The idea is to set up campaigns, ads, keywords and to learn and use the Google AdWords interface so that you are completely up and running during the class and you will have free sessions to come back and review in the subsequent weeks.

We’ve set it up so that you can either attend any of the ten weekly classes which focus on major attributes of Google AdWords and shows you how to implement and use AdWords step-by-step for $25 each OR you can attend the bootcamp for $200 (a $50 savings) plus attend any of the weekly classes for free.

So if you have ever wanted to get started on Google AdWords, now is your opportunity. Here’s the schedule:

MARCH:

9^th Free First Class (Introduction to Google AdWords and preview of other classes)

10^th Setting up a blog/website ($25)

11^th register with Google AdWords ($25)

12^th Google AdWrods bootcamp (8:30–3:30, $200)

(March 24^th is the Chamber March Mixer and I will be promoting April’s set of classes to the business who attend that day)

APRIL:

April 6^th, Free Class

9^th BootCamp(8:30–3:30, $200)

16^th, Class 1

23^rd, Class 2

30^th Class 3

MAY:

7, Class 4

14, Class 5

21, Class 6

28, Class 7

JUNE:

4, Class 8

11, Class 9

18, Class 10

I’ve been thinking about it so often that I decided to come up with my own just to see how it would work.

I remember that there was one thing a while back on Twitter where people rewrote classic movie lines with not-so-sharp dialog and that was fun. I created a bunch of those myself, but I didn’t start that trending topic.

So, I’m creating my own trending topic. I tested it on my Facebook and it works.

It’s based on the old TV game show from the 70’s called Match Game where contestants are told to fill in the blank in a two or three word phrase. And the idea is that if one of the guest celebrities matches the contestant, then the contestant gets points and hopefully wins big in the end. Sharp idea for a game show…

But can this work on the internet? Are you kidding? With Twitter and only a few words, you can try this yourself.

Yesterday, I started on my Facebook with “Super ___(blank)___” and got results like Super Man, Super Mom, Super Freak, etc. and that was great. Today I’m starting with “___(blank)___ Up” and quickly got Pump It Up. Nice!

I’m going to start this thing on Twitter and see where it goes!

His name is Jason Baker and he runs a great health and fitness website called fitness805.com.

I am providing Google AdWords and social media services for him.

Here’s a little more about Jason:

Jason A. Baker is a fitness expert with over 10 years of experience. He currently holds certifications through the National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) and his past work experience involves many different disciplines such as nutrition and exercise. He has provided personal training services for clients around the world and enjoys educating the public about living healthy and feeling great. In 2006 Jason Baker founded Fitness805.com, a Santa Barbara County health and fitness resource providing fitness experts in almost every form of exercise from yoga to martial arts and many types of prescreened professionals in niche areas such as private chefs and specialized massage professionals. Click here for a more extensive biography and testimonials.

If you live in the Santa Barbara area and you can use any of the services he offers, please visit his website or give him a call.

“Get rich quick!” they proffer…but you know that anything that sounds too good to be true probably IS.

Why is SEO so important and what do you need to know?

SEO is important because it is a free way to get people to come to your website. If you make wooden ships and you want people to know about it, just set up a website devoted to your wooden ships and the next thing you know (if you follow good SEO protocols), you will find your website listed on Google’s search results. However, if you don’t follow these, you will be one among many others who do not show up in search results when people type “wooden ships” in Google’s search index.

To make this easier, Google has written a guide for SEO and it’s really the best advice you can find.

I could rewrite this handy Google SEO PDF (which you can get by clicking going to Google’s Webmaster Central Blog to get it or you can also download the Google SEO Starter’s Guide from here in case they decide to take it off their site), but it might be better just to read the thing. It’s only 22 pages after all and you could certainly learn a lot by reading it.

But let me break it down to you quite simply and maybe I’ll write more about each step as time goes along.

10 Tips for SEO Directly from Google

1. Use a title page that makes sense. This title is stored in an HTML tag called and you want to use it right. Be descriptive and don’t jam a million keywords into it. Google will use this when showing the title of your webpage in search results.
2. Use the description meta tag called <META> as well. Write a good description which doesn’t contain any garbage like keyword stuffing. Google “may” use this under the search result title info.
3. Use dashes to build your URLs and feel free to put keywords into them. You will notice that I do this with this blog (and all my others). Don’t use webpage URLs with a bunch of numbers and junk in them.
4. Keep your site simple to navigate, create a sitemap and a Sitemap. A sitemap is a page you dedicate to help people find things on your site such as important pages and downloads; it’s important for your readers. A Sitemap is an XML file which Google and other search engines use to quickly index your site for search; it’s important for Google, Bing, Yahoo! and the other search engines. Keeping your site easy to navigate is done without the use of extensive menus with dropdowns and preferable instead just use simple text links to go from page to page.
5. Be prepared for people to type in the wrong address, users who hack your URLs to find pages and help people to redirect where they need to go. I think it’d be a good idea to substitute your normal 404 error page with a sitemap, but I usually don’t build sitemaps anyway. There are plugins in WordPress that will handle this for you.
6. Write good prose on your blog. Don’t write junk or sell people or create fake text for indexing or to trick Google.
7. Use common sense with anchor text and, best of all, try to get others to link your website with anchor text. Ensure that they use appropriate keywords in the link to your site.
8. Use heading tags to organize your prose into an outline structure. Don’t mix up your heading structure tags (I can’t list them here because it messes up my post). Believe it or not, Google uses these quite a bit to index your site and make it relevant for paid and unpaid search.
9. Use the tag component for your images. Also use real names for picture names; don’t use pic1.jpg for instance. This helps with image search. Store your images in the same directory.
10. Use a robots.txt file. This helps to keep Google from indexing certain things on your site. Let’s say that you sell a PDF file from your site and you don’t want Google to discover it and put it in their index. This file will prevent that.

Among these tips were to also use Google’s tools such as Google Analytics and their webmaster tools, which you should do as well.

Google also manages to keep track of who links to you and who you link to. Building an online reputation is probably the one factor that will get you noticed on search, so try to build some links with others…

Y’know, authority? That credibility thing? The reason that people should give a damn about why you think you are so important that you must write and share with everyone?

It’s one thing for Joe Schmoe to sign up to Twitter and get a few followers in a month or pay for 10,000 followers, but if Oprah gets a Twitter account, it’s news. In fact, just the other day Bill Gates got a Twitter account and I read about it in the news (um, fark actually).

Does he have authority? Is he an expert in his field? Should people listen to Bill’s tweets? About 370,000 people think so…at least so far.

So, if you’re not Bill Gates and you want people to read what you write, then what do you need get all those readers, followers and friends? First, you need to think about authority.

Authority 101

Authority is the reason why people should listen to you. They don’t call the cops “the authorities” for no dumb reason; if I see flashing lights and hear a siren, I’m all ears, man. They carry shotguns and tazers so I’m not going to ignore them.

Authority is a conveyance of the power of what is being said as well as conveyance of why it is you should listen. This is why the root word here is “author” as in someone who writes and creates what is being said or written. They say how it goes. When the judge says, “Life without possibility of parole.” then you had better believe him.

Authority is something that can be earned. If you carry a title, such as Doctor, it means you have authored a paper on a subject with scrutiny and have joined the ranks of the rankled professionals and other cantankerous folks who know more than everyone else. You are no longer James Dean; you are now Dr. James Dean, thank you.

And, in the same light that authority is something that can be earned, authority is the end result of accomplishment. When you are the first to do something such as climb Mt. Everest or break a world record, then you are instantly an authority. You have said, “I will circumnavigate the globe on my motorcycle-powered kayak and no one can stop me,” and then you proceeded to do just that; congratulations, you’re now the proud owner of the title “guy who sailed around the world on a motorcycle-powered kayak” and that is what it will say on the news below your face when they interview you on TV. You’re such an authority on motorcycle-powered kayaks!

More To Authority Than Meets The Eyeball

Just like other things such as “leadership” are, we can’t cut you open and find “authority” per se. It isn’t a thing. You can’t buy “authority” although you can buy a title such as Doctor or CPA by investing time and money and hard work.

Can you be an authority without being behind a badge or a bench, elected or appointed, studied or authored? Do you have to break a record to avoid sounding like a broken record? Must you do something unique to be an authority?

I’m going to say yes and no to that one.

For all the obvious reasons cited above, yes, besides the obvious “role authority” that comes with certain jobs or positions, you must have something about you that is unique in terms of accomplishment to be an authority.

If you are someone who can achieve fantastic results with Google AdWords, then people are probably going to come to you for advice or your name will appear on thousands of emails going out to people who can’t do as well as you.

The guy who does the funny-as-Hell video series called You Suck at Photoshop is certainly an authority and he’s entertaining. The Ask A Ninja guy didn’t really become someone until he got thousands and thousands of hits for being a kooky goofball that was fun to watch while has answered questions; he’s an authority.

So, must you do something unique? Not always and here is why. Writing is not unique. There are more bloggers than ever and more blogs are being created each second. Some people, like myself, have several blogs. Am I an authority? Well, yes.

Authority Rests With Each of Us

I am an authority on my point of view. Everyone is the author of their point of view. Our point of view gives us unique powers.

My point of view during the last election helped decide who should run our country and my state and what legislation and levies would pass. If I walk out of a polling center, I may be approached by a film crew to ask me which way did I vote and…hey…I’m an authority here! They are asking me what do I say!

As a blogger or a writer, I may write something brilliant one day like so many writers who have penned inspiring and memorable quotes from their prose. When Maryanne Williamson wrote, “Our deepest fear is not the we are inadequate,” she became a voice that inspired Nelson Mandela to repeat her words at his inauguration. She is an authority; someone to listen to.

If you were walking down the street and noticed a crowd of people gathering, wouldn’t you want to know why? If you went over and looked and found that Robin Williams was there making people laugh, wouldn’t you listen? Why would you listen? Is he an authority? Yes! He is likely to say something that you will repeat to others. If he makes a really funny joke, you will repeat it and bring laughter to others.

The authority we bear is the expression of self. No one can expression themselves like you can. You are the authority in that matter and no one can trump you. Someone else may be louder, but no one can say that your words are not your own and that whatever you author is not yours. You get the byline. You are the creator of worlds starting with your own. You are the authority. No one can be you, keep your word for you, create your words for you.

You are the authority and if you practice the way that your write, thinking about the many things that make a writer or a blogger successful, then you will reach more people and perhaps carry a title to burnish your credentials as an author. You may have a title or you may not have a title, but either way, you are the authority over your point of view and your self-expression. What will you share today?

After taking a few moments to find out what it was that she was referring to, I realized that the default text for the “CR Post2Pingfm” which I use has bad grammar in its default setting.

What it does is post a title for your pinged post using code. Here is it what it says under the field where you can customize the text:

Template Tags: {title} for Post Title and {url} for Permalink URL
eg: I just post {title} on {url}

Well, I never bothered to change this default text which does not properly use the past tense of the word post. At first I thought that it was right, but I really knew it was wrong. In my mind, I was trying to figure out how it is that someone who did so well in writing this plugin could possibly not know how to write a very simple sentence such as “I just posted “The Wizard of Oz” on GreatMovies.com.”

I need to go in and change this everywhere that I use it. I don’t know what is more unbelievable: the fact that they didn’t catch this or the fact that I didn’t catch this.

For example, you may want to consider pointing your Google AdWords account onto a blog which happens to advertise your product rather than having a site that is clearly geared toward advertising your product.

You may also want to focus on new ways to get your site noticed by Google by having others link to it and also finding ways to get your site linked by either contributing to someone else’s blog or posting on other blogs with your website linked.

And then there are all kinds of other things you can do such as creating videos which Google happens to like since they own YouTube and they want you to use video.

There are also graphic ads you can use (and having an animated gif would probably be smart to use to grab people’s attention).

And then there are all the out-of-the-box things that if I told you what they were, then they wouldn’t be out-of-the-box. This is where you, as the expert in your field, as an author or as a subject-matter-expert, get to invent and create new ways to get your message across. No one can create new things in your field better than you; however, having a coach or someone to co-create with can always help. Someone once told me that you need to spend at least an hour a day marketing your business and if you do this then you will have no problem coming up with out-of-the-box ideas and ways to increase your traffic and profits.

Part I: Demystifying Google AdWords
Part II: AdWords First Stage
Part III: AdWords Second Stage
Part IV: AdWords Third Stage

If you have any questions or comments, please leave them here and I will be happy to respond.

By now you have identified most of your keywords and you have ads that work, but you also have tons and tons of keywords that don’t work and some ads that don’t work at all.

The key to getting through this stage is proving that the keywords and ads that you are using are going to give you long-term stability. And, just for the record, Google does throw everyone into a tailspin with regards to AdWords every once in a while. Those “stable results” are gone overnight and people who have been counting on Google AdWords for year for their rent/mortgage are suddenly freaked out and scrambling to get back out of AdWords First Stage into Second Stage and then back into Third Stage as soon as possible. Over the years, Google has made it harder and harder to get in and stay highly profitable because there has become so much competition from legitimate companies as well as scammers and get-rich-quick types.

Remember your goal here is to reach the three overall goals for Google AdWords success.

The Three Overall Goals of a Successful Google AdWords Campaign:

1. Your Click-Through-Rate is over 1% for all of your keywords.
2. Your Quality Score is 7 and above on all keywords.
3. All of your ads together in each Ad Groups have over 1% CTR.

Basically, you’re going to be bringing your keywords with a CTR below 1% to over 1%. This is done by working some SEO on your pages so that those keywords are a better match for the pages that they are linked to through your ad.

Next, you are going to eliminate all of your keywords that are below 7 (though it is possible that you can keep the ones that are either at 5 or 6 but you need to drop all the ones below 5). For those that are at 5 or 6, again you will need to focus on the SEO to bring up the quality score.

The major benefit of having a higher quality score is that the cost of your keywords will go down. If you have a keyword that has a keyword quality score of 10 then you will have a very inexpensive keyword to use. It is really ideal to have it this way. So, how do you get a keyword quality score of 10? Well, just get linked by a high-traffic website, of course! The reason why the ad costs less is because if you DO have a keyword linked from a high-traffic site then you should be at the top of Google’s organic search results (meaning the unpaid search results). You could just turn off Google AdWords if all of your keywords that you rely on are at a 10. However, people generally don’t have control over this.

The last thing that needs to be done is to have at least two ads that, when combined, produce an average CTR of over 1%. This can only be done by writing some good ads and I will post a separate article on this later. And regarding writing good ads, consider that most ads that are effective are ones that really grab people’s attention; so it’d be a good idea to consider the following:

1. It’s OK to be funny.
2. It’s OK to be cute.
3. The only way to know a good ad is to test it.

Part I: Demystifying Google AdWords
Part II: AdWords First Stage
Part III: AdWords Second Stage
Part IV: AdWords Third Stage

If you have any questions or comments, please leave them here and I will be happy to respond.

The thing you should know about this stage is that it is often characterized by wild swings in effectiveness. This is unavoidable because there are so many variables in an AdWords that just one variable can scuttle what otherwise seemed like a good start. Sometimes these simple settings and changes can cause other variables to not function correctly and it’s easy to think that the thing to change isn’t what it seems to be.

For example, when you are setting up your first campaign, you may opt to include the Google Content Network in addition to Google Search for use with your keywords and ads. How will you know that the problem is not with your ads or your keywords until you have had enough time to evaluate them? Perhaps the problem is with the your bids being too low or your daily budget not being high enough? What if the problem is that you have isolated your searches to a geographical area and you are paying for ads being shown around the world which are useless to you? How is it possible to know which problem is the true problem and not just “possibly” the problem?

Google AdWords has two major types of ads: Google Search and Google Content Network. Google Search is for placing your ads on the top and left of Google Search results. Google Content Network is for contexturally-placed ads on web pages such as online magazines, newspapers and blogs.

It’s important to begin with knowing two important considerations. Do people know who you are or not? This will determine whether or not you should be using the Google Content Network. With it, you are paying for essentially billboard ads on the freeway. People are reading an online magazine, newspaper or blog and your ad is there just as if you were cruising down the road and you either notice it or you don’t. Your goal may be only to expose people to who you are and that’s how Google Content Network is best utilized. For this reason, you aren’t really expecting a direct sale to happen with your billboard. You are just building awareness of your product like a movie that is about to come to theaters; you aren’t selling the ticket today but you are planting the seed for a purchase to happen on premiere day.

If your goal is not to get people to know who you are alone, then you should use Google Search and possibly add the Google Content Network. You may not want to use the Google Content Network at all if it is costing you too much to put up those billboards if they aren’t giving you the return you want. You may also want to focus on just Google Search at first until you are very sure which ads and keywords work really well. You can leave the Google Content Network for Third Stage if you like; it’s not essential to First Stage or Second Stage and may introduce too many variables in First Stage to clearly understand what to leave in and what to throw out.

You know that you are the end of First Stage when you are getting enough clicks on a day to day basis where you don’t get a bunch on one day and then 10% of the same number the next day. At a minimum you should get a decent number (let’s say 1,000 or 100 or 10) and then not less than half of that the next day (500/50/5) and then the day after it should either go down by 10% (400/40/4) and then up again or it will stay at that level (400/40/4) or go higher. If you’re satisfied with this level at 400/40/4, then you can count on building that up in AdWords Second Stage. You should be able to back up to the 1,000/100/10 over the next two to three weeks.

By successful, I mean that you have achieved three overall goals:

MeshMarketer’s Three Overall Goals of a Successful Google AdWords Campaign:

1. Your Click-Through-Rate is over 1% for all of your keywords.
2. Your Quality Score is 7 and above on all keywords.
3. All of your ads together in each Ad Groups have over 1% CTR.

The First Stage is setting up or transitioning your Google AdWords campaign and lasts about a week. This is the time that it takes to stop any money-losing ads or keywords from continuing to lose money and to organize or reorganize your campaign. This takes anywhere from four hours to eight hours depending.

The Second Stage is a stability-building phase and is between two and three weeks. This is the time it takes to evaluate or re-evaluate keywords and ads, introduce and test new keywords and ads as well as improve your keyword Google Quality Score (which can make or break your campaign).

The Third Stage starts from the time you have gotten out of Second Stage and ends when you close your AdWords account or if it goes unmanaged. If it goes unmanaged, then it is only a matter of time before Google notices and drops things like your Quality Score which will increase your cost per keyword and not show your ads quite as much which means your results will drop significantly and you’ll be wasting money (as well as reducing whatever leads or new clients or purchases you have been receiving).

It only takes a few minutes each day to monitor your Google AdWords to make sure it is working properly, but you should expect to spend about four hours a week during each of these stages. If you want to move through these stages in the shortest possible period of time then you should spend more time than four hours a week. If you spend less time, then it will take longer for the first two stages to complete.

All stages of Google AdWords require that you do monitoring throughout the day (if only for a minute or two at times) with the intent to accomplish goals such as staying under budget or testing an idea you have for the account. You should frequently monitor any adjustments in case they throw your entire campaign out of whack and you have to undo what you did quickly. Changing all of your bids to a lower amount can effectively shut down your entire account for a good part of a day, so it’s best to not find out how low is too low at the end of the day because your entire day could then be shot.

Part I: Demystifying Google AdWords
Part II: AdWords First Stage
Part III: AdWords Second Stage
Part IV: AdWords Third Stage

If you have any questions or comments, please leave them here and I will be happy to respond.

By successful, I mean that you have achieved three overall goals:

The Three Overall Goals of a Successful Google AdWords Campaign:

1. Your Click-Through-Rate is over 1% for all of your keywords.
2. Your Quality Score is 7 and above on all keywords.
3. All of your ads together in each Ad Groups have over 1% CTR.