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====
Keeping Focus
Amidst The Marketing Blitzes...
The time
is ripe for online business and I feel '05 will be a year
of record profits for many successful online marketers.
Already there's been a grand success from Frank Kern's
Underachiever System...and, rightly so, Frank's an expert,
he's a mainstay in IM and I'm sure his system works even
though I haven't purchased it.
When your
starting out online, and even when you've been online
for any length of time and are successful, you still need
to see through the smoke and diversions of the latest
marketing product, system, or feature and use common
sense focus.
There's so
many things to think about - blogging, landing pages,
PPC, SEO, articles, sales copy, linking, research, and
on and on and on. Sometimes for the 'under focused' people
of the world, it can be overwhelming.
I've had
to "re-set" myself a few times myself and not
follow through on projects that I've wanted to tackle.
In fact, I told you a month or so ago that I was in the
midst of a new product for keyword research and traffic
optimization...but I thought long and hard about it...and
you know what? It doesn't make sense for me to take the
time to go through with it. I just frankly don't have
the time and energy.. realistically, there's enough info
and products out there on this subject that I figured
why re-do something even if it has my own twist. I know
I could make money selling something like the product
I have in mind, but, given the time it would take me to
finish the product, it isn't worth it right now. Maybe
later....
The point
is, I looked at what would be the best use of my time
and what is "closest to the money".
And, right now, my SEO for my niche website is most important.
I've managed to increase the unique daily targeted visitors
to over 300 per day from more than 200 separate URLs and
have increased profits 23% per month so far this year.
So, why not
keep going and continue to improve the conversions and
traffic of the site that's already doing well? The answer
is, I should and I should stay focused
on what is working! Don't get me wrong, I was tempted
to have a look at Frank's Underachiever System, but the
truth is that I don't have the time to make new sites...instead,
I am working on improving what's already working
very well for me. To remain focused on this niche web
site was a good decision.
I am not
tooting my own horn, believe me...I am merely giving you
an example of how I managed to remain focused this time.
I had great aspirations of a solid product with videos
and a hefty price tag but "tabled it" for now.
It seems
so simple doesn't it? Well, there's thousands of people
who easily get diverted with 'other' IM products, tactics,
forums, projects, etc...and those people often times lose
money because they don't use their time wisely.
The value
of your time should supercede all else...and knowing what
to do and when, is a key skill...basic and smart prioritization
will help you increase your chances for success if you
plan on making money with Internet Marketing.
My 'focus
for success' stemmed from a simple decision. You will
have similar challenges and most likely have already been
faced with turning 'left or right' so to speak. Go with
your gut!
On another
note, I was sifting through the myriad of articles that
other online publishers send to me and the one below from
Willie Crawford caught me eye...
PPC can be
dangerous and lots of people lose money with it...I use
it, but vary sparingly...be careful and be smart when
using PPC!
Winning the
Pay-Per-Click Keyword Battle
Copyright 2004 Willie Crawford
Any honest ezine publisher will tell
you that email is not
as effective as it use to be. It can't be, just because
of
all of the spam filters, and deliverability issues. That
makes other parts of your marketing mix more critical
than
they use to be. For many online marketers, pay-per-click
search engines have become THE most effective form of
promotion.
There are actually people online,
with no product of their
own, who earn over $1000 per day just promoting affiliate
products! They simple bid on targeted keywords at pay-per-click
search engines. They constantly refine their listings
until their click-thru rates are incredibly high. Many
also constantly refine their websites to generate small,
continuous improvements in their conversion rates.
There ARE key strategies to using
the pay-per-clicks most effectively though. One is developing
a list of as many highly-targeted keywords as practical.
Another is not to get into bidding wars that dramatically
reduce your return-on-investment.
Let's look at the second issue first...
the one of bidding wars. When you come up with a few keywords
that you feel are ideal for your products, and then you
notice that the top bids are incredibly high, that suggests
a number of things...
The people who consistently bid very
high for given terms
must be making a profit or they wouldn't be bidding so
high
on these terms for very long. So, if you're promoting
similar products you need to figure out what they're doing
that you aren't. There are a number of possibilities
there...
1) They may be promoting a competing
product from a website that has a higher conversion rate
than you do. If that's the case, you may want to consider
promoting the competing product instead of the one you
currently promote. If the product you currently promote
is your own, maybe you want to discover improvements you
can make to your website by studying the competitor's
website.
2) They may be promoting competing
products that pay a
higher per-sale or per-lead commission. If that's the
case, they can afford to spend more than you can to make
a sale. That's another reason you want to investigate
exactly what your competitors are selling. Maybe you want
to start promoting the competing product offering the
higher commission.
3) They may be willing to settle for
a lower front-end
profit because they're building a list, or hoping to make
most of their return on the back-end. Whether this is
the
case or not, you may want to look for ways to leverage
the return you get from your promotional efforts. One
way to do this is to represent affiliate programs that
offer "lifetime commissions."
The approach I take to bidding wars,
and that taken by many
top marketers that I consult with, is simply not to get
involved in them. With millions of potential words, or
terms, to describe your product, you simply need to find
other terms to bid on. If you want to bid on the very
competitive terms, bid lower and accept a position lower
in the rankings, realizing that some people do search
through the lower-ranking listings too.
The secret there, is to develop a
list of as many keywords
and keyword phrases as possible. This is a never-ending
job. You should always be looking for new expressions
and queries that people, who are looking for your products,
use at the search engines. What will allow you to win
that battle is the fact that you are RELENTLESS. While
your competitors stop developing their list after a little
effort, you never stop!
Persistence and relentlessness allows
you to find those
obscure words that people ARE searching on. Then, you
can
can bid only the minimum, and still get a steady stream
of highly targeted visitors
The whole key there is to "get
inside your visitors'
heads." Think like your potential visitors and ask
yourself what they would actually be typing into a search
engine while looking for your product.
When your potential customer is using
a search engine, and
he sees a listing that uses his exact words, that really
jumps out at him! On a conscious and subconscious level,
this really connects with the prospect. Echoing his words
back to him, in your listings, is really something experts
at Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and varying fields of
psychology, have taught for years as an extremely powerful
communication technique.
There are countless tools for developing
your list of
keywords. Most of the top search engines have suggestion
tools that show you terms their users have searched on
recently. These suggestion tools are a good starting point,
but they're only a beginning. Just because a term is not
listed when you query one of these tools, does not mean
that people aren't searching using that term. So you need
to use these tools ONLY as a starting point.
Those who spend considerable time
refining their
pay-per-click process use numerous tools. Tools that I
personally use include:
- The Overture Suggestion Tool
- The Google Suggestion Tool
- Good Keywords (desktop software)
- AdWord Analyzer
- WordTracker
... and numerous sites devoted to developing keyword lists.
You also need to read the books published
by experts in the field. Books I have read or re-read
JUST in the past MONTH
include:
- Google Cash
- The Definitive Guide to Google AdWords
- The Silent Sales Machine Hiding on Ebay
- Success Alert
- The Affiliate Marketers Handbook
... and several others.
I've also listened in on, or participated
in, about 10 different tele-seminars on pay-per-clicks
in the past month alone.
Some of the books mentioned above
don't at first seem to be about developing keywords or
using pay per clicks. All of these books DO teach you
things about targeting niche markets in one way or another.
They help you to discover and capitalize on hidden markets.
I think of practically all of them as reference resources.
Winning the pay-per-click, keyword
battle is about totally immersing yourself in the topic.
It's about studying all of the available material on the
topic. It about reading the reference materials mention
above over and over again. Something new will resonate
or "jump out at you" each time that you study
these materials. At least that's been my experience. That's
why I often listen to an MP3 recording of a tele-seminar
while out jogging or walking along the beach :-)
Winning the pay-per-clicks, keyword
battle is all about:
- Constantly refining and adding to
your keywords lists
- Constantly refining your pay-per-clicks listings
- Constantly testing and meticulously tracking
That's all there is to it... that
and ONLY sticking with
your winners.
About the Author:
Willie Crawford, often referred
to as "The King Of Pay Per Clicks," has been
teaching and studying online marketing since late 1996.
Find more of his teachings on pay-per-click search engines
at: http://www.williecrawford.com/
If you want
to know how I get page 1 listings on Google, Yahoo! and
MSN, read this
page and click the order link to read about the the
upgrade, its a tremendous deal...I made the product affordable
for anyone, imagine that, there's a novel idea in Internet
Marketing eh?
Get
page one listings on the 3 major SE's.
Once again,
thanks for being here, your membership to this e-zine
is what matters most to me as an Internet marketer.
"The Regular
Guy"
Karl Augustine
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