1. Google Ads is nowadays NOT much about selecting keywords
>> Google Ads is no longer about keyword selection
>> Google Ads is most typically selecting the keywords on your behalf, especially in Performance Max campaigns
>> there can be some campaigns (e.g., brand) in which you’d still want to manually select keywords, but this practice is no longer the de facto approach (even though most textbooks still consider it as one)
2. Ads are NOT off-page optimization
>> ads happen outside your site but they are not part of off-page optimization in SEO
>> ad links are not factored in search ranking calculations
>> the effect of ads stop as soon as the campaigns are stopped
>> off-page optimization typically refers to link building
3. “Relatively few searches mean that our chances for growth are high”
>> in search-engine marketing, it means the opposite
>> it means people don’t search much using that keyword, so you should look into other keywords
>> you can combine many low-volume keywords to form a long-tail strategy, but in isolation, few searches is NOT an indication for high growth of search traffic
4. “We will optimize product descriptions” (or “We will increase usability”)
>> good, but how?
>> using vague catch-all phrases is worse than giving specific examples
Tips for classroom presentations:
- explain what tools or sources you used to obtain your data
- present numerical evidence (instead of saying “it had a high…”)
- tell if there was something you found surprising
- when showing screenshots, zoom into numbers or other information you want the readers to see (most typical mistake is just to paste full screen screenshots that don’t effectively convey specific information)