Knowledge is the Foundation To Success  

As advertisers, we are always looking for ways to reach our customers. In PPC advertising, that way begins with choosing the right keywords. There are many online tools available that can help you generate lists of keywords that are closely related to your products/services. Some are free, like the Google AdWords Keyword Tool, some require monthly or even yearly memberships, such as products like Wordstream and Keyword Discovery.

Most of us are familiar with the available keyword research tools that are out there, but there is one more that deserves a mention. It is a free plug-in from the people of Microsoft. As long as you have a Bing Ads account, and use the ’07 or newer versions of Excel, you’re just a few clicks away from a quite powerful, insightful research tool – Bing Ads Intelligence.

With Bing Ads Intelligence, you can generate keyword lists while working in Excel. This intuitive interface allows you to pull fine-tuned search data from Microsoft and Yahoo! websites, create and customize keyword research templates that apply directly to your business, as well as find more affordable keywords to maximize your investment. Not only can you gain insight into average performance, demographic targeting, bid estimation and traffic volumes, but this great tool also automatically organizes the information so you can easily understand the data that is being provided.

If you’re like me, finding the best keywords possible is the goal. If you feel like you’re just not getting the results you crave, I suggest adding the Bing Ad Intelligence tool to your keyword research arsenal. You won’t be disappointed.

If you advertise on MSN’s Bing and use the Microsoft adCenter Desktop, you have probably run into errors when attempting to sync your account.  These issues typically come after adding new keywords to a campaign and can be extremely frustrating to work through.  The most common error we have seen here at JumpFly is that there are duplicate keywords in the account.  We search and search but can never find these alleged duplicates.  So, we did some research and found out some useful information about what MSN calls “Normalization.”If you use Microsoft adCenter Desktop to manage your Bing PPC advertising, the following information may be useful:

When working on Microsoft adCenter Desktop, have you ever attempted to “Sync” your account after adding new keywords to a campaign, only to receive an error that there are duplicates in the account?

I receive this error quite often, but in my case, it is not a matter of adding two of the exact same keyword. Often times, it is because I am trying to enter two forms of the same keyword that the Microsoft system has “Normalized”.

Normalization is the process by which Microsoft adCenter removes extraneous characters from user queries. An automatic scan finds and removes duplicate forms from the search query to help minimize redundant content.

For example, let’s say you are trying to add the following keywords in your account:

“jump fly”

jump & fly

jump fly/

jump-fly

jump’s fly

the jump fly

Each form of the keyword ‘jump fly’ above will be normalized to be read by the system as ‘jump fly’.

After attempting to sync your account with these new keywords, you will get an error message telling you that you are trying to create duplicate keywords, even though visually the keywords are very different.

Don’t get frustrated, here’s the explanation from MSN.  If you are looking for the latest release notes on what changes have been made to the adCenter Desktop tool, you can find that here.

As always, if you need assistance with Bing PPC Campaign Management, contact a qualified professional at JumpFly.

Just as the prices have plunged on smart phones and data plans, mobile searches have skyrocketed.  This obvious inverse relationship can also be credited to “smarter” smart phones with faster browsers capable of accessing data with the swift flick of a button. “Soon we’ll have mobile phones with 2Ghz processors, which is more than in a lot of laptops,” predicts Google’s vice president of engineering, Andy Rubin.

Lower prices mean higher accessibility to the masses.  Smart phones are no longer exclusive to business professionals but include users ranging from teenagers in New York City to farmers in Iowa.  What does this mean to you and your business?  No matter your industry, your product or service is going to be searched for using a smart phone.  Jump into the still-shallow pool of mobile-friendly advertisers now to capture the most market share.

You don’t have to have a specialized mobile website in order to take advantage of this lucrative new search market.  If you’re using a desktop PC, use this handy tool from Google to determine if your website is mobile-friendly and navigable through the eyes of a smart phone:  Google Mobile Browser.  Try, for example, to search for “JumpFly”.  Once your page of search results appears, click into the JumpFly site and see the way our site would appear on a mobile browser.  Not quite as flashy and full of color as our HTML-rich site, but still mobile-friendly, organized and inclusive of our main content. 

Not able to see your website?  Keep in mind that mobile browsers are not yet capable of flash display.  Also, mobile phones use internet browsing technology called WAP (Wireless Application Protocol). Due to the limitations of WAP browsers in terms of screen size and allowable download, you may need to simplify your current website design.  Here are a few important principles about mobile website design that you should consider when making the most user-friendly mobile website:

• Know your customers in order to deliver them the most appropriate content:  mobile users interact with your site differently compared to traditional customers sitting at a desk facing a large monitor. Mobile customers might be waiting in line, commuting to work, or lost in an unfamiliar town and trying to get somewhere.

• The most important information that you want users to see should be located at the top of the page.  It can be time-consuming for mobile phones to browse through an entire site; placing the most desirable information at the top will provide the most convenient site experience.

• There is no mouse on a mobile phone – only an up-down feature – so you can’t demand that users jump around the page.

• Always provide a ‘back’ button or link, since many phones don’t include a back button.

Once your website is mobile-ready, you are ready to drive your most targeted traffic to the site using pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.  Stay tuned for my next blog with tips and best practices to build your most effective mobile PPC advertising campaign!