Are You a Scatterbrained Affiliate?

By Amit Mehta

Let’s say you launch a new AdWords campaign, optimize it and get your affiliate promotion to $100 a day in profit. WOW! That’s $3,000 per month in profit. You’re really excited!

Now, you have two choices:

1) You think to yourself, “Hey, if I do this in 10 different markets, I’ll make $30,000
a month in profit!” You decide to jump into a completely new market, one you
know nothing about, in an attempt to duplicate your success.

2) You think to yourself, “I’m just touching the surface of the income potential in this market!” Then, you decide to leverage everything you’ve learned in this market. You continue to expand your keyword list, take your AdWords campaigns on to Yahoo, and MSN, split test your ads and hire a web designer to make a professional site. You add more unique content to your site to improve your AdWords quality score, rigorously split test your landing page to improve conversions, start collecting emails and building a list.

Now, sadly enough, most affiliates will opt for scenario one, and the following is what will likely happen six months down the road.

Scenario One

This person, basically letting his $100 per day profit run on autopilot, now goes into 10 different markets, unfortunately, they all turn out to be duds (or only temporarily profitable) except for the seventh one, where again, he made $100 per day in profit. 

However, by the time that happens, markets conditions have changed and more competition has entered into his first market. He starts to lose money on his first market. 

Overwhelmed and distracted by all the markets he’s testing, he puts that market on hold and says to himself: “I’ll come back to that later,” knowing full well he never will.

He then gets an email from an Internet marketing ‘guru’ about how to easily make $50,000 a month with pre-fab AdSense templates. 

Again, he thinks, “diversify” and says okay, let me do a little bit of AdSense while I manage my AdWords campaigns looking for a winner. So he devours the e-book, gets excited about it for a couple weeks, sees no results and then drops it.

And so far, in 6 months, this person is still at $100 per day profits, investing half of his/her time into testing new campaigns in different markets (instead of building up the one profitable campaign first) and the other half buying the latest money making get-rich-overnight e-books. Sound familiar?

Scenario Two

As you’ve probably figured out, this is the super-affiliate. Over the next several months, he continues to expand and build up the budding campaign that started at $100 per day in profit. He adds 5,000 keywords to the campaigns, expands on to other PPC search engines and tests out the Google content network. He improves & split tests his site and manages to increase his conversions over time by 50%.

Six months down the road he’s making $1,500 a day in profit from this campaign he started at only $100 per day.

Not only is this campaign highly optimized, it has a broad reach in terms of keywords exposure, search engines, content network ads, etc. This campaign will still be highly profitable, even if a lot of new competitors enter the market or the market enters a seasonal slow down (such as the summer).

Final Thoughts

Affiliate Marketing is about the thought process, NOT mechanics.

After an affiliate newbie has six months experience with PPC Affiliate Marketing, chances are that he/she knows how to setup a Google campaign, conduct keyword research, write a Google ad and select affiliate promotions that convert, etc. 

However, your ultimate success or failure will be determined by the decisions that you make.

Are YOU making decisions like a super-affiliate or an average affiliate?

 Review your website for new keywords

you even look up your first keyword. Once you have your strategy in place, Amber revealed six free keyword tools that will help you expand your list. After you have laid the strategy ground work, expanded your keyword list with every possible variation - where do you go from here? Where do you get even more keywords and additional traffic? Sometimes what you are looking for is hiding right in front of your eyes. Conduct another thorough review of your website, especially those pages that are deep within your site, for even more keywords ideas; you’ll be surprised at what you discover!

Sure, you know every limb of your keyword animal from head to long tail, and you know the 20% of your keywords that drive 80% of your traffic - but there are always ways to strengthen your keyword list, expand your keyword real estate, and increase your traffic. Yes, there are keywords that are hiding right out in the open and you just need to stop thinking so hard and find them! When you created your original keyword list you made an expansive list of your services and products, which is a great way to start but there is a keyword goldmine you may not be excavating to it’s fullest potential: here is a list of pages on your site that you should review again for potential keywords.

Product/Service Pages

Yes, when you created your initial keyword list, you brainstormed on every possible variation on your products & services. But I encourage you to look again. Don’t just look at your product/service name or benefits, really think about the solution you have to offer your potential clients. When users are searching, they are not always looking for a specific product because they don’t know the solution to their problem, so they may search on the symptom to their problem.

For example, if you offer lawn care service, your clients may not always be searching for “lawn care.” They may not even be searching for your core services such as lawn trimming, landscaping, grass seeding, hedge shearing, tree removal, but they maybe searching under “dead grass solution” if they need help with their lawn; or “hedge service,” or “raised flower bed” when they are searching for landscaping services. These are all symptoms to larger problems - how can you be the solution? Review your product/services pages and give this some thought!

FAQ Page

You may be answering questions about your company on your site that you are not addressing with your keyword list. Most FAQ pages give users a better understanding of who your company is, what you have to offer, the details of your offerings, and why they should choose you over the competition. Basically, this page answers questions (that’s obvious) and builds trust. Reviewing your FAQ page can be helpful in two ways: first, it will help you build your keyword list for terms & phrases you can add to your long tail keyword list; and second, this is a good source for PPC ad copy. Your PPC ad copy is basically providing an answer to a query, so there maybe text on this page that will inspire you!

News/Updates Page

New products, new services, speaking engagements, conference appearances, strategic alliances, news articles, product reviews, acquisitions, and list the goes on and on in regards to topics that you can cover on the news/updates page of your site. There could be new keywords lurking within these news items! A speaking engagement topic may contain keywords you don’t have your in campaign, or users may be searching for the firm with whom you are forming a relationship. A product/service review from another website may highlight a benefit or solution that you hadn’t even thought of before!

About Us Page

Branded terms almost always generate highly qualified traffic. Since the user knows who you are and they are actually searching for you, it doesn’t get any better than that! However, on your About Us page, how do you describe your company? There could be terms on this page that users are searching on, but they just aren’t aware they are actually looking for you. When users don’t know exactly what they want, they will describe it and see what the SERPs have to offer.

Site Map

If you were writing a term paper (and your website was the actual paper), then your site map would be the outline. Do a review of your site map just make sure that your keyword list has every bullet on your website outline, as these are the most important points/pieces of information on your site.

And a quick note: don’t forget to review these pages on your competitors’ sites as well!

Finding keywords within your website can be like finding loose change in your couch. It was yours to begin with, you may just have lost it temporarily. But when you do re-discover what’s been lost or misplaced, it gains extra value - even it’s only a nickel, or a long-tail keyword. These efforts will help you build a better keyword list and generate more traffic.

source: ppchero.com

Bidding on branded keywords

According to a study conducted by Hitwise, one in seven brand searches do not end up at the searched-for brand’s website. This is an indication of a number of search trends:

* Bidding on branded keywords, your own as well as those of your competitors, is absolutely necessary.
* When users search for a specific brand name, six out of seven times they already know what they want and who they want it from.
* However, when users search on branded terms they are not always committed to that branded term, but they are searching for similar services/products. Therefore, their search begins with a brand term they’re already familiar with but they are actually in the research phase of the buying cycle.

If you are going to employ this strategy, you have to adhere to the proper copyright and trademark laws, as well as the editorial guidelines governed by the search engines. If you play by the rules you can bid on your competitor’s branded keywords and acquire that one-in-seven users who aren’t committed to the brand that started their search.

First, let’s review the basic copyright and trademark laws as they apply to PPC. For this article I am going to focus on bidding on competitor’s brand names. Bidding on competitor’s names is allowed, and this practice was upheld in the decision of Geico vs. Google in 2005. Geico sued Google for allowing competitors to bid on their name and trademark phrases. The court decided that as long as sponsored ads do not confuse the consumer, then this practice is legal. Marjory Stewart, a Milwaukee-based intellectual property and business law attorney, said of the Geico/Google case:

“What looks like a victory for Google after the early part of the decision of the court, may include liability on the finer points of trademark law.” She said. “A company can be held vicariously liable for trademark infringement if it has the right to control someone else downstream or DOES control them and that party infringes on another’s mark. Some of the results in the Geico case involved sites that used the Geico mark without Geico’s permission. That’s a problem.” She said that it is possible for companies like Google and Overture to be held liable for “contributory infringement” if they intentionally induced another company to engage in infringing conduct.

Bidding on a competitor’s name was deemed acceptable; but it was the advertiser’s intentions that were called into question and how they use competitor’s names within their messaging. As long as an ad is not misleading or misrepresenting your competitor, then the ad is legal. Google, Yahoo, MSN and every other search engine have established their own regulations in order to mitigate any association with contributory infringement. This is where comparison marketing comes into play.

Also, let us make the distinction between bidding on a competitor’s name and using their logo. Using a competitor’s logo for any purpose is strictly prohibited. Unless you have written permission to use a company’s logo or symbol, don’t do it.

If you are going to bid on a competitor’s brand terms, then your intentions can not be malicious or misleading. In fact, if you are going to target these terms you need to make sure that your intentions are pure and that you make this crystal clear to the search engines. The only strategy we use when bidding on these kinds of keywords is to make direct comparisons between the searched-for brand and what our client has to offer. Most searchers are looking for the best service, product, and price. If we know that our offering presents an alternative, then we’ll call a searcher’s attention to our ad and let them decide who addresses their needs best.

We believe in playing fair and generating great results, and hopefully you do as well. If you are going to utilize this strategy, make sure that you follow these steps:

* Bid low on competitors’ names. As stated earlier, six out of seven users have a clear idea of they what are looking for when searching a specific brand name. Your ad should serve as an alternative to the user’s query, and so you shouldn’t bid aggressively, otherwise your ROI will suffer.
* Write relevant, targeted ad text. Yes, you can bid on competitor’s names but take caution when using it in your ad text. I would highlight the service/product that a user maybe searching for, as opposed to using the your competitor’s name within the ad. Remember, each search engine wants to deliver a quality user experience, and in doing so they want to make sure that users are served the best possible results for their query. Relevancy is their core concern, so it should be yours as well.
* Directly compare your services/products to your competition on your landing page. Using a competitor’s name in your ad text could get your ad rejected, but you need to mention your competitor on your landing page, otherwise your quality score will suffer. Making a direct comparison to your competitor, and using branded keywords (yours and theirs) in the process, will let the search engines know that your intentions are not malicious.

Bidding on your competitor’s branded terms can be a successful way to draw qualified traffic to your site and generate additional conversions. However, be sure that you adhere to the established laws and editorial guidelines, otherwise you will have wasted your time and negatively affected your quality score with poorly chosen and executed keywords. Remember, with this strategy you are seeking that one-in-seven user who is looking for what you have to offer, they just may not know they want it from you - just yet.

source: ppchero.com
 

Do you want to make more money? Do you want to turn that computer you spent so much money on into a cash cow? Well it is possible. It won’t happen overnight but with time and hard work you’ll soon be working from home if you choose

Do you currently have a website? Do you wonder why it isn’t making you any money? You keep posting great content, wonderful writing samples and articles but still your balance is zero. Well perhaps you need to expand your horizons. By signing up for pay per click affiliate sites you can soon see cash going into your account simply by maintaining your site.

One of the most popular Pay per click programs is Google adsense. Google Adsense will take care of the advertising for you. When you sign up, your site will have new advertisements and banner places in the open spaces. If anyone visits your site and clicks on one of the ads, you get a referral payment. Again, Google takes care of the ad placement allowing you to concentrate on increasing the traffic to your site.

Joining a scheme such as Google adsense is a good idea. They will help to promote your site and advise you on how to increase your traffic.

If you have been maintaining your website for a while, you probably know that one of the best ways to attract traffic is through the use of keywords. The right keywords will have them flocking to your site. The wrong words will have them running in droves. Sites such as Google adsense can help with this as well. They operate Google ad words. This will help maximize the key word usage and help get the correct one for the most traffic. Google does charge for this service so you need to be sure it is worth it before you buy. You don’t want all of your profits ate up by the ad words scheme.

When you sign up for Google adsense, you can be assured that page appropriate ads will be places on your webpage. If you have a pet care site then things related to that topic will be placed. Obscure and ads that have nothing to do with your page are not likely to impress your reader or increase your earnings.

Search engines that offer a pay per click money making service. There are hundreds of others. One of the most notable is Yahoo publisher. It functions in much the same way as Google adsense and offers a similar style of service. Which one you choose will largely depend on you. If you have several sites, you could try both schemes. See which one is better and go with that one.

If you have a or several web pages that just seem to be doing nothing, then look into a pay per click program. Sites such as Google adsense and yahoo publisher will do most of the hard work for you. They will place the ads and decide which ads will be best for your site. This will leave you time to do the most important thing; increase your site traffic and eventually your ad revenue. If you have websites, look into pay per click. The service is free so you have nothing to loose.

source: http://ur-e-info.com