What is adwords? Well, quite simply it is Google's "advertisement" money monster. But, for a more detailed definition click here.
However, I must admit Google is a bit generous, since the Google's adwords application let's you do some "free" marketing analysis of your blog. This is important since blogs are discovered either by inbound links, outbound links, or search words. So in order to make sure your blog is achieving your desired image, adwords can be a cool on-line analytical tool.
There are a few ways to access the "freebie" analytical data. One way is to enter the website www.addwords.google.com. If by accident you type in addword and forget the s, my Internet service kicked me over to other ads, the first one being "Don't sign up for Adwords! Check out JumpFly". I did check out JumpFly, and I jumped ship, no freebies there. I did discover one interesting item, the different partnerships that Addwords and JumpFly have made. JumpFLy interacts with Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista, Excite, InfoSpace, NBCi, CNet, they profess others but failed to define others. Addwords engages with Google of course, AOL, Lycos, Netscape, Ask Jeeves, EarthLink, Shopping.com, CompuServe, plus AT & T Worldnet. It will be interesting to see where Yahoo remains, since it is heavily affiliated with SBC which just recently merged with AT & T.
Moving right along, jump into the Google addwords website. This will bring you to an entry screen where 3/4 of the way down the screen you'll see sign up now /click to begin. You can bypass this sign up entry and scroll all the way down till you see Keyword Tool on the left. One thing that you do not want to do is sign up now/click to begin then select Starter Edition. This will bring you through a series of quick harmless questions, then the next thing you know Google sends you an email and says once you respond to this email your ads will begin. Hopefully, since no "payment" information was exchanged, this email will just die. I guarantee, Google probably makes the best catches of the day with the "starter" novice illusion. "Shame on you!", Google.
Upon entry into Keyword Tool you will have two neat tools available at your fingertips. One tool is Keyword Variation. In this area you can enter a keyword or phrase, then hit Get More Keywords. Based upon the word you entered, adwords will provide additional suggestions. This tool is good to use when starting up your blog, since the tool will provide you with additional words that you can incorporate into your blog entries. For example, leadership returns 103 suggestions, such as teamwork, project management, John Maxwell leadership, or leadership books. So if you want to pull key search words into your blog just create a few blog entry using these keywords.
I played with the keywords leadership, how to, cigarettes, books, and for another business interest, pest control. Leadership returned 103 suggestions. In addition to the keywords returned above it also suggested sports management, which I thought was interesting. "How to" brought up 156 items, some of them were quite rude! A more enlightening one was "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days", a cute chick flick, plus who couldn't love Goldie Hawn's daughter who shares her mother's charisma. Not to mention Mathew McConaughey's puppy dog appeal. Cigarettes brought up 108 suggestions, Marlboro, Camel, and Virginia Slims were the only brand names mentioned in the suggestions. Cigarette racing was an interesting item and fags refreshed my memory of another term used for smokes. Interesting enough books only brought up 13 suggestions, i.e., the major book classifications. Pest Control retrieved 138 suggestions, with Terminix being the only large corporations suggestion. I had to chuckle at this entry, since at least in Connecticut this organization is far from par in my opinion, as they nearly lost their Connecticut "exterminating" license. However, they may not practice pest control skill or quality work ethics, but they do know the marketing game. They even listed their business name and phone number on the outside pages of the phone book. If I had the time, I'd almost be tempted to file a class action suit against SBC for unfair marketing practices, since they never offered my husband that marketing option when he bought his telephone yellow page ad. They just lost a class action suit about charging late fees on the yellow pages advertising.
The second tool that you have at your fingertips is Site-Related Keywords. On this tab you enter the URL that you want to Get more Keywords on. Google evaluates the site and presents you with what they classify as key word categories. So when you have a graduate site about a leadership program and donuts (do trackback) is your google hit word, you know some work is needed. How can you use this tool to find out what work is needed? Well, go back to the keyword variation tool enter leadership, volia! a keyword list of ideas is right under your nose. Leadership books gave me a bloggn' idea. After writing that blog entry, then I reran the graduate URL site for keywords the donut's addiction was successful eliminated. This also lead my curiosity to run a team mate's book review blog URL through the tool. Interesting enough this returned such items as book review classifications, Iraq war, and miscellaneous author keywords.
I also ran the Quinnipiac Quit smoking site through the Site-Related Keywords and received this message: "We're sorry, but there isn't enough text on this webpage to generate relevant keywords; at least a few paragraphs are necessary to provide results. You can try entering a different URL, or check the box labeled Include other pages on my site linked from this URL". I was actually happy to receive this message, since initially I totally overlooked this feature. When checking off the box "Include other pages on my site linked from this URL" four sets of keywords were generated; classified, smokers, tattoo, and miscellaneous keywords. An interesting and unexpected mixture. Under the miscellaneous keywords, smoking cessation was a suggested keyword. This is another keyword that I could possible weave into my blog. This word also gave me a chuckle, since the other day while giving a presentation I mentioned this term. However, I never thought to use it in my personal blog plus I had difficulty pronouncing this term and spoke to it as smoking "sensation". Although, embarrassed, it did provide a little humor to my presentation. I might also note that the Quinnipiac Quit Smoking site is rated by WhozOnTop website as number one (and the only one), when the keyword Quinnipiac is entered. This is an interesting site and would recommend spending some time exploring this site.
Posting word limit has been exceeded, please see Adword's con't post for completion of this post.
Comments