Pay per click advertising, PPC search engine articles

If you purchased AdWords advertising between January 1, 2002 and the present, you are a class member in a class-action lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Miller County, Arkansas. If you didn't receive it already, you should be receiving an email shortly from clicksettlement@xmr3.com containing links to further information about the negotiated settlement and how you can claim an award of advertising credits under the settlement. For more information, see:

• clicksettlement.com
• Inside AdWords

There are some reports out there claiming that this email from clicksettlement@xmr3.com is a phishing scam–not so! It's legit, so if you feel you've been a victim of click fraud via AdWords, head over and read the legalese.

On May 10, Google Labs released Google Trends, a simple to use tool that provides keyword or keyphrase comparisons. This can be very useful in determining the best keywords and phrases to target with your PPC campaigns. Just enter two keywords or phrases separated by a comma and Trends will spit out a nice chart and bar graph showing you the search popularity of the terms entered, broken down by cities, regions and languages. While this is certainly not a tool to replace WordTracker or the Overture Keyword Selector Tool, it is a nice service that can augment your research.

By the way, DigitalPoint offers a tool that combines the results of both WordTracker and the Overture KST; check it out here.

Both of these handy tools have been added to the Free Tools links in the left sidebar for your easy reference.

The most common phrases targeted by PPC advertisers quickly escalate in price. You can still obtain low-priced clicks though if you're able to develop a large list of key phrases that fewer advertisers are bidding on. Keyword Lizard is a free keyword tool designed to expand your keyword lists by creating every possible combination of keywords. You can develop huge lists in just moments! Simply enter keywords into two or more input lists and with a single click, Keyword Lizard will combine the keywords in every way possible to generate a large list of potential keyword phrases.

Keywork Lizard also offers a subscription-based professional service. Designed for the Google AdWords professional, this service includes unlimited phone support provided by My AdWords Expert, LLC., additional keyword search options, secure database storage of your searches, Google AdWords Power Posting export to Text or CSV, sample PHP & Cold Fusion code for Keyword Conversion Tracking on your client's website.

If you're looking for a rich pool of keyword and phrase targets for your campaigns (who isn't?), be sure to check out Keyword Lizard. 

Targeted landing pages
Don't send users to your home page! Send them to a page that is optimized for the content of your ad.

Make broad topics narrow
If your website is all about cars, create PPC campaigns that are tightly themed to more specific content, for example "sports cars".

Split testing
Test, test, test. Changing one word can double your CTR! 

Conversion tracking
At minimum, use Google's conversion tracking code on your success/thank you pages. It is imperative that you be able to track conversions of keywords to sales!

Low-cost, half-day information and networking event featuring two panels and ample time for casual talk between search marketers. Friday, May 19, 2006. More information is available here.

If you go, post a comment here about your experience! 

Microsoft's Steve Ballmer announced the U.S. launch of the newly christened Microsoft adCenter (formerly MSN adCenter) yesterday at the Strategic Account Summit. The MAC website claims that Microsoft's new ad platform will boldly change the landscape of the search industry.

The new service provides all the advertising for MSN.com and it's affiliated websites, so if you want to get your product or service in front of MSN users, start learning about adCenter now.

Trials of the new system in the UK market will proceed in June. 

A more detailed account of this story is available on the Search Engine Watch Blog and is a recommended read.

If you haven't already, now is a good time to review your Google AdWords campaigns and give your ads a spring cleaning. In April, the AdWords team announced coming changes to their system designed to improve relevancy  for Google users.

What do these changes mean to advertisers? In an effort to improve relevancy, the impact of broad matching has decreased. Watch your campaigns; if you see a decline in performance, review your ad copy to ensure that ads are clear and exact. If you are noticing unwanted clicks for certain keywords, add negative keywords to improve targeting.

Benjamin Edelman, an anti-spyware activist from Harvard who first reported connections between Yahoo! PPC and spyware back in August 2005, has launched a suit against Yahoo! alleging that the search giant funds spyware via it's Overture PPC program and has profitted from misspelled domain names. Read more from eWeek.com.