Internet and Businesses Articles

It seems at the moment that everybody is telling you that the easiest and quickest way to make money online is with Google Adwords and affiliate programs.

It sounds so easy. You join a programme, get a link, choose a couple of keywords, put up an ad and the money flows. Many have tried and many have failed.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s possible to make money this way and to be very successful. There are many people making $100’s per day from their Adwords campaigns. But those that are successful don’t follow the herd, they think for themselves.

As with all things in life the greater success is found on the ‘road less travelled’ which means if you do what everybody else is doing you will get the results that everybody else is getting. And the fact is that everybody else, or at least the majority, are trying maybe making a little money, getting disheartened and moving on to something else.

We need to be different.

So what does our average money maker do? First he goes to Click Bank and visits the ‘Money & Employment’ category and he selects one of the top 10 products. That is not bad strategy but maybe we should be a little different if we must sell in the making money online space then why don't we find excellent products that aren't available on Click Bank.

A little but a bit of work at Google will uncover a number of directories where we can find products to promote. Or better still why not find out who the top names are in the making money online space and search out their affiliate programs. Yanik Silver, Marlon Sanders & John Reese all operate their own affiliate programs & these guys also have excellent materials that will help you to sell their products.

But even better still we could target a totally different market. There are millions of people spending millions of dollars on things other than how to get rich products. Checkout these links to see what people are searching on this month.

http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html

http://50.lycos.com/

http://buzz.yahoo.com/overall/

Once our Money Maker (MM) has selected the same product to promote as everybody else he then chooses the same keywords as everybody else to bid on at Google. He will type those words into the Keyword tool at Overture or into Adwords Analyzer. Then he will have a big list of the same keywords as everybody else promoting that product.

Do you think there might be a little competition for these keywords? You think those words might be expensive to bid on? You betcha.

What we need to do is think a little differently whatever market we choose there will be competition and if there is no competition it probably means that nobody is spending in this market. We need to think ‘outside of the box’. We need to get inside the minds of the typical buyer of a product. We need to think what related problems they may be having what other things they will be searching for and we need to create our own keyword list.

Finally MM writes one ad, that will show for all his keywords. His ad describes the features of the product. We on the other hand will write an ad highlighting the benefits of the product. All those eyeballs will be attracted to our ‘sizzle, not the sausage’. We will include a call to action.

We will have multiple ad groups separated out into themes, our ads will be relevant to the keywords in the group and we will have two ads for each group so we can see what works and what doesn’t. We will test, test & test some more.

Our success will be found on the road less travelled.

There is still plenty of room in the Adwords pool as long as we are prepared to think for ourselves and not expect a free ride.

Copyright 2004 Darren Power

About The Author

Darren Power is the author of The Money Seed your step by step guide to making money online. You can pick up his free ebooks at http://www.themoneyseed.com. For further free resources related to this article visit http://www.themoneyseed.com/articles.

I have utilized pay-per-click (PPC) advertising since its inception about two years ago. With PPC, the advertiser is only charged when a person actually clicks on their link. The amount you actually pay for each click is referred to as the cost-per-click (CPC). I've got to admit, I was pretty leery at first. But since then I've watched the price of certain search engine keywords skyrocket in excess of $10 per click! The big question isn't how much it costs per click but how many clicks does it take to get an acquisition. I've often asked myself, why would so many companies pay that much money for one single, measly, push of the index finger? The answer is simple - it just works!

HOW TO JUSTIFY $10 PER CLICK

The advent of PPC advertising has changed Internet marketing forever. It represents a free market in much the same way as eBay -- controlled by a natural supply and demand relationship. For a keyword phrase such as “debt consolidation,” the top five advertisers are willing to pay cost-per-click charges of $10.01, $10.00, $9.99, $7.00, and $6.97. My first reaction was, something has to be wrong with this picture - it just can't be! So I looked at the “life insurance” phrase, where the top five range from $7.00 to $3.50. Then there are drugs like “Xenical” that range from $6.76 to $6.74. There are many more examples where the cost-per-click exceeds $6.00, $7.00, or $10.00, but you get the point.

The fact of the matter is that while PPC advertising can work quite well - it can also be a flat out failure. When companies are willing to pay more than $5.00 per click, you can be pretty certain that they have figured out how to make it work - otherwise they wouldn't pay those prices.

THE SELECT FEW

I have seen many situations where PPC will work for one company but not for another in the same industry, using the same keywords. Large and small companies will venture in, bid for a week or two, and then drop out -- never to be heard from again. Some will come in, drive the prices way up then drop back out to obscurity. The select few who are successful have found the secret -- a combination of patience, determination, creativity, keyword selection, management and analysis. They do the math, every day - they manage the bids, every day - they look for new keywords, every day - they analyze the results, every day. It takes a great deal of work to figure out how to make PPC advertising deliver results, and the ones who have are now benefiting - every day.

WHAT IS THE COST OF AN ACQUISITION?

In order to determine if your PPC advertising is justified, the first thing you need to understand is your current acquisition cost - what does it now cost to acquire a new customer or order? It's amazing how few companies know what their cost of acquisition is. To keep it simple, take your total advertising expenditures and divide it by the number of new acquisitions (orders or customers), that should give you a rough estimate of your cost per acquisition. Similarly, after running a PPC campaign for a month, you take the total advertising expenditures divided by the number of acquisitions. Of course, these raw numbers are not burdened by administrative costs, but they still provide an apples-versus-apples comparison.

I have managed PPC campaigns where the average cost-per-click was $0.40 and others where it was $5.00. The key question remains: how many clicks does it take to get an acquisition? If the cost for each click is $0.40 and it takes 200 clicks for an acquisition, then the acquisition cost is $80.00. If the cost for each click is $5.00 and it takes 10 clicks, the cost of the acquisition is $50.00.

FINDING THE GAPS

Two key points are crucial: (1) how much does it cost to get an Internet acquisition compared to traditional methods? and (2) what is the value of a new customer? In some businesses a new customer is worth $1,000, while in others, only $10. Typically, the cost-per-click reflects this value, but since the market is still very small, there are significant gaps. Remember the “debt consolidation” keyword phrase above? The difference between the first and last cost-per-click was about 30%. On the other hand, there is literally no difference between cost-per-click rates for the keyword “Xenical”. From this you may conclude that there is a lot more competition for “Xenical” then there is for “debt consolidation”. The opportunity is between the gaps in the 30% differential example.

The bidding market for keywords is still so new and untapped that it's rare to have more than three competitors fighting over a specific phrase. The gaps in keyword cost-per-click charges such as “debt consolidation” are the norm and represent tremendous opportunities still available in this media. Right now they are plentiful, and for those few people who take the time to understand this important marketing tool, the time to act is NOW!

About The Author

Neal Lebar has proven that Internet marketing can generate returns far greater than traditional media. For more information, visit http://www.innovate-inc.com or e-mail nlebar@innovate-inc.com

As the dust settles and the excitement caused by Google's AdSense gives way to the normal, everyday routines of old, it's time to put some serious thought into how you can "milk this cash cow" on your own web site.

For the past couple months AdSense has dominated forums, discussions, and newsletters all over the Internet. I've heard tales of fabulous riches to be made with AdSense, but up until now I've been admittedly skeptical of placing someone else's ads on my pages.

Why? In short, I didn't like the idea of losing even a single visitor to another site.

The key to success with AdSense is to place your ads on pages that receive high traffic for high demand keywords. The higher the cost-per-click to the advertiser, the more you will receive per click from your site. It doesn't pay to target low cost-per-click keywords and place them on pages that don't receive hits.

Instinctively, my mind drifted to horrible images in which my homepage was buried in little ads promoting other people's services. . .

Then I thought of what's proving to be an excellent idea on my first AdSense page. By placing my first AdSense link on a page that offers free ebooks related to marketing, I successfully blended a mix of two major factors for overall success.

1. Target high traffic pages on your site.
I checked my logs and discovered many of my visitors take advantage of the free affiliate marketing resources and ebooks offered on my site. Hmm...
2. If possible place AdSense links on pages that produce little or better yet, no profit.
By placing AdSense on a free resources page I have drastically reduced the amount of potential customers lost to other sites. Bingo!


End result? A high traffic page producing a minimal amount of revenue. Sounds like a perfect opportunity to pick up some extra cash with AdSense.

This is especially rewarding to informational sites that focus their efforts on delivering powerful affiliate link free content to their visitors. Now they can gain a return on their services.

By no means is AdSense a perfect program, but, I've yet to stumble across a program that didn't have room for improvement in one category or another. My main gripe concerning AdSense is the inability to determine the profitability of a chosen keyword. competitive, high demand keywords will undoubtedly generate larger commissions, but the exact number is withheld by the big 'G'.

Google promises to update AdSense frequently, tweaking and polishing in order to maintain their 'squeaky-clean' image. Who knows, maybe some day we'll see AdSense add a 2nd tier? Can you imagine the smiles on the faces of webmasters around the world as they sign sub-affiliates and double, triple, quadruple etc... the amount they earn from AdSense!

One particularly handy feature available with AdSense is the ability to filter out up to 200 urls. This gives you the option of 'blocking' spammy low value offers from your pages as well as competitors to your site.

The possibilities are limitless, yet looming on the edge of my consciousness is the fear that one day someone will find a way to exploit this 'golden goose' and force Google to crack down (much like the pay-per-click affiliate programs of old.). For now they enforce a strict anti-spamming policy, anyone found to be spamming their own links or abusing AdSense by other means will find their AdSense privileges terminated. My advice is quite simple...

Hop on the AdSense bandwagon while you can at: http://www.google.com/adsense

About The Author ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A complete explanation of how you can make money with AdSense can be found at:

http://www.smokesoft.net/adsense.html

Adam Buhler is the author of the Internet Marketing newsletter Affiliate Secrets.

He is offering a free trial copy of what's being called the BIBLE of selling on

the net, "Make Your Site SELL!" for a limited time to anyone who subscribes at:

http://www.smokesoft.net/newsletter.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This article may be reprinted for use in newsletters or websites provided the

resource box is kept intact. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated

but not required: adam@smokesoft.net

adam@smokesoft.net

PTRE stands for Paid To Read Email programs. Online companies that pay you to read email that they send to you. You get paid when you click a link in the email and visit the site that they’re advertising, usually for a set amount of time.

Here are steps you should take before joining a PTRE program:

* Check the Programs Terms - Some PTRE programs don’t pay until you accumulate $200. It’s unlikely you’ll ever reach that amount, especially with what some of these companies are paying per email read. I personally don’t join a program that’s payout minimum is higher than $10, unless they offer bonuses. You’ll also find what countries they’ll allow you to join from.
* Signup Bonus - Do they offer you a sign up bonus when you first join? This can be important, especially if their payout minimum is high. Some companies will either offer a signup bonus or a referral bonus of a set amount.
* Categories – When you sign up do they offer to send you emails to categories you’re interested in. Most programs allow you to pick from a list of categories that they want to receive emails about.
* Payment Per Email Read - Realistically you can earn between .025 and 3 cents per email link. Many programs will offer to pay you more, but never do or if they do you’ll only get one email per month from them. Programs will often send more than one link advertisement per email and/or a few emails to you per day.
* Point Emails - Most programs also offer you points to read emails. Points are usually redeemable for advertising on the programs site and/or entries to win prizes.
* Referrals - See how much commission you’ll make on the people you refer to the PTRE program. Also see how many levels deep their referral program goes. Referrals do help, but be realistic on how much you’ll earn on your downline.
* Payouts - Most PTRE programs offer you advertisement options before you reach the cash out level. In other words, if the minimum cash payout level is $10 you can often redeem $2 for an ad campaign on their site.
* Advertising - Whether you pay cash or use your points to advertise on a PTRE site it’s a good investment. Most programs offer targeted advertising. The people that receive your ad have requested the category your offer belongs to. You can also track your stats to see how well your campaign did.

Here are 3 other ways PTRE programs also offer to make you some money:

1. Paid To Search - Get paid to search from the programs site or from search sites their affiliated with. Many times you’ll receive paid search links in your email.
2. Paid To Click - Get paid to click on banners and/or links in the programs paid to click section. You usually have to stay on the visited site for a set time to receive credit (an average of 30 seconds).
3. Paid To Join – Offering a set amount of money for you to join programs, services, newsletters and other related offers. Some programs even pay you a commission to shop from their site.

You won’t get rich with PTRE programs, but you can earn a few bucks, plus quality advertising for your site. Just make sure you don’t get carried away and join too many programs or you’ll be clicking emails for an hour a day.

For a list of quality PTRE programs with full descriptions visit http://www.links2see.com/email.html

About The Author

Kristian Pulz is the owner of http://www.Links2See.com an online family directory and http://www.barterNsave.com a direct partner of the First Barter Network. He can be reached at webmaster@links2see.com

Google Adwords is a very good place to promote your business on the Internet. It allows you to target for specific keywords, allowing you to to promote right product to the right audiences.

However, as more and more players promote their ads on Adwords, it becomes very hard to get your ads noticed. Here's are 5 ways how to make your ads outshine your competitors':

1- Use the keyword in your ad title

Let's say you're bidding on the keyword 'ecover software', make sure you use the keyword in the title. When someone search on Google for 'ecover software', the percentage they'll see your ad is higher because the keyword in your ad will appear in bold.

2- Use capitalization

Use capital letter on the first letter of every word. Instead of writing your ad like this: 'make money from home', try this 'Make Money From Home'.

3- Use numbers wherever possible

People love numbers. Instead of: 'Make Money From Home', you can try 'Make $897 Weekly From Home'.

4- Benefits, benefits, benefits

People look for product that can solve their problem. So your ad must use words that emphasize more on benefits. Instead of saying 'our ecover software is the best', you can say 'Create Amazing eCover With A Single Click'.

5- Don't put affiliate status anymore

In the past Google required marketers who promote affiliate products to mention their affiliate status. But with the recent Adwords policy, you don't have to. Delete the word 'aff' and use the extra space for other words. Besides, by hiding your affiliate status, this will encourage more people to click on your link.

Fairuz Talib recently discovered several website traffic building strategies that work. If your traffic strategies suck, you should try his methods. They are available at http://www.7DollarTraffic.com

What are pay per click engines?

Pay per click engines as the name suggests, webmasters have to pay a fee for each click coming from search engine results. Depending on how much the person bids for a keyword over his competitor his website will be positioned in the search engine results.

How pay per click search engines work?

For example if a webmaster bids $0.07 on the term 'tennis shoes'. If no other webmaster bids more than this, he will stay in 1st position. If second webmaster bids $0.08, then second one goes to 1st position. Basically this is like auction procedure for No.1 position.

So what are SIX Golden tips to work with Pay per click search engines?

RULE No. 1: Keywords:

Select your keywords carefully so that every keyword reflects your product. General keywords bring general public.

For example if you are offering search engine optimization service to webmasters, 'search engine' will be a general keyword for you. 'search engine optimization' , 'good search engine ranking' etc,. will be your good target keywords.

Another thing you have to remember is targeting your keywords. Like any geographical locaton specific to your product or any specific language...Some search engines like Google offer this feature to target the keywords based on the countries and language.

RULE No. 2: Write a compelling ad:

Most of the times the pay per click search engine services limits your ad characters and length. So try to keep the keyword in the ad headline and the body.

By doing so, you will get higher click thrus for tha ads. This will be very useful with Google, which determines your position not only by your bidding amount but also click thru ratio. Google editors won't allow you to use keyword more than once in your ad. It is to make use of your ad space more efficiently.

See the example below-

"Ebay ebook: Every thing about How to make money on ebay! An Easy to follow Guide!!"

"Ebay ebook that Stands in numder ONE position in Clickbank Market place as a Top Seller. See the Proof!"

Certainly anybody can say that the second one pulls traffic than the first ad.

Try different ones and see what pulls more traffic for you. Check your spelling and grammer twice before submitting your ads.

RULE No. 3: Don't enter in to Bidding war:

Keep an eye on your Return on Investment. (ROI) It is not that easy to resist the temptation of being number one on pay per click engine listings especially for the beginners. Always decide an amount how much you are going to spend on advertising campaigns. Depending on that devide certain percentage to PPCs.

With reasonable bidding amount you can get good amount of traffic from PPCs.

RULE No. 4: Monitor your bidding amount:

Most of the people bid once and don't remember about it for weeks. Monitor your bid amount after logging in to your accounts. Do this atleast once in every 4-7 days.

For example, If you go to overture.com and search for some of the the keywords, you can find the first positions paying $0.87, $0.85, 0.35 for the first three rankings. Don't you see who will be benefited by this? You can get the first and second position for $0.37 and $0.36 respectively.

So always keep an eye on your bidding amount.

RULE No. 5: Landing page:

After clicking on your link and coming to your website, don't let them search for the product for which they came to your site. Directly landing on the product page is always a good idea and saves lot of your visitor's time.

RULE No.6: Track your results:

Put some source code at the end of URL. Or submit different landing page for your product. So people coming to that URL can be tracked through a good weblogger. More on tracking your ad campaigns is at: http://www.webmasters-central.com/wprofits/tracking.shtml

About The Author

Radhika Venkata

Subscribe to 'EbookBiz Magazine' which is completely focused on ebook business and Internet Marketing. Receive FREE Ebooks with Resale rights every month!

http://www.ebooks-world.com/freetosell.shtml

Webmaster Resources: List Your product, ezine or web site free!

http://www.webmasters-central.com/

Not getting the satisfaction you want from your AdWords account? Want to make more money by spending less?

Google AdWords has made many businesses successful by providing them with a great deal of highly targeted traffic for as little as 5 cents! Yet many webmasters and advertisers are incompetent when it comes to using AdWords efficiently. After $100 in losses and having many failed campaigns, I have learned how to solve many of these setbacks, so I have put together a list of the 4 steps required to come out on top.

1. Design

Decide how the layout of your ad will present itself. Next consider what you want to be included in the title and what facts or catch phrases you want your visitor to know before they decide to spend your money by clicking on your advertisement. Don’t be a fool and get your ad disabled, please be sure to follow all of Google's rules and regulations on there editorial guidelines page.

Many computer owners are just learning how to purchase using the miracle of the internet and even more people do not understand that when they click on those Google ad’s they are spending someone’s money just by clicking on it. They also don’t understand that most of the pages that they are going to be clicking on are product pages trying to sell them something. Many aren’t even interested in spending any money no matter how convincing your sales pitch can be. Though, this depends on what they are searching for. To avoid this simply yet destructive problem merely put the price of your product directly into your ad.

2. Brainstorm

This is where my downfall began, I selected few keywords and in turn received little traffic, and the traffic I did receive was very expensive! To avoid this start off by taking the position of your possible customer. If you were searching for the product that you sell, what would you, as a customer search for? Do that now and make a list of as many search phrases and keywords you can think of. Don’t be afraid to use Google’s keyword tool, though I found that this isn’t too helpful.

After you squeezed out as many words you can, glance over them and determine what words and phrases can be combined to form a new one. Simply come up with as many words as possible, once you get started its easy and you should come out with around 250 keywords. Review this list and delete some of the keywords that are “out there” and wouldn’t produce targeted traffic.

3. Optimize

Never waste your money using Google’s suggested cost per click; it is 10 times higher than necessary. Many advertisers do not understand that there click through rate effects there position to the same degree with how much they pay per click. To make this easier to understand here is an example: if you pay 5 cents per click for the phrase “shopping cart” and your competition pays 10 cents and has a click through rate of .5%, to surpass this person in position you need to double your click through rate to anything above 1% yet you are still paying half of what he is! For keywords that are less targeted to your product or purpose yet still effective I suggest pricing them to nearly half that of highly targeted keywords for a rule of thumb.

Now that all your keywords and pricing is in place, set your daily budget lower than you plan on spending per day for now, this way incase it’s a failure you don’t lose that much. Let your campaign run for a few days, but before you do make sure you set up conversion tracking. Watch what keywords perform well and convert to conversions, and delete the ones that cost you nothing but money. If at first you don’t succeed try try again.

4. Experiment

As you watch the performance of your keywords and Ad groups you should continue to try new things. Change one word in your ad and compare the results to previous, trust me one word can and will make the difference; whether positive or negative that is for you to discover! If you are having trouble finding an ad that gets enough clicks to avoid being disabled brainstorm again and create as many ads as possible, even if they are terrible they will give you new ideas. Pick your favorite three and create a new ad group while comparing the results to your other ad groups.

If you do not find success after following all of these steps, what you’re doing isn’t wrong it’s what you’re trying to sell. To determine if your product is assured to fail ask your self this question: is this product helping someone or is it just another great idea? Chances are if it’s a great idea people aren’t searching for it, or in desperate need of it.

Continue to track and modify your keywords and Ad groups while watching your sales and popularity excel!

Written by: Michael McLaughlin at http://www.webmastershed.com – webmaster forum, for more articles by this author please visit: http://www.webmastershed.com/articles

Why do people search on search engines? Let’s confess this seems like a basic question, right? People search because they are looking for something. Complicating that question are these questions. For what are they looking? Why are they searching? What compels them to act?

Plus, how does all of this relate to Internet and pay-per-click marketing?

Let’s reason that searches can be broken down into two classifications: factual and emotional. Factual or informational searches occur as people look for general facts and information about a particular subject matter. Findings from this type of search may or may not cause the person searching to respond or act.

Here’s a fact or truth for you. Human needs and feelings drive emotional searches. When a person's emotions are activated, an individual is more likely to respond to gathered information by taking action. So, where does this awareness lead us and how can we relate it to Internet and pay-per-click marketing?

People search for three reasons:

• To gather facts or information, an informational search.

• To satisfy a need or desire, an emotional search.

• To solve a problem, an emotional search.

Did you catch those three reasons? You may not realize it, but these three reasons will be the keys to effective pay-per-click ad copy and ad click-through and conversion success.

Let’s now review a typical search process. Suppose you’re contemplating buying a personal digital assistant (PDA). First, you search the Internet for product selections. After locating suitable options, you search for product reviews to determine the most appropriate choice. After narrowing your choice to one or two PDA’s, you search for product sources, prices and availability. As you continue searching, you gradually become emotionally involved as the fine points draw you further into the process. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have continued searching for more details.

At some point, the motive for your search changed from informational to emotional. Why did you look for a PDA to begin with? Oh, you are stressed. Your daily life is chaotic! You have a time management and organizational problem and you perceive a personal digital assistant may solve it. Emotional elements were under the surface of your search all along!

Very simply, two things can happen in a search engine search. The search initiates as a fact-finding task and at some point the factual search transcends to an emotional level. Or, the search commences to fulfill an emotional desire or to solve a problem causing emotional discomfort. The more emotionally involved a person becomes, the more likely he or she is to respond or act by converting the search into the acquisition of a product or service.

As a smart Internet or pay-per-click marketer, you should apply this insight to reach your target audience. Consequently, you capture your target market by satisfying emotional needs or solving emotional problems. You begin by utilizing targeted keywords and targeted ad text. Consider what the following words or word pairs denote: learn, tip, help, solution, idea, how to, how would, discover. They express an ability to identify and solve a problem.

Let’s now take a moment to summarize the first secret or fact of Internet and pay-per-click marketing:

You must understand that people who “search and convert” are emotionally driven to satisfy a need or solve a problem and you must target your keywords and ad text with emotional content to motivate action.

Let’s confess this lesson may seem as basic as Marketing 101. However, many savvy business owners miss what may not be as obvious as one would think. Take a look at some ads on Overture or Google AdWords. You’ll be surprised to learn how many misinformed advertisers are wasting money!

About the Author

Chet Childers is a successful Internet marketer utilizing the power and quick response of pay-per-click marketing to increase website visibility and profitability. Click http://www.ThePayPerClickMarketer.com and enroll in our e-course, "Discover Tips and Secrets for Pay-Per-Click Marketing Success," or visit http://www.ChetChilders.com.

Because of increasing competition that has led to higher advertising costs with pay-per-click marketing, many battle-scarred - “do-it-yourself” – businesses have not realized their desired objectives. Although publicized as a straightforward, self-service marketing tool, pay-per-marketing involves far more knowledge than most businesses are able to invest in developing in-house. Faced with a moderately or less performing pay-per-click marketing program and the pressure to allocate resources elsewhere, many businesses choose to drop their pay-per-click marketing entirely – leaving a vast potential of sales for their competitors to harvest.

If you face pay-per-click marketing challenges, before you decide to drop the program, try these proven strategies to get it producing your desired results.

Discover These Proven Strategies to Produce Quick Results.

A. Keyword-Level Tracking

Track your pay-per-click marketing at the keyword-level – referred to as the “root”. For pay-per-click marketing, it is essential that you know your “per click” results from the money you have spent.

For example, if you have 1,000 keywords active in your pay-per-click marketing program and you spend a total of $3,000 a month – do you know which of the 1,000 keywords produce the best results?

What if 80% of your sales stem from 20% of your keywords? Moreover, what if this 20% accounted for just a small percentage of your $3,000 monthly cost? If you do not have keyword-level tracking you will not be able to make these financially beneficial assessments. Time-tested experience shows that the 80/20 rule applies to pay-per-click marketing.

Does the 80/20 rule apply to your pay-per-click marketing? Get keyword-level tracking.

But Beware of Matching Options!

Although matching options (i.e. broad, advanced, exact, phrase and so on) offered by Google Adwords, Overture and other pay-per-click search engines provide “convenience” they unfortunately skew your keyword performance results.

If you setup a “broad-match” for the keyword “real estate”, you will attract visitors who have entered any possible variation of the term “real estate” including geographically specific “real estate” keywords that may have absolutely no relevance to your product or service.

Here is a scenario where matching options skew your results…

You generate $1,000 in revenue from the broad-match keyword, “real estate” yet the total click cost for it exceeds revenue and because of the keyword’s negative return, you label it as a poor performing keyword.

What if the majority of the click cost originated from irrelevant, broad-match keyword variations like “Louisiana real estate” - while one variation, “real estate strategy” generated all of the revenue? By identifying this keyword (hard to do in a broad-match environment so rely on your web stats program), taking this one keyword and isolating it as an exact term you will reduce your total click cost while continuing to generate the same revenues.

How are your broad-match keywords performing? Isolate keywords to save click costs and to regulate individual keyword performance.

B. Landing Page Development

Pay-per-click marketing is unique compared to other mainstream forms of online marketing. In part because marketers have the opportunity to select specific keywords, write specific ads and direct the click-through to a specific web page. This “connect-the-dots” structure creates the need to develop consistency among the visitor’s expectation from the keyword they enter to the ad that draws their attention and down to the web page, they “land-on”. Relevancy and consistency are essential for an effective pay-per-click marketing program.

One of the reportedly major reasons why pay-per-click marketing programs fall short of their intended goal is because businesses direct all of their click-throughs to their home page. Since most businesses’ home pages are designed to serve mutliple audiences (i.e. media relations, investors, current clients, potential prospects, customer services, etc.) they do not provide the level of relevancy and consistency expected from the visitor to get them to act confidently.

What in the Virtual World are Landing Pages?

Landing pages are simply web pages designed specifically for a keyword or related group of keywords. They are highly relevant to the keyword searched and consistent with the ad’s claim. They immediately focus a visitor’s attention to a primary call-to-action (most wanted response). In essence – landing pages ask your visitors to take an action.

If your pay-per-click marketing is not living up to your expectations, consider which web pages you are sending visitors to. Are they relevant and consistent with your pay-per-click ads and keywords? Do they offer too many calls-to-action? Do they “fit” the expectations of the visitor searching on the particular keyword?

For example, are you sending a visitor searching on the keyword “Sony LCD TV” to a web page with twenty varieties of electronic products? An effectively designed landing page would present the visitor a “Sony LCD TV” with customer benefit oriented copy, an immediate “buy now” call to action and all applicable guarantee, shipping, customer service and return policies.

Make it Easy for Your Visitors and they will Reward You with Sales.

C. Keyword Selection

Keyword selection is important. The keywords you select provide access to “pools” of visitors at different stages in their buying cycle. By selecting the right keywords for your products or services, you can open a completely new market of ready-to-buy visitors.

Make sure that you thoroughly canvass your marketplace using strategies such as:

• Your competitors’ websites

• Your website’s copy

• Third-party tools – Overture’s Suggestion Tool, WordTracker, and others

• Your website metrics program (look for “natural search engine” keyword phrases)

• Search engines like Ask Jeeves or Alta Vista (who suggest keyword variations)

Most importantly, “THINK” about your potential customers and what direct or indirect keywords they may use to find your products or services. Never give up searching for new keywords to setup and test. Both seasonal and even weekday keyword performance fluctuations should be analyzed and studied in addition to potential associations people make to find your products and services.

What about you - have you selected the right keywords?

D. Bidding Strategies

All pay-per-click search engines possess unique bidding nuances. However, for the two largest, Google Adwords and Overture do not become fixated on the top bid position. Test how each keyword performs against your website’s sales or lead conversion metrics up to the seventh bid position.

Depending on your product or service, you may be amazed how bid position six attracts less click-throughs but produces greater sales or lead conversion on your website. Or maybe position four generates better conversion. Regardless - test, test and test – the outcome may mean lower costs and higher sales conversions for you.

Consider this New Update in Your Bid Strategy.

Are you aware that recently Overture’s top partners, MSN and Yahoo, opened their results to up to eight “sponsor results” or paid ads on the first page? In some cases, the fourth and fifth or fifth and sixth positions will show at the bottom of the first results page and again at the top, right margin of the first results page – in essence two ads for the price of one.

Do not be lured into competing for the first place position instead keep an eye on your keyword performance (via your keyword-level tracking) and occupy whichever position provides the best sales or lead conversion.

E. Writing Effective Ads

Finally, always test different ads by interchanging words in the title and description. For Google Adwords, try split-testing two different titles and descriptions and add a unique tracking code to each one so you can identify which one causes the best sales conversion increase. Notice that I did not state, “the best “click-through rate increase”. Why? Because “a lot of nothing” (i.e. a lot of traffic without sales or lead conversion) is not a financially effective strategy. Consider that even a single word change on your ad can create a significant jump to your sales or lead conversion rate.

Follow these strategies to boost your pay-per-click marketing results today. Good Producing!

Kevin Gold is a Partner and Co-founder of Enhanced Concepts, Inc., which specializes in turning website visitors into leads or sales through tested website conversion strategies and performance-focused search engine marketing. To learn how to generate greater performance from your search engine marketing and to turn more website visitors into leads and sales go to http://www.enhancedconcepts.com

Here’s a fact for you, 85 to 95% of Websites are found through a search engine. You may have the most incredible Website on the Internet, but it will receive little or no traffic without search engine visibility and ranking. Can you imagine a billboard in the Sahara desert? Who sees it?

So, how will searchers find your website? What types of search engines could they use?

Search engines fall into two categories. The first is referred to as natural, organic or standard. The second is called pay-per-click, paid inclusion or paid placement.

Natural, organic and standard are interchangeable terms describing a search engine that bases its search rankings on a ranking algorithm. The algorithms involve a number of criteria and parameters, all relating to the content of the website, the website’s size, the number of incoming links to the website, and the content’s relevancy. You will hear terms such as keyword relevancy and keyword density to describe various components of the algorithms.

For the standard search engines, you, your webmaster or hired search engine optimization specialist could spend considerable time optimizing your website to achieve top rankings. The goal is for your website to appear on the first or second page of the search engines’ results when your target user searches keywords or keyword phrases.

The good news is rankings on standard search engines are free. The downside is the tremendous amount of time and effort required to achieve exceptional search engine rankings. Let’s confess to each other that top rankings on standard search engines can be tough and timely to achieve!

The interchangeable terms pay-per-click, paid inclusion or paid placement describe a search engine that bases its search rankings on a "bid for position" basis. Simply stated, you "bid" a price to be in a specific position of the search rankings for a particular search keyword or keyword phrase. For example, the #1 position on the search phrase "pay per click" recently required a bid of $3.55 per click, whereas the 15th position required only a bid of 55 cents. As a result, your differential website advertising costs between position #1 and #15 can be considerable.

With pay-per-click search engines, your ability to bid high can dramatically impact your website's search engine ranking when the search results display website domain names or URL's for the search keyword or keyword phrase. The benefit is your website gains visibility with the searcher, but you are not charged the pay-per-click "bid" until a searcher actually clicks on your website domain name or URL displayed in the search engine results. The selection of your website in the search engine results is called a click-through.

In general, click-through rates range from 1% to 5% of the number of impressions. What is all of this? A click is when a searcher selects or "clicks" your pay-per-click ad. An impression is one display of your pay-per-click ad on the search engine results. So, the click-through rate is a measure of the total number of ad clicks versus the total number of impressions in a period of time:

Click-Through Rate % = Total Number of Ad Clicks / Total Number of Ad Impressions * 100

Let's do the math for our #1 position bid of $3.55 per click. In September, 2004 there were 21,535 searches for "pay per click." First, let’s assume a 1% click-through rate. The top bidder spent $764.49 (21,535 * 1% * $3.55). Now, at a 5% click-through rate the top bidder spent $3,822.45 (21,535 * 5% * $3.55). Budgeting and controlling marketing expenses with such a broad range of potential costs could be tough. Plus, such costs could be the tip of the iceberg. We still must consider derivatives of the keyword or keyword phrase. So, was being #1 worthwhile? That depends on your website’s cost per visitor, conversion rate and profit margin of your product or service.

From what we’ve covered so far, you should realize you can achieve a top or high ranking through the pay-per-click search engine. But, a high ranking will cost money and these costs can be volatile. Meanwhile, the standard search engine remains free.

However, pay-per-click offers one significant advantage. It enables you to achieve website visibility with a high ranking instantaneously or overnight. If you want to draw traffic to your website fast for any reason, pay-per-click can make that happen. Remember, maximizing the standard search engine process takes time!

Let’s summarize the pros and cons of pay-per-click marketing:

Pros

• Improves your website’s ranking and traffic quickly.

• Tests the marketability of your product or service swiftly.

• Determines the ability of your web site to convert visitors to a call to action or make a purchase promptly.

• Identifies which keyword phrases will provide the best conversion rate rapidly.

• Provides complete control of the search engine campaign, both position and cost.

Cons

• Cost

Many individuals criticize pay-per-click because of the costs involved. But, have you really thought about the cost issue? Unless you or someone in your organization has expertise in search engine optimization, you’ll probably pay several thousand dollars in fees to a search engine optimization specialist to improve and optimize your website to achieve higher rankings in the standard search engines. So, my question to you is. Are the standard search engine rankings really free?

At the end of the standard versus pay-per-click search engine debate, it’s like the old saying, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” Or, it’s like the old commercial, “You can pay me now or you can pay me later.” The reality of the debate is you must evaluate your specific website situation and utilize the search engine approach that maximizes your website promotion goals and investment.

About the Author

Chet Childers is a successful Internet marketer utilizing the power and quick response of pay-per-click marketing to increase website visibility and profitability. Click http://www.ThePayPerClickMarketer.com and enroll in our e-course, "Discover Tips and Secrets for Pay-Per-Click Marketing Success," or visit http://www.ChetChilders.com.

Is it wise only to reley on traffic from the search engines, or should you use all kind of options to brand a domain name?

How good is the ROI (return of investment) & what can you expect from different traffic techniques?

* .5 - 1.5% banner clickthrue

* 1.2 - 2.5 newsletter

* 1.5% TV spots

* 1.9% from your own 404 error page

* 4.4% Advertising write article

* 3 - 5% PPC Google adwords

* 15 - 20% Word of mouth

* 20% various surfing

* 45% Search Ingines

Personaly I prefer traffic from the Search Engines, because keyword research make sense and better ROI and I think you have some sort of control if you know how to make optimized mini-site with good content, compelling punchlines/titles with keyword-rich text.

Yes, we all know that backlinks is important toward "Google Rank" but it will take you hour's of valuable time to build a safe link structure & to many reciprocal links on one site can be a problem according to Googles algoritm.

One-way link is the best link you ever can dream of because normally those link comes from peoble who think your content is awesome and want to give you a vote.

Remember if you are allowed to place a "one-way link" somewhere on the web, to fill in your best keyword phrase in the anchor link text.

ex:
<a target="_new" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.your-domain.com">keyword phrase </a>

On the other hand if you need to pay for "targeted traffic" what is the price and do you gain the best ROI or get ripped off.

My conclution is that "Word of Mouth" and turning words into traffic is the best free ride you ever get.

You have to know which keyword provide the best return because keyword research make sense if you wanna have more targeted traffic and better web site ROI

Know which keywords provide the best returns

* Kim Anton Hollenner
* SEO Advisor ™

Businesses are starting to look closely at the long-term benefits from pay per click advertising. Pay per click search engines are primarily used for sales in the now time frame, but they are also being used to build a business identity that their customers will remember. This form of brand awareness can be applied to a company of any size, large or small.

If you take a look at a traditional magazine or newspaper ad, the companies are using that advertising to increase their brand awareness. The purpose of the ad is to direct the customer to their products or services but there is no chance to make a sale immediately. They are referred to a website or a retailer.

When search engine advertising, as potential customers search the web looking for a product or service and see the same site come up in their searches time and time again it begins to create that same brand awareness for that product or service.

Over 85% of all searches on the Internet are done through search engines and they are the best tools for enhancing a company’s identity. They are identity builders, and they direct targeted consumers who are looking for your product or service right to your doorstep.

In the long term, brand awareness can bring visitors to their site without additional advertising. By using the power of search engines you can use the Internet to deliver a targeted prospective customer who is actively looking for your products or services right to your doorstep and build long term brand awareness at the same time.

About The Author

Kevin OHara Pres. & CEO buzzseek.com

kevin54321@optonline.net

Google announced in January 2005 significant changes in their popular AdWords Pay-per-Click System (PPC). In future only unique URLs per page will be displayed. If several advertisers uses the same URL (i.e affiliates of the same program), only the one with the best Ad will be displayed.

It is obvious that Google is trying to maximize the diversity in their AdWords results. Very popular Affiliate Programs, like Amazon.com, lead to hundreds of affiliates showing the same product with different Ads. For the affiliates using this system the "easy way to get money with affiliate programs" is now over, since it will be practically impossible to advertise just the affiliate link. Significant more effort, but also significant changes are the consequence.

The following tips can help you to get maximum benefit of your AdWords Campaigns.

1) Build your own unique "landing page" for your product. Remember that 99% of Internet users are looking for Information and thus, expect unique content from your side. Include Product pictures, Product reviews and interesting content related with your product. Use illustrative images of your product, trying to keep the load time of your "landing page" low.

2) Include a form allowing the visitor to enter his/her e-mail address in order to get more information about the product or service you are selling. Do not sell, pre-sell. Try to build a long term "trused relationship" with your visitor. Offer free gifts or freebies to motivate your visitor to enter his/her e-mail address. Of course, consider this information confidentially. Use an autoresponder to follow-up your potential customer. You could dedicate one e-mail to describe your product or service in detail, enhancing the value for your potential customer. Explain why this product or service will add value.

3) User Ad Groups to manage "keyword families". Each Ad Group should be dedicated only to one Keyword family, i.e. all variants of a Keyword choosen to advertise your product. Example, if your Keyword is "shoes", try a Ad Group with "Blue Shoes", "Red Shoes", "Mountain shoes" and so on. Use Wordtracker.com to find Keyword families. Use a high number of negative keywords to avoids clicks with no sales (i.e. -free to prevent freebies seekers to click on your ad). With the time, create a good number of selected negative keywords for your campaign.

4) Include in the text of your Ad the Keyword choosen in 3) This (key)word will be printed highlighted and will lead to a higher CTR (Click Thru Rate), lowering your costs.

5) Include in the text of your Ad a line for the Benefit of your Product, i.e. Discount, short term opportunity. Explain in few words why the customer should click your Ad.

6) Mention explicitely the price of your product or service. This will prevent freebies seekers to click on your Ad and generate costs and no sales

7) Create at least 20 different Ad versions per Keyword Group. Monitor the CTR of each ad and finally delete all versions with low CTR, keeping the most successful Ad versions. Experts create usually hundred of variations. Experiment, test, evaluate, change and keep only the best results.

8) Exclude the "content search" option to reach highly targeted traffic. Only in the case you have an amazing conversion rate, activate this option to maximize your profits.

9) Calculate the value per visitor on a regular basis. Just divide the achieved earnings in a given period (i.e. weekly) thru the clicks in the same period. This is your maxium CPC (Cost per Click). Adjust your maximum bid accordingly. Try to maximize profits, not just to lower the CPC.

10) Track your ads carefully. Google provides a tracking facility you can ad in your "thank you" page after each sale. Monitor closely which keywords convert and which not. Delete Keywords which obviously do not convert.

If you monitor your Ads on a regular basis and take care of the topics mentioned here, you may have a great benefit also from the new system used by Google. Try to differentiate yourself with high quality and content from your competition and enjoy your profits!

Alex Timaios is an international Internet Marketer. He is the publisher of the the Ezine "Marketing Tips that Empower Success" http://www.101homebiz.com/MarketingTips

You may already have heard of this method to get people to your web site. From my point of view and experience it turns out to be expensive and you have to write the ads yourself, pay for them, and change and maintain them to be the correct ones to work and be the right price in competition with many others.

When people search for a particular topic like healing a headache or other malady, they will see in the column to the right an ad that when clicked on takes the person to their web site selling the book or service on healing headaches.

Advertisers pay a set amount for every time the ad is clicked by a prospect. This is referred to as a click through rate or ctr.

Yes, there are benefits: The opportunity to place your ad directly in front of a prospect at the exact moment they are searching for your product or service is good.

More benefits include your control over the keywords that best represent your product. The PPC model allows you to decide how much you are willing to pay per customer. You only pay for the click throughs, and these are your targeted audience seeking your solutions.

After using Overture and being disappointed, while doing a Google search recently, I noticed the small sponsored ads on the right hand side of the page were a type of pay per click called Google Adwords. I do know people who are successful with this company.

While this search generates targeted website traffic, the downside? You have to study what key words work best, and the best ones are much more expensive than other ones.
The popularity and growth of pay per click had also made it expensive.

The Horror Stories of Pay Per Click

Story One. One submitter got hooked because it was fast, exciting and easy.

Within days of learning about pay per click, she was generating 1,000 clicks per day to her various campaigns. She thought she was seeing success in pay per click.

In the early days of ppc, that may have been true because bids on popular keywords were just pennies a click. When her popular keywords were around $1 dollar per click, she actually lost $100’s of dollars per day. Along with that, her keys words got disabled and were disapproved.

Where were the sales? At the end of the first week, her adwords produced only $75 from over 5000 adwords. Count the loss!

You can shorten your learning curve if you like by taking a course in adwords, but you can just as well take a teleclass from a respected internet marketing coach who knows all of the ins and outs and do what’s already tried and true—as in this book. If you want to be more successful, go to Adwords-Hints.com/pay-per-click. Find tools for keyword analyzing, lowering costs and increasing click throughs. http://tinyurl.com/5nb46

Story two. One web-savvy friend used ppc ads in Google for a set of how to video for building a motorcycle, then a race car. Her sales were affiliate ones. At first, she invested $4000 and got back $7000 one month, but when more competition entered the field, her sales were not high enough for her efforts.

Story three One health author put a short ad in Google for a diet to heal a specific disease and her solutions. She said she sold 4,000 books within months that only cost her $400 in ads. Her ad led straight to her book’s sales letter.

This success story shows that if your book is narrow enough in its focus, you may want to try ads because there won’t be any competition, but if you have a general personal growth or business book, you will have to pay too much per key word to make any real money.

Story four. Although I already was successful with internet promotion, I thought I should try the Overture pay per click program. My web master helped me and charged me about $350. She did take care of the changes for a while, but then I had to do it myself. Using www.goodkeywords.com helped a bit. The less expensive key words didn’t work, and the more expensive cost too much. After losing around $800 I let go.

You may want to learn the lesson yourself, or you may want to invest far less money in ongoing internet promotion that is already tried and true over many years.

Judy Cullins ©2005 All Rights Reserved.

Judy Cullins, 20-year Book and Internet Marketing Coach works with small business people who want to make a difference in people's lives, build their credibility and clients, and make a consistent life-long income. Author of 10 eBooks including "Write your eBook Fast," "The Fast and Cheap Way to Explode Targeted Web Traffic," and "Create your Web Site With Marketing Pizzazz," she offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, "The BookCoach Says..." and "Business Tip of the Month" at http://www.bookcoaching.com/opt-in.shtml and over 165 free articles. Email her at mailto:Judy@bookcoaching.com.

Pay per click marketing is one of the simplest and fastest ways of sending targeted traffic to any website. Whether you are trying to send visitors to your own website, sell a product online, or build an opt in email list, pay per click marketing has been a guaranteed way to see instant traffic results.

But there is one major problem with pay per click marketing that many individuals have. This problem has been a recurring problem for the past 5 years and it’s getting worse every minute of the day. This problem involves the over excessive cost and non-profitability that occurs when marketing through pay per click search engines. Many marketers deplete their income extremely fast when marketing online through pay per click engines. They set up a pay per click campaign, and within 24 hours , all of their money is drained with no sales, and no leads gained at all. After having this occur, the marketer ends up giving up on pay per click marketing and establishes in his heart that pay per click advertising is the most unprofitable form of advertising on the web today.

This scenario occurs every single day and many marketers give up on marketing their websites because of these tragic results. I was one of these individuals. I spent countless dollars on paid advertising solutions like pay per click search engines and I set up in my heart that I was never going to pay for advertising again. If you lost over $500 in one day from a paid advertising method like pay per click marketing, you will feel the same way! I was determined to find other alternatives for marketing online.

But I decided to read a lot of information from other marketers who were having great success online marketing via pay per click search engines. I tried to extract as much information as I can from them on how to market online using ppcs. I kept enquiring and enquiring about their tactics until I came up with a few key concepts that will help anyone immediately profit using pay per click engines!

These key concepts have nothing to do with the pay per click search engine themselves. As a matter of fact, don’t even think about the various ppc engines on the web today. Your major concern right now is to make money using this form of advertising. And the only way you can do this now is by discovering highly profitable and hidden keyword phrases that will generate income for months to come.

Here is what I learned:

1. Find Hidden Keywords With High Search Volume and Low Competition:

This is one of the most important keys to profiting using ppc engines. Your goal should be to find keywords with a high search demand, but with a small amount of internet advertisers marketing with that keyword.

Why?

Because the smaller the competition, the lesser your bid will be for that particular keyword. For example, if you are using google adwords to market your site, and you notice that there are only 7 advertisers marketing for a particular keyword, then you can bid for the lowest amount of .05 per click while at the same time being on the first page! You will have the opportunity to send a lot of traffic to your site and at the same time, increase the return on your investment (ROI). It is a beautiful feeling when you can find these types of keyword gems. I just recently discovered a keyword that gets over 1,500 searches a day and the number one bid is only .06 with 3 competing websites only!! I used the tool below to do this:

http://www.free-traffic-generation.com/adwordiser/

2. Generate Hundreds Of These Hidden Keyword Gems:

The next key is to find as many of these hidden keywords as you can. If you can find at least 500 hidden keywords to market your business with, you’ll find great success with pay per click marketing. And I am very serious when I say this. There are a lot of hidden niches and keywords that you can use to instantly send thousands of visitors daily to your website. As soon as you find these keywords, you can do a number of things to guarantee profits. One thing that I always do is set up a niche specific lead capture page that includes google adsense on it. (Ha!! I can’t believe I just gave you one of my most valuable secrets for earning income online! Well, take note of this, and use it to your advantage!)

Well, you’ve just discovered the 2 most important keys for being successful with pay per click marketing. I highly suggest that you take into account these two keys if you expect to generate a nice supply of targeted, yet cheap and profitable traffic. But I have to warn you about something. Discovering these keyword gems can take a lot of time. If you have a lot of time to spend, then go and do all of the research yourself. If you do not have a lot of time, then I highly recommend that you pick up this resource that will help you to instantly find these profitable keywords. If you need to check out this resource, go to:

http://www.free-traffic-generation.com/adwordiser/

Melvin Perry is an internet entrepreneur whose been marketing online since mid 2002. During his marketing journey online, he has created various ways of sending tons of targeted traffic to websites. He is the author of an informative report that shows anyone step by step how to easily build a 50,000 member double opt in list in only 90 days. This report is considered to be a highly sought after report. We highly recommend it. Visit http://www.workingonyourown.com/50kreport .

Why do some companies bid on keywords for products they don’t even sell? Or fail to provide the basic information people need to make the decision to buy? Here’s a cautionary tale-- with a happy ending.

HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED TO YOU?

I’m looking online for lamp shades. I go to Google and click on the top Sponsored Link in the right column: Expo.com. I’m taken to their “Lighting and Fans” page. There are 29 links in the left navigation, but no lamp shades. So I do a keyword search. Products Found = 0. All I can do is wonder why they wasted my time and their money, and move on to the next ad.

CLOSE, BUT NO CIGAR.

Clicking on the second ad takes me to a home page with a “Shades” tab. I click on that and arrive on a page with information about sizes and a link to the lamp shade collection.

I start browsing and find one I’m interested in. The text instructs me to “Click on lamp image for detail.” I guess they mean lamp shade image. I click, and to my surprise, I see the exact same thumbnail I was looking at, but now I have four color choices and an “ad to cart” button.

OK, I’m a designer. I can appreciate subtlety. But what’s the difference between White, Off-White, Beige and Coffee? All this site shows me is a little grey photo-- but “Dirty” isn’t one of the color choices.

I see the toll-free phone number at the top of the page. I call (during their normal business hours) and get voicemail. They say my call is very important to them, but I’m not so sure...

THIRD TIME'S THE CHARM?

Back to Google, click on another ad which takes me to a page with lamp shades (YAY!). I can sort by nine different criteria, but even so, I don’t see exactly what I want.

There’s a link to talk to a lighting consultant. I’m skeptical, but I call. Someone answers the phone! I explain what I want and I’m told I need a custom shade. This company doesn’t make them, but the consultant refers me to two other sites where I can order custom-made shades.

Even though I didn’t find what I was searching for I really appreciate this experience. I’d be happy to return to this site and do business with this company in the future.

THE MORAL OF THIS STORY

Have some respect for your customers. Think about their needs and do everything you can to meet them. If you’re advertising a product for sale it should be available on your site. If you expect people to make a choice, provide the information and pictures they need to feel comfortable making a decision. And even if you can’t make the sale today, you can and should offer a good customer experience because there’s always tomorrow.

TIPS TO TAKE AWAY

If you place an ad for a product your site should sell that product. Don’t waste your money bidding on keywords for products you don’t sell.

If someone clicks on your ad they should be taken to a relevant landing page. Don’t make people hunt around or do a Search on your site. Show them what they’re looking for right away.

Give them the information they need to make a good decision. Don’t expect them to guess what your product is "really" like.

--------------------------------------------------------

Barry Harrison is the author of "REDiTIPS" eMarketing Newsletter and a partner in Resolve Digital, Web Strategies for the Real World.

Visit his site at http://www.resolvedigital.com

No, this baby boom will certainly not swamp the Social Security system (sort of a bad joke for those that live in the United States, but many other countries...most notably Japan...have an even more acute problem), but this baby boom is revolutionizing the way that pay per click advertising is being spread across the Internet.

One of the early participants in this pay per click baby boom was Google, with its AdSense program. With this program, Google shares pay per click revenue with a huge number of individual partner websites that carry a few pay per click ads that are distributed by Google. In essence, this creates a whole bunch of little pay per click locations (websites) throughout the Internet and hence the term "pay per click baby boom".

Conceptually, programs like AdSense are similar to what the computer hardware folks refer to a distributed processing. Instead of trying to draw everyone to a large pay per click search engine site, little groups of pay per click ads are spread widely across thousands of locations (websites) all over the Internet.

Actually, this distributed processing or propagation technique is not limited to pay per click advertising. For example, Amazon uses a similar arrangement (called Amazon Associates) to sell the products it carries on amazon.com and ClickBank has a sales program called CBAdwords which operates in a similar fashion.

According my trusty Ouija board, it seems likely that most commercial hubs on the Internet will be shifting to this propagation concept as time progresses...all of those individual partner websites that carry the message/proposition will constitute the vast army of worker ants that keep the queen ant alive and healthy.

From a pay per click marketing perspective, these programs make brilliant use of leverage while providing highly targeted prospects for the paying advertiser.

There are, of course, some interesting things that occur as a result of all of this stuff. For example, consider what I call the "cross fertilization effect": Suppose a person goes to yahoo.com and performs a search that leads them to one of my websites that happens carry Google AdSense ads and that visitor then clicks on one of those ads...the net result is that Yahoo natural search provided Google pay per click with some revenue! Aren't these fun times that we're living in?

As these programs continue to proliferate, the individual webmaster needs to exercise a little restraint and avoid the temptation to go overboard by plastering these ads all over your website and thereby diluting your own primary message/proposition and confusing your hard earned visitor. When properly used, these ads are just ancillary or complementary content that you are providing to enhance the information and opportunities that you are providing to your visitor...if something happens to strike a responsive chord with your visitor, you might make a little pay per click money.

If properly used, these propagation programs can result in the classical "win-win" situation. However, if you over do it, this can quickly turn into a loss for you (the individual webmaster) and a win for your pay per click partners that are distributing the ads. As in many things, moderation is important.

It's a constant sea of change, but the good things just keep on getting better! Stay alert, and light on your feet, and the opportunities will just keep on coming your way.

The above are just some observations from "the peanut gallery", but I don't think I'm far off the mark about where things are heading. With that, I'm off the soapbox and wishing you success in whatever you do online!

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Kirk Bannerman operates a successful home based business and coaches others seeking to start their own home based business.

Visit his website at http://www.business-at-home.us/ for more details.

Forbes magazine has reported that pay per click ad sales are expected to increase to at least $8 billion by 2008.

The three fundamental core elements that form the basis of a successful pay per click ad program are constant monitoring, analysis, and refinement.

Pay per click search engines offer a way to buy your way to the top of search results for any term you wish. With proper management, and a clear focus, pay per click search engines can offer some of the most well targeted and economical advertising on the Internet.

Pay per click advertising works through a bidding process, and the ads appear prominently on the results pages of search engines such as Google and Yahoo. The highest bidder for a particular word or phrase receives top placement, and depending on the engine, the top three to five bidders also generally also receive placement on the first page of unpaid search results.

Fundamental questions to be addressed when formulating a pay per click search engine strategy include the following:

When is the top pay per click bid necessary for highest conversion, and when will bidding for a second or third place position create a more attractive return on investment (ROI)?

How can you keep your PPC bids from cannibalizing your search efforts on other (non pay per click) search engines?

What percentage of your pay per click budget should go to each search engine?

Does either Google Adwords or Overture work better for your particular product or service? Or, perhaps neither one is appropriate from a return on investment (ROI) perspective.

It is of critical importance to focus sharply on identifying the search terms that convert most frequently for your particular site, eliminating those that don't perform, and most importantly, calculating and maximizing your return on investment.

The cost structure of pay per click is action-driven and each time a user clicks your ad, the pay per click engine deducts the amount of your current bid from your account. Pay per click offers a high level of assurance that your ad is reaching the
proper target.

Pay per click campaigns, however, are not perfect. Without CONSTANT monitoring, you sometimes risk incurring advertising costs that can spiral out of control, focusing on terms that don't convert well for your product or services, or falling way down in position during a bidding war.

PPC advertising can be a great help to a site's success, but only with very close supervision and a thorough knowledge of the unique characteristics of each PPC search engine.

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Kirk Bannerman operates a successful home based business and coaches others seeking to start their own home based business.

Visit his website at http://www.business-at-home.us/ for more details.

You probably have already heard about the new marketing tool from Google.com on the Internet. Their advertising service is called “Adwords” and allows you use Google.com for marketing. Your ads will be displayed on Google’s website when people initiate a search. Your ads can also be displayed very targeted among many thousand websites that partner with Google in a program called “Google AdSense”. Adwords is the Google.com version of a pay-per-click advertising model. That means users click on your ad and will be redirected to your website or a specific URL that you have selected when creating your ad campaign.

What do you need to know about Adwords? Adwords is a way to spend a lot of money on advertising very very fast. BUT – Adwords is also a way to spend marketing money very selective to a targeted audience. Adwords can be very expensive for the advertiser if not properly planned and tested.

When you setup a Google Adwords ad campaign, you choose certain keywords for which your ad will appear on search results on Google.com. You also specify the maximum amount of money that you are willing to pay for each click. Remember - the Google Adwords program is a PPC (Pay per Click) model and you only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad and hence visits your website.

It is very important to select the right keywords for your business ad. Going with too generic keywords that everyone will not be very effective and very expensive. Play a little bit with the Adwords keyword and campaign settings just to get a feeling how expensive the generic keywords for your business and industry are. You will realize soon that you need to be creative and careful with the usage of keywords.

Google recommends using different spelling variations and plural versions of your keywords to reach the best target audience. This is a good approach, as not every one of your potential new customers will search for a keyword in the same way as everyone else. Some people will use plural versions and others will use singular versions.

Exact matching of keywords in Google user queries requires you to place square brackets around your selected keywords. Example: [web hosting]. Your ad will now only show when users search exactly the phrase ‘web hosting’. Your ad will not show if other words are included in the search string or the words are entered in a different order.

Another keyword matching option is the phrase option. This is very similar to the exact matching of keywords in a search in the sense that the keywords must all be present and in the right order. However your ad will still show up in search results even if other words are present in the search. To make use of phrase matching you must include your keywords in quotes. Example: "web hosting".

Negative matching is the final option available for your Adwords advertisement. This option allows you to block your ad being shown if a certain word is present in the search query of the Google user. This allows you to reduce the number of possible clicks on your ad in non-relevant searches and therefore to keep your cost low. It also helps you to make sure that your ad is not shown to users who will not be interested in your products. If your keyword is 'web hosting' but your web hosting is based on the Linux operating system and not based on a Windows Operating System then by using negative matching you can choose to have your ad not shown for search queries with 'windows web hosting'. In this case 'windows' would be your negative keyword. You simply place a dash in front of your negative keyword to use this option. Example: -windows

Using the here described ways of selecting keywords will help you to be more successful with Google Adwords. Google also allows you be very specific for which geographic area your ads will be displayed. You go from global to country and even state or city specific settings. Especially local businesses now will have it much easier to use Google Adwords for their specific local markets.

Well, you got the idea how to be very specific how you select your keywords and combinations of keywords. But how do you actually select the right keywords? In order to get the most out of Adwords, you must have a list of great keyword and phrases. If your keyword list is not good enough, you will be punished with paying too much for your advertising. Write down the top search terms that you can think of. Ask friends and family how they would use Google to find your product (without searching for the business name itself).

A competitor of Google actually offers a free tool, which will allow you to find out how popular the keywords are that you selected. Find this free tool here and use it for your advantage:

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Create a list of the most popular keywords. Now add words to the actual keywords. Use words that would describe your specific product or service. Now use these phrases or word combinations when setting up a Google Adwords campaign to find out how much you would have to pay per click to get your ad onto the first page on a Google search.

If the keywords selected by you are very expensive to use you should consider rewording or using different combinations. Maybe concentrate on a certain niche to find lower priced keyword options.

When testing new campaigns make sure that you limit your exposure by amount of money you want to spend per day as well as you should set a date / time limit. It’s easier to activate a campaign again if it works just fine for you. If you fail to set limits you might spend lots of money in a very short time – money you can’t get back. It is gone ….

Another way to save money on your Adwords advertising campaign is to wait for the end of the month. It’s funny, but many folks follow a plain rule to start their advertising in the beginning of the month. By the time the 25th of a month is there they have spend most of their money on their campaigns already. For you this means that the prices for many popular keywords might be more affordable for you.

If you are advertising specific products with your ads, link to the specific product page and not to your homepage. 95% of the people who click through to your website will not really be willing to start another search on your website to find the product mentioned in your ad.

Conclusion

Frequently revisit your campaigns and compare prices and results. The Internet is a fast changing environment. What works one day, might not necessarily work the next day. Keep track of everything – maybe create a spreadsheet.

This article can be published by anyone as long as a live back link to http://www.webhostingresourcekit.com is provided. (this note can be removed as long as a link from the author's resource box is provided)

Christoph Puetz is a successful small business owner (Net Services USA LLC) and international author.

Guides, Tutorials, and Articles for small businesses - http://www.webhostingresourcekit.com

Google Adwords is a great tool! Careful use can lead to
legions of highly targeted visitors breaching the moat
around your site, and demanding to pillage your products! On
the other hand...

Adwords is also a great place to drain your advertising
dollars if you're not careful. Like any other automated
system, it requires constant feeding and attention to keep
you from wondering just why you spent hundreds of dollars
and received a paltry return on your investment. Here's 7
great ways I've found to do just that, (and yes I've been
guilty of several of these to one degree or another.)

1. - Not getting enough keywords, and I don't mean just
numbers. Good ones. A lot of people run a search on their
favorite keyword tool and pick the top ten or twenty words
or phrases getting the most traffic, thinking somehow that
THEY will beat all the others using these keywords. There is
a reason why these keywords are so popular: everybody and
their grandmother are bidding on them! A much better
approach is to come up with at least a couple hundred,
better a couple thousand words that you have a shot at
getting a high ranking for. After all, if you have 1800
keywords and can get a top 8 (first page) position for most
of them, you'll see a lot more clicks than you will chasing
the top dollar words. If you get a hundred of the lower tier
words giving you a couple of visitors a day, well, you do
the math. Not only that, but often the less expensive words
are altogether more specific, delivering far more targeted
visitors.

2. - Not creating adgroups. You should use this function! It
can help you focus your advertising much more effectively.
By arranging your keywords in tightly focused groups of 10-
30 phrases, and writing a keyword-specific headline for each
of them, you have a much greater ability to see what's
working and what's not. Also gives you a chance to test
different headlines and text copy.

3. - No negative keywords. This you gotta do. And it's so
easy. Simply add -free (or whatever else you don't want
associated with your searches) and you won't end up paying
for a lot of clicks for people who weren't interested in the
first place.

4. - Using only broad keyword searches for their keywords.
When you're paying for this stuff, you want to be as
specific as you can, particularly if you're playing in a
very competitive market. Why hope that a broad search will
return someone interested in what you're selling? Better to
get as focused as you can on the words they may be searching
for. Google helps you with this by giving you more
information on the impressions and click-throughs than you
can handle, but be pro-active, and prune the dead wood after
100 or so impressions. If they haven't produced by then, the
odds of them improving by leaps and bounds are not great.

5. - Not testing and rotating your ads. Even a small change
in a headline or ad text can make a HUGE difference!
Particularly headlines. Your ad text won't be read if the
headline is boring or uninviting. Learn to write killer
headlines, and do not be afraid to test and rotate your ads.
Also don't be shy about deleting ad groups if they're not
clicking through enough. Remember, you've got a list of
several hundred words; either these aren't right or the
headline/text need tweaking. Test, test, test!

6. - Not using the content targeted feature wisely. This is
a tricky one. Google, in it's infinite wisdom, seeks out
alternate avenues to show your ads, thus delivering
substantially more clicks to your campaign. Trouble is,
though, you have no control over this, and it IS your money.
If you are attempting to run a tightly focused campaign on
limited funds, this one is a potential budget buster. It can
easily rack up a lot of clicks, but are they of worth to
you? In my experience, the CTR is ALWAYS a lot lower. I
guess it could make sense for large campaigns with a very
popular product, but for the most part, you'll want to be
very careful. Which leads me to my last, and most important
dollar-drainer of all.

7. - Not having a GREAT sales page. This one is the hardest
to fix, but without doubt the most important. All the clicks
in the world won't mean a thing if the sales page you're
sending your hard-earned visitors to doesn't get the job
done. If it's your product, there's hope! You can address
these issues, and after testing and more testing, can
correct and come up with a page that sings! If you're an
affiliate, you might consider a separate landing page, where
you might offer a sincere testimonial in an attempt to
presell the product more effectively. (That is not a bad
strategy even with a good sales page, as personal
recommendations go a long way!)

There you have it. 7 Great ways to lose infinitely more than
your shirt!

Keith Thompson is the webmaster at Internet Marketing Here & Now, where you can find all sorts of information concerning http://www.internetmarketinghere.com/pay-per-clicks.html