For a lot of companies, the typical AOL user – the modern American housewife – is the ideal consumer. If you’re the purveyor of family-oriented products and services you need to be seen on AOL, and there’s excellent news on the horizon.

As of this week, advertisers will be able to target the AOL market in a whole new way when AOL Search Marketplace moves out of Beta. For the past several years, search advertising results on AOL were served via Google, but now companies will be able to bid on keywords for sponsored results directly through AOL (though Google will still have a share).

So, what does this shift really mean? Obviously, now that AOL services are free, this added advertising revenue will be a potential boost to the company’s bottom line. For AOL users it’s a great opportunity to be served more relevant advertising. And there is a chance of increased revenues for Google as well since more relevant ads will most likely lead to more clicks.

Overall, however, it’s clear that the biggest winners are the companies who can now go straight to the source and create customized campaigns on their core-audience’s top site for shopping, information, and search. The average AOL user holds the purse strings of the American family and there are a lot of companies that will benefit greatly from advertising through AOL Search Marketplace.

Starting last week, Google has begun displaying its top Sponsored Ads with a light yellow background. This is a big change from the traditional blue background that we are accustomed to seeing.

“First, we thought it was time for a new look: after months of testing, we decided to switch the background color of the top ads from blue to yellow,” said Daniel Dulitz, Product Manager for the Google.com ads user interface.

There has also been a change to the Top Sponsored Ads box itself. Now, users must click on the actual text link to visit that particular advertiser’s website, rather than clicking anywhere inside of the box.

Dulitz and his team feel that both of these changes will help improve on the quality of clicks, while helping the most relevant ads become more visible.

Google has introduced a change to the top sponsored search ads, a yellow background color. Below is a screenshot of Google’s new background color on the Top Sponsored Ads:

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As someone who talks to prospective clients every day, I’m still surprised when marketers want to force rules from other channels into their search campaigns.

If you’re new to search marketing here are a few points to help you with the transition:

1. Your target customers are identified by the keywords they use — not by their titles.

Many times I hear from people that only want to target CTO’s or some other c-level prospect. While that may be an effective approach for a direct mail campaign, it’s not a good fit for search. (Unless, via your other marketing channels, you’ve trained CTO’s to go to Google and type in: “I’m a CTO looking for a CRM consultant.”

In most organizations, various team members are assigned project responsibilities that will lead them to a search engine. If a receptionist is tasked with finding CRM vendors and uses search as a tool, then I think you would want to be found by that receptionist, even though they don’t hold the purse strings or the coveted c-level title.

2. You have more than 5 keywords or key phrases.

A pop in the Midwest is the same mixture of carbonated water and sugar that it is everywhere else but here in South Florida, it’s called a soda. All people think differently and therefore search differently. A broad keyword like CRM has dozens of long tail keyword phrases that may make sense for your business. At the end of the day, these phrases may be more important and in many cases convert better than the original keyword that you thought was so important.

3. Everyone searches differently.

Some people start with a broad search and then refine. Others start with a longer, more descriptive phrase and if they don’t see what they want, pull back to something more general. Still others will start at one engine and will go to another if they don’t like what they see in the SERP. Most importantly, people will skip between Organic and Paid results to find a site that meet their needs.

And, finally, every online effort has to include the implementation of an analytical tool so that you know what keywords, channels and engines convert for your site.