My friend Shelley Ellis told me about it. She’s my go-to-gal for all things to do with the Google “Display Network”. And she’s always on top of the coolest, latest, new things Google invent for advertisers! Like this one…

Anyway, here’s the full story, direct from the Google blog (if you rather i don’t spoil it for you):

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-keyword-targeting-feature-rolling.html

Do we need a new match type?

People are thrilled with this addition. The original “broad match” type was intended to allow an advertiser to use a single keyword to show their ad on all variations of the search.

Unfortunately, due to what I believe is incorrect use, the broad match got a bad rap. Many marketing experts have gone on the record to say that one should avoid it (although it is the default matching behaviour for new target keywords).

This new match type addresses people’s concern by giving a new level of control. I am sure this will encourage many of the marketers who missed out on the ease of broad match, to venture into “broad match land”.

It works by exactly matching the parts of the query that you specify. And also it “fuzzy” matches the other parts of the same query that you specify.

I love the original broad match.

It has brought me amazing returns.

I’m also glad Google didn’t change how it works in any way. So, if you’ve grown fond of the original broad, like i have, then don’t worry. Nothing changes for us!

One day, I am sure, I will find a use for this new match type.

But hey, if you’ve started using it already…maybe in the comments section below, you could share with everyone some examples of how you’re using it! Only if you want to though.

Google Wonder Wheel in Action for the term 'Network Marketing Leads'

Since I’m on the road right now, I won’t have time to get into how to use the tool. But i’ll give you really quick instructions to get started with it.

This keyword research tool gives you a graphical representation of related themes to a search term you specify. Your search term appears in the center of a wheel. Around the wheel are some popular keywords that Google associates closely with your search term. These are natural markets to move into when expanding your pay-per-click campaign.

If you like, you may click any of the related themes to explore it further and find even more markets.

Repeat this as many times as you want and grow your keyword list exponentially with ideas you might never have thought of.

To get access to the Google Wonder Wheel, just paste this code into your address bar

This sets up a cookie telling Google to add the Wonder Wheel to your search preferences.

Just run a search as normal in Google. On the results page, you will see a “Show Options” link directly under your search box. Click it and choose Wonder Wheel from the left. That’s it!

Thanks to http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2009-03-24-n84.html for introducing me to the Wonder Wheel and supplying the cookie code above.

I remember a children's book called "How to Make Your Own Computer Controlled Robot"

Thursday was library day.

My sisters and I would frantically look for our books from last visit. We’d check them against a list in a notepad dad made us keep in the car. When we were ready, we’d buckle our seat-belts and wait for dad to finish brushing his teeth and take us.

It was a sacred family ritual.

He only let us check out 3 books each. Sometimes, if I begged hard enough, I could get my father to make an exception for one more book. And before we took our week’s reading home, we were made to write the titles and authors into dad’s notepad.

I remember this one book. It was part of a dated British series made for children on technology and computers. Its title was “How to Create Your Own Computer Controlled Robot” by Usborne.

For months, I was obsessed with the project. I came home from school, headed straight for the yellow pages, and called every electronics shop in Auckland. I asked about foreign brands and old component names no one had ever heard of.

I spent my afternoons in the dark amongst the spiders under my family home–Searching for the exact colour combination or code on some tiny electronic part.

That’s where all my projects got their parts.

The technician for the Architecture college where my father worked was kind to me. He passed onto me junk radios, amplifiers, and computer circuits he didn’t need.

Mum didn’t like my mess. So she made me keep my “electronic junk” under the house. There, I’d meticulously scan every soldered component on every circuit board trying to find what I needed. It would take hours. But under the house I usually had more luck than with the electronics shops.

I would take the parts I wanted from other circuit boards and use them in my own electronic projects

When I found the part, I’d excitedly get out hunched, scratched, and sore. I’d take the entire board to my room, and unsolder the component. Sometimes I made mistakes. Sometimes I just forgot the colour code or part number I needed. And I was usually back under the house within minutes, repeating the exercise for another part.

Electronics and pieces of solder were scattered all over my bedroom–on the table, in the carpet, sometimes in my blanket. It was a mess that frustrated my mother to no end.

I scavanged for those parts until I gathered all the resistors, transistors, and motors that the book said I needed. And finally, I was ready to build my robot.

Sometimes, when looking online today, I’m reminded of being 13 crouched under the house scanning for parts. Unlike the library, the Internet has no order. It’s a giant mess of pages and sites all linked together. Could you imagine what it would be like  without search engines like Google?

Search engines bring order to an otherwise disorganised and messy medium.

They make it easy for us to find answers to pressing questions with a quick search. We’ve gotten used to having every answer we ever wished for, only a few key-strokes away.

Maybe we’ve grown spoilt. I mean, we expect a lot from our search:

We expect it to read our minds and know we’re looking for a recipe when we type ambiguous queries like ”enchiladis”. Or that we’re looking for a printer cartridge when we type “UR-1320C”.

• We want the search engine to correct our spelling mistakes
• We want it to ignore our typos
• We make it define words for us
• We want it to calculate conversions from metric to empirial units
• We expect it to give us the weather forecast
• We’re so darn lazy, we don’t even bother to type website addresses any more, we just search for them and ignore the “com” or “net” extensions.

Yet, few advertisers make the effort of targeting keywords besides the most obvious. If a keyword requires creativity or leg-work to think of, it’s overlooked.

Well, searchers don’t stop searching or spending just because no one bothers to show them an ad. They’re just more likely to buy from the handful of advertisers who do show up with an answer when the searcher asks.

Had Google been around when I wanted robot parts at 13, imagine the havoc I would have brought to the search…

I wouldn’t have looked for something obvious like “electronic components”. I would’ve looked for transistor codes and weird words from the book like Veroboard instead of “circuit board”. I would’ve been searching for “100K ohm” and “green cap capacitor”. Sadly, most advertisers wouldn’t have found me.

Few merchants take the effort to bid on measuring units, common variations on the names of components they stock, and the names of their brands and model numbers.

Yet, these are the kind of searches that the average internet user expects to find answers for.

There’s an infinity of queries your website might match. Searchers come from all walks of life, all ages, all levels of literacy, and have different cultural backgrounds, language, and ethnicity. They all deserve answers to their question.

As an advertiser, you can only guess at the way your target customer will word his or her queries. Because of this, I usually test hundreds of thousands of keywords to find 4 or 5 that result in sales.

While this guessing and testing is a bit of a drag, it is worth the effort because competition will NEVER be a problem for the creative advertiser. No matter how competitive or saturated a market gets, there will always be new questions, and infinite ways people will word them.