Smartz Blog

Quality Score: the Great Misnomer

One of the great Adwords misnomers (a term which suggests an interpretation that is known to be untrue) is the phrase “Quality Score”. The name implies that it is a measure of the ad copy’s merit, when in fact it measures more than just this. It measures not just “relevancy” and landing page quality, but […]


8 Ways to Reduce Your Site’s Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that hit a page and don’t visit any others within the same site. It should be used to measure the effectiveness of landing pages. Web analytics guru Avinash Kaushik says a bounce rate of less than 30% is good, but with 60% or higher, you have a problem. […]


The Facebook Rise and MySpace Demise

Facebook… over 550 million users; over 70 different translations; a movie was born out of its existence; a Dummies Handbook has been written for it; and one out of every dozen people on the planet have a Facebook account. We don’t need to tell you what Facebook is; everyone has at least heard of it, […]


4 Ways to Improve Ad Performance on Facebook

Paid Facebook ads hold tremendous promise for marketers looking to reach targeted audiences. Where else do people willingly share such specific information about themselves – enabling marketers to target ads and evaluate their performance based on consumer information such as age, interests, employment status, location and even one’s relationship status? However, the challenge that Facebook […]


Straightforward Ways to Improve Page Speed (Part 2)

This continues our discussion about “page speed” and what’s needed to stay competitive in organic search rankings. If you missed first blog, go here. Though Google said that it expects fewer than 1% of search queries to change as a result of incorporating site speed ranking to their algorithms, many site owners want to improve […]


7 Tips for a Killer Mobile Search Campaign

One area brands should be looking at in the near future is mobile search. As mobile devices have become more sophisticated and easier to use, mobile search has become the starting point for consumers on the go. Before tackling a mobile search plan, it’s necessary to understand how mobile paid search differs from its traditional […]


Google Instant FAQs

1. What Is Google Instant? It’s a new feature that predicts what an online user is searching for and shows results as the user types. 2. What are the benefits? Instant results allow searchers to find what they’re looking for without clicking ‘enter’ or ‘search’. According to Google this provides faster and smarter searches. 3. […]


Is Your Web Page Fast Enough? (Part 1)

That’s the question heating up blog airwaves since Google incorporated site speed as one of more than 200 signals used to determine search rankings. To get answers, site owners are using the Google Page Speed Tool and Google Webmaster Tools > Site Performance to track the speed of their site. The tool is bringing relief […]


Google Product Ads Available to All Advertisers

As of November 11th, Google Product Ads are being offered to all Adwords advertisers. Up until now they have only been offered in a closed beta test involving about 800 advertisers, but now anyone will be able to take part in the program. Google Product Ads are a way for advertisers to give Google a […]


Google Launches Instant Previews

On November 9th Google launched a page preview feature called “Instant Previews.” This tool offers people a way to quickly view what’s on a web page without leaving the Google search results. With the new Instant Previews, people will likely be able to immediately spot the most promising pages among those listed in the search […]