The stage has been set and flights to Dublin from most European and domestic locations are fully booked. The first annual Dublin SEO, webmaster, Designer and webworker meetup will take place on Saturday the 9th of February. This is an event that will certainly go down in the history books. Ireland’s web workers have long been restricted with their networking opportunities for many reasons. We have now reached the tipping point…
The Harbour Master in Dublin’s city center will play host to food, drink and talk that was once a pipedream in our normal social circles. Kindly sponsored by the most fantastic hosting company in Ireland, Blacknight. If you can make it we will be meeting at 7:30PM. This is an open event and anyone can attend. The more names we can all put faces to the better. If you work with anything web related, please feel free to come along. A good time is guaranteed to be had by all*
The confirmed attendees are as follows:
Cormac Nolan ;)
Louie
Richard Hearne
Mark Walsh (I can’t wait to print out Google paid link guidelines and show to) ;)
Dave Davis
James Larkin
Allistar
Eoghan McCabe
Ken Stanley
Ciaran
Gavin Doolan
David Behan
Micky Wall
Gavin
Michael Flanagan
There is a continued discussion on the Irish webmaster forum here. Special thanks to Gavin Doolan for kicking this all off. Not too sure if any of the ladies are confirmed yet? I hope to see all you guys there.
*This is not a guarantee.
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Your own analytics can be an amazing source of negative keywords. Look at not only your PPC data but your organic data too. Print out a monthly keyword report and highlight those negative terms. If you are unsure of any, do a simple search for the keyword and see what results pop up. You might be surprised. Don’t forget to run a search query performance report on your PPC account to make sure your ads are not being triggered by terms you don’t want them to. The guys over at ApolloSEM have a fantastic article on extracting your search query data that Google doesn’t want to give you.
Use the free Google keyword tool. Paste in your keywords and make sure you select the “Use synonyms” checkbox. You may be surprised what keywords show up that Google thinks are related to your product or service. Also, paste your URL into the “Website Content” box to see what the tool thinks what your site/page may be about. Check the “Include other pages on my site…” checkbox to get a more rounded view. Make a list of words you are unsure of.
This may seem blindingly obvious, but try setting your search results to display 100 results. Search for your main keywords and notice the results that have absolutely nothing to do with your product or service. Visit those sites and take down negative keywords. Run those sites through the Google keyword tool too. Leave nothing to chance. Think about words people would be using to complain about your product or service or show it in a poor light.
Do a search for your keywords. Look at other advertisers PPC ads. Many may be completely unrelated or triggered by one of your stem keywords. There are so many advertisers that allow their ads to be displayed for completely unrelated or downright silly terms. Don’t be one of them. Also, try dropping an adsense unit into your page or site as a test. See what advertisers are displayed. Make sure your keywords are not displayed for keywords relating to their product (unless you have the same product!). Be as anal as you can and don’t forget to run the sites you find through the keyword tool again.
Try running your main keywords through a thesaurus. There is no way you could possibly know every single synonym of your main keywords. A Thesaurus is not only great at expanding your negative keyword list but also your main keyword list. Find variations of your variations. Ask friends and family that have nothing to do with your product or service what words they would use to search for your product and run them through the thesaurus too. If you are advertising in a competitive space, missing a single negative and having your ad displayed for a search that will never convert can be extremely expensive. You might not even find out for weeks if your PPC management company are not monitoring your log files. Don’t find your negatives the hard way.
Try using your own knowledge of your industry and product. What terms are you certain people will be searching for that are either not related to your product or service or that are related and that you don’t provide? Sit down with your co-workers and brainstorm for ten minutes. Again, be thorough and leave nothing to chance. If you do not know your industry (you do know your industry right?) or product well enough, visit the manufacturers website or give them a call. Ask your customers if you need to. What words are similar or spelled similar to your product or service name? Also be aware that new products are being released every day. Set up a Google alert for your keywords.
There are many terms that you will want to add to all of your campaigns to prevent your ads being shown for searchers at the beginning of the buying cycle, who are looking for the cheapest option or for searchers who are outright trying to steal your product or service. While your business may be competing on price, I think it would be safe to say that you do not want your ad being shown for searchers looking to rip you off or complain! Solomon Rothman has a great list of keywords that can start you off. Remember to use common sense when generating your negatives. If you offer a free trial or a free product, do not blindly use the negative keyword “free”. Use what applies to your business. Some of the negatives Solomon offers are:
It’s been a while since our last Google Global update. We’ve been kicked into gear by the forceful upgrade of Firefox to 3.6 lately too. For those of you who have been holding off upgrading Firefox to the latest and greatest version so you could continue to use Google Global, the wait is over. Today we would like to announce the release of the latest version of Google Global.