Keyword Tools

I get a lot of questions about keyword suggestion tools - which are the best, what tools do you use to find keywords, where are the free keyword tools, which keyword tools should I buy, etc, etc.

While by no means all inclusive, here is a list of keyword tools I use from time to time. The list below is in no particular order.

1. Wordtracker keyword tool.
2. Overture keyword tool.
3. AdWords external keyword tool.
4. Digitalpoint keyword suggestion tool (combo wordtracker/overture data).
5. Google Suggest.

adCenter has a couple beta tools at adlabs including the Context-Based Acronym Resolution
tool, the Keyword Group Detection tool, the Keyword Mutation Detection tool and the Keyword Forecast tool.

There are tons of others out there but a lot of them are just rehashing the same data. If I could only use one it would be the paid version of Wordtracker, I have an annual subscription and find it well worth the money.

Enjoy your keyword hunt.

ps - one of the best places to find keywords that convert well for your site is in your server logs/analytics software.

Google to Show AdWords Quality Score in Ad Group Detail

Word on the street is that Google will be testing showing the keyword quality score in the ad group detail of AdWords accounts next month.

I didn't get invited to the beta but a reputable (and pretty damn good AdWords dude) DP member posted in this thread that he'll be participating in the beta starting next month.

"Next month I'll beta test the Quality Score Column in AdGroup Detail (I've been invited by Google), if you wish I can do some experiments as I'll be able to see Quality Score for each keyword in real time. So I can confirm if this is true or not."

I have not seen or heard any other news about this anywhere but trust that the info is accurate.

adCenter Content Ads Beta Changing URLs - Issue Fixed

Following up to my earlier post on the subject, the adCenter team has fixed the problem for new ads and helped us out with a simple fix for all of our previous ads that were hit with the problem.

Thanks to the adCenter team for a quick and professional resolution.

AdWords Price Gouging? Feeling Left Out?

Here's the average CPC of a large campaign over the last year. This campaign gets about 750,000+ clicks per month.

Is the Google AdWords quality score initiative price gouging or just cleaning the junk out of the paid results?

I've read a lot of reports of people seeing huge increases in the min required CPC but I wonder what the people who aren't talking about it are seeing? I manage a number of campaigns across a number of different markets and quite frankly just haven't seen any dramamtic increases in the CPC (min or actual). Are you seeing huge increases in the min CPC or are things cruising along like normal?

AdWords Change Client Manager Feature (New)

Man, seems like there's something new with AdWords every day. When I logged in to my MCC account this morning this was the message I was greeted with:

New! Change Client Manager feature. Want to change client managers for your client accounts? This feature makes it easy to transfer multiple client accounts from one client manager account to another - right from your MCC.

Clicking on the "learn more" link brought me to here.

Good stuff!

adCenter Content Ads Beta Changing URLs

When I changed over to the adCenter content ads beta bad things started to happen....

Basically my destination urls are being changed - adCenter is adding characters to them which is causing issues with my analytics package. "Issues" meaning I can't track anything...

Basically anytime adCenter sees a "&" in my url it adds "amp;" to the url.

So if the url I entered was;

www.t-e-s-t.com/productID1&Section4.html

adCenter is changing it to;

www.t-e-s-t.com/productID1&Section4.html

Anyone else run into (and solve) this? I have a request open with adCenter as well but figured it never hurts to ask everyone who may have the answer. If you've had this issue feel free to post a comment here or drop me an e-mail.

Find out if your keyword-targeted ads are showing for a particular term

When I logged into AdWords this morning I was greeted with the following message:

"New! Find out if your keyword-targeted ads are showing for a particular term.
Click the Keywords tab and point to the icon next to any keyword to see whether your ad is appearing."

If you navigate to the keywords tab and click on the icon next to a keyword you a notice pops up letting you know if an ad for that keyword is displaying. Pretty nifty quick visual check. Nice job Google.

AdWords Website Optimizer Tool

I just found out....

"Congratulations! You've been selected to take part in the beta test of the Website Optimizer tool. "

I applied to test it out on October 18th and just received the approval e-mail a few minutes ago. It looks like I'll have to bump this up the priority chain as I did notice this text within the e-mail:

"As a Beta tester, you get the chance to try out Website Optimizer before anyone else. We ask that you start an experiment within the next two weeks so that you can help us gather feedback early on. During this test, your feedback is particularly helpful, as it will help us to improve the tool for you and other advertisers who use it in the future."

I really haven't seen a lot of feedback about this service in the blog/forum communities. Anyone else out there had a chance to take it for a spin yet?

I'll post updates as I proceed. If you have any questions about the AdWords Website Optimizer Tool post them here and I'll do my best to answer them.

Google Newspaper Ads Test, Update # 2

I sent off my image ads last week and here was the response I received on 11/2/2006;

"Your ads are now with our design team, who will contact you if there are any changes or modifications needed. If no edits are necessary, you will receive an email from us to confirm if and where your ad(s) will be published."

I did create a new "newspaper friendly" url for tracking purposes so if they decide to run my ads I'll be able to measure the response.

Related:
Google Print Ads Test, Update
Google Newspaper Ad Test

ClickRiver Ads - Don't Sell Your Products on Amazon

From here:

"We welcome service providers of all types to apply to join the beta — in travel, finance and investment, training and education, entertainment, insurance, healthcare and physical fitness, IT assistance and consulting, photo printing and more. In addition, we welcome retailers who want to advertise products that complement those sold on Amazon.com. "

Translation - don't try and sell anything via this PPC network that competes with products that Amazon sells. (what don't they sell???)

I spent months building out campaigns to run on Amazon only to have everything shut down with no notice. They decided the products the site I was promoting were "competitive" so they blocked the entire account essentially wiping out the significant time/effort/feedback investment I made with them.

So if you have a product or service that Amazon doesn't already sell you're set, jump in with both feet. Just keep your fingers crossed that Amazon doesn't start offering your product or service (or a competing one)becausee if that happens you can say goodbye to your account.

Maybe this has changed with ClickRiver in the picture but considering my account was just shut down last week I kind of doubt it.

More on ClickRiver / Amazon PPC:

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/061102-100208

AdWords Help

While answering a forum question earlier today I did a Google search for "AdWords Help" because I couldn't recall the url to the AdWords Support area. I noticed the AdWords ad in this post.

That reminded me that no matter how "good" you think you are with AdWords/PPC always double and triple check your work...then check it again a few days later:-)

(Maybe the { } in the ad are intentional...but my guess is someone incorrectly set up the dynamic title. )

"God" in AdWords Auto-tagged URLs

I don’t use the AdWords auto url tagging feature so I haven't seen this personally...but TOPS30 from DP is asking;

"For the past few days all my AdWords auto-tagged URLs have "god" in the gclid parameter:

gclid=COb1wftMpogSWQJPQgodwXk53

Otherwise they all seem to be random strings but for the "god".

Is Google trying to say something? Do you see this in your tagged URLs?"

Anyone have any ideas?

New adCenter Blog

The adCenter team set up a new blog. The old one will still be accessible but won't be updated.

http://adcenterblog.spaces.live.com/