Thursday, February 5, 2009

Reasons to Use PPC Advertising

When you are debating with yourself (or your accountant!) as to why pay per click is a necessary part of your online marketing scheme, you'll find that there are plenty of reasons to use this type of advertising to promote your website! Take some time to think about what pay per click advertising can do for you.

  1. Catch people in the right frame of mind.
    You'll find that when you use this advertising that the people who see your ad are already thinking about what you offer and are thinking about how to get it. This will make them more prone to look and more importantly, to buy.
  2. Learn about your demographic.
    Using pay per click can teach you a great deal about who is coming to your site and what is attracting them. This is a good way to do some research that is immediately useful and that will pay for itself.
  3. Everyone else is doing it.
    If your competitors are the ones who are using this advertising method and you are being left out, you'll soon see that this is something that you simply cannot afford to do. Don't let your competitors have this valuable venue all to themselves.
  4. Be seen.
    Even if they don't click your ad right away, the people who hit the site in question will have seen it. This can be the first step towards getting them to come back and ask questions.
  5. Immediate relation between effect and payment.
    You will only pay when someone actually goes to your site and looks around. This makes pay per click one of the few forms of advertisement where you can see a direct correlation between what you spend and what results you will see.
  6. Instant adjustment.
    Don't like the ad that you've put up? Feel that it is targeted badly and want to try something else? For the most part, pay per click ads, particularly large ones that are run off search engines, can be changed immediately to your satisfaction.
  7. No extra cost for seasonal effects.
    Unlike other advertising venues where you have to pay more when holiday seasons come through, you'll find that pay per click prices remain fairly stable, no matter what is going on. Though you might have to bid more for certain words, you'll never see an enormous price jump when the holidays come through.
  8. It's fast.
    Setting up pay per click advertising can be the work of a matter of minutes. You'll find that you can set up an account in a very short amount of time, with absolutely no experience needed.
  9. Lots of people want to help you.
    You'll find that there are plenty of Web 2.0 and search engine optimisation specialists that are interested in helping you make the most of your opportunity; help is just a click away!
  10. More traffic!
    The end result of pay per click is, of course, getting more people to your site who are interested in what you have to sell and what you can do for them!

Money Problems

How do you solve money problems?

1. Stop spending

2. Worry

3. Blame someone or something

4. Give up

5. Go further into debt

6. Sell a possession

7. Become depressed

8. Complain

9. Cheat or steal

10. Hope someone will just give you the money you need

Of course, none of these solutions help you gain more money.

However, this solution is effective.

"I answer money problems with lots of money, not with worry or sadness or impractical hope." — L. Ron Hubbard

You solve your money problems by making money. No other approach is a solution. An abundance of money is your only solution.

Recommendations

1. Figure out how much money you need. Write the total at the top of a page. For example, "I need to earn $10,000 per month."

2. List all of your assets. Include all of your possessions, your skills, your knowledge, your contacts and your passions. These are some or all of the ingredients to your ultimate success, so make the list as complete as possible.

Examples: You have a truck, a camera, an empty bedroom and $11,225 cash. You are good at organizing, listening, learning, speaking and making people feel important. You know all about horses, word processors, furniture building, the State of Texas, Internet auctions and using e-mail. You know Jennifer, Robert, Tim, Ruth, Steve, Dave, etc. You have a passion to help others, build model airplanes, solve complex problems, learn new things and more.

3. Dream up every way you can use your assets to make money. Make a list. Old methods, new methods, any combination of assets that produce income.

Examples: Use your empty bedroom to start a small business selling cameras, furniture and jewelry for others at Internet auctions. Learn how to prepare tax returns. Help your boss make deliveries with your truck.

4. Select a method that is proven. Does this method already make money for someone else?

If so, it is a good candidate.

If no one has ever made money with your idea, look for something else. Stick to methods that already work and invent new methods as a hobby at some other time.

5. Verify that others would pay you for the product or service.

For example, ask your boss, "Did you know I know 150 horse owners. They need shelters for their horses. What if I tested the market to see if we could add portable shelters to our product line. If it works out, I would be willing to run the new division."

As another example, you are thinking of taking pictures as a profession. So you meet with professional photographers to see how much money they make.

Ask around. For instance, ask your friends "If I had my own insurance company and could save you money on your car and home insurance, would you be interested?" "If I made a video on how to cut children’s hair, would you buy it?"

6. If all the signs are good, test the idea in the real world before devoting much time or energy to the idea. For example, run a part-time business from your house to ensure it will be popular and profitable. Make a few products or services to see if anyone will buy them. Try the new ad campaign with a small newspaper. Dip your toe before taking the plunge, especially if the idea is new.

7. Once the idea is certain to work, then and only then should you invest significant time and money into the project.

8. If you cannot work out a workable income source, work out a plan to increase your assets. If you have the right ingredients, creating new income sources is much easier.

For example, you may need additional education, apprenticing or experience in certain fields before you can earn more income. You may need to become more responsible. You may need more familiarity with a subject. You may need to make more contacts.

9. Once you have a plan you are certain will work, work long and hard to make it happen. You will solve your money problems by making more money on your own.

10. This final step is rarely taken, but is key to becoming wealthy.

"I never count on any one source. I always plan to get the total sum of all the money I need from each one of three or four ways or sources." — L. Ron Hubbard

After you have one steady source of income, look for another source by repeating these steps.

Step To Become Rich

Many people want to know how to become rich, so I have created this lens to go over the steps that lead to wealth. You can use these in any way - in any country, no matter where you are or who you are, and become rich day after day.

Becoming rich is like a jigsaw pieces with 5 pieces. You simply put the 5 pieces together, and you have the picture of wealth, and it can be your life, if you put it into action.

The 5 steps to becoming wealthy are:

1. Read Napoleon Hill Books And Implement.
2. Save More Than You Spend
3. Add Genuine Value
4. Stop Trading Time For Money
5. Leverage Yourself

I will cover these steps in detail right here on this page. If you wish to know how to become rich .

Ok, so you might know me as the Internet Wealth Trainer, but I have had success with offline wealth as well, and these 5 steps work in any situation.

Make Money With Pay Per Click

Things You’ll Need:

  • Computer
  • Patience
  • Pay Pal Account
Step1
Open 3-5 email accounts with yahoo.

Step2
Go to http://members.freewebs.com or any similar free webpage creator website. Open 3-5 accounts depending on how many email accounts you have opened. Each website with a different email.

Step3
go to www.bidvertiser.com and click on the link shown in the image attached.

Step4
After joining and filling out the necessary information for www.bidvertiser.com, go to Yahoo answers with one of the email accounts you have opened. Do an advanced search for open questions on any similar subject matter. Find the most popular topics that are unanswered.

Step5
Now, log back in to your accounts one by one on the free webpage creator websites and edit information that is related to the topic of the questions on Yahoo answers. Make sure that the information is relevant to the topic you have chosen. This task should be quite easy simply by using Google to obtain information. Don't forget to give credit where it is due on your webpage.

Step6
Ok, now that you have the information on all 3-5 webpages, add the advertisements using your bidvertiser account to your webpage. This will all be explained to you once you log in to www.bidvertiser.com after registering.

Step7
Now, go to yahoo answers with any of the email accounts and find the questions with a similar topic as to the one your webpage gives information about. Answer the questions with the links to your website, and write a short message along with the link (Just so people don't think that it is a scam).

Step8
Happy money making. Read TIPS!

Why PPC?

When you are debating with yourself (or your accountant!) as to why pay per click is a necessary part of your online marketing scheme, you'll find that there are plenty of reasons to use this type of advertising to promote your website! Take some time to think about what pay per click advertising can do for you.

  1. Catch people in the right frame of mind.
    You'll find that when you use this advertising that the people who see your ad are already thinking about what you offer and are thinking about how to get it. This will make them more prone to look and more importantly, to buy.
  2. Learn about your demographic.
    Using pay per click can teach you a great deal about who is coming to your site and what is attracting them. This is a good way to do some research that is immediately useful and that will pay for itself.
  3. Everyone else is doing it.
    If your competitors are the ones who are using this advertising method and you are being left out, you'll soon see that this is something that you simply cannot afford to do. Don't let your competitors have this valuable venue all to themselves.
  4. Be seen.
    Even if they don't click your ad right away, the people who hit the site in question will have seen it. This can be the first step towards getting them to come back and ask questions.
  5. Immediate relation between effect and payment.
    You will only pay when someone actually goes to your site and looks around. This makes pay per click one of the few forms of advertisement where you can see a direct correlation between what you spend and what results you will see.
  6. Instant adjustment.
    Don't like the ad that you've put up? Feel that it is targeted badly and want to try something else? For the most part, pay per click ads, particularly large ones that are run off search engines, can be changed immediately to your satisfaction.
  7. No extra cost for seasonal effects.
    Unlike other advertising venues where you have to pay more when holiday seasons come through, you'll find that pay per click prices remain fairly stable, no matter what is going on. Though you might have to bid more for certain words, you'll never see an enormous price jump when the holidays come through.
  8. It's fast.
    Setting up pay per click advertising can be the work of a matter of minutes. You'll find that you can set up an account in a very short amount of time, with absolutely no experience needed.
  9. Lots of people want to help you.
    You'll find that there are plenty of Web 2.0 and search engine optimisation specialists that are interested in helping you make the most of your opportunity; help is just a click away!
  10. More traffic!
    The end result of pay per click is, of course, getting more people to your site who are interested in what you have to sell and what you can do for them!

Tips And Tricks For Writing High CTR PPC Ads

When it comes to pay-per-click advertising, there are two ways to decrease your spending. You can lower your cost per click (which will lower your position and your CTR) or you can improve your ads (which will increase your CTR and your position). Great ads will attract more clicks for a given amount of impressions, which will be rewarded by Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing with lower bid prices or higher rankings.

The real secret to writing “the best ad on the page” is to ruthlessly test and track multiple ads over multiple test iterations. By doing this, you will improve your ad over time, and will eventually have a great performing ad with a very high click through rate.

But that doesn't mean that there aren't a few tips you could use to give your initial ads a boost, or to help you beat your personal best performing ad time and time again. So without further ado, here are 18 tips for writing better PPC ads:

  1. Write ads for small groups of keywords. By grouping your keywords very tightly, and writing your ads specifically for those keywords, you will give yourself a large advantage over your competition. Many people are too lazy to take the time required to do this properly, yet it is something that will increase your CTR every single time.
  2. Work your keywords into the ads as much as possible. If you took the advice from the previous tip, you will have an easier time with this one. You should try to get your keywords to appear multiple times in your ad so that you can take full advantage of keyword bolding. I sometimes include the keyword in all four lines of the PPC ad for maximum bolding.
  3. Give the ads some visual appeal. This takes some additional creativity and planning, but can really help your ad to stand out. You can make each line progressively longer (or shorter) for a cascading effect, you can alternate lengths to create a visual “arrow” or “reverse arrow” shape within your ad, or you can make your ad intentionally extra short. All of these will help you ad differentiate itself from the competition and will hopefully attract some eyeballs.
  4. Write ads with your audience in mind. When you are writing an ad, think to yourself “what is my audience looking for when they search for this keyword?” If you can “read their minds” and guess their internal dialog, you will be able to answer their exact questions and get their attention. This is another tip that is immensely easier if you group your keywords very tightly.
  5. Create an attention-grabbing headline. Nothing in your ad is more important that your headline. The problem with PPC ads is that you don't get much space for it (25 characters with AdWords). Craft your headline wisely, but don't stress over it too much, you will probably be split testing many, many different variations before you find the great ones.
  6. Ask the audience a question. This is definitely a good strategy for certain markets. If you can work a question into your headline or description, test it out and see how it impacts the CTR. If someone is searching for something, and then you confirm what they are searching for, they are likely to click on your ad. Additionally, the tone of the question, along with the question mark, helps differentiate your ad from the others.
  7. Use specific numbers. This is a common copywriting trick that has been used for decades. Numbers create interest and specific numbers create curiosity. They won't always perform better, but try to test the impact of including numbers in your ad. If you can, include a very specific number such as “314″ instead of “300+” or “76.83%” instead of “75%”. You don't have to be 100% accurate with the numbers either, as long as you aren't blatantly lying.
  8. Capitalize strategically. It is better to capitalize the first letter of every word? The first letter of important words? Just the first letter of words in the headline? Should you capitalize words in your display URL? You can never be sure until you have tested it, but it is something that you must test. I usually start out capitalizing everything, then try out any combinations I can think of.
  9. Borrow ideas from others. Another copywriting principle that has been in practice for decades is borrowing ideas from other ads. Although you should technically only take “ideas” (such as rewriting an ad about “pens” to work with your “cheese” keywords), you won't get into any trouble copying direct competitors. Take some of the top (or your favorite) ads that are being shown for your keywords and mix them up to create something new. It they are at the top of the listings, they probably have a pretty good ad (or are paying out the nose).
  10. Emphasize the benefits of your offer. Yet another age-old copywriting principle. Your audience doesn't care how many features your are offering or how great they are, they want to know “What's in it for me?” If you can tell them, in your ad, what benefit they will get from giving you their click, you will likely have a successful ad.
  11. Use words that evoke emotion. If you can effectively get people to feel emotions when reading your ad, they will probably feel compelled to click it. The list of emotion words goes on and on, so here is a nice guide to emotion words.
  12. Test multiple versions of your display URL. This was touched on in tip number 8, but needs to be expanded. While you should experiment with capitalization (i.e. “DomainName.com” vs “domainname.com”), you should also experiment with “www”, sub domains, and pages. It usually, but not always, increases the CTR when you include the keywords in your URL. You can essentially do this one of two ways: “Key-Words.DomainName.com” or “DomainName.com/Key-Words.” Although some uptight editors might disable these ads if the pages don't actually exist, you can resubmit them and a nicer editor will realize that there is no harm done.
  13. Be cautious with prices. Although prices do have their place as negative qualifiers, they will usually be detrimental to your CTR. Unless your price is the lowest, it is probably best to leave it out of your ad. You can, instead, state the savings as a benefit to the user.
  14. Include a call-to-action. Sometimes, the most effective way to get someone to do something is to simply ask them to do it. That's the principle behind the call to action. Because you have such limited space in a PPC ad, the call-to-action might not be beneficial, but is is at least worth a test. Just including something like “Click here to receive this benefit” is sufficient.
  15. Double check spelling and grammar. This might seem obvious, but is can very easy to make a stupid mistake. Having a grammatical or spelling error in your ad hurts the credibility of your ad and will most likely get it disable by an editor, costing you valuable testing time.
  16. Don't waste space with useless words. Like I said before, the space available to you in a pay-per-click ad is extremely limited. Although your ads should be grammatically correct, they do not need to be sophisticated sentences. Keep them simply and concise so that it is easier for the reader to quickly understand what you are offering.
  17. Use negative keywords. This isn't directly related to actually writing your ads, but it is definitely important. It goes along with tip number 1. If you don't use negative keywords, your ad is going to be triggered by keywords that you didn't intend for. When this happens, your ad will not match what the consumer was searching for, they will not click your ad, and your CTR will suffer.
  18. Make the ad relevant to the landing page. I saved this suggestion for last because it will not effect the CTR of your ad in the least bit (it can, however, effect your landing page quality score). With that being said, it is still very important that you make your ad relevant to the landing page. If a visitor reads a particular offer or benefit in your ad, they are expecting to find it when they click through. Give them what you promised in your ad and you will experience higher conversions. Give them something that doesn't match the ad and you will have a lot of confused visitors who reach for the back button.

There you have it, eighteen tips I have learned through my experience with PPC marketing. Keep in mind that these are merely suggestions, they can't possibly be used all at once, and they won't always make for a better ad. You need to test every change you make to your ads to determine if it has a positive or negative overall effect.

Avoiding Google AdWords Mistakes

Google AdWords is an effective means of pulling in targeted traffic to your website. It allows you to get your site listed on the first page of the search results on Google and its advertising network for virtually any keyword phrase you can imagine. I'm convinced that Google is the best advertising channel that can generate consistent and quality traffic day in and day out.

Before tapping into a new market segment, you should test it with Google first, and then move on to experiment with other advertising methods using the data and statistics of traffic patterns you get through Google AdWords. However, you'd better do it right because advertising on Google is not something you can afford to screw up. If you don't know the proper way to implement Google's system, you'll end up spending 50% more than you should be buying their clicks.

After working with Google AdWords for the several years, I have pretty much experienced every mistake one could make when using Google AdWords. Below is a list of the top 6 mistakes that you should avoid.

  1. Bidding too high for the top position
    When it comes to bidding on keywords, it seems like you should bid for the top placement. However, the biggest problem with the top spot is that there are many Internet surfers who click on ads without reading them first. Top ads are most likely to receive unqualified clicks. Also, you may overbid relative to profit potential. Unless you have predetermined data indicating a high bid will return a positive ROI, you need to keep your bids low. You may not be able to attract lots of traffic, but you can collect CPC and conversion data before going deeper into the niche you are exploring.
  2. Implying that the promoted product or service is free
    Inexperienced advertisers tend to lure in visitors by implying that the product they are promoting is free. Bad idea! Traffic alone doesn't mean anything. Only sales pay your bills. Doing so will only attract tire kickers who are not interested in buying anything from you, and you'll be paying for each one of them. A good Google ad is all about striking a balance and attracting the right type of traffic.
  3. Bidding on generalized keywords
    Common keyword phrases can suck up a lot of ad spending without producing any conversions. Those people who search very broad terms like "make money" don't know what they want. They are still in the research phase of the buying lifecycle. Your advertising should be tailored to your market's buying habits.
  4. Setting a low daily budget
    The daily budget for your campaign is the ceiling on your daily spending. You can set this number at whatever you want. Some people say it is a good idea to start out with a low daily budget while you refine your AdWords effectiveness. However, my experience tells me if you set your daily budget too low, your ad won't get served with every search query that is made with your keywords. Google's system takes your daily budget, as well as other factors, into consideration and serves your ad accordingly. Set your daily budget about 5 times the amount that Google suggests, and monitor your campaign regularly.
  5. Leaving the content network on
    Probably the most common mistake people make is using the content network. Unless you have great experience, you should turn off the content network. You can incur a large amount of advertising dollars on the content network very quickly while getting very low quality traffic from it.
  6. Linking directly to merchant's website
    Direct linking is easy to be set up, but it doesn't allow for the opportunity of pre-selling your visitors. You could be wasting your money if your merchant's website doesn't convert. If you're promoting a specific product or service, you may want to create a landing page where you can pre-sell and promote more than one similar products at the same time to produce higher conversions.

These are just some of the mistakes that are easily made by advertisers while working with Google AdWords. PPC advertising is pretty competitive, and it's impossible to achieve success with mistake ridden AdWords campaigns. Making as less mistakes as you can is the first step of avoiding being taken out of the Internet marketing game.

Avoiding Click Fraud

Pay-Per click fraud dates back even from the time when Overture was still Goto.com. Only, it wasn't as serious as it is lately since the pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is becoming very popular for getting highly targeted traffic as well as making an affiliate-based commission.

So, what's pay-per click fraud?

In an ideal world, you and I will pay a fee to a site that offers PPC program and hosts our ads whenever those ads are being clicked by a visitor. The visitor then examines our site and eventually makes a purchase. We make money.

In click-fraud-world as it is nowadays, those clicks that you and I pay for are not coming from potential customers. But from scam artists, automated scripts known as "hitbots", underhanded competitors, and even affiliates that just click on our ads in order to earn commission offered by the PPC providers. We lose money.

Fraudulent clicks or "click spam" can be defined as any kind of click that occurs with zero possibility for a conversion to occur, or a website visit not being originated by a legitimate user. Fraudulent clicks happen on a regular basis - even more than what we could possibly imagine.

India Times published a shocking article about a mother who gets down to work every evening while holding a baby in her lap. She is clicking on PPC advertisements. She doesn't care about the ads, but diligently keeps count - it's $0.18 to $0.25 per click.

"The trend is catching up in India," - says Goutam Rakshit, chairman, Advertising Council of India - "It's a numbers game as far as media buying is concerned. And anybody who can manipulate numbers gets the edge. This is unethical, and needs to be curbed."

John Squire, the vice president for product marketing for Coremetrics, estimated that his company's clients are spending approximately $10 million a year on fraudulent clicks. They are spending about $10 million on consumers that don't exist.

How much are you paying for customers that don't exist?

If you think your PPC campaign funds are depleting due to a fraudulent click activity, affiliate-generated fraudulent activity, or if you are simply suspicious of the traffic that occurs without any increase in sales - then perhaps you need to start getting tougher with your PPC analysis.

You can always ask for refund from the PPC provider running your campaign if you have suspected a fraudulent click activity. But, you won't get the refund unless you have hard core facts to prove it.

And now, let's get down to the facts.

  1. Have an unique url:
    • On a less technical note, define a unique URL for the sales page that will go through the PPC program. Clone your sales page and save it under a different URL.
      If your page is selling vitamins for an example, and lets say your URL is www.hotvitamins.com, save it as www.hotvitamins.com/power. Or, create a sub-domain, such as http://power.hotvitamins.com.

      Then, use this "cloned" sales page for your PPC campaign. That way, the only traffic coming to that page is from the PPC website. Only, do not link this new URL to any other website. You want to have 100% pure PPC traffic so you can keep an eye on it.
    • For more technical people, you can assign unique session id to each of your URLs within your PPC campaigns. I'm seeing both techniques being used.
  2. Use a basic log analyzer program to begin to investigate the data on the received clicks, including date, time, referrer, page views, URL, IP, etc. Your webhost should already provide you with a log analyzer program or a "Site Statistics Tool."

    If not, maybe it's time for you to change your webhost, or you have to install log analyzer software yourself.
    What you want to do at this stage is look for anything suspicious. Based on how comprehensive your "Site Statistics Tool" is, at the end of the day you want to be able to capture the IP address from each click.

    Then, look at the quantity of the clicks from each IP address, click behavior and click timing. Run a "reverse IP address lookup" to see who is making those clicks.
    Basically, you want to be able to gather as many details as possible for each and every click. Whether you will depend on the tool your webhost is providing you, or you will install a software yourself, or you will contract it out, make sure you have the capability of capturing the IP address.

    If the IP address was not captured, or cookies were not generated, that's an indication of clicks being generated by automated scripts known as "hitbots."
  3. Start tracking the conversion ratio. You can choose to track conversions either by using your own conversion tracking system, or by using a third-party conversion tracking tool.

    There are plenty of low-cost conversion tracking solutions.
    In some cases, the services offering to track your clicks will have a sales conversion option available for you. That's a service you definitely want to get if you don't want to deal with it yourself.

    But, if your sales ratio is very low or even zero, your chances are very high that you're being bullied by someone. It could as well be the low demand of your product or a high competition, but if you're getting high amount of traffic from your PPC campaign and low to zero sales, the chances are very high that you could be a victim of click-fraud.

    So, what do you do if you suspect that you're receiving fraudulent clicks on your PPC campaign?
  4. Be meticulous - very thorough. Make sure you have data that points to questionable traffic. You have to have evidence of the suspicious clicks. Ensure that you have a legitimate case even if you have to double check your records. The PPC provider will ask you for facts and not an opinion.
  5. Carefully document your traffic analysis during your PPC campaign. Document anything related to the campaign - handwritten notes, email exchanges, scribbles, reports, screen shots, etc.
  6. Be sure to record every one of the clicks, whether they're from your server logs or from a third party processor that you might be contracting for this purpose.
  7. Document all relevant competitor positioning. Ever since Google changed its policy on PPC ads, there have been various reports on competitors of a same product manipulating Google's new system.

    It's the people with more technical knowledge manipulating the system for their own good while killing the campaigns of the people with no technical knowledge. They're not breaking Google's rules, but they know when to pause their campaign (knowingly) and when to reactivate it again.
  8. On the other note, you might want to contact your competitors to see if they're experiencing click fraud. Your PPC campaign might not be the only one experiencing these fake clicks. Two victims' cases presented to the PPC provider will make a stronger case.
  9. When feeling highly confident that you have a strong case and clear facts that you've been a victim of click fraud, contact your PPC account representative and submit your data with a request for refund. Their investigations can, and do take time.
  10. Meantime, continue to monitor your click activity and record any additional data.

It's unfortunate that we have to be so much involved to protect ourselves. We pay for advertising so we can free up our time and let someone else do it. But with the seriousness of PPC "click spam" nowadays. You snooze - you lose.

If the PPC providers don't solve this problem, perhaps there are other ways of bringing highly targeted traffic with less stress.