A search snippet is the entry seen in the results of a Google search, or any other search engine. There are various components of the snippet, most of which are pulled from the web page they link to. It’s critical to manage how these snippets look because these ultimately are in charge of persuading visitors to come to your website. Furthermore, there are a limited number of characters that will display for both the Title and the Description so care should be taken to make the best use of this space. This is why I developed the SERP Designer. The SERP Designer allows you to edit your Title and Description tags in real-time so you can see how they will appear in a Google search. When you’re finished you can simply copy & paste the code from the SERP Designer right into the head section of your HTML document. Once the page has been crawled by Google you’ll have your fully-customized SERP entry pulling in visitors. Go check out the SERP Designer now – its’ completely free.

As an SEM Developer I frequently meet with clients to discuss their monthly reports. I use Google Analytics for all of my clients and while GA’s reports are usually self-explanatory there are occasions where the results can be somewhat confusing. Today I met with a client who works for a company that sells luxury homes ($1.5m+) in the Atlanta Georgia area. She was wondering why she was getting so many visits from Brooklyn, NY. I pulled up the report and give her an answer on the fly during the meeting. It turns out that AOL has a connectivity point in Brooklyn. This causes the reports to reflect a large number of visitors from Brooklyn but those visitors could be anywhere in the country. Brooklyn just happens to be where they’re connecting to the internet. Today I’ll show you how we figure out what cities are driving traffic and then how to find out more about why.

1. First, login to Google Analytics and click on View Reports for your web site

2. Click on the ‘Visitors’ button on the left

3. Click on ‘May Overlay’

4. Click on the United States (or your country)

5. Below the map you’ll see a line that says ‘Detail Level:’ next to that click ‘City’

Now your map will look like the above image, below that you will see a list of the top 10 cities by traffic. Now, let’s assume there’s a city on the map that you’re getting traffic from and you want to know a little more about where it’s coming from.

1. Click the name of the city on the list

2. Below the chart you’ll see a line that says ‘Segment: None’

3. Click ‘None’ and you’ll see an entire list of options – in this post we’re focusing on ‘Network Location’

By clicking on Network Location you’ll see a list of ISPs and Businesses where visitors have connected through to your site. This is also a great way to see if employees of a certain company are visiting your site.

Enjoy!

If you’re not already using the Google AdWords Editor application you’re probably wasting time. It takes some getting used to but once you do you’ll see just how powerful it is, especially when working with large AdWords accounts. Below are some examples of why you should be using AdWords Editor to manage your AdWords accounts.

1. Backups for Disaster Recovery – Although it is unlikely – it’s possible that you’re entire AdWords account could be lost. Or if you simply wanted to duplicate it to a new account AdWords Editor can help you do this. To do this you should use the ‘Export for Archiving’ option in the File menu.
2. Share Proposed Changes – Some clients like to look over the account for final approval. When you’re spending $10,000 per month in AdWords, it’s hard to blame them. The easiest way to do this is to export the account to HTML. To do this highlight the Account, Campaign or Ad Group in the Account frame you wish to export. Then click File – Export to HTML then select Account, Campaign or Ad Group. You can then email this file and anyone with a web browser can look the account over. If the colleague you’re sharing these changes with is an AdWords Editor user then you should use the ‘Export for Sharing’ option in the File menu.
3. Find Duplicate Keywords – it’s a good idea to avoid using the same keyword more than once in an AdWords account. AdWords will never show two ads from one account for the same query. Use this feature to make sure you’re not wasting impressions. Click ‘Tools’ then ‘Find Duplicate Keywords’.
4. Find Underperforming Keywords & Ad Groups – using the Advanced Search function you can generate a list of poorly performing keywords. For example, highlight the campaign, open Advanced Search, skip down to the ‘Performance Statistics’ section and select ‘CTR’ from the drop-down list, select ‘is less than:’ then enter ’0.5′ and click the Search button.
   
5. Identify Inactive Keywords – using the Advanced Search function you can generate a list of inactive keywords. Highlight your campaign and open Advanced Search, skip down to ‘Match Type and Statuses’ and click the ‘Uncheck All’ link to reset the check boxes, now check ‘Broad’, ‘Phrase’, ‘Exact’ and ‘Inactive’ and click the Search button. You can quickly raise the bids for all of these inactive keywords by click the ‘Advanced Bid Changes’ link at the bottom and selecting ‘Raise maximum CPC bids for inactive keywords to their minimum CPC bids’ – you can set a bid ceiling in the ‘Additional constraints’ section.
   
6. Copy & Paste – This is probably the most frequently-used feature of the AdWords Editor. Any element is available to copy and paste. You can copy ads across Ad Groups and even other Campaigns and Accounts. This feature is also very handy if you would like to split your campaign in two and configure one for Search match and the other for Content match.
7. Interface With Other Tools – copy and paste may be the most frequently used features but the ability to interface with other tools is the most powerful. If you use a 3^rd party tool to generate your keywords or ads then you’ll love the ‘Make Multiple Changes’ feature for Keywords or Ad Groups. Tools like the PPC Campaign Builder or Efficient PPC take full advantage of this feature.
   
8. Large Scale Changes – Since Google removed the ability from AdWords to find and change elements If you need to make a change across your entire account quickly you’ll have to use the AdWords Editor. This can be very handy if for example you need to change the landing page URL for a large number of Ads. Just filter the list, perform a CTRL + A and edit the URL in the
   
9. Generate New Ad Groups – The Keyword Grouper can help you discover keywords you hadn’t thought of and then create new Ad Groups based on those keywords. To use this feature click ‘Tools’ – ‘Keyword Grouper’ then select an Ad Group you’d like to expand upon. Click the Generate common terms button and then click Next to see which Ad Groups are available to create.
10. Negative Keyword Management – AdWords Editor makes duplicating your negative keyword list across campaigns so much easier. Simply highlight your campaign and click on the Negatives tab, click one of your keywords, press CTRL + A so select all then CTRL + C to copy, then highlight the destination and press CTRL + V to paste.
    

I’ve also included a PDF version of the entire AdWords Editor FAQ from the Help Center. This is a great reference to have on hand as well as the AdWords Editor Keyboard Shortcuts PDF (here’s the same file for Mac users).