The goal of Google’s search engines has long since been to deliver a quality user experience, using a complex algorithm to deliver the most relevant search results to satisfy a user’s query.  It does this by crawling page content and identifying the most relevant and highest quality pages using keywords, title and header tags— to name a few.  This is, in essence, what drives quality SEO efforts, with page owners motivated to choose the best keywords for their page, putting those keywords into quality, useful and engaging content and avoiding keywords that may rank well but are irrelevant to the page. (more…)

Launched in November 2009, Google Sitelinks allow advertisers to include additional URLs in their paid search ads beneath the usual description and display URL. Sitelink URLs lead users to more specific pages within the website, giving them more control over the content they see when they click on the ad.  From the user’s perspective, these ads appear more legitimate in their similarity to the organic results they see on a search engine results page (SERP).

Companies using sitelinks often see significant increases in click-through rates, likely resulting from greater perceived authority that comes with ads covering more screen area in premium positions.

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As we prepare to move into 2011, it’s a great time to evaluate the past year and peek at the upcoming year. Many of us are creating laundry lists of decrees for the New Year – make sure you’re including some Internet marketing goals in your 2011 resolutions. While losing 20 pounds would impressive, we feel improving the return of your Internet marketing program by 20% deserves some consideration (disclaimer: we are a bit biased). Obviously, the specific items you choose to include are up to you, but we’ve listed a few suggestions based on conversations with clients and other marketers. (more…)

When Google Adwords recently served a Rise Interactive paid search ad for the term “michael head internet sales,” we must admit, we were a little frustrated.  The term we were bidding on was “internet advertising company.”  Since we had the bid set for the broad keyword match type, Adwords felt that “michael head internet sales” was relevant. (more…)