Google and the Future Death of Yellow Pages

Posted on September 26, 2010 by mike

Ask any small and medium-sized business how they get new customers quick and easy, they will tell you it is about “being in the right place at the right time.” For many decades the battle for this prized position was waged in the pages of yellow pages phone books across America.

In the year 2000, after leaving high school, I joined Verizon Information Services sales at the TCC. My job responsibility was to call on small businesses across the country to sell yellow page ads from VIS’s conveniently centralized call center located near Dallas TX. Most of the accounts the TCC handled were small, typically spending less than $100.00 per month. The bulk of these “advertisers” paid for listings that were enhanced with bold font, red color, or in multiple categories. Just about every business NEEDED the presence in the phonebook to find new customers and retain old ones. Since then the TCC’s book of business has dramatically shrunk. One way to tell how irrelevant listings in phone books are now is the decline in yellow pages mail fraud. The TCC mailed renewal notices with rate increases to the majority of the small accounts that it sold. As GTE/Verizon’s mail-out procedures also permitted companies to scam businesses with “fake bills” for yellow pages advertisements. This phonebook scam business is now about as successful as advertising the opportunity to receive large sums of money from a Nigerian diplomat.

Small businesses no longer care whether they are represented with listings in the phonebook as they did in the past.

“Just because your business is relevant today, does not mean it will be relevant tomorrow”

Long gone are the days when being in the phonebook was do or die. Businesses literally timed “grand openings” around the date of yellow pages deliveries. The TCC, at what is now called SuperMedia, is rampant with sales fraud. What was once a “cash cow” in mail-out renewal revenue for the Verizon Yellow Pages, is now the epicenter of Yellow Pages fraud. The cancellation rate for listings is greater than that of those that advertise with display ads. Even Verizon has admitted that people no longer use the “white pages” directories, yet yellow pages publishers seem to somehow think that means they still want the yellow version of the bulky recycle bin ready paper weights. Considering that Verizon is now in a battle with bankruptcy trustees over the Verizon/Idearc spin-off stock fraud scam, I am sure things are going to get interesting very soon.

Today, people naturally assume that “Google has killed the yellow pages.” I must clarify to you that this is simply not true. Why you might ask? The yellow blood of the phonebook business is on smartphones and those that possess them.

SMART PHONES KILLED THE YELLOW PAGES

Don’t get me wrong, yellow page directories will still have a place with rural populations, pint-sized versions, and opted-in delivery magazine styled publications with incentives (like Groupon) for subscribing. Fancy gimmicks won’t win you the hearts of small businesses.

Mobile browser based search applications is a booming business. And for good reason, mobile answers where via convenient geo-location based applications and devices. The challenges of picking up the right directory with the proper local scoping are no more.

I believe the most viable local advertising company is the one that embraces the fragmentation of local search (although Google Places, and sooner than later Facebook Places, which uses Bing Maps, will monopolize the space if it secures mobile check-in properties) and makes it easy for businesses to interact with online communities, manage reputations, promote on the fly, and build a list of fans and advocates. The challenge is how do you go about eating an elephant like this? We all know the answer, one bite at a time. The real challenge is remembering where you left off. You can’t win overnight. The tools required are nothing like chainsaws and hacksaws, they are like scalpels, sensors, and precision measurement devices. Unlike traditional yellow pages ad buying, new media is effectively measured. Results are transparent. Pricing is ‘in line’ with performance. Having the biggest budget no longer wins the battle. I find it humorous that so many of your local category killer companies are struggling to adapt.

One of the key challenges for large media companies, such as traditional yellow pages publishers like SuperMedia and DexOne, is attention to detail and strategy. It must be a challenge to have to compete with small independent search engine marketing experts like SMB SEO. First off, independent marketing consultants work on behalf of a client, not the client and the clients competition. Putting the client first and focusing on the client provides a strategic advantage. Knowing what marketing messages to share, such as events, promotions, and work load makes a difference. I suggest that if your internet marketing company is focused on outsourcing fulfillment activities to India, you might want to reconsider who it is you hired to provide your search marketing services.

So, what is next? Systems! I am building the “World’s Best” small business advertising system to manage not just local search, but IT functions, HR functions, communication, marketing, software, hardware, payroll, point-of-sale, work-flow, and much more. I don’t have a name for it just yet, so I will just call it my “SMB SEO Toolbox” or “SEO in a box.” I know it doesn’t really have a great ring to it, but slapping a great name on an upcoming idea would be putting the cart before the horse.

You see, fancy gimmicks, catchy names and so-called guarantees only get you so far. I wouldn’t bet the farm on that as a business model. Sure you might win over a few dumb schmucks, but sooner or later they will realize that the service they were sold does not match the service they are receiving. Why is that?

Search engine marketing without analytics is dumb
Search engine marketing without website landing page optimization is dumber
Search engine marketing resellers who markup clicks on Google are the dumbest.

Yellow pages companies have traditionally been pretty good at traffic. They have never been known for doing a great job “servicing” customers. Yellow page companies don’t focus on servicing as much as selling. I often suggest to my clients to consider buying traffic from sites like YP.com, SuperPages.com, Local.com and the like, but never hire them to provide a service. Never hire them to build your companies website or manage online advertising beyond the web property that they own and drive traffic to local businesses from.

I am looking forward to this coming week. First, I can’t wait for my follow-up meeting with the folks at CorePlus to discuss this enterprise level centralized virtual desktop ( I must say, big long fancy names like this one might help them sell a few seats! ) idea. Secondly, go Cowboys… let’s hope you can finally knock off a win against the Houston Texans, I am sure it will be a Civil War of sorts.
Cheers,

Mike

Negative Reviews Suck! Here is a few tips on how to avoid the pain.

Posted on June 15, 2010 by mike

When it comes to your online reputation, you can’t afford not to protect your brand by being aware of your companies ratings and reviews. If you are not collecting positive case studies, testimonials, and positive experiences from your customers or clients, you are already behind your competition on the web!

Reviews are a major factor in local search rankings, such as Google Page Places.

Here are a few ratings and review tips and facts we have collected over the years:

Negative Reviews Will Happen, This is a Fact of Life!

It is almost impossible for a small business to make every single client 100% happy.

1-2% of your customers with a positive experience will leave a review (without your “request”.)

20-30% of your customers with a negative experience will leave a review (without your influence.)

When is the last time you commented about great service from your waiter? What is the likelyhood of you doing the same after suffering food poisoning? Over 77% of consumers research online before purchasing a product or service. They may purchase the service at a store, but prior to doing so the majority of shoppers spend time on the internet.

If you want to make sure bad reviews don’t show up online, you better get some good reviews.

Write it on a napkin. It doesn’t matter how you collect the review, just as long as you save them.

We often recommend using a page on your website for reviews. Such as www.smbSEO.com/reviews. Just a simple form page to collect reviews. You can use the comment section of a site. The key is to encourage clients to write SEO friendly reviews by asking them to include a description of the location of service and the type of service provided in the review.

All it takes is 5 reviews per month.

Here are a few suggestions on how to handle or respond to negative online business reviews:

Investigate – Find the person that submitted the review or negative testimonial. Does the review look real? Contact the webmaster of the review site.
Make Amends - Reach out and offer to resolve the complaint. Oftentimes the other party may remove or re-review the review. It is worth a shot!
Address the Issue – Find out what the problem was and if you can’t make amends or get the reviewer to fix it, tell your side of the story. Be honest!
Bomb the Review Site - Positive Reviews (not suggested for Google Page Places etc due to frequency and authenticity factors)

What is the big deal with online reviews?

Online reviews are perhaps trusted even more than what friends and family say these days. “User reviews are more influential than third-party reviews.” (”Web users and web community,” Rubicon Consulting, Inc. October 2008)
About 90% of people browse through online business reviews before buying (or not buying) your services; 90% of whom automatically trust these reviews. (Kudzu.com survey of 600 users, December 2008)
Almost 75% of consumers read product reviews on the Internet. (Deloitte & Touche, September 2007)
Customers consult Websites with product and service reviews, even beating out a knowledgeable friend (59%). (Marketing Sherpa, July 2007)
Seven in 10 (69%) consumers who read reviews share them with friends, family or colleagues, sometimes exaggerating the facts to your harm. (Deloitte & Touche, September 2007)

Online ratings and reviews can appear for large or small businesses, and can be important to individuals where ratings are conducted, such as doctors, accountants, dentists, and even plastic surgeons.

Posting your own reviews can get you in big trouble! So never post your own reviews for YOUR company.

The New York Times reported last year that cosmetic surgery clinic Lifestyle Lift would pay $300,000 in civil penalties after an investigation by the New York State attorney general’s office found that employees had posed as plastic surgery patients to write glowing reviews of their own business. It’s not worth it. How many “pay per clicks” could $300,000 buy?

Continue reading →

Google AdWords is now offering Location Extentions, here’s how to transfer from Google Local Business Center Ads

Posted on May 17, 2010 by mike

Google AdWords is now offering Location Extentions here is how to transfer from Local Business Center PPC Ads.

Google has further improved ability to target ads. Great for small and medium-sized location based businesses who want to target ads on both PC and mobile smartphone internet browsers. Here are some of the advantages of transfering your localized ads from LBC to Location Extentions. (this is better targeting than Phone Book Directory Distribution isn’t it?)

allow you to show an address with your text ads.
same ad can be used for multiple locations.
no longer required to only use your name as the headline, which was a restriction on LBC ads.
no longer have to wait for LBC ads to appear before connecting Adwords to a location based LBC ad. so your ads get launched faster!
previous ads on LBC only appeared based on radius, location extentions appear based on relevency and results.

You can transfer your ads over in just 5 easy steps. Watch this video to learn more about Google Location Extentions in AdWords.Here is a video from Google on how to transfer from LBL ads.

Did you know that Google tracks the IP (Internet Protocol) address as well as geo-location and history of searchers to determine how to offer search results? They began to offer localized results to this extreme in late 2009!

Here is an example or screenshot of a Google AdWords Location Extention settings page:

Small Business Guide

to Local SEO Search Engine Optimization

If you knew there was going to be a war between your business and your competitors, would you wait to prepare?

I recently had a lengthy discussion on Facebook (of all places) with a sales rep at one of the largest yellow pages publishing companies in the United States. She was defending the value of print yellow pages. At the end of our lengthy discussion, I saw that she failed to comprehend my argument about local search and usage of print yellow pages. I made a comment that it is a challenge to “sell” phone book ads in rural markets where smart phones like the iPhone and Droid are widely purchased. I told her that in rural markets usage of print yellow pages is still heavy. I hate to say I told you so, but after selling phone book ads for over 9 years, I can tell you that if your small business is still investing the majority of your advertising dollars in phone book ads, and you are in an urban or suburban market, you need a serious wake-up call!

The war between small businesses to rank at the top of Google search engine results is now upon us. If you are late in preparing for this war, it is time to catch up! With more and more businesses planning on using local search to acquire new customers, it is imperative that you work with a local search engine optimization and marketing expert before it is too late. Decline of print usage will increase at an astounding rate thanks to mobile browsers, decreased costs for internet access, and continued success of geo-location search results by search engines like Google.

Google controls around 70% of all searches performed on the web. Google is the leader of search. In 2007 Google launched a big change in its algorythm (the factors that determine how search engine results are populated on search engine results pages) called Universal Search. Universal Search was essentially the beginning of blended search engine results. Google’s maps or local listings became a common result for consumers who search on Google. Internet Yellow Pages sites, like YellowPages.com, have been declining in usage since their own search engine optimization efforts can not account for the fact that Google is displaying 10 or 7-packs of local listing results, instead of results from Internet Yellow Pages sites.

With search engines specializing in local business searches, the yellow pages are quickly becoming an aged advertising, marketing, and business tool. Instead, millions of Americans are turning towards the internet to find local businesses instead of flipping pages in an oversized bulky phone book that you never asked to receive.

If you are just getting started with local search engine optimization, here are a few tips and words of advice to incorporate local search marketing to your small business marketing mix:

First, Create or Claim Your Business Listing on Google Maps-

Go to www.Google.com/Local/Add and create or verify your businesses listing. Often times the listings are originated from yellow pages directories who, like Google, typically obtain the information from Acxiom or InfoUSA. (at one time the yellow pages companies had a distinct advantage (monopoly) due to access to phone company listing information)

Include the following bits of information in your listing:

- your website address

- your categories or areas of service/practice and products

-try to include keywords in your company name or title

-make sure the address you use is also on your websites pages

- avoid the use of a toll-free phone number

- fill out a general business description that contains keywords related to your industry

Listing verifications are performed by Google via phone or snail mail.

Free listings from Yellow Pages websites also can help get you listed in local search results. It is not necessary to advertise on sites like SuperPages.com, YP.com, or Local.com. Google does not give you credit for investing extra money on these sites. Most of the clients whom I have worked with over the years do not get a significant amount of calls or clicks from these internet yellow pages sites. Local search is extremely fragmented with many different sites.

If you want to also increase your rankings on Google Maps, it helps to have ratings and reviews on the following sites:

Your businesses ratings and reviews on sites like Kudzu, InsiderPages, Yelp, CitySearch and others makes a huge difference on whether or not you rank at the top. This is called CITATIONS. I often recommend to clients that they create an offline buzz to these sites for client reviews.

After you create your Google listing, you should next create a listing on Yahoo Local by going to http://local.yahoo.com and then Bing Local by going to http://www.bing.com/maps/ for the Bing Local Listing Center.

If you are having trouble ranking on Google Maps, or want additional help setting up your local listings, you can get your business listing optimized for local search by SMB SEO, starting at just $299.00 one-time.

Just a word of caution: Do NOT allow companies to claim your listing, unless they do so under an email account created for you or by you. There are many scam artists who are charging clients as much as $100.00 per month just to setup a local listing.

When SMB SEO sets up your listing, we also submit it to 7 or as much as 21 different local search directories. This service is called local directory submission and optimization. It is a key component of local search engine optimization.

Cheers!

Mike Stewart

Director of Search Marketing and the Dallas Google Guru

How well is AdWords working for you?

Posted on May 1, 2010 by Casey

In continuing with our series of emails from Google Adwords here is email 5 of 6. Only one more to go.

How is my AdWords account performing?

The first, and easiest way to measure your success is to review your AdWords statistics. Success with AdWords will be different for every business and will depend on your business goals. However, there are a few things to look out for that will indicate your ads are running successfully:

Impressions

The number of impressions tells you how many times your ad has been displayed to your potential customers. A high number of impressions means your ad has been seen a lot but is not necessarily a measure of your account effectiveness. You need to review this in relation to your clicks (how many people have clicked on your ad) to understand your ad’s relevance to your audience. This is easily done by looking at your clickthrough rate (CTR).

Clickthrough Rate (CTR)

To get an immediate idea of how well a campaign is doing, check the CTR – how often people click on your ad after seeing it. As a rule of thumb, a CTR on Google under 1% indicates your ads are not targeted to a relevant audience. Look at this on the ‘Campaigns’ tab and view the CTR of your individual keywords and ads on the respective tabs.

Average Position

Check the Avg. Pos. column on the ‘Campaigns’ tab in your account to find out where your ad is appearing on the search results page. There are up to 11 ads shown on any search page so if your average position is 11 or more your ad is, on average, not appearing on the first page of search results. You should aim to show your ad on the first page of search results so your potential customers can more easily find your ad.

First Page Bids

If your ad is not appearing on the first page of search results, you will see first page bids on the ‘Keywords’ tab under the ‘Status’ column. High bid estimates can indicate that your keywords or ads are not as relevant as they could be.

Quality Score

Each of your keywords is given a quality score which can be found by clicking on the icon in the ‘Status’ column on the ‘Keywords’ tab. A keyword’s quality score updates frequently and is closely related to its performance.

In general, a high quality score of 9 or 10 means that your keyword will trigger ads in a higher position and at a lower cost-per-click (CPC). Quality score looks at a variety of factors to measure how relevant your keyword is to your ad, and to a user’s search query.

If you would like to improve these metrics, we suggest optimizing your account using our Optimization Tips.

I know how many people clicked on my ad, but how many became my customers?

While the number of clicks tells you how many people visited your website, it doesn’t tell you how valuable those visitors are to your business. For this, you need to know how many of the people that clicked your ad went on to perform a desired action on your site (e.g. completed a purchase, signed up for a quote etc.). These actions are known as conversions.

AdWords Conversion Tracking is a free Google tool that lets you measure how many conversions are the direct result of clicks on your AdWords ads. Using this data, you can identify which ads and keywords are most successful in generating conversions and how much each conversion is costing you. You can then edit your campaigns accordingly to improve your return-on-investment.

If you’d like more information on how to track your AdWords success, check out our online AdWords Beginner’s Guide.

Services

Price of Local Search Engine Marketing SEO in Dallas for Small Businesses

Budgeting for local search engine marketing can be a challenging task. To most small business owners, understanding the costs and prices for internet marketing is not something that is shared or transparent. Most traditional internet advertising agencies tightly hold rate cards for Local SEO from businesses. Prices are not broken up by services provided. We have taken the confusion out of pricing local seo.

SMB SEO offers the following local search engine optimization services in our monthly search marketing retainer depending on our client’s individual needs and local search internet marketing challenges. No cookie cutter product solution. We specialize in a holistic search engine marketing approach. At smbSEO we believe that search is a verb, an action. It takes this fundamental holistic approach with many actions to rank at the top of search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Ask.com.

We also help our clients rank high on sites like YouTube and Yelp.com. We offer reputation management (a fancy word for Reputation-Based SEO) and paid search engine marketing, which is also known as pay-per-click marketing.

What makes smbSEO different from most traditional Dallas internet marketing firms is our transparent pricing and simplified fee approach. We offer an affordable monthly retainer that has no contract term length (such as a yellow pages publisher that requires you to pay for the advertisement for 12 months.)

Here’s our local search engine marketing rates:

SMB SEO Pricing Details:

-Local Directory/Map Listing Insertion: $499.00 for 21 local search sites (help with Google Maps ranking)

Local listing optimization is the process of optimizing local listing profiles on sites such as Google Places (Google Maps), Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, and other important local search directories. This process combined with the proper citation (ratings and reviews) influence and further optimization of these profiles helps ensure that your small business ranks under local search results (such as: Lewisville Tx Family Lawyer, Pet Waste Removal Dallas, or Bail Bonds Dallas. )

See our local listing optimization service page for more information, just click here.

(can be included in retainer)

-Website in WordPress or Joomla CMS: $1500.00 to $3000.00+ (basic website, extensive detailed graphics extra)
(normally not included in retainer unless stated otherwise)

WordPress and Joomla are the top 2 website content management systems on the planet. A couple of advantages of an open source content management system include the large community of contributors (plug-ins, extentions, and overall number of developers on the platform,) ability to evolve (the internet changes everyday,) and the fact that being locked in to a proprietary content management system by a single website development or website hosting provider is the old way of building a website.

-Video Production: $1000.00+ (filmed the last 2 weeks of the month, 5 day turn-around)
(normally not included in retainer unless stated otherwise)

We work with graduates or students with the Dallas Art Institute who are well versed in Video Production. Our Dallas Video Production services are affordable to small businesses. We also optimize videos for YouTube, Hulu, and MetaCafe video distribution and high rankings. Our videos also show up in Google search engine results pages for common local queries that your customers search for everyday.

-Article Writing: $45/400 word or $60/800 word article
(included in retainer up to 5 articles per month)

We provide expert search engine optimized copy by experienced local SEO copywriters. Sites that do not have a scheduled, effective, frequent content strategy do not rank as well. Content is the key to building the online authority your site needs to rank high on search engines. SEO Copywriting is a skill that many bloggers are not familiar with. You have to focus on blogging and content. But in reality your content or blogging strategy must be monetized. SMB SEO takes SEO Copywriting to a different level with content distribution services via social media, article, press release, and search engine distribution methods.

Our Press Release writing services are separate. Slightly higher cost per word than traditional copy writing, but not as expensive as most advertising agencies.

-On-Page SEO: $100/hr
(included in retainer)

-Link Building: $100/hr
(included in retainer)

-Video Search Engine Optimization: $100.00
(included in retainer)

YouTube video search engine optimization (VSEO) is about helping your videos rank at the top of search engine results and Video distribution channels like YouTube.com, which is the most popular video destination on the internet.

-Advanced Call Metrics: $100/url/month and 12 cents per minute (includes call tracking, recording, routing, voicemail, web chat etc)
(not included in retainer)

-Ghost Blogging: $60.00/ post
(included in retainer)

-Logo Design: $500.00 (includes more than 20 different design choices)
(normally not included in retainer unless stated otherwise)

Logos……. but with options!

-Pay Per Click Campaign Build-Out: $100.00/hr (includes AdWords, MSN AdCenter, and Yahoo Search Marketing accounts)
(normally not included in retainer unless stated otherwise)

-Pay Per Click Management: $299.00/month
(included in retainer)

-Social Media Profile Setup: $250.00 each one time fee each. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.com, Flickr, etc
(included in retainer)

Additional Services Offered in SEO/PPC Retainer:

Monthly On-Site Changes
Keyword Research
Blog Articles
Linking Articles
Local Business Listings
Logo Design
Website Design
Check WebRanking 3 times per week
PPC Build
PPC Management
Ghost Blogging
Ghost Writing
Reputation Management
Crisis Management
Social Media Setup
Social Media Posting
Social Media Linking
Online Promotions
Analytics
Conversion Optimization
Website Content Writing
Images and Image Search Optimization
Website Banners
Video Refurbishing
Video Blogging

* Not all services available every single month. Client receives approx. 10-15 hours of service every month. SMB SEO reserves the right to end this agreement. Deposit required to begin services. All services are month to month with 30 days notice for cancellations

Show your ad on relevant websites

Posted on April 23, 2010 by Casey

Did you know that in addition to showing your AdWords ad on Google search, you can also show it on websites that your customers visit?

The Google content network is a large, diverse network of different kinds of websites that partner with Google. On this network, you can show your ad to potential customers when they’re looking at websites related to your product or services.

Why show my ads on websites as well as search pages?

Internet users spend the majority of their time online browsing websites. By advertising on both search and the content network, you can reach your target audience no matter what they’re doing online.

The content network is made up of thousands of websites, from big household names to small specialised websites, such as blogs or forums. This means AdWords can match your ad to websites that are relevant to your product or service and that your potential customers visit.

Want to know more about the content network? Take a look at the video below.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4wJTJr2Qm4

How do I make sure the content network works for me?

When your campaign is opted-in to the content network, AdWords automatically targets your ads to relevant content on websites. This means your message is matched to the right audience at the right time.

For example, if you’re selling digital cameras, our system may place your ad next to a news article that reviews the latest digital photographic technology. In this case, you know that a user who is looking at this web page is likely to be interested in buying from you.

The principles you apply to your search campaigns will also help your ads perform well on the content network:

Follow ad best practices, like using a strong call to action in your ad
Have clear themes in your ads that match your keywords
Have a clear, relevant theme to your list of keywords

Together these basic actions allow our system to assess very clearly what your product or service is and match your ads to relevant websites.

Learn more about ad targeting on the content network.

How can I see how my ad is performing on websites?

You can review all of the websites your ad has shown on and see performance statistics on each site directly within your AdWords account. To do this simply select the ‘Networks’ tab within your campaign and click on ‘show details’ beside your content placements.

With this information, you then have the ability to focus your advertising on the sites that give you the greatest value for your money and get you the most sales or leads. Learn more about how to assess your ad performance on the content network.

Sounds great! How do I double check that my ad is eligible to show on websites?

To get your ads showing on relevant websites ensure that you are opted-in to the content network.

If you’d like more information about the content network, visit the online AdWords Beginner’s Guide.

Why Your Ranking Matters!

Posted on April 13, 2010 by Casey

Everyday I here that as long as you are on the first page in Google thats all that matters. I always found that to be rather funny. Most web searches click the first link and never return to search results. I finally found some stats to back this up.

Overall Percent of Clicks	Relative Click Volume
42.13%, 2,075,765 clicks 11.90%, 586,100 clicks 8.50%, 418,643 clicks 6.06%, 298,532 clicks 4.92%, 242,169 clicks 4.05%, 199,541 clicks 3.41%, 168,080 clicks 3.01%, 148,489 clicks 2.85%, 140,356 clicks 2.99%, 147,551 clicks	3.5x less 4.9x less 6.9x less 8.5x less 10.4x less 12.3x less 14.0x less 14.8x less 14.1x less
1st page totals: 89.82%, 4,425,226 clicks 2nd page totals: 10.18%, 501,397 clicks

Based on this data, if you are ranking 8, 9, or 10 you may be able to increase your traffic for that keyword 1,400% by ranking #1. Even jumping from #8 to #3 can triple your traffic.

After looking at this I only want to be #1! Why would you want to be anywhere else?

Adwords Max Settings

Posted on April 7, 2010 by Casey

There are those of us who know all the limits of Google Adwords but a very good amount of us that do not.

25 Campaigns
2,000 Ad Groups per Campaign
2,000 Keywords per Ad Group
50 Ads per Ad Group (Any Format)
About 50,000 Keywords per Account

Most users will never reach the limits put in place by Google. You just need to be strategic when setting up your Ad Groups. Setup one Campaign with three to five Ad Groups. Each Ad Group can target specific Keywords with specific Ads. Take your time there is no hurry in getting these up and running. Google will always be there. It is a lot easier to set it up right the first time then to go back and redo everything again later.

For those of you out there that are Go Getters, Google will display a message warning you that you are reaching the limits of the account. If you are one of them and need more of everything, the easiest way to fix this is to add the My Client Center. This will let you create multiple accounts and join them in one easy to manage interface.