Google AdWords – An Informative Approach

With the amount that we see Google AdWords popping up all over the forums and Internet SEO news we thought it was time we’d give you some well-needed information on Google AdWords. Now you’re probably wondering, why would we need to know about Google AdWords? Wouldn’t it be great to know what you are dealing with before you jump in and start paddling your way towards something that may drown you deep into the sea? Of course, so lets begin.

What is Google AdWords?

Google AdWords is a program designed by Google itself that allows businesses that have online-based sites to place advertisements in the search engines at a price, also known as the pay per click (PPC) option. Currently Google AdWords seems to be controlling a large amount of all the advertising that seems to occur in the search engines with a quickly expanding market share to go along with it.

What kinds of offers are available?

There is of course their standard PPC program available through Google, but currently they are offering two other services to assist new advertisers into their market of advertising. The first one is the cheapest route someone could take to begin his or her online advertising experience. For only $5.00 to start the customer can receive AdWords Starter Edition. Let’s take a look at this further.

AdWords Starter Edition

With this option you will be given the opportunity to run one advertisement by filling out a one-page form that will assist in determining your budget, the keywords, and the text of your ad. Simple enough don’t you think? You then can easily just activate the advertisement and it will begin running.

This option is a perfect way to familiarize you with the world of online advertising. You no longer need to be worried if it is the right option for you because you can easily make it the perfect option, especially for only $5.00 to begin. What’s wrong with that? You probably pay more just to start up your vehicle every single day.

Now after you’ve tried out the AdWords Starter Edition and felt that this may be the right path for your advertising experience you may want to consider upgrading to the AdWords main program through Google. It won’t actually cost you a thing to upgrade, so what wrong could honestly happen?

AdWords Jumpstart

This option tends to be for those people who love getting a lot of help then you may want to consider paying the extra bit of $299.00 for AdWords Jumpstart. With the use of this program you will not only have direct contact with one of the Google ad reps, but they will assist in writing your ads, selecting the keywords, and determining your bid amounts. Now that just makes life so much easier. Best part is, in the long run you will end up getting the money back because it will go towards the clicks you receive on your advertisement, so you are just investing in your own future.

With the help from your AdWords Jumpstart rep they will develop a campaign that will give you a daily budget of $50.00+. Once your budget begins to increase you will see that you advertisement will begin to show on more relevant search results. If you do need to all of a sudden raise or lower your budget those you can with the option to make changes to your daily budget any time you need after you start your campaign.

Now that we’ve gone through two of the best options for new Google AdWords users you are probably wondering how difficult it will be to actually get your advertisements seen. Well it isn’t too difficult especially since advertisements in Google are usually placed at the top of the page and down the right hand side.

When people do a search that is relevant to your category it is likely that your advertisement will be seen, especially if the market you are in isn’t a huge market. Google AdWords is a great option when you want to get known, but don’t want to go around posting in forums and blogs to get several clicks in a week. It is not the quantity that matters it is the quality. If you can’t provide quality approaches on getting your business known, like advertising, then you may as well just start digging that hole in your backyard now.

Going around posting your advertisement on thousands of forums and blogs will help, but not everyone uses them. So why not post advertisements in an area that everyone has used at least once in their life. Search engines are very popular so pay the extra few bucks to get your advertisements advertised with Google, Yahoo!, and MSN.

There are also four different formats you can utilize for your advertisements format. These consist of:
• Video ads
• Image ads
• Mobile ads
• Local business ads on Google Maps

All four of these options are great ways to get your business known, especially if you are a local business wanting to get known by your public.

Lastly, why not choose who can actually see your advertisement? Google AdWords has given its clients the ability to choose who and when your advertisements can be seen. You can turn the ads off entirely for the time being if you notice there is no conversion rate, you can have the ads targeted for a certain language or location, site targeting which allows you to determine what sites can have your advertisement listed, ad scheduling allows you to select what days and timeframes you want your ad to appear, and position preference is where you can choose where you’d like the ad to appear in the Google search results.

With Google AdWords there is many options available that allow you to make your advertising experience a personalized experience. If you are not comfortable with how things go simply turn off your advertisements and continue on your way. Google AdWords is a great way to get yourself known especially if you are willing to put the extra few dollars in for some extra effort.

SEO Interview Questions Part 2

Technical / Tactics

People who claim they are SEOs often don’t know very much about SEO.

1. Describe briefly your general SEO experience. (This can usually bring a lot of “BS” talk and distract from the issue at hand)
2. Can you write HTML code by hand? (I don’t see a need for this question. Coding by hand is no longer necessary)
3. Could you briefly explain the PageRank algorithm? (I don’t even think Matt Cutts could do this without Guy Kawasaki saying “Bullshit!” to Matt as he did at PubCon in Vegas.
4. Have you created any SEO tools either from scratch or pieced together from others? (Is this an SEO interview or a programming interview? I don’t know many SEOs who are also programmers).
5. What your opinion of PageRank?
6. Do you recommend the use of XML sitemaps and why? (This is a solid question and should get their opinions on a lot of issues)
7. What are your thoughts on the direction of Web 2.0 technologies with regards to SEO?
8. What SEO tools do you use on a weekly basis?
9. Under what circumstances would you look to exclude pages from search engines using robots.txt vs meta robots tag?
10. What areas do you think are currently the most important in organically ranking a site?
11. Do you have experience in copywriting and can you provide some writing samples? (Personally, I would rather have these two jobs separate. I don’t believe a copywriter can be a good SEO and visa versa.
12. Have you ever had something you’ve written reach the front-page of Digg? Sphinn? Or be Stumbled? (Does this really matter? You can hit all three with enough Spam, it isn’t that hard).
13. Explain to me which META tags matter in today’s world. (Is this referring to “today’s world” or to the “search engine algorithms” because most meta tags do matter, they just aren’t indexed or counted in the algo)
14. Explain various steps that you would take to optimize a website? (A better option would be to show them a page, tell them the keyword and state, “You have exactly 12 minutes to optimize this page.” And then see how they do. Asking them to verbally state what to do is poor in my view. There are too many unknown factors. Get them to perform to see what they would do.)
15. If the company whose site you’ve been working for has decided to move all of its content to a new domain, what steps would you take? (Poor question as the chances of this happening are not common).
16. Rate from 1 to 10, tell me the most important “on page” elements. (I don’t think most top SEOs could answer this question, or really care about it. If you analyze any industry and the keywords that drive the industry, you will see that different elements count stronger than others in Google)
17. Review the code of past clients/company websites where SEO was performed. (This could be good to do, but also can be time consuming. Also, what proof is there that the person sitting across from you, or corresponding with you is the person which did the work?)
18. What do you think about link buying? (Great question)
19. What is Latent Semantic Analysis (LSI Indexing)? (and a good follow-up is what is their opinion of it).
20. What is Phrase Based Indexing and Retrieval and what roles does it play? (I’m not sure if this is a good interview question since this has more to do with detecting of Spam than it does in placement).
21. What is the difference between SEO and SEM? (If the candidate doesn’t know this, there isn’t a reason to continue).
22. What kind of strategies do you normally implement for backlinks? (A better option would be ask for the domain of a site they have reached a PR5 for and do a backlink analysis with a program such as SEO Elite.
23. What role does social media play in an SEO strategy? (I don’t see a need to ask this in an interview)
24. What things wouldn’t you do to increase rankings because the risk of penalty is too high? (I am assuming Black Hat tactics are sought after here).
25. What’s the difference bewtween PageRank and ToolBar PageRank? (I love this question. If you get “Aren’t they the same?” end the interview immediately).
26. Why might you want to use nofollow on an internal link? (This should also get their opinion on the actual use of the tag itself)

Analysis

A big part of SEO involves assessing the effectiveness of a campaign both relative to past performance as well as competing sites.

1. Which web analytics are you most familiar with? (Every SEO must be familiar with web analytics)
2. From an analytics perspective, what is different between a user from organic search results vs. a type-in user? (I am unsure of the real reason behind this question)
3. How do you distinguish the results of your search optimization work from a seasonal change in traffic patterns? (I’d toss this one out too)
4. How do you evaluate whether an SEO campaign is working? (Hopefully the answer here is “conversions” and not traffic)
5. What does competitive analysis mean to you and what techniques do you use? (make sure this answer stays brief or it could be very distracting)
6. If you’ve done 6 months of SEO for a site and yet there haven’t been any improvements, how would you go about diagnosing the problem? (I hate this question. If it takes you 6 months to figure out there hasn’t been any improvements, you’re doing it wrong. You should be able to see changes within three weeks of implementation. Six months is a joke in my book)
7. How many target keywords should a site have? (This is a poor question as well as it depends upon the industry and the goals of the company).
8. How do *you* help a customer decide how to their budget between organic SEO and pay-per-click SEM? (This is a poor question as well. You use PPC to understand which keywords convert and you concentrate on the keywords which are revenue producers on both the organic and PPC side)
9. You hear a rumor that Google is weighting the HTML LAYER tag very heavily in ranking the relevance of its results - how does this affect your work? (Hopefully the candidate discusses testing the rumor on a test domain before implementation on the target domain)
10. Why does Google rank Wikipedia for so many topics? )Great question which should produce insightful answers)

Industry Involvement

Is SEO just a job to pay the bills? Nothing wrong with that, but some senior positions can benefit from more enthusiasm and interest that can be measured by work done outside of the office.

1. If salary and location were not an issue, who would you work for? (Do you really want to know the answer to this? )

2. In Google Lore - what are ‘Hilltop’, ‘Florida’ and ‘Big Daddy’? (This shouldn’t be a “decision maker” if they get it wrong, but it would be good if they are “well read” in the industry)

3. Have you attended any search related conferences? (Follow-up should be pros and cons)

4. Google search on this candidates name, (if you cannot find them, that’s a red flag).

5. Do you currently do SEO on your own sites? Do you operate any blogs? Do you currently do any freelance work and do you plan on continuing it? (This is vital as any SEO who is good always has side projects)

6. Of the well-known SEOs, who are you not likely to pay attention to? (I love this one)

7. What are some challenges facing the SEO industry? (I don’t like questions like this as it becomes more of “speculation conversation” which isn’t very productive)

8. What industry sites, blogs, and forums do you regularly read? (This is a great question and they better rattle off less than a dozen, or they spend too much time reading and not enough time working)

9. Who are the two key people - who started Google? (Does this really matter?)

10. Who is Matt Cutts? (Same. Does it really matter? Honestly, if someone had no idea who Matt Cutts was, could they still be a great SEO? I say “Yes”)

11. If you were bidding on a contract, what competitor would you most worry about? (I don’t see a need for this one either)

Open-Ended

These questions are more about how an answer is given rather than the actual answer. They often scare interviewees, but with no wrong answer they’re actually a good opportunity to shine.

1. Tell me your biggest failure in an SEO project (good question - watch them “shift” in their seat)

2. What areas of SEO do you most enjoy? (look for direct and to the point responses)

3. In what areas of SEO are you strongest? (test these areas heavily to make sure they are really strong in those areas)

4. In what areas of SEO are you weakest? (make sure they actually admit to a weakness. Those who state “I’m too organized” or “I have too much attention to detail” are red flags. Everyone has weaknesses.)

5. How do you handle a client who does not implement your SEO recommendations? (This should produce some “passionate” answers. If they respond, “I’m okay with it, it’s their site, it is their choice” is a warning. You want someone who responds, “If they don’t implement the changes, why are they clients?” is a better answer.)

6. Can you get “xyz” company listed for the keyword “Google” in the first page? (I can only assume this is a trick question to see if the candidate understands the role of authoritativeness in the algorithm.)

7. What do you think is different about working for an SEO agency vs. doing SEO in-house? (This is another “philosophical” discussion that I would rather not have with a candidate.)

8. Why are you moving from your current position and/or leaving any current projects? (Ah, a great question. Listen close to the reasons, and any “bitching” which results, and if it does, just keep quiet and let them talk.)

Some of these questions were blatantly copied from the The Mad Hat’s list. Others came from Greg Meyers, Director of Search at Commerce360; Stoney deGeyter, Owner at Pole Position Marketing; and Liana Evans, Director of Internet Marketing at KeyRelevance.

Personally, I prefer to do a brief phone interview, and then to an in-person interview (if location permits) and I do the following:

1) .htaccess knowledge. Do they know how to do the non-www page protection? (If they don’t know how, I still continue the interview. If they do, and can do it with me, they score major points).
2) I have them show me a site which ranks well that they have done the SEO on, WHICH THEY STILL MANAGE. I then ask that they put my name at the bottom of the home page (I require they bring their own laptop). If they can’t do it (which means they don’t have FTP access to the site), I end the interview right there.
3) I have them do a search for a competitive phrase, and then a pick a random number, such as #34, and we go to that page and I ask, what three things would you first implement to get this page to move from #34 into the Top 20, and what is the expected time frame. This question gives me insight on their code reading ability, how they do competitive analysis and how to break down what a page needs to get a better ranking.

Good luck finding the right people for your business.

Blog Writing

Blog Writing

For the robots of any search engines, rich content is the foodstuff. In the competitive edge of internet era, for survival of any business or growth of business, one should always work in smart and progressive way. Previously blogs were written for personal information, encyclopedia, and articles. But nowadays trends revolutionize for blogs. Many big and small business group started possessing business blogs.

Type of Blogs

• Business Blogs
• Industrial Blogs
• Educational Blogs
• Personal Blogs
• Article Blogs
• Blog for Artist, Actors, Models

Importance of Business Blog

• You can take advantage of your website using business blogs. Professionally written business blog can provide lots of information regarding your products or services. This makes lots of benefits to your website for increasing quality web traffic as well as generating genuine business enquiries.
• In blogs you can write any information about your products such as its history, invention, technology, in short you can incorporate even tiny information for your products in blogs which is not possible in your corporate website.
• You can add as many information and pages as possible in your blogs, more number of pages get good benefit in search engine listing.
• You can make direct link to your website from your business blogs, thus you can build more link to your sites, which is additional benefits for top ranking.

We have long experience and expertise in writing business blogs for any type of products, services, business, professionals and individuals. We have team of skilled and knowledgeable SEO copy writers for preparing blogs that meets your requirement precisely and accurately.

Top SEO Interview Questions

Every SEO prefers certain tactics over others, but familiarity with many could indicate a deeper understanding of the industry. And while every SEO doesn't need to have a web developer background, having such skills can help set someone apart from the crowd.

1. Give me a description of your general SEO experience.
2. Can you write HTML code by hand?
3. Could you briefly explain the PageRank algorithm?
4. How you created any SEO tools either from scratch or pieced together from others?
5. What do you think of PageRank?
6. What do you think of using XML sitemaps?
7. What are your thoughts on the direction of Web 2.0 technologies with regards to SEO?
8. What SEO tools do you regularly use?
9. Under what circumstances would you look to exclude pages from search engines using robots.txt vs meta robots tag?
10. What areas do you think are currently the most important in organically ranking a site?
11. Do you have experience in copywriting and can you provide some writing samples?
12. Have you ever had something you've written reach the front-page of Digg? Sphinn? Or be Stumbled?
13. Explain to me what META tags matter in today's world.
14. Explain various steps that you would take to optimize a website?
15. If the company whose site you've been workind for has decided to move all of its content to a new domain, what steps would you take?
16. Rate from 1 to 10, tell me the most important "on page" elements
17. Review the code of past clients/company websites where SEO was performed.
18. What do you think about link buying?
19. What is Latent Semantic Analysis (LSI Indexing)?
20. What is Phrase Based Indexing and Retrieval and what roles does it play?
21. What is the difference between SEO and SEM?
22. What kind of strategies do you normally implement for backlinks?
23. What role does social media play in an SEO strategy?
24. What things wouldn't you to do increase rankings because the risk of penalty is too high?
25. What's the difference bewtween PageRank and ToolBar PageRank?
26. Why might you want to use nofollow on an internal link?

Analysis

A big part of SEO involves assessing the effectiveness of a campaign both relative to past performance as well as to competiting sites.

1. Are you familiar with web analytics and what packages are your familiar with?
2. From an analytics perspective, what is different between a user from organic search results vs. a type-in user?
3. How do you distinguish the results of your search optimization work from a seasonal change in traffic patterns?
4. How do you evaluate whether an SEO campaign is working?
5. What does competitive analysis mean to you and what techniques do you use?
6. If you've done 6 months of SEO for a site and yet there haven't been any improvements, how would you go about diagnosing the problem?
7. How many target keywords should a site have?
8. How do *you* help a customer decide how to their budget between organic SEO and pay-per-click SEM?
9. You hear a rumor that Google is weighting the HTML LAYER tag very heavily in ranking the relevance of its results - how does this affect your work?
10. Why does Google rank Wikipedia for so many topics?

Industry Involvement

Is SEO just a job to pay the bills? Nothing wrong with that, but some senior positions can benefit from more enthusiasm and interest that can be measured by work done outside of the office.

1. If salary and location were not an issue, who would you work for?
2. In Google Lore - what are 'Hilltop', 'Florida' and 'Big Daddy'?
3. Have you attended any search related conferences?
4. Google search on this candidates name, (if you cannot find them, that's a red flag).
5. Do you currently do SEO on your own sites? Do you operate any blogs? Do you currently do any freelance work and do you plan on continuing it?
6. Of the well-known SEOs, who are you not likely to pay attention to?
7. What are some challenges facing the SEO industry?
8. What industry sites, blogs, and forums do you regularly read?
9. Who are the two key people - who started Google?
10. Who is Matt Cutts?
11. If you were bidding on a contract, what competitor would you most worry about?

Open-Ended

These questions are more about how an answer is given rather than the actual answer. They often scare interviewees, but with no wrong answer they're actually a good opportunity to shine.

1. Tell me your biggest failure in an SEO project
2. What areas of SEO do you most enjoy?
3. In what areas of SEO are you strongest?
4. In what areas of SEO are you weakest?
5. How do you handle a client who does not implement your SEO recommendations?
6. Can you get “xyz” company listed for the keyword “Google” in the first page?
7. What do you think is different about working for an SEO agency vs. doing SEO in-house?
8. Why are you moving from your current position and/or leaving any current projects?