Keywords & Ad Copy; PPC and selling your Business

Just to shift the focus onto a different subject, here is another post on SEO but more particularly about the actual tools that we use whether they are free or premium. I suppose this post is in part, a response to an article from Problogger that I read the other day, Daren Rowse writing about his recent visit to the Blog World Expo where he met Shoemoneys’ Jeremy Schoemaker and was lucky enough to receive a free account, (Yes all right I believe you Darren; ((“I don’t do a lot of PPC (in fact I’ve not done any for 9 months or more”)) Darren’s words not mine))  The PPC Tools that have been developed by Shoemoney are quite extensive and i wanted to draw some attention towards other solutions that are freely available as well as giving my own views.
First of all here is a condensed list of what’s available through Shoemoney, by all means pop over and have a look for yourself, you will need to register. And the list is somewhat more revealing, but that’s the point it’s only a list, and of course the obligatory video presentation. I can’t help feeling that I would have preferred to have a trial run before I got out my wallet, but hey that’s salesmanship for you.
There is an impressive list of referrers with a lot of letters and certificates after their names; all together very polished, too much for my liking.

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Brief List of Shoemoney’s PPC app’s
SEO Tools   : Backlink Analyzer Domain - Marketplace- Find Backlinks- Keyword Density Tool- Keyword Tracker -Most Linked- Text Optimizer-PPC Tools : Ad Generator- Ad Manager- Instant PPC Builder- Keyword Generator- Keyword Grabber- Keyword Manager- Local Keyword Generator- Local Trademark Bidding Tool- PPC Keywords-  Local Search, enter zip-PPC local brand tool
Link Building Tools-Backlink Analyzer-Find Backlinks-Most Linked-Related Blog Posts
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If you have a promotion coupon like “problogger” it will cost you $20.00 for your first month, then after that it will cost you $100 a month “ouch” no thanks guys. Now I am not knocking Shoemoney but I think this service is a bit on the pricey side and not in a lot of people’s budget, I mean that’s $1200 a year which is probably beyond a whole bunch of online marketers or business for that matter. Now I suppose it all depends on your own circumstances and just how serious you are about getting to the top of the search engines with your PPC campaign. But I have to say that there are a lot of other alternatives out there that don’t charge anything like a $100 per month, sure there are some that actually charge more. If you check out my main website at MaxHomeBits.com you will notice that I promote WEB CEO, now apart from getting commissions for sales, I feel it’s important to point out that the free version has many useful features that you can utilise, below is a sample of what you can do with the free version.

Increase Your Link Popularity by Finding Link Partners

Manage Your PPC Campaigns with Paid Engines’ Services

Analyze Trends In Search Engine Rankings

Improve Your Rankings by Analyzing Backward Links

HitLens Web Analytics and ROI Improvement Service (15 Day Trial)

Upload Your Optimized Pages

Monitor If Your Websites are Up and Running (Upgrades available)

Submit Sites and Pages to Search Engines and Directories

Quick competition overview in the built-in browser

Unlimited Keyword Mining from your competitors’ pages thru the ‘Get Suggestions’ tab

Unlimited Number of Web and Local Pages to Analyze

Plain English Advice for General Search Engine Compliance

Analysis of External (Off-Page) Ranking Factors (Links, Site Theme, Google

PR, Alexa TR, Backlinks’ Themes)

Keyword Density Analysis for General Search Engine Compliance

Analyze Your Pages vs. Competition

Analyze and Edit Critical SEO Parameters (Frequency, Prominence Weight) in Important Page Areas

Easy Edit and Access Important Meta Tags

Change Meta Tags on Multiple Pages at One Go

Easy Edit and Access to Page Areas Important for SEO (Page Title, Headings, Alt tags, etc)

Replace Text or Tags in Multiple Pages

Robots.txt Editor for Your Robots File

Xml, Txt, Html and ROR Sitemap Generation, Pages in the Sitemap

As you can see its quite a comprehensive list of SEO functions and to tell you the truth I haven’t used every one of these functions yet, there are so many of them. Web SEO might not be for everybody and the software does take a bit of time to get used to, but a very powerful tool it is none the less. You will also find several other free tools on MaxHomeBits which are very useful and are all available completely free.

Here are the only two sources that I use on a regular basis on the net.
Search Engine Land All the latest trends discussed by Industry experts
SEO Chat A more comprehensive selection of SEO tools you will ever find
Along with these two resources I use WEB CEO on my desktop which keeps all my information backed up and organised. So you be the judge and let me know what you feel about SEO and more particularly PPC. Whether you do it yourself or hire a company to do it for you one thing’s for sure you can’t do without it!

*Image via Wikipedia*

First up I would like to invite fellow bloggers and affiliate marketers to join me in this discussion and give me your honest opinion about affiliate marketing. Oops that sounds scary! This article assumes that you are fairly new to affiliate marketing, so bear that in mind! So without further ado;

Lets clear up all the misconceptions about affiliate marketing, we have all seen those squeeze pages proclaiming how easy it is to make tons of  profit in no time at all. And the so called gurus want us to believe that their program is the best thing since sliced bread and will blow the competition away.

“The Clock is Ticking Buy NOW”
“This offer won’t stay at this price for long”

The list goes on and on!!!! To top all that if you subscribe to any number of newsletters concerning marketing then you should be an expert on sales pitch copyright.

Anybody who has tried marketing a product, isn’t going to get rich overnight doing affiliate marketing. There is just way too much competition for this to happen. Affiliate marketing isn’t an easy cash source that’s going to just drop bundles of loot into your lap with no effort. You will find the affiliate opportunities that work the best are the ones that you find yourself. If done properly, like testing and researching your market and customers, or networking with business development.

For instance take free traffic, it’s not completely over but it is fading fast, when you consider the pace of the Internet it’s not surprising. You can work hard to create pages that score high in the search engines and put lots of graft into your site, but by paying for clicks and focusing on Google and Overture (Yahoo) you will have the top three positions on all search engines that really count on the Internet.

Without doubt you need to be at the top end of Google and Yahoo to really generate traffic. These search engines will drive quality targeted traffic as long as you pay close attention to your PPC (Pay Per Click) strategy.

Yahoo, and especially Google are the best key drivers of qualified traffic on the Internet. Pay per click search engines let you quickly test drive different affiliate offers and new landing pages on your site. You can stay away from top competitive keywords for $1 to $2 per click. Niche marketing on Yahoo and Google works but you need to get the right niche and do your keyword and phrase research.

Instead of just sending traffic away and hoping for the best, you should have your own email list to which you can send multiple offers. Sending offers to your own email list is the true way to build freedom and residual income. You can achieve this by:

· Using subscription forms on your web site

· Using co-registrations or co-op marketing campaigns

· Buying email lists (Safelists or specifically targeted lists)

Effective affiliate marketing involves paying for traffic in one shape or another, you just can’t get away from this.

To accelerate your income, you need to invest wisely in advertising and get the most mileage out of every one of them.

So what do you think! im sure there are thousands; scratch that millions of affiliate marketers and bloggers who have some strong opinions on this matter.  So leave a comment”"If there are any successfull affialtes out there, then please post your opinion (yes i know there are some out there)

Conclusion ;  I think in the end it all comes down to hard work and parting with some cash, especially on the promotion side, and depending of course on your own resources. There are many other equations that come into the picture including good content whether it be a blog or website. And of course having a plan of action and strategy is absolutely vital if you want to survive in this cut-throat business.

*Image via Wikipedia*

In essence, PPC advertising is all about bidding for the top or leading position on search engine results and listings. Advertisers do this by buying or bidding on keyword phrases that are relevant to their products or services - the higher the bid, the higher the spot on the search results, the more the people will find the ad (and click on it) to go to their websites (this is why some people call it “keyword auctioning”). Advertisers would then pay the bidding price every time a visitor clicks through the website.

PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click - a popular advertising technique on the Internet. Found on websites, advertising networks, and especially on search engines, PPC advertising involves sponsored links that are typically in the form of text ads. These are usually placed close to search results, where an advertiser pays a particular amount to visitors who click on these links or banners and land on the advertiser’s web page.

PPC advertising is also known under the following names/variations:

• Pay per placement
• Pay per performance
• Pay per ranking
• Pay per position
• Cost per click (CPC)

PPC advertising is usually done with the following standard procedures:

1. Setting up an account and/or deposit funds.

1. Creating a keyword list.

1. Choosing (and setting up) an account with a PPC search engine.

1. Bidding on the ad placement, including the search result words or phrases.

1. Writing out an ad copy.

1. Setting up the ‘landing pages’ for your ads.

1. Placing the advertisement in the search engine.

There are many benefits to Pay Per Click advertising, making it an effective way of promoting a business ‘online’. Some of them are listed below:

• Get launched immediately. PPC advertisements are implemented very quickly - they can go ‘online’ within an hour after winning the bid and paying for it.

• Obtain specific, pre-qualified, and quality traffic. PPC provides you with a quality or a well-targeted traffic. Visitors are narrowed down into ‘qualified’ people who are actually looking for specific products and/or services that you offer - those who are more likely to become a ‘lead’ (a convert) and complete a transaction (either by buying your product or subscribing to the service that you are offering.

• Widen your reach. PPC advertising provides additional traffic to your site, aside from the natural or “organic” search engines.

• Track your investment. PPC advertising makes use of a tracking system that will determine exactly who comes to the website and what they do once they arrive - the length of their stay on the site and the number of pages (including the actual pages) that they view. These are valuable tools in determining statistics such as return on investment (ROI), acquisition cost-per-visitor, and conversion rates (the percentage of visitors who are converted into customers or leads).

Below are some important things to consider when planning on a pay per click campaign:

1. Know your product.

Take an inventory of the product and/or services that you have to offer (before anything else).

2. Stay within the budget.

Determine your daily or monthly budget; and stay with it. This means keeping your budget in mind, avoiding bidding wars if possible.

3. Bid just right.

Know how to bid right - a bid that is too high can exhaust all of your money, while a bid that is too low can make you lose that spot.

4. Watch the bottom line.

Measure your profit margin against your spending or expenses. Know when to stop and terminate your PPC program - if you spend more on advertising but have little or no sales at all.

5. Find the right keywords.

Decide which keyword phrases to opt and bid for. Do some keyword research, either by actually looking at existing search terms or with the use of online keyword suggestion tools, to know which terms are mostly used when searching for items that are related to your business. Focus on specific keywords, not on general ones.

6. Write effective ads.

A good PPC ad is that which can persuade and move a searcher. There are several approaches to this:

*Discount offers *Testimonials* Celebrity/famous endorsers* Money-back guarantees*

* Free trials or sample offers* Freebies* Reverse psychology* Major benefits (”Lose weight”)*

* Direct instructions (”Click here”)

7. Maintain a professional-looking site.

Your web content should be regularly updated and checked for spelling and grammatical errors. There should be no broken links or images. The website should be simple - designed in such a way that it will be easy for visitors to navigate and load. Include contact details to create a good impression among potential customers.