Most mistakes people make in their Google AdWords campaign managements are pretty common, and 90 percent of Google campaigns can be greatly improved with less than an hour of effort. You can save yourself hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of euros, depending of course on your adwords spend, in the hour you spend following our instructions in this article.

Want to know what the number-one mistake people make is in Google AdWords campaign management? Improperly organized campaigns. Badly organized ads and keywords cripple your Google campaigns and cost you a ton of money. Properly organized campaigns get results from the beginning and are easy to adjust and optimize. Over time this makes a huge difference.

In a perfect world, you’d serve up a perfect ad for every single keyword someone types in. Since each keyword is different, each ad would be different, too. If you had 2,000 keywords, then you’d have to write 2,000 ads, too.

In the real world, that’s kind of impractical. So you cluster similar keywords together with a single ad. Ad groups are the smallest individual units that contain your keywords and your ads together. You can have multiple ad groups in a single campaign. A campaign is just a handy way to organize ad groups, usually according to broad topic.

In a single Google account, you can have as many campaigns as you want. Some of the campaigns in your account may be on a completely different topic, selling completely different services, and sending traffic to a completely different web site.

How you separate your campaigns is up to you. How you separate ad groups, however, is one of those areas where there’s a right way and a wrong way.

Most beginners set up their campaigns to look something like this:

Murphy Telecommunications
Robust Solutions for
All Your Voice Mail Needs
www.murphytelecom.com

auto attendant
business telephone systems
call management systems
voice mail
voice mail equipment
voice mail service voice mail systems

Then they send all the visitors to the home page, which has a bunch of different links to “Services,” “Equipment,” “Q&A,” “About Us,” “Contact Us,” etc. What’s wrong with this kind of Google AdWords campaign management?

• There are too many different kinds of keywords in the same group. Every one of these keywords needs to be in its own group, along with a list of very similar words and phrases.

• The ad doesn’t match the keywords, and it can’t, because there are too many different kinds of keywords in the group.

• “Murphy Telecommunications,” or the name of almost any business, is a lousy headline. The clickthrough rate (CTR) is going to be very low, and therefore the bid prices will be higher.

• The ad is about Murphy Telecommunications, not what the customer really wants. Your ads need to be about your customer, not about yourself!

• A person who searches for “voice mail service” needs to be taken to a page about voice mail service; a person who searches for equipment needs to be taken to a different web page about voice mail equipment. These are two entirely different topics. If a person has to figure out where to go after they land on your web page, you’re making them work too hard. You need to show them exactly what they were searching for.

If you structure your campaigns properly from the beginning, it’s a lot easier to make this work. To do this, take all of your different keywords and organize them into narrow “silos” of very tightly related terms. They will look like this:

Voice Mail Services
voice mail provider
voice mail service
voice mail service provider
voice mail services

Voice Mail System
voice mail systems
voice mail systems for realtors
telemarketing and voice mail systems
phone systems voice mail
home office voice mail systems
home office telephone voice mail systems

Auto Attendant
answering attendant auto system
auto attendant voice mail services
auto attendant
auto attendant phone system
auto attendant software
auto attendant system
auto attendant voice mail
phone auto attendant

There’s another step we need to take before pasting this into a campaign: Consider negative keywords. Here’s a list of keywords that come from “Voice Mail Software.”

voice mail software
voice mail business software
voice mail software for panasonic
voice mail broadcasting software
voice mail business software
multiple voice mail software
mac voice mail software
multi-line voice mail system software vru
norstar voice mail software
software to record voice mail
free voice mail software

You might not want visitors who want something for free. Your company also has nothing to do with voice broadcasting and you don’t have anything for Macintosh computers. So turn those into negative keywords by putting a minus sign in front of them. The above list now looks like this:

voice mail software
voice mail business software
voice mail software for panasonic
voice mail business software
multiple voice mail software
multi-line voice mail system software vru
norstar voice mail software
software to record voice mail

Negative Keywords:

free
mac
macintosh
broadcast
broadcasting

So when you set up your ad campaigns, each one of these keyword lists is going to go into a different group with its own set of ads.

Follow these tips and you will be well on your way to a more optimised adwords account.

Social media…There is plenty of buzz around it but, you may be wondering  “What can it do for my business and more importantly, how can I utilise it in my business operations?”

Well the best way to start to explain why you should be focused on Social Media is with a story. Think back to the days of the wild west. Most of us are familiar with the old western movies where back in those days, towns had one general store, and the store owner knew everyone. People trusted him and knew what they were getting.

Enter the industrial age, and efficiency trumped personalization. People didn’t mind where they bought from, as long as goods were cheap.

Now, that mentality has changed. Consumers are once again reverting to a need for personalization from businesses large and small. The need has been rekindled by the Internet, and our ability to find anything we want, as well as a mistrust of advertising (think used cars salesmen).

We’ve reached a point where the consumer wants to know the store owner’s name and that he can be trusted. Small businesses must look beyond their want to grow into corporations, and instead focus on their core customers. Thanks to social media, we’re able to foster these relationships easily and quickly.

Top Tip 1: Blog or Social Hub

When most businesses begin a social media campaign, they tend to focus on Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites. They usually forget to incorporate their own site and tie their social profiles together. So our first big tip, is the creation of a blog or social hub. Why push your consumers to connect with you on other sites, but not give them a reason to visit yours?

Building and writing a blog may be time consuming, but it creates a way to connect with users on your own website. Additionally, creating useful content such as how-tos or industry insights can keep customers engaged.

For business owners that don’t have the resources to update their blog regularly or can’t think of what they’d write, I suggest building a “Connect” page. A connect page, or social hub, offers readers a way to find your business’ most active profiles and join you on those social sites. The page could also include a short bio or how you use each social site.

Giving consumers a reason to visit your site is extremely important. A blog or social hub can pull consumers to your site and into the sales funnel.

Top Tip 2: Local Social Networks

For local businesses with a storefront, sites like Qype and Yelp and can make a real impact. Qype.ie and the like, allows businesses to create listings with all the necessary information for a consumer to find you, while other customers can review and comment on your business. Many of these sites will let business owners “claim” their listings and add information, such as phone numbers, store hours, menus, etc.

Consumers use local social networks to find businesses, but also to get social proof when making a decision. They use comments and reviews to go with the “best” listing. Because of the demographic these sites target (people ready to make a decision) small businesses can see a great return from local social networks.

The other great thing about these sites is the SEO value attached to them. They can provide great backlinks to your main website and if you can build up reviews,  connected to your business profile on these sites, you will find that they can have a significant bearing on your standings in google maps, or now called “Google Places”.  In some market places reviews on these sites will determine if you are visible in the Google maps listing on page one of a search or buried in the background of the maps listing. Ignore this tip at your own peril.

Top Tip 3: Twitter

Everyone is talking about Twitter. So why is it a big win? Simple: it connects you with your consumers in real-time via the web, desktop applications, and even mobile. Finding a way to offer value while humanizing the business can lead to a stronger following and increased word of mouth marketing.

Soulplantation – This San Diego restaurant offers made from scratch soups and salads. The restaurant did well but it’s parent company, Garden Fresh, saw the potential of social networking and decided to dive in headfirst. They hired a social media specialist and began a very successful Twitter feed for the restaurant. The feed is used to play games with customers, such as trivia. Coupons and free meals are given out but only to the first respondant, thus driving up the desire for customers to take part. It’s also used to post recipes and other restaurant-specific information.  It has proven to be extremely successful, having racked up over 3,000 followers and contributed to a 5-10 percent increase in foot traffic in the restaurant. Twitter address:  Soulplantation

For more Twitter Success Stories you can check out this Blog article where the above story came ffrom…

With Twitter, business owners are able to cater to their consumer’s needs instantaneously. In a world where everything needs to be done yesterday, a quick response can create a lifelong customer.

Top Tip 4: Facebook Fan Page

You knew it was going to get a mention eventually and thats Facebook. No discussion on Social media would be complete without featuring this Social Media Giant. Creating a Fan Page is simple, but truly utilizing it to its fullest potential takes some guidance.

A Fan Page allows a business to visualize and build a community, similar to Twitter. However, unlike Twitter, you can add and customize a great deal more.

At the very least a business should update their Fan Page “status” to keep consumers informed and engaged. A more advanced technique would be to add things like coupons or Google (Google) maps directions to the storefront. These kind of resources give consumers a reason to visit your Facebook Fan Page and interact with the brand.

Top Tip 4: Custom Wiki

My final tip is to use a custom wiki, which takes advantage of a phenomenon called crowdsourcing. In other words, use your customers to give information to other consumers.

The easiest way to do this is by creating a wiki for your FAQ or Customer Service knowledge base. Let your consumers enter the problems they’ve had via a public forum (the wiki), and provide your responses publicly as well. Although showing problems may seem backwards, it’s a very effective way to retain customers and generate new sales.

Consumers aren’t stupid, they know that mistakes happen. Instead, they want to see that their questions will be answered quickly. Also, with a public wiki, customers can see if a concern has already been addressed, saving time for both you and the customer.

With minimal moderation, a wiki can build trust in your business and make your customer service more efficient.

I have found that a lot of businesses who think they have gotten SEO in the bag, and believe that their websites are in tip top shape, in order to rank well in the search engines, make the same easy to fix mistakes. Of the mistakes I have seen made, or of those that could potentially be made, here are the 5 most common SEO mistakes.

SEO Mistakes # 1:

Using the same Meta tags in Title, keyword and description on all of their pages. If you have a site that offers different services it’s good to have a page for each one with DIFFERENT keywords descriptions etc.

For Example if you are an accountant and you do tax returns, bookkeeping, financial planning etc. You should have a general home page and then other pages that target the individual things. Search Engines think you are irrelevant if you have the keyword “bookkeeping” in a page that is all about financial planning.

What many small businesses do is have meta keywords like “Accountancy, chartered account, bookkeeping, financial planning, tax returns” on every page.

SEO Mistakes #2:

Not putting ALT text with their imagesSmall business man Confused by SEO. “IMG -234″ etc  is not a useful search term.

If you have images on your site use the ALT text field with relevant keywords for the description. This is good for search engines and good for people. The Alt Text field is the text you see when the image can’t be displayed. People see them sometimes when they have a certain set up on their computer and it’s what programs that read sites for the vision impaired use to describe the picture to people who can’t see it.

Its also what google images use to find relevant images in that search, so relevant ALT text can improve your SEO on many levels.

NB Some websites use “images” as their menu buttons, it’s VERY important if you are doing that that you use the ALT text to name the internal link. Also, some templates use images for their graphic design, too many of those just look like a mess to the search engines and it’s probably better to re-do the whole site in a different way. ( This is what I have to do with my natural therapies site). Its easier to re-do it from the start and copy the text than to try and get in and fix it all.

SEO Mistakes #3:

Using too many Key-Words. You should only use between 3 and 10 keywords in the meta tags per page. Most small businesses try and think of anything their customers might be searching for and whack it in the meta tag. Search engines see this and think you are not focused enough. They are trying to find the most relevant page for the search query. The more you have the less relevant they figure you must be to any one search term.

Related to this is putting in nearby suburbs as keyword tags. Unless you mention the suburb throughout your page google think you are trying to “keyword stuff” , they don’t like that!

This is where keyword research comes in. You can’t be all things to all searches, you need to pick a few targeted keywords that people are searching for and are relevant to the particular page. This leads us to common mistake number 4…

SEO Mistakes #4:

Poor choice of keywords placed in the META keyword tag. Sure it might seem logical to target the word “printers” if you run a printer repair business in Blanchardstown, but think about it, even if you succeeded in ranking well for such a competitive term (you won’t), how many of the people visiting your site as a result of this search would leave as soon as they saw your home page? That’s right, most of them. All the people who wanted to buy printers, all the people looking for businesses outside Blanchardstown, all the people not looking specifically for printer repairers.

Does it become clear now that targeting such a generic word is a waste of time? What you need to do instead is optimize your site for search terms and phrases that are highly targeted to your precise business. Use a tool such as Google’s Keyword Tool to find what people are actually typing in to the search engines to find goods and services similar to yours and concentrate on ranking well for those terms. The more qualified your site visitors are, the more likely you are to convert those visitors into paying customers.

SEO Mistakes #5:

A Lack of Optimized Body Text. This one is very common. How often do you visit a home page that is made up entirely of graphics? You know the ones, they consist of an enormous Flash file or maybe a large logo or a montage of images, but the thing they have in common is a distinct lack of text. Think they look professional? Think again. No matter what you read or hear, if a site has no text on the home page, it hasn’t been correctly optimized and has little chance of ranking well in the search engines. Now that’s unprofessional in my opinion.

Beginner SEO’s often make the mistake of creating an optimized title tag and META tags and believing their work is done. WRONG. If you want a web site to rank well in the search engines, you need to give them what they want to see, visible content that is optimized just as well as the invisible content. That means adding keyword-filled body text to any page you want ranking high. Why? Because most search engines can’t index images. Some engines don’t even index META tags anymore. So a site with no visible content becomes effectively invisible to a search engine and has almost no chance of appearing in the rankings for logical searches.

Also, search engine algorithms have become smarter and are now checking that sites contain highly relevant content before including them in their index. If you expect to rank well for a particular keyword or phrase, it’s not too much to expect to find that keyword or phrase within your site is it?

So if you think you have your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) covered for your site, it might be a good idea to run through the above checklist.  Better to be safe than sorry.

“Is one tactic more favorable than another? How do I know which channel to pursue? Should I do both?”

Without a hard look at your company’s goals and unique situation, there really isn’t a concrete answer to these questions. The true test of pursuing either an SEO campaign or PPC advertising (or both) is knowing that it all boils down to your company, it’s ROI objectives, budget, and countless other monetary and marketing factors. To determine which, or what combination of both, might offer the most bang for your buck, let’s examine five types of “models” that my search engine marketing company often deals with.

1. SEO Only.

Some clients are strictly interested in kicking off an SEO campaign, usually for a few basic reasons. They often have tried pay-per-click and decided it didn’t work, so they aren’t interested in trying it again in the foreseeable future (whether the initial campaign was set up effectively and the channel should be revisited is a subject for future discussion). They also often feel that since they themselves ignore PPC ads on the right hand side of the page, everyone else must do the same.

While there’s nothing inherently wrong with pursuing search engine optimization exclusively, it can take awhile to achieve rankings for competitive, profitable keyphrases, and there’s simply no way for your search engine marketing company to accurately predict (as they probably can with some degree of accuracy with PPC advertising) exactly what the initial results will be, and precisely when they will appear. However, for companies which do not have an immediate sense of urgency in their online marketing initiatives and who for whatever reason do not want to pursue PPC, organic SEO still offers a great, albeit slightly delayed, return on investment.

2. PPC Only.

Alternatively, a search engine marketing company may encounter the clients who are primarily interested in PPC … and nothing else. Even with a limited spend, clients can turn their campaigns on and off as needed, making market segments easier to control than with an SEO campaign. Pay-per-click also allows clients to achieve a somewhat predictable ROI if the campaign is managed effectively: “If I spend X, I’ll get back Y.”

The clients that fall within the ‘PPC advertising only’ category may have worked with a search engine marketing company before, pursuing SEO exclusively, and achieved less than stellar results. Despite all the positive press hyping up what search engine optimization can do for website visibility in recent years, it still tends to be viewed as more voodoo than science by most companies pursuing online marketing for the first time. With such companies, organic SEO is usually a topic we broach after achieving success with PPC.

3. SEO with PPC Stopgap.

The first and most common question a search engine marketing company may hear concerning an SEO campaign is how long it will take to achieve results. Naturally, clients want to be able to see the investment almost immediately.

This is where the PPC stopgap approach comes in. Though a client’s budget is usually fixed, they are often willing to spend a little more on the front end to see immediate results. Once positive results are evident, PPC spending is scaled back as SEO takes hold. An advantage of this approach to clients with limited budgets is that it can be managed on a very granular level. When top organic results are achieved for a given keyphrase, PPC bidding for that term can cease. Over time, PPC expenditures can theoretically be eliminated entirely. This model appeals to those who want a wide range of coverage and immediate results but have a fixed monthly budget that they do not control.

4. Hybrid Model.

A hybrid model is similar to a stopgap model, except that the client has no intention of eventually leaving the PPC arena entirely. Rather, the client has their search engine marketing company do a full on optimization AND paid search campaign at the outset, with the expectation that PPC costs will be reduced but not eliminated as the organic campaign takes hold.

In this model, a client recognizes that in an organic SEO campaign, they will be limited in the number of keyphrases that they can target by the amount of real estate on their website. With a PPC campaign, however, there is no downside to targeting thousands upon thousands of relevant “long tail” keyphrases, that is, search terms that are comprised of longer strings of words. Using the hybrid model, a company removes keyphrases from the PPC campaign on a granular level as they achieve top organic results for those phrases, but continue to bid on keyphrases that the site does not currently target.

5. Full Out SEM.

This approach calls for both SEO and PPC initiatives running at full speed. These types of clients are generally those that consider these two efforts as separate ‘beasts’ and frankly believe that showing up highly in both channels is a good thing…as long as the return justifies the spend.

These clients are happy to spend as much as possible with with their search engine marketing company and do not usually have a set marketing budget – just strict ROI objectives. As long as each channel is performing within acceptable ranges, they are happy to reap the benefits. Generally, they treat the two disciplines as unique channels and monitor the results independently.

Choosing the Right Model

Which approach is right? It depends (you weren’t expecting a definitive answer, right?). The decision between SEO efforts vs. PPC advertising depends on means, goals, budget, comfort level, corporate restrictions, and many other elements. Keep in mind that these are only five possible models that we often encounter. Many clients do not fit neatly into any of these scenarios. Some clients may start out with one option and evolve into another. Some switch back and forth depending on their own ever-changing situation. The most important thing is to be aware of your options and pursue a path that fits your current goals.

If you are new to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and would know how you can take advantage of a well optimised website then be sure to check out our SEO Education 101 Training Video. Click the link to go there now.

Article By: Scott Buresh

Is customer loyalty important to you? Have you ever wondered about which sources provide loyal visitors who will repeatedly return to your site?

Chitika analyzed the browsing habits of 33 million unique visitors during September last year. They found that Facebook provides the most loyal visitors, with 20 percent of those who originate from the social network in turn visiting the site they landed on four or more times in a week. Other notable social media sites include Digg at 16 percent and Twitter at 11 percent.

This should help you feel better about the time you invest marketing on Facebook. Now let’s look at some ways to promote your Facebook fan page.

How to Promote your Facebook Page

A promotion is a good way to reach out to your customers and make them aware of your new Facebook page. Offer a discount or prize drawing for customers who become fans.

Let your fans know that you would like them to share their feedback on your products or services. Be prepared to receive this feedback, good or bad. This should be a given with any type of social media marketing strategy.

When your customers (or fans) interact with you on Facebook, their friends will see those comments on their news feed. This is one way to leverage the power of Facebook as a viral marketing tool. This should attract more fans and prospective customers.

Engagement and Conversation

Many people are fixated on the goal of acquiring new fans. You can’t ignore this metric because the more fans you have, the more successful your campaign is, right? Well, not exactly.

The real goal is to engage your fans in conversation. If you don’t communicate and converse with your fans, then your fan page will become dormant and fans will disperse to other interesting sites.

You must commit to spending time doing this. Set aside the time to read through comments and other posts from your fan base. Many businesses create a fan page with the mentality that “if you build it, they will come” and don’t invest the time to interact with their fans, a lost opportunity.

Facebook provides some great tools to help you engage with your fans. You have the ability to send videos, photos, messages, or links to each fan.

Each time you send out one of these communications, you show up on their personal newsfeed. This helps to keep you and your products or services top of mind with your fan base. Be careful not to “spam” them. Spread out your communication pushes and make them meaningful and relevant.

A cool feature of Facebook is that it also gives you the ability to segment your audience by region, age, and gender. This helps you send the right messages to the right demographic group. Learn who your audience is and plan your messaging strategy around those groups.

Facebook also provides a helpful reporting tool called Insights. This tool helps you understand the various types of content your fans enjoy interacting with.

Also, because you’re encouraging open and honest conversations, you might find that you occasionally get some objectionable posts. Facebook provides tools to help moderate and even block users. But you should plan on how to handle this ahead of time and communicate to your fans up front so they understand the policy.

Regardless, use these tools sparingly. If fans feel their comments are being edited or you’re watering down the Kool-Aid, then it’s less likely they will engage in future conversations.

Being Found in Real Time Search

One advantage to search marketers is that search engines are working with Facebook and Twitter to integrate updates into their search results. Getting found in real-time searches is another strategy for promoting your fan page. Let’s look at some useful tips that should help you show up in these real-time searches.

• Keywords: This is always the place to start. If you’re doing SEO or PPC, then you probably already have a good handle on your targeted keywords. If not, start with keyword research. Include your targeted keywords in your content, updates, and especially your titles. Make sure everyone who updates your Facebook page has a keyword list handy so they can use these keywords as much as possible.

• Research and converse about relevant and interesting content: Take time to “listen” to what people are talking about on your fan page and other sites. Then you can post content that will interest your fan base. Ask a question to spark a relevant and timely conversation. Discuss current events and news if these are relevant to you and your targeted keyword set.

• Many followers: More followers means it’s more likely your content will spread virally and be shared. This also helps generate more impressions of your content.

• Call to action: You might be surprised sometimes by the power of a simple invitation. Invite people to “act.” Ask people to share the content with others. Include buttons like “retweet” or “digg” that help them do this easily. Doing this gets you one click away from showing up on another site and being promoted for more viewers to see.

The principles discussed here can also be used for other social media sites. If you are new to Facebook marketing and would like to set up a fan page and begin using facebook as a marketing channel for your business then be suer to check out our Facebook Marketing Unleashed Training Program. Click the link to go there now.

First and foremost…

Keywords Research

Keywords are the words that your user types into Google to try and search for websites. What keywords and phrases do you want to rank highly for? I can’t stress highly enough how important this step is in the optimisation process. If you get this step wrong all that follows will be wasted effort. It is vitally important to choose what keywords and phrases you want to rank for before you start optimizing your website.

You can see how much volume keywords get using the Google Keyword Tool. When you have chosen some good keywords you can also determine if its a good buyer keyword using microsofts, online commercial intention tool.

Now that you have determined what keywords you want to optimise for, you need to use then properly.

Optimize Your Title Tag

Make sure your main keyword appears once or twice in the title. If you have a secondary keyword, put both of them in the title. Don’t have any keyword more than twice.

Optimize Your Website

There are many other factors that are important for on site optimization. Two of the big ones are your header tags and your keyword density. Use heading tags for your headers. In between them, ensure you mention your keyword at least once.

Use your keyword often in your text, but don’t make it sound weird to do so. These two factors have an influence on Google, but not nearly to the same degree as before simply because people abused the system.

Get Quality Backlinks

The next thing is to get good backlinks from sites that are related to yours. Getting good quality back links to your website is what is known as off page optimisation.

There are many ways to do this. Here are some of them:

Be creative. Come up with ways to get back backlinks to your website.

Optimize Your Anchor Text

If you can, ask the website owners who are linking to you to create their link with good anchor text. A good anchor text is a link that has your keyword in it, rather than just click here.

For example, if you’re selling woodworking workshops:

Bad: *Click Here* To learn About Woodworking Workshops

Good: Click This Link to *Learn About Woodworking Workshops*

Where ** is The Link Text

Wrapping it Up

If you select your keywords carefully, optimize your title, your h1 tags and your keyword density, get quality backlinks and optimize your anchor text, you’ll be far, far ahead of your competition.

In fact, you now know more about how to get your site to rank well in the major search engines than most webmasters on the internet.

Now it’s time to put this knowledge to use and really see the results. What you learned here can literally double your business overnight.

If you would like some help with implementing this for your website then you can request a free consultation by clicking here.

Database of Customers

Through the years, you can build a very big database of potential clients. Note the word potential since not all visitors will be buying the product you promote when they first visit your page. It is also possible that they can just check out the offer but not do anything.

Creating a list of customers is very important if you want to build an online empire. Imagine what you can do with a long list of emails. The potential for affiliate programs are endless and you will find a diverse market where potential needs and solutions can be offered.

It’s Not Always about the Sale

You build a list for your business but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you will push for a sale all the time. Building relationship with your customers is an essential part of long term relationship.

A barrage of sales pitches can be irritating to most people and might really be considered spamming. Try to balance the situation and remember that affiliate marketing is also a give and receive process.

You can offer your visitors or opt in customers free information which may serve useful to their everyday life. Give them a free ebook for example which can help them shed off those extra pounds. These freebies may also serve as your prelude to a big promo that you will run.

A newsletter sent on a regular basis is also a good practice. This way, you can build a bridge of trust between you and your customers. Trust is very important in affiliate marketing since this is the number one factor to convince people to buy from you.

Building your List

Your first step to building your list will be based on your research about the market. You can create a free report that will somehow answer the needs of your target demographics.

You can give this free report through an opt- in page which will ask the customers to sign-up for your free newsletter. Once you have a sizeable customer base, you can start producing articles addressing topics that they want to know.

You can then distribute this to article directories and lead them back to your website via back links.

The easiest way to success in affiliate marketing is knowing what your customer wants. Be sensitive to their needs and profits will come your way.

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 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.

2. Creating a keyword list.

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

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

5. Writing out an ad copy.

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

7. 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.

Done properly, PPC advertising can be an effective marketing tool that will maximize the return on your investment.

As more traffic is driven to your site, you can entice many of them to subscribe to your mailing list or opt-in list. This is a list where in website visitors agree to be sent promotional materials such as newsletters, catalogs and such that could keep them updated about your site or the niche of your site. These promotional materials are sent via e-mail to the members of the list in different time intervals.

When using e-mail as the media of your marketing and advertisements, you eliminate the need for high costs. Email is free and if you can manage to make your own promotional advertisements you can also save a bundle there. With an opt-in subscribers list, you are pretty sure that what you are sending out is received, viewed and read by the subscribers and not simply being deleted. They have signed up for service and have consented in receiving it.

This means that there are constant reminders to your subscribers about all your products, new products and services as well as any promotions and special deals you are having. There is also the chance that they can be forwarded to other potential customers as they tell their friends and families about you and your site.

Of course you should be also aware that a subscriber may unsubscribe when they feel that they are not getting what they want or expected. Make sure that they are satisfied with your opt-in internet marketing strategies and keep them excited in receiving your newsletters and catalogs. Here are some tips that can help you build a list of eager subscribers.

Make your promotional materials interesting and fun. Try to use a little creativity but not too over artsy. Build around what your product or service is about. For example; if you are selling car parts, put some pictures of what is new in the auto parts world, a new wing door possibly that can fit any car and make it look like a Lamborghini.

Try to research what people are looking for, these way, you stay one step ahead of them all the time and you will be their bearer of new tidings. They will be eager to receive what you are sending them because they new you always have fresh and new things to share with them.

Write good articles that can be very informational but light at the same time. If your subscribers enjoy your articles, they will go to your site by clicking the links that you will be putting on your newsletter to read some more. You can provide articles that can connect to many people. Be diverse in your articles. Put something humorous, then put something informational, then put something that has both.

Are you wary about this because you don’t like writing? No problem, there are many professional and experienced article writers that can do the job for you for minimal fees. They know what they are doing and can provide the need that you have for your newsletters, the money that you pay for your articles are going to be met by the many sign-ups and the potential profit from the sales that you will get.

Create and send an E-book to your customers about anything that is related to your business or site. Use your knowledge and expertise in the field you have chosen to help other people who are similarly interested. Offer this e-book for free. You can write about anything informational and helpful to your subscribers. For example; you can do manuals and guides in so many things. This e-book could be used as a reference for many people.

Share this e-book with everyone, even other sites; just make sure that they don’t change the links in the e-book that will lead people to your site. If you want, you can always get some people to write it for you just like your articles. Your investment once again will be covered by the great marketing this will generate.

Add e-coupons in your newsletters that will help them avail to special discounts. Put a control number in your e-coupon so that they can only be used once. When people get discounts that can be found in your newsletters, they will be eager to receive your newsletter in anticipation of what you are promoting next.

If your subscribers can get benefits from your newsletters, they will be very eager to receive them. Just don’t flood your mailing list with mails so that you don’t annoy your subscribers.

Pay per click (PPC) is a means to advertise business through the use of keywords/phrases in the search engines. The advertiser is required to only pay for each click that sends a visitor to his website. Search engines such as Overture, Google Adwords, Search Yahoo and Miva are just some examples of search engines. They offer top positions among the sponsored listings for particular keywords/phrases you choose. The idea for bidding is you have to buy/bid on keywords/phrases relevant to your business. The highest bidder gets to be on the top of the search result listing and the second highest bidder, of course, gets the next top listing and so on. The trend that has been set by Google and being followed by the other major search engines is that more and more they are looking at relevancy of ads and not just highest bidder but this is the general way in which it operates. So that every time a visitor clicks on your website, you will have to pay the same amount that you bid on that particular keyword.

PPC can be very costly, time consuming and sometimes not worthy. But if you know how to go about the step by step procedures, PPC is a welcome change to traditional advertising.

If you do your searches for products, articles and auctions in the net, you usually type in a keyword or a set of phrase to guide you in your search. Either you use Google or Yahoo Search depending on where you are most comfortable at and where you usually get the best results. As soon as you key in the search button, immediately a long list of keywords or phrase will be displayed containing the keywords you key in. The first or the top link that you saw is most likely the one who bids the highest for that keyword you type. In this way, businessmen will produce the desired results; they get to be advertised, at the same time, saving and spending only for the clicks they need that might translate to potential sales.

The way to start PPC bid management is to identify first the maximum cost per click (CPC) you are willing to pay for a given keyword or phrase. CPC varies from time and even search engine to search engine too. Maximum CPC can be measured by averaging the current costs of bids (bids range from 0.25 to $5). Average of these bids is to be used as the maximum CPC to begin with. As your ad campaign progresses, the actual conversion rate (visitors turning to potential buyers/sales) will be determined and you may have to adjust your CPC (bidding rate) accordingly.

When you start to bid, see to it that you adopt different bidding strategies for various search engines. Search engines have their own PPC systems that require different approaches. It is also worthy to identify different bids for the same keyword phrases in various search engines.

Another thing, it is wiser not to bid for the top spot for two reasons:

1) It is very expensive and impractical, and

2) Surfers usually try different search queries in various search engines before they settle on the right one that fits to what they are looking for.

This hardly results to conversion. Try to bid for the fifth spot instead and work your way up.

If you are now going steady on your PPC biddings, it is time for you to develop your own bidding strategy accordingly. It is important for you to track down which sites bring the bulk of your traffic and identify the ranking of your paid ads. This will help your bidding strategy to be effective and you should also decide where you want your ad to be positioned. Usually your maximum CPC will limit your choices.

Bid gaps (e.g. $ 0.40, 0.39, bid gap, 0.20, 0.19, 0.18) occur when there is a significant price increase to move up one spot in the PPC rankings. It is best if you take advantage of the bid gaps by filling them in so you can save up your cents to other bidding opportunities. Often there are keywords worthy of lesser bids to get the appropriate ranking on the list and produce a good number of clicks and higher conversion rate rather than bidding higher but having a poor conversion rate. You have to put in mind that overbidding too is not good but rather the best position for the most effective bid.

Using pay-per-click bid management in promoting your website will only be successful if you take time building many lists across many engines and studying the performance of every listing. In this way, you can make the most value from what you spend in the bidding process. The key is to use the necessary precautions to stay ahead of the competition.

Bid Management Tools

In ensuring best results, you may use bid management tools. There are accepted and approved management tools that will help you in your bidding. They are categorized in two different types:

• Web based (services by monthly subscription) or,

• PC based (a purchased software)

Monitoring tools too may help in the tracking down of your keywords/phrases and search engines as to which among them often generate sales, overall and in relation to your cost per click. This is what you call return of investment (ROI) monitoring.

These bid management tools may include additional functions that may not get from online marketing tools that are readily available. Other tools can monitor competitor’s bids, produce reports for different parties and offer the ability to interface with multiple PPC engines. This is particularly helpful to those who manage more than a hundred keywords across several PPC engines to boost productivity and save time.

Pay-per-click bid management is ideal for the effective promotion of your business online without the hassles of draining your financial keeping too much. It is now fast catching up as a means used in marketing your goods and services to reach to as many consumers as possible.