Last year, I was getting great conversions from my Ask Sponsored Listings campaign – 2.63% conversion on average. This year, though, my conversion rate fell from 0.72% in January to 0.13% conversion in May. Conversion rate is practically 0% now.

What happened? I don’t know. What I do know is that Ask no longer seems capable of providing quality search traffic.

Anyone else have a similar experience?

I decided to make a quick list of my favorite search engine marketing tools (for SEO or PPC) that are free and I use regularly. This way I’ll have the list for my own reference, and you can also benefit from it, too.

Free Keyword Research Tools

Google Adwords Keyword Tool
Keyword Discovery Keyword Tool
Wordtracker Keyword Tool

Free PPC Management Tools
Adwords Wrapper – creates exact, phrase, and broad match keywords from a keyword list.

Backlink Tools
Reciprocal Link Checker – check to see if your link is present on a list of urls.

Have a favorite free tool? Tell me in a comment!

That may be a little ambitious of a statement. Having just officially become a Yahoo! Search Marketing Ambassador I must say I have come to appreciate how Yahoo! does business. There are a few differences in the program that I am pleased with. I also Like the fact that Yahoo! has a large enough staff that I can call in and speak with an actual person in less than 30 seconds. Also one thing I didn’t know was that there content ads are also just CPC not CPM. My affection is starting to increase for Yahoo! search marketing. I no longer look at them as the red headed stepchild of search. No offense if you are a red headed step child. Yahoo!’s stats on page views and average user time are impressive. I also cant wait till they roll out their publisher network. That should make things interesting!