Wealthy Affiliate Blog

A “Buyers” Strategy…

December 15, 2008 – 11:09 am

What is the whole point of Internet marketing, or for that matter, marketing in general?

The goal is to turn a potential buyer into an active buyer.

The great thing about Internet advertising is that it is much more measurable than offline channels like TV commercials, magazine ads, and newspaper ads.

It looks like this:

Offline is not as predictable:

Traffic –> Product Awareness/Branding –> Website Traffic (??)  Conversion (where did it come from) –> Campaign ROI (not sure)

Where as the Internet provides much more decisive and predictable results:

Traffic –> Landing Page –> Conversion (YES/NO) –> Overall ROI

You know exactly which campaign and more times than not, which keywords are producing the sales within your campaign. This is powerful because anything that is measurable can be improved upon.

And…

Anything that can be improved upon, can increase your overall profits! Powerful stuff!

So, back to the core message of this post…

There are ways to expedite the process of turning a potential customer into a customer. Often times people do not even know they are a potential customer because they have not found the product they are looking for yet.

And sometimes people will never become “buyers” because they are either looking for “freebies” or they are much too early in the buying lifecycle, the information phase.

So how do you catch people late in the buying lifecycle? These are the people that already have their credit cards out on the table and are waiting to buy, or those people who are in the product review process and just need to find the “best fit” to what they are looking for.

I pretty much answered the question in the last sentence.

(1) People with their credit cards on the table

These are people that are probably the most serious buyers. These people are hungry to buy something, almost like buyers on Boxing Day, Black Friday, or Cyber Monday (three of the best online sales days of the year).

How do you trigger these people?

The easiest route to buyers is to target the “buy”, “purchase” and “order” keywords. For example, you could target the broader source of the keyword, like:

“buy 42” plasma TV”

Or you could be much more precise (and deliver a much more precise result):

“buy Panasonic TH 42” Widescreen Plasma”

Either way, your keywords will be attracting buyers. If you can deliver a product that fits their search, then you will be leveraging people late in the buy cycle. Note that the more relevant you are, the easier it is to convert.

What about starting your keyword research with buy type keywords? Let’s plug a few keywords into the free Google keyword tool and see what we get.

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

Typing in the term “buy”, these are a few of the results:

-buy prescription drugs
-buy songs
-buy vista
-buy used car
-buy a psp
-buy a Nintendo wii
-buy software
-buy contacts
-buy pictures
-buy flash
-buy a tv
-buy life insurance
-buy Mario cart
-buy bicycle

You could then elaborate on this search, but typing “buy bicycle” or “buy a psp” into the search. The more niche specific you get, the easier it will be to deliver the most relevant product, thus leading to higher conversions. You could also use this with the “order” and “purchase” and even “sale” or “cheap” keywords.

(2) People in the review “state” of the buying cycle

As consumers get smarter, the research they put into each and every purchase tends to increase. There are an abundance of reviews, ranking sites, forums, and blogs out there that discuss products and give overall product information.

Attracting people in the “review” state is also a great way to catch people further along in the buying lifecycle. People tend to get informed, review and then buy. If you can offer someone a quality product review or recommend another product and give the reasons why, you will likely be able to achieve a much easier SELL.

The types of keyword phrases that people search for in this phase are as follows:

PRODUCT A review
Compare PRODUCT A
Does PRODUCT A work
Review of PRODUCT A
PRODUCT A Scam
PRODUCT A Rating

Replace PRODUCT A with any product and you have yourself some great keyword phrases that will target people in the “review” state. These people convert and usually do not need too much more convincing before they buy.

For example:

Wealthy Affiliate Review
Compare Wealthy Affiliate
Does Wealthy Affiliate Work
Review of Wealthy Affiliate
Wealthy Affiliate Scam
Wealthy Affiliate Rating

Or you can work in the reverse to come up with some “niche” ideas. Use the Google Keyword tool again for this.

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

I typed in “review of” into the search and here is what I came up with:

-review of digital cameras
-review of 21
-review of Nikon coolpix
-review of Twilight
-review of vista
-review of refrigerators
-review of mattresses
-review of gas grills
-review of finance
-review of Bluetooth

These are just a few. You could then elaborate on this research by isolating one of the searches like “review of digital camera”.

Here were the corresponding results:

-compact digital camera review
-review of canon digital camera
-review of Panasonic digit camera
-review of sonic camera
-review of beach camera
-review of best digital camera
-etc.

That alone is the start of a highly relevant, high converting campaign. You could do this with pretty much an topic you want “review of anti-spyware”, “review of ppc ebooks”, “review of tractors”…ANYTHING!

So, in order to look for buyers, you need to know where they are “hiding”. We have given you the two best ways to find and capitalize off of consumers whom are late in their buying lifecycle.

Now go try it for yourself (I think you will like the results).

On another note, we are less than a month away from launching our latest project that has been in the works for the last year. NicheQ is coming on January 13th, 2009!

If you think understanding how to market a specific niche is powerful (which it is!!), then when this launches, it is going to blow you away.

Go to the page and grab your free guide now.

http://www.NicheQ.com

Cheers,

Kyle

PS. If you have anything to add to this or would like to leave a comment, please do so. We love getting all types of feedback!

Posted in Marketing Strategies | No Comments »

Tired of the Internet Marketing Roller Coaster?

December 3, 2008 – 2:48 pm

Up and Down, Up and Down, Up and Down…

Does this sound like your Internet marketing journey thus far?

If it does, then this post is going to offer you insight into why you are following this continues roller coaster. We are going to discuss how to make sales more consistent, more sustainable and how to avoid economic and seasonal trends reflecting the overall success of your campaigns.

The great part about Internet income is that it CAN BE year round. There are no days off, no hours off…24 hours per day, 365 days per year. However, the road to having campaigns that run in autopilot and generate cash for the entirety of the year can be bumpy at the best of times.

It may look a little something like this:

Make money, lose money, try something else, Make a bit more, lose….

This is the vicious cycle that you do not want to follow. Have you every heard of “writer’s block”? It is a phenomenon involving temporary loss of ability to begin or continue writing. In the above scenario, we like to refer to this as “marketers block”…the loss of ability to begin a successful campaign because of too many outside distractions!

Here is what you want your Internet marketing journey to look like:

Make money, lose money, find out why you lost money, refine campaign, make more money, continue building campaign…

Notice the differences.

(1) Find out why you are losing money (KEY)
In order to improve what you are doing, you need to understand where and why your campaign is not succeeding. This can be done through campaign analysis along with various forms of testing. Some tests can include ad CTR, landing page, and conversion tests. Testing results in campaign modifications…which are forced improvements of a campaign. Again, anything that can be measured can be improved up.

(2) Refine campaign based on findings (KEY)
This is the stage where you take your test results, and you make refinements to your campaigns based on your date. You may change your landing page flow, the headline, or even make the images more relevant. It could also include the modification of ads, breaking up of ad groups, or testing new products to promote. You could iterate through the refining stage many times within the same campaign.

(3) Make more money as a result
That is right! No campaign is every fully monetized…or “tapped” out. There are always ways to stretch the income out of a campaign, even if it is already highly successful. In the beginning stages it will be modifications derived from testing, whereas later on in the campaign lifecycle, further monetization will be the result of email campaigns, join ventures, add-on income streams and bonus structures.

The roller coaster will continue for you if you take the “Try Something Else” (TSE) attitude. Jumping around from industry to industry and technique to technique will only set you back. You are gaining no specialized expertise by doing this! Being a generalist has never helped an Internet marketer become a success.

Here are a couple things you can do to curb the TSE attitude:

(1) Stop buying every marketing book and product that comes out. Not all of them will help and you are digging into money that could be spent on your campaigns by doing this.
(2) Stick with ONE niche when starting out
(3) Don’t quit a niche just because you have failed, learn from it and improve.
(4) Specialize. Start with one marketing technique and become good at it. Do not try to be the jack of all trades.

We hope that you take in some of this info and break your own “roller coaster” cycle. Even we go through “roller coaster” cycles sometimes where we have to go back to the drawing board and really dig deep into the campaign’s fundamentals.

One more thing before we leave you today…

On January 13th, 2009, we are going to be launching something big. If you want to get access to a free 30-page guide on Niche Hunting, go to the following page now and sign-up to the pre-launch list:

http://www.NicheQ.com

The revolution of niche marketing is coming to you in just over a month.

Take Care,

Kyle & Carson
The Wealthy Affiliates

Posted in Marketing Strategies | 7 Comments »

Finding a Niche through the “how”… (PART 2)

November 24, 2008 – 2:09 pm

Last post we showed you how to leverage “how to” websites to perform audience research and to uncover new niches. Today we are going to take this one step further and show you how to advance these research skills by leveraging something that is common to all of us.

The THESAURUS!

http://thesaurus.reference.com/

In part one, we took the example of using “unemployment” to find information as to what problems people are looking to resolve in relation to the search term “unemployment”.

As you and I both know, there are many different terms out there that have the same meaning as the root word, employment.

In this situation, we are going to use a different example however, showing you the exact process.

Let’s take a phrase, say “more money”. Using the thesaurus, we can find a bunch of terms that mean the exact same thing.

We plugged “money” into the thesaurus. Here was the result:

http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/money

Now you add:

more + money_synonym

…to create your list of phrases (that you will then use with the 3 “how” sites).

Here is what we came up with:

“more money”

“more cash”

“more dollars”

“more loot”

“more green back”

“more coin”

“more bucks”

“more wage”

“more wealth”

“more riches”

“more salary”

“more dough”

“more pesos”

Now we follow the same process as before, using our generated list of “same meaning” search terms. Plug a few of these into the sites below and you will get a much more diverse set of results.

http://answers.yahoo.com
http://wikihow.com
http://ehow.com

Again, here is the process for researching:

(1) Type in a keyword related to the industry you are searching

(2) Create a list of all the questions people are asking within that topic

(3) Probe to find the hot button (people search for a how, but behind all of this there is a “why” …why does this person want to lose weight

(4) Formulate a campaign from your findings

Now instead of just one keyword, you have 13 search terms to type in that are all similar and will give you much greater insight into an industry and the problems that people are looking to resolve.

Q & A Sites + Thesaurus = POWERFUL NICHE RESEARCH

Hope you enjoyed this! In the coming weeks we are going to provide you with more niche “hunting” goodies and more details on profiting from particular niches.

Talk soon,

Kyle & Carson
The Wealthy Affiliates

PS. Something big is brewing! Ever wanted to master a particular “niche”? On January 13^th, 2009 this will become possible. We will send you more info in the coming weeks leading up to the launch!

Posted in Marketing Strategies | 20 Comments »

Finding a Niche through the “how”… (PART 1)

November 19, 2008 – 6:48 pm

Finding a niche is a big part of any successful campaign, but can also be an unnecessary setback for new Internet marketers.

There are many different avenues you can go down to find a niche, and today we are going to uncover one that is not only very powerful, but it can be done with minimal work (and is fun!).

This is something we like to call the “how” technique.

Have you ever had a problem or an issue that you were looking to fix? Chances are you have. We run into problems on a day to day basis, whether it is job-related, health related, technology or something related to your personal life.

As an Internet marketer, you can leverage this. Any problem usually has a solution. People are willing to pay for these solutions and as an online marketer you can take advantage of this.

Think about some common problems that people face:

Losing Weight
Getting Rid of Stress
Quitting Smoking
Fixing a slow computer
Learning How to Use Their New mp3 Player
Getting Dog to Stop Barking
Getting Rid of Athletes Foot
Learning How to Make Money Online
Getting rid of wrinkles
Clearing up acne
Rebuilding a dirt bike’s engine
Making vehicle more fuel efficient

These are just a few. The list could go on and on.

People run into issues every day. Whether it is their slow computer dragging them down, they have “debt” piling up, or they need a solution to a health issue they are having, where there is a problem, there is money to be made.

So how do you go about leveraging this as a marketer?

One of the best ways to research problems is to use a question and answer site. There are now several of them out there, but the best ones are:

http://answers.yahoo.com
http://wikihow.com
http://ehow.com

Here is the process for researching:

(1) Type in a keyword related to the industry you are searching
(2) Create a list of all the questions people are asking within that topic
(3) Probe to find the hot button (people search for a how, but behind all of this there is a “why” …why does this person want to lose weight
(4) Formulate a campaign from your findings

Now, how do you actually apply this? We are going to give you an example of how you would research something. For this, we are going to look into something that many people are struggling with right now, “unemployment”.

Step 1: We typed the search term “unemployment” into wikiHow, eHow, and Yahoo Answers.

Step 2: We recorded a list of all the questions related. Here they are (in no particular order).

How to cope with unemployment?
How to relocate a business?
How to get more job security?
How to cope with being fired?
How to survive job layoffs?
How to get out of debt legally?
How to file an unemployment claim?
How to apply for unemployment benefits?
How to calculate unemployment?
How to prepare for unemployment?
How to overcome unemployment?
How to collect unemployment in [state/city/country]?
What happens to unemployment if you become pregnant?
Can I collect unemployment if I work for a non-profit?
Does my unemployment income count when applying for a home loan?
How do I report my unemployment benefits?

..and this was just the start? We could have literally come up with 100’s of more questions, but for the sake of this example we have kept it to 16.

Step 3: Now that you have all of these examples, you need to search for the why? People are asking these questions “why”?

The most obvious one is that they are asking it because they are losing their jobs or have already lost their job (in most cases) and are looking for assistance. One thing you quickly understand when reading their questions in full is that they are in a financial bind?

Your job as a marketer is not only to help these people by “informing” them, but also to give them a solution to the root of their problem. In this case, the root of their problem is being unemployed…and the resolution to their problem will vary from question to question slightly, but the consensus is that these people want to make more money.

Step 4: Now it is time to build a campaign around your findings. You understand people are looking for unemployment, but now you need to inform them via your web page and offer some advice and insight as to how to resolve the problem.

These are a couple of resolutions to this problem (these ideas were taken from the responses):

-get employment assistance (unemployment)
-find a new job
-make money leveraging new avenues (like the Internet)
-register details with a temp agency
-strategies for saving money
-apply for welfare

Then you could probe this industry even further. This was just a simple and broad search under the search term “unemployment”. What if you took terms relevant to this like “find job”, “fired”, “lay off”, “employment” and applied the same strategy? You search would expand, your understanding of the niche would expand, and the insight would allow you to create a much more profitable campaign.

Hope this gives everyone a new tool in the arsenal. We are going to expand on this within our next blog post and show how you can incorporate some free online resources to expand on your “how to” research.

Until then, take care.

Kyle & Carson
The Wealthy Affiliates

Posted in Marketing Strategies | 3 Comments »

A Special Wealthy Affiliate Offer…

November 12, 2008 – 11:40 am

Today is the BIG day.

A day for all the aspiring and successful Internet marketers…

This day marks the day that we launch…

Wealthy Affiliate Accreditation!

We are offering a one week introductory offer to anyone that is looking to become an expert in the following areas:

(1) Article Marketing & SEO
(2) Pay Per Click Marketing (Google Adwords, YSM, MSN)

Many people struggle online because they are either misinformed or have information overload. They may have some of the right knowledge and some of the wrong knowledge, but when they are mixed, failure is inevitable.

We have spent the last 4 months and 100’s of hours developing our newest accreditation courses! They are task based and will walk you through everything you need to know to succeed with these marketing strategies.

They are based off of the EXACT processes we have followed to earn millions of dollars over the course of the last 7 years online.
How much?

If we were like everyone else out there, we would charge an arm and a leg for these courses. The time alone we invested into these courses is worth $1000’s alone, not to mention these courses are the exact (yes, exact) step-by-step processes that we have followed to make millions.

These courses could easily sell for $1000…as people are going to make much more than this off of the knowledge the gain from theme.

However, we have decided to offer each accreditation course for only $67 during the first week of the launch. Each course includes at least 11 lessons that will walk you through everything from the

These courses are only offered within Wealthy Affiliate, so yes; you do have to be member of Wealthy Affiliate before you can get access to them. We have created a special page where you can sign-up to become a member as well as get access to one or more of the accreditation courses.

PPC Course = $67 (ONE WEEK ONLY OFFER!)

==> http://www.wealthyaffiliate.com/course_ppc.php

Article Marketing + SEO Course = $67 (ONE WEEK ONLY OFFER!) ==> http://www.wealthyaffiliate.com/course_article_marketing.phpHow are these courses different from WA and why do you need to pay for both?

Although we do have a load of resources within WA, including a vast number of tutorials, videos, and other resources…these courses are an all in one package.

We were initially going to launch these courses outside of WA…but decided to offer it exclusively to WA members. Why? Well, we want WA members to succeed and we want to continue feeding the success engine with powerful resources like these.

95% of the things we come out within WA are free, but this is an instance where we have to charge a nominal fee for the course. If you follow through these courses and complete the tasks, you will succeed. That $67 will soon become a very insignificant investment!

You are also investing in your education, knowledge set and future. Think of an accreditation course in college or university. You are looking at a minimum of $1000’s and more times than not, you are being taught from a book, not experience.

And there is MORE…

We are ripening the pot for you. Making an offer that is so irresistible that you cannot afford to take part in this.

We are offering some really special bonuses with each course. Some will tell us we are crazy for giving away such powerful bonuses, but we don’t care!

Here they are:

PPC Accreditation:

BONUS 1: A copy of Beating Adwords (no cost) - $67 Value
BONUS 2: A copy of Inside the List (no cost) - $67 Value
BONUS 3: Access to Lifetime Updates
BONUS 4: Full Support

Full Details HERE!

Article Marketing Accreditation:

BONUS 1: A copy of Who Loves Money (no cost) - $77 value
BONUS 2: A copy of Inside the List (no cost) - $67 value
BONUS 3: 100 PLR Articles
BONUS 4: 1000 Hot Article Keywords
BONUS 5: Access to Lifetime Updates
BONUS 6: Full Support

Full Details HERE!

We are giving away our top marketing e-books (which are all hot clickbank sellers) when you purchase either one of the courses. These books alone are worth more than the value of each accreditation!!!

How can you not take advantage of this!

Click Here for PPC Course Info & Purchase

Click Here for Article Marketing Course & Purchase Info

This offer is only valid for one week…and then the price will be going up (no exceptions, no excuses). Take advantage of this will the price is ridiculously low!

If you are ready to buy, go here:

http://www.wealthyaffiliate.com/course_signup.php
already a member and you want to get the accreditation courses, just sign in to your the WA membership area and you can gain access to them (and buy) from there.
See you on the other side,

Kyle (& Carson)
The Wealthy Affiliates
www.wealthyaffiliate.com

Posted in New Features, News | No Comments »

Best Ways to Make Money Online…

November 9, 2008 – 11:33 am

One the main questions that we get from members at WA is whether or not they should start with PPC or a technique like article marketing.

Either way, you will be on the right track…but there are financial constraints with PPC, whereas ANYONE can partake in a successful article marketing or SEO campaign.

So, should you go free or paid?

Well, this is up to you. We do not know your situation or your experience. Because of this we have created an outline of the benefits and drawbacks involved with both types of marketing. From this, you can choose your path:

No Cost (Article Marketing)
————————————–

Benefits:

• doesn’t cost anything
• gain valuable marketing experience
• learn to become a pro copywriter
• no financial risk

Drawbacks:

• some successes are very short term
• not as scalable as PPC
• time investment

We recommend…

Article marketing (and SEO) is for ANYONE that is just getting started in the Internet marketing world or has not yet achieved success online. It doesn’t cost anything and the experience you gain when creating article marketing campaigns is high octane. You learn about understanding audiences, researching keywords and creating targeted campaigns…all skills that are important with PPC success and are transferable. If you are on a tighter budget or just starting out, we suggest you start with Article Marketing. Once you gain experience and have some seed money from your article marketing activities, you can definitely start moving over to PPC.

Cost (PPC)
————————————–

Benefits:

• more instant results
• huge earning potential
• more scalable
• predictable results

Drawbacks:

• risk losing money
• more “rules” go into successful campaign
• can be competitive

We recommend….

PPC marketing is for anyone with a budget that is willing to learn before they “do”. PPC marketers fail when they do not understand how engines like Google Adwords and YSM function OR when they do not research an audience before they promote to them.

PPC results are measurable and anything that can be measured can be improved upon. Additionally, once you become an experienced PPC marketer, each campaign you set-up will become predictable. Once you “get” the formula of PPC success down, you are well on your way to long term income online.

$1000 per day is possible with a SINGLE PPC campaign!

PPC is good if you can handle a little risk, but the rewards can far outweigh the risk.

Can you do both?

Absolutely, in fact we recommend it. If you are pure beginner, we recommend starting with article marketing and then transitioning over to PPC once you have some experience. If you have some marketing experience and a budget to support a PPC campaign, this could be your starting point. You could then write articles to supplement your traffic. Either way having experience in both will be highly beneficial.

Why WA makes sense…

At Wealthy Affiliate we offer training in both marketing techniques (and many other). We have mastered both and made millions of dollars online to date with our PPC and article marketing efforts.

We have also helped 1000’s of people achieve success in both. We have a mixed group of members at WA, some are article marketers, some are PPC marketers, some both, and some are merchants. Whichever path you want to take, we will be there to help.

We do not just show you the WHY; we show you exactly how to do it. We have seen it all and probably done it all. With a combined 13 years experience online, we know what it takes to succeed, and we can help you get there. Whether you are just starting out or want to expand your business, we can offer assistance and training in both.

And finally, on November 12^th, 2008 we are going to be introducing something to Wealthy Affiliate that is going to help everyone succeed. We are going to make an offer that is exclusive to Wealthy Affiliate members and if you have ever wanted the “full ride” training, everything from start-up to success, you will want to be on board for this.

This is just a few days away…and you will want to be a part of this! Join Wealthy Affiliate!

Sign Up Today!

Take Care and we will speak with you soon,

Kyle (& Carson)

The Wealthy Affiliates
www.wealthyaffiliate.com

Posted in Marketing Strategies, News | 28 Comments »

Is It Possible to Get Google Ads Free?

November 5, 2008 – 7:54 pm

Last blog post we talked about Google and gave you a checklist you need to follow to construct a campaign Google will absolutely love.

Today, we are going to talk about how to get highly relevant and converting Google traffic for no cost at all!

We are going to solve any mystery behind this (if there ever was), and help you understand what these high ticket courses and such are talking about when they say they are going to show you how to get Google Ads for FREE!

The breakdown…

Google has paid and natural search listings. You cannot get paid positions for without paying, you pay for each click through your Google Adwords account. So, no, you cannot get PPC traffic for free.

Anyone that tells you otherwise is.. well… LYING!

When people talk about traffic that costs nothing, they are referring to what we call natural search listings. These are the listings that you will see down the middle of the page when you perform a Google search.

Through research, it has been proven that people that are seeking the most relevant search results typically look down the middle, and people that are more geared towards buying something, look to the right (the paid search results).

In both cases, people will buy from both paid and natural search listings if your content is relevant and your offer is relevant.

How to get the “middle” listings?

The best way and the most common technique is Article Marketing. You may have heard this term in the past, or you may have heard “bum marketing”, both are the exact same thing.

This is how it works:

1. You write an article that targets a relevant search term
   
2. You submit this content to an article directory
3. Google (and other search engines) pick up your page from this directory (since it has a high page rank)
4. You get ranked in Google under the search term
5. You article gets “clicked” and someone buys from it (you get paid)

This 5 step process is the bare bones of a successful article marketing campaign. There are some impact points of a campaign that can make the difference between making money and not making money, and these should be considered before every article you write:

(1) The keyword you target
If your keyword is not relevant to your market and does not target people who have buying power, what is the point? For example, a term like “download music for free” attracts the wrong audience, where “buy Michael Jackson thriller download” would be much more targeted and attract the right audience.

(2) Which directory you submit to
The best directories are the ones with the highest page ranks and that get “seen” by Google the most. These directories are ezinearticles.com, squidoo.com, goarticles.com and usfreeads.com.

(3) What product you are promoting
If you are not promoting a product/service that is relevant to the keywords that get listed under, then there is no point. If someone is search for “best dog training program” and you offer natural dog food recipe within your article, you will not be 100% targeted, thus affecting your earning potential. Be relevant!

(4) If the article “makes” sense
Trying to plug keywords within your article just to “plug keywords” is not a good idea. If your article does not have flow and does not make sense, nobody is going to read it. You need to be strategic with your writing so that you are not only targeting keywords, but it makes sense to the reader!

Next time you hear “Get Google Ads For Free”, understand that this is a tricky way of saying SEO, or more specifically, article marketing.

More to come on this in the coming days….

Take Care,

Kyle (& Carson)
The Wealthy Affiliates
www.wealthyaffiliate.com

Posted in Marketing Strategies | 25 Comments »

Stung by the Google Killer Bee (the google slap)…

November 3, 2008 – 5:59 pm

The Google Killer Bee hurts like no other. You invest a load of your time and energy into creating a campaign only to see sting you with high bid prices, low rankings, and more often than not, ads that are NOT EVEN BEEN SHOWN!

After 6 years in the Adwords game, I had one of my Adwords campaigns stung by the Google slap for the first time. Boy was it ever a shocker when I looked in this particular campaign to see no clicks because my ads were shut off due to “poor” Quality Score.

I yelled at the computer screen…“What do you mean “low” Quality Score!”

I have relevant ads, a high CTR (over 5% on average), my landing pages were relevant, and I had internal links on my pages.

Any guesses as to what my problem was?

My ad groups were too big!

I am not talking about a huge 500 keyword groups. I thought my ad groups with fewer than 20 keywords were tightly grouped, but apparently Google was de-ranking me for this.

Alright, if Google is going to play this relevance game, I can play just as hard. There comes a point where your campaign cannot be created any better…and the only thing that I could do is tighten my ad groups to the point where they were so targeted, Google could not have any more complaints.

Here is what I did:

I took an ad group like this:

-wealthyaffiliate
-wealthyaffiliate review
-wealthyaffiliate university
-wealthy affiliate
-wealthy affiliate review
-wealthy affiliate university
-does wealthy affiliate work
-become a wealthy affiliate
-join wealthy affiliate

……and 10 more similar keywords

Then I created a “brand new” campaign and I ripped them apart into smaller ad groups like this:

Group 1:

-review for wealthy affiliate
-wealthy affiliate review
-wealthy affiliate reviews
-wealthy affiliate website review

Group 2:

-wealthy affiliate university
-join wealthy affiliate university
-wealthy affiliate university review
-wealthy affiliate university website

I kept the ad groups to a size of 5 keywords or less, following a common keyword them. Notice in the first “wealthy affiliate review” and in the second ad group, “wealthy affiliate university” is the common theme.

And then I wrote targeted ads for both groups, including ALL keywords within the ad groups within the ad (this is critical).

Guess what happened?

My ads instantly showed up within the Google paid search results, my keywords obtaining a “great” Quality Score (9/10 most of them), and my new campaign was alive and thriving!

So, even if you are following the rules, Google continues to make things harder for weak advertisers to succeed, and easier for strong advertisers to become massively successful.

Ever since these changes within my campaign, my ads have never been ranked higher and my CTR has exploded (many ad groups over 30% CTR)!!

Here is a little checklist that you need to follow to have a campaign that Google absolutely loves:

1. Relevant keywords (3+ terms in length)
2. Small and tight ad groups (less than 10, ideally less than 5 keywords)
3. Relevant ads (that contain the keywords)
4. Relevant landing pages (that contain the keywords, but doesn’t spam them)
5. Multi-page site

Cover these basis and you are on your way to PPC profits….send the Google bees back to their hive or sick them on your weaker competition!

Hope you enjoyed this and if you are having trouble with your Quality Score, go over the checklist. Chances are you may be doing one or more things slightly wrong!

Take Care,

Kyle

Wealthy Affiliate
www.wealthyaffiliate.com

PS. Want to become a PPC expert? We are just 8 days away from something big, REALLY BIG! If you have ever wanted to master the PPC field you are in luck. 8 DAYS AWAY!

Posted in Marketing Strategies, News | 7 Comments »

Impact of Dollar Swings on PPC campaigns

October 30, 2008 – 11:11 am

As you may know, the USD has gained great strength against many of the other major currencies in the past months with fear of exports, global recession, commodity prices and other factors. A changing dollar can have major impacts on your PPC campaigns, so we though we would give you a head up as to how you can prevent this from negatively affecting your campaigns.

First off, a swing this quickly is not typical by any means. Carson and I both reside in western Canada, and the Canadian dollar has dropped 30 cents to the American dollar is just the last 60 days. Pretty amazing when you think about it!

Our once “par” dollar is no longer par, in fact it is worth much less.

Here is what this means in terms of our PPC campaigns:

A $1.00 bid is now only worth $0.78. Since Google and other SE’s deal with their PPC listings (on a competition basis) on the USD, fluctuations in other currencies can negatively affect ad position.

A once strong dollar would have gotten much better positioning when it was actually worth a dollar, not $0.78. Although your campaign may have a “great” Quality Score status, this has caused many positioning drop-offs within campaigns.

What should you do?

(1) Well to increase your ad positioning to its old “state”, you will need to increase your PPC prices. This has caused many advertisers to move positioning, so make sure you adjust your PPC prices in smaller increments ($0.05 - $0.10 at a time).

(2) Continue improving Quality Score. Quality Score is having more and more of an impact on your ad positioning. A great Quality Score can make the difference between a 1^st page listing and a 2^nd page listing. Obviously you will get much more traffic on the 1^st page!

(3) Compare your current position to that of your listings a month ago. Then work to gain your results back. If you are noticing a lower CTR, this is because your ads have moved down on the page. The 1-5 listings within the paid search results yield a much higher CTR than that of a lower listing. A low CTR means a low Quality Score…this can have some serious affects.

Here is some real data from one of my PPC campaigns.

Before: Sept 1-2nd campaign data:

Keyword 1, ad position 4.6 CTR 4.61%
Keyword 2, ad position 5.7 CTR 2.99%
Keyword 3, ad position 3.8, CTR 6.21%

After: October 27-28^th campaign data:

Keyword 1, ad position 6.3 CTR 2.22%
Keyword 2, ad position 6.5 CTR 0%
Keyword 3, ad position 4.8, CTR 3.42%

This is an average ad position differential of 1.23 and an average CTR difference of 2.72%. This is a HUGE difference and will definitely have an impact on our Quality Score and overall conversions.

There is some good news to take from this despite the higher PPC charges. The fluctuations are not exact to how much you will earn online. If you have a profitable campaign, you are now much more profitable. Since most affiliate companies and networks pay out in US dollars, it impacts your bottom line in a good way.

Now when I take $10,000 USD check to the bank, it is worth $13,000 CAD. This is a significant increase in earnings and outweighs the high click costs!! Just over a month ago my $10,000 USD was only worth $10,000 CAD!

Also, some great news if you are from the USA!

On the other end of the spectrum, as a dollar gains value, so does your ad positioning. If you have noticed a jump in traffic and a jump in CTR, this is because your ad positioning has been given a boost by the power of the US dollar.

This is a definitely a good thing. Traffic should be marginally cheaper and your ad positioning has likely increased by an average of a full position!

Lower CPC, higher ad positioning and higher CTR = Higher Quality Score and more money in your pocket!

PPC is a crazy world and the more you understand the “ins and outs”, the greater your chance of succeeding. We understand PPC and with over 2 million clicks from my Adwords account alone, I think I can safely say I understand a thing or two about PPC and how to optimize campaigns (Carson has an account just as large!).

In saying this, we are just a few weeks away from launching something within Wealthy Affiliate that is going to create expert PPC marketers. In this economy, there is still a lot of money to be made within the PPC world (don’t listen to naysayers) and we are going to help literally 1,000’s of people become PPC success stories.

Stay in tune with the PPC world and take advantage of what we teach at WA and you will become a success story too!

====> http://www.wealthyaffiliate.com

Have a great weekend and we will speak with you soon.

Take Care,

Kyle (& Carson)
The Wealthy Affiliates

Posted in Marketing Strategies, News | 7 Comments »

Beijing 2008 & The Bigger Picture

August 8, 2008 – 9:22 am

8-8-2008… Today is the opening day of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing China and this opens a huge opportunity for Internet marketers to tackle.  The entire world will be watching the Beijing Olympics on the television and you know that country rivalries in sports like football (soccer for those in the US), basketball, track & field, boxing, aquatics and gymnastics are going to be heating up!  This also means that sports fans around the world will be itching to cheer their countries on. 

There is opportunity to promote to sports fans just like any other audience in any other industry online!

Beijing is an event happening in 2008 that only occurs once every 4 years, but what about other events that you can take advantage of throughout the year?

Here are a few HOT events from this year that we personally know people have taken full advantage of marketing online (and made a killing):

- New Years Resolutions (weight loss, quitting smoking)
- NCAA Football Rose Bowl
- Tennis - Australian Open
- Chinese New Year
- Super Bowl
- Valentines Day
- NCAA Basketball Tournament
- Golf - The Masters
- Soccer - UEFA Football Championship
- 2008 Summer Olympics
… and the list goes on

We are constantly on the look out for current events that present great online marketing opportunities and we have a massive list that we give away to all members at Wealthy Affiliate.  The WA Task & Goal calendar provides notifications to members about upcoming current events that they can market online.

During the most recent World Cup Soccer tournament (2006), we set up a campaign where we earned $60 per minute (yes, per minute) during the times that the matches were on each day.  There were 3-4 matches per day, so you can do the math and see that we made a fortune promoting this one sporting event.  This exact opportunity will present its self again many times in the future (in 671 days, 6 hours, 28 minutes, and 51 seconds to be exact!).  There are many other marketing opportunities just like this happening each and every month, and you are missing out if you are not taking advantage of them.

Finding hot niches to promote online can earn you a fortune, and many of these events happen on an annual basis!  Once you’ve promoted an annual event once, you will be able to let things run on auto-pilot for years to come as you will have the marketing campaigns, the websites, the keywords, and the content ready each year when that event rolls around.

You can earn BIG dollars by staying current and up to date with what the hottest events are throughout the year.  If you want to get access to our list, you’ll have to join Wealthy Affiliate!

Get Your List of Hot Annual Events Here

To your profits,

Kyle & Carson
The Wealthy Affiliates
www.wealthyaffiliate.com

Posted in Marketing Strategies | 8 Comments »