Ideas for Business

With the creation of the Overture and Google Adwords systems, many webmasters believed they had finally hit the mother load. It was no longer necessary for small online businesses to invest large amounts of monëy into Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services to gain high search rankings in the natural search results.
Even webmasters committed to SEO campaigns began to realize its fleeting nature. Given frequent search engine algorithm changes, optimizing a website was no guarantëe that in 6 months or less it wouldn't be back to square one and page twenty of the search results.

Hiring a SEO company was no longer necessary to crack the top search engine results. A Page One placement could be purchased and often for far less than the cost of a SEO company's services.

Webmasters discovered that they could get traffïc to their website for as little as one cent per clíck.

Pay-per-click, however, has evolved over the last 5 years and not to the benefit of most webmasters. Although five cents is currently the average starting bid price at most major search engines, many sought after keyword terms can cost as much as $30 - $50 per clíck. Given the increasingly competitive nature of PPC advertising and spiralling costs, many small- to medium- sized businesses today might be better served hiring a good SEO company to search optimize their websites.

Who Is Clicking Your Pay-Per-Click Links?

There are four types of people who clíck on pay-per-click ads. Knowing who these people are helps explain why experts keep telling us that 20% to 25% of all clicks on PPC listings are "fraudulent clicks".

Personality Type #1: True-Blue Prospects

These are the people for whom you have placed your pay-per-click ads. They see your advertisement; they like what they see; and they clíck your link to see if you can actually serve their needs.

Personality Type #2: Accidental Clickers

Every once in a while, even my finger misfires, and I clíck an advertisement that I did not intend on clicking. My first thought is usually, "Oh no...", and my first action is to find the back button.

didn't mean to cost that person monëy by clicking his advertisement... but I did. It was an accident. Now, the advertiser has to pay for my mistake. That bites.

Personality Type #3: Jealous Competitors

I would like to think that all of my, and your, competitors are fine, upstanding people. And most of them are. But, there are some who are not, and they clíck on pay-per-click links just to be spiteful or just to cost their business rivals a few dollars.

Believe it or not, a good percentage of "fraudulent clicks" are believed to be clicks perpetrated by people against their competitors.

Personality Type #4: True-Blue Fraudsters

Not that long ago pay-per-click providers realized that there was tremendous opportuníty in offering small website owners a method for cashing in on their limited traffïc.

Today, a webmaster can go to any number of pay-per-click services, add a small piece of code to a webpage and start serving paid advertising the same day. Webmasters thus become revenue share partners with the PPC provider, splitting revenues with the PPC provider for each clíck.

Ethical webmasters, of course, put the needs of their advertisers first and focus on putting eyeballs on their website so that visitors can clíck on the advertising links.

But, the word "ethical" doesn't exist in the vocabulary of some webmasters. These are the "true-blue fraudsters" who believe in making "revenue at any cost... no matter who might be hurt by their actions." They devise schemes to have their own ads clicked in order to drive up their revenue share.

These webmasters, although a minority, are responsible for the vast majority of fraudulent clicks. And, they are the same people that should be taken out behind the barn, for a good old-fashioned flogging --- one lashing for each stolen dollar would be fine with me.

The Unseen Costs Of The Pay-Per-Click Search Game

If the experts are correct in estimating that 25% of all clicks are fraudulent, then you are paying out 33% more than you should have to pay to get your business.

If you are converting PPCSE clicks-to-sales at a rate of $20 per transaction, then you should be aware that your actual conversion rate for non-PPCSE advertising would cost you an average of $15 per transaction. By escaping the pay-per-click search engine model, you could in effect make an additional $5 per transaction by cutting the fraud out of your marketing budget.

Personally, I would rather not pay the pay-per-click mafia the $5 a transaction that they are exacting against pay-per-click advertisers.

Where My Advertising Money Works Best

I have always gained the best bang for my buck with pay-for-placement advertising. In a nutshell, I pay a monthly, quarterly or yearly fee to have my advertising seen on various websites. Banner advertising is always an option, but text links provide better click-through rates (CTR's).

At any one time, you can find links to my websites on dozens of other websites.

Here are a few examples of pay-for-placement, often referred to as "paid inclusion", advertising networks:

ISEDN.org Network:
The Independent Search Engine and Directory Network (powered by ExactSeek.com) is comprised of more than 200 specialty search engines, search directories and article directories. Through their system, you can buy quarterly or yearly top ten exposure for specific keyword phrases which are then shown through the ISEDN's 200 plus member websites. Their network claims to show paid inclusion ads 150 million times per month.

Pricing starts at $4 per month per keyword term (word or phrase) and goes down according to the number of keyword phrases purchased. Quarterly and yearly rates for one keyword phrase are $12 and $36 respectively.

BraveNet.com Home Page Featured Advertiser Listing:
BraveNet is the number one provider of frëe web tools in the world and through their AdBrite salës page you can purchase a 30 day text advertisement at the bottom of the Bravenet home page for $1500 or a 3 month advertisement for $3500. According to the Bravenet Media Kit, their network serves 500 million page views per month.

ColdFront Network:
ColdFront serves the Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG) communities. With 150,000 unique visits and 12 million page views per month, they provide real advertising value, if your target market happens to be in this area. Paid inclusion can be purchased for $250 to $350 per month.

Who Left The Barn Door Open?

We put locks and deadbolts on our doors. In some localities, we put bars on our windows. We keep our valuables in safes. We keep our cars locked when we are not in them. We are a nation obsessed with protecting our valuables.

And yet, when we advertise our online businesses, we seem to be willing to let PPCSE providers steal 25% of our advertising budget? It boggles the mind.

Personally, I am done with PPCSE companies until they can assure me that my advertising dollars are protected from clíck fraud.

I have always relied on my own search engine optimization skills to strengthen my natural search results. And frankly, I am pretty good at it.

And, to supplement my own SEO efforts and organic search result placement sucesses, or lack thereof, paid inclusion currently offers me the best value for my monëy.


About The Author
Bill Platt is the owner of http://thePhantomWriters.com Article Distribution Service. Through his system, you can have your Frëe Reprint Articles sent to thousands of publishers and webmasters looking for good quality content. If you need someone to write articles for you, Bill's writers can create interesting articles on most any topic. If you would like to talk to Bill personally about his services, you can reach him from 9:30am to 6pm CST at: (405) 780-7327.

Virgin Mobile USA is breaking new ground in mobile advertising by announcing its plan to offer customers a way to earn free talk time on their phones by watching ads - and taking tests afterward. SugarMama, as the program is called, will debut on June 14.

Pre-paid customers, when running low on minutes, will be able to boost their time by up to 75 minutes, earning one minute of talk time per 30-second commercial message viewed. The customers then fill out a survey about the product advertised.


Microsoft's Xbox 360, PepsiCo's Diet Mountain Dew, and American legacy Foundation's anti-smoking "Truth" campaign are tapped to be the first sponsors participating in the program. Customers will also have the option of receiving SMS advertising with promotions and discounts.

"Virgin Mobile's SugarMama site brings the value of a viewer's engagement to a new and higher plateau," notes Rick Vandervoorn, Ultramercial's East Coast vice president of sales. "These commercials will be more content-rich and less ad-like, to make a perfect fit with Virgin Mobile's young user base. And talk about a goodwill bounce -- the sponsor buying airtime minutes? What could be more valuable?"

Virgin Mobile says that the advertising model can satisfy both sides of the channel as advertisers look for ways to integrate their messages into the mobile space while soothing mobile users who are wary of cell phone spam. SugarMama is permission-based and rewards customers for their time.

"Everyone is racing to shove ads into the mobile channel," Howard Handler, chief marketing officer at Virgin Mobile USA. "But the last thing young people want is spam on their phones. This service acknowledges the savvy and free will of our customer base. Our attitude, and that of our partners, is that these customers' time is valuable. They should get something for giving us something. And that's what SugarMama is all about."

American Legacy Foundation views the new program as a two-directional way to reach a younger audience and spread their anti-smoking message that centers on marketing tactics used by the tobacco industry.

"Since day one, our campaign has been focused around enabling young people to interact through peer-to-peer communication, then ask questions and make informed choices about tobacco use," said Joseph Martyak, executive vice president of marketing, communications and public policy, at the American Legacy Foundation. "So the two-way dialogue on which SugarMama is based will be another powerful way for us to engage teens with life-saving information."

Not everyone is so sure about the campaign's effectiveness, however. The New York Times quotes Ovum Research analyst Roger Entner to bring out concerns about the spendthrift nature of the market that would trade personal time for airtime.


"If you're too cheap to buy a minute of air time, how are you going to afford an Xbox?" Mr. Entner said. The people likely to earn minutes for free "are people who want to avoid costs at any cost."

But Microsoft representatives say its not all about selling Xboxes. It's about awareness and feedback.

"We're always seeking opportunities to learn from our customers how we can deliver the best gaming experiences possible on Xbox 360," said Director of Xbox marketing Chris Di Cesare. "Virgin Mobile's SugarMama program provides us with a new way to drive consumer awareness yet gain valuable insight from our customers that helps us continually deliver new breakthroughs in gaming entertainment."

Customers can earn minutes in three ways: by filling out online questionnaires, watching online video clips at the Virgin Mobile website, or receiving text messages on their phones. Receipt of free minutes is contingent, however, on demonstration by the customer that they were paying attention, like identifying the main idea of the message.

About the Author:
Jason is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

On today's highly competitive Google AdWords pay-per-click (PPC) search engine, it is now more important than ever to ensure that your PPC campaigns are optimized to their utmost potential. You should be achieving maximum return on ínvestment (ROI) for the keywords or phrases that are most relevant to your business and are most likely to provide you with targeted traffïc to your website. With ever growing cost-per-click (CPC) prices throughout the various PPC search engines it is essential that you avoid certain mistakes that will undoubtedly result in poorly performing PPC campaigns

The Mistakes to Avoid

Long list of less than targeted keywords
Not identifying unique aspects of your product or service
Lack of keywords in your ad text
Directing users solely to your home page
Creation of single Ad Groups
Utilizing single campaigns
Using broad match only
Failure to optimize Ad Serving for your ads
Not tracking results
Entering the content network without modifying bids

Long List of Less Than Targeted Keywords

When you first set out to create your AdWords campaign it is of utmost importance that you do not go "keyword crazy". What this means is that you must not create long lists of irrelevant and generic keywords. For example, if you were an automotive dealership then it would not be in your best interest to target the keyword "truck". The reason being is that the cost-per-click (CPC) for such a generic keyword would be incredibly high when compared to a more descriptive relevant keyword such as "T-Z783 Extended Cab". An example of an irrelevant keyword which would not produce conversions if you strictly conducted automotive salës would be "tail light covers". The phrase may bring visitors to your website but, if they do not find what they are looking for when they get there, they will be gone just as quickly as they arrived.

Not Identifying Unique Aspects of Your Product or Service

Before implementing your AdWords campaign you must first understand exactly what it is that makes you stand out from your competition. By identifying your unique products or services you will have a lot more clarity on how to rise above your competitors and zone in on the keywords or phrases that are unique to your business. I would recommend that you perform an analysis of your competition, have a look and see what they are doing and which phrases they are using. After conducting a competition analysis and after understanding what makes your products or services unique you will be able to come up with a strategy that will topple your competitors.

Lack of Keywords in Your Ad Text

When creating your descriptive ad copy it is imperative that you find a means to inject your keywords into your title and description while maintaining the delicate balance of clarity and relevance. Your ad copy should be tailored in such a way that when read by a visitor they know exactly what they are getting into when they clíck on your ad, which brings me to my next point.

Directing Users Solely to Your Home Page

Not taking the time to decide which destination URL should be designated to which ad is an oversight that I come across far too often. When you finish compiling your list of relevant keywords that describe unique products or services of your business, why on earth would you then send everyone to your homepage and let them navigate through your site in hopes of finding what it is that they are looking for. Instead why not send them straight to the page that contains exactly what was described to them within your ad copy. As an example, if you are an automotive dealership and your ad contains the keyword "T-Z783 Extended Cab", instead of sending them to www.auto-motive-dealership.com send them to www.auto-motive-dealership.com/T-Z783_Extended_Cab.html.

Creation of Single Ad Groups

Categorizing ads that are targeting related keywords into a common ad-group will allow you to have a much higher level of control over your entire campaign. Let's say that you run a sporting goods store, start by grouping all ads targeted towards hockey skates into a single Ad Group. You would then create another ad-group which would be targeting hockey sticks and another containing hockey gloves and so on. Organizing your ad-group structure in this manner gives you the ability to create in-depth reports on the perförmance of each ad-group.

Utilizing Single Campaigns

Once you have your Ad Groups sorted out into easy to identify categories you may then move on to the next step of creating relevant campaigns. From the example above you have created Ad Groups containing separate products of hockey skates, sticks, gloves etc. Now it is time to create a container for all of the Ad Groups into one campaign entitled "hockey equipment". You would then repeat the process creating Ad Groups for tennis, one group for shoes, one for racquets etc. and then once again you drop them all into a single campaign entitled "tennis equipment". Having highly organized campaigns is the key to determining which ads are creating optimal conversions.

Using Broad Match Only

When you do not take advantage of the phrase matching options that are available to you, chances are you are missing out on potential customers and creating a higher CPC. Broad matches are usually less targeted than exact and phrase matching. Broad matching is the default option your ads will appear for expanded matches such as plurals or relevant keyword variations. When utilizing phrase match your ad will appear for search terms in the order that you specify and sometimes for other terms. Exact matching is by far the most targeted option to use. You will appear for the exact keyword specified. Negative keyword is also a fantastic option to utilize in order to specify which keywords you do not want to appear for.

Broad match
Default option: Blue widget

Phrase match
Surround the keyword in quotes: "blue widget"

Exact match
Surround the keyword in square brackets: [blue widget]

Negative match
Place a negative character before the keyword: -blue widget

Failure To Optimize Ad Serving For Your Ads

When you take advantage of the AdWords Ad Serving service basically what you will be doing is showing your most popular ads more often. The AdWords platform will give weïght to ads with the highest click-through rates (CTRs) and display them more often then keywords with lower (CTRs) within the same ad-group.

Not Tracking Results

In order to have any idea on your AdWords campaign perförmance you must be able to see the keywords that work as well as those that do not. Google AdWords supplies a vast array of very useful tracking tools. Google has also built into the user interface Google Analytics which is a marvellous web analytics tool that provides you with in-depth reporting on all aspects of your campaign perförmance. I cannot stress enough the importance of creating goals for your AdWords campaign to measure your success by.

Entering The Content Network Without Modifying Bids

Within the AdWords platform you have recently been given the ability to set different bids for the content network compared to that of the search network. If you do not set different bids on the content network for certain keywords, you will be paying more per clíck than you should be. After lowering the prices on certain keywords you will notice that the amount of click-throughs that you will be attaining will remain the same as they were at the higher bid.

Conclusion

The purpose for this article was to create awareness for common mistakes and to eliminate frustrations that may emerge when managing Google AdWords campaigns. The points mentioned above are compiled from management mistakes that I have stumbled upon time and time again in hopes to assist you in creating a marketing campaign that will generate dramatic increases to the profïts of your business.


About The Author
Tyler Huston is the founder and CEO of SearchStrategist.com, a search marketing firm that provides professional PPC Management, expert search engine optimization, SEO press release writing and blog optimization services. Tyler takes pride in ranking clients from all over the world at the top of the search engines. He can be reached at tyler@searchstrategist.com.

Most people leave a fortune on the table when they build a new website because they make the mistake of only targeting the most generic, hard to rank well for keywords and then wonder why they don't have any traffic.

For maximum impact and long term traffic generation you need a combination of tightly focused, specific keywords and 'word combos' using the keywords that people are searching for right before they BUY a product as opposed to when they are researching the market for a product.

Let me explain...

Imagine you are thinking of buying a new golf club, let's say a driver, because you want to add extra length to your drives (all your mates can out-drive you by 20 yards or more and you want to make up for that using a little bit of the latest technology to help you out.

You start your research into the best drivers around by entering the keyword phrase golf drivers into your favorite search engine. Your search query comes up with 150 million pages loosely related to the phrase golf drivers. That's just too many listings to look through to make a buying decision, but you start your research there anyway.

OK, Let's Trim That Number Down A Little...

You look through the first few listings (golf.com, golfdivers.com, etc.) and find out that many people are recommending the Big Berth driver and it has some great reviews from leading golf pros.

You look at the competition in the golf driver market and you decide that one of the big bertha range is probably the club for you. Next, you do a search for big bertha divers and come up with 1.2 million pages of information to wade through.

You find three or four sites on the first couple of pages that look interesting so you do some more reading that confirms the Big Bertha is what you need.

Most of the sites you find are shopping sites with no real content, but a couple of them have useful articles related to Big Bertha drivers.

After reading and researching, you settle on the Big Bertha Titanium 454 driver.

Now you are ready to actually BUY your new golf club, so you enter the phrase buy big bertha titanium 454 driver into your search engine to find the best deal.

You now search for the best price and delivery conditions (hey you want it today now that it's so close and buy the driver from the merchant of your choice. Can you see the distinction between these keywords? T he keyword phrase golf drivers is a research keyword.

The keyword phrase big bertha divers defines the search further, but it still isn&apops;t specific enough for most people to make a buying decision. They are still often in 'research' mode at this stage.

The keyword phrase buy big bertha titanium 454 driver is a buying phrase.

These are the phrases you want to build your website's tier three or four pages around.

These are the 'money' pages where people will click through to your merchant or sales site after they have been PRE-sold on the benefits of buying the big bertha titanium 454 driver.

Your keywords for the pages in your golfing website's structure would be something like -

Tier two - golf drivers

Tier three - big bertha divers

Tier four - buy big bertha 454 driver or buy big bertha titanium 454 driver

You won't get many people arriving on the last two pages each month, but the visitors who do come will be ready to buy a big bertha titanium 454 driver!

And you'll be right there to recommend your merchant or sales page to them...and earn a commission!

But doesn't that mean you have to build lots of pages related to all of these products and services if you want your share of this free, highly targeted traffic? For example, there would be hundreds of different golf drivers on the market.

Well, yes, if you want to make the most money you will...

By having pages related to all the different golf drivers available you will gradually rank well for some keywords, then more of them over time.

Then your good rankings for these easy-to-rank-for pages will start to see your harder-to-rank-well-for keyword focused pages ranking well too.

Put great PRE selling copy on your pages, a picture of the product on the page if possible that is also a hyperlink to the specific product on your merchant's website or order page, and you're set.

Then do it for all of the products in your merchant's range that you want to promote.

You also need to build pages for the important research keywords too as you will start to rank well for these over time, but your focused product related pages will bring in a steady stream of highly targeted, ready-to-buy visitors who have done their research and are ready to take action right now.

How sweet is that?

I hope this article helps you to increase your website's revenue and puts you on the way to becoming a super affiliate or selling a lot more of your own products and services.

About the Author: Rocky Tapscott is the author a free 7 Part Mini Course "How To Build The Perfect Home Based Business Around Your Favorite Hobby, Pastime, Sport Or Skill" which uses 6 real life case studies to show how others have used a proven system to build profitable businesses around their favorite hobby. Drop by http://www.hobbyandlifestyle.com/ecourse.html to grab your free copy.

Most webmasters have visited Google's Webmaster Help Center. Many of the suggestions are obvious: Don't use frames; Don't employ cloaking techniques or scripts designed to trick search engines; Create a search engine-friendly site map; Get incoming links from other quality web sites. But us webmasters can be a cocky bunch and will let our own pre-conceived notions get the better of us sometimes.

This refresher is for all you (ie. us) webmasters and search engine optimizers who have a set method of designing and/or promoting web sites and who consider yourselves experts in your field. Experts you may be, but it is nevër a bad idea to review the basics from time to time.

Make sure your pages have less than 100 links. This won't be too difficult unless you display product lists without breaking them up into separate pages (which should be done for your visitors let alone search engines!) or have a link partners page or a site map. If you have more than 100 outbound links, you may want to review your linking practices unless you have compiled a comprehensive list of high quality and relevant resources for your visitors.

Dynamically-generated content can create session IDs and URLs that contain a "?" character. Chëck your database administration settings to make sure that you aren't forcing search engine spiders to begin a new session each time they visit your site. Note: Preventing spiders from starting a session on your site may have negative effects if you use a third party for web site credít card processing. Always chëck with these services before making any changes of this nature.

Web designers still utilize images as a way of displaying headings or other important areas of text instead of simple HTML simply because they think the Book Antiqua font with a drop shadow improves the aesthetics of the site. While branding and clarity are always paramount, keep in mind that multiple fonts used on the same page can have a negative impact on readability. And the more text written in HTML that can be read by search engine spiders, the better. CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) also provide a way of attaining the look you want while keeping the code clean and in search engine-readable format.

"Make sure that your TITLE and ALT tags are descriptive and accurate." Most webmasters assume that by using keywords in the page title that are relevant to the page's topic, that they are adhering to the rules. But that last word in quotes is the most important: Accuracy. It is standard practice for search engine optimizers to make sure that if a word is used in a page title, that it also shows up in the main body of the page as well. Not doing this means that Google may be interpreting your page titles as inaccurate or at worst, trying to manipulate its algorithm.

Use 301 redirects to let visitors know if a URL has changed. Many people still use the "meta refresh" command. This is an outdated command that has been utilized in the past for unethical purposes. While visitors can be directed to the new page the same way with either method, Google specifically mentions using a 301 redirect. More information on how to implement this redirect can be read at http://knowledge.freshpromo.ca/seo-tools/301-redirect.php.

Google suggests you submit your site to the Yahoo! directory. Why would Google urge its users to pay a direct competitor of theirs $299 USD a year? It is safe to say that web sites included in the Yahoo! directory are not trying black hat SEO techniques such as free-for-all link exchanges, cloaking, multiple domains showing duplicate content, and so on. Companies that spend monëy promoting their web site should receive a vote of legitimacy from search engines. As difficult as it might be for some small business owners to bite the bullet with Yahoo's yearly cost, having Google recognize that you have paid for directory listings will increase the chances that your site will rank well.

"You should nevër have to link to an SEO." If you are hiring a search engine optimizer to help you with your site's rankings, be careful they do not insist on linking your site to theirs. The only reason for this is to help the SEO's own link popularity. If anything, it will detract from the SEO efforts. Not the most brilliant suggestion from a company claiming to help you, is it?
It is recommended that you read Google's entire webmaster guidelines if you are developing a new site. The above points are ones that a lot of webmasters may have overlooked, and if you're included in that group don't worry: just fix the issues and remember them for next time you work on a web site.


About The Author
An expert at organic SEO, John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the President of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based SEO firm.