All trademark infringement discussions aside, one of the most important things a business running a pay-per click (PPC) campaign must understand is that keywords are free game for all advertisers.  Yes, Google and the other search engines have policies in place that restrict abuse of trademarked terms in ad copy, but the keyword itself is available to bid on for any advertiser willing to pay for the click.  This stance by Google was further supported by Judge Morrison C. England Jr. of the California Eastern District Court.  In a recent case ruling of Jurin v. Google Inc., Judge England states that Google “does not provide the content of the ‘Sponsored Link’ advertisements” and further clarifies that “It provides a space and a service and thereafter charges for its service.”  Basically, Google does not sell keywords.  They sell the ad space and provide a service to bid on keywords for which they charge for that ad space and service.

I make mention of this ruling because it hammers down a point that many advertisers overlook when deciding on keywords for their PPC campaigns.  Anyone can bid on keywords and many times broad, generic keywords have the most competition.  The reason for this is simple, more than one industry (or individual company) may view a keyword as important to their business.  Even when the advertisers bidding on a specific keyword are not true competitors, they are still competing for the ad space that a particular keyword drives.  This increased competition on broad terms is great for Google and other search engines, but not for the advertiser’s cost per click (CPC).

When determining the right selection of keywords to bid on, keep in mind how those keywords are interpreted by other companies or industries.  If you find that too many of your keywords have companies outside of your industry bidding on that term, it is usually a red flag that the term is too broad.  The visitors who click on your ad, triggered by that keyword search most likely will be unqualified.  In addition, you may see higher CPC’s from those broad terms that relate to more than one industry.  You will be well served in understanding the ruling that Google sells ad space and not keywords, because you can not stop other companies from bidding on a keyword simply because you feel that keyword is more relevant to your business.

About a year ago (March 2009), I wrote a blog about the increasing trend of people purchasing “Smart Phones” and how that can impact local advertisers.  The statistics were staggering with regard to the sheer volume of people using their cell phone to browse the internet and complete search queries.  At the time of my blog article “More than one out of every six American homes (17.5%) had only wireless telephones during the first half of 2008, an increase of 1.7 percentage points since the second half of 2007. In addition, more than one out of every eight American homes (13.3%) received all or almost all calls on wireless telephones despite having a landline telephone in the home.”, according to the report from CDC’s Department of Health and Human Services.

In addition, according to a recent comScore report at the time of my March 2009 blog, “the number of people using their mobile device to access news and information on the Internet more than doubled from January 2008 to January 2009.  Among the audience of 63.2 million people who accessed news and information on their mobile devices in January 2009, 22.4 million (35 percent) did so daily; more than double the size of the audience last year.”

Well, it seems the trend is continuing upward.  Google Search was the top mobile property in December 2009, with nearly 28 million unique visitors, followed by Yahoo Mail, at 23.2 million, and Facebook, with 18.8 million.  Rounding out the top five were Gmail, with monthly traffic of 17.6 million, and Weather Channel, at 13.8 million, according to recent research from The Nielsen Company.

Given these large numbers, as a business owner, are you comfortable with what people see when they visit your site from a mobile device?  If you’ve looked at your site recently using a smart phone or other mobile device (unless you already have a mobile website) odds are you will not be pleased.  Regular websites, no matter how great they look, when viewed from a PC do not look the same when viewed from a mobile device.  In fact, some devices (even the smart ones) cannot read websites unless the website is created specifically for mobile visitors.  I own a Palm Treo Pro, and it has the capability to view any website with its built in browser, but I can tell you its almost impossible to navigate (or get any information) from sites that are not “mobile ready”.  The amount of text and images that take up the screen is so large that by the time I scroll vertically or horizontally, the page needs to reload and by then my patience is worn out.

Think about this as you plan out your marketing strategy for 2010.  With increasing numbers, people are using their cell phones to access the internet and visit websites.  Be sure you include in your marketing plan to account for these visitors and provide them with a user-friendly and accessible version of your website.

With all of the advancement in search engine marketing, it is imperative for online retailers to maintain proper data in their inventory control system.  Depending on the e-commerce platform that you use, there could be ten to fifty attribute fields in your inventory system.  While you may think for the sake of speed to only complete a few “major” fields (attributes) like ID#, Title, Description, and Image, you are doing yourself a disservice by not completing all of the available fields.  The reason for this recommendation is simple; the more attributes your product has, the easier the search engines can classify your product.

A perfect example is the Google Base program.  It is an excellent way for online retailers to gain greater exposure for their products in Google’s shopping section, but its effectiveness is directly related to your product attributes.  The more attributes you can apply to a product the easier it will be for Google to classify your product, thus enhancing your chance for visibility.  The required attributes for the Google Base program are:

• Condition (new, used, refurbished)
• Description (describes the product)
• ID (must be unique to each item)
• Link (link to the page where the item is sold on your site)
• Price (selling price on your site)
• Title (name of the product)

Most companies complete these fields within their e-commerce platform because they are required for their internal system.  So, even the most basic retailers can use Google Base if they do the minimum required.  But let’s be realistic, doing just the minimum will get you just that – minimum results.  If you are looking to make serious advancements in selling product through Google Base, you need to do more than what is required.  You need to stand out from not only your competition, but also with Google’s system of classifying and listing your items.  You accomplish this by applying more attributes to your products to set yourself apart from your competition. 

Think about this the next time you are adding a new product line, or updating your e-commerce platform data.  Fill in all of the blanks, complete all of the fields, and the extra time you put into this can be rewarded by attracting new customers who would not have found you otherwise.