Our Top 10 for 2008

2008 is coming to a close, and we want to leave you with our favorite posts for 2008. The posts were chosen based on FrankRank, and represent the team's favorites over the last year.
  1. Introducing Google Ad Planner
    There was a ton of interest in the tool, and the post announcing it was the most read post here on Inside AdWords for the whole year.
  2. Improvements to Ads Quality
    This year, we made two big changes to how we calculate Quality Score and rank ads. This post explained the new changes in detail.
  3. Build your own display ads in minutes
    We liked this post as it showed off a new tool that helps you broaden your advertising campaigns easily.
  4. Keyword tool updated with search volume
    A theme for this year's top posts is providing our advertisers with more information to make their advertising decisions. The keyword tool updates definitely fit in with this theme.
  5. Announcing Google Insights for Search
    Like the keyword tool, Insights for Search is another useful tool for your business.
  6. Tie: New ways to look at Search & Content Network statistics and Separate metrics for Google and search partners now available
    Both these posts announced improvements to AdWords reporting that had been heavily requested by advertisers.
  7. New features in Website Optimizer
    The new features addressed some of the top requests for Website Optimizer.
  8. Use keywords and placements together on the content network
    This new feature gave advertisers better control over their advertising on the content network.
  9. Groundhogs, Seasonality, and Trends
    A fun post looking at how you could use Google Trends to plan your campaigns around seasonal traffic patterns.
  10. Announcing the Search-based Keyword Tool
    Another tool we released this year. The Search-based Keyword Tool helps you locate missed opportunities for advertising campaigns.
That's it for our top 10 for this year. We'll be off celebrating the holidays for the next two weeks, so you won't see any posts from us. We'll be back here blogging in January. Have a great holiday!

Focus on feedback

Every week the Inside AdWords crew get together to plan out our posts for the coming week and discuss other blog-related business. Sometimes, after that's done, we kick back and get a little philosophical -- even brainstorming on occasion about the future of the blog. When we do this, one theme invariably comes up, which is the value of feedback. Specifically, feedback from you, our readers and advertisers.

In our most recent meeting we agreed that it's time to get even more serious about your feedback. We'd like to earn more feedback from you by doing more with the feedback we get. Here's our plan:

  • You may notice us asking for your feedback more often. This would include feedback about the Inside AdWords blog, as well as feedback regarding the AdWords program itself.

  • We'll post responses to your questions and comments in this blog more often -- focusing on those of general interest, rather than particular questions about individual accounts.

  • Lastly, we'll make sure that your feedback about the AdWords program is heard by the right people within Google: each week, we'll include a number of your verbatim comments (minus any personally identifiable information regarding advertiser and account) in an internal Advertiser Feedback Report. It may be of interest to know that this report, which collects advertiser feedback from a variety of sources, has been compiled for the last 198 weeks, and is sent to more than a thousand folks within Google who have requested to receive it. In the past, comments from our readers have certainly been included in this report -- but starting next week we'll be including them in a more formal way, in a new Inside AdWords section.
So, please keep your feedback coming. By doing so, you'll be helping Inside AdWords become a more useful resource, while also helping the AdWords program become even more finely tuned to your needs.

Thanks in advance!