Google Local SEO has became an extremely important marketing drive for any business out there looking to rake in leads via Search Engine Result Pages. Given that Google Local Result Pages have undergone a complete facelift since 2010, its evident that there is a tough fight out there when it comes to Local Business Results on Google. This has given birth to a new vertical in Search Engine Optimization, known as Google Map Optimization.

In the year 2011, Google started off by initially wiping out a lot of faulty listings. By February, most duplicate listings that were out there got wiped out. The listings went under review and it was evident that Google was taking its Local Result more seriously than ever. We tried to evaluate a number of factors that were beneficial until 2010 but were probably going to be less beneficial in 2011.

In a recent video from SXSW, Merissa Mayer deemed Hotpot and Google Latitude as one of the most successful experiments.

Now, Hotpot being more traffic laden and handy, its obvious that Google is going to pick up citations from Hotpot to build its listings and evaluate the authenticity of a Google Local listing. Mayer mentioned that 40% of Google Local traffic is mobile and stated that mobile usage of Hotpot does surpass desktop usage at times. Recently Google already integrated Hotpot reviews in tis Local Search Engine Results.

Amongst other local ranking factors, Local Citations no doubt top the list. Only that Google’s drive to pick up local citations might take a steep divergence. How? Have you heard of recent Farmer’s Update? Here is a post by Andrew Shortland where he is comparing Quantcast data post-Farmer update. There are clearly a bunch of sites out there which clearly shows that some sites did lose their importance. Was it due to their thin nature? Or was it due to improper SEO architecture? Too early to say that.

We all know that Insider Page listings accounted for a number of listings showing up those eye-catching stars against Google Local results..well not anymore, it seems that a lot of listings lost their star ratings that they were earlier pulling up from InsiderPages. However, Bing and Yahoo still seem to be taking that info from Insider Pages.

Another important update was by Google on Duplicate Listings. If you have a number of Duplicate listings and you are still worried about what you should do with the listings that you dont deem to be important, then here is a step by step guide to it:-

1. Claim the most relevant listing and start with filling out your profile. Make sure that it has the most accurate information and oh yes ofcourse the most important ranking factor for Google Local Optimization – the right LOCATION! Your location on your original listing should be extremely accurate and should be accurately posted with respect to its closeness to the city centre. Thats how Google arranges you on its Local Results.
2. Claim the other listings too but do NOT delete them just yet. Make these listings just like your original listing but do not load it with all the info you would in your original listing. Just enough to make it look similar to the original listing. Slowly all your listings will merge into one and soon you will see your original listing ranking better than others. (If optimized correctly).
3. Start updating your listings with correct data. Make sure that you do enroll for UBL and update your data there too. It will definitely ensure that your duplicate listings are merged.
4. Once all the data becomes consistent you can now go ahead and delete the duplicate listings or leave them like that.

Before I close the post, I would like to also highlight another extremely important citation source that seem to be extremely important in the year 2011 - Geo-referenced Images – Google’s Panoramio is going to be an extremely citation point in the year 2011. Several snippers from Panoramio can already be seen to build up in the Google Local Search results.

Is this yet another Ban Spree by Google’s Adwords Team? Affiliates are scared and the advertisers are worried whether the banhammer is gonna fall of them too. Last year 2010 in March, Google took a crack down on Thin Affiliates and this could well be termed as Adwords Ban Spree 2011!

This time the ban is even more harder. Why? Since this time its the usual affiliates PLUS the merchants too! Yes, thats true. We have been getting several incoming messages from merchants who are worried about their Adwords account being banned. Only thing better this time is that Adwords IS communicating with you! They are taking the pains of replying to your emails but the reply is still the same blunt – “we cant help you and refrain from creating anymore accounts or you will end up getting banned again.“, only not automated!

So what would you do after getting Banned from Adwords? Try Facebook? Yahoo? Bing? Is it going to be AS profitable and traffic vending as Adwords was for you? Prolly Not? Definitely NOT! So dont lose your hope after getting Adwords Banned.

If Adwords is actually indispensable for your business – you CAN get back on Adwords. Just hit our Contact Us page and fill the easy form there. Try supplying us maximum info on your communication with Adwords, nature of business and most important of all what go your banned from Adwords and one of our executives will take if further from there with you. Not only will we help you with a new account acquisition , bit we will also help you on tweaking your campaign and Adwords Management!

Using Adwords + Direct Linking CPA offers used to be a sure show cash minting setup for Affiliates until 2008. It used to be easy, all you needed to do is get apt ads and put in your destination URL as your CPA link and BAM! The traffic starts flowing in and the money too!

On 19th Feb 2008, everything changed as Google revised its Display URL policy. Direct linking thus came to a slow death.

However, there are still people out there who are using direct linking with Adwords to make some good money. If you are still wondering how to direct link using Adwords, we can help you on how to setup direct linking with your Adwords ads for your CPA offer. Our method works regardless of the fact, whether you are using Clickbank, Comission Junction or other offers.

Make sure that you read this link before you go ahead with setting up the ads. You need to use a subdomain for setting up this campaign. For instance the display URL would look like – www.Google.com but the destination URL would be Adwords.Google.com.. Then later you redirect the destination URL to directly link with your offer page.

You need to be careful since if this is not done properly – your ads might end up getting disapproved for inaccurate URL or might also result in getting your Adwords Banned. Also if not optimized properly you would find it tough getting your Quality Scores at par.

If you are not sure about how to set this up you might wanna get a professional hand at setting up the campaign for you. You may contact us using our Contact Us page.

A couple of days ago while I was tweeting around some of my interesting links on how Google Adwords is set to change in 2011 for evaluating site qualities, I was contacted by an affiliate via direct message. Initially, I thought it was just going to be general chit chat but eventually it turned out that this affiliate was deeply troubled. Randy was making over 7 Figures affiliate income using his Adwords Traffic but all of a sudden his account was terminated.

Further, when we started speaking on Skype he showed me the email that Google sent him which clearly said – “Do Not Contact Us!”.

It read:-

Hello Randy,

Thank you for your email. No one will be able to reverse your account suspension. We ask that you please do not contact support again about this matter.
As noted in our Terms and Conditions, Google reserves the right to terminate advertisements for any reason. To view our Terms and Conditions, please visit https://adwords.google.com/select/tsandcsfinder. We appreciate your cooperation.
Sincerely,
xxxx
The Google Adwords Team

Randy was clueless where to go from there and when we started speaking further, I assured him that we can help him on this issue.  Within a week, we got Randy a new account and started managing his campaign. During the course of our business with Randy, we discovered that Randy had tried all the available tricks out there – like VCCs, Adwords Coupons and whatnot… but in the end, he ended up again getting Google Banned within a couple of days and his income stalled there and then.

When you are running your ads on Adwords, you need to make sure that you understand the intricacies of Site Quality Parameters, laid down by Adwords Team. Google reviews your landing page both manually and automatically. So getting a voucher and VCC is NOT the solution to getting unbanned for life but understand what exactly is wrong is where you need to work to ensure that you have steady income. Nevertheless, there are certain mega minting niches where no matter what you do – Google Adwords Editors will go out to ban your Adwords account. In that case there is only one option left.. and that is to have access to unlimited number of Adwords Accounts along with tweaking your campaign to ensure that its life is prolonged to the maximum.

Common Mistakes That Might Get You Banned From Adwords
Some common issues that trigger Adwords ban is Trademark violation, Landing page quality (especially when you have a squeeze page) or trying to promote non-permissible products on Adwords. There sure is a workaround for all of the above issues and if done wisely your campaign can live longer than you expect. We dealt with a campaign for another client n 2010, who had troubles promoting Jailbreak iPhone app on Adwords.

Google Will Warn You Before Banning Your Adwords Account
Initially, when you post your ads on Google, depending on your keywords and ad copy, there is an automated check on both. If the keywords that you are bidding on are hotlisted, the system might trigger a manual review and your campaign will stall there and then. Only after a manual review will you be able to get your ads running again on Adwords. However, there are some ads which do pass this preliminary review phase or to be true – sneak through the preliminary review – but sooner or later if a wandering Adwords Editor happens to review your account. The campaign is smacked.

Some common features of a review struck accounts are:-

• Landing Page Quality Score Slap

• Ads Disapproval

• Permanent Account suspending ( in case account has a previous TOS violation history).

Troubles, You Might Face Getting Back On Adwords
Most advertisers after getting Adwords Banned, try to delete this account and re-use their old Credit Card/Debit Card to create a new account. Thats when Google links your account to the old one and again slaps you. We did a post about the same earlier. There are advertisers who wash tonnes of Dollars buying VCCs and Coupons but to no avail, there account ends up getting canned soon enough.

Just one word of advice for all Internet Marketers – dont put all your eggs in one basket or you might end up in same situation.

If you have been facing similar issues with your Adwords Campaign or if you have been Adwords Banned, there is still a lot you can do. We will be glad to help you get back on Adwords and get you several robust backup Adwords accounts to ensure that your cash flow does NOT stop.

At Buckdat, we take an extremely holistic approach towards your business and make sure that there is Zero wait period in getting you up and running on Adwords. Not only this, we also work closely with local Adwords Reps to make sure that your Landing Pages run as close to as they can when it comes to Google’s TOS.

If you would like us to help you getting you back on Adwords or if you would like a free consultation on whats keeping you from running you Adwords account without getting frequent bans, we would be glad to help you. You can use our Contact Us form and we will get back to you within 24 working hours with more info on our Adwords Management Services.

Most affiliates using Google Adwords are like flying birds. Why? Well, how do you track your affiliate success on the traffic that you buy from Adwords? Have you been wondering which keyword is actually converting for you? Have you been wondering why you have low conversions when you have the MOST apt keywords in your adgroup?

The truth is – the keywords you as an affiliate find optimistic to convert might not be actually converting for you. But there is no way of tracking this since you cant put your Adwords conversion code on the offer checkout page, can you? So how exactly can you lower your risks? Is there a system that actually guarantees to bring you the most accurate conversion information on conversions via Google Adwords?

If you will Google around, you will find a couple of such tools available in market like – tracking202 and directtrack – but personally I dont find myself being able to trust such platforms.

Our first hand experience with Tracking202 as Adwords Management Professionals was bitter, I personally played around with the script and found it not compatible with all the offers out there. Plus the system had too many requirements when it came to setting it up for tracking conversions. So IMHO, none of these systems out there are good enough and worth the effort or your money!

When I looked around for different other viable options, I found a hidden rabbit in Google’s own hat! Yep, thats true, its called as ValueTrack. If you wil go through the online repository of ValueTrack, you will discover that there are eons of possibilities out there that help you prepare your own custom coded solution which can help you track keyword conversions on their individual level.

While Managing Adwords campaign for a major Gaming portal, we consulted them & developed a robust system which was showing us each & every conversion in a sample affiliate panel provided to us by them to track conversions and develop a system for them. This system can be trusted because the data is relayed via Google’s own logical variables. If you would look at the ValueTrack code deeply, you will find that this code has loads of similarities to Google’s very own conversion code.

You may find a detailed overview on how to use ValueTrack to build your conversion code using this link.

If you have an affiliate system which allows you to track success via different SIDs, you can use Google’s ValueTrack to track your affiliate conversions neatly!

Should you have any questions regarding how to get such a system developed for tracking your keyword level affiliate conversions, feel free to hit us up using the contact form. We would be glad to help you with it.