MickOwen.com

PPC: MAKE YOUR WEBSITE “CLICK”

PPC stands for Pay Per Click - a popular advertising technique on the Internet. Found on websites, advertising networks, and especially on search engines, PPC advertising involves sponsored links that are typically in the form of text ads. These are usually placed close to search results, where an advertiser pays a particular amount to visitors who click on these links or banners and land on the advertiser’s web page.

In essence, PPC advertising is all about bidding for the top or leading position on search engine results and listings. Advertisers do this by buying or bidding on keyword phrases that are relevant to their products or services - the higher the bid, the higher the spot on the search results, the more the people will find the ad (and click on it) to go to their websites (this is why some people call it “keyword auctioning”). Advertisers would then pay the bidding price every time a visitor clicks through the website.

PPC advertising is also known under the following names/variations:

· Pay per placement
· Pay per performance
· Pay per ranking
· Pay per position
· Cost per click (CPC)

PPC advertising is usually done with the following standard procedures:

1. Setting up an account and/or deposit funds.

2. Creating a keyword list.

3. Choosing (and setting up) an account with a PPC search engine.

4. Bidding on the ad placement, including the search result words or phrases.

5. Writing out an ad copy.

6. Setting up the ‘landing pages’ for your ads.

7. Placing the advertisement in the search engine.

There are many benefits to Pay Per Click advertising, making it an effective way of promoting a business ‘online’. Some of them are listed below:

· Get launched immediately. PPC advertisements are implemented very quickly - they can go ‘online’ within an hour after winning the bid and paying for it.

· Obtain specific, pre-qualified, and quality traffic. PPC provides you with a quality or a well-targeted traffic. Visitors are narrowed down into ‘qualified’ people who are actually looking for specific products and/or services that you offer - those who are more likely to become a ‘lead’ (a convert) and complete a transaction (either by buying your product or subscribing to the service that you are offering.

· Widen your reach. PPC advertising provides additional traffic to your site, aside from the natural or “organic” search engines.

· Track your investment. PPC advertising makes use of a tracking system that will determine exactly who comes to the website and what they do once they arrive - the length of their stay on the site and the number of pages (including the actual pages) that they view. These are valuable tools in determining statistics such as return on investment (ROI), acquisition cost-per-visitor, and conversion rates (the percentage of visitors who are converted into customers or leads).

Below are some important things to consider when planning on a pay per click campaign:

1. Know your product. Take an inventory of the product and/or services that you have to offer (before anything else).

2. Stay within the budget. Determine your daily or monthly budget; and stay with it. This means keeping your budget in mind, avoiding bidding wars if possible.

3. Bid just right. Know how to bid right - a bid that is too high can exhaust all of your money, while a bid that is too low can make you lose that spot.

4. Watch the bottom line. Measure your profit margin against your spending or expenses. Know when to stop and terminate your PPC program - if you spend more on advertising but have little or no sales at all.

5. Find the right keywords. Decide which keyword phrases to opt and bid for. Do some keyword research, either by actually looking at existing search terms or with the use of online keyword suggestion tools, to know which terms are mostly used when searching for items that are related to your business. Focus on specific keywords, not on general ones.

6. Write effective ads. A good PPC ad is that which can persuade and move a searcher. There are several approaches to this:

· Discount offers
· Testimonials
· Celebrity/famous endorsers
· Money-back guarantees
· Free trials or sample offers
· Freebies
· Reverse psychology
· Major benefits (”Lose weight”)
· Direct instructions (”Click here”)

7. Maintain a professional-looking site. Your web content should be regularly updated and checked for spelling and grammatical errors. There should be no broken links or images. The website should be simple - designed in such a way that it will be easy for visitors to navigate and load. Include contact details to create a good impression among potential customers.

Done properly, PPC advertising can be an effective marketing tool that will maximize the return on your investment.

It comes by many different names; bulk traffic, redirected traffic, pop ups, pop unders, and sometimes it is even called targeted traffic. But don’t believe it.

Regardless of what it is called, it is all essentially the same thing — junk traffic. And for good reason.

Most of the traffic you see for sale, especially on places like eBay, is considered to be very low quality traffic by experienced webmasters. The cost for this kind of traffic ranges from $5 to $15 for 10,000 visitors and $25- $90 for 50,000 visitors. With such low prices you can estimate that the quality of this traffic would be poor. In fact it is not uncommon for every single pop under visitor to result in a non-action - that is they will not buy or click anything on your site.

The reason is simple. They did not end up on your site on purpose, so they simply ignore your site. Most consider it a nuisance that they where there in the first place. If it really worked, then experienced webmasters would be buying millions upon millions of it everyday, and the demand would be so great that the prices would be forced sky high. That is what happens with real traffic that converts to sales, mostly PPC traffic from the search engines.

The best use for this kind of traffic is for things like banner impressions, and even that can backfire on you once the advertisers find out what you are doing.

There is little point purchasing 100,000 visitors to your site if not one of them buys your product, clicks your Adsense ad or makes an action through your CPA form. You are simply wasting your money. Countless webmasters have conducted tests with this kind of traffic with little luck when it comes to return on investment. In many cases it would only take one affiliate sale to make the money back on the traffic investment cost; however this rarely occurs due to the low quality of the traffic sent.

Why is this kind of traffiic so bad? The main reason is that it is completely untargeted, regardless of what you have been told by the seller. There is no demographic targeting or anything that would result in an increased chance of conversion. Some testers have stated that pop under traffic can work if there is a lot of it. This can mean purchasing hundreds of thousands of visitors in order to make just one or two sales. It has to be asked whether it is worth the money and effort required, or if the money is best spent elsewhere. Indeed, if 100,000 visitors were to be generated from a much more targeted source it could result in a conversion rate of 5% or more compared with a 0% conversion rate from targeted traffic.

People buy cheap traffic mainly because they are looking for a short cut to success - and it sounds like the answer they are looking for. If you still choose to proceed with a this kind of traffic campaign, make sure you track your statistics in order to confirm that you are receiving the traffic number stated. You should also ensure that the traffic provider has a money back guarantee if they do not provide the stated unique visitor numbers as outlined on their website.

It is best to spend your time and money on more reliable sources of traffic such as organic search engine traffic and pay per click advertising if your goal is to make sales.

The Truth About Starting A Home Based Business

So you want to know the truth about starting your own home based business huh? Well here it is… it’s not going to be easy!

I know this doesn’t sound like the typical pro-home based business article and I’ll tell you right now… it’s not.

You see a lot of other articles would probably tell you that working from home with a home based business is really much easier than it looks, but that’s just not the truth.

The truth is that working from home… is going to take work (imagine that!) but if you are successful the rewards are worth it!

Nothing can provide you the kind of freedom that a home based business can deliver.

No job, ever will allow you to work a little and play a LOT.

No job will ever allow you to set your own hours, vacation when YOU want to vacation and give yourself a raise whenever you
want.

NO JOB ANYWHERE!

For those reasons thousands of people start home based businesses every year and sadly many of them will probably fail.

So if home based businesses are so great why is it that so many people who start them either come away with little or no profit or lose money
all together?

The reason is simple… NOBODY IS BEING HONEST WITH THEM!

People want overnight success they want that easy way to make money and that’s why so many home based business owners are willing to sell people a fake bill of goods.

If you want to be successful working from home you have to first find someone who will be honest with you… nothing that is worth having ever comes without work… PERIOD!

Keep in mind that when I say “work” the kind of work I’m talking about is working hard for a short period of time so that you’ll be in a position where you’ll never have to work that hard again… in fact you may not even have to work at all!

Still, the word “work” isn’t something a lot of people want to hear about often when looking at a home based business.

Like I said before though, all REAL businesses take work and effort at least in the beginning.

If you are willing to work hard for 12-24 months in a home based business you can absolutely be in a position where you never have to work again!

So you have to ask yourself… would you be willing to work hard for a few months to have complete freedom for the rest of your life?

Now THAT is the truth about starting a home based business!

 There Are Several Free and Low Costs Ways You Can Use to Get Traffic to Your Website

Here are just a few to get you started, and it is important to get started.   Nothing is going to happen (sales, etc.) on your website until you have a plan to get targeted visitors to your website.

 Article Marketing 

This also goes by different names like Bum Marketing and so on.  To be effective, you need to submit a topical  article to one of the major article directories  that you have either written yourself or that you had someone ghost write specifically for you where you can claim authorship. The article should  be very well-researched on the topic you have chosen.  The topic should relate to the content or major keyword theme of your website.  Proofreading for spelling and grammatical errors is essential.  Place a link to your website in the resource box of the article before you submit it.  You can write different variations of the article and submit a different variation to a different article directory.  This will help you attract targeted visitors to your website. 

 Forum marketing

 Join the forums that are related to the keyword theme of your website.  Spend some time reading different post and comments made by others before you begin to post your own topics or comments.  When you do post a topic or make a comment, make sure that it is relevant and professional.  Make sure that you use the signature option in your profile, which is nothing but text of about 3-4 lines, with a link to your website.  As more forum members get to know you and respect your opinions, they will be more interested in visiting the website links in your signature.

 Traffic exchanges

Traffic Exchanges can be useful forms of traffic, but not the way most people think.  One use is for websites where you benefit by having your page loaded, like for banner impressions.   Their best use, however, is for your squeeze page where people can opt in to your mailing list or newsletter for more information or to download a report or piece of software.

Free classifieds

Free classified ads are not as effective as they once were. Like Traffic Exchanges, their best use is to capture a name and email address in exchange for providing more information or a free download. You can also write an eye-catching or provactive headline in hopes of getting a reader click through to your website.  This method should not be relied upon heavily, but if you spend only a few minutes doing this now and then, you will receive some traffic. 

A properly written press release correctly submitted through a reputable press release agency can do wonders! 

 Resource box

 A resource box configured correctly with your article will bring interested visitors to your website. 

 Email

 Do not use Spam Email lists, it will be extremely harmful to your business and reputation.  Safelist are not as effective as they once were. You MUST spend the time and effort to generate your own email ist of subscribers. 

 Google AdWords

 For targeted traffic, Google AdWords and other PPC networks like MSN and Yahoo are great options for webmasters to use. The keywords being used with AdWords are very important when you are targeting people to visit your site. The keywords must also be relevant, and must be in relation to the product that is being sold. 

 Title tag in your blog

 A blog must have an attractive title in order to get a good ranking in the search engines. The title plays a vital role, but the actual post must be well-written and informative as well. That will get your site good traffic. 

 Submission to directories

 There are thousands of Directories on the Internet and I am sure several specific to the main content of your website or blog.  Submitting  your website or blog to the various online directories is a monotonous job, but it is a very cost-effective in increasing your page rank. The more relevant the directory, the better the results. 

 HubPage and Squidoo

 Both of these allow you to focus on a specified topic or keyword.  They are great ways to get links back to your mainwebsite or blog, especially if you use the RSS feeds from your blog. 

 Reciprocal Link Exchanges

 Not as popular as they once were, but they still are effective for the non-Google search engines. 

 Ad Swaps

 Exchange ads or email promotions with other website owners. 

 Tell-a-friend

You can place a “Tell-a-friend” script on your website, which would help you get more traffic as visitors might recommend your website to other people. 

 Blog and Paid reviews

 Ask a blog owner to write a reivew about your website and post it on his or her blog and encourage comments. This is a great way to get exposure and recommendation by others who are established and respected in their field of expertise. 

  Expired Domain Names

  You can sometimes find a domain name that is expired but that one time was used with a website that had content similar to yours. If you can obtain that domain name, you can redirect visitors from it to your website.  

 Error page

 Testimonials

 If you’ve liked a product that you’ve used, you can leave behind a testimonial and put a link to your website at the end. This also works when you are reviewing a product. 

 Particpate in Giveaway Events

 You can offer the visitors free gifts, reports, ebooks or software in exchange for visiting your website or opting into your email list or newsletter.

 Yahoo! answers

 Answer people’s queries on Yahoo! and place a link at the bottom to your website. 

 Word of Mouth

 Give your customers good support, they will refer you to others. 

Blog Commenting

You can make relevant comment on other people’s blogs, and put a link to your website in the comment. This can build traffic very well.

 Screensavers & Toolbars

 You can make attractive and useful screensavers and toolbars, placing your  logo in them for branding purposes. 

 eBay

 Selling any item as a charity auction on eBay will result in the charities linking back to your eBay auction, and also to the main website. 

 Blog entries

 Whenever you post an entry in your blog, always make sure that you link it back to your site. You can also create more than one blog, and have a link to the main website. 

 Craigslist

 Properly placed and worded advertisements on Craigslist can bring you targeted visitors.

After several years of being a traditional website, I am converting MickOwen.com to a blog so it will make it easier to communicate with others in the Internet Marketing community.  Especially newcomers, because I enjoy helping others to become successful in this business.  After careful consideration I felt that this blog platform would be the best way for me to become accessible to more people.