Top 10 of the month? Pshaw! It wouldn’t be December without year-end lists, and here’s our very own best of 2011 – the posts from the WordStream blog that racked up the most page views all year long. It’s not too late to get your own eyeful:
- The Most Expensive Keywords in Google AdWords – Larry’s write-up of our infographic revealing the 20 keyword categories with the highest CPCs was our most popular blog post of the year, with good reason – I’ve often speculated on which keywords cost the most, but until we dug into our own keyword data, I had never found a satisfactory answer to the question that went beyond “mesothelioma” speculation.
- A Dead-Simple Google AdWords Certification Guide: Costs, Tips & Tricks for Google Certification – It would appear that a whole lotta you are going for or have gone for your AdWords certification, because this FAQ (answering questions about the different types of AdWords certification, the associated costs and tips for studying) gets tons and tons of search traffic.
- Understanding the Differences Between Google and Bing Match Types – This helpful guest post from Bethany Bey, one of our friends at PPC Hero, was our third most popular blog post of the year.
- Is the Internet Bad for the Environment? – Infographic madness! In honor of Earth Day, we looked into the Internet’s carbon footprint. It does some damage but it also does some good.
- JC Penney Busted by Google SEO Web Spam Cops for Black Hat SEO and Link Farms – Busted! Larry offers some analysis of JC Penney’s link-buying fiasco. For example: “If you're outed for spamming Google, it sure helps to be a big AdWords customer.”
- Ultimate Guide to PPC Metrics: 17 Experts on the Top 3 Must-Check PPC Metrics – I asked a bunch of PPC heavy-hitters what AdWords metrics they value over all others. Find out which metrics got the most votes as well as what data was deemed the most worthless.
- AdWords Experts Share the Secrets of Their PPC Success, Part 1 – In August, we started running a series of interviews with PPC practitioners who got unusually high scores using our AdWords Performance Grader. The first interview, with Marko Kvesic, is one of our most popular posts of the year.
- Re-Creating AdWords Campaign Performance Charts in Excel, Part 1: The Data – Excel nerds, this one’s for you: the first in a series of guest posts by Chad Summerhill that show you how to re-create AdWords performance charts so you can do more flexible date range comparisons.
- The Social Media Showdown: Google+ Beating LinkedIn, Closing In On Twitter, Facebook – In this case study, we noticed that Google+ was driving a pretty significant amount of social media traffic – it was probably during the honeymoon era, however.
- Google AdWords Express Review: Is Google Express (AWExpress) Right for Your Small Business? – Tom wrote this review of Google’s offering for (very) small advertisers. It’s easy, but is it a good use of your money?
Close runners up for the top 10 included our Facebook’s Wall of Shame, my review of the hilarious complaints over Crayola’s Colored Bubbles, a guest post on visualizing a site’s link flow, and our illustration of how AdWords works.
Happy new year!
Image via iUnique Fx
This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.