistics are specific to the location and Search Network targeting settings that you select from the “Targeting” panel, so pay attention!

According to Google, here’s what the data in each column means:

Average monthly searches (“Avg. monthly searches”): The average number of times people have searched for the exact keyword based on the location and Search Network targeting that you’ve selected. Google averages the number of searches for the term over a 12-month period.

Competition: The number of advertisers that showed on each keyword relative to all keywords across Google. Note that this data is specific to the location and Search Network targeting that you’ve selected. In the “Competition” column, you can see whether the competition for a keyword is low, medium, or high.

Average cost-per-click (“Avg. CPC”): The average cost-per-click for the keyword. Google calculates the average of the keyword’s bids across all ad positions for the location and Search Network targeting that you’ve selected.

Hopefully these tips will make it easier for you to navigate Googles Keyword Planner. Remember, the Google Adwords Keyword tool will be no more really soon!

Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner

Using Google AdSense

Using Google AdSense is a smart idea to make money online, whether you have developed a website or blog that is generating some traffic. While there is some controversy among domainers as to whether or not using Google AdSense on their domain selling portfolio site is smart idea, I’ll leave that for a future post. Most domainers park their websites and generate some income from parking companies, who basically populate your domain name landing page with relevant Google AdSense ads, allowing you to get paid per click. There is nothing difficult involved with parking your names and it is as simple as registering with the company, adding your domain names and changing your domain name servers associated with the name. That’s why most domainers park their names, there is little work and they can collect some residual income. It’s no secret, however, that they are leaving money on the table and that developing your domain name into a relevant website and populating it with quality content and your own Google AdSense ads, can be a much more lucrative proposition. It takes a little work, but it really is worth it. Like many forms of advertising, there are always proven tips and tricks that you can utilize to maximize the revenue generating potential your website or blog has while using Google AdSense. This article has been written to share some tips and tricks that have proven successful in boosting my income while using Google AdSense, including a recent lesson I learned through a Google warning notification. Let’s start there.

Using Google AdSense | Using Google AdSense | Using Google AdSense | Using Google AdSense |

As everybody likes to learn something new each day, let’s start with the recent lesson learned, after I received a Google Warning notification relating to a violation pertaining to using Google AdSense on one of my websites. For those of you who may have not seen such a message before, here is what is looked like:

Hello,
This is a warning message to alert you that there is action required to bring your AdSense account into compliance with our AdSense program policies. We’ve provided additional details below, along with the actions to be taken on your part.

Issue ID#: XXXXXXXXX

Affected website: XXXXXXXXXX.com

Example page where violation occurred: http://www.XXXXXXXXXX.com

Action required: Please make changes to your site within 72 hours.

Current account status: Active

Violation explanation

AD MISLABELING: Publishers may not implement Google ads in a manner that disguises the ads in any way. For instance, publishers may not place ads under misleading headers or titles as this may confuse users into thinking the ads are actually site links related to that header. To avoid this issue, we ask that publishers use only “sponsored links” or “advertisements” to label ads. More information about this policy can be found in our help center at ( https://www.google.com/adsense/support/as/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=115985 ).

How to resolve:
If you received a notification in regard to page content, please either remove the content from your site or remove ads from the violating pages. If you received a notification in regards to the way ads are implemented on your site, please make the necessary changes to your implementation. We will automatically review the site again after 72 hours. You do not need to contact us if you make changes. Please be aware that if changes are not made within the required time frame, ad serving will be disabled to the affected website listed above.

Additionally, please be aware that the URL above is just an example and that the same violations may exist on other pages of this website or other sites that you own. To reduce the likelihood of future warnings from us, we suggest that you review all your sites for compliance. For more information regarding our policy warning notifications, visit our Help Center: https://support.google.com/adsense/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1378153&ctx=topic.

We thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team
end

It did not take me long to correct my issue and I was very happy that Google reached out to me to let me know how to correct my issue, so that I could continue using Google ADSense on my website. My issue was simple, I had one of my Google AdSense headings titled “My Sponsors”, which is actually against Google’s policies, as explained above. As Google explains, you can not disguise the ads in any way and to avoid this issue, they suggest that publishers use only “sponsored links” or “advertisements” to label ads.

Using Google AdSense | Using Google AdSense | Using Google AdSense | Using Google AdSense | Using Google AdSense | Using Google AdSense | Using Google AdSense | Using Google AdSense |

I have seen this common mistake on many websites and I’m pretty sure DNForum also suggests using this language in their DNFCollege, which I highly recommend!

Okay, now that you have learned something, let me roll into some other tips and tricks that I have picked up along the way using Google AdSense.

Using Google AdSense Tips and Tricks

The first tip is to be sure and show both image and text ads. Image ads using Google AdSense compete in the same auction for your ad space that text ads do. As such, choosing to display both image and text ads will certainly increase the competition for ads to appear on your website or blog, and most likely will also increase your earnings. Instructions on how to enable image ads on your site can be found in Google’s Help Center.

The next tip is to really make your first ad unit count: Google AdSense loads the highest paying ad on a page first, so if you want to improve your revenue, you need to make sure that your best performing ad unit is the first in your HTML code. The neaty gritty of how you can really make your first ad unit count by using Google AdSense can be found here.

Another great tip is to ensure optimal ad placement, which is really important. The placement of your Google AdSense ads plays a significant role in revenue earning potential and user experience. While Google often recommends placing an ad above the fold, they also suggest that it is just as important that users can easily find the content they are looking for. Additional tips on Google AdSense ad placement can be found here.

Always remember, you can also add a search box (or two). A publisher can put up two AdSense for search boxes (along with three standard Google AdSense for content ad units and three link units) on each page of your website. Google AdSense for search lets you place a Custom Search Engine on your site to provide users with web search, and it is a free product. You’ll also earn revenue from relevant ads on the search results page, so it is a no brainer.

Lastly, although it seems like common sense, most forget to really focus on ensuring that your site has a positive user experience! It should be obvious that user experience can make or break your website. With so many other sites offering similar services and information, it’s extremely important to differentiate your site in the eyes of your users by providing a better experience. The attention of most users is limited, so you really only have a few seconds to provide a good experience and quickly guide the user to what they’re looking for.

Using Google AdSense is really how you can make some good money on-line, but you need to follow the rules and you need to maximize the potential of your site as much as you can. Hopefully some of these tips and tricks using Google AdSense are helpful to you. As I have another list of additional tips that I have found very profitable, I’ll be sure to write another post to follow up this one soon! In the mean time, good luck using Google AdSense!

Using Google AdSense

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