BeginBiz Affiliate Marketing Blog

Shopping.com Would Rather Not Talk to You

2006-09-19T15:17:00.000-07:00

Maybe they're very busy this time of year, or maybe their customer service reps are on strike- either way, it seems that Shopping.com would rather miss out on some advertiser revenue than respond to a help request (or even 4 online tickets and who knows how many phone messages).

Sometimes I wonder just how a web property as large as Shopping.com (they're the number 1 comparison shopping engine unless you count Bizrate and Shopzilla as the same thing, in which case they're still number 2) which is backed by an even larger owner (eBay) could possibly be so hard to contact. In case you aren't familiar with the situation, Shopping.com doesn't even list a phone number inside the Merchant Center. There's a web contact form. That's it. No email. No rep. To get the number you have to scour the actual Shopping.com site and even then there is no indication that you might be able to reach a customer service rep that way (and maybe that's because you can't- the recording says you can, but you really can't).

The funny part is that their own help docs tell you that, after you try the one basic thing that they suggest, you should contact them for help. Ha ha! Wouldn't that be nice?!

Tags: Shopping.com, Comparison Shopping, Customer Service

Ask Your Pay Per Click Marketing Questions

2006-05-03T20:10:00.000-07:00

I spend the majority of my Monday through Friday time working on Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing accounts for an assortment of clients. During that time my fellow coworkers and I receive a good amount of questions about how the accounts work, which keywords might work best (and why), what is the best strategy for such-and-such a product or service, etc, etc. I enjoy answering these questions and solving the problems that lie behind them.

That said, I wonder if any of you (and I know that there are at least 3 or 4 of you) have any questions about Adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing. Are you not satisfied with the results you are getting? Do you need help coming up with a good campaign structure before you start? Are you looking for keywords or wondering about match-types? Have you been burnt by PPC marketing? I'd like to hear from you. Send me your questions and I will do my best to answer them (while supplies last!).

Please email me at beginbizadmin@startnetbiz.com or post a comment (you'll have to wait for me to moderate it before it shows up (that is due to spammer jerks)).

Tags: ppc marketing, Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing

Windows Live Search Revisited

2006-03-28T20:27:00.000-07:00

I must give credit where credit is due. Since my last insulting post, the Windows Live Search folks have already started fixing things up over there. Good job guys. You still have a long way to go. In case you are interested, here are the things that keep me from liking your work. Please accept this as constructive criticism rather than blatant bashing.

1. Though the scrollbar is no longer horrific, it is still inadequate. Really, I want my scrollbar. You know, the real one. But if I can't have that, at least make it feel the same. If I want to zip down through results, I need to be able to do that with my scroll wheel as I am accustomed to doing with everything else in your operating system.

2. Give me back my back button. If I do a second search on the site, I want to be able to get back to the first one in one click. Even if I scroll through several 'pages'. And when I go back to a Live search from somewhere else, I really don't want to wait while it figures out what to load for me. In fact, the word "loading" does not belong on a search engine. Ever. It's now or never.

3. Advertisers (like me) are not going to be happy with the wild and wacky ways they get displayed in this thing. As I'm sure you realize, the problem here is the 'infinite scrolling' results. Magically refreshing ads as one scrolls is a great way to make sure that most advertisers in the list don't get noticed. Cutting off ads at the bottom is also bad form. Fix that.

4. The 'infinite scrolling' results page thing. I don't like it. I don't need it. If your search engine was any good, and I'm not saying it isn't, I shouldn't really need any more than 10 to 20 results anyway. Right? Right. This thing you've cooked up is disorienting. When I'm scrolling through results it quickly becomes difficult to tell exactly where I'm at. The numbers are there, and that's nice, but I don't really go by the numbers. Is that listing 24, or 27? Was that 3 slow scrolls down, or was it more like 5? I can't remember. It should be somewhere between 20 and 50. Really guys, which seems intuitive and usable to you: "It's on page 2," or "Scroll down until you hit 11-17 or so"? Which of those is easier to remember, communicate, and replicate?

So really, my biggest beef is with the interface. In my mind, you've made something that was very effective when it was simple, into something that is now too complex to be useful at all. Why go with all that bulky scripting, when you can do the job better without it? I don't know about you, but when I do a search, it's because I want to find something. I want to find it instantly. Anything that gets in the way of that should go. What you have designed is like a fairly unattractive but very tricked out street racer. It's flashy, but it's kinda awkward and it's totally doomed when it's up against a pro dragster. Your form is impairing your function, and I think you know quite well that this game is all about function.

Good luck.

Tags: windows live microsoft search

Windows Live Search Knows its Place

2006-03-08T17:45:00.000-07:00

Windows Live Search (beta) went 'live' today. Or, more accurately, it is now out in the open so that we may behold its shame. I hate it, and I'm not alone in that sentiment. The interface is weird, but not useful at the same time. Of course, the real test of any search engine is relevance. Detractors say that MSN doesn't deliver the most relevant results, but they haven't seen this:

Tags: windows live microsoft

Ether.com Gives Small Business a Boost

2006-03-03T17:13:00.000-07:00

Ether.com represents a new opportunity for online entrepreneurs and small business folks of all shapes and sizes (especially if you happen to be into the consulting business). The concept behind the site, which is currently in a limited beta, is nothing ground breaking in and of itself: sell your time on the phone.

I took a look around the web and there are plenty of people doing this with their own systems already. But who wants to set up an 800 number, credit card processing, and all the rest of the stuff you'll need to do it right. For a 15% cut of your earnings, Ether saves you the trouble.

Here's how it works in Ether's own words (they say it well): "Get your free Ether Phone Number. Set your rate. Set your hours. Your phone only rings when people pay to talk to you."

It seems simple, and that's the point. It's supposed to be easy. Easy to join, easy to use, and, best of all, easy to integrate into your website, blog, emails, or wherever else you'd like to advertise your services. Ether isn't going for the directory approach with this. They want to distribute their service wherever their users may need it. You put up the link on your site and your customers can click, pay, and call. That's smart business for you and Ether both.

Tags: Ether, TechCrunch

Tunecore, iTunes, and You (the musician)

2006-02-17T21:48:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite pass-times is hating the music industry. It's downright disgraceful and pathetic. Fortunately, I have become aware of a new web site/service that just might help turn things around: Tunecore.

Apparently, Tunecore has struck deals with both iTunes and Rhapsody online music services allowing them (Tunecore) to put your music up for sale there (iTunes and/or Rhapsody). That's right, anyone who can record their music can now sell it on iTunes without signing their soul away to some record company. In fact, Tunecore doesn't even take a cut of the sales (which means you take home the full $0.70 per download from iTunes US).

There are some upfront costs for using the service but they are so low it's almost funny. This is definitely not meant to be an exclusive service. Personally, I think it's meant to overthrow the established music empire and burn their mansions to the ground. At least, I kinda hope that's what happens.

Apartment Wi-Fi at Long Last

2006-02-06T19:03:00.000-07:00

I bought a basic Belkin Wireless G Router over the weekend. I am quite pleased with it. It was cheap ($39.99 at Walmart), took all of 5 minutes to set up, easily blankets our entire 3 room apartment, and it looks good too.

The Affiliate Community AIM List

2006-01-24T15:55:00.000-07:00

Need to contact your affiliate manager? Look no further:

The Affiliate Community AIM List

Thanks to GoYaMi for putting that one together. Oh, and don't abuse it.

Is The Entertainment Industry Suicidal?

2006-01-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

Paul Allen recently posted about his visit to CES and the wonders he is seeing/saw there. His major take-away had to do with Intel's new PC thingy, ViiV, which will connect up to your TV and then dish-out content by the bucket-load. Combine that with Yahoo Go and, in theory, you get ubiquitous entertainment. It sounds great. But, as Paul notes, it also sounds a little troubling.

Paul says, "The availability of all the world’s entertainment content 24/7 on any device in our homes or in our hands leads me to believe that future generations all over the world will spend more and more of their time seeking entertainment. As if that is what life is all about."

He goes on to wonder what other effects this may have on our lives, our children's lives and the collective values of our world. Why work hard when you can work a little and be entertained a lot? Entertainment is happiness, right? Right?

Paul's comments got me thinking about another interesting side effect of this entertainment deluge. There's a problem that may end up destroying the entertainment industry as we know it. In my opinion, entertainment has become a commodity (and I've heard the same from others). As ever increasing amounts of it becomes available in every form, in every place and time we may desire it, it will only continue to lose it's value.

To illustrate my point: iTunes took music to the next level by selling it online and sending it to ipods. They charge $1.99 per song (a new low price!). Then Napster remakes itself and starts selling a subscription service. $14.99 a month for all the music you can handle. Then Yahoo steps in, $5 a month for the same...

Is it any wonder why kids swap and download songs and shows online? It's like drinking water out of the faucet. Except now there's a faucet in every room, on the bus, on the plane, in the office, in the car, at the park, at school. That doesn't seem like a very scarce resource to me, and we all know the economic implications there.

Even worse (for the entertainment industry), everyone can now make and share their own entertainment. Of course, some may say that people prefer professional productions, but I'm not so sure. Remember America's Funniest Home Videos? That was a great show. The only things that stopped it from being truely awesome were Bob Saget and the comercials. But now I can hop on Google video (or any number of other sites) and watch The World's Funniest Videos any time, day or night, 24/7, with no commercials and no Saget. Why would I stick with TV? The value just isn't there any more.

Here's to the future. Let's hope it's better than it could be.

Merry Christmas

2005-12-24T22:38:00.000-07:00

Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays as well.

Redzee: An Unwise Investment

2005-12-15T20:10:00.000-07:00

Our office got a call today from a Redzee sales rep. He was looking to sign up one of our clients for their pay-per-click advertising service. Needless to say, we didn't. You see, Redzee is a relatively new meta-search engine. I?m not sure if they're using their own results or pulling from somewhere else, but the site thumbnails are from Alexa. In any case, this is not the kind of place that we're looking to advertise and I'll explain why.

Now, according to the sales rep, the company has aspirations to become the number one second-tier engine (the best of the worst, one might say). Based on my visit to their site, they're going to have a heard time of it. For one, the site doesn't work right in Firefox. It gives three errors every time you do a new search. Nice. At least they aren't plotting to unseat Google...

Anyway it seems that their business strategy is simple: Generate some traffic through advertising (on DirecTV says the sales rep) while pushing hard on the sales side. That way they can lock in the profits without all the waiting for a genuine user base to materialize. Not surprisingly, you pay upfront for your clicks.

A quick look at Alexa brings up a few red flags. First, we find that 17% of their traffic goes to the admin part of the site. Either they have A LOT of advertisers, or very little of anything else. I think it's safe to assume that an even greater portion of the rest of their traffic consists of advertisers doing searches on their own terms, or people like me checking things out. That doesn't leave a lot of room for eager buyers that might make your advertising worthwhile.

Funny aside: Redzee's thumbnail image on Alexa does not include their logo. This is probably because it's flash and takes forever to load?

The second red flag was the reviews: Several very positive reviews (obviously made by Redzee folks) are accompanied by some very bad ones. I won't get into details (the world of reviews is a sketchy place) but I was not impressed with what I found.

So, here's what really counts: I will not be advertising on Redzee any time soon (not even for my personal sites). If and when they become an established presence in the search engine marketplace, I may reevaluate that decision. Right now I think they have things backwards (money first, value later) and that's just not the way things work if you're looking to establish credibility and build a lasting business. This feels much more quick-buckish.

To back me up on this, I direct you to a well known source for search engine marketing info: SEOmoz investigates Redzee.

Content Wars: A New Hope for Newspapers

2005-12-13T19:48:00.000-07:00

It may be possible that newspapers are finally starting to recognize the huge goldmine they're sitting on. In an article titled Old idea, new media, Toronto Star columnist David Olive points to several positive trends that just might take newspapers back from bust to boom.

I'm not going to get into the details of the article here. You have the link if you want it. The crux of his argument, though, is that newspapers have tons of great content. As newspapers make more and more of their articles available online (and even start to throw in web-only features, etc.), they attract ever larger amounts of visitors. Of course, you and I know where this is going: Money.

As non-newspaper-owning webmasters, we can learn something from this. Fresh stories, insightful commentary, useful information, quick tips, local issues - any and all of these things will attract visitors to your site. Visitors who will come back for more, which lowers your marketing costs and increases each visitor's potential value. The longer they stay and the more involved they get, the more time you have to advertise to them. The big web properties (Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, etc.) all know this. That's why they offer so many varied services; To keep you around.

What can you offer that will keep your visitors around? The newspapers know, and that should get you thinking.

The Cost of Spam

2005-12-06T21:12:00.000-07:00

Some people wonder if spam should really be considered a criminal offense because it doesn't really hurt anyone. Some people claim that prohibiting spam is prohibiting legitimate speech. Some people are idiots.

Take Blogger.com for example. Lots of people (like me) use the free services of Blogger to create their blogs. People write about their lives, their pets, their stupid dates, their lethargic Saturday mornings, their work, and lots and lots of other stuff. Some do this for recreation, others do it with profits in mind. Either way, normal users abide by the guidelines of the service and use it in the way it was intended to be used. They create value for themselves, for their readers, and for Google, who owns Blogger. This relationship is symbiotic. The more good blogs, the better Blogger becomes.

Spammers, however, exploit it. They use automated tools to post massive quantities of content that is of no value to anyone (not even themselves, since they won't ever read it). They post it to automatically created blogs as well as into other people's blogs in the form of comments. They do this because for a few of them there is the potential to make money. This relationship is parasitic. As spam increases, the value of Blogger decreases.

Every blog takes up server space. That has a cost. Every time a user views a splog (spam blog) it uses bandwidth. That has a cost (for Google, for the user, and all the intermediaries who carried the data). Every time a user searches on Blogger and finds spam instead of a real result, that devalues the service and wastes that users time. More costs. In order to preserve the integrity of the service and protect it from exploitation, Google must allocate some of it's resources to spam detection, removal, and prevention (employees, computers, electricity, time, etc., etc.). Big costs. In order to prevent spam, Google implemented word verification for posts and comments; Yet another price (in time and convenience) that users had to pay because of spammers.

Spamming is like writing with tacks on the highway. It may be speech, but it is neither free nor tolerable. It is criminal.

As I have shown, the parasitic nature of spam (all spam) creates social costs. In other words, spam is cheap because spammers can exploit various online services and systems (Blogger, email, etc) and off-load their costs onto the users and providers of those services and systems. This is just like a factory that pollutes the river that a nearby town uses for its water supply. The factory exploits the location of the river in order to avoid paying the costs of proper disposal. So, the town must pay the costs of cleaning the water for its use until the town gets wise to the factory and passes laws that force it to either stop polluting or to pay for the filtering.

In the case of the factory, which produces something people want, the fines should generally be fixed at a level that permits the business to continue. In the case of spam, which produces nothing of value, the penalties should be set high enough to destroy all profitability (thereby removing the economic incentives to spam in the first place).

My advice: Eat some spam. Don't be a spammer.

Justilien.com - Good Content Brings Good Backlinks

2005-11-23T14:28:00.000-07:00

I recently wrote about the benefits (and necessity) of having good content on your site. A good follow-up for the interested would be to read this bit on Justilien.com: Using Google's Love Affair with Quality Content to Garner Links. Enjoy.

Everybody Loves to Search!

2005-11-21T22:51:00.000-07:00

Every once in a while, a break-through study will come out and tell the world something new and interesting. The Pew Internet & American Life Project Report: Search engine use is not one of those studies.

Instead of something cool, this study reports the fact that more people are searching online. It also notes that "search" is now the second most popular "activity" online, coming in after "email". In fact, the release states that "the use of search engines is edging up on email as a primary internet activity on any given day".

This strikes me as odd, since "searching" isn't really the same sort of "activity" as email. Email is an end, while search is more of a means to an end. When someone searches it is only because they are trying to do one of the real most popular internet activities which are:

#1 - Look at stuff (words, pictures, movies)
#2 - Click on stuff (mostly links)
#3 - Type stuff (forms, blogs, etc)

While some may dabble in the area of recreational search, I seriously doubt that such an activity is becoming mainstream (though I did show my wife the Google Snake game recently).

In other news, close monitoring of my online behavior indicates that the use of sarcasm is likely to increase on this blog by about 14-18% in the next 3-6 months.

Fame, Fortune and Good Content

2005-11-17T21:23:00.000-07:00

In the world of internet marketing, and especially SEO, the words 'good content' often come up. They usually appear in a sentence like "the secret to attracting and keeping visitors is good content (and lots of it)." Sound familiar? Of course it does (and if it doesn’t, it should. What have you been doing anyway?).

The problem with 'good content' is that it can be difficult to produce. In fact, I would be willing to say that if it was not at least a little bit difficult, it is probably not very good content (a fine example of this is reality TV). Now, writing is currently the standard way to produce most of the 'content' we see on the web, but not everyone is a gifted writer. In fact, most of us aren't. However, that does not stop us from wanting to make an absurd amount of money online.

So what can you, the non-gifted-writer, do to solve this problem?

I have some suggestions:

A. Learn to write better. Though time consuming, this can pay dividends in the long run. Sometimes a little practice and proofreading can go a long way (and a spellchecker). If that’s not going to cut it, you might consider some kind of writing course or book or something (or just read things that you find interesting and then think about what it was that made you like it).

B. Get a partner who can write well and make them do the writing. Sharing the workload in this manner means that you will not only get better content for your site, but you will also do less work. The drawback here is that your partner may want a share of your earnings.

C. Pay someone to write for you. To find that sort of talent you might try Guru.com or Elance.com. Both are good resources for this sort of thing. This will definitely cost money, so be prepared for that.

D. Skip the writing thing and make some other type of content. If you have a nice, soothing voice you might consider podcasting. If you are not a weird looking geek, video may be an option for you. And we must not forget that there is always the Flash Cartoon option.

As you can see, there is plenty of hope for the non-gifted-writer. Your dreams of internet wealth should not be dashed; Good content is within your reach. If you have any other suggestions that do not involve spam, feel free to post them here.

GOOG Gives Good Gifts

2005-11-16T07:22:00.000-07:00

Google Analytics. It used to be Urchin and it was expensive and very cool. As of Monday it's still one of the best analytics tools that a webmaster could have, but now it's free. Yeah. Free.

Google Base. In case you weren't aware, Google Base allows you to submit your "information" directly to Google to be stored in their database (which means it could be listed in the main index or Froogle or wherever). By the way, "information" means pretty much anything from a recipe to a classified ad. If the category you want isn't there already, you can make your own.

Fun stuff.

Podcasting for Fun and Profit

2005-11-12T19:14:00.000-07:00

So, podcasting is growing in popularity. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s mainstream, but it just might get there someday soon. That seems more and more likely with companies like Apple and Yahoo rolling out support for the whole thing. Of course, Apple really didn’t have much choice since the ‘pod’ part is pretty much their fault (and I’m sure they’re quite pleased about that).

Despite their popularity, it seems like not very many people have been able to make podcasting into a profitable endeavor. That’s partly due to the fact that advertisers can’t accurately track listenership. Of course, downloads are trackable, so I’m not entirely certain why that’s such a big deal (and that’s a topic for another day).

I mean, let’s say 5,000 people download your podcast. If 80% actually listen to it then you’ve reached 4,000 people. That’s worth paying for isn’t it? And since people pick and choose the podcasts that they want to listen to, I think it’s safe to assume that 80% is a conservative estimate (especially if you ad comes within the first ten seconds of the podcast and is very brief).

With that in mind, there’s a site called Fruitcast which was founded on that concept. I haven’t used it yet, since I don’t have a podcast (currently), but it really got my attention. Through Fruitcast, podcasters can sign up to receive ads and advertisers can sign up to place them. Ads are billed per download with advertisers bidding for placement (bids start at $0.10 per download). Each 10-15 second blurb is, apparently, automatically added to the front and or end of the podcast mp3.

If this thing works out, some podcasters could make this into a profitable hobby. If this thing really takes off, it could make a few lucky podcasters rich. Just think: Your podcast is really popular and 50,000 people download it every week. Advertisers get wind of it and you end up getting $1.00 per download. That’s $200,000 a month. Of course, it’s more likely that you’ll get 500 downloads a month at $.10 a piece. $50 won’t buy a yacht, but it might pay for your hosting (and that’s always nice).

Anyway, if people like to listen to you and you have something interesting to say, maybe you should check into this. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, Fruitcast has some good information and resources on the topic.

Web 2.0 is Stupid and Burger King Rules

2005-10-27T21:30:00.000-07:00

I'm not a fan of 'Web 2.0'. As far as I can tell, the term or label 'Web 2.0' is very little more than bait for more foolish investors to lose their money on internet stocks. Don't get me wrong, cool web sites are being produced. Some innovative ideas are springing up here and there. That's wonderful. But that's what the web has been doing since it started. In fact, it could be said that that is the very nature of the web, the entire purpose of the system. There can be no 2.0 when 1.0 is completely dynamic.

It's like a person. Take me for example. I'm Jason. I would estimate that I am an adult now, but there was no point at which it could be said that Jason 1.0, the kid, became Jason 2.0, the adult. I'm still Jason 1.0, despite the fact that I'm a lot different than I was when I started.

So let's dispense with the magic words. I know that it's some people's jobs to make this kinda stuff up, but let's be honest, it's annoying, it's somewhat misleading, and it's...well, it's stupid.

That's why I like AdWords-style advertising. You write what is essentially a haiku-sized message that says, "I sell what you are looking for". There's no need to spin yarns and trump up a brand new universe every time you want to sell another silly gadget. Just give people exactly what they wanted. Yes, this does mean that I subscribe to Google's concept of ads as content (and by that I mean good ads, of course).

Extending that last thought a bit, I'd like to show you an example of how good advertising really becomes content (or, in this case, something even bigger than content). There's no new clothes for the Emperor in this story, but there is a King. The Burger King, to be more specific. Most humans have probably seen one of the new Burger King commercials that have been running lately. They feature a guy dressed up as the Burger King and they're pretty funny. There's also been a pretty large internet campaign running along side the TV ads that features flash games and whatnot. Now the good part.

As part of the campaign, Burger King is selling Halloween masks of the Burger King and Subservient Chicken. You will note when you visit that site that the Burger King masks are sold out. Yeah. You think that maybe people like this ad campaign? Well here's the kicker: Those masks are selling on eBay for upwards of 70 dollars. A complete costume was going for $257 at time of writing. So when was the last time someone offered you cash for the opportunity to wear your ad on their face? It can be done. And in my opinion, it should be done more often. Maybe TV advertisers wouldn't be so afraid of TiVo if their ads were just as good as the show...

So here's what I think is my point. If you're going to be marketing something, skip the buzzwords and give us something interesting.

Put Your Finger on the Pulse of the Search Engines

2005-10-19T19:00:00.000-07:00

I'd like to introduce you to a little friend of mine: Search Brains. The site pulls headlines from a well connected group of blogs whose writers report pretty much everything that goes on in the world of search. And when I say everything, I mean everything.

Search Engine Ranking Factors

2005-10-07T05:51:00.000-07:00

If you're at all into the search engine optimization thing (which you should be if you're trying to make money with a website) then you'll be interested in this nice list from SEOmoz.

Google Rumors and a Wild Theory

2005-09-29T22:27:00.000-07:00

Historical Background: A lot has been said recently about Google's little forays into the wifi market. First it was a rumor, and now it's confirmed (it's News.com, watch out for the ad). Of course, this has already produced some interesting ideas (Russell Shaw's) about Google's intentions for this experiment. There's a lot more than just those ideas rolling around, but I don't have any more links handy. You get the idea, Google is up to something interesting.

That leads me to my own Wild Theory. I think that Google is on to something major here. Not just a fancy way to show us more ads. See, there's this talk (expect Flash) by Adam Bosworth, the Vice President of Engineering at Google. In that talk he mentions that mobile voip phones will soon become pervasive (about halfway through slide 3 he says, "as mobile-voip phones suddenly become pervasive"). That's true, and not just because he said it. So that made me think.

See, mobile voip phones use the internet (via wifi) to handle all that talking we do. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Current versions of such phones can use normal cell networks too, but if free Google wifi is everywhere, why pay for Cingular? I think that Google has the potential to provide both internet access and mobile telecommunications for free (the opportunities for targeted marketing would certainly provide needed revenue). They did just release Google Talk as you recall. This would, of course, kill the telecos (which is great, because they're making us pay through the nose for something that is, essentially, a commodity like water).

So that's my Wild Theory. It's based on hard facts and thin air. Tell all your friends.

Google confirms it's testing wireless service

2005-09-28T18:34:00.000-07:00

So the rumors are true. I would support Google WiFi in my area. (CNET report thanks to my Dad).

The Art of Link Requests

2005-09-20T16:41:00.000-07:00

Absolutely excellent advice from the Search Engine Watch forums. And I quote...

Top Three Trends in Search Engine Marketing

2005-09-17T10:38:00.000-07:00

I am, of course, referring to some recently released good reading from Marketing Sherpa. The full title of the report is "Top Three Search Marketing Trends to Watch in 2006". Here's my take in case you wanted it:

"Trend #1. Search Engines as TV Networks Jockeying for Audience"

This one seems straight forward enough. In fact, I'd call it less of a trend and more of an inevitability. There's money to be made and the size of the pot is directly proportional to the size of the audience. After all, they only get paid when we click...

"Trend #2. SEO Still a Tiny Portion of Total Search Marketing Spend"

I guess the trend here is two-fold: A. Firms will continue to spend a ton of money on paid-search (which is great, since they'll still need people like me to manage their campaigns). B. Firms will finally start spending more on SEO (which is great, because my co-workers do that).

On that note, I'd like to say that I find it very funny that the group that is most interested in SEO right now is also the group that stands to gain the least from it. Sure, a dedicated individual can make some pretty good money online if they've got what it takes. Good rankings can pay the bills. But for 'Giant Corporation A' good rankings could pay for a lot more than that. Like a new Leer jet. Executives of America take notice! You are losing money everyday that you aren't working with a high-quality SEO vendor to better your rankings. (If you're interested, let me know.)

"Trend #3. Search Marketing, A New Application for Press Releases"

Now that Marketing Sherpa has come out and said that press releases are good for SEO I think that this little trend will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. As with all SEO tactics, this one will have its day and then will be left behind, a smoking pile of search engine refuse. Oh well, enjoy it while it lasts.

In conclusion, read the executive summary (PDF).

Back to Internet Retail!

2005-09-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

After a rather long absence I have returned to this blog (again). As usual, I have a good excuse: I was hired on by the rapidly expanding internet marketing firm eMergent Marketing. Since they are based in Cleveland, OH, I had some moving to do. Needless to say, that took some time and separated me from my precious internet connection for a couple weeks. Fortunately, I now have a cable connection to make up for it (much faster than my last place).

Despite my neglectful blogging behavior, I am still keeping up with my internet industry news and information. One site that I recently discovered, (thanks to a certain co-worker) and would highly recommend, is internetretailer.com. Quality work there. They even have a real-paper magazine, which tells you something.

If you're into PPC advertising, I suggest you take a gander at their current cover story "Making Paid Search Pay Off". It is an excellent article.

Ah, it's good to be back.

Are Your Visitors Worried About Privacy?

2005-08-03T16:34:00.000-07:00

In short, yes. They are.

I thought this was worth noting: This month's PC Magazine has a little spot about online shopping. They cite a survey by Deloitte & Touche LLP which found that 64% of US adults have "decided not to buy online at least once because of concerns over personal information". In addition 67% have "decided not to register at a Web site or shop because the privacy policy was unclear".

So. Here are my two simple conclusions for online marketers and/or retailers. First, your site needs to look credible (something that I've discussed before). Second, your privacy policy needs to be well placed (a link to it should be clearly visible near the sign-up) and clear. Otherwise you will be missing out on potential business or subscribers.

Small Business Blog Center

2005-07-23T15:26:00.000-07:00

I consider this collection of blogs to be a valuable small business resource (on a variety of topics): Small Business Blog Center - The best business blogs from around the Web

Google AdSense

2005-07-15T23:34:00.000-07:00

Logged into my AdSense account to find a link to these AdSense Tips. If you use AdSense on your sites (and you like money) then you should read, study, and implement these tips. I mean, they're guaranteed to be good tips because, let's be honest, Google likes it when you get clicks...

Google AdWords Dynamic Keyword Insertion : SEO Book.com

2005-06-27T20:48:00.000-07:00

This little tip (Thanks SEOBook.com) happens to be one of the easiest ways to improve the performance of your adwords ads. It's not very well known because Google doesn't actually explain it anywhere. It's just one of those cool little tricks that they like to let people figure out on their own.

Here is the basic form: {KeyWord:Your Title Here}

A few notes:

By capitalizing the 'K' and 'W' you define the capitalization of your title (so if you use all lowercase your title will be all lower case).

'Your Title Here' is necessary as a backup for when people enter search queries that are too long to make a title of (the normal limit is 25 characters so your backup title can't be longer than that).

Finally, the titles generated are based on the keywords in your adgroup. Make sure your keywords are in the most commonly used order, etc., or your ads may end up looking rather odd. (i.e. I enter 'huge fat whale' and your ad says 'huge whale fat' and I think, "duh, that's not right".)

More here:
Google AdWords Dynamic Keyword Insertion : SEO Book.com

New Adwords Enhancement!

2005-06-25T13:30:00.000-07:00

Can I just say that I can't wait for this to be generally available? Yes I can. And I do.

Webmaster Wear T-Shirt Store

2005-05-11T21:46:00.000-07:00

Today's title explains why I haven't posted anything here since the 6th. I've been working feverishly to open, populate, and market the Webmaster Wear t-shirt (and other merchandise) store. At the moment, I'm very excited about it and quite optimistic about the whole thing.

In the spirit of business transparency, I will give you the background of my store and how it works. The store is a Cafepress Premium Shop, which means that I have a fully automated and mostly customizable e-commerce system to start with. In fact, Cafepress handles the ordering, payment, production, and fulfillment (shipping, returns, etc.). All I had to do was make and upload my designs.

So I spent a day or two coming up with a hefty list of shirt ideas, and turning them into usable graphics with my really-old version of photoshop. I like to think that I'm pretty good at that sorta thing (i.e. coming up with funny phrases). The templates and tutorials made things pretty simple. I did run into some problems when I uploaded an image that was too thin to print (or something like that) and I didn't know why it wouldn't let me use it. It took me about half an hour of fiddling around to figure out what the problem was, but once I did I had no further trouble.

Cafepress says that your site could be ready in minutes, and I suppose that's possible, but mine took pretty much all day Monday to set up (and I'm still doing little tweaks). My problem was that I was setting up a full-on store, and not just a one-item shop that is fairly common on the site. Not only that, but I wasn't really sure about product organization, nor how I wanted the store to look (I ended up going with a somewhat ugly template which I still need to customize a bit more). However, I must say that the Cafepress system makes things very easy and it would have taken me a lot longer to do everything without it.

The coolest thing about Cafepress is that, like I mentioned before, they take care of all the backend stuff (the difficult for me to do stuff). They have printing processes that allow them to cheaply make products one at a time, and that means that my store holds no inventory. Everything is made to order. Accordingly, each item has a base price that Cafepress charges to cover its production and operating costs. Above that base price is my retail markup which will be the money I make off of any orders I get. (In case you're wondering, my markup is in the low-mid range.)

Essentially, Cafepress has contracted me out, on a commission basis, to do the creative work that sells their merchandise. That's fine with me because I get to play designer, and hopefully make some money if the web thinks I'm good enough.

Oh, and that reminds me of the other job that comes along with designer: internet marketer. That's the most difficult part of the whole thing. Though Cafepress offers a simple selling solution, don't expect instant profits. Fortunately, all of their shops can be listed within the shopping half of their site. That way, people who are looking for shirts there might stumble onto yours. But that's not going to get me the level of sales that I want, so I've got my work cut out for me. I will say more about this later.

In the mean time, go buy a shirt.

Don't Pass This Adwords Secret On

2005-05-06T11:28:00.000-07:00

If you've ever advertised with Adwords, or even if you haven't, I'm sure that you have wondered about your competition. Perhaps you have tried to research them a bit and see what they're bidding on, etc. Such information would certainly be useful. What's working for them might work well for you too. Or maybe you've forgetten some important terms that your competition is picking up cheap.

There are a lot of reasons to know what your competition is up to and that information just became a lot easier to find. Yep, GoogSpy allows you to find out all about your Adwords competition.

For example, let's say you want to know about Netflix. Starting from the homepage, search for Netflix. The results show 'Companies:', under which you should see Netflix listed. Clicking that link brings you to an information page about Netflix. This page is based on Velocityscape's database compiled with their Web Scraper Plus+ software (it is not guarunteed to be 100% accurate or complete but they seem to be doing a very good job).

So, the infromation about Netflix includes the following: A list of terms for which Netflix ranks in the top 10 natural search results. A list of the terms Netflix bids on in Adwords. The page also shows a list of Netflix' top 25 competitors. This list seems to be based on the advertisers who compete for the terms Netflix bids on.

Now you know what is working for Netflix (since they are most likely monitering their campaign very carefully to make sure that it's paying off). You can also drill down a little bit to find out more. Netflix ranks number 1 for the term 'dvd rentals'. Clicking on that search term will show you who is bidding on that term and who else ranks well for it. The same thing can be done for the terms Netflix bids on.

All in all, I think it's the best Adwords research utility I've ever seen. There is some speculation that it won't be free for long, but I think it will. My take is that it's basically an advertisement for the power of Velocityscape's software. This is a tried and true marketing technique and represents the best of internet business models. A free offer of true value will get you traffic, backlinks, respect, and leads for your paying products. Plus, this free service has live Adsense Ads all over it...

So, enjoy the secret while it's still uncommon knowledge and don't tell your competition.

PPC Keyword List Building Help

2005-05-02T17:23:00.000-07:00

I apologize for not having posted in so long. Things tend to get a bit hectic at the end of the school year. Anyway, on to the main event.

Our topic today is PPC advertising. A useful little program has recently come to my attention that can improve you ad campaign. This Free Keyword Research Marketing Tool is called Keyword Tumbler and it can save you some major time if you are trying to expand your keyword list. (As the title says, it's free. You will need to put in your e-mail though. That's what Hotmail is for...)

What the program does is simple. Let's say you're starting out with the keyword phrase "big ugly widgets". If you put that into Keyword Tumbler it would give you several new phrases:

ugly big widgets
ugly widgets big
widgets big ugly
widgets ugly big
big widgets ugly

So now you've got six phrases instead of one. The program outputs all possible order combinations of the words you give it, which can generate a really huge list of phrases very quickly (you can paste in a batch of keywords or import them from a text file, making things that much easier).

Perhaps you're thinking that nobody is going to search for "ugly widgets big". Maybe you're right. Most people search for the more common phrases. But what if someone does? Wouldn't you like your ad to be there? It doesn't cost anything to have that phrase in your list (at least, not with Adwords). Plus, since your competitors probably aren't doing this, you're going to get cheaper clicks. All in all, I'd say it's a good deal.

It's Finals Week...

2005-04-19T19:53:00.000-07:00

...I'm busy and there will be no more blogging 'till after graduation. (Yes, I am graduating from college. If you have an internet marketing position that you would like to offer me, feel free, because I'm looking.) ;-)

Web Site Credibility: Give and Get

2005-04-13T00:01:00.000-07:00

I have written before about web site credibility because I think that it is an important topic, especially for an affiliate marketer. Large web companies can establish a great amount of credibility through high-profile advertising campaigns that introduce people to their brand. For the lone webmaster, which is what affiliates tend to be right now, that kind of publicity is hard to achieve. For many of us, our biggest branding opportunity is a visit to our site.

So, how do you establish credibility on contact? As I have discussed before (and has been shown in studies) the look and feel of your site is important. If your site looks good, people might stay around to check it out. Many new affiliates have problems in this area. I think it's because we, web site builders, all have a "crappy web site" phase in our lives. Mine was in Junior High. Since then I have become more enlightened. I ditched the tiled background image, the animated mailbox, the guestbook, etc. If you are stuck in the "crappy web site" phase, please learn about the WWW Consortium, and visit W3Schools for some sweet tutorials.

Anyway, that wasn't what I wanted to talk about when I started this post. I wanted to talk about quality. About good content. If you want to be successful as an affiliate you're going to have to play by the rules of business (and life). The rules-or rather-rule, since there's just the one, is that you have to give to get. See, businesses don't make money, they make products. The ones that make the best products, the ones that people really want, are the ones that usually get the most money in return for their efforts. Essentially, we reward companies (or web sites) for helping us out, making our lives better, or otherwise fulfilling some need or desire that we had.

Here's where credibility comes in. A quality product, something that people can easily see for themselves, establishes credibility (or maybe trust, or confidence) like nothing else. No web design tricks will ever make your site credible if there's nothing of value on the site. In other words, a new suit can't make a dead man dance. On the other hand, if your site offers something of genuine value, your visitors will not only stay, they'll come back for more. They'll tell their friends. They'll link to you without you having to ask. You will become rich.

Moral of the story: Give something to the web and we will return the favor.

One Good Reason to Work Online

2005-04-08T09:43:00.000-07:00

The title was prompted by a story I saw on Yahoo! News today about how "good-looking people tend to make more money and get promoted more often than those with average looks". This is based on a study done by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Of course, the article points out that the study was "less clear...whether the less attractive are victims of bias, or if good-looking people tend to develop self-confidence and social skills that simply enhance their marketability".

In any case, whether attractive people earn more because they're attractive or because they're confident, the point is this: Your website visitors don't know what you look like. Online, ugly people can earn just as much as anyone else.

As a footnote to that, it can be a good idea to have a little photo of yourself on your site to make it seem more personal. People seem to like that. Just make sure that it's a good picture (maybe do a little touch-up in photoshop, eh?).

P.S. This message was written yesterday afternoon, but Blogger pretty much died on me until now. I thought that my post was gone forever until I found out that Blogger periodically saves your posts to a cookie as you write them so that you can restore them in case something like that happens. I was impressed. That feature definitely makes up for the outage.

$1 for Your Lost Rank

2005-04-07T01:12:00.000-07:00

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked why their site dropped down in (or out of) search engine ranking, I would have all the money I need. I am tired of reading this question on every webmaster-type forum I visit. Therefore, I will now sarcastically answer this question in a generic manner that will apply to most cases:

1. Most search engine results are born out of a complex algorithm which is subject to change at any time. If the algo changed, that might explain the drop (and your site is doomed).

1.5 Even without a change to the algo, SE's can (and do) alter their results by other means. We do not know why, because they do not tell us. SE's are not here to serve webmasters, they are here to serve searchers.

2. You may have made a change to your site that the SE's didn't like, thereby causing your downfall. You should document the changes that you make to your site in order to test this possibility (i.e. retract your last change and see if that helps).

3. The web is changing all the time. It is different right now, than it is right now (or right now). Did you catch that? It changes fast. Perhaps the SE's little spider has found a few sites that are more relevant than yours. Perhaps it found 450 of them. This is quite possible.

3.3 The scenario in #4 is all the more likely because most SE's do not update dynamically. That is, they go around collecting sites but don't add them to the index as they find them. Instead, they add them at a later date, all in a big clump. Complicating this process even more is the fact that large SE's, like Google, don't have just one database, they have many spread all over the world. Updating that beast of a system is no small task.

3.6 In addition to new sites, spiders also pick up on new links, which are created at an even faster rate than sites. Your competitors may have gotten some shiny new links over the weekend that pushed them up top.

3.9 Spiders also note removed links. Do you know where your links are? Maybe your buddy with that PR8 site stopped linking to you. Maybe you should give him a call.

As you can see, there are almost four possible reasons why your site may not be where it was this morning. The SE's aren't going to tell you why it's gone (they probably don't even know themselves), so all you've got is guesses. The best you can do to educate your guesses is to track your major backlinks and all of your site changes. That way you might not be completely in the dark.

Note: Tracking the search results (amount returned as well as order) can also yield insights, but only the truly obsessed (or very well paid) can put in the time required.

I hope that your question has been answered and that I will never see it in a forum again.

Making Money with Content

2005-04-05T20:39:00.000-07:00

I recently became aware of a site called EContentMag.com. Not only does this site have excellent articles about online content-based business and a bunch of other stuff, they also employ a clever advertising technique.

Of course, there are normal banner ads above and along the sides of the articles. This is nothing new. But there is also a subtle gray bar that runs straight through the article near the top of the page. That bar contains a text ad that is the same font and size as the rest of the text. I read half of it before I realized that it was an ad for the same thing as the banners.

In my opinion, that is a good way to include advertising. I think so even more after reading about Google's little Forum in San Fran were such techniques were endorsed for use with AdSense. I suggest you take a look.

All I need now is confirmation that those ads are, in fact, working well for them...

AdSense Update

2005-04-05T20:14:00.000-07:00

I logged into my Google AdSense account today and I noticed a significant and wonderful change. It was subtle, but it warmed my soul. Before today, when I would select "Channel Data" to see how each of my sites had performed, the Date Range would automatically change from "Today" to "2 Days Ago" (because data from "Today" could only be seen as "Aggregate Data").

Today it did not. Today I was able to see how each of my sites had performed "Today". I like that a lot (since I'm obsessed with my stats) and consider it to be a significant improvement to the AdSense system.

I assume that I was not the only one with late coming stats and that this was a system-wide change. If that is the case, then go check your stats and go out to dinner to celebrate.

By the way, here's an FYI to all you budding internet marketers out there: I have earned more with AdSense than with any affiliate program. I would recommend it to anyone with a content-based site.

Urchin, Google and You

2005-04-04T15:11:00.000-07:00

There has been some talk lately about Google's purchase of Urchin, a low-cost web analytics company. Word on the street is that Google will be using the service to help its many advertisers better track their ROI. From the press release at Urchin:

"Google plans to make these tools available to web site owners and marketers to better enable them to increase their advertising return on investment and make their web sites more effective. "

This seems like a fairly natural move since Google's biggest competitor, Overture, Yahoo's PPC advertising solution, already provides something similar.

I am going to further propose the idea that this might help the situation in the click-fraud department, currently the greatest plague to PPC advertising. Detailed client side tracking might offer more chances to catch blatant abuse. That would be nice.

Increase AdSense Revenue

2005-04-02T16:52:00.000-07:00

I recently stumbled upon something that I should have heard about earlier. Apparently, Google held an Adsense Users Forum on March 16 to discuss best practices for publishers and get feedback from the publisher community.

What has come out of the forum is some very interesting information that just might help you to squeeze a bit more revenue out of your Adsense ads (if you have them) without angering the folks at Google. For example:

"He shared test results he found while in search of the best placement for monetiziation, and the best was using the borderless blended technique. He is a strong believer in blending the ads into content, so when readers finish an article, the natural inclination is to click one of the links suggested by AdSense." (Emphasis added)

If you'd like to read more, here are a few write-ups and discussions about the event: First WebMasterWorld, then some guy's site, and finally a discussion on AssociatePrograms Forums started by the aforementioned guy.

Enjoy.

Poor, poor, me...

2005-04-01T14:04:00.000-07:00

A creative implementation of a tried and true money-making technique that I like to call "Begging" (just scroll down a bit and keep your eyes to the left). Pathetic.

How much 'candy' do you think he gets?

Design and Analysis

2005-04-01T13:15:00.000-07:00

Referring to my last post, I talked about how the marketing sector may be trending towards a reliance on more scientific-type analysis versus the current focus on creativity. I would like to flesh out my opinion on that subject.

First of all, Mr. Brett Error (CTO of Omniture) mentioned something else in his presentation that I left out last post. In response to a question, he said that the analysis that Omniture provides is retroactive. That is, they don't analyze a website before you make it (which makes perfect sense).

As I have referred to previously, there are studies about landing pages, etc., which lay down some practical ground rules for web design that sells. Those studies are important. However, Mr. Error made an interesting claim during the presentation. I'm paraphrasing here, but he essentially said, "You build the best landing page that you possibly can, following all the marketing rules and whatnot, and we can make it better."

The implication is clear: There is no 'ultimate landing page'. There can't be. Every site has a different audience, with different interests, internet experience, attitudes, desires, etc. To the extent that you can quantify those variables and understand how to respond to them, you will be able to improve the user experience of your site. That's what Omniture and other web analytics companies are trying to do. That's what managerial accounting is for.

(As an aside, I think that if a company were to combine a robust web analytics system with a complete, database-driven managerial accounting system, thereby forming an all-in-one business analysis package, that company would make a lot of money selling that solution. Remember me when you're rich.)

However, the question of the original design still remains and, I believe, still requires creativity. Especially when you're dealing with established brands that have a certain image to maintain. People would think they'd gone to the wrong place if they visited Disney's site only to find some sterile, white-background, informational sales page. On the other hand, that strategy might work if you're selling a white paper, e-book, or other corporate-type information product.

So, in my opinion, the future is not conspiring to destroy creative marketing design jobs any time soon. Those jobs may change a bit, but what job doesn't? That's business. A possibility for growth in the creative design market is in 'customer experiences'. See here.

What do you think?

A visit from Omniture...

2005-03-30T23:31:00.000-07:00

I met Brett Error, the CTO of Omniture today. I also heard him give a presentation about the company, what they do, and the implications for marketing and 'ebusiness'.

(If you don't know why that's cool then you probably don't know what Omniture does. Therefore, you should look at this summary page and this article. In case you're lazy, here's the short version: Omniture does web analytics (tracking, measuring, testing, reporting, the whole nine yards), and they do it very, very well. How well you ask? Well enough to merit a $10,000 a month (and up, based on traffic) price tag and to have companies like eBay and AOL paying for it.)

So, needless to say, I'm not going to be signing up for Omniture's service anytime soon, but I wish I could. I have seen just a bit of the inside workings of their product, SiteCatalyst, and it is amazing. It allows you to see where your visitors are clicking, where they're coming from, where they are going, where you're losing them, etc., etc. The over-all product is not just fancy software, its a complete, tailored solution. Beautiful.

Now then. What does this mean for me and/or you who can't afford this thing? Well, here's an old quote (probably said by an accountant) that Mr. Error mentioned during his presentation: "If you don't measure it, you can't manage it."

New technology, especially that of the internet, is allowing businesses to take that idea to a whole new level. If Mr. Error (and a lot of internet marketing gurus) is right, this type of measurement and analysis represents the future of marketing. It also represents, at least in part, a turn away from a creative design type of marketing to a more scientific type.

For example: Your web design team says: "I think such and such would make our site better because its sleek, its edgy, and because we're awesome." SiteCatalyst says: "You get more sales when your site is like this than when its like this." Which of those statements would you, as a manager, rather hear? Whose advice are you going to take? Yeah. Somebody is fired.

Moral of the story: Measure and analyze whatever you can. Don't try stuff, test stuff. No more Russian-Roulette-style, "this seems cool" site upgrades.

Comments?

For the business-minded

2005-03-26T20:28:00.000-07:00

Something good to read (a blog): http://www.smallbusinesses.blogspot.com/

Something good to join (professional networking thing): http://www.linkedin.com/

Landing Page Study

2005-02-25T01:12:00.000-07:00

I mentioned that I listened in on a conference call hosted by Marketing Sherpa. It's true, I did. The call included Greg Edwards from Eyetools with Anne Holland and Stefan Tornquist from Marketing Sherpa.

The call focused on the results of a study of landing pages conducted by Eyetools for Marketing Sherpa. The study tracked people's eye movements as they navigated through a series of landing pages designed for the study. Here are a few useful tips I wrote down during the call:

First, some basic guidelines: Your main points must be readable so make your text a little bigger (10-12pt instead of 8-9). Black text is best. Align your titles (and text for that matter) to the left. Long, centered titles are harder for people to follow.

Your Title Should Be Like This

Your Title Should Not

Be At All Like

This One

You get the idea. On to other things. A product page needs a "hero shot" (that would be the product image). People ALWAYS look at that. Text next to such an image also has a high likelihood of being read. In addition, images are often clicked, so you may want to link it to something useful like a larger image or more complete description.

For a non-product page, a picture of a person (their face being most important) will attract attention. However, pictures of real people are better than models (unless your site is about models...). People can tell that your smooth corporate images are fake and, consequently, they don't care about them that much. In fact, such images could be wasting the precious time you have to get a visitor's attention before they leave your site. In conclusion, put key text next to the picture of the real person.

That leads into an important point. You have very little time to tell a visitor that yes, this is the page that they want. Therefore, if you are advertising something, the landing page should correspond closely to the ad. For example, if you're advertising on Google and your ad is titled, "Heavy Green Widgets", your landing page should begin with (you guessed it!), "Heavy Green Widgets". That text should probably be right next to the picture of the product. If you do this, it is more likely that your visitor (that you just paid for) is going to say, "Aha!" and not, "Wha?". That's good for ROI.

By the way, your landing page should probably not be your home page. When someone clicks on "Heavy Green Widgets" they should not find, "Welcome to the McDorfus Company Website".

Something else that I thought was very interesting was this: An "Add to Cart" button is better than a "Buy it Now!" button. Why? Because "Buy it Now" kinda scares some people. "Add to Cart" is still active, but gives more control to your visitor.

My final point has to do with forms. If you're trying to get people to sign up for something, make it as easy as possible. Basically, more questions leads to less sign-ups, so cut anything you can. For example, why ask for a fax number if you're already getting their phone number? Do you really need both?

Privacy policies are important to people. However, they do not have to be long. In fact, they should be short if possible. Also, put a small privacy statement right next to the e-mail box. Like so:

Name: [------------------]
E-mail: [------------------] *Your e-mail will be kept private (privacy policy)
Weight: [----------------]

Don't wait until the bottom of the page to tell people about your privacy policy. They want to see it, but they probably won't hunt around for it (and if they don't find it your probably won't get there address). The wording there is not set in stone, but the message should be brief. Also, you should probably not ask for people's weight...

Overall, the call was well worth my time. If you're interested in hearing it yourself, you're in luck because it was recorded and can be downloaded here. It is in mp3 format. There is a PDF document that goes along with it. That is available here. Enjoy.

Lots Coming...

2005-02-21T12:48:00.000-07:00

I realize that it's been quite some time since I posted anything. Sorry. I will make it up to you soon with some inside scoop that I picked up from a Marketing Sherpa conference call and an internet marketing lecture given by the famous Paul Allen.

A Good Small Business Book

2005-01-19T22:06:00.000-07:00

During the past week or so I've been reading a very interesting book called The E Myth Revisited, Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It. The author is Michael E. Gerber.

The book begins by explaining some common mistakes and misconceptions that account for the fact that most small businesses in the US fail. For example, Gerber observes that most people who start businesses are good at some specialized task. They are technicians, and they believe that if they just work hard enough at what they're good at, they'll make it. Turns out, that's wishful thinking.

Gerber describes the model of the franchise in order to illustrate the way in which thorough organization can free up the owner to focus on the most important parts of the business (the upper-level, creative parts). From there it gets into the details of proper business organization, delegation and planning.

Basically, the book moves from the fledgling business to the fully functioning, "mature" business. At the same time, it provides some inspirational content to help get you there. The book does wax a bit philosophical at times, which weirded me out a little. However, the overall tone is light and it is certainly an easy read.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in starting a business (any kind of business, even an affiliate marketing one). I would also recommend it to anyone who already has a small business and is looking for help.

The E Myth Revisited can be purchased at Amazon.com.

For Marketers

2005-01-18T00:15:00.000-07:00

If you are a marketer, affiliate or otherwise, I would highly recommend this article from InternetNews.com.

The article discusses a recent study done by Yankelovich Partners, Inc. Which found that consumers are becoming increasingly negative about and resistant to advertising. I was not surprised because I'm pretty much on that bandwagon.

Most of the advertising I see is not even meant for me. When I watch the news I see ads for several types of insurance, tons of drugs, and dial-up internet services. I already have the insurance I need (which isn't much), I am young and healthy and do not need any type of pharmaceutical, and I deeply despise dial-up internet with all my soul. I would sign up for PeoplePC Online only at gunpoint (and I would cancel it as soon as the gunman, or gunperson if you like, left).

Let's face it, TV and print publications are not yet advanced enough to properly target each of their viewers so I end up being bored to death by thousands of ads that I don't care about. However, there are plenty of products that I am interested in and would like to know more about.

That's where the internet beats (can beat) all other media. Proper search engine marketing, for example, delivers targeted advertising to people who are looking specifically for the product advertised. That is beautiful. Here's a supporting article (also from InternetNews.com) to back that up.

Moral of the story: Target your marketing. Take the time and effort to research your market, survey your customers, and implement any systems that you might need to take advantage of the customizability of the internet.

Busy times make short posts...

2005-01-13T22:02:00.000-07:00

Well, most people agree that Google is still on top of the Search Engine Heap, but if we're talking in terms of baby names, Yahoo is the winner. EDIT: This story was faked. It isn't true.

Ever wonder why your brand new, perfectly optimized site is not on top of Google yet? If this newsletter is correct, it's because Google makes you wait. The author, Scottie Claiborne, calls it "aging delay" and speculates that the "aging filter" behind it was designed to combat "mini-networks and other multi-site strategies intended to artificially inflate link popularity". Sounds reasonable to me.

Anyone know any better?

EDIT: Most people call this Google's 'Sandbox' and it's been ruffling feathers all over the place.

Link of the Day

2005-01-12T17:15:00.000-07:00

An interesting little keyword tool. It's free to mess with as you see fit. Who knows, maybe you'll find a "Golden Niche" and become wealthy.

Text Link Tweaks

2005-01-11T20:57:00.000-07:00

"Creative tests on portals have shown that text-link copywriting tweaks you might consider inconsequential can have profound impact on clicks and click-value. The team has also learned to vary their copy every day on portal pages that get heavy repeat visitors. A line that works well one day may not catch attention when repeat visitors see it for the second day in a row."

The above quote is from a Marketing Sherpa report on Buycostumes.com. The article is titled: "How to Make Millions in Eretail Sales During a Short Window of Opportunity: 5 Tactics".

The above quote confirms the advice of several search engine marketing gurus. I have read similar things before. The experts agree that a tiny tweak can make a surprisingly large difference in the performance of a text ad.

This conclusion is based on testing. For you to be truly successful as an affiliate marketer you need to do your own testing. No matter what you write, from little Google Ads to text-link ads on your site, you should be testing.

Adwords will actually let you create multiple ads for the same group of search terms. Right next to your current ad there is a link that says, "Create new Text Ad". If you create a second ad, Google will split your impressions between the two and, I am fairly certain, start using the better one of the two all on its own.

You should also test on your own site. If you have a fairly steady flow of traffic it should be easy to test things. If they provide the links, choose two that you think will be successful. If you make your own links, make two. Use one for a week (or for a set number of impressions, like 500 or 1,000) and then switch. May the best link win. If you have a lot of traffic you could do like Buycostumes.com and switch ads every day. The ad with the highest click-through rate is probably the best.

Of course, the paragraph I quoted also brings up the fact that if you have a lot of repeat visitors (and frequently updated content sites most likely will), you should probably change up your ads from time to time. People may be interested in them on day 1, but after that they'll probably start ignoring them. You want your visitors to be saying, "Ooh, what's this new attraction?! I shall click it!"

E-Commerce News

2005-01-10T18:48:00.000-07:00

Good news for online retailers. Online sales are growing. According to an InternetNews article, 2004 Holiday sales beat 2003 by $4.7 billion. Another article, from Internet Retailer, reports an increase of $3.5 billion (and smaller numbers overall). I guess it depends on when "the Holidays" start, when they end, and what counts as "Holiday shopping". Either way, money is being made online in ever increasing amounts.

And I did not get nearly enough of that pie...

However, there is hope for the future. Take, for example, this heart-warming story about Joint Ventures and Advertising costs from E-Commerce Guide. If you're looking for ways to stretch your advertising dollars you will like this article. Very creative, yet simple and do-able.

Much better than those scammy traffic schemes you see everywhere.

Consumer Review Sites

2005-01-08T02:19:00.000-07:00

Aside from this site I run a small consumer-review type site (among other things). Anyway, this type of site seems to be a popular one among affiliates. I assume that this is because you one can review several, or many, products and get paid no matter what your visitors choose.

Sadly, it isn't really as simple as that. Getting people to actually click through and buy the stuff you review takes a certain amount of work, luck, and careful strategy.

After reading through those credibility reports, I realize more fully the importance of that "careful strategy" part. The report (PDF) shows that opinion or review web sites depend less on their design for credibility than do other sites. At least, people commented less about that for those sites.

What they did talk about was "information bias", "information accuracy", and "to a lesser extent, underlying company motive".

Here's a list of the sites that people rated so you can do your own comparisons:

http://www.consumersearch.com (Most credible; High positive score)
http://www.epinions.com
http://www.studentsreview.com
http://www.ecomplaints.com
http://www.opinion-pages.org (Barely positive)
http://www.bizrate.com (Barely negative)
http://www.allstarreview.com
http://www.reviewcentre.com
http://www.tobp.com
http://www.cardoffers.com (Least credible; Big negative)

Personally, I was surprised to see Bizrate were it is. They're all over Google Adwords and they seem to have a pretty robust system. Perhaps they aren't quite as impressive if you start out at their homepage instead of coming to a product page through a search.

Anyway, it appears that people like unbiased and accurate reviews (surprise). They don't like sneaky attempts to get them to buy stuff (darn).

I think that a product-review-affiliate-site that does away with the hype and sticks to the facts can be succesful. Tell people what you know in a straightforward manner and they may just believe you. If you tell the truth, what should they care that you get paid for it? It doesn't cost them anything. You took the time to write an honest review and that's worth something isn't it?

Affiliates and Google

2005-01-06T22:13:00.000-07:00

The affiliate game on Google has changed. New rules about affiliate marketers using Adwords to advertise other people's sites have been enacted. There were rumors circulating the forums that something like this was in the works. Today my Inbox confirmed them. Here is the e-mail:

---------------
Hello from the Google AdWords Team:

In January 2005, Google will incorporate a new affiliate advertising policy that is designed to provide a better user and advertiser experience.

What is changing:

With this new affiliate policy, we'll only display one ad per search query for affiliates and parent companies sharing the same URL. This way, users will have a more diverse sampling of advertisements to choose from. As always, your ad will be displayed based on its Ad Rank for given searches, which is determined by a combination of your ad's maximum cost-per-click (price) and clickthrough rate (performance).

For instance, if a user searches for books on Google.com or anywhere on the Google search and content networks, Google will take an inventory of ads running for the keyword books. If we find that two or more ads compete under the same URL, we'll display the ad with the highest Ad Rank.

How this will affect you:

If you're an affiliate, this means that you no longer need to identify yourself as an affiliate in your ad text. However, your current ad text will continue to display your affiliate status until you change it.

Affiliates or advertisers using unique URLs in their ads will not be affected by this change. Please note that your Display URL must match the URL of your landing page, and you may not simply frame another site.

What you should do:

We recommend that you continue to monitor your ads' performance and optimize your ads as needed to ensure they're bringing you the best results. Please visit our Optimization Tips page for more information.

By improving our ad relevancy, we believe that users will have a better search experience, which will help you reach more potential clients in the future. We'll continue to make improvements to AdWords over time to further improve the user experience and help increase the performance of your ads.

We look forward to continue providing you with the most effective advertising available.

Sincerely,
The Google AdWords Team
---------------

So there you have it. Only one affiliate per URL. In case this news causes you to weep and wail, I will give you two suggestions to keep your earnings going:

1. Get a generic domain name and cheap hosting. For each site you advertise on Google, build a landing page with your new domain. Use that page to do a little bit of pre-selling and then link to the affiliated site. Adding this step may actually improve your conversions if you work at it.

2. Look harder for good niches. If no other affiliates are advertising with Adwords, you get the Golden Ticket.

To us all, good luck.

More Credibility Stuff

2005-01-06T14:00:00.000-07:00

Last post I discussed a survey done by Stanford's, Web Credibility Project. Also listed on their site is another interesting study about web site credibility they did in conjunction with Consumer Webwatch.

This study was run a little bit differently than the last one I discussed. Instead of asking certain questions, it allowed respondents to make their own comments. Each person was shown two live web sites which they ranked according to credibility. They were then asked to comment on the credibility of the sites they saw. 2,440 comments were recorded in all.

Here's what's important:

Appearance was the most commonly mentioned aspect of a site. 46.1% of all the comments had something to do with "Design Look" (these comments were about the "visual design, including layout, typography, white space, images, color schemes, and so on"). That is to say, the way a site looks can make or break its credibility.

It is common knowledge that people browse the web quickly, moving from one site to another until we find what we want. As we go, we pass judgment, almost instantly, on the sites that we visit. We may say things just like the respondents said: "Not very professional looking. Don't like the cheesy graphics." Or, "This site is more credible. I find it to be much more professional looking."

The study also highlights the fact that having a professional looking site is even more important for financial (54.6%), search engine (52.6%), and travel sites (50.5%). E-Commerce sites came in at 46.2%, barely over the average for all sites.

This study is rather huge, so I will be discussing more of it later.

You can read the entire study online at Consumer Webwatch's Research Page. There is an HTML and PDF version.

Web Site Credibility

2005-01-05T23:56:00.000-07:00

Today, I found a great web site for anyone interested in doing business online. It is called "The Web Credibility Project" and is part of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University.

This is an ongoing project that is doing the following:

"Performing quantitative research on Web credibility.
Collecting all public information on Web credibility.
Acting as a clearinghouse for this information.
Facilitating research and discussion about Web credibility.
Helping designers create credible Web sites."

At the bottom of the home page (which I linked to above), you will find a red box containing a list of reports and other such useful things. One of those reports is titled, "What Makes Web Sites Credible? A Report on a Large Quantitative Study" (this link goes directly to the PDF file). That report contains some very important information for anyone who has, or will have, a web site.

Listed below you will find the results of the survey in order of their score (highest to lowest). The survey allowed people to rate each aspect of a site on a scale from -3 to 3. A score of 3 would mean that having that aspect would make your site "much more believable". A negative score, of course, means the opposite. The scores listed are the average of the rankings given by the 1410 people included in the survey.

The site provides a quick response to your customer service questions. (2.02)
The site represents an organization you respect. (1.93)
The site is by a news organization that is well respected outside of the Internet. (1.91)
The site lists the organization's physical address. (1.86)
The site gives a contact phone number. (1.71)
The site lets you search past content (i.e. archives). (1.57)
The site looks professionally designed. (1.55)
The site has been updated since your last visit. (1.55)
The site gives a contact email address. (1.53)
The site lists authors' credentials for each article. (1.49)
The site has articles that list citations and references. (1.49)
The site is arranged in a way that makes sense to you. (1.48)
The site sends emails confirming transactions you make. (1.41)
The site is linked to by a site you think is believable. (1.29)
The site states its policy on content. (1.26)
The site links to outside materials and sources. (1.25)
The site provides links to its competitors sites. (1.11)
The site has few news stories but gives detailed information for each. (1.10)
The site was recommended to you by a friend. (1.07)
The site offers information in more than one language. (1.04)
The site represents a nonprofit organization. (0.93)
The site says it is the official site for a specific topic. (0.85)
The site has ratings or reviews of its content. (0.79)
The site shows photos of the organization's members. (0.69)
The site lists well-known corporate customers. (0.62)
The URL for the site ends with ".org" (0.58)
The site is advertised on the radio or on billboards. (0.57)
The site selects news stories according to your preferences. (0.57)
The site provides financial news at no charge. (0.53)
The site displays an award it has won. (0.45)
The site recognizes that you have been there before. (0.37)
The site has ads that match the topic you are reading about. (0.21)
The site is designed for e-commerce transactions. (0.17)
The site requires you to register or log in. (0.07)

The above list shows things that, if you can do them, will positively affect your site's credibility with your visitors. Of course, not all of them will apply to your site and not all of them can be done by just anyone. For example, this blog is not done by a news organization that is well respected outside of the internet (maybe someday...). However, I could probably up my credibility by providing an e-mail address. Perhaps I will, though I fear spam.

I will now list the no-no's in reverse order (lowest score to highest).

The site makes it hard to distinguish ads from content. (-2.08)
The site is rarely updated with new content. (-1.67)
The site automatically pops up new windows with ads. (-1.56)
The site links to a site you think is not credible. (-1.53)
The site has a link that doesn't work. (-1.45)
The site is difficult to navigate. (-1.30)
The site is sometimes unexpectedly unavailable. (-1.28)
The site has a typographical error. (-1.28)
The site's domain name does not match the company's name. (-1.06)
The site takes a long time to download. (-0.94)
The site has lots of news stories without giving detailed information. (-0.89)
The site contains information that doesn't match what you think. (-0.77)
The site has one or more ads on each page. (-0.77)
The site requires a paid subscription to gain access. (-0.71)
The site has a commercial purpose (as opposed to academic purpose). (-0.63)
The site is hosted by a third party (e.g. AOL, Geocities). (-0.44)
The site is small (e.g. less than 5 pages). (-0.28)

So, there are some things that you might consider avoiding in your site. It should be clear that no site needs to adhere to all of these findings (which are exactly that, findings, not laws) in order to be profitable. Most commercial sites do at least a couple of the things that reduce credibility, such as display ads, and do not do all of the things that increase it.

It seems that a certain balance must be reached in order to gain a visitor's confidence. If your company has a trusted name outside the internet, perhaps you can afford to have a pop-up without destroying your credibility. If your site requires a paid subscription, you might get more sing-ups if your address, phone number, and e-mail are available.

So, if your site is not converting visitors into customers, take a minute to consider its credibility. Correct those typos. Check your links. Update frequently. Also, read the rest of the report because there's some great analysis that I'm not covering here (such as age and gender related stuff).

Hope this is helpful to you.

Christmas Break

2004-12-28T19:18:00.000-07:00

-~-
I'm in Ohio for the holidays. Ohioans: Nice state. I like it. (Not the first time I've been, but the first time I've had this blog with which to tell you.)

It's been pretty cold, but not cold enough to keep me off the four-wheeler nor intimidate the kids I whipped around behind me on an inner tube. Maybe I'll get a picture or two up here later.

The paintball games were today's main activity. Good stuff.
-~-

In the realm of affiliate marketing I will return to my review of 7Search.

The advertiser interface is decent. It is not quite up there with Adwords, but it's way, way better than Tygo. The 'Edit Bids' screen allows you to alter your current bid on any or all of your keywords/phrases. It also displays your positions on 7Search and on it's system of partner sites. The position information tells you if you're top 5 or not and how many searches were performed for each term during the previous month. It's easier to get top 5 (the good spots that most people would see) on 7Search than it is for the partner sites. This screen allows you to edit your ad. There are also some utilities there to help you do bulk submissions or get all your terms into top positions.

The bulk submission option might be a wise choice. This is because 7Search, unlike Adwords, does not allow you to 'expand' you keyword 'matches'. If you bid on "dog sharks" your ad will be shown when someone searches for 'dog sharks' but not for, say, 'fat dog sharks'. If you want the second term, you need to bid on that too. You can see how your list might grow pretty quickly. Especially when you're adding in things like misspellings.

The 'Edit Bids' page also leads to 7Search's Keyword Suggestion Tool. This tool does just what it sounds like and a little extra. It's kind of like Overture's tools ('Keyword' and 'View Bids'). It shows related terms, the number of times those terms were searched for last month, as well as what others are paying for them. It's a fairly comprehensive system, though it won't show you all possible terms (of course). You'll want to look into Wordtracker for a much more thorough keyword research solution.

The stats offered by 7Search are pretty good. I haven't got time to get into details at the moment (I'm sharing the computer with the rest of the family), but I will say this: They're certainly good enough for all but the true data junky. Though not as accessible as Adwords, they are there and you can see them (a novel idea that Tygo has not yet mastered). The entry page displays your total clicks over the last week or so and you get more detailed stats on all your words. You can even have them e-mailed to you.

So that's what I've got for now. I'm off for an evening of movie-watching and junk food.

Random News and Stuff

2004-12-20T16:11:00.000-07:00

Google's latest beta toy, Google Suggest, can be fun to play with. It may also be a useful way to do some keyword research. Here's two conversations about it.

Here's another interesting conversation from AssociatePrograms.com Forum. It's about outsourcing the creation of your websites. The idea is that you come up with the concept for the site and then pay freelance writers to do the content. You could also pay a web designer to do the site itself.

Personally, I think that this is a good idea. It all depends on how much your time is worth. If your time is valuable, it may be in your best interest to pay others to do the work that would take you the most time.

Along those lines here is a link to some business funding options available through the SBA if you think you might get serious about your online business.

More later...

I'm back...

2004-12-10T13:42:00.000-07:00

I've been a little bit busy lately (and by a 'little bit' I mean 'very'). Sorry about the large gap between posts. But now I'm back. Never fear.

So, I pretty much hate Tygo. I have no reason to believe that my ad campaign there was anything but worthless. I guess that's what happens when you try out new things on the internet. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. Tygo does not appear to work.

I still think that it can be profitable to try new things though. Take 7Search.com for example. I'm not entirely sure how new their program is because they don't say on their site. However, the fact that they don't say how new/old they are probably means that they started pretty recently.

I have been quite pleased with my experience at 7Search and recommend their PPC services. They do not, of course, generate as much traffic as Google does, but they do generate traffic. That traffic is also significantly cheaper than it is on Adwords. That's really the only advantage they have over Adwords, but for me that's enough to make it worth my while.

In other news, I am happy to report that my latest site looks like a winner. I have been advertising it with Adwords and 7Search as well as trying to get it into normal search engine results.

I think that getting traffic through natural search results will be the key to success with this site. It is generating enough commissions to stay ahead of my ad spending, but not enough to make me happy. Free traffic would really help my bottom line.

So now we're all back up to speed. I think for my next posts I'll give some more details about 7Search's system (like the stats reporting, bidding and so forth), brainstorm some ideas for free traffic, and let you in on the plans I have to get higher conversion rates out of my new site.

Still Nothing...

2004-11-18T01:13:00.000-07:00

No news as far as Tygo is concerned. Argh.

In other news, I started a new campaign (for a new site) on Adwords and on 7Search.com. This PPC company came recommended to me from a conversation I had on Revenue Source recently. That forum is growing pretty quickly and I think that it's going to be quite successful.

Anyway, 7Search seems to have a pretty solid program. Their stats actually work which is a major step above Tygo right now. In addition, it's generally much cheaper than Adwords for the same keywords. There is a $25 minimum investment, but that money goes towards your clicks. There is no startup fee that just disappears.

What I'm interested in is their traffic. It looks like they have a pretty good network of sites that display their ads (it includes Looksmart for example). I need a decent amount of traffic if I'm ever going to make any money with this site so even if the keywords are cheap, it won't be worth it if the clicks are few and far between.

That's one of the greatest advantages of Google and what prompted the creation of a book like Google Cash: There's a ton of people using it everyday.

Better...

2004-11-12T18:09:00.000-07:00

Received an e-mail from Tygo yesterday (pretty good response time) about the stats issue. It basically said, "thanks for telling us about that, we're working on it now". The fact that I got a response is encouraging and lifts Tygo's potential test score a bit. Fixing the problem in a timely manner will make or break my future with them. They still have most of a month before my campaign ends, which is their deadline in my mind. Guess I'm in for more waiting.

In the meantime, I've found a brand spankin' new affiliate marketing forum that I like. It's friendly, it's managed by people who know what they're talking about, and the best part is that you can earn "RS Bucks" for posting which you can redeem for prizes. It's called Revenue Source. Check it out.

So far so bad...

2004-11-10T23:49:00.000-07:00

Tygo update:

I sent an e-mail to Tygo today wondering if their stats work. The stats page is similar to the Adwords one, except...well...worse. However, you don't really have to do a lot of tweaking with Tygo's setup, so that's not really the problem. The problem is that the stats don't seem to work. I know that even if nobody else searched for my terms (which wouldn't really surprise me at this point), I did. I even clicked one of my ads (since you don't pay per click I figured I would test it).

No impressions show up and no clicks either. Ergh. I'm slightly peeved at the moment, but I will withold judgement until they get back to me. There could be a good reason for this. Anyway, the Tygo test is currently headed for a bad score. Stay tuned for more.

2004-11-08T21:22:00.000-07:00

After reading a little article on WebProNews I've decided to try out Tygo.com's search engine ads.

As the article explains, the price for each ad is a fixed rate per month, independent of how many clicks it gets, so you don't have to worry about click fraud. Personally, I'm not all that worried about click fraud anyway because I don't think that I get much of it. There's no way to be completely sure about that, but my Adwords numbers seem to indicate steady and normal click patterns.

Anyway, the lowest price per month is $1 (per keyword) for a little side ad and the highest is $25 for a very prominent top position. I decided to test the service because $1 is really cheap and the service is almost devoid of competition. I made one ad that will show for two different keyword phrases. On Google, clicks for those words would cost me $.21 each so if I can get at least 5 clicks on each ad then I guess it'll be worth it. Hopefully I'll get a lot more than that...

I'm somewhat skeptical of this sort of system, but we'll see how it goes. Expect updates on this one.

Quick

2004-11-03T21:48:00.000-07:00

Things have been pretty crazy lately, to say the least. In fact, they still are, so I'm just going to throw out a couple of my favorite links and call it good.

http://www.webpronews.com/ - Ecommerce news and articles.

http://www.webproworld.com/ - An awesome forum from the same people.

http://www.associateprograms.com/discus/index.php - Another great forum that deals mostly with affiliate programs.

Enjoy.

Lesson Learned...

2004-10-28T15:03:00.000-07:00

So, today I wish to share a little story about my own Adwords marketing.

It all started when I learned about Wordtracker and few other ways to find out what people are searching for online. Wordtracker has a "Top Searches" ticker on their site that let's you see the Top 50 most searched for (non-adult) terms of the day. Their actual product is the best search-term research tool available. It's designed to help you target the best words for your site or ads or whatever. It is very common to see referrences to Wordtracker scattered throughout the ecommerce community. They've become something of an internet marketer institution.

Anyway, from Wordtracker I picked up the fact that in October, people are looking for Halloween stuff. Lots of people. I decided to see if I could cash in on that seasonal traffic.

---
Before I go any further, let me give you those "other ways" to find popular searches that I mentioned. The first is the Lycos Top 50. The second is Yahoo's Buzz Index (be sure to check the Overall category). The third is Google Zeitgeist, which has quite a creative name. I'm sure that there's more out there since this is a pretty popular topic.
---

Okay, so Halloween. I thought, "I should find a great online costume store and promote that with Adwords." That's just what I did. I found a program that was managed through Commission Junction, allowed keyword bidding (not all CJ programs do, which is stupid), and had a really great store with tons of costumes.

So I joined the program and set everything up. I wrote my ad about costumes and got my keywords together. I focused on 'halloween' and 'costumes', but I did have to do some research to narrow things down. For example, I didn't want my ads shown to people looking for 'halloween party ideas', or 'free costume ideas' or anything like that. Google has its own keyword tool within the Adwords program which is very useful and can help you find things you'll want to exclude.

Sometime I'll get into the details of keyword research but that's not the point of this story. The point of this story is that I got almost 600 click-throughs in about 3 days. That cost me about $86. From all that traffic I made 13 sales totalling about $480 dollars. The only problem was that my commision was only 6%. I earned less than $30, putting me $56 in the hole for that campaign.

The moral of the story is that marketing with Adwords has its limitations. For instance, it costs money. If you're going to market something that has very popular terms, you need to be sure that the sales you make are going to exceed your advertising costs. I was only paying, on average, $.16 per click and never more than $.20. If I had been earning at least $6-7 per sale I would have broken even, but I was earning an average of $2.21 per sale and lost money.

As far as my ratio of clicks-to-sales, I got about 2.2%. That's not great, but most affiliate marketers would find that to be acceptable. 5-7% would be great, especially if you were making more like $15-20 per sale. If I had been earning $15 per sale I would have made $195 which would have covered my costs and a good amount of groceries. Also, I wouldn't have stopped my campaign after 3 days and the store would have gotten more sales.

I don't want to scare you away from all programs that offer lower percentage commissions. This campaign would have been very profitable if I had used a website to market it. When you don't pay for your visitors, you can leave the ad up longer and, well, you have less to risk and less to lose. I learned that with Adwords, you need to be pretty careful about that.

A Good Product

2004-10-27T17:29:00.000-07:00

So what makes a good product to sell with Adwords?

Here's what I think:

1. Mid-range price. You don't want to sell something too cheap because you won't make enough comissions to cover your advertising costs. You don't want to sell something too expensive because, well, you want people to buy it. A product that makes a $15-25 dollar comission is probably a good bet (when you're getting around %50). I have tried to market a product that cost almost $100 and that really didn't go too well.

2. Easy access. Stuff that people can download and use today is probably best (that's where ClickBank comes in).

3. A Good Site. There are several aspects that combine to make a good sales site:

a) Those long, thin sites with the text in the middle are best (like the Google Cash site). I know this because the pros say so and the pros do so. You'll notice that all the big name marketers have long thin pages to sell their stuff.

b) The best sites have an opt-in e-mail newsletter that people can join. I was afraid of this at first, thinking that if people signed up for the e-mails I would lose the sale to the site owner, but it turned out that my fear was unfounded. Most site owners use the e-mails to extend their sales pitch while preserving my status as referer. They offer some free tips and advice, which build trust, and keep trying for the sale. This is good because most people don't buy on the first visit. They click, they look, and if they're interested they may come back later. Those e-mails make it much more likely that they'll come back later.

c) The site should look good. Good looking graphics are important, as well as nice colors. If you think the site is ugly, chances are other people do too. A good looking page goes a long way to build customer trust in the seller and confidence in the product.

d) The site should talk about benefits. Lots of sellers focus on the features of their product. You want to find sellers who focus on the benefits of owning the product. That is to say, they focus not on what it does, but what it does for you. What problem does it solve? What help does it give? How will it make your life better? Features are important too, but benefits are better.

e) The site should include testimonials. This is someone else, not the seller, telling about how great the product is or how pleased they are that they bought it. Testimonials are important for building that all-important confidence that people need to get to the sale.

Those are the basic criteria by which I judge a potential site and product. These aren't hard and fast rules of course, but they're pretty good guidelines. Here's a good example of a great sales site: SitStayFetch.com. This product is currently number one in the Pets section on ClickBank and is being marketed by quite a few people on Adwords.

Details...

2004-10-23T00:15:00.000-07:00

All right. I'm going to get into some details today. My first topic will be ClickBank.

ClickBank is an interesting type of affiliate management service. They only deal with downloadable products like software and ebooks. Interested parties can register to sell their product through ClickBank. It is possible to buy directly from the ClickBank website, but most sales come through ClickBank's affiliates. Each of the products are sold on their own sites and purchased through the ClickBank shopping cart.

There are several nice things about ClickBank. First, you sign up with ClickBank once and then can freely switch between any of the products being sold. All you have to do is change a small portion of your affiliate link and you're good. You could sell something different every day, or every hour, if you so chose. There's no need to notify anyone about your changes, ClickBank tracks your sales from where ever they may come.

In addition, products are ranked by performance (sales) so it's easy to spot good sellers. Of course, this has its disadvantages becuase everyone sees what you see, so competion on Adwords can get pretty heavy.

That leads into my next point, which concerns the connection between ClickBank and Adwords marketing. Because the ClickBank affiliate system is so simple (there's generally just the small standard text link which you can take anywhere), it lends itself to Adwords. Also, all the products are digital so if people like what they see, they can get it right then and there. No shipping, and no hassels. That increases the chances of impulse buys, in my opinion, which is great for selling with Adwords.

On a normal affiliate site, you might find a review, a sales letter or some other type of endorsment. After reading that presell copy, the visitor would click through to the product site and get the full sales pitch. With Adwords, your presell copy is two short lines and a title. Because you can't do much preselling with that, it helps to have products that are so easy to buy.

It also helps that ClickBank has over 10,000 products, almost all of which are sold individually. When someone clicks your ad, they'll find a site that sells exactly what you advertised and nothing else (at least, it shouldn't. If it does sell other things I would think twice about avertising it).

Conclusion: Most of what I sell on Adwords comes from ClickBank. This is a generally accepted good idea (The Google Cash site, and book, discuss ClickBank as well), though it's certainly not your only option.

That's all for now, expect more details next post.

2004-10-21T21:46:00.000-07:00

Last post I said I'd talk about the easiest affiliate marketing strategy that there is, and so that is what I'll do.

First off, you need to know about affiliate programs, what they are and how they work. Since you're here, I assume that you know. (If not, there's a basic explanation on the BeginBiz affiliate programs page.)

So you know about affiliate programs. Perhaps you've even joined one or two or many. Now I assume that you're wondering how best to make money with them. Let it be said that there are many, many ways to make money through affiliate programs.

I think that the best way is to have a well visited site that focuses on one certain topic, like bass fishing, which you can use as advertising space for your fishing supplies program. But most of us don't have sites like that already made. So you could make one, but that takes a lot of time and effort.

The second best way is to have a massive opt-in e-mail list that you can add affiliate ads to when you send out your messages. Of course, most of us don't have that either, and it takes even more time and effort than a web site to get there.

That said, I can now introduce an affiliate marketing plan that needs neither a web site nor a e-mail list. In fact, all you need is an affiliate link and Google. That's why I say it's that easiest that there is. Unless you have a popular site or e-mail list, I think that this is the best way to start.

I did not come up with this idea. I wish I had, but I certainly wouldn't be telling anyone about it right now if that was the case. I would keep it secret until I had made some good money with no competition. The man who is generally credited with this system, or at least, who wrote the first ebook about it, is named Chris Carpenter. He titled his book, Google Cash.

I would recommend that you read it (and by that I mean buy it and then read it, because it's not free). Chris Carpenter is now well recognized for his online success. He is a 'pro' at this stuff. I am maybe some type of low-level wanna-be-pro. That means that he is making way more money than I am, and therefore his advice is better than mine. It certainly has more details.

Anyway, you're probably peeved by now since I haven't really explained anything. Okay, here's the deal: What Google Cash is essentially about is Google Adwords. That's the advertising program that puts the little ads on the right hand side of Google's search results pages (or SERPs as they're commonly called by the insider crowd). I'm sure you've seen plenty of those.

So here's what you do: Join an affiliate program and sign up for Adwords. With your free affiliate program and your $5 Adwords setup fee, you've paid your startup costs. Now, instead of posting your affiliate link on a web site, you put it in your Google ad. Basically, you take your campaign right to the source. Instead of waiting for people to find your site, where they may see your affiliate ad and click, you find people who are looking for what you sell and show them right to the door. When an interested party clicks on your ad, they're taken directly to your affiliate's site (and hopefully right to the page that has the product they're looking for). If they buy, you get paid.

The only catch is that when they click, you pay, whether they buy or not. The minimum cost-per-click for Adwords is $0.05, but popular keywords can cost much more. I'll touch on how Adwords works later. For now, I will end this post by saying that you now know about the easiest affiliate marketing scheme that there is: The Google Cash system. Simply genius.

The Beginning

2004-10-20T15:51:00.000-07:00

It always seems like the hardest part of writing is getting started. Once I have a few sentences, or a solid paragraph, things start flowing pretty smoothly. There may be some bumps along the way, even some difficult problems, but once I have some direction I can get through it.

I find that internet marketing, or at least profitable internet marketing, follows the same path as writing a paper. It's hard to get started. You need to do research. The first draft is usually crappy and should probably be rewritten (or at least edited thoroughly). On a positive note, it's about as hard (or as easy) as writing a paper. Anyone who knows about their subject can do it.

Better yet, there's never any due date for your marketing success (unless you have payments due...). Unlike a paper that you have to turn in, marketing strategies can always be tweaked, tested, and improved over time. Practice makes better.

That's why most people don't quit their day job to work online until they're already making money. Based on my own experience, I would recommend that course of action. I started getting into the internet money scene this past summer when I was out of school and out of work. I would have starved to death if I hadn't gained a sensible wife who has a real job.

Anyway, the point is that getting started can be difficult, and this blog is here to help. The internet makes tons of things easier, which is good and bad. Good because you now have hope of making money with your own business. Bad because everyone else does too (and that means everyone, even these people).

So be sure to check back soon. I plan on talking about the easiest affiliate marketing strategy there is for the next little while.