Most kids ditch their imaginary friends along with their sippy cups and security blankets. That’s a good thing, right? Well, marketers have discovered a new benefit to finding (and keeping) those imaginary friends again.

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How Creating an Imaginary Friend Can Make You a Better Writer

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We’re sometimes asked “why should I bid on my own branded keywords?” In most cases, the asker wants to know if they can save money (or improve ROI) by not bidding on their brand keywords. It’s an interesting question, with a not-so-simple answer. Each click costs money, so yes, theoretically, you can save money by not bidding on your own branded searches

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8 Reasons to Bid on Your Own Branded Keywords in Paid Search

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Embedded Sitelinks Launch In the next two weeks, Google will be launching a new display format of Adwords Sitelinks, called Embedded Sitelinks.

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Google Adwords Announces Embedded Sitelinks Launch

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Note from Geordie: I asked Google Analytics expert and PPCblog member , Stephanie Brachat, if she would blog three ‘hacks’ for properly tracking PPC campaigns in Google Analytics.  The following are her favourites, Thanks Steph! Sourcing Your adCenter Traffic as ‘CPC’ and Not ‘Organic’ Are you running PPC campaigns on both AdWords and adCenter? Ever wonder why Google Analytics shows “bing (organic)” and “yahoo (organic)” but no ‘cpc’ traffic data for anything other than Google

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Three Essential Google Analytics PPC Hacks

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Note from Geordie: I asked Google Analytics expert and PPCblog member , Stephanie Brachat, if she would blog three ‘hacks’ for properly tracking PPC campaigns in Google Analytics.  The following are her favourites, Thanks Steph! Sourcing Your adCenter Traffic as ‘CPC’ and Not ‘Organic’ Are you running PPC campaigns on both AdWords and adCenter? Ever wonder why Google Analytics shows “bing (organic)” and “yahoo (organic)” but no ‘cpc’ traffic data for anything other than Google

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Three Essential Google Analytics PPC Hacks

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Today Google released the +1 button for organic search listings and AdWords which allows people signed into Google to recommend websites to friends and contacts within their Google social network.

See the article here:
Breaking News: Google Launches +1 Button Social Search

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Google’s relentless march to completely indistinguishable ad layouts took a big step forward with the implementation of a change to the handling of headlines in ads found above the organic SERPs. This change coincided with a move back to light yellow backgrounds on top-position ads, ditching the highly noticeable pink that’s been in place for a while now.

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Adwords Extended Headlines – Early Test Results

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Every time a site gets nuked out of Google Adwords or ends up penalized in the organic SERPs killing the business entirely, there’s the inevitable side comments that “you shouldn’t base your entire business on Google”.  That’s usually followed by advice to “ build a brand ” that so many users will search for that Google can’t ignore your site .  The only problem with that bit of advice is no one ever says exactly how you’re supposed to do that, aside from just “building a really word-of-mouth-worthy” product.

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The Effect of Brand Building on Search Traffic

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Google recently announced the beta launch of a modified broad matching type in the UK and Canada, which is similar to old school broad match , back before broad became capacious. And then, without announcement, they also launched inline search suggestions for related keywords on some search results

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What Google AdWords Match Type is This? & Can You Opt Out of Such Tests?

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Google announced on their LatLong (Maps) blog today that they’re experimenting with placing pricing for hotels directly next to the hotel listings in Google Maps. At first glance, it looked like another Google-internal affiliate marketing initiative, but it’s actually quite clever. Here’s the official sample screenshot – Look closely at the price listing drop-down box in Adwords yellow: If nothing else, it’s an innovative way to roll in Adwords results directly into the organic SERPs

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Fascinating New Adwords Placement Test

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