In the spirit of optimization, we often sit in on online seminars about new technologies or topics important to our industry. Gotta keep this machine well-oiled! I recently sat in on a search marketing web seminar that was all about keyword research. Now, as these things tend to be, it was largely a sales pitch. Hrmpf. But, it did provide a nice reiteration of some best practices (so quick nod to the host of the webinar, paid search reporting platform, ClickEquations).

This inspired me to spread the continuing education love and share some small steps you must be taking in your keyword research and selection to make your paid search advertising campaigns successful.

Before you set up a campaign, you always start with your planning phase—the volume research, the competitive analysis, etc. This is an important phase. More important, though, is what comes after you launch your campaign: the keyword optimization. It’s important that you keep an eye on your keywords, measure performance, and use your findings to perfect your paid efforts.
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If you are currently managing your organization’s paid search campaigns on Google, you may or may not be familiar with the latest and greatest improvements made recently to encourage visitors to click on your ads and continue on to your site or landing pages.  If you’re not familiar with the changes, here is a quick explanation of some of the new features, called Ad Extensions.

First off is your Location Extension. A location extension pulls in and displays a local business addresses that is associated with an account when your ad is shown, in order to make your ads more relevant. You can manually add an address in the Settings section, or associate it with your Google Places account. Location extensions are by default set at the Campaign level, but can also be set at the Ad level if you have, for example, specific promotions running at certain locations. Below is an example of a location extension.
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