By John Hartley
You have a good affiliate product to market, and you want to use pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Good idea or bad? Well, it can be a good idea so long as you control your spending, and track your ads. And the next question is whether Google is the best place to advertise your affiliate products.
Where should you start? Google Adwords, which can be rather costly these days, or Yahoo Search Marketing, or MSN? Or would you be better with some of the minor PPC search engines?
Well, my experience is that the minor search engines generally have unresponsive viewers searching for free stuff. This is also the experience of at least two seasoned marketers I know. In other words, you do not get so many clicks, and few are buyers. Certainly, Google is a better place than these to advertise your affiliate products.
Google is good but you could pay too much
Among the others, Google Adwords definitely brings results, but so does MSN, although it has a poor website interface which is a pain to use, and which is usually slow. That is worth putting up with, though, because MSN's surfers are responsive, and you will pay less per click than with Google. You will not get so many clicks, though, simply because many more people uses Google than MSN.
I have not found Yahoo Search Marketing (that used to be Overture) less profitable than the other two, but that might depend on the product. It is worth trying all three, and you will find that you can get a $50 free start with Yahoo Search Marketing. But be warned: they will still make you deposit some cash with them, but hey, $50 advertising for free cannot be bad.
I would recommend that you use MSN and Google Adwords to advertise your affiliate products.
Whatever you do, though, make sure you set a daily limit, a limit on each bid, and put in a finish date for the ad. Ending the ad project can be a nuisance because if it is profitable, you have to start it all over again with some PPC search engines.
On the other hand, it stops you getting a huge bill for ads you had forgotten where running. A daily limit of $30 does not seem much, but that is $900 a month, and if you have five or six ads for affiliate products running you can soon spend a lot of money if you forget what is going on.
Article Source: http://www.articlehighlight.com
Get FREE reports and loads of information about affiliate marketing at jrhmarketing.wordpress.com, your source for guides and tips.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Is Google the Best Place to Advertise Your Affiliate Products?
Warning! Don't Buy that E-Book
By John Hartley
One of the biggest problems when you start out as an affiliate is to resist the urge to buy the latest e-book or video set that comes out. There is something coming out every week, and some of the e-books which were brought out a year ago are as good as some of these new ones. Save your money and don't buy that brand-new e-book about affiliate marketing programs.
Skip the lifestyle bit
When you look at a sales letter you MUST learn to skip all the rubbish telling you that if you buy this e-book you will be able to live the life of the rich, in a fabulous house with a couple of Ferraris, and working two hours a day. This e-book will not give you that.
First, you need to skip to the next section because it is not true. Most of these guys work 12-14 hours a day, albeit with some strutting of their stuff at seminars in nice places. Secondly, you already know that you started affiliate marketing to make money without working for someone else, and to get a few holidays or vacations, or just spending more time with your family without the stress that goes with a Job. So ignore this irrelevant stuff, yes, it really is irrelevant.
… and the graphs showing Clickbank earnings
Also, ignore all those graphs showing Clickbank earnings. These are not what you will earn, and conveniently ignore the fact that the earnings were obtained with a pretty hefty Adwords or other pay-per-click advertising campaign. It is easy to sell $5,000 of affiliate products a month. Just spend $10,000 on Adwords! I'm not saying they do this. However, they can certainly boost their advertising spend to boost sales in the knowledge that folk will buy lots of e-books when they see the gross figures!
The recent spate of video instruction products are much worse. Why? First, because they are long, and the important bits go so fast you can't make notes easily. Often, you miss them because the speaker, who is untrained in public speaking, is mumbling.
As a rule of thumb, the more videos there are, the less you should want to buy the product!
Find what this product does or gives you
So should you avoid all these new e-books and video sets about affiliate marketing? No. First, when you read a sales letter, concentrate on where it says what it actually does, or what information it actually gives you. You will find that in most cases this takes up quite a small part of the sales letter.
Then, you need to compare what you are doing in your affiliate business with what the e-books or videos are offering. Is it compatible? For example, if it is all about advertising on Adwords, and you are not doing that, are you ready to do it?
If it is a keyword tool to find keywords, do you actually need the tool? If you do a lot of keyword research, or need to, will this tool be better than Google's free tool, which of course, is based on the keywords people actually use at Google's search engine.
What's more, you will be told that each e-book is absolutely vital to your future. This is just not true. There are so many products or services in any niche that you can ignore a lot of them. But it is a good idea to read some sales letters to see what people are saying. Meanwhile, keep your credit card locked away in a drawer in another room!
Article Source: http://www.articlehighlight.com
Get FREE reports and loads of information about affiliate marketing at jrhmarketing.wordpress.com, your source for guides and tips.
What’s Google AdSense?
By Sunil Kumar
AdSense may be one of the fastest and easiest ways to monetize traffic to your web site whether you have products or services for sale or you simply provide free content to your visitors.
Simply stated, Google AdSense enables website operators to place some code on their site that connects to Google’s ad server content database and pulls keyword-relevant advertising onto the web pages. The webmaster gets paid a percentage of the fee that Google receives from the advertiser every time a visitor clicks on an ad. There is no charge for the webmaster to participate in AdSense. All costs are covered by the advertiser who participates in the AdSense sister program called AdWords.
Google’s sends out digital “robots” which use proprietary algorithms to parse the host web page and analyze the content in an effort to determine what keywords are relevant. It reports its findings back to Google’s ad server which then serves ads matching those keywords. Given that the entire process is automated, the “ad robots” do a pretty good job of getting the advertising content right most of the time.
The History of Google AdSense
Google AdSense has its roots in the old “Google Content-Targeted Advertising” program which they introduced back in March of 2003. Although this program was similar in concept to AdSense, there was no automated way of participating. Each webmaster negotiated a deal directly with Google, and websites that served less than 20 million page views per month were not welcome to participate.
As Google grew, they began to see how much money they were leaving on the table by excluding the smaller sites, which greatly outnumbered the sites serving over 20 million hits, that were willing to serve other people’s ads. Their answer to that problem was AdSense which has no minimum traffic requirements and is open to all sites meeting Google’s content and decency requirements.
How much can you make running Google AdSense?
The answer to that question depends upon three factors:
1. How much traffic your site draws
2. How many visitors click on your ads
3. How much those ads pay per generated click
With some ads paying as much as $5 or more, it’s possible that you can generate a serious income with AdSense. There are relatively well documented cases of some people earning as much as $500 per DAY and more. Numbers like that are rare exceptions however. Even so, there is no reason why you can’t earn somewhere around $1,000 per month, or more, once you get the hang of it.
How to get started using Google AdSense
Make a visit to Google’s AdSense Site (https://www.google.com/adsense/) and sign up. Make sure that you read their Acceptable Use Policy and that you follow their content requirements. Google has their own “AdSense Police” who will have no problem booting you out of the program if you fail to walk the line.
Using Google AdSense on your site is like collecting free money. There’s no reason not to do it and potentially thousands of dollars worth of reasons to do it.
Article Source: http://www.articlehighlight.com
For more Free Resources www.googleatmcash.com
How Many Different Forms of Promotion Do You Use?
By Sean Rasmussen
Whatever stage you are at with your online marketing ventures, promoting them is a key part of how successful they will eventually be.
What's more, the act of promotion is a constantly evolving entity - it's not something you should do once and then forget about. If you drop the ball even for a week or two, you'll soon notice the effect it has on your sales and bottom line, which we all know equates to your profits.
Most people recognise the connection between how much they promote their wares and how much money they make as a result. But what about the methods they use? Ask yourself this question - are you stuck in a rut with your advertising?
It's a fact that most people develop promotional methods and sources they are happy with, and then stick to them. After all, why change what is already working?
That's a fair point, but we shouldn't become complacent. You should always try out new ways of advertising, and new places to advertise in. For example, it's fairly usual to plan a huge advertising blitz every time you launch a new product.
But does that blitz include writing and sending out press releases?
If it doesn't you could be missing out on a huge untapped audience who might be interested enough in your product to buy it. The beauty of press releases is that they only cost you the time it takes to write them. You can invest in the services of a company who will distribute it for you, but this can be done by you if you can spare the time.
Similarly, you might always advertise your products by using classified adverts available on a certain number of websites. Now while these websites might always produce good results for you, why not add a few others to the mix? You can still use the ones you've come to rely on, but by expanding your vision you could pull in even more customers.
We all have our favourite forms of promotion, but it does pay to think big and not stay with the same old places we've come to rely on over time. This is where an investment of time can pay huge dividends. Spend an hour or two surfing the net in search of other good sources of advertising - especially free advertising, which does have its place even if you have a large promotional budget - and add a few possibles to your list of advertising sources.
And don't forget your business acquaintances - they probably know of sources of advertising that have worked well for them, and may be willing to share them with you.
In the end, a crucial part of growing your business lies in developing your promotional efforts. The online world is forever changing, and your favourite advertising places today may not exist tomorrow. That is the key reason why you constantly need to be looking at new places to promote yourself and your business.
It's all about protecting your current and future sales - and therefore your livelihood.
Article Source: http://www.articlehighlight.com
Sean Rasmussen blogs about internet marketing and Mindset. You can find his blog reviews on Do You Digg It! Read about the latest Blogging Ethics blog with Revellian.
How Much Do You Think You Can Earn Online?
By Sean Rasmussen
You're right. However much you thought about in answer to the question above, you're probably right.
If that has shocked you, then you may well be grateful for that shock in the months and years to come. That's because people tend to achieve what they think they can achieve.
Let's think about this a little more closely. Suppose you had a goal of earning $10,000 a year from your internet marketing ventures. That's a good goal to have. It's a reasonable amount - it would certainly make a difference to your life when you add it to the income you receive from your regular job.
But you're aiming low. Why not aim higher?
Let's say you have a goal of earning $100,000 a year from your internet marketing efforts. Now that isn't a reasonable amount - it's a life changing amount. It's an amount of money that would probably enable you to quit your job and work for yourself the whole time.
That's freedom.
Now which amount - $10,000 or $100,000 - ignites the most passion in you? I'm guessing it's the larger figure, am I right?
You need to understand that whatever you really want to achieve, you will achieve. So why want a small amount? Why not change your life? The internet is packed with opportunities; it's packed with the potential to change the life of anyone and everyone who is prepared to put in the hard work to achieve their dream income.
It really is true.
So figure out a strategy. Figure out how much you really want to earn, and then work out what skills and talents you have that will help you get there. It won't happen overnight, but it can and will happen if you keep working at it.
The beauty of the internet is that it enables you to set up multiple income streams. You can explore different ways to get to your income goal. Stay open minded and keep trying new things until you find a combination that suits you.
Developing your own niche in which to operate is an excellent way of taking a step closer to your goal. Appealing to a niche audience and building a mailing list -- of names that you know will be interested in your niche subject -- is a powerful marketing tool to use in both the short and long term.
Whatever point you start from, make the effort to keep developing new sources of income that splinter off from that main point. Be prepared to keep working towards your goal, even when you go through stages where you don't receive any compensation for your efforts. It takes time to get the ball rolling, but once it starts you'll find it takes very little effort to keep that money coming in. Once that happens you can then start to set up more income streams, as this will add to the ones you already have.
The key to your level of success is ultimately you. It's that simple. So make sure you make the journey worthwhile.
Article Source: http://www.articlehighlight.com
Sean Rasmussen blogs about internet marketing and topics of gratitude. You can find his blog reviews on Do You Digg It! Read the latest review on Community Blogging with 99 Bloggers.
Do You Know You Should Never Do These When Trying to Make Money Online?
By Jerry Leung
Most webmasters are working very hard in order to make money online. There are even webmasters who become very rich by building up their business online. One of the advantages of making money online is that you will have chances of making money without investing a lot of money. However, there is something that you should never do!
In fact, there are a lot of different choices for you to make money online. You can choose to join some affiliate programs and promote the affiliate products. There are a lot of people who earn a lot of money from it. On the other hand, you may also choose to join PPC programs such as Yahoo Publisher. There are pros and cons for each of these programs and you should try and test for the most suitable one for your.
As discussed, there are things you should never do. You may want to know what they are. Indeed there are some online schemes or programs you should never join or involve in. You will be wasting your time if you join these programs!
The followings are the schemes you should never involve in:
Paid Surveys: I bet you receive emails about paid surveys everyday. You may be tempted to try it out! However, the payout rates of these paid surveys are not very high. Completing these surveys is usually very time consuming. It is just not worth spending so much time on them. As a result, you should put your effort and spend the time on programs which can enable you to make reasonable amounts of money.
Lotto or free lotto: You will find a lot of lotto games out there. You will also receive tons of emails concerning free lotto. However, involving in these games is also a waste of time. You should put your effort on building your online business instead of joining these games.
Contests and instant games: This is just like the case of free lotto. It is not worth spending the time on them. There are also saying that no one has ever won these games. Although we cannot be sure if this is the truth, it will be better to stay away from these games in order to play safe.
Online casinos: We have to admit that casinos are for gamblers but not businesspeople. You are just gambling when playing on these casinos! Remember, you are trying to build up your online business. Gambling should not be something you take part in.
Article Source: http://www.articlehighlight.com
Jerry Leung is an author. You can learn more about Making Easy Money with Affiliate Marketing Online from his website. He also runs a Online Money Making and SEO Blog. Be sure to check Website Analysis Tools for Free.