Google AdWords have today released a new feature which allows My Client Centre account managers to create campaign templates and share them with managed accounts.

The Google help centre has some information about the campaign templates, I’ve only created a very basic template but this does look like a very useful feature to speed up the setup process for new client accounts or similar campaigns.

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Think of all the ways that companies use branding to build awareness of themselves or to promote their social awareness and customer service values. A few things come to mind such as greeters at the entrance of my favorite store, go-green awareness issues, charity drives that “give back” to the community for every purchase made, TV screens playing music videos or news as you wait in line, and the list goes on.None of these things lead directly to conversions but they do lead to higher company awareness and the good old fashioned fuzzy-feelings we get when we know that that we are valued as a customer. Most times we are probably not even be aware of these things on a conscious level. But the effect shows as we have a tendency to patron these companies more frequently than the other alternatives.

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It’s been said that only the most egotistical of people could ever run for U.S. President. I believe that.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad thing either. It takes thick skin and a very strong desire to succeed to run a legitimate presidential campaign. There has to be something truly special about a presidential candidate. Not so much in doing what it takes to get enough votes to win, but simply in thinking one has the strength to succeed in run the country effectively.

Running a successful presidential campaign and running a successful company and running a successful personal life are all very much the same. They all take someone with great personal strength. Weak people need not apply to a successful, satisfying life.

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Not every site needs a site map, but they can certainly be a good idea. Site maps provide a dual purpose: They provide search engine spiders easy access to all of your site pages and they provide site visitors easy access to all of your site pages.

The difference is that search engines and visitors access your site map differently and therefore there are different methods that need to be applied to creating site map(s) that are friendly for both visitors and search spiders.

Small sites typically don’t need a site map so long as all pages are linked in the main navigation. Once you get into main and sub-navigation menus then site maps are helpful in allowing search engines and visitors to quickly find anything they are looking for within just a couple of clicks. A single site map can be used for both purposes or multiple site maps can be created. Here we’ll address creating site maps for spiders and humans separately.

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As I’m working with PPC Super Affiliate Amit Mehta on our Super Affiliate Accelerator project, I’ve stumbled on a number of challenges that new PPC marketers are going to face, and have developed some workarounds for them.

Plus new PPC marketers can get free AdWords traffic too.

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Depending on the nature of your site, Help and FAQ’s (Frequently Asked Questions) can span a few or many pages.

Building up these sections of your site can greatly enhance your visitor’s experience with your website. These pages are often sought out by shoppers who are looking for just a bit more information to help them feel confident about their purchase.

Building comprehensive Help and FAQ pages gives your visitors confidence that you’re there to provide them the information and help they need to be comfortable purchasing from you. Solidly built pages can often reduce visitor confusion, lessen support call frequency, and create higher conversion rates as more shoppers are satisfied and confident that you can meet their needs.

Help pages

Help pages should not be limited to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s) but should provide links to user guides, contact details, product support, customer support downloads, and anything else that will guide your visitors to the answers they seek.

Avoid marketing

Help and FAQ pages should not contain any marketing hype or sales material. These pages are there simply to guide your visitors to the answers they seek. Stick to the basics.

Info search

If your site has a search function and robust Help and FAQ sections, it can be helpful to allow visitors to search these sections exclusively. If the information being sought cannot be found in the Help or FAQ sections, the search should produce more results from the rest of the site.

Printable text

Help sections should be printable, or have printer-friendly versions. Visitors often print up the answers to their questions to show other decision makers. Having easy-to print pages benefits you and your visitors.

The most important aspect of your Help and FAQ pages is that they are robust enough to answer as many potential questions that can be determined in advance. You’ll also want to update these frequently as new questions get asked and answered.

I’ve seen a few conversations recently where people have suggested building generic over niche sites, as a general way to develop a stronger presence online.

The most recent is Rand Fishkin’s Five Reasons Why It’s Better to be Big & Popular than Small & Niche.

The trouble is, Rand’s post confuses niche development with microsites IMO.

Microsites vs niche

My personal definition of a microsite is something created just to target a specific keyword. I’d say MFA sites play on this a lot. It’s not really anything to do with targeting a niche - it’s just a narrow string of keywords. You set up a site, just to have some kind of limited presence in that area.

Niche sites in the proper sense, as I use it, actively develop themselves into useful resources in their niche. And the amazing thing about hitting a niche is that it’s incredibly easy to become an authority in a niche, especially in emergent markets. Anyone with SEO/marketing knowledge already has an unfair advantage here.

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Last week I discussed the best tactics for achieving rankings in Yahoo, the web’s number 2 most popular search engine.

Now it is time to pick on the third most used search property - MSN, which has 6.6% of the search market (src: Hitwise) and is currently found at www.live.com. MSN’s ranking algorithm has its own nuances which will be noted in this article but in many cases the rules of optimization may be the same as Yahoo’s in which case I will occasionally duplicate information from my “How to Optimize for Yahoo” article or source it for more information.

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I got into a very engaging conversation yesterday with a web developer at work on the topic of social aspects of the web.

So, what does social really mean?

According to Answers.com it is defined as: Living together in organized groups or similar close aggregates.

So what does social mean on the Internet (also known as a social network)?

According to Wikipedia it is defined as: A map of the relationships between individuals, indicating the ways in which they are connected through various social familiarities ranging from casual acquaintance to close familial bonds.

The discussion started with an assumption that blogs are social entities on the Internet, whereas other (traditional) websites are not.

So, this led to a very specific question, are blogs inherently social?

I think not. A blog is actually short for web log as know as an online journal. This is not anything that implies social. in fact a journal is not a conversation, rather a form of communication that has a single path. Now, many blogs, just like this one, allows comments from readers and that is a social aspect, however, the blog is not defined by it’s social aspects, rather the social aspects are defined by the blog.

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Posing a Monday Question, Sandy asks:

“Like you, I’m a writer by training and since become a SAHM (stay at home mum), I’ve mastered the basics of blogging and writing articles and am starting to get into simple product creation.

Some of this other stuff like SEO is beyond me. I bought a couple of dummies books and know some basic HTML and can do a simple page. But the PHP and MySQL programming stuff is way beyond me. Help! I am feeling overwhelmed and although I’m doing ok now, I can’t help feeling that I won’t be able to master it all.

Please advise what I can do about this.”

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