This is my sixth ‘letter from the CEO,’ and I’m having a bit of writer’s block coming up with a thematic topic or creative spin like I have in previous letters. So, I’ll just do my best Joe Friday impression and just tell you what we’re working on! (Depending on your age, that’s either Colonel Potter from M*A*S*H* or Ray from Ghostbusters. :-))

We’re now at the 150-day mark of our blog re-investment, and our team at Hanapin is making great progress toward our goals! Comparing the previous 150 days to the same time frame before that, we’re now up 25% and 37% in visits and pageviews, respectively! Last month, we were at 23% and 32%, so we’re making great strides.

ARTICLES
We’ve got a variety of topics on the docket for this month. We’ve already written about how to diagnose a problem PPC account, and we produced a video with 5 tips to improve a PPC account’s performance. Later this month, we’ll cover bidding strategies, both basic and advanced, and how various bidding strategies affect the performance of your accounts. We’ll also post the results of our second-tier search engines survey, and one of our PPC Hero allies, Portent Interactive, has written an ebook on how to pass the Microsoft AdExcellence exam. (You can see our tips for passing the AdWords exam!) We’ll post a review of their ebook, and in the meantime, you can view their complete AdExcellence guide.

BLOG SERIES
We’ve written a handful of blog series this year, and they’ve generally focused on the fundamentals of paid search. In April, we wrote one on Google Analytics, and in June, we wrote one on Excel. Both were well received, so this month we’ve decided to focus on another fundamental – how to setup a paid search account from scratch. We’ve setup quite a few PPC accounts here at Hanapin, and we’ll tell you all the ins and outs. For those newbies out there, this’ll be a great how-to guide to help you through the process. Are you using the right settings? Have you split out search from display campaigns? How did you structure the account? And, for those PPC experts, don’t pass this one over! I bet we’ll surprise you with one or two things you’re not doing that you should be!

CUSTOM IMAGES
This month, we have three holidays that PPC Hero will be celebrating! August 8 is “Sneak a Zucchini on Your Neighbor’s Porch Day;” 8/10 is “National Lazy Day,” and on 8/28, we’ll have a video of the Hanapin team for “Race Your Chair Around The Office Day!”

THANK YOU
Last but not least, I’d like to thank a few of our PPC Hero allies for making July our biggest pageview month ever! The folks over at BoostCTR started a weekly column for us called Ads In The Wild. The folks over at 7Search, AdKnowledge, and eZanga contributed to our series on second-tier search engines. And, thank you to everyone who linked to and tweeted about our revamped and ultimate quality score guide. The day after we published it was our highest pageview day since July of 2009! Thank you, thank you, thank you!