Archive | Apr, 2010
AdWords Certification Programme Details
Google have just announced the AdWords Certification Programme (which has been brought in to replace the Google AdWords Qualified Individual / Company certification).
Each Google AdWords Certified Individual will need to pass 2 Google exams, a Google Advertising Fundamental Exam and one advanced exam.
These exams will need to be taken on an Annual basis, and for existing qualified individuals they will need to take the new exam within six months of today (26th April 2010).
The budget qualification level (the amount of budget you needed to be looking after as a Google AdWords professional) has now been reduced dramatically – for a company it has reduced to $10,000 per quarter.
There will also be a new facility to search for a Google Partner, which will list Google Certified Individuals in one central location.
I absolutely welcome the new exams, as it ensures an indepth level of knowledge is maintained by those sporting the Google AdWords Certified Individual badge. My only slight concern is the reduction in the budget a certified company needs to be in charge of.
Anyway, I better start studying (again)!!
Google Maps Rebrands to Google Places
Google have just announced a rebrand for their Google Local Business Centre (or Google Maps). It is to be called Google Places.
Please watch this video for more information (or just read our summary of the main points at the foot of this blog)
Other features include:
- Ability to add more photos.
- Add more information about your business – which means any up to the minute changes or messages you need to get out to your potential clients.
- A dashboard which will allow you to monitor how your clients are finding you on the internet.
- Offer exclusive vouchers to Google Place visitors.
- If your business covers a wide area, or you go and visit your clients, Google Places will allow you to add these to your business profile.
At the moment it appears to be only available in the US, we will keep our eyes and ears open for the UK version.
Site Speed Update sees changes on Google 1st Page
Friday saw Google update their search results taking site speed into consideration.
There weren’t any massive changes (that I have seen) in the search results, with the exception of a couple of my clients:
- Searching for the phrase office furniture lincoln now puts our client TPS office furniture at the top of the first page.
- Seaching for iPad Deals, has seen another client www.ipad-deals.co.uk becoming the highest listing for a price comparison for this search phrase.
What is interesting is that site speed was going to be part of the “Google Caffeine” launch. So does this mean Google are “phasing in” Caffeine? There are supposed to be 200 individual ranking factors within the Google Caffeine launch, with the following becoming far more important than they have been in the past:
- Bounce Rate / Time Spent on the Website (it seems that Google have decided that how people interact with your site, and how useful they find the information available, will have a major bearing on your sites natural search engine listing).
- Social Media – Google looks to be putting more emphasis on companies social media status.
- Inbound Links – Poor quality links are likely to get penalised (whereas in the past they have remained neutral to search results).
The unofficial launch of Google Caffeine was “before the end of April” – so we might begin to see more “phases” implemented over the next few weeks.
Google Search Just Got Interesting
Did you know that if you select the “web” options in your search you get a screen that looks like this below:
The features include:
- A snazzy toolbar to the left showing you icons to search for images, videos, maps, news etc.
- Pages from the web / uk showing on the left
- Search for up to the minute news stories with latest, past 24 hours etc.
- click related searches to expand search options
- A wonder wheel giving you more search options
- Options to include more shops / less shops
