PLAN YOUR INTERNET SUCCESS - Part 4

Plan to an Online Business Success - Part 4

14. Web Advertising and Adwords

I was planning to make a short stop here and combine advertising and banner exchange but these are two very different animals that need to be treated in different ways. Furthermore, I believe that the topic of advertising on the Net is very often brushed aside as too expensive or “sold” by Gurus (in their promise to reveal the big secrets of free advertising on the Net) as the way to make money as an affiliate.

As a result, instead of doing a short overview, I decided to spend some time reviewing advertising on the Net with an emphasis on Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Adwords in particular as well as keyword advertisement (I will address keyword advertisement on Facebook and the other social network in another issue) for a variety of reasons including:

- Most (if not all) people use the search function on their browser continually and are presented with ads in context with their search.

- Advertising on the Net is a necessity no matter your ranking if you want to increase your exposure, click through and hopefully conversions.

- Keyword base advertising is a blessing in disguise if you know how to use it.

- Google Adwords and tools are great for collecting tons of intelligence and using it to better understand your potential customer and what it will take to get their attention.

- Google Adwords and most SEM solutions suck for affiliates that work with networks like Clickbank, CJ, Linkshare, etc., and make a commission based on sales.

- PPC advertising can work if you have the right formula of service or product and play the game smartly

First let set the scene for search today. You may not like it but Google, Yahoo and MSN handle most of the searches on the Internet with Google the dominant figure (nothing new here).

Here are the official numbers per Nielsen for searches in 2009.

Google: 64.0%
Yahoo: 16.3%
MSN: 9.9%

If my math is correct, this represents just over 90% of all searches on the Net.

If you are an information junkie and want to know how the other 10% is split, here it is.

AOL: 3.7%
Ask: 2.1%
My Web Search: 0.7%
Comcast Search: 0.5%
Yellow Pages: 0.4%
Next Tag: 0.3%
Dogpile: 0.2%

This demonstrates one thing to me and hopefully to you, Google is the search engine that offers the most representative information on what and how Internet users search the Net. As a result Google can probably provide you with the best intelligence on your potential customers’ habits.

So how does one use Google to gather some information without spending a fortune.

Based on most online marketing doctrines, a pay per click (PPC - also called Cost Per Click - CPC) advertising campaign has two very distinctive goals that include: 1) to insure a position on the search engines to attract potential buyers and increase sales and 2) expose your brand on the Net.

However, you must understand that Google PPC advertising formula on Adwords is designed to make as much money as possible for Google by playing you against your competitor. Adwords basic principal is that the more you pay the better your position.

And while this formula worked relatively well for most everyone at some point in time, it no longer works when keywords bids are as much as 9.00, 15.00 and yes… $30.00 (and more) per click. Do you realize that just a few years ago the average keyword on Google was $0.54 (yes that is correct FIFTY FOUR CENTS).

This reality should tell any marketer to re-evaluate the way they use Google Adwords (and the other SEM programs for that manner). My advise then is that, first and foremost, advertising on the Net should be used to 1) initially gather information on what/how information is being searched on the Net and the cost of keywords, and 2) give you the opportunity to analyze this information to find the best way to moneytize you services or products. As far as branding, In my view when it comes to PPC, this is nothing more than a “residual” effect and has minimal impact unless you already have an established brand, in which case who cares.

So how to use an Adwords campaign to get maximum bang for your buck.

You goal should be to accomplish the gathering of information (1) with minimal expenditures.

First thing is to create a campaign for each product or business that you have and then create buckets of key terms using key search software or solution as explained in the previous pages in part 1 of the Plan.

I personally recommend using a combination of two things that include:

First: Wordtracker (http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/ ) to find the keywords that work for you

Second: Adwords keyword tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal)

Third: Use a software or solution that provides you with KEI ranking for keywords. KEI stands for Keyword Efficiency Index and uses a simple formula to gives you an idea of how to value a keyword. For example a very popular keyword will probably have a low KEI which means that even though it is popular the competition for this keyword is fierce, hence not good for you. I personally use IBP, an all-in-one software that allows me to test html, find keywords, calculate KEI, submit site, etc. If you are interested check it at http://www.ibusinesspromoter.com/

And to illustrate this here are some screen shots of an example that I am using to show how I do this.

First Wordtracker allows me to find related keyword to my theme. In this case “marketing”



The result that I get is already giving me a lot of potential for keywords and keywords buckets such as “Internet Marketing”, “Search Engine Marketing”, “Network Marketing”, “Webside marketing”. Wordtracker allows you to click on these terms and drill down to keywords that are specifically related to each.

For example clicking on "Internet Marketing" results in the following:



This is actually my first bucket of keyword that I will entitled “Internet Marketing”.

The same approach maybe taken with the other results (“Search Engine Marketing”, “Network Marketing”, “Webside marketing”, etc.)

What is critical however is to organize keywords in these buckets. I call them sub-verticals since they derive from my main vertical, in this example Marketing. These buckets will become your ad group on Adwords.

When you’ve gone through this exercise your Adwords account will look something like that:

Campaign (for example jtouboul marketing)

Group 1 – (for example Internet Marketing)

Keyword 1
Keyword 2
Etc.

Group 2 – (for example Search Engine Marketing)

Keyword 1A
Keyword 2A
Etc.

You are now ready to start with Adwords and the first thing you will need to do is to create a campaign budget and set type of campaign you want to run (search or content) and other targeting factors. Here are some recommendations:

- Set a low daily budget with limited time for the campaign to run (you can always extend it) and time during the day when you want it to run.

- Create your first ad group and set a cost per click at .35 cents for search content. Again nothing to worry about you can always change it

- Create one or more ads for each group (I suggest 2-3 per group) using your main keyword in the header (for example Internet Marketing Expert for the ads corresponding to the Internet marketing group). Look at what is there by searching Google using keywords but I suggest that you get your own message. Something that reflect who you are.

As an example for my online marketing campaign on Adwords I have 22 ad groups, 63 ads and 480 keywords, and this is just to start.

Once you have launched your campaign you will very quickly see something happen and that is the infamous “below first page bid” on some of your keywords. Nothing to worry about since the goal here is to find out how much it costs to be on first page, and not necessarily to be there. The good thing is that you will also see a cost to be on first page. In my case it varies to as much as $20.00 per click for a keyword like “email marketing software”. I guess email marketing software companies have a very high margins with the type of conversion rate one experiences with SEM.

To better manage your campaign(s) I suggest that you download Google campaign management tool called “Adwords Editor”. It comes with great features and allows you to manipulate things much faster than if you were online.

Now the game begins. Using your KEI software or solution look at your keywords with the highest KEI. Those are the keywords that may not generate great traffic but that are the most cost effective in getting you visitors. I usually increase my bid for those to be in a decent position. Not necessarily page 1 but close enough as long as it is within reasons as far as price goes.

However one of the most critical aspect of Adwords is its “Network”. I continually adjust my Managed Placement and Auto placement maximum CPC to increase traffic.

As you do the above, you will notice within a relatively short period of time that some buckets/Group show significant impressions and some don’t. This may have to do with your bid (I would suggest that you increase your search and content bid slightly to see what effect that has) or these keywords simply do not create much traffic and this is part of the game.

Within a couple of weeks of this (I usually do this for 3 weeks and spend one to two hours per day reviewing and adjusting) you will see an emerging “picture” of what is going on in your space including hot keywords, best messages, which keywords and message convert best, etc. Your spending for these two weeks may be as low as $20-30.00, but the intelligence that you will gather is worth 10 to 100 times that.

Why? Is I am sure what you are asking. Well because now you have a good “picture” of what your campaign should include as far as keywords and message to have a chance to succeed. And equipped with this information you will be able to create campaigns on Yahoo, MSN, Miva, AOL, Ask and all the other search engines while minimizing your time tweaking these campaigns. Sure there may be some different results for the same keyword on Google and AOL but is it worth spending an entire day figuring this out. I’ve always said and continue to say that Internet Marketing is a number games so once you found what works stay with it in order to minimize the time spent managing campaigns.

With this information you will also be able to better target Directories if you want to advertise on those. You will be able to better target your email campaign by better understanding what works in your message and the spaces that are hot.

All this is time consuming but it is by far one of the most critical part of your plan to success so pay special attention to it.

15. Classified Ads

For selling product or services to people Classified Ads are a possible channel. However do not expect tremendous traction. Regardless it is an interesting way to get your product or service listed and will help your PR with Google.

Resources:

http://www.usfreeads.com/
http://www.webcosmo.com/
http://www.classifiedads.com/
http://www.global-free-classified-ads.com/
http://www.freeadvertisingforum.com/
http://www.craigslist.org/about/sites
http://www.beatyourprice.com/

16. Banner Exchange

There are many places that offer Banner exchange and the rules vary. Regardless there is no great thing to be expected from banner exchange but as anything else free exposure is free exposure.

There are only two rules that I would follow:

1.

Do not waste your time exchanging banners with a site that has a dedicated banners page. Most people don’t intentionally go a page to look for banners. Only possible exception is for a site and page that has a high ranking in which case it falls more into the Link Exchange category

2.

Always include a call for action on a banner. For example, “Click Here”, Click to Visit”, “Click Here to Buy”, etc. The prettier the banner the more people thinks it’s an image and do not think of clicking on it

Resources:

I do not have any resources on this one and suggest that you do a search on Google and see what is offered.

17. Link Exchange

The same as what I explained in “banner exchange” applies here.

Resources:

There are some decent link programs that can help you find other websites and link with them relatively easily. Following are few good ones to join.

http://www.linkmarket.net/
http://www.linkleads.com/
http://www.infowizards.com/
http://www.linktraders.org/
http://www.linkexchanged.com/
http://www.linkexchangeit.com/
http://www.linkpartners.com/
http://www.123exchangelinks.com/
http://www.links-pal.com/
http://www.ads4links.com/
http://www.spocka.com/
http://links-for-you.com/
http://www.webmaster-link-exchange.com/
http://www.hotscripts.com/category/remotely-hosted/link-indexing/

18. FFAs

FFA was a great way to get some (and I mean “some”) traffic and, more importantly, back links for very little investment in time and money but with search engines discounting those FFA died.

This being said, it’s another of those marketing tool that died but not completely and something that maybe worth looking into for those of you who have a solid stomach and if you have the time and patience to do it.

There’s two way to deal with FFA


*

FFA Posting: Very poor results. I’d say a waste of time but why not if you have time
*

FFA Hosting: A bit more hope of getting visitors but watch out for complaints from email that you sent and that will be regarded as spam even if these people have agreed to receive it.

By the way here’s a quote I saw on a website that I think sums it all up “FFA Hosting and Posting is a war zone. No doubt about it. But if you know how to play the game on both ends, you can win the war.”

Resources:

www.hightraffic.net/freelinks/lpm/links.shtml
www.adomania.com/ffan/
www.mweffa.com/
www.pridelinks.com/
www.100ffa.com/
www.hightraffic.net/links/automate/links.shtml
www.ffafarm.com/veretekk/freshleads/links.html
www.maxban.com/
www.postive.com/LP/links.html
www.troinfo.com/links/links.htm
www.ffacash.com/cgi-bin/post.cgi?mybizpages-Business
www.freeemail123.net/
www.smallbizffa.net/ffa.pl?250
ffa.trafficwave.net
www.freeads2000.com/
www.hbb.nu/
www.hits2u.com/
www.multilinks.net/ffagold.shtml
www.1host4profit.com/ffa.html


If you need assistance visit my website http://www.jtouboul.com

PLAN YOUR INTERNET SUCCESS - Part 1

Plan of Action for Your Internet Success

Being an Internet addict for a good fifteen years now, I’ve come across a great number of books, reports, ebooks, lessons and other stuff that claim to be the last thing you’ll need to learn the Net and become successful. No matter how good it sounds when I read the caption on the back of the book, 100% of the time this thing end up in a place where it will be forgotten. And the reasons are simple. They’re tool long, too vague or simply too stupid, and often all three combined.

Additionally I often come across these sites that claim to be from Gurus and promises to deliver reaches only if you were to buy the guy’s ebook. Often there’s the Ferrari and the mention in the background and this guy is going to give you all his secrets for $9.99. Of all the garbage that I’ve seen on the Net (and there’s a lot of it) this is the stuff that piss me off the most because this collection of easily attainable information on the Net is nothing than BS riding on people’s hope.

As a result, I decided to write an “abc” of how to put together a plan of action to succeed (or at least have the chance to succeed) on the Internet. I’ve been putting this idea in the back of my mind for quite some time until I came across “The Marketing Helper” (http://www.theimhelper.com/). Similar idea that offers great advices except for its length (all combine I guess that all lessons would fill 500 plus pages book). However reviewing it done on me that this would be a great idea if it was “distilled” and presented as an easy to follow and apply guide. The result is what I offer here and on my site and what I call simply my “Plan of Action to Success on the Web”

This Plan of Action is of course free to use and to pass on as long as whoever uses it does not claim it as its own or tries to sale it. The idea of this plan of action is to make it a “living document” whereby I will insert new steps to the plan, gather comments and additional information and update on a regular basis

The first steps that I cover this month are as follows:

1. Define your Business
2. Search for Keyword
3. Research your Competition
4. Pass your First Test

1. Define an Area of Business where Opportunity Exists and Find a Niche

Many websites and gurus claim to have the secret to that one but if they know something you or I do not, I would be very surprised.

Bottom line, you must have an idea for a business, hopefully original but, more importantly, something that you want to do because you care not because someone told you that you can make millions doing nothing. I’ve been around for quite some time and been an entrepreneur most of my life and have never come across something that was easy.

So, please, whatever you do, do not spend your money buying some “get rich quick” skim. Doing this is like going to Vegas. Bells and whistles with only one guarantee: You will loose your money! (and I’m not sure you’ll even get bells and whistles)

Resources:

http://www.ecademy.com/

http://www.ryze.com/

http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/

Once you’ve done your research and found something you’d like to pursue, try to drill down to the very specifics of what you could do that is unique as far as targeting a niche audience, niche product or service, etc. For example let’s say that you’d want to generate leads for cars. That’s a business idea that has its merits but defining what kind of cars would bête even better. For example

2. Search for Keyword

The critical part of keywords is to find the best possible keyword with least possible competition. Furthermore it is very important to identify keywords as well as key phases that people search when looking for your product or service.

This being said, the type of keyword you will use for your Meta Tags (see SEO) and an SEM Campaign like Adwords maybe quite different.

Resources: Keyword Popularity

http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

While the first resource (worldtracker.com) will give you an idea of the volume of search and similar terms, the second (adwords.google.com) can give you a good idea of what the cost for buying these keywords or key terms maybe.

Finally, I would definitely recommend that you open a Google Adwords account (Adwords.google.com) and set aside a small budget for testing your idea, creatives and website. But not to worry this will be explained later.

3. Research Competition and Learn

The best and easiest way to do this is search through Google, Yahoo or via directories for competitors and see what they do well and not so well and make a check list of what to do to improve or what not do when you come across competitors that are not doing it right

Resources:

Same as 1.

4. Pass your First Test

So here you are with a business idea, you research on keywords and an idea of you competition. Before you continue, you need to review all this and ask yourself a few questions:

a) Is the idea still a good one?
b) Are the keywords that you found well searched and is the cost reasonable considering your potential margin. This is a huge topic and one that is specific to your business and I’ll be happy to help if you contact me. No worries, I do not charge anything for simple questions so send me an email at jeantouboul@jtouboul.com or go to the form below.
c) Is your competition the type of companies or entities that you can take on? If you are trying to go after a market that is cornered by Apple for example, you better have a unique product and a lost of resources.

If all checks then I suggest that you go over all the details once more and make sure that you have not inserted in your analysis some elements of wishful thinking. As a matter of fact, I would suggest that you take the time to write a short pitch (couple of paragraph) and present it to someone who has never heard of it before. If you need to explain what it is you just presented then, in all probability, your idea is not clear and you need to go back to the drawing board. And DO NOT dismiss any criticism no matter how trivial or “uneducated”. I’ve seen too many people, including myself make this mistake and pay dearly for it.

Read Part 2 of the Plan of Action for Internet Success by clicking here

5 - Selecting a Domain Name

6 - Design and Content for your Site

7 - Select an ISP

If you need assistance contact me by clicking here

Also check out my on-going posts about Internet Marketing Success 101 at jtouboul.com

PLAN YOUR INTERNET SUCCESS - Part 2

Web Success 101 - Plan for Your Internet Success - Part 2

5. Select a domain name

Don’t try to do too many things with your name like for example use all the keywords. I’ve come to the conclusion that so much is at play when it comes to SEO and selling a concept or attracting people to a site that the shortest, easiest to remember and to spell name is the best option.

For example I created site like search-engine-optimization-professionals.com and realized that this is so long and so complicated (not the “s” at the end – I actually debated for or against the “s” and selected both domain at one point) that all this was pointless. Additionally Google started penalizing sites with “-“ in their names.

Bottom line, find something easy to spell and remember.

Finally, as a personal preference, I do not recommend that people buy their domain name through their hosting company. I personally use Godaddy as much because I started with them and have too many domain to move somewhere else but any specialized domain registration site is what I would recommend. This being said there are no specific rule here so whatever works for you…

Resources:

http://www.godaddy.com

http://www.buydomains.com/

http://www.sedo.com/main.php3?language=us

http://www.register.com/

Bottom line is who cares what you select today? For under $8.00 for a domain per year you can afford to buy a few and test them? Who knows, you may have some variation and I am testing them to see what kind of action I get if any. A couple of years ago someone some-one suggested that I get some wine sites and I got a few but came up with the idea of some name that would personalize these sites. So I got what was available (www.mycaliforniawinery.com or www.buy-california-wine.com – Yes, at the time the “-“ was still working) but was not satisfied since most good stuff was gone. I thought about it and decided to select a bunch of things that were “customized” around the concept of myxxxxcorner.com (for example mycaliforniawinecorner.com, myredwinecorner.com, mychardonnaycorner.com, etc.). I must have spent $80.00 and by the end of the first year abandoned half of them.

Keep in mind though that if you want to brand a name, what I describe above will not work. However, there is always the option for sub-domain like wahetver1.domain_name.com, whatver2.domain_name.com, etc. but SEO is peculiar for these so it is another issue to consider.

There are many options for what may be your best option, and I suggest that you think through but at the very minimum secure a few domains that you think may work for you.

6. Create a Website

Some people spend a fortune on this and I think it is not very smart unless there is an absolute need to have very specific look and feel to create an image or ambiance. Most people on the net do not seem to care much about web design if you believe what you see. Amazon, Yahoo, Google are not exactly the most attractive sites on the Net yet they work for the people who use them and that the key… work!

Bottom line you want to start with a simple site and take it from there. There are plenty of sources for free templates and I encourage you to take them into consideration.

Where I think your money would be better spent is on a program that allows you to manage your website. There are free ones (open source) like Joomla, Drupal, Magnolia and paid ones that are often specialized solutions like Salesforce but cost a bundle. I personally use neither and rely on Micromedia Dreamweaver and the assistance of my php programmer to do what I need because I like 100% control over my website.

As a result my recommendation is to get a copy or Dreamweaver and start learning the basic of building and maintaining a website. It’s not the easiest route but this with the “ready to go” template makes it best approach in my view.

Resources:

http://allwebcodesign.com/

http://www.templatetuning.com/

http://www.flash-template-design.com/

http://www.dreamlinestudio.com/

http://www.oswd.org/

http://www.zerodollartemplates.com/

http://www.webmastersplaza.com/

http://www.dreamlinestudio.com/

http://watson.addy.com/

http://www.whitegyr.com/flash-templates.htm

http://www.freeflashsites.com/

http://www.templatepark.com/

http://www.bizweb2000.com/

http://www.roopletheme.com/

http://drupal.org/

Finally you must have noticed that some website show a small icon next to their domain name and if you want to create something like that it’s super easy. Just create some kind of logo (keep in mind that since it is tiny it should be something easy to recognize like a letter) and go to http://www.favicon.cc/ and you’ll see how easy it is to do

Whatever you decide to do, do not waste too much time re-inventing the wheel on this one. What you need is a simple, easy to navigate websites that is attractive and pleasing to the eye and “Paramount” has something to say, hence # 7 below.

7. Create Content for your Websites

Well, here is another vast and interesting subject. Many people think that they are great at writing content and they go on and write long tirades about their websites and business and loose the point, let alone the attention of the visitor. Others read some SEO articles about content and learn that you have to include as many keywords as possible. So they go on and load their text with so much stuff that it becomes a weird concoction of words that barely make any sense. Yet, other who may have tried both approached and failed hire a web copy writer to do all of the above.

In my opinion the secret of great content for a website starts with something that has been around for centuries and that is applied very commonly in all newspapers, TV promos, etc. It’s the headline… If you have a great headline that grabs the visitor’s attention then you have already done half your job.

How does it work for a website? Simple -- You must capture in a few words that describe what this site is all about. In other words whatever made you decide to start this business in step 1 should now be explained in a short statement. For example if you decided to sell used technical manual online because no-one else does it then state it “The Place for Used Tech Manual”

Resources:

http://www.articlehub.com/

http://www.articlecity.com/

http://www.articlehub.com/Marketing/

http://rdf.dmoz.org/

http://w.moreover.com/

http://www.advertisingknowhow.com/members/articles.php

http://www.magnet4web.com/content/affiliate-marketing/what-is-affiliate-marketing-and-how-do-i-get-started.php

TIP: In case you need content in a hurry and for a temporary period of time, you should know that Wikipedia allows anyone to use their content as long as it is recognized as originating from Wikipedia

Finally while this is not really content related, you should not forget to check on the option to add a search capability to your website. Here are some free and paid solutions.

Additional Resources:

http://www.freefind.com/

http://www.fusionbot.com/

http://www.spiderline.com/

http://www.phpdig.net/

http://www.atomz.com/

8. Select an ISP

There are thousands literally these days and all offer the same things (more or less).

There are three main option:

I - Shared Hosting – You along with hundreds of others are hosted on the same machine(s)

II - VPS (Virtual Private Server) Hosting – A space within a machine or machine is dedicated to you and only you and you get basic admin support

III - Dedicated Server – A server is dedicated to you and only you and the admin support is a bit more advanced

Bottom line is that if you are going to have a few links on what is mainly a content site with very little or no functionality then get a shared plan. If on the other hand you are going to run a data base and need to install some apps to run your business then VPS and dedicated is for you. The big difference between the two is volume and capacity between the servers, and this is when you need to make a decision between VPS or Dedicated.

Resources: ISP that I like and use

http://www.jumpline.com

http://www.hostgator.com/

http://www.serverintellect.com/

http://www.hypermart.net/

Regardless of where you decide to host your site, I would suggest that you make sure that you can upload your files via FTP and to get an FTP solution and always backup your websites’ files. This will allow you to switch to another ISP provider if you are not happy with the one you first selected*

* Hence you want to register your domain with an independent registration provider independent of your ISP. This will allow you to make a simple change of DNS when you want to switch.

Ready to continue? I'll have more about optimization, Press Releases, using social media, etc. in a couple of weeks (around May 25), so come back and check it out.

Next topics will include the following:

Read Part 3 of the Plan of Action for Internet Success by clicking here

1. Optimize your Website


2. Press Release


3. How to Use Social Media


4. How to Use eZines, Blogs


5. Paid and Free Listings

If you need assistance contact me by clicking here

Also check out my on-going posts about Internet Marketing Success 101 at jtouboul.com

PLAN YOUR INTERNET SUCCESS - Part 3

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