Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Thanks! Oh, it's not a break-break. It was just a mental one over the weekend LOL!

Exactly! I think it's been all this information overload. Stepping back for a few days helped get a clearer grasp.

Thanks Miriam! You are understanding my question correctly. To put it differently, I was speaking to Google being increasingly personalized in their query results, to a point where users are being taught they don't necessarily have to include a city name in their query. I think I was overthinking it. Of course the city name is still going to be important, even if geo-specific keywords become less common in queries.

Now with Google localizing search increasingly personalizing queriesquery results, is it still necessary to add geo-specific modifiers to keywords?

[reworded for clarity]

Thanks Takeshi! In your experience, were you using the older or newer version? Have you had any experience with the Cloud?

I think the point of contention on our team is whether it's worth the investment initially since we don't know what sort of reception it would get. They are thinking of slating it until post-redesign and after we see how active the community is. On the other hand, since we're about to embark on the redesign, we're wondering if we would save a lot of headache and cost if we just implemented it from the get-go instead of trying to retrofit it later.

I'm going to bring these questions on a conference call Thursday with them, but if anyone has any insight here - I'm all ears!

Thank you!

Have any of you used this? What is your opinion of it?

Thanks Robert. That's exactly what I plan to do.

Thank you EGOL. That's a common theme I hear - start small, trial and error. As for costs and expenses .... it remains to be seen. I'm on the ground level in terms of both the new products and digital advertising in general. Right now I'm doing preliminary research for the benefit of our budget next year, which is how I ended up tinkering around in there and realizing I'm going to need some deeper-level training.

Thank you Kevin. I'll definitely check those out!

For example, if I purchased the latest "For Dummies" book, would it even be timely enough? I'm looking for something at that level to get started.

This looks more advanced that I need at this point, but I need to bookmark this for later. Can you recommend any entry-level training?

Are Brad's materials something a non-numbers person can pick up? Or is it going to be totally over their head? I'm willing to learn.

I was afraid of that.  I am definitely a writer and not a numbers person. Luckily I've been collaborating with an analyst, but I need to know this stuff on my own.

P.S. I did research this, just looking for word-of-mouth recs. Thanks!

Hi guys,

Aside from Google certification, can anyone suggest a good training program for Adwords? I'm studying their materials, but more formal training, where I can be tested in my knowledge and improve in certain areas as necessary. I want something with videos with demonstrations.

Going from organic SEO to SEM and am frightened!

Thanks,
Sarah

For keyword search volume and competition to replace Keyword Research Tool (that's a unique situation, eh?), is Wordtracker a sound choice? The more I research, the less I feel I know! I'm finished with my 7-day trial and am on the verge of committing to an annual contract.

• Is their data pool sufficient?
• Are there better, comparable tools out there? I only need volume and competition.
• I would combine this tool with AdWords and Moz.

Thanks!

What is your process for keyword research? I used Google's Keyword Research Tool for the bulk of my research in the past, so I'm pretty lost right now. However, I'm on the ground level of developing a content strategy for my company's website refresh, and this is a great chance to start from scratch with a sound process. The goal, of course, would be not to respond to keywords, but rather, letting holistic keyword research guide our content strategy. But obviously, I still want to grab low-hanging fruit where I can and beef up weaker parts of the site where possible.

After reading Ruth Burr's excellent post last week, I'm testing a few tools, and so far am leaning toward Wordtracker for volume/competition data, cross-referenced with Moz's ranking reporting. However, I still need to check out SEMRush and get friendlier with Keyword Planner. I just want a little SEO angel to fall out of the sky and give me a recipe to follow. No?

In case someone asks, my current goal is to identify our target audience's search habits to better reach them through content on our company website. While we serve several communities and do plan to geotarget, we're not there yet. So while I'm glad we have that option on Keyword Planner, there's not much I can do with it today.

All of these are do-able but the authorship thing. It would likely be me manning all of the blogs. From my POV, I think the most feasible thing within our construct is aggregating info from the communications department and placing them on each page according to location. As far as one page for each branch, I don't know that it's within our bandwidth and I'd hate to set something up we can't maintain. But I'll definitely bring it up at our brainstorming session tomorrow. Thanks!

Love it. I suppose our social media coordinator can't be the author for all branches? In addition to feasibility issues, there are security reasons for not highlighting each respective manager, as well as the turnaround issue among branch managers. Not to mention that person wouldn't be publishing the content.

I am in the process of finalizing G+ pages for our financial institution's 70 locations. So far, the only things I see in my control (set-up only) are the basics - address, phone number, website, description, categories, etc. I do have some great information for additional information (drive-through hours, products, services, etc.), but I see that there's not a place for those.

So aside from ensuring accuracy, choosing the best categories provided by Google, uploading quality pics, writing an effective/optimized description, and making sure my pins are correct, any other tips for making these the best pages the best I can?

The only thing in my scope is page set-up. Our social media coordinator will be mitigating reviews and posting content.

Thanks!