1. Ad Rotation Changes

In 2012, ad rotation changes will optimize for conversions, optimize for clicks and rotate evenly. The “rotate evenly” setting tests advertising creativity and was introduced in May 2012. If the ad versions are not of high quality, the tool can impact performance when used.

Instead of rotating ads indefinitely, Google will only rotate ads for a period of 30 days. After the 30 days, the tool will begin to optimize for clicks, and a new ad will be displayed every 30 days. This setting will change every 30 days, and there is not option to opt out. Every 30 days, the ad will need to be edited.

2. Location Targeting Enhancements

Local searches became quite popular this year. The new tool has the ability to target more than 30,000 zip codes in AdWords. In general, each campaign can include 1,000 postal codes. Reports can also be generated at zip code level. Location extensions allow advertisers to update features such as text, ad title, and display and destination URL. With advanced location targeting, locations can be targeted or excluded easily.

3. Match Type Changes

This year, match type changes will be recognized. Because nearly seven percent of search queries contain misspellings, Google has opted to include close variants such as misspellings, plural forms, accents, singular forms, and abbreviations. For example, the key phrase might include “carpet cleaning” and the variant included “carpet clean.” Webmasters can choose to opt out of the setting if the variants are not desired.

4. Auction Insights Report

Auction Insights reports provide information about competitors in keyword auctions. This reports provides information about impression shares, competitors and advertisers’ positions. The top of page percent and the position above rate are also included in this report.

5. Account Labels

Account labels help to organize AdWords accounts. Labels allow advertisers the ability to organize ads, ad campaigns and ad groups. Labels can be organized by brand, by promotional campaigns or by label-specific product categories. Account labels should also differentiate geo-graphically targeting campaigns. With account labels, reports can be run to group the performance by label. Filters can be applied also, when the labels are in place.

Be Cognizant of the Five Google Adwords Changes of 2012

Consider the five Google Adwords changes of 2012 for perspective. If you have not taken advantage of these changes, you should consider integrating them into your marketing strategy. The Adwords changes aresimple but can make a considerable difference in visibility.

**Author Bio: Nick is a SEM manager at Search Factory, a Brisbane, Australia based SEO and Search Engine Marketing Agency. Nick knows there have been some big changes to AdWords in 2012, and that advertisers need to stay on top of new features and updates to keep a competitive advantage.

Too Many Plug-ins

Many of the features that you’ll see along the margins of a webpage are plug-ins. These are small bits of code that are added to a website to provide various functionalities. Website designers can build these for you, allowing you to easily make your website more useful to visitors.

Avoid putting too many of these on your page. It’s tempting to add a lot of different content using these features. For example, you might be tempted to add several different news feeds, social media icons, contact forms, weather reports and just about everything else that you can think of, simply because you want to offer your visitors more. Remember that less really is more in some cases. One of the easiest ways to figure out whether or not you’re making a good decision in adding content to your site in this way is to ask yourself honestly how much attention you would pay to that content if it were on somebody else’s page.

Advertising

Some websites function primarily as advertisements for a company and other websites use advertising as their primary means of getting income. If you run a website that is of that latter type, incorporating the advertising into your design in a smart way is imperative to making certain that your website is useful and that your advertisements actually get looked at.

The primary danger in adding advertising is adding too much of it to a single page. If you have a website that’s doing very well, it’s difficult to avoid this temptation. After all, if you have a website that’s performing very well, you’re well aware of the fact that space on your page could be worth quite a bit of money. This makes it very tempting to start adding advertising anywhere and everywhere you can.

This has two major negative outcomes. First, it detracts from the user experience, as they have to wait for advertisements to load, they have to try to figure out what content is advertising and what content is not and they’re constantly distracted by the amount of advertising on the page. Second, it takes away space for your actual content. Remember that nobody comes to your website for the advertisements. They come to your website for some other reason and, if you start making it difficult for them to satisfy whatever need they tend to by visiting your site, the value of your advertising space is going to plummet, just as will your traffic.

Work with a Designer

Working with a website designer is the best way to avoid overdesign. Don’t be afraid to give them all of the ideas you have floating around in your head, but be open-minded if they tell you that you could maybe skip one or two features and use that space more efficiently to offer your visitors something useful. If your website is designed intelligently, in a way that makes it efficient to use and in a way that makes it apparent to your visitors that you’re most worried about giving them what they expect at your site, you’ll get much better results and many more repeat visits.

**Author Bio: Matt Dandurand is the CEO of MediaContour.com, offering web design in Los Angeles, CA. 

This impatient behavior points out a very important fact for website owners and web designers: the navigation system of a website is highly important. This is because even if your website contains the required information, it will be useless if it is buried under several folds and is difficult to access within a few seconds. This will, obviously, effect the popularity of your website. If, however, a user can simply access a drop down menu that is well-defined and can click on exactly the piece of information he or she was looking for, you will find a regular visitor. Naturally, a satisfied user will return to the website multiple times. Navigation, therefore, is highly crucial.

It must be understood that a web design containing a good navigation does not mean one that is complicated. In fact, a good navigation is one that can be comprehended and used effectively by an average person with basic knowledge regarding the internet. While designing the navigation layout, therefore, specific attention must be paid to the audience that the website is aimed at. By making sure that the information in your navigation system is specific, you can not only provide convenience to your users but can also make sure that other users, who are aimlessly browsing the website, are driven away. While this might seem harsh, it is a fact that unnecessary traffic can cause congestion and, thus, cause problems for real customers.

To make a navigation system well-defined, it is a great idea to dedicate specific sections of the website to certain purposes. For example, you can make the right-side column for news, articles, blogs, reviews and other written content while the left-side column may lead the user to the online shopping store. This can make browsing a simple and easy experience. Also, including a site map can be an amazing idea. It must be included on your homepage and is a step that will be appreciated by most users. A great way to judge whether your navigation system is good enough is to use the ‘three-click approach’. This means that no matter what information is required, a user must be able to access it within three clicks from the homepage.

**Author Bio: Buffalo Web Design Company, Konoozi, is offering web design services that are administered by professionals with years of experience in the field. The experts can provide features like perfect navigation and can complement it with other services offered by the company, like search engine optimization. In order to make use of these services, follow the company on Twitter and Google+.

While the whole issue of web security is quite intricate there are a number of measures that businesses can take to ensure that their websites are more secure and less prone to attacks. The following are 5 tips to improve your website’s security;

- Keep up to date with technology: Technology is constantly changing therefore every web designer should be able to update their website when need be. A good example is if your blog uses WordPress ensure that you update the installed version of the software. This will ensure that additional security modules are integrated to your blog making it more secure. New security modules ensure that vulnerabilities are reduced hence making your website more secure.

- Always use a secure server: Website security often starts with how secure the server you are using is. Large hosting companies ensure that their servers are well protected and up to date. This ensures that the risks of an attack are limited. It is worth noting that the software that run web servers are constantly being updated using new security modules hence making your website more secure. Choose to host your website with a company that takes web security very seriously.

- Always use a strong password whenever you are on the internet: Most hackers are able to attack websites hence compromise the data available due to the fact that people are not vigilant with their passwords. As a way of making your password stronger always use a mixture of uppercase and lower case, numbers and symbols to ensure that your website is secure.

- Secure socket layer certification (SSL): When a website is SSL certified, any data that is sent between the website and your computer is encrypted hence very secure. Any information that is sent between the website and your computer cannot be seen hence making the possibility of attack very minimal. This protocol is often used to protect personal information such as credit card details from hackers. There are a number of companies that offer the services of a secure socket layer certification. Some of the most popular once include RapidSSL, Comodo and VeriSign.

- Always check your file permission: All servers have a unique way of setting the kind of permissions you can place on a file. You can either choose to set the permission on your own or as the host to set the permissions for you. Setting the file permissions will ensure that unwanted people do not access areas in your website that they are not meant to access. This is very crucial in deterring intruders from hacking into your website and causing a lot of harm.

Web site security requires a lot of precautions to be able to guarantee. You can greatly reduce the chances of attack by implementing these tips.

**Author Bio: Denis is a freelance writer that loves to write about tech topics especially on knowledge sharing software.