Navigating the Article
The Zen of Traffic
Dancing With Search Engines
Pay-per-Click
Writing for Traffic
Classic Advertising
Affiliate Programs
Joint Ventures
Concluding Thoughts
Google AdSense: The Other Side of the Coin
Google AdWords - Google's pay-per-click engine - has an alter ego - Google AdSense. Google AdSense is an advertising tool that places pay-per-click, AdWords ads on th privae web sites of entrepreneurs worldwide. Indeed, the ads immediately above are Google AdSense advertisements. If you click on one, HBB Research receives a small payment to help fund its research.
Google AdSense has recently been exploding as a vehicle through the creation of the idea of "Virtual Real Estate".
VRE is about heavy content sites that are sprinkled or built around AdSense Ads. Typically, a VRE will run into the hundreds of pages meaning you need lots of content and a site creation tool that is tilted to the creation of massive numbers of pages.
The current income claims for VRE sites are óut of sight', which usually means a little hype is happening. But the logic behind the idea is perfectly sound.
Content has always been the prime driver of traffic - Google's spiders simply love it. Content that can attract lots of inbound or even reciprocal links is even more in demand by the search engines. Build a content-rich site, even giving away whole bodies of knowledge, and you should attract lots of search engine traffic.
When the traffic arrives it is converted into onward clicks (preferably opening in a new page) and the VRE owner gets a few pennies. As these sites are heavily passive once the materials are in place, the business model becomes a cash engine.
The leading exponent and driver of the idea is John Reese - one of the absolute top traffic gurus of all time.
To hear his video on the VRE concept go to:
John Reese Video
If you want to find out more about John Reese's primary offering - Traffic Secrets - go to
Traffic Secrets
Internet Marketing Center
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Links from Traffic Swarm
On each page of HBB Review we have links for business opportunities drawn from Traffic Swarm. They are there to give subscribers a chance to browse (HBB Research gets no gain from any link), and also to build our SEO position. Go to Traffic Swarm and check it out...it's a neat idea! |
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Pay per Click (cont'd)
Advertising with Pay-per-Click
Your approach to pay-per-click should go something like this:
Open a Google AdWords account. This is really easy and all you need is a credit card. Go to www.adwords.google.com/select/. You are now ready to set up your ad. You will have to do the following, not necessarily in this order:
Write a headline – a real skill in itself and to be done in 25 characters
Write the body of the text – the second crucial skill, particularly as Google only allows you 60 characters
Decide the ‘display address’: this is a line that appears at the bottom of the ad and says where you are located. It is typically the address of your regular web site
Decide a ‘destination’ address: this is the link behind the headline that takes you to a specified web page. The destination address does NOT have to be the same as the display address and typically isn’t. Most often it is the address of an affiliate link taking the visitor to the product’s sales page.
Select search terms: the basic rule is to have a wide range of terms. However, they have to be relevant to your product or Google will treat them as spam. Selecting search terms is an art. You can get guidance from Overture Search or the Google Suggestion tool
Bid for the search term. In Google you bid a maximum, what you are actually charged will be that maximum or something less. If you under-bid you will simply not be placed in the ad list. Google will now allocate your position on the page. This it does by calculating your response rate. For example: you bid 50cents and 1% of searchers exposed to your ad click on it then you would get a ranking of $.05 x 1% = 0.005. This will determine your placing on the page.
Decide on a language and when and where you want the ad displayed
Decide a currency and a budget
Start with test campaigns. Here you set up an ad, try it out using a defined budget (say $20). If it works you go into full campaign mode. If not you either re-write the ad and try again or cut it off. There is always the chance you will make a sale so cutting your costs. Your test campaign should use a low bid number (say 5 cents, though some recommend using 6 or 8 cents as 5 cents is used so much). You should put a limit on the length of your campaign: say $20 or 300 clicks. This limits your risk and is enough to give you a feel Make sure you try out different times of day and week to make sure you cover the times when your audience may be shopping. Google allows you to specify this. If your test was not too successful you may close it out or you may try again, for example with a higher bid that takes you higher up the page. This depends on your level of confidence in your product. Remember you are testing out both the product and the campaign. Poor sales could result from either cause. On the above point, poor results may come from a poorly written ad. Advertising is an art pretending to be a science! If you do make changes you will have to wait for another 2 to 300 clicks to see if they worked. Once you have tested and your product and general advertising approach have proven themselves, move to campaign mode:
Move up the page by increasing your bid price
Expand the number of search terms to widen the audience. Try a mixture of highly targeted and general and see what that does to your click-through rate. When looking for search terms remember how the search process works. You could sell cat food as – cat food, catfood, [cat food] or “cat food”. You could attract buyers for your product by listing the competitor products as keywords – e.g. Ralph Lauren as a search term for Tommy Hilfiger.
Increase the number of ads. You can have multiple ads in the same campaign with AdWords. Use this feature to appeal to different audiences. You can also use it to test alternate ads and eliminate the lesser performing ones
Move to full unlimited clicks so your campaign runs 24/7. This means eliminating the budget restriction. When your campaign is in full swing, take a portion of your profits and plow them back into more advertising. This keeps your budget growing. On the Internet there is a very strong relationship between spending and success
Keep careful (daily then weekly) watch on your campaigns to make sure they are still yielding sales. You need to make adjustments when early signs of sales drop-off occur. The challenge, of course, is to know what a genuine collapse is and what a simple slow-down. Welcome to marketing!! The best indicator of trouble is the click-through rate. We are dealing with a dynamic environment where other advertisers constantly shift their strategies. If the click-through rate falls below 0.5% Google may shut you down. Eliminate the low performing campaigns. Remember the bulk of campaigns will be unprofitable. You are looking for the few campaigns that will give you a steady return. If a campaign turns unprofitable, first try fixing it by tweaking the ad or the headline or the keywords (you need to tweak even profitable campaigns occasionally.) Try freezing the ad at certain times to cut out periods when you don’t think people are in buying mode (this is of course very difficult to predict!)
Where after Google?
With over 500 pay-per-click search engines to choose from, where do you go after learning the ropes on Google? Here is the list recommended by Rosalind Gartner of Super Affiliate Handbook:
First: Overture.com, FindWhat.com and then Kanoodle.com
Followed by (in alphabetical order): 7search.com, enhance.com, search123.com, searchfeed.com, turbo10.com, xuppa.com
Also consider: LookSmart.com and Epilot.com |
Writing the Perfect ad
There is NOTHING more important in pay-per-click than the actual writing of the ad.
There is no perfect way of writing an ad. You are going to have to experiment. If you are looking for guidance try your competitors – even copy their ads.
The Headline
You are allowed 25 characters for the headline. You need something that grabs attention. Words that have been proven to do this include: save, free, cheaper, secrets, bigger, sale, faster, hints, tips, easier and the like… There is also the ‘shock’ school of thought (led by the Rich Jerk), that uses headlines that are mildly offensive – “You’re Poor, I’m Rich, I’m Better than You” (more than 25 characters but you get the idea). Look at the typical examples: Lose Weight Easily, Huge Profits for You, Make $5000 a day….. They are tacky, but they work!!
It isn’t necessary to put the product name in the headline (or even the ad). Your objective is to get them to click the ad and go to the true sales page.
The Text
The text describes the offering in some attention grabbing form. You are looking to tap into something in the customer’s mind that stimulates hope or belief.
Everybody has a DREAM; whether it is to make lots of money, to grow prize vegetables, to find the perfect computer. The vast majority of people want to reach their dreams without having to become an expert, or by simply doing something with a high probability of success (after endless failure.) You need to tap into that dream (e.g. Buy that Porsche now with our easy …..)
If you tap into the yearning, they will even drive by the hype. You say, 95% success rate in dieting, but no one REALLY believes you. However, they may still look, just in case. By the way, if you make claims you need to be able to back them up, even if the data is for small samples under restricted conditions.
You can approach the writing problem by selling a BENEFIT, (e.g. 100,000 cameras to choose from) or be casting it as a PROBLEM or QUESTION (e.g. Can you pay your bills?). Problems and Questions are far more powerful than you would believe.
Some last thoughts
Pay-per-Click has lost some of its luster as THE solution. This is in part because of the number of people piling in and the high cost of some search terms. But, it is still a powerful medium and you can get competitive advantage in its use by practice and superior skills.
Go for it!
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