When an individual is “qualified” it means that person has met the qualification requirements of the Google Advertising Professional certification. If two people within the company have met the qualification requirements that company can receive a “Qualified Company” logo.

A qualified professional should be running your campaign(s) because it means that they have been trained in pay-per-click advertising and the rules and systems involved.  But there are a surprising number of companies that claim to be qualified and are faking it. A number of companies are putting the logo on their website without having that logo link to their professional status page (which is how Google certifies that the logo is real and not just a picture). For an example of a professional status page, click on the logo on the right and you’ll be directed to my professional status page.

Make sure that the company you hire to run your PPC campaign(s) has a Google qualified professional that will be working on your campaign. The following excerpt is from Google AdWords explaining how to identify whether your company/specialist is in fact “qualified”…..

How can I tell if a professional is really Qualified and not just yanking my chain?

“We take many measures to protect our users from conducting business with unethical individuals and companies. The best way to verify their qualification is by looking for the AdWords Qualified Individual or Company logo on their Professional Status page. This page includes Google’s validation that the individual or company has received Qualified status within the Google Advertising Professionals program.

You can find the Professional Status page by clicking on the AdWords Qualified Individual or Company logo that is visible from the individual’s or company’s website. If you don’t find it there, simply ask your professional for the link to the page. Once you find the page, it’s important to check for the following things so you can ensure that the page and professional are authentic:

• The professional’s business name.
• Professional Status page hosting by Google. The prefix of the URL string should be ‘http://adwords.google.com/select/ProfessionalStatus.’
• Google’s validation of the individual or company’s Qualified status.

If you find a page that does not include all of these characteristics, please let Google know by completing this form.” - Provided by Google Advertising Professional Help

In response to many requests from readers, I have finally posted links to my professional profiles (shown below). Professional profiles are a great way of networking, and networking is a valuable aspect of any online marketing strategy. Good networking profiles can help in driving free traffic to a website. So, if you don’t feel like you can invest financially in pay-per-click or are looking for additional vehicles for driving traffic to your website, these sites are a great tool. The networking sites listed below are particularly useful for both novice and seasoned professionals, so set some up and start networking!

Google Profile

LinkedIn Profile

Facebook Profile

Fast Pitch Networking Profile

Plaxo Profile

Xing Profile

Naymz Profile

What it is about cheap prices that draw us in? We can’t help but flock to cheap services, especially when the economy is down and we need to increase business. But beware of companies that have killer salesmanship and offer big promises for cheap because you may not see the catch right away. These companies certainly are not going to advertise the drawbacks of their services, and trust me, there are always drawbacks.

Take Reach Local for instance. They “specialize” in PPC campaigns for anybody and everybody. They have amazing salesmanship and seem quite inexpensive. They advertise that they can get a cheaper cost per click because they have a special relationship with the search engines. Sounds great, right?

When a company has over 700 clients, it can apply for a special certification through Google that allows it to pay less per click because the company is supplying so much business to the search engines. Most companies don’t have a client list numbering over 700, unless it is a very large company that uses software to manage client campaigns. And this is exactly how a company like Reach Local can do this “cheaper” pricing.

Reach Local uses very flashy and seemingly advanced software to manage its client campaigns. After running multiple campaigns with Reach Local, I was very disenchanted with the results, despite the flashy system and great phone tracking. And I’ll admit that its system for tracking phone calls is quite an amazing little system, but a computer does most of the actual work. With PPC you don’t want a computer doing most of the work. Reach Local does a very good job for some people, I’m sure. But at the end of the day I felt like this company is more about volume than quality.

A campaign needs to be fluid, and you need to be able to look at and adjust the campaign on a daily basis based on what keywords are getting you conversions (leads). Reach Local’s system doesn’t do that, and doesn’t give you transparency or control to do that. When talking with a representative about my campaigns, in the very beginning I was told that “We limit the client’s control over the campaign.” Okay, so they don’t have transparency, they base their fees on what you spend, and use computer software to manage the campaigns. Why would anybody want to work with them? Because they’re cheap and easy. But cheap and easy is not the best use of your money, especially during a recession. If you want to do PPC, hire a PPC specialist who will:

• Not use software to manage your campaign
• Give you ultimate control over your campaign and provide complete transparency
• Charge you a flat fee, rather than base their monthly fee off of what you spend

Cheap and easy is attractive, especially in these difficult economic times, but with PPC it’s not worth the price you’ll ultimately pay. And if you feel like you are being sold a used car, then you probably are. Do your research and ask the tough questions.

In the world of PPC advertising there has been a number of innovations along the way, and often times these innovations are developed out of the minds of the platform users. As advertisers we see the far reaching possibilities, and usually before the providers. And now, we are seeing another internet search evolution. One that search engine advertisers have been dreaming of, and one that could drastically change the current landscape of PPC and natural search results. In the world of PPC advertising there has been a number of innovations along the way, and often times these innovations are developed out of the minds of the platform users. As advertisers we see the far reaching possibilities, and usually before the providers. And now, we are seeing another internet search evolution. One that search engine advertisers have been dreaming of, and one that could drastically change the current landscape of PPC and natural search results.

Text ads on the search engines have remained the same for quite some time in regards to internet advertising. You have your basic ad title and two lines of copy along with a URL. Fairly basic, fairly uninteresting in a world full of video, images, flash banners etc. Internet users have evolved from scholars and tech people, to the average Joe. And the average Joe wants video and images, flash banners and any other kind of interactive, multimedia experience that can be imagined.

We have the text ads (which show up on in the main search engine results), and then video and image ads that you have to go searching for under a different category of search results (i.e. “Images”, “Video”). But now, in a mind blowing turn of the market, this combination ad is being offered.

For the moment it is only being offered to large brand-focused advertisers, who are not paying per click, but rather a flat fee per month. But as with everything else in the internet advertising industry, if the search engines deem it as a way of increasing their holdings, then the idea will be become mainstream.

Yahoo is currently running a test with the dog food company Pedigree, which if you search “pedigree” on Yahoo, will pull up an ad at the top of the search-results holding an image from the latest pedigree commercial, which starts running if clicked. A search for “Staples” will result in an ad at the top with the company’s logo, which is an example of image/text combination. Yahoo is also offering the option of a search box/text combination, where the user can enter in a zip code and find the nearest store location.

Advertisers participating in this pilot program are reporting as much as a 25 percent increase in click-through rates, according to Yahoo. In the world of internet search, this is a multi-million dollar idea for the search engines to pursue.

But the question is will they charge per click of the video, or the ad link? If they are smart they will allow unlimited clicks of the video, and only charge per click of the text links. This would entice advertisers who would otherwise be wary of people clicking on the video just for fun.

What are your thoughts?

Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Through the cunning use of “keyword insertion” you can learn to standout among your competitors. Keyword insertion is best used within the ad title to help attract initial interest by the viewer, and allows you to show the viewer that the keyword they just did a search for is exactly what your advertising. With keyword insertion the ad title will display in bold, whatever keyword the user types in (provided that you are bidding on that keyword). For Example:

The third link down from the top in purple, this is an example of keyword insertion and how it stands out. NOTE: that ads only show up purple when the link has been clicked on and will not usually showup in purple.

But what if you want certain letters within your ad title to show up capitalized versus not? Well to accommodate almost any combination of upper case and lower case wording the search engines have provided ways of manipulating the keyword insertion feature. Here’s how:

{keyword:Default ad Text} = ppc marketing (no capitals)
{Keyword:Default ad Text} = Ppc marketing (capitalize first word)
{KeyWord:Default ad Text} = Ppc Marketing (capitalize first letter of each word)
{KEYWORD:Default ad Text} = PPC MARKETING (all caps)
{KEYWord:Default ad Text} = PPC Marketing (capitalize all of first word, and each first letter)
{KeyWORD:Default ad Text} = Ppc Marketing (capitalize all of last word, and each first letter)

Although keyword insertion is a good way of making your ads stand out, make sure before you use it in every ad that you look at what your competitor are doing in their ads. You will not stand out if all of your competitors are using keyword insertion in their ads. But if you use keyword insertion with care and make sure to change up ads often enough your ads will stand out among the crowd. And thats half the battle.