When I first started learning how to use Google Adwords, I read about negative keywords. What these keywords do is prevent your ad from showing if your negative keyword appears in the search. In google, this is achieved by adding a minus sign (-) in front of the keyword. For example:
zeppelin
-led
In this case, if someone is looking for led zeppelin, your ad will not appear. If you type in zeppelin airships, your keyword would be triggered. At first when I learned about negative keywords, I thought "why would I want to get less clicks and impressions?". After reading Perry Marshall's The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords, and applying some of his negative keyword techniques, I found that my ROI (return on investment) improved substantially. So, for our example above, if I was selling items that revolved around old fashion zeppelin aircrafts, I would not want to pay for clicks that people who are looking for led zeppelin information. This targets my audience much more and provided me with more quality clicks as well as improved my CTR (click-through-rate), which is important for ad position and cost! Perry Marshall has a good free online course focusing on this and his eBook cannot stress it enough. Sign up here!
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Understanding Adwords - Part V: The Matching Game
For some stupid reason, I have had a tough time in the past grasping the concept of the different matching options of google keywords. There are three specific matching types:
1) Broad matches:
For example: golf clubs
If you use these two words as your keyword, a google browser will find it if the words golf and clubs appear in the search despite its order and location.
golf balls and clubs (found)
golf clubs (found)
best golf clubs in town (found)
2) Phrase matches (defined by quotations around the keywords):
For example: "golf clubs"
In this instance, the words golf and clubs must appear just like it is typed within the quotes. There may, however, be other keywords around it:
golf balls and clubs (not found)
golf clubs (found)
best golf clubs in town (found)
3) Exact matches (defined by brackets around the keywords):
For example: [golf clubs]
For exact matches, the searcher must only type in the keywords defined, in that order, with no other keywords present:
golf balls and clubs (not found)
golf clubs (found)
best golf clubs in town (not found)
Now the first question you may ask yourself is "Why would I use a phrase or exact match if the broad match gets me the most results?". Yes, that is true, but a few things to point out:
1) Broad matches are much more competive and may cost you more money to bid on
2) Broad matches may produce clicks you don't want. For example: free golf clubs
3) Exact and Phrase matches gets higher priority than broad matches for page position
4) Exact and phrase matches help to reduce keyword cost and produces higher quality clicks.
One more thing to point out! In Adwords, you must specify plurals explicitly! Many PPC's will include a plural form by default, but not Adwords. So if you are using golf clubs as a keyword, you may also want to include golf club as well!
1) Broad matches:
For example: golf clubs
If you use these two words as your keyword, a google browser will find it if the words golf and clubs appear in the search despite its order and location.
golf balls and clubs (found)
golf clubs (found)
best golf clubs in town (found)
2) Phrase matches (defined by quotations around the keywords):
For example: "golf clubs"
In this instance, the words golf and clubs must appear just like it is typed within the quotes. There may, however, be other keywords around it:
golf balls and clubs (not found)
golf clubs (found)
best golf clubs in town (found)
3) Exact matches (defined by brackets around the keywords):
For example: [golf clubs]
For exact matches, the searcher must only type in the keywords defined, in that order, with no other keywords present:
golf balls and clubs (not found)
golf clubs (found)
best golf clubs in town (not found)
Now the first question you may ask yourself is "Why would I use a phrase or exact match if the broad match gets me the most results?". Yes, that is true, but a few things to point out:
1) Broad matches are much more competive and may cost you more money to bid on
2) Broad matches may produce clicks you don't want. For example: free golf clubs
3) Exact and Phrase matches gets higher priority than broad matches for page position
4) Exact and phrase matches help to reduce keyword cost and produces higher quality clicks.
One more thing to point out! In Adwords, you must specify plurals explicitly! Many PPC's will include a plural form by default, but not Adwords. So if you are using golf clubs as a keyword, you may also want to include golf club as well!
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Understanding Adwords - Part IV: Immediate Ads
Adwords has one unique advantage over most of the other pay-per-click websites. With Google, you can create a new ad and it will be active, essentially immediately. PPC sites like Overture and MSN, for example, require an editorial review of both the ad and the keywords associated with it. At some level, I don't blame them! But from our (the advertiser's) stand-point, it makes our jobs of developing effective ad campaigns more difficult. Most ads and/or keywords take 1-3 days for editorial review. GoogleAds will activate your ads and keywords immediately. There are a few things to point out, though.
1) Because the ads and keywords are effective immediately, Google still must regulate what the user is trying to do. Even though they are not reviewed my a person (initially), Google's computer brain tries to review it. This can both work for or against you. If the Google computer software does not like your ad, keyword, or even landing page, it will charge you a high price to active the keyword. On the other hand, you may get away with a fairly irrelevant keyword at a low price. No one other than Google knows the algorithm of determining this.
2) Some ads or keywords will produce "flags" in the Google system. There are some topics that google does not like (for example, gambling). If you put anything in your ad that relates to gambling, it may warn you immediately (and request justification) or it will flag it internally, allow you to bid on it, say it is active, but not tell you that your ad requires review prior to publishing. This really stinks at times! I will wait on an ad for days and not get a single impression just to find out that Google has flagged it and requires manual review. Usually a call to Google can solve this problem, but it usually takes a few days to even figure it out.
3) The benefit! Assuming that your ad does not require manual review, the ability to activate ads and test them immediately gives you lots of flexibility to test your ads and fine tune them for maximum click through rates (CTR). Perry Marshall's eBook focuses on this topic extensively and has really helped me to improve my CTR as well as my ROI (return on investment). Again, I highly recommend this book for anyone using Adwords. You'll earn back the money you spent on it in no time! Click here to learn more!
1) Because the ads and keywords are effective immediately, Google still must regulate what the user is trying to do. Even though they are not reviewed my a person (initially), Google's computer brain tries to review it. This can both work for or against you. If the Google computer software does not like your ad, keyword, or even landing page, it will charge you a high price to active the keyword. On the other hand, you may get away with a fairly irrelevant keyword at a low price. No one other than Google knows the algorithm of determining this.
2) Some ads or keywords will produce "flags" in the Google system. There are some topics that google does not like (for example, gambling). If you put anything in your ad that relates to gambling, it may warn you immediately (and request justification) or it will flag it internally, allow you to bid on it, say it is active, but not tell you that your ad requires review prior to publishing. This really stinks at times! I will wait on an ad for days and not get a single impression just to find out that Google has flagged it and requires manual review. Usually a call to Google can solve this problem, but it usually takes a few days to even figure it out.
3) The benefit! Assuming that your ad does not require manual review, the ability to activate ads and test them immediately gives you lots of flexibility to test your ads and fine tune them for maximum click through rates (CTR). Perry Marshall's eBook focuses on this topic extensively and has really helped me to improve my CTR as well as my ROI (return on investment). Again, I highly recommend this book for anyone using Adwords. You'll earn back the money you spent on it in no time! Click here to learn more!
Monday, May 08, 2006
Understanding Adwords - Part III: Max Bid Headaches
Anyone who has used Adwords knows this scenerio:
I just thought of this great campaign and I have this great list of keywords that people are going to want to click! You set up your website or blog, you do a bunch of research on keywords and its various derivatives, you go to GoogleAds, create your ad, put in your keywords, choose a max bid that you can afford (like $0.10) and ta-da...
"YOU HAVE 456 INACTIVE KEYWORDS"
This is the point where I usually curse at the computer. So Google (kindly?) gives me two options:
1) Increase my keyword price
2) Increase the quality and relevancy of my ad
At this point, you can browse through your keywords and see the ridiculous prices google thinks your keyword is worth. Some of these keywords are $5, maybe even $10. I doubt you will be paying this.
The only other option you have is to optimize your ad. I have read tons on this topic and even have spoken with Google about it before, but I still am not quite sure how this works. If I change my ad, nothing really happens (at that time). If I add more ads, nothing really happens (at that time either). I think (this is purely speculation...if you have more insight, please let me know!) Google will initially give you its electronic estimate of what it will define its max bid value at based on your keywords and first ad written. From that point on, it will stay that way until the ad is officially reviewed by an editor. This can sometimes work to your advantage. A few things you can do in the meantime:
1) Write multiple ads. It is always a good itea to write multiple ads, but it also gives an editor more options to lower your bids.
2) Put keywords into the ad itself.
3) Be specific and use exact-match [] keywords pr phase-match "" keywords. For example, if you are selling golf clubs, instead of using the keyword:
golf clubs
Use:
[websites to find golf clubs]
4) Use negative keywords
5) Add more content to you landing page (Google does check your landing page for relevancy as well!)
6) Be patient! Time fixes these problems at times.
Perry Marshall goes over a lot of these issues in detail (and adds a few more advanced methods as well!). Click here to learn more.
I just thought of this great campaign and I have this great list of keywords that people are going to want to click! You set up your website or blog, you do a bunch of research on keywords and its various derivatives, you go to GoogleAds, create your ad, put in your keywords, choose a max bid that you can afford (like $0.10) and ta-da...
"YOU HAVE 456 INACTIVE KEYWORDS"
This is the point where I usually curse at the computer. So Google (kindly?) gives me two options:
1) Increase my keyword price
2) Increase the quality and relevancy of my ad
At this point, you can browse through your keywords and see the ridiculous prices google thinks your keyword is worth. Some of these keywords are $5, maybe even $10. I doubt you will be paying this.
The only other option you have is to optimize your ad. I have read tons on this topic and even have spoken with Google about it before, but I still am not quite sure how this works. If I change my ad, nothing really happens (at that time). If I add more ads, nothing really happens (at that time either). I think (this is purely speculation...if you have more insight, please let me know!) Google will initially give you its electronic estimate of what it will define its max bid value at based on your keywords and first ad written. From that point on, it will stay that way until the ad is officially reviewed by an editor. This can sometimes work to your advantage. A few things you can do in the meantime:
1) Write multiple ads. It is always a good itea to write multiple ads, but it also gives an editor more options to lower your bids.
2) Put keywords into the ad itself.
3) Be specific and use exact-match [] keywords pr phase-match "" keywords. For example, if you are selling golf clubs, instead of using the keyword:
golf clubs
Use:
[websites to find golf clubs]
4) Use negative keywords
5) Add more content to you landing page (Google does check your landing page for relevancy as well!)
6) Be patient! Time fixes these problems at times.
Perry Marshall goes over a lot of these issues in detail (and adds a few more advanced methods as well!). Click here to learn more.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Understanding Adwords - Part II: Ad Position
For most PPC sites, determining the ad position for a particular keyword is pretty straight forward. Like any auction, highest bidder wins! In Overture, for example, you can use the keyword selector tool to show you what position your ad will appear in for a given maximum bid. Keep in mind, though, that you maximum bid is just that: a MAXIMUM bid. You do not necessarily pay this price per click. Rather, you pay one cent higher than the next lower bidder. This sounds like a good deal, until you look and see what the max bids are for some keywords. Are you willing to pay $5 per click for the first position? Some people are! More advanced users and well-established campaigns can afford this hit. Beginners (like most of us), cannot compete in the market. Overture requires a minimum bid of $0.10. Right now, that is about as much as I want to spend. Unfortunately, that puts me in one of the lowest ad positions. I will still get clicks (in most case), but not many.
Google puts a little twist to this deal. Maximum bid price is one deciding factor. The other is Click Through Rate (CTR). CTR is a percentage which is calculated:
For example, if your ad has 10,000 impressions and it is clicked 100 times, your CTR would be 1%. (1%-10% CTR is considered rather respectable!) Google will then use this number and your bid price to determine your rank:
(Of course, it is not a simple equation like this, there are unknown weights and normalizing involved, which we, as the users, do not know!).
So what is the significance of this? It says that the top positions do not necessarily go to the highest bidder. Rather, it goes to best and most established ads. A person with a really high CTR may only have to pay pennies for the top position while a low (or no) CTR ad may pay dollars for the same spot. To some degree, this gives us little people a chance!
Of course, to have a high CTR, you need clicks and to get clicks, you need impressions and a respectable ad position. You have two options here:
1) Patience - Over time, you will get impressions and clicks
2) You can pay for it up front - Raise your bid from the beginning and hope not to get burned.
Either case, you need to have GOOD AD COPY! If people don't notice your ad, they won't click it. Google punishes you for this! As your CTR drops, more money is required to maintain that position. So, for everything good in the world, there always seems to be something bad!
Again, Perry Marshall spends a few chapters on improving ad copy and optimizing your CTR. Check it out!
Google puts a little twist to this deal. Maximum bid price is one deciding factor. The other is Click Through Rate (CTR). CTR is a percentage which is calculated:
CTR = Click Throughs / Impressions
For example, if your ad has 10,000 impressions and it is clicked 100 times, your CTR would be 1%. (1%-10% CTR is considered rather respectable!) Google will then use this number and your bid price to determine your rank:
Ad Position = Maximum Bid Price x CTR
(Of course, it is not a simple equation like this, there are unknown weights and normalizing involved, which we, as the users, do not know!).
So what is the significance of this? It says that the top positions do not necessarily go to the highest bidder. Rather, it goes to best and most established ads. A person with a really high CTR may only have to pay pennies for the top position while a low (or no) CTR ad may pay dollars for the same spot. To some degree, this gives us little people a chance!
Of course, to have a high CTR, you need clicks and to get clicks, you need impressions and a respectable ad position. You have two options here:
1) Patience - Over time, you will get impressions and clicks
2) You can pay for it up front - Raise your bid from the beginning and hope not to get burned.
Either case, you need to have GOOD AD COPY! If people don't notice your ad, they won't click it. Google punishes you for this! As your CTR drops, more money is required to maintain that position. So, for everything good in the world, there always seems to be something bad!
Again, Perry Marshall spends a few chapters on improving ad copy and optimizing your CTR. Check it out!
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Understanding Adwords - Part I
Understanding Adwords: That is a tough task. Since there are many different components of Google Adwords, I will be splitting up this blog over the next few days or so. Let's begin with the essentials...
Google Adwords works similiar to many of the other PPC programs. You bid on keywords and you pay only when someone clicks on your ad. You may have a million impressions and no clicks, and it won't cost you a cent. So what is different about Google? Let's go through some of the main differences:
1) Ad position is a function of not only the minimum bid price, but also the history and the effectiveness of this ad to generate clicks.
2) GoogleAds rewards (or punishes) people for bidding on keywords that are relevant to the ad and landing page. Relevant keywords offer lower maximum bids than non-relevant keywords.
3) GoogleAds, generally, does not review ads immediately. (This can be a crucial advantange!)
4) GoogleAds allows for broad match, phase match, exact match keywords. Also plurals. Further, negative keywords can be defined.
5) Google allows for both search engine and content search advertising (discussed briefly in my blog about Adsense: Adsense, Does it Really Make Sense?
6) You are billed after the clicks are made, not before.
I am sure I can think of a few other differences which I will bring up as I think of them. Before I go for today, I really want to emphasize that getting GoogleAds to work effectively takes a bit of time and understanding. You can find yourself spending a LOT of money trying to learn the system through trial and error. I have read a few books and eBooks about GoogleAds and Perry Marshall's Definitive Guide to Google Adwords is one of the best (Click here to learn more...). The forty-some dollars it costs will save you hundreds in the future. Also, the quicker you understand the true details of GoogleAds, the faster you will be making sales. Much of my success occurred after buying this book!
See ya tomorrow!
Google Adwords works similiar to many of the other PPC programs. You bid on keywords and you pay only when someone clicks on your ad. You may have a million impressions and no clicks, and it won't cost you a cent. So what is different about Google? Let's go through some of the main differences:
1) Ad position is a function of not only the minimum bid price, but also the history and the effectiveness of this ad to generate clicks.
2) GoogleAds rewards (or punishes) people for bidding on keywords that are relevant to the ad and landing page. Relevant keywords offer lower maximum bids than non-relevant keywords.
3) GoogleAds, generally, does not review ads immediately. (This can be a crucial advantange!)
4) GoogleAds allows for broad match, phase match, exact match keywords. Also plurals. Further, negative keywords can be defined.
5) Google allows for both search engine and content search advertising (discussed briefly in my blog about Adsense: Adsense, Does it Really Make Sense?
6) You are billed after the clicks are made, not before.
I am sure I can think of a few other differences which I will bring up as I think of them. Before I go for today, I really want to emphasize that getting GoogleAds to work effectively takes a bit of time and understanding. You can find yourself spending a LOT of money trying to learn the system through trial and error. I have read a few books and eBooks about GoogleAds and Perry Marshall's Definitive Guide to Google Adwords is one of the best (Click here to learn more...). The forty-some dollars it costs will save you hundreds in the future. Also, the quicker you understand the true details of GoogleAds, the faster you will be making sales. Much of my success occurred after buying this book!
See ya tomorrow!
Monday, May 01, 2006
Pay-Per-Clicks I - Overture Overview
Perhaps the biggest, most unique and effective PPC sites is Google's Adwords. But, of course, for everything good in the world, comes some headache. Adwords is definitely no exception to this rule! So let's focus on the simplier ones first.
Most PPC sites are fairly straight-forward in how they work: It is simple...you write an ad, you choose some keywords and then you bid on this keywords. Position of your ad is based on how much you pay. Best position goes to the highest bidder. This can be good and bad.
The good is that you know exactly where you stand, how your bid effects position, and you can size up your competition quite easily. Yahoo's Overture (http://www.overture.com) is probably the largest PPC site that does this on the web. For any keyword, you can view the current bids by using the keyword selector tools (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/). This tool will also be useful when using GoogleAds later on.
The bad things about this system is that position is purely based on money, not relevance (more or less...editors can remove your keyword if it is too obscure). This is a disadvantage for a few reasons:
1) Writing good ad copy is not rewarded
2) Poor ad copy degrades the entire quality of the search results
3) Trying to compete in established keywords can be difficult and expensive as a beginner
Adwords works quite differently than this. We'll discuss this more in detail next time.
Most PPC sites are fairly straight-forward in how they work: It is simple...you write an ad, you choose some keywords and then you bid on this keywords. Position of your ad is based on how much you pay. Best position goes to the highest bidder. This can be good and bad.
The good is that you know exactly where you stand, how your bid effects position, and you can size up your competition quite easily. Yahoo's Overture (http://www.overture.com) is probably the largest PPC site that does this on the web. For any keyword, you can view the current bids by using the keyword selector tools (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/). This tool will also be useful when using GoogleAds later on.
The bad things about this system is that position is purely based on money, not relevance (more or less...editors can remove your keyword if it is too obscure). This is a disadvantage for a few reasons:
1) Writing good ad copy is not rewarded
2) Poor ad copy degrades the entire quality of the search results
3) Trying to compete in established keywords can be difficult and expensive as a beginner
Adwords works quite differently than this. We'll discuss this more in detail next time.
Friday, April 28, 2006
Targeted Marketing: Pay-Per-Click Introduction
I spoke about it briefly yesterday, but one of the most important mechanisms of the internet for successful affiliate marketing is based around targeted marketing and pay-per-click (PPC) programs. Let me explain how this works...
I am sure you have all used a search engine before and have noticed "sponsored" links listed somewhere on the page. Google, for example, has sponsors on the right column and sometimes, has 1,2 or 3 sponsors above the search results (which are highlighted). These sponsored links appear on mostly all search engines: Yahoo, Hotbot, MSN, etc. Similarly, you will find sponsors located on individual webpages. This blog, for example, has a list of sponsored links at the bottom of the right column. These specific type of ads are called "content ads". We will discuss this another day. They work in the same manner, though.
First of all, anyone can create an ad for any website at any time. To set up an account usually costs less than $5 and there are no commitments or monthly fees to join (if you are, you are doing something wrong!). The special thing about all of these ads are that you ONLY pay what people click on! My ad can be seen by 1,000,000 people (these are called "impressions"), and receive zero clicks, and this will cost me nothing. Most ads cost anywhere between 5 cents per click to $5 per click to hundreds of dollars per click (I have never seen this type, but have read about them). So, let's say that 1000 people see my ad today and 100 of them click my ad at $0.1/click. My costs for the day would be $10. Luckily, most PPC programs allow you to limit your daily budget, just in case your clicks exceed your expectations.
The other main thing to point about about pay-per-click programs is that you are bidding on keywords: these are the words that people are searching for. For example, if I am selling golf clubs, I may bid on keywords such as "golf", "golf clubs", "how to play golf", "pebble beach", etc. You would probably not be bidding on keywords such as "britney spears", "baby showers" and "asian monkeys". The significance of this is that we are now targeting our product and website to those who are actually looking for it. Target marketing is a huge component to making affiliate marketing campaigns work!
Unfortunately, running pay-per-click campaigns are not trivial. PPC are strongly based on:
1) Competition,
2) Writing good ads,
3) Relevance
and, of course,
4) MONEY!!
More to come on Sunday! And remember, you CAN make money doing this! Be sure to check out the eBooks that have worked for me at my review site to get your campaign started today!:
http://MakeMoney.TheWebReviewer.com
I am sure you have all used a search engine before and have noticed "sponsored" links listed somewhere on the page. Google, for example, has sponsors on the right column and sometimes, has 1,2 or 3 sponsors above the search results (which are highlighted). These sponsored links appear on mostly all search engines: Yahoo, Hotbot, MSN, etc. Similarly, you will find sponsors located on individual webpages. This blog, for example, has a list of sponsored links at the bottom of the right column. These specific type of ads are called "content ads". We will discuss this another day. They work in the same manner, though.
First of all, anyone can create an ad for any website at any time. To set up an account usually costs less than $5 and there are no commitments or monthly fees to join (if you are, you are doing something wrong!). The special thing about all of these ads are that you ONLY pay what people click on! My ad can be seen by 1,000,000 people (these are called "impressions"), and receive zero clicks, and this will cost me nothing. Most ads cost anywhere between 5 cents per click to $5 per click to hundreds of dollars per click (I have never seen this type, but have read about them). So, let's say that 1000 people see my ad today and 100 of them click my ad at $0.1/click. My costs for the day would be $10. Luckily, most PPC programs allow you to limit your daily budget, just in case your clicks exceed your expectations.
The other main thing to point about about pay-per-click programs is that you are bidding on keywords: these are the words that people are searching for. For example, if I am selling golf clubs, I may bid on keywords such as "golf", "golf clubs", "how to play golf", "pebble beach", etc. You would probably not be bidding on keywords such as "britney spears", "baby showers" and "asian monkeys". The significance of this is that we are now targeting our product and website to those who are actually looking for it. Target marketing is a huge component to making affiliate marketing campaigns work!
Unfortunately, running pay-per-click campaigns are not trivial. PPC are strongly based on:
1) Competition,
2) Writing good ads,
3) Relevance
and, of course,
4) MONEY!!
More to come on Sunday! And remember, you CAN make money doing this! Be sure to check out the eBooks that have worked for me at my review site to get your campaign started today!:
http://MakeMoney.TheWebReviewer.com
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Staying Focused on Your Affiliate Marketing Plan
Sorry for missing a few blogs...Jury Duty, enough said!
While sitting on Jury Duty, I had plenty of time to think about life, and included in that is affiliate marketing. I came to a bit of a revelation about my current campaign...I was losing my focus! I have done this before, and I am glad that with experience that I am a bit more wise to pick-up on this mistake early on (though, I feel that I have already wasted a lot of time and money on this mistake). So what happened?
I originally developed a "plan" for this campaign. I did not set up dates, but rather, a sequence of events I wanted to follow. The first few steps of my plan were as follows:
1) Find, Research, and Pick a Product to Promote (DONE!)
2) Develop my promotion blog (DONE!)
3) Get my blog seen through search engine submissions, RSS feeds, and signatures to forum and blog responses. (75% DONE)
4) Pay-Per-Click Campaigns for targeted promotion (CRASHING!)
Wait a minute! PPC campaign? I haven't mentioned PPC campaign yet? What happened? Well, I got excited and over-anxious! In the process of step three, I was curious and checked out my Clickbank account and found that I was actually getting a few sales. In affiliate marketing, getting your first few sales on your product is almost as good as sex! The adrenaline was high, and I was eager to make this campaign work faster for me! That is when I started a few campaigns on several different PPC sites in haste. My impressions went up considerable, but my sales actually dropped and my PPC costs were going through the roof! Any money that I made prior to this is now history.
Two main lessons have come from this:
1) Haste Makes Waste! - especially when it comes to pay-per-click campaigns. To develop a proper campaign in PPC's require time, research and patience. Throwing out a few popular keywords without any thought is just asking for trouble (and a hole in your pocket-book!)
2) Stick to the Game Plan! - Don't let your emotions (and sales) get the better of you. For that matter, if things go south (and sales are not what you expect), still stick to your game plan. Again, you may feel desperate and start doing things that will only make things worse.
So for now, I am going to finish my "free promotion" plan and begin to research keywords and develop my PPC campaigns in a smart manner, not an excited or desperate manner! Stay tuned!
While sitting on Jury Duty, I had plenty of time to think about life, and included in that is affiliate marketing. I came to a bit of a revelation about my current campaign...I was losing my focus! I have done this before, and I am glad that with experience that I am a bit more wise to pick-up on this mistake early on (though, I feel that I have already wasted a lot of time and money on this mistake). So what happened?
I originally developed a "plan" for this campaign. I did not set up dates, but rather, a sequence of events I wanted to follow. The first few steps of my plan were as follows:
1) Find, Research, and Pick a Product to Promote (DONE!)
2) Develop my promotion blog (DONE!)
3) Get my blog seen through search engine submissions, RSS feeds, and signatures to forum and blog responses. (75% DONE)
4) Pay-Per-Click Campaigns for targeted promotion (CRASHING!)
Wait a minute! PPC campaign? I haven't mentioned PPC campaign yet? What happened? Well, I got excited and over-anxious! In the process of step three, I was curious and checked out my Clickbank account and found that I was actually getting a few sales. In affiliate marketing, getting your first few sales on your product is almost as good as sex! The adrenaline was high, and I was eager to make this campaign work faster for me! That is when I started a few campaigns on several different PPC sites in haste. My impressions went up considerable, but my sales actually dropped and my PPC costs were going through the roof! Any money that I made prior to this is now history.
Two main lessons have come from this:
1) Haste Makes Waste! - especially when it comes to pay-per-click campaigns. To develop a proper campaign in PPC's require time, research and patience. Throwing out a few popular keywords without any thought is just asking for trouble (and a hole in your pocket-book!)
2) Stick to the Game Plan! - Don't let your emotions (and sales) get the better of you. For that matter, if things go south (and sales are not what you expect), still stick to your game plan. Again, you may feel desperate and start doing things that will only make things worse.
So for now, I am going to finish my "free promotion" plan and begin to research keywords and develop my PPC campaigns in a smart manner, not an excited or desperate manner! Stay tuned!
Monday, April 24, 2006
Free For All Sites: Do You Get What You Pay For?
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Sunday, April 23, 2006
The Obsession of Affiliate Marketing
When I started my affiliate marketing venture a few months ago, I was quite determined to make it work. A few things I have discovered over the my tenure:
1) There are a LOT of affiliate products, a LOT of forums, a LOT of pay-per-click (PPC) sites, a lot of eBooks, etc. on the internet.
2) A strong understanding of all the items listed in #1 are crucial for success.
3) Any type of SEO or PPC campaign require continuous fine-tuning, tweaking and improving.
4) Page Clicks, Impressions and Sales can occur at time, any day.
Add all four of these together and you can find yourself becoming OBSESSED with Affiliate Marketing! I kind of feel that if you are determined enough to make online marketing work, you will ultimate find yourself becoming addicted to it. I have to admit, I do work a normal 40 hour work week, but I do find myself (about 4 times per day) checking my Adsense account, my Adwords account, my Counter account, and my Clickbank account. One of the most fun aspects of this business is the real-time interaction with the internet. Getting a sale builds adrenaline! Getting low click-through-rates (CTR) drives you to develop better ads. Broken links on your website make you literally want to cry. And every success promotes further drive and desire to do more!
So here is were I (the San Diegan Marketer) says: "Chill out, dude!" I found myself spending every day on this stupid computer for about 2 months. This kind of pissed off my wife and kids a fair bit. Just like any job, you must learn to manage both your work and family appropriately. Therefore, about a month ago, I vowed that on Saturdays I would not even turn the computer on at all. Let me tell you, if is tough and I look at the computer about 3 times a day and think about checking it really quickly, but I do restrain myself. I also no longer jump on the computer first thing when I get home from work...I wait until the kids go to bed.
I always stress perseverance to succeed in internet marketing, but you need to be smart about it. One great thing about affiliate marketing is that you really are not under a time crunch. You control you own destiny and life; Don't let some like a silly money making venture take control of you!
1) There are a LOT of affiliate products, a LOT of forums, a LOT of pay-per-click (PPC) sites, a lot of eBooks, etc. on the internet.
2) A strong understanding of all the items listed in #1 are crucial for success.
3) Any type of SEO or PPC campaign require continuous fine-tuning, tweaking and improving.
4) Page Clicks, Impressions and Sales can occur at time, any day.
Add all four of these together and you can find yourself becoming OBSESSED with Affiliate Marketing! I kind of feel that if you are determined enough to make online marketing work, you will ultimate find yourself becoming addicted to it. I have to admit, I do work a normal 40 hour work week, but I do find myself (about 4 times per day) checking my Adsense account, my Adwords account, my Counter account, and my Clickbank account. One of the most fun aspects of this business is the real-time interaction with the internet. Getting a sale builds adrenaline! Getting low click-through-rates (CTR) drives you to develop better ads. Broken links on your website make you literally want to cry. And every success promotes further drive and desire to do more!
So here is were I (the San Diegan Marketer) says: "Chill out, dude!" I found myself spending every day on this stupid computer for about 2 months. This kind of pissed off my wife and kids a fair bit. Just like any job, you must learn to manage both your work and family appropriately. Therefore, about a month ago, I vowed that on Saturdays I would not even turn the computer on at all. Let me tell you, if is tough and I look at the computer about 3 times a day and think about checking it really quickly, but I do restrain myself. I also no longer jump on the computer first thing when I get home from work...I wait until the kids go to bed.
I always stress perseverance to succeed in internet marketing, but you need to be smart about it. One great thing about affiliate marketing is that you really are not under a time crunch. You control you own destiny and life; Don't let some like a silly money making venture take control of you!
Friday, April 21, 2006
Adsense Really Does Make Sense!
OK, I am over my bitterness from the past two days of being locked out of my account. Let's get back to business!
I wanted to talk a little bit about Google Adsense. For those of you who don't know what this is, they are the ads (provided by Google) that appear all over the place (including this blog!). For example, I have two sets of ads on this blog: One appears on the right hand margin below my links and the second one appears under the blog summary on the top of the page. The one on the right is called an "ad unit" which are made up of content sponsorship from Google's Adwords program (that will be discussed in a later blog!). The one on the top is called an "ad link" which provides a topic you can click that will bring you to a new page of sponsored links.
When I first started affiliate marketing, I kind of ignored Google Adsense because I felt a few "cents" a day, if I was lucky, was not worth it. That was a stupid mistake. True, some clicks only pay a few cents, while MOST pay between $0.30 and $2! I couldn't really believe it! Even though I don't get many Adsense clicks, I do make about $2-$3 per day for doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! It is so easy to set up and once you add the javascript code to your blog or website, there is no more maintenance required! Just remember, $3 per day is $90 per month! That money also helps offset promotion costs. And realize this, right now, I only receive about 100 impressions per day and about 2-4 clicks...as I continue to promote the blog and get more people to visit, the higher the clicks become and the more money Adsense brings in!
For ANYBODY with a website that draws ANY traffic, you should always have an ad or two somewhere on the page. It is too easy to ignore. (But, don't be silly about it!...websites that are wallpapered in ads usually just piss me off!) Good luck and sign up today:
https://www.google.com/adsense
I wanted to talk a little bit about Google Adsense. For those of you who don't know what this is, they are the ads (provided by Google) that appear all over the place (including this blog!). For example, I have two sets of ads on this blog: One appears on the right hand margin below my links and the second one appears under the blog summary on the top of the page. The one on the right is called an "ad unit" which are made up of content sponsorship from Google's Adwords program (that will be discussed in a later blog!). The one on the top is called an "ad link" which provides a topic you can click that will bring you to a new page of sponsored links.
When I first started affiliate marketing, I kind of ignored Google Adsense because I felt a few "cents" a day, if I was lucky, was not worth it. That was a stupid mistake. True, some clicks only pay a few cents, while MOST pay between $0.30 and $2! I couldn't really believe it! Even though I don't get many Adsense clicks, I do make about $2-$3 per day for doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! It is so easy to set up and once you add the javascript code to your blog or website, there is no more maintenance required! Just remember, $3 per day is $90 per month! That money also helps offset promotion costs. And realize this, right now, I only receive about 100 impressions per day and about 2-4 clicks...as I continue to promote the blog and get more people to visit, the higher the clicks become and the more money Adsense brings in!
For ANYBODY with a website that draws ANY traffic, you should always have an ad or two somewhere on the page. It is too easy to ignore. (But, don't be silly about it!...websites that are wallpapered in ads usually just piss me off!) Good luck and sign up today:
https://www.google.com/adsense
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Splogging BS and Blogspot
YEA I'M BACK!
It is a bit ironic that my original intention to today's (now yesterday's) blog was going to be devoted to splogging and spam. If you have not noticed, this blog is a bit late. Why, you may ask? Because this blog is currently being flagged as spam. I don't know really what I think about this either. On one side, I understand how blogspot needs to take a bit more responsibility in controlling spam on their website. On the other side, I find it very annoying and even pissed off that I am now locked out from writing my daily blog because my account is on hold. Whatever this "spam-preventation" robot is, it is really not doing its job correctly. With all of the real Spam and Splog (which, last night I learned was a Spam-Blog), why would they suspend me prior to actually reviewing my content? Again, nice try by blogspot, but really, they need to get smarter about this. Also, I am kind of interested in knowing whether or not someone has "flagged" my blog as spam (as you can do!). If you have, please nut up and write me a comment about it!
So it is 8pm, Wednesday, PST. Let's see how long this takes before I can submit again (and get back to the real issues at hand!).
My account was reactived at 3:30pm today...At least it was less than the 24 hours they promised! BACK TO BUSINESS!
It is a bit ironic that my original intention to today's (now yesterday's) blog was going to be devoted to splogging and spam. If you have not noticed, this blog is a bit late. Why, you may ask? Because this blog is currently being flagged as spam. I don't know really what I think about this either. On one side, I understand how blogspot needs to take a bit more responsibility in controlling spam on their website. On the other side, I find it very annoying and even pissed off that I am now locked out from writing my daily blog because my account is on hold. Whatever this "spam-preventation" robot is, it is really not doing its job correctly. With all of the real Spam and Splog (which, last night I learned was a Spam-Blog), why would they suspend me prior to actually reviewing my content? Again, nice try by blogspot, but really, they need to get smarter about this. Also, I am kind of interested in knowing whether or not someone has "flagged" my blog as spam (as you can do!). If you have, please nut up and write me a comment about it!
So it is 8pm, Wednesday, PST. Let's see how long this takes before I can submit again (and get back to the real issues at hand!).
My account was reactived at 3:30pm today...At least it was less than the 24 hours they promised! BACK TO BUSINESS!
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
More Work on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
I keep slowly but surely add RSS feeds to various directories as well as add a few comments here and there to a few of the popular forums related to my product. I also spent a little time last night re-reading a chapter in BecomeHated called "How to Drive the Most Traffic to Your Site". This eBook has quite a bit of information related to SEO and is probably my most informative resource on the topic. One of the many points that it makes is that Page Rank is not only a function of how many websites link to you, but also what their Page Rank is as well. For example, having a primary link on one high ranked page (say 7 or 8) will probably help your own ranking much more than having a link on 5 different 1 or 2 ranked pages (truly understanding Page Rank is still a mystery, though). Keep this in mind when you are finding places to get your links posted. A bit more discussion on this topic can be found at:
http://www.seogeeks.com/articles/pagerank-chart.php.
For more details and ideas concerning SEO, I highly recommend getting a copy of BecomeHated.
http://www.seogeeks.com/articles/pagerank-chart.php.
For more details and ideas concerning SEO, I highly recommend getting a copy of BecomeHated.
Monday, April 17, 2006
Trying to Understand Page Rank
In the past, I never really paid much attention to Page Rank and SEO (Search Engine Optimization). The more I read about blogging (and affiliate marketing in general), the more I hear about SEO. One thing to understand is "Page Rank". Google, for example, has a Page Rank tool (that is incorporated within its toolbar add-ons...I highly recommend that you install this into your browser! You can get it at: http://toolbar.google.com/?promo=mor-tb-en). It appears at the top of the browser and provides a "Page Rank" for every website you visit. This provides you with a "gauge" to see how search engines rank the website in importance. A 10 of of 10 means that it is extremely important and search engines will more than likely put this site above all others. A 0 out of 10 usually means that it won't even be found.
So, naturally, getting a higher Page Rank is an important asset to get FREE traffic to your website. Also understand that Page Rank is a function of the number of high ranking websites that actually link to your website. Getting back to yesterday's blog, by adding your URL to search engines and RSS feeds AND by just simply posting on forums and commenting on other blogs (with signature links), you are already on your first steps to getting your link out there. As I discover (and you suggest) other ways of improving Page Rank and SEO, I'll be sure to post it!
So, naturally, getting a higher Page Rank is an important asset to get FREE traffic to your website. Also understand that Page Rank is a function of the number of high ranking websites that actually link to your website. Getting back to yesterday's blog, by adding your URL to search engines and RSS feeds AND by just simply posting on forums and commenting on other blogs (with signature links), you are already on your first steps to getting your link out there. As I discover (and you suggest) other ways of improving Page Rank and SEO, I'll be sure to post it!
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Becoming Known - My First Steps at Being Found
Let's quickly come back to the present and focus on my current task of the week: Becoming known! My last affiliate effort focused entirely on GoogleAds. I do plan to promote this the same way, but first, I want to draw some people to my blog the natural, FREE ways.
After some reading and forum study, submitting my blog to some free RSS submission sites seem like a good first start. I was referred to the following submission list site:
www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55
I went through and checked out most of the links and about 20 or so seem promising. This is my first step to getting my blog "out there". This will be in addition to the URL submissions I will make to the main search engines (such as Google, Yahoo, Lycos, Hotbot, etc.) Further, I plan to start reviewing other blogs and forums and leave my "fingerprint" wherever I feel relevant. I will do this for a few days and see if I can build a larger hit count. Stay tuned! (and Happy Easter!)
After some reading and forum study, submitting my blog to some free RSS submission sites seem like a good first start. I was referred to the following submission list site:
www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55
I went through and checked out most of the links and about 20 or so seem promising. This is my first step to getting my blog "out there". This will be in addition to the URL submissions I will make to the main search engines (such as Google, Yahoo, Lycos, Hotbot, etc.) Further, I plan to start reviewing other blogs and forums and leave my "fingerprint" wherever I feel relevant. I will do this for a few days and see if I can build a larger hit count. Stay tuned! (and Happy Easter!)
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Choosing my Affiliate Product
For my second post, I wanted to take a few steps back and discuss the product I chose and why. Over my last few months of affiliate marketing, I have promoted over 2 dozen different products. Of those two dozen, I only had two that ever produced a single sale. Mind you, at the beginning, I was promoting about 3-5 products at a time and really did not focus on a single campaign. My first lesson that I have learned:
* As a beginner, focus on only ONE campaign!
I understand the "draw" to do as many as you can...You come up with a "great idea" or product to promote and play with it for a few days before you think of another "great" one, so you kind of shelve the first one and start the new one. You still follow the older ones, but your focus is really on the latest and greatest. Additionally, you get caught up in the whole notion of "if one sells x, them 10 will sell 10x!" This may be true...in the long run, but not at the beginning.
* A campaign takes TIME and DEDICATION to ever get off the ground.
Before ever starting a second campaign, I would recommend getting the first campaign to start making you money.
The next thing I have learned in the past few months is:
* Know, use and respect the product you plan on promoting.
This may not be the case all the time, but in the initial phases of internet marketing, it is a really good idea! One of the toughest things concerning internet marketing is trying to sell your product through ads and promotion. Writing ads that stand out is not as easy as it seems! If you KNOW your product and LIKE it, it will come out in your ad copy! People will believe you more because your ads appear more believeable (the ads are genuine, not artificial). This is a huge advantage over a lot of the competition! Remember, to get sales, your promotion needs to stand out and be above and beyond everyone else!
Finally,
* Choose a product that pays (initially)
For your first few campaigns, you will probably be focusing on a single product or two. One of my first campaigns focused on Amazon.com products. I was actually getting a few sales here and there, but at a whopping 5% commission, my $50-$100 products were paying me a mere $2.50-$5 per sale. I spent more on promotion than that! I recommend to start with "higher" commission programs (Clickbank is a good place to start). Some eBooks and software products pay up to 75% commissions. This way, you can prosper with fewer sales (rather than relying on a lot of sales).
In conclusion, for my second real venture in affiliate marketing, I chose what I was beginning to know best: Online Money Making products and the eBooks that compliment this genre. I have become quite familiar with many of the eBooks over the past few months and I am quite passionnate about the two that are working for me (Life Empowered and Become Hated). So let's see if I can make these work!
* As a beginner, focus on only ONE campaign!
I understand the "draw" to do as many as you can...You come up with a "great idea" or product to promote and play with it for a few days before you think of another "great" one, so you kind of shelve the first one and start the new one. You still follow the older ones, but your focus is really on the latest and greatest. Additionally, you get caught up in the whole notion of "if one sells x, them 10 will sell 10x!" This may be true...in the long run, but not at the beginning.
* A campaign takes TIME and DEDICATION to ever get off the ground.
Before ever starting a second campaign, I would recommend getting the first campaign to start making you money.
The next thing I have learned in the past few months is:
* Know, use and respect the product you plan on promoting.
This may not be the case all the time, but in the initial phases of internet marketing, it is a really good idea! One of the toughest things concerning internet marketing is trying to sell your product through ads and promotion. Writing ads that stand out is not as easy as it seems! If you KNOW your product and LIKE it, it will come out in your ad copy! People will believe you more because your ads appear more believeable (the ads are genuine, not artificial). This is a huge advantage over a lot of the competition! Remember, to get sales, your promotion needs to stand out and be above and beyond everyone else!
Finally,
* Choose a product that pays (initially)
For your first few campaigns, you will probably be focusing on a single product or two. One of my first campaigns focused on Amazon.com products. I was actually getting a few sales here and there, but at a whopping 5% commission, my $50-$100 products were paying me a mere $2.50-$5 per sale. I spent more on promotion than that! I recommend to start with "higher" commission programs (Clickbank is a good place to start). Some eBooks and software products pay up to 75% commissions. This way, you can prosper with fewer sales (rather than relying on a lot of sales).
In conclusion, for my second real venture in affiliate marketing, I chose what I was beginning to know best: Online Money Making products and the eBooks that compliment this genre. I have become quite familiar with many of the eBooks over the past few months and I am quite passionnate about the two that are working for me (Life Empowered and Become Hated). So let's see if I can make these work!
Friday, April 14, 2006
Welcome to my Blogging Marketing Diary
Welcome to my first blog of many that hopes to share my experiences of internet marketing blogs to all. First, let me introduce myself: My name is Matthew Bredel and I am currently a 31 year old engineer living in San Diego, California. Over the last six months, I have found myself becoming very frustrated with the lack of income I have needed to solely support my family of 4. For this reason, I, like many of you reading this, resorted to the internet to find a "quick and easy" way of making money online. I was not, nor am I going to, quit my day job and I was never looking to make six-figures doing this (at least at this time in my life). Just $1000/month would go a long way! Paid surveys and Affiliate Marketing really stood out to me and I was fairly convinced they were not "scams" after reading a lot of forums and logically, they both made sense.
I first tried Paid Surveys and signed up for every survey under the sun. To be honest, it was not a bad deal! I would get about 1-2 surveys per day and was making on average about $100/week. This was not bad (and it really was not difficult), but it really was not enough. The paid survey program I had joined also had some literature concerning affiliate marketing (not much, but enough to convince me to sign up for a "real" program). After lots of research, I felt most comfortable with John Westbrook's Life Empowered System.
That was about 5 months ago. With the program and a bit of coaching from John himself, I was able to get some business going, primarily through GoogleAd promotion. I still was spending a lot of money on promotion, websites and time. Lately, I have been reading more affiliate marketing program eBooks (and this includes the updated version of the Life Empowered) and all of them (the legitimate ones, at least) seem to focus on one thing: BLOGS!
So this is my goal and my mission right now: To get Blogs to sell! As you may guess, I have chosen to promote two products that I am now fairly familiar with and that I am truly do believe in: Affiliate Marketing eBooks and Paid Survey Sites. During the course of this blog, I want to focus on three things:
1) The Past: How and Why I chose these parts
2) The Present: What is currently going on with this campaign
3) The Future: What is my next step to make money
During the course of my blog, I welcome all comments and suggestions! I really do want this to work and I am willing to bring all of you along for the ride as well! See you in my next blog!
Cheers...matt
I first tried Paid Surveys and signed up for every survey under the sun. To be honest, it was not a bad deal! I would get about 1-2 surveys per day and was making on average about $100/week. This was not bad (and it really was not difficult), but it really was not enough. The paid survey program I had joined also had some literature concerning affiliate marketing (not much, but enough to convince me to sign up for a "real" program). After lots of research, I felt most comfortable with John Westbrook's Life Empowered System.
That was about 5 months ago. With the program and a bit of coaching from John himself, I was able to get some business going, primarily through GoogleAd promotion. I still was spending a lot of money on promotion, websites and time. Lately, I have been reading more affiliate marketing program eBooks (and this includes the updated version of the Life Empowered) and all of them (the legitimate ones, at least) seem to focus on one thing: BLOGS!
So this is my goal and my mission right now: To get Blogs to sell! As you may guess, I have chosen to promote two products that I am now fairly familiar with and that I am truly do believe in: Affiliate Marketing eBooks and Paid Survey Sites. During the course of this blog, I want to focus on three things:
1) The Past: How and Why I chose these parts
2) The Present: What is currently going on with this campaign
3) The Future: What is my next step to make money
During the course of my blog, I welcome all comments and suggestions! I really do want this to work and I am willing to bring all of you along for the ride as well! See you in my next blog!
Cheers...matt
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