Affiliates programs are one of the easiest ways to make money in the internet. Small fortunes have been made for smart people who have taken advantage of this powerful marketing technique.
This tips intend to help you on your way to become a high-earning affiliate champion, use it as a guideline to your success. Feel free to contact me if you need further information.
1. First thing first: Target your market. If you try to sell everything to everyone, you will sell nothing.
2. Choose the right program. Everyday you would find hundreds of new "get-rich-quick" programs on the net. Avoid them! Before joining any program, do some research. Trust only programs that have been consistently paying their affiliates
3. Join one program at a time, stick to it. Avoid distractions joining several programs at the same time. Stay focused on the best program chosen.
4. Promote, promote, promote!. I cant empathize enough. Promotion is the lifeblood of your program's success. Focus on marketing and nothing else. One easy way to promote is by joining a traffic exchange program, like traffic swarm.
5. Write your own classifieds ads, headlines, text links. BE CREATIVE. How many times have you seen the same old add given for an affiliate program! Stay away from the crowd.
6. Create a content website with a review of your affiliate program. Don't try to sell the program, instead, give your visitors the best review you can write of the program. Make a bulleted list of benefits YOU have found on that program.
7. Refer to your program's web site with a TEXT LINK. Avoid using banners. People tend to look banners as a sales pitch and doesn't like it. People in your site are looking for information, not to buy. So give them some information. Make them want more information, then give them your text link.
8. Compile your own mailing list. Offer your visitor a freebie, a newsletter, a free e-book, a report... In exchange, ask for their contact info. The key here is to get their address.
9. Follow up with this list. Contact them at least once a week. Build trust. Make them know you and trust you.
10. Track your advertising results and make corrections as necessary. If the program is good, you can profit from it. Do whatever it needs to be done to achieve you goals.
Friday, March 2, 2007
Secrets of Super Affiliates
Have you ever wondered why it is very difficult for you to make a headway in the affiliate marketing game? Why have you signed up for so many programs with so much expectations and yet you have never being able to make a dime out of them all while some people are screaming about them making over $5,000 in the same program you signed for?
These people called "super affiliates" are just ordinary people like you but they do things differently from the rest of the crowd. They see the game from a different angle and they play it with a different strategy. How then do these super affiliates play their game?
The first strategy super affiliates adopt, is that instead of sending traffic to the site of the program/ product they are promoting, send it to theirs. You see, most people advertise their affiliate sites which people will go to and never buy anything.
Super affiliates understand that people are not inclined to buy anything at their first contact with the product, that they will need to be contacted on so many occasions before they can make the precious purchase. Super affiliates use this as an edge over their competitors.
When they drive traffic to their sites, they entice them to join their opt-in list by offering them something "nice" in return. After joining the list, the people can then be advertised to as long as the super affiliates want and so long the subscribers are not complaining.
So, it is very important for you to know that if you want to make it big in the affiliate game, you must have your own opt-in list. Stop spending money to send traffic away, instead bring them to your site and make them join your list by any means, it is very IMPORTANT.
Super affiliates do get to know the product they promote inside out. That is another advantage they exploit over their competitors. They buy the product they want to promote and they digest all the contents of the product so that they will be able to tell their prospects what is in it for them.
How many times have you signed up to promote a product you don't even know about? Do you think if a sales person turns up at your door to tell you of a product, he cannot even tell its usefulness to you, will you buy from such a person? No! That is why some people will not buy whatever you promote, because they don't really know what it will do for them and what it has done for you the promoter.
Get to know what you are promoting so that you can tell your prospects what the product is all about and how it can be of help to them. Your own personal testimonies matters a lot because it is what will motivate them to buy from you.
Another super affiliate's game plan is that they stand out from the crowd.
Hello! How many times have you seen hundreds of people advertising the same product using same banners, classifieds and reports/ articles? If a prospect had seen so many of those at other sites, what gives you the impression that he will buy from you?
Super affiliates understand this, so they write their own classifieds, use their own banners and also write special reports to promote their programs.
Prospects always get drawn to those who are doing something different from the maddening crowd. So if you want to be upgraded to the level of a super affiliate, STAND OUT!
The EXTRA also stands out make one a super affiliate. They add extra(s) to the product they are promoting. People always want to make purchase from those who offered more value for their money.
Let's assume ten affiliates approach you with the same product and nine of them offer the same thing and the last one chose to offer some extra bonuses to the product you are buying at the same amount. Which one will you probably buy from? The last one of course!
You can adopt this method too by offering a free report, course, freebie you got of the Net, an ebook or another product that is what the value of the one you are promoting. You have to offer MORE if you wish to sell MORE.
Lastly another super affiliate game plan I will wan to talk about, is that super affiliates always promote products in their chosen field.
How many times have you promoted some products in a field you don't even know a hoot about? When you promote products in your own niche, you will find out that you will be more enthusiastic about it and even if you have not gone through the product before, you can easily recommend it to people.
The manner you will say something about it will just look as if you have already gone through use the product. Marketing a product in your own niche market, will always give you an added advantage because it is your area of expertise. never bother looking at which area is HOT!
Just check your own niche market out and then promote any product you find adopting all the strategies highlighted above and see what becomes of you. If you happen to be a tennis buff, and you happen to be promoting golf products, which you don't know anything about? :(
What if a prospect decides to ask you a question about golf? :( Do you think you will have anything to say? That is why it is important to stay in your own niche.
I believe you too can become a SUPER affiliate in no mean time, if you will adopt the game plan mentioned above. If others are doing it, why not you?
Never get discouraged by the mistakes of yesterday, look up to tomorrow with bright hope. NOW is the to get started!
These people called "super affiliates" are just ordinary people like you but they do things differently from the rest of the crowd. They see the game from a different angle and they play it with a different strategy. How then do these super affiliates play their game?
The first strategy super affiliates adopt, is that instead of sending traffic to the site of the program/ product they are promoting, send it to theirs. You see, most people advertise their affiliate sites which people will go to and never buy anything.
Super affiliates understand that people are not inclined to buy anything at their first contact with the product, that they will need to be contacted on so many occasions before they can make the precious purchase. Super affiliates use this as an edge over their competitors.
When they drive traffic to their sites, they entice them to join their opt-in list by offering them something "nice" in return. After joining the list, the people can then be advertised to as long as the super affiliates want and so long the subscribers are not complaining.
So, it is very important for you to know that if you want to make it big in the affiliate game, you must have your own opt-in list. Stop spending money to send traffic away, instead bring them to your site and make them join your list by any means, it is very IMPORTANT.
Super affiliates do get to know the product they promote inside out. That is another advantage they exploit over their competitors. They buy the product they want to promote and they digest all the contents of the product so that they will be able to tell their prospects what is in it for them.
How many times have you signed up to promote a product you don't even know about? Do you think if a sales person turns up at your door to tell you of a product, he cannot even tell its usefulness to you, will you buy from such a person? No! That is why some people will not buy whatever you promote, because they don't really know what it will do for them and what it has done for you the promoter.
Get to know what you are promoting so that you can tell your prospects what the product is all about and how it can be of help to them. Your own personal testimonies matters a lot because it is what will motivate them to buy from you.
Another super affiliate's game plan is that they stand out from the crowd.
Hello! How many times have you seen hundreds of people advertising the same product using same banners, classifieds and reports/ articles? If a prospect had seen so many of those at other sites, what gives you the impression that he will buy from you?
Super affiliates understand this, so they write their own classifieds, use their own banners and also write special reports to promote their programs.
Prospects always get drawn to those who are doing something different from the maddening crowd. So if you want to be upgraded to the level of a super affiliate, STAND OUT!
The EXTRA also stands out make one a super affiliate. They add extra(s) to the product they are promoting. People always want to make purchase from those who offered more value for their money.
Let's assume ten affiliates approach you with the same product and nine of them offer the same thing and the last one chose to offer some extra bonuses to the product you are buying at the same amount. Which one will you probably buy from? The last one of course!
You can adopt this method too by offering a free report, course, freebie you got of the Net, an ebook or another product that is what the value of the one you are promoting. You have to offer MORE if you wish to sell MORE.
Lastly another super affiliate game plan I will wan to talk about, is that super affiliates always promote products in their chosen field.
How many times have you promoted some products in a field you don't even know a hoot about? When you promote products in your own niche, you will find out that you will be more enthusiastic about it and even if you have not gone through the product before, you can easily recommend it to people.
The manner you will say something about it will just look as if you have already gone through use the product. Marketing a product in your own niche market, will always give you an added advantage because it is your area of expertise. never bother looking at which area is HOT!
Just check your own niche market out and then promote any product you find adopting all the strategies highlighted above and see what becomes of you. If you happen to be a tennis buff, and you happen to be promoting golf products, which you don't know anything about? :(
What if a prospect decides to ask you a question about golf? :( Do you think you will have anything to say? That is why it is important to stay in your own niche.
I believe you too can become a SUPER affiliate in no mean time, if you will adopt the game plan mentioned above. If others are doing it, why not you?
Never get discouraged by the mistakes of yesterday, look up to tomorrow with bright hope. NOW is the to get started!
Pay-per-click – the Ultimate Tool to Boost Affiliate Sales
The old ways are not always the best ways.
The traditional model of making money from affiliate products was simple. Create an interesting website geared to a specific theme, slap up some banners for affiliate products that were related to your theme, and sit back, hoping that some of the audience your website drew would click on those banners, giving you some sales. If you really wanted to get creative you might have done some email campaigns for specific products on the side.
But email campaigns are mostly ineffective (and God-forbid you should spam anyone). And banner advertisements don’t generally work. And websites take a long time to build, and promote. And even longer to get good ranking in the search engines.
So it was a slow steady process. There were no ‘quick routes’ to affiliate gold.
Until now.
Hang on to your hats, ladies & gentlemen, because pay-per-click advertising is here!
Pay-per-click search engines like Google AdWords and Overture offer an exciting way to quickly bring highly-targeted, highly-motivated people who want to buy straight to your affiliate products and services. You don’t even have to have a website.
All you have to do is write a cleverly worded ad describing your affiliate product and put it up. When searchers click on your ad, they are whisked right to the affiliate product, and given the opportunity to purchase. Wham, you’ve just made money. It really is that simple.
To demonstrate how quick and powerful pay-per-click advertising can be, I’ll offer myself as an example. I came into the ‘let’s make money on the Internet’ game late, and when I started I didn’t even have a website, and I barely knew what an ‘affiliate’ was.
The first month I cleared $1500 in profits, even though I barely knew what I was doing. For every one dollar I spent on pay-per-click, I got three dollars back in profits. And I was a total newbie, a ‘marketing virgin’. I didn’t have a website, I didn’t know how to conduct an email campaign, and I barely knew what a ‘tracking URL’ was. Does that wake anybody up to the power of pay-per-click advertising?
However, don’t think it’s all wine and roses in the pay-per-click field. The fact is, almost everyone who tries it fails, at least initially. I failed myself, by the way. The first two days I netted over $50 in losses. And I still maintain those were the most valuable two days of my entire pay-per-click experience, in terms of how much I learned, and how quickly I adapted to the learning curve.
So don’t go into it with false expectations. Pay-per-click has a learning curve. But if you’re willing to demonstrate a little stick-to-it-ness, pay-per-click can be wildly profitable, and kick-start your affiliate sales business.
The traditional model of making money from affiliate products was simple. Create an interesting website geared to a specific theme, slap up some banners for affiliate products that were related to your theme, and sit back, hoping that some of the audience your website drew would click on those banners, giving you some sales. If you really wanted to get creative you might have done some email campaigns for specific products on the side.
But email campaigns are mostly ineffective (and God-forbid you should spam anyone). And banner advertisements don’t generally work. And websites take a long time to build, and promote. And even longer to get good ranking in the search engines.
So it was a slow steady process. There were no ‘quick routes’ to affiliate gold.
Until now.
Hang on to your hats, ladies & gentlemen, because pay-per-click advertising is here!
Pay-per-click search engines like Google AdWords and Overture offer an exciting way to quickly bring highly-targeted, highly-motivated people who want to buy straight to your affiliate products and services. You don’t even have to have a website.
All you have to do is write a cleverly worded ad describing your affiliate product and put it up. When searchers click on your ad, they are whisked right to the affiliate product, and given the opportunity to purchase. Wham, you’ve just made money. It really is that simple.
To demonstrate how quick and powerful pay-per-click advertising can be, I’ll offer myself as an example. I came into the ‘let’s make money on the Internet’ game late, and when I started I didn’t even have a website, and I barely knew what an ‘affiliate’ was.
The first month I cleared $1500 in profits, even though I barely knew what I was doing. For every one dollar I spent on pay-per-click, I got three dollars back in profits. And I was a total newbie, a ‘marketing virgin’. I didn’t have a website, I didn’t know how to conduct an email campaign, and I barely knew what a ‘tracking URL’ was. Does that wake anybody up to the power of pay-per-click advertising?
However, don’t think it’s all wine and roses in the pay-per-click field. The fact is, almost everyone who tries it fails, at least initially. I failed myself, by the way. The first two days I netted over $50 in losses. And I still maintain those were the most valuable two days of my entire pay-per-click experience, in terms of how much I learned, and how quickly I adapted to the learning curve.
So don’t go into it with false expectations. Pay-per-click has a learning curve. But if you’re willing to demonstrate a little stick-to-it-ness, pay-per-click can be wildly profitable, and kick-start your affiliate sales business.
Earning Money Through Affiliate Links
There are several ways of earning money through your website. Between them are selling your own product, selling advertising space, and selling affiliate products. Here we are going to discuss several aspects of selling affiliate products.
You must sell something related to your site
One of the advantages of the web is that is easier to target your audience. On tv for example you have to show your add to everybody watching the tv show. Although you can do some market segmentation by showing your ad on shows for kids, or for teenage girls for example, the market segmentation on the web if much more specific. If your site is about how to grow orchids in the winter, you have a very specific audience. You have the opportunity to target your ads towards your specific audience. You could make a search in google for orchid affiliate and select a merchant from the ones that appear listed.
How to find the right program for you
One option is to look for them on affiliate programs directories. There are many of this on the web and all contain lots of links to affiliate programs that are not part of a network.
There are several affiliate networks with which you can work. The advantage of using an affiliate network is that you have many advertisers to choose. If one not work you can switch to another one easily. Also, affiliate networks are more "trustable". The reality is that some companies don't report all the sales that you make. The disadvantage is that this affiliate networks take part of the revenue so you end up with less than working directly with the company, although this is relative.
Another good option is to use google adsense program. They spider your site and their program selects automatically the ads that are geared toward your site audience. Being text ads they also have a greater click through rate than normal banners.
Other factors to take in consideration
If you choose a program that pay you commissions per sale you have to take in consideration the final sale volume for your site for that product. For example there may be a product that gives you a higher percentage per sale but is sold less that another with less percentage per sale but that is easier to sell.
Take time to do some research, ask on webmaster forums for the program that you are thinking of promoting. On this kind of forums you will find objective opinions of each program. Some questions that you may ask are, Does this program pays on time? Do they report all sales? Check the sites of people in the forum that are using the same program and compare
it whit yours. In that way you will have a better idea of your site chances of earning profit with the same sponsor.
You must sell something related to your site
One of the advantages of the web is that is easier to target your audience. On tv for example you have to show your add to everybody watching the tv show. Although you can do some market segmentation by showing your ad on shows for kids, or for teenage girls for example, the market segmentation on the web if much more specific. If your site is about how to grow orchids in the winter, you have a very specific audience. You have the opportunity to target your ads towards your specific audience. You could make a search in google for orchid affiliate and select a merchant from the ones that appear listed.
How to find the right program for you
One option is to look for them on affiliate programs directories. There are many of this on the web and all contain lots of links to affiliate programs that are not part of a network.
There are several affiliate networks with which you can work. The advantage of using an affiliate network is that you have many advertisers to choose. If one not work you can switch to another one easily. Also, affiliate networks are more "trustable". The reality is that some companies don't report all the sales that you make. The disadvantage is that this affiliate networks take part of the revenue so you end up with less than working directly with the company, although this is relative.
Another good option is to use google adsense program. They spider your site and their program selects automatically the ads that are geared toward your site audience. Being text ads they also have a greater click through rate than normal banners.
Other factors to take in consideration
If you choose a program that pay you commissions per sale you have to take in consideration the final sale volume for your site for that product. For example there may be a product that gives you a higher percentage per sale but is sold less that another with less percentage per sale but that is easier to sell.
Take time to do some research, ask on webmaster forums for the program that you are thinking of promoting. On this kind of forums you will find objective opinions of each program. Some questions that you may ask are, Does this program pays on time? Do they report all sales? Check the sites of people in the forum that are using the same program and compare
it whit yours. In that way you will have a better idea of your site chances of earning profit with the same sponsor.
Choosing the Right Strategy for your Online Business: Pay for Inclusion vs Pay per Click
Back in the old days of the Internet - in 1993, - there were 284 locations on the entire World Wide Web. According to Bill Clinton, only 8 of them ended in .com or .net when he was sworn into office. As of January 1, 2003, there were 171,000,000 domain hosts in use. In 1995, the largest search engine database was Altavista, and it had most of the Internet categorized. Today Google and FASTsearch own the largest databases. Yet neither one of them has even 10% of the Internet covered. It's estimated that more than 8,000,000 web pages are added to the Internet every day. None of the search engines are able to keep up to that pace. So how will your website stand out? How will it acquire the traffic it needs to succeed? There are many ways to approach the issue of marketing an online business, but for the sake of this article, we'll concern ourselves solely with online tools, and ways to expedite success. In that vein, we'll concern ourselves with Pay for Inclusion and Pay for Placement (or Pay per Click) advertising.
Some engines, such as AltaVista, Inktomi, Looksmart and FAST, use a pay for inclusion model. What this means is that to be guaranteed to be found within that specific search engine index, the website operator must pay a fee to be listed. It's similar to the fee a business pays for a Yellow Pages listing. These fees vary from monthly to annual. Looksmart charges a listing fee, plus a fee of $0.15 per clickthrough.
Engaging a Pay-for-Inclusion service does not come with any placement guarantees. If your website is not properly optimized, but you paid an inclusion fee, it is guaranteed to be indexed and listed somewhere within that search engine. If you want to ensure success with a Pay-for-Inclusion search engine, then your website must still be optimized. Without proper optimization, which includes an analysis from the perspective of all the factors that the search engines look for, a pay for inclusion service will not deliver the desired benefits to the website operator.
When properly matched with a comprehensive Search Engine Optimization regimen, a Pay for Inclusion program will result in powerful results: Qualified Traffic, Customers, and Relevant Traffic.
Pay per Click advertising is the process by which a web site operator can arrange for a website to be placed in a pre-defined position within certain search engines, such as Overture.
Search Engine Placement is always a Pay-Per-Click solution. While advertising websites are only permitted to buy advertising in search queries that are relevant to their content, they are not sorted by relevance but rather purely based on bid value.
Pay per click services allow advertisers to bid for each visitor directed through to their web site, based upon the number of clicks the ad receives. Pay per Click search engine placement should be realistically viewed for what it is - an online auction. Advertisers bid against each other for a fixed position within a list of search results. The advertiser who bids the most is given the top spot in the list. Each advertiser bids according to their budget, and has to know his or her Return On Investment (ROI) to determine how much money should be spent on acquiring new customers.
How Do I Know Which Strategy Is Right For My Website?
For those advertisers where the ROI is sensible or worthwhile, pay per click search engines are valuable customer acquisition tools. But is it right for you? While it can be expensive, here's a way for you to easily determine the ROI for your online business, and determine if it is the right choice for you. Take out a sheet of paper, and at the top of the sheet mark down the average price of the goods you sell - we'll use $100.00 for the purpose of the example. From that number, make some simple and basic calculations, outlined here:
$100.00 Sale Amount
-$ 50.00 Cost of Goods
-$ 5.00 Transaction Cost (bank charges, credit card)
-$ 8.50 Shipping Fees (This assumes you're delivering a product, it needs a box, label, and has a delivery cost.
-$ 10.00 Customer support costs - time on phone, email, etc... supporting and processing the transaction. What's 1 hour of your time worth?
$ 26.50 = Margin
Assuming this margin is correct for your website, is a Pay per Click campaign right for you? You'll need to look at your stats to judge this properly. You need to determine how many of your visitors are converting into buyers. IF your website has a 4% conversion rate, and your category is moderately competitive, you will probably need to budget at least $1.00 per click to get spot #3. Spot #3 is important because more often than not it's the top 3 spots per page of search engine results that are reserved for Pay per Click advertisers.
Assuming your website gets into the top three spots, here's how the math works if you get 100 clicks in a month. Since it's all percentage based, the same holds true if you get 25 clicks or 10,000 clicks.
100 clicks @ $1.00 per click = $100.00 cost 4% conversion = 4 sales = 4x $26.50 (margin on sale) = $106.00 Profit = $ 6.00
So, if the above were true, and IF the pay per click advertisement sent you 100 visitors per month, you would make only $6.00. Would you make much less having spot #4 instead of spot #3 ? If it meant one less sale a month, that would be worth it. You would make $70.00 more by selling less! Does spot #3 get much more traffic than relevant results in spots 4 through 10? Not at all for spot # 4, 5, 6, and only a little bit more for spot #'s 7-10. Remember, people usually look at the title or site description to see if it is relevant. Pay per Click is worth the money if your website is not found under any relevant queries in the top 20, but its value drops quickly if a website is found easily in the free listings within the search engines.
Is Pay for Inclusion Less Expensive?
If we use the same calculation as above, and your website had 4 sales from a pay for inclusion engine where you paid $39.00 per year, or $3.25 / month, your profit would have been $103.25.
What About The Cost Of Search Engine Optimization?
Search engine optimization does not have to be expensive. You can do the work yourself, but you need to ensure that it makes sense to do so. By this I mean, is doing it yourself a cost efficient, business proposition? Any time that you as an individual put into search engine optimization is time that you take away from business fundamentals and essentials. It's time away from customer support, content creation, service, administration, product research, other marketing, etc... What is that time worth? It's got to be part of the ROI calculation too. More and more people are choosing to outsource this work. It's estimated that 70% of online businesses will outsource non-core operations this year. It only makes sense. It's smart business to focus on what you know and do well and to hire others to support you in the other areas. Not many smart businessmen write their own contracts - they get their lawyer to do it. They want to ensure it's done right. Doing it right in the first place saves money in the long run. Outsourcing means getting someone else to do the work for you, properly. It does not mean getting someone to tell you what to do, or how to do things.
What's Right For Your Website?
In the long run, a website operator that has a well optimized website will beat out a non-optimized website that concentrates on Pay per Click advertising for customer acquisition every day of the year. He may make fewer sales in a year, but he will make more profit from each sale. If the website is properly optimized, it will enjoy better placement in more search engines. This means it will survive, and prosper in the long run.
Some engines, such as AltaVista, Inktomi, Looksmart and FAST, use a pay for inclusion model. What this means is that to be guaranteed to be found within that specific search engine index, the website operator must pay a fee to be listed. It's similar to the fee a business pays for a Yellow Pages listing. These fees vary from monthly to annual. Looksmart charges a listing fee, plus a fee of $0.15 per clickthrough.
Engaging a Pay-for-Inclusion service does not come with any placement guarantees. If your website is not properly optimized, but you paid an inclusion fee, it is guaranteed to be indexed and listed somewhere within that search engine. If you want to ensure success with a Pay-for-Inclusion search engine, then your website must still be optimized. Without proper optimization, which includes an analysis from the perspective of all the factors that the search engines look for, a pay for inclusion service will not deliver the desired benefits to the website operator.
When properly matched with a comprehensive Search Engine Optimization regimen, a Pay for Inclusion program will result in powerful results: Qualified Traffic, Customers, and Relevant Traffic.
Pay per Click advertising is the process by which a web site operator can arrange for a website to be placed in a pre-defined position within certain search engines, such as Overture.
Search Engine Placement is always a Pay-Per-Click solution. While advertising websites are only permitted to buy advertising in search queries that are relevant to their content, they are not sorted by relevance but rather purely based on bid value.
Pay per click services allow advertisers to bid for each visitor directed through to their web site, based upon the number of clicks the ad receives. Pay per Click search engine placement should be realistically viewed for what it is - an online auction. Advertisers bid against each other for a fixed position within a list of search results. The advertiser who bids the most is given the top spot in the list. Each advertiser bids according to their budget, and has to know his or her Return On Investment (ROI) to determine how much money should be spent on acquiring new customers.
How Do I Know Which Strategy Is Right For My Website?
For those advertisers where the ROI is sensible or worthwhile, pay per click search engines are valuable customer acquisition tools. But is it right for you? While it can be expensive, here's a way for you to easily determine the ROI for your online business, and determine if it is the right choice for you. Take out a sheet of paper, and at the top of the sheet mark down the average price of the goods you sell - we'll use $100.00 for the purpose of the example. From that number, make some simple and basic calculations, outlined here:
$100.00 Sale Amount
-$ 50.00 Cost of Goods
-$ 5.00 Transaction Cost (bank charges, credit card)
-$ 8.50 Shipping Fees (This assumes you're delivering a product, it needs a box, label, and has a delivery cost.
-$ 10.00 Customer support costs - time on phone, email, etc... supporting and processing the transaction. What's 1 hour of your time worth?
$ 26.50 = Margin
Assuming this margin is correct for your website, is a Pay per Click campaign right for you? You'll need to look at your stats to judge this properly. You need to determine how many of your visitors are converting into buyers. IF your website has a 4% conversion rate, and your category is moderately competitive, you will probably need to budget at least $1.00 per click to get spot #3. Spot #3 is important because more often than not it's the top 3 spots per page of search engine results that are reserved for Pay per Click advertisers.
Assuming your website gets into the top three spots, here's how the math works if you get 100 clicks in a month. Since it's all percentage based, the same holds true if you get 25 clicks or 10,000 clicks.
100 clicks @ $1.00 per click = $100.00 cost 4% conversion = 4 sales = 4x $26.50 (margin on sale) = $106.00 Profit = $ 6.00
So, if the above were true, and IF the pay per click advertisement sent you 100 visitors per month, you would make only $6.00. Would you make much less having spot #4 instead of spot #3 ? If it meant one less sale a month, that would be worth it. You would make $70.00 more by selling less! Does spot #3 get much more traffic than relevant results in spots 4 through 10? Not at all for spot # 4, 5, 6, and only a little bit more for spot #'s 7-10. Remember, people usually look at the title or site description to see if it is relevant. Pay per Click is worth the money if your website is not found under any relevant queries in the top 20, but its value drops quickly if a website is found easily in the free listings within the search engines.
Is Pay for Inclusion Less Expensive?
If we use the same calculation as above, and your website had 4 sales from a pay for inclusion engine where you paid $39.00 per year, or $3.25 / month, your profit would have been $103.25.
What About The Cost Of Search Engine Optimization?
Search engine optimization does not have to be expensive. You can do the work yourself, but you need to ensure that it makes sense to do so. By this I mean, is doing it yourself a cost efficient, business proposition? Any time that you as an individual put into search engine optimization is time that you take away from business fundamentals and essentials. It's time away from customer support, content creation, service, administration, product research, other marketing, etc... What is that time worth? It's got to be part of the ROI calculation too. More and more people are choosing to outsource this work. It's estimated that 70% of online businesses will outsource non-core operations this year. It only makes sense. It's smart business to focus on what you know and do well and to hire others to support you in the other areas. Not many smart businessmen write their own contracts - they get their lawyer to do it. They want to ensure it's done right. Doing it right in the first place saves money in the long run. Outsourcing means getting someone else to do the work for you, properly. It does not mean getting someone to tell you what to do, or how to do things.
What's Right For Your Website?
In the long run, a website operator that has a well optimized website will beat out a non-optimized website that concentrates on Pay per Click advertising for customer acquisition every day of the year. He may make fewer sales in a year, but he will make more profit from each sale. If the website is properly optimized, it will enjoy better placement in more search engines. This means it will survive, and prosper in the long run.
How To Get Higher CTRs On Your Google Adwords Campaigns
There are a number of ways to improve your clickthrough rates (CTR) for ads on Google Adwords. Here are some tips to help you get started.
1. Target your ads to the right Audience.
You do this by selecting keywords and phrases which are relevant to your product or service. Avoid keywords that are too general because although they generate a large number of impressions, they often generate very few clicks. To improve your CTR, use more descriptive phrases so that your ads will only appear to prospective customers searching for what you have to offer.
2. Use the correct keyword matching option(s).
Google offers four different methods of targeting your ads by keywords: Broad Match, Phrase Match, Exact Match and Negative keyword. By applying the most focused matching options to your keywords, you can reach more targeted prospects, improve your CTR, reduce your cost-per-click and increase your return on investment.
3. Target your ads by location and language.
When creating your adwords campaign target your ads by location so that you maximise your sales and improve your CTR. Target the right audience by selecting the language and countries that you want to reach.
4. Use your main keywords in the Title or Body Text of your ad.
By using your keywords in the title or ad body text of your ad, it will stand out from your competitors and grab the eye of your prospective customers.
5. Create different Ad Groups for different search phrases/keywords.
This will allow you to refine your ads and test them for relevance and therefore maximise your clickthrough rates. For example, if your service offers loans, you can create different ad groups for home equity loans (and all other phrases that incorporate this phrase), consolidation loans, student loans and so on.
6. Calculate what you can afford to pay for each clickthrough.
You will find that more focused keywords and search phrases have a higher conversion ratio than other more general keywords. It's a good strategy to pay more for clicks from keywords or phrases with a high conversion ratio than from the more general keyword groups.
7. Use highly targeted Keywords and search phrases.
Be specific when selecting keywords and search phrases for your campaign. General keywords will be more expensive and will result in lower clickthrough rates. If you're bidding on general keywords that are relevant to your site consider using the Exact match and the Phrase match keyword matching options in order to
increase your CTR.
8. Test and monitor your ads to get the best clickthrough rates.
Refine and fine-tune your ad to maximise click throughs. With Google you can do this in real time. You can do this by creating different ads for each ad group and then checking which ads have the best clickthrough rates.
9. Give Google users a compelling reason to click on your ad link.
The easiest way to do this is to provide something of value for free. You can also achieve this if you tailor each keyword to your offer and use relevant terms/ words in both the title and the ad body. Use a different ad for each keyword group or search term. This increases relevance and the likelihood that Google users will click on it
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Sandbox FAQ
What is the sandbox?
Basically its a time period that keywords that are competitive must wait in order to achieve results on Google.
Is it real?
Better believe it.
Does the sandbox effect my entire site?
No! It is keyword related only. Say you make a site for home loans. Everything about the site is home loan this and home loan that. But you name your site www. doodypants.com. Now you will rank well for the term "doody pants" because it is not competitive. But you will be in the sandbox for the keyword "home loans".
What can I do to avoid the sandbox?
This is really not possible. I dont care what trick you have up your sleeve, you will not rank in the first few pages for "home loans" until you did your time with the other children in the sandbox. This just cant and wont happen until they remove it.
To avoid the sandbox though you can target non competitive keywords. By doing this you are able to jump up in the ranks very quickly but chances are those terms have a crappy search per day so it wont be bringing in much traffic.
What can I do while I am in the sandbox?
Just go on about your business. Create backlinks and work on your content.
How long will I be in the sandbox?
The general term that is thrown out there is 9 months. But this is dependant on how competitive your keyword is. The more competitive the longer you wait.
How can I tell if I am in the sandbox?
Doing a search for allinanchor:"keyword" is the best way to tell. My general rule is if you have go through and search page by page looking for your URL and find it then you are not in the sandbox. But if you get tired of looking and your fingers start to hurt and you quit before you find it then you are in the sandbox.
I heard if I build links slowly I wont go in the sandbox
We have all heard this and I dont know who started this whole theory but I personally dont believe in this. I think someone people just tried this out and they started ranking for the keyword they were targetting. What I bet is that keyword wasnt competitive anyways.
Basically its a time period that keywords that are competitive must wait in order to achieve results on Google.
Is it real?
Better believe it.
Does the sandbox effect my entire site?
No! It is keyword related only. Say you make a site for home loans. Everything about the site is home loan this and home loan that. But you name your site www. doodypants.com. Now you will rank well for the term "doody pants" because it is not competitive. But you will be in the sandbox for the keyword "home loans".
What can I do to avoid the sandbox?
This is really not possible. I dont care what trick you have up your sleeve, you will not rank in the first few pages for "home loans" until you did your time with the other children in the sandbox. This just cant and wont happen until they remove it.
To avoid the sandbox though you can target non competitive keywords. By doing this you are able to jump up in the ranks very quickly but chances are those terms have a crappy search per day so it wont be bringing in much traffic.
What can I do while I am in the sandbox?
Just go on about your business. Create backlinks and work on your content.
How long will I be in the sandbox?
The general term that is thrown out there is 9 months. But this is dependant on how competitive your keyword is. The more competitive the longer you wait.
How can I tell if I am in the sandbox?
Doing a search for allinanchor:"keyword" is the best way to tell. My general rule is if you have go through and search page by page looking for your URL and find it then you are not in the sandbox. But if you get tired of looking and your fingers start to hurt and you quit before you find it then you are in the sandbox.
I heard if I build links slowly I wont go in the sandbox
We have all heard this and I dont know who started this whole theory but I personally dont believe in this. I think someone people just tried this out and they started ranking for the keyword they were targetting. What I bet is that keyword wasnt competitive anyways.
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