aimClear® Search Marketing Blog

Some people think keyword research consists of going to the Google Keyword tool, typing in four of their industry phrases & then just grabbing the keywords with the highest volume. But some people are ultra DumbPants month-punchers & need additional research guidance in order to find the highly targeted keyword permutations, relevant stemming topics & true opportunities for their brand/product/designer puppy-couch site. Where should a  DumbPants month-puncher search marketer begin look for these keyword opportunities?

Starting things off on Tuesday afternoon’s SMX West 2010 Keyword Research: Beyond The Ordinary panel was Christine Churchill, of Key Relevance. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s an old adage – If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, unless you are carefully able to fix it in ways that helps all parties who use it & also it will make you more money, then you should think about trying to fix it, so good luck with this. Google essentially took this approach when they began testing new Adwords ad formats last year.

While  opportunity with these new formats is apparent and massive, information is limited, compared to the abundance of tutorials & tools available for classic ads. What the heck are these new ad formats, how do I get them, & how do I use them to make mad guap? Welcome to Not Your Father’s Adwords, the first afternoon session on the SMX West advanced track. Read the rest of this entry »

When it was first announced that Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer would be keynoting this year’s SMX West, it was perceived as a nice surprise and unexpected legitimization of the search marketing industry from one of the big guys.  The announcement left many marketers existentially pondering their role in the somewhat dysfunctional search family.

Did Ballmer, Microsoft, & Bing finally release SEOs from their search-kennel to offer them a seat at the dinner table? Or was it a pat on the head… an assurance that were are, indeed, “a good boy?” Read the rest of this entry »

There has been much written surrounding classic query types. In review, conventional wisdom dictates that there are basically three kinds:

• Informational - suggests the searcher is on the broad quest for knowledge about a topic of interest (medical symptoms, film trivia, tips on housebreaking puppies, etc.).

• Navigational - indicates the searcher is on the hunt for a specific website, usually dedicated to a specific brand (a search for Pepsi usually means the searcher’s destination is Pepsi.com).

• Transactional - connotes the searcher is ready to make a purchase online (typically formatted like so: “buy [product keyword] online”]).

However, things are not always that cut and dry. In these days of four and five word searches, there are subtle shades of intent that aren’t always obvious to the marketer.  For PPC jockeys, spending cold cash to separate out live customers can be a crucial matter of budget.  Let’s take a look at four ways to identify and leverage some subtle intent words out there to help you focus time and money on PPC keywords that should stand a decent better of converting. Read the rest of this entry »