Well, we love April Fools here around the office.  We love it so much that we were this close to saran-wrapping the men’s toilet this morning.  We decided against it though, seeing as how the economy is tough and we’d probably be out of a job.

Who else loves April Fools?  Google!  Check out all the crazy pranks they’re playing on unsuspecting internet-combers today:

Yep, Google is Topeka in honor of Topeka changing their name to Google, Kansas last month.  They did it in hopes that they would win the nation-wide race to be the first city to get Google’s experimental high-speed fiber optic technology.  They’re back to normal now that it’s April, but we admire their commitment.

For a list of compiled Google pranks, check out Search Engine Land.

And they’re not the only ones.  Check out the headlines at Wikipedia News today:

We have written about consumers wanting gift cards, but now Search Engine Watch has shown what other incentives are important to the consumer.  Ranking at #1 is “free shipping,” followed by “free return shipping” and “promoting offer or discount.”  If your company offers these incentives for online shoppers, it is important that you incorporate these terms into your SEM ad campaigns to capitalize on this growing interest and hopefully increase number of sales.

Photo courtesy of Search Engine Watch

Monday, December 14th was dubbed “Green Monday” because experts predicted it would be the biggest online shopping day of the year.  They were disappointed when sales dipped by 1%.  Imagine their surprise when Tuesday became the first day in history that online sales reached 900 million dollars (913 to be exact).  This means that the overall increase of online shopping is 4% from last year!

Here’s the breakdown, courtesy of Search Engine Watch:

Rising search terms "gift cards" using Google Insights

Gift card searches are hot again this year.  Of course gift card searches are always hot keywords this time of year (as seen below), but it has been highlighted by companies’ low inventories due to the recession (and their preparation for the worst).  If your company offers gift cards, it’s a great time to capitalize on these keywords for your Pay-Per-Click advertising campaigns.  If your company does not offer gift cards, it might be a good idea to get them.  Increased December traffic is also important to factor into your SEM budget.

2004-Present "gift card" search spikes

Sources: Nathania Johnson of Search Engine Watch & Google Insights

Beginning today, Google AdWords has opened up its Product Extension beta to all US advertisers! A Product Extension, also known as a ‘plusbox’ ad, shows relevant images and prices for products on your site that relate to a user’s search, directly under your PPC ad. With the completion of the Product Extension Beta, merchants saw a 10% increase in CTR (Click-through Rate).

In order to use Product Extensions, you must have products listed in the Google Merchant Center.  Visiture can help you set up your Ad with Product Extensions in order to get you higher click-through rates and more sales (Click here for more information).

Here is an example of what the PPC Ad will look like:

Read the full story at Inside AdWords.

Yahoo! has announced that it will be ending the Paid Inclusion Program (previously known as the Search Submit Program) at the end of the year with the upcoming Microsoft merger.  Yahoo has been both praised and criticized for its paid inclusion program.  It allows advertisers to pay to be included on the page of search results, but not pay for rank.  However, it did create a monopoly with certain competitive search terms because people were able to optimize their sites using keywords.  How does this affect Visiture customers?  ”Many web developers feel that the loss of paid inclusion will jumpstart pay-per-click ads and other smaller online marketing practices.”

Source quoted, image credit: David Liu, Resource Nation

I read the simplistically-titled “What Is a Brand?” article today by Jay Ehret of TheMarketingSpot.Blogspot.com this morning and I felt I should share it with you.  A brand is not a logo, he explained.  It is your emotion and sometimes physiological connection with a company. 

I thought of two great examples for this.

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The most important thing to remember right now is that the public trend is to be frugal, prudent and careful with money.  With troubling times, comes re-assuring advertisements.  The keywords that are most effective right now are:
-discount
-sale
-wholesale
-coupon
“Coupon” has become very effective when using Pay-Per-Click advertising.  Visiture has the tools to start and pause your campaign immediately based on your inventory.  As soon as you run out of an item and no longer want your ad to show in those search term results, we can pause it.  This ensures that you will not be paying for a click that is not going to yield any chance for increased ROI.

Some people are afraid of using negative keywords or phrases because it limits the amounts of people who see their ad.  Contrary to popular belief, there are many effective ways to use negative keywords to ensure that your ad does not get a lot of clicks but lackluster conversion rates.

Selecting Negative Keywords

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