Last week, I posted a blog post about the impact of Google Instant on Google AdWords. My conclusion was that thus far, there weren't any real major changes for my clients. Impressions, clicks, and CTR seemed to reflect seasonal norms.

This morning, I was over on Search Engine Land reading an article by George Michie - "Google Instant: The Impact on Paid Search". It was a well written article, and George came to essentially the same conclusion that I did. While it still bears watching, the Google Instant effect on AdWords has thus far been minimal.

Michie's Findings

Michie mentions that his customer base is primarily retail - whereas my customers are mostly service providers. Yet the results were very similar. He notes that there was a slight jump in impressions and clicks immediately after the introduction of Google Instant on September 8th - but that both settled down to anticipated norms shortly thereafter. Another interesting finding is that conversion rates may have actually improved with the introduction of Google Instant.

How Does This Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

Unless your Denver small businesses is getting all of the high quality referrals it can handle, you should probably be advertising online using Google AdWords. You need to at least explore it as an option to add to your marketing aresenal.

The problem with utilizing a powerful tool like Google AdWords is that you need to be aware of any changes (which seem to arrive almost daily) and adjust your advertising campaign accordingly. The introduction of Google Instant had the potential to have a major impact on Google AdWords - and as a Denver small business owner who advertises using AdWords. So far, Google Instant doesn't seem to have drastically changed how AdWords campaigns need to be structured.

A recent article from Tech Crunch mentions that Online Local Advertising was estimated to grow 26 percent this year - reaching $20B. This is in contrast to total online advertising which will only grow at a pace of 2 percent this year. The article cites a study that was done by BIA/Kelsey. The article mentions that four of the key advertising channels for these local ads are:

• Google Places
• Yelp
• Craigslist
• Foursquare

Basically all Denver small businesses should establish and maintain a presence on Google Places and Yelp. I have discussed Google Places in depth on this blog - along with how Yelp can help drive clients to your business - especially for restaurants. It is actually free to get listed through either of these website services.

While those sources are essential towards getting a free listing out there - and Yelp offers advertising services as well - Denver small business owners will want to concentrate their actual advertising budgets on Google AdWords.

Google AdWords shows ads for your business on the Google search engine whenever someone searches for goods or services that your business offers. Approximately 70% of all U.S. web searches are performed using Google AdWords - so you'll be reaching your largest possible target audience. You'll also be able to custom tailor your advertising message as well as the landing page that a visitor will be directed to when clicking on your ad.

One Surprise from the Study

I was actually quite shocked that while local online advertising is increasing, it makes up just 15 percent of the total local advertising spend. Considering that the cost per lead acquisition according to a study done Piper Jaffray is just $.29 for search engine advertising vs. $1.18 for the yellow pages and $9.94 for direct mail - it is shocking that more Denver small businesses aren't advertising online. It is still a largely untapped advertising opportunity.

How Does This Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

There isn't going to be a better time than right now to get your Denver small business participating in online advertising. While the percentage of total local advertising budget is starting to gradually shift towards online marketing, there is still relatively little competition and lower cost than more traditional forms of advertising. Local online advertising also provides the best return on investment - by far - for your advertising dollars. If you're still getting solid returns using traditional marketing methods, by all means stick with them - but you should also explore online marketing with search engine ad platforms like Google AdWords and Microsoft AdCenter.

I was a bit nervous with the introduction of Google Instant. It appeared that there was a major shift in the way that AdWords was going to work. Often times with major shifts, there is opportunity - but I wasn't particularly excited about this opportunity as all of my AdWords campaigns were performing quite well. Fortunately, it has turned out thus far not to be such a major shift after all.

How Google Instant Works

Before Google Instant, you would have to hit the "Google Search" button in order to get results from Google. With Google Instant, search results are displayed as you type. The results change with each keystroke. This has obvious implications for AdWords advertisers. It would seem that your ads would be showing more frequently - possibly for unrelated keywords. Your impressions would almost certainly rise.

Google Instant changes the behavior of Google. In the screenshot above, I have typed just three letters "COL" - as you can see where the number 1 is located. Notice in this area that Google has "guessed" what I was going to type. The greyed out letters are Google's guess based on what I have typed so far. Google is guessing (based on historical data and my location) that I am about to type in "Colorado Rockies".

Google takes this Colorado Rockeis "guess" at what I was going to type based on the letters "COL" - and provides organic search results as well as ads (number 2) based on "Colorado Rockies". This is fine - unless you are running AdWords ads for Colorado Rockies tickets. This means that your ads will be showing for every single query that starts with COL after people type that third keystroke.  (note that the search results will vary by user and region)

Taking this example of you running ads for Colorado Rockies Tickets, if someone searched for "Coloring Books" you may receive wasted impressions as they typed in the "COL"- or perhaps even worse - worthless, poorly qualified impulse clicks.

So there is the problem - your ads may show for searches completely unrelated to the actual user's intended search query. Fortunately, I have found this potential negative effect on user campaigns to be quite minimal as described below.

Google Instant Impact on AdWords Campaigns

I have found the impact on AdWords ad campaigns to be minimal thus far. This could in part be because Google has made an attempt to prevent impressions from getting out of control. According to Google, Impressions are only counted with Google Instant in one of the three following cases:

• The user begins to type a query on Google and clicks anywhere on the page (a search result, an ad, a spell correction, a related search).
• The user chooses a particular query by clicking the Search button, pressing Enter, or selecting one of the predicted queries.
• The user stops typing, and the results are displayed for a minimum of three seconds.

Why Such a Small Impact on Ad Campaigns

I'm not exactly sure why, but results for my clients have not really changed much since the introduction of Google Instant. Here are a couple of theories.

1) Search Location

It could be that many people don't actually conduct searches from the Google home page. Many probably just have a Google Toolbar and do there searching from the toolbar. The Toolbar doesn't feature Google Instant results - at least not yet.

2) User Behavioral Change

Users may be so used to typing out their complete query that they're ignoring the Google Instant results. Despite Google's best efforts to make search easier (and quicker) it may be that the users haven't noticed it or are already set in their ways of searching. It may take a while for Google Instant to catch on if this is the case.

How Does This Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

It is very difficult for Denver small business owners to keep track of all of the changes and products that Google is constantly introducing with the search engine and with AdWords. Google actually just introduced a new website - "Google New" - that attempts to consolidate the dizzying volume of new products and product updates in one place.  You can rest assured that this website will be updated multiple times each day.  There is so much to keep track of.

Denver small business owners who have the time and aptitude to keep up with search engine and ad platform changes in technology would be wise to use a resource like Google New. However, I would guess that most Denver small business owners likely have too many responsibilities and would be wise to consider outsourcing online marketing activities to someone who makes it their job to keep up with the constant changes.

According to a recent report by Hitwise, searches on the major search engines basically held steady. Google stayed at 71%, Yahoo at 14%, and Microsoft Bing at just under 10%.

This isn't particularly good news for Bing which had been rising steadily since its inception. While the Yahoo/Microsoft search partnership will soon be taking effect - with Microsoft Bing powering Yahoo search results - this will still represent somewhere between 20% and 30% of total searches. Google still gets nearly three times the amount of search that this new partnership will bring to the table.

How Does This Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

Despite the large difference in the reach within the world of search, it will still be worth it for Denver advertisers to have advertising campaigns established with Microsoft AdCenter. While it won't quite have the reach of Google AdWords, AdCenter does have some benefits that I highlighted in a previous blog post. Denver small businesses should first invest time and effort in AdWords to learn about the Search Engine Marketing process as well as their customer behavior online. Once you have a fairly mature, well optimized campaign - take the AdWords campaign and port it over to Microsoft AdCenter.

Recently, Google has undergone on algorithm change which has made life much more difficult for those who engage in SEO for products associated with popular brands. The good news is that the algorithm change could be beneficial for those search engine marketers who advertise with AdWords.

The official Google webmaster central blog mentions that a change has been made in the ranking algorithm:

That's bad news if it isn't your site - and it probably isn't. The result is a huge shift in rankings. As an example - let's say that someone entered a search for "Microsoft Office". As shown below, Google now shows 8 results from the microsoft.com domain on the home page. 80% of the first page results go to microsoft.com.

If you're a retailer who sells Microsoft Office - and you've spent a lot of time and money to develop content that will get your domain high up in the search engine results - this is a disaster. Even compelling, legitimate content which performs well for SEO purposes can be completely wasted in the blink of an eye when Google makes an algorithm change.

What about PPC with AdWords?

Google is always changing its ranking algorithm for organic search results and sometimes these changes really shuffle the rankings. This algorithm change had no real affect on PPC for the search term. As you can see below, only one of the paid search terms resolves to a Microsoft site. It is built into AdWords that a domain can appear only once for each search engine results page (in the paid results). So, if you're a retailer looking to compete on "Microsoft Office", and you want to appear on the first page of search results, it is time to invest in PPC with Google AdWords.

Advertising with AdWords isn't foolproof, and your ad position within AdWords isn't completely insulated from outside influences. You need to make sure your website is well constructed with a terms of use and privacy policy. You need to make sure that your website has compelling, relevant content. You also need to make sure that your properly construct your ad campaign with solid keywords and good ad copy. Even then, competition can enter the picture and make life more difficult for you.

The really nice thing about AdWords though is that an algorithm change isn't likely to come along and turn your world upside down.  

How Does This Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

As a Denver small business owner, you need to be exploring advertising online using Google AdWords and Microsoft AdCenter. It provides you with a very quick, usually very effective way to generate leads for your Denver business. It also is much more insulated from algorithm changes than SEO methods.

If you are engaging heavily in SEO practices, be aware that your hard work can be undermined with a single algorithm change. Investigate AdWords as an alternative way of promoting your business rather than leaving all of your eggs in the SEO basket.