In the old days when people still used to point at aeroplanes, proficient web developers were constantly optimising and measuring the loading speed of their landing pages. This was critical because, with dial-up internet connections, you could begin to load a webpage, then go for a quick cuppa, walk the hound, build a shed, and listen to Dark Side Of The Moon in its entirety before the page would finish loading.

In short, the internet was all about optimising landing page speed, and if your website loaded quicker than your competitors website, it was you who would spend the day having grapes gently lowered into your mouth by semi-naked supermodels.

Then came broadband, and we all cared less about speed, and more about graphics, video, and Flash. Image size became less important and many a bad-habit was born into Arnold the web developer who was more swayed by adding 24 dancing iguanas onto his site than optimising for load speed. After all, this is broadband.

Well, let me take you back to basics for a second to give you some news. Google looks closely at landing page speed, and although it doesn’t penalise dancing iguanas, it does give additional Adwords quality score to landing pages that load quickly.

So, next time you are assessing how you can improve your quality score, try doing a speed test on your landing page. You may not realise it is loading slowly, but Google does.

Big Brother is alive and well and living (nowehere near Elvis) in Adwords land, but many advertisers who employ Adwords managers don’t seem to know it. Now, I am going to disclose how simple it is for advertisers to check that ‘Arnold the Adwords manager’ is actually worth those 20 hours a month he has been charging for.

Now, don’t get me wrong. There are some very reputable and professional Adwords and Pay Per Click management companies out there, endlessly toiling away for the good of their happy clients who are experiencing the promised land of super-conversions whilst procuring small islands in the Caribbean.

But, I have seen the work (or lack of) of too many charlatans in the PPC management space to know that all is not as it may seem. Indeed, my little ‘secret’ can be not only revealing but SHOCKING.

So, I am going to disclose the secret (to many) that the less-than-scrupulous don’t want you to know. In fact, after disclosing this, I may have to go into hiding so that these people don’t hunt me down and try to eat my head.

It is super simple (but generally overlooked):

1. Login to your Adwords account

2. Click ‘Reporting’

3. Click ‘Change History’

Voila! Now you can spy on exactly what changes have been made on your account by date and even by activity!

Has, the ‘constant optimisation’ been constant? Has the ‘ongoing split-testing’ seen any testing? Has the ‘keyword bid manipulation’ been manipulated? Now you know, and you can manage your manager’s management like a monkey in a manger.

After all, there is nothing wrong with a little transparency if you have nothing to hide…