Website Development

Website Development

Question 1

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo's pay-per-click (PPC) programs are similar, but each have unique features that require different campaign tactics to use effectively. How do you get the maximum advantage from each program?

Keyword match type

The search engines give you some control over which search queries trigger your PPC ads. Google and MSN offer three options: Exact, Phrase and Broad Match. In general, Exact Match means your ad will only appear if a person's search query matches exactly with the keyword (or phrase) you bid on. With Phrase Match, your ad is eligible to be shown if the search query contains all the words in your keyword plus additional words before and/or after. Broad Match allows the search engines to add additional words to your keyword phrase, plus separate and rearrange the words in your original keyword phrase. Yahoo offers two options: Standard Match (similar to Exact Match) and Advanced Match (similar to Broad Match) (Plumley 2011).

Ad reviews & trademark marketing

Mona Elesseily, Internet Marketing Strategist for Page Zero Media, covered the ad review process of Google, MSN and Yahoo. She pointed out how Google's automated system checks and rejects superlatives and misspellings as advertisers submit their listings (ad titles and descriptions). MSN does both automatic and manual review of ads. Yahoo's new ad platform is reported to include Fast Ad Activation which should expedite the review process (Koch 2006).

Trademark owners and their competitors likely listened carefully to the next section of her presentation. Google allows advertisers to bid on competitors' trademark terms but will not allow them to display these terms in their ads. Elesseily pointed out that trademark terms can negatively impact your Quality Score and even increase your minimum bid price in Google. MSN does not allow advertisers to bid on their competitors' trademark terms or display these in their ads.

Yahoo recently changed its policy. As of March 2006, Yahoo no longer allows advertisers to bid on competitors' trademark terms. Resellers and non-competitive information sites can still bid on trademarked keywords but there are certain conditions. For resellers: the advertiser must sell or facilitate the sale of trademarked product or service. So, if you're Sony, you can't bid on Toshiba terms. For information sites: the advertiser must provide a) substantial information about the trademark owner or its products and services, and b) can't sell or promote competitors' products or services. Overall, Yahoo's new trademark policy further limits the use of trademark terms.

Local search

When it comes to local search, advertisers have two options. First, advertisers can simply bid on regional keywords—"Chicago plumber" for example. Brad Geddes, director of SEM for LocalLaunch.com, offered an extensive list of possibilities. You can regionalize your phrase by country, state/province, state abbreviation, cities, neighborhoods, ZIP codes, area codes, airport codes and even regional lingo. Second, advertisers can choose geo-targeting through ads are served to consumers based on their web host's IP address. Here's where it can get confusing. Within the geo-targeting option, search engines typically offer more than one choice (Hourieh ...