So I just noticed something interesting with this blog. I only started it less than 2 months ago, and I assumed although it was being indexed by the big 3 that nothing would really be in the SERPs yet. Well imagine my surprise when just today I was doing a Google search for “keyword assists” and found the #1 position was my blog for that keyword! I was just trying to get more info about the topic for my own curiosity and had no idea I would be up there. This is from a short blog post I did on the subject on December 6th. I guess the search engines really do to give weight to blog posts!

One of the new metrics in the PPC universe is the concept of keyword assists. The idea is that the final keyword that actually converts the action you are tracking may have had a trail of non-converting keywords that lead to this action. In other words, the keyword or phrase that the customer’s search began with was probably not the keyword that ended in a conversion. Wouldn’t it be nice to know the value that these “helper” keywords have, that don’t directly show on stats? Well Yahoo is on the ball with their new analytics program built into their PPC interface. You can configure it to count the number of times that a keyword contributed to the conversion of another keyword within a timeframe of 45 days. I think this is a significant stat that can really be put to good use in optimizing campaigns!