My Buy Essay

I can’t stress strongly enough how important it is for an Internet Marketer to know what marketing keywords they should use for their products, and how much their competition is willing to pay for those same keywords. This may seem like a complicated process, but it really isn’t. In this article we’ll discuss three free websites that all internet Marketers can use to find this information.

Let’s first talk about keywords… When I say ‘keywords’, I’m referring to marketing keywords. These are the words that your potential customers would use to describe your product. These are the same words that somebody would type in an online search engine to find your products.

If you have a business website and you don’t know which marketing keywords your website is geared to, then you’re website is certainly at a huge disadvantage. Why? Because you will be losing business. And you can bet that your main competition WILL know their marketing keywords, and they WILL be strategically using these keywords in their website and advertisements.

You see, when search engine spiders crawl your website, they’re looking for text in your website that can be indexed and used to describe the content of your website. If your website doesn’t contain the proper keywords that people use to find your product, then your website will likely not show up in their searches. So your website really needs to be optimized with the relevant marketing keywords that the majority of people are using to search for your product.

Another example where it is vital to know your marketing keywords is when using Pay-Per Click (PPC) advertising. Pay-Per Click advertising is typically done through search engines where you pay each time someone clicks on your advertisement (link). Your advertisement will appear after a user goes to the search engine and runs a keyword search (which is just a regular search). The search engine looks at their submitted keyword(s) and then cross references those with the keywords associated with the PPC advertisements. If they match, the PPC ads are then returned with the users search results… Go ahead and go to Google and run a search. The ads you see on the right-hand side of the screen are the PPC ads.

(Note: The order in which the PPC ads are returned are dependant on a few factors: the price you’re willing to pay for each click, the search engine used, the ad Click-Through Rate (CTR), etc.)

Let’s now go through a quick and free process for finding good keywords for your website.

1) Go to the Google AdWords Keyword Tool (https:adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox)

Enter some key words into the textbox that you think people would use to conduct a search for your product. When you’re done, click the submit button. You will then be shown specific and similar keywords. Write down the ones that you think would apply to your product.

2) Go to the Overture Keyword Selector Tool (inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/)

Enter each keyword that you have written down from step 1, then click the right-arrow button. This will allow you to see which keywords are the most popular in Overture. Note: the most popular keywords aren’t always the most appropriate. For example, if your website sells guides on how to rebuild a 57 Chevy, then you will probably want to specifically target ‘57 Chevy’ keywords, instead of the less specific ‘Chevy’ keyword. Why? Because you want to get your ad/website in front of the people that are most likely to buy your product.

The above 2 websites should give you a great keyword list that you can now use to optimize your website. But if you want to advertise using PPC, you really need to know what your competition is paying for your keywords. This is an easy task as well.

3) Go to the Overture Bid Tool (uv.bidtool.overture.com/d/search/tools/bidtool/)

Enter your keywords into the textbox, and then click the search button. This will return the Overture bids for that keyword. The highest bids likely get the highest placements &ndash meaning the ads are closer to the top position on the first page of the user’s search results. The goal is to get as high as your budget will allow to the top position to ensure maximum exposure of your ad.

There you have it… three great websites that can help your Internet marketing campaigns &ndash and best of all, they are all free to use!

Sincerely,

Michael Ellis

The use of search engines in locating information has become so central to our daily lives that it is hard to imagine a world where one cannot simply “google” driving directions just before heading out to the car. This availability of information, unprecedented in human history, is still a new concept, yet it has revolutionized the way we live, even in our humdrum, day-to-day activities. Need a new recipe in time for dinner? Conduct a search (and forward it to meConductSearch.com!). Forgot your anniversary and need a gift by tomorrow morning? Piece of cake. It’s become second nature to not only snatch instantaneous solutions from the Internet, but to trust that they will be there.

Just because we’ve so readily accepted search doesn’t mean anyone thinks it’s fully developed. I offer only your typical financial headlines: Google does this, Yahoo does that, Exxon searches for oil &ndash everybody searches! Tech advances beget tech advances and search is still a work in progress, a particularly interesting work in progress.

The concept of search need not even be limited to alphabetical means. Microsoft is firing imaginations with image search…for more imagery. Somewhere in Washington State (I think) teams of cyber savants have been taking steps toward incorporating this imagery hunt functionality into the search engine. The goal is to allow users to input an image file as the search parameter in order to return associated image results.

While the technical process admittedly remains mysterious to those of us not actually working on it, its aim of a searchable database free from the ambiguity of language is a beautiful notion, even if it’s not the end all of search itself.

Let’s say that you were interested in researching a fancy home furnishing company called “Hammer and Co.”. You’d open up your web browser and enter the name in the search bar on Google, right? Your Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) will show hundreds of results…M.C. Hammer, tools, and the like. There will be some, if not lots of, sifting to do. But, were you able to input an image of Hammer & Son’s distinctive purple tulip logo in the search field, you

may get a glimpse of Hammer’s lovely wormwood designs. Heavenly.

Engines utilizing “image search” will distinguish content, spatial qualities, pixel dimensions and placement, the size of images, and various other factors in its comparison. While the technology is not quite ready to be unveiled for general use, Microsoft’s purchase of Vexcel, a specialist in imagery, remote sensing and “photogrammetry” does bolster support for the theory that we are not far off from being able to take a photo of a stranger with a camera-phone and running an internet-wide search for that person instantly.

It seems the internet cannot be further leveraged to the end of radical technological advancement and social change, it is. Web 2.0 expands infinitely outward into a world of possibilities that need only be imagined to become true.

Damian Verutes

Marketing Analyst

MarketingConductSearch.com

ConductSearch.com

There are two major search engine marketing strategies in use today: SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC (pay-per-click). Both strategies are entirely different and it is tough to decide which one or which combination is right for you.

To decide which strategy is best for you, consider the basics. It is easier to judge the pros and cons when taking the big picture into account. People will continue to battle for the top search engine positions. Search engine marketing is undoubtedly one of the best sources of targeted traffic.

As people continuously try to find new and unique ways to get additional traffic to their web sites, the SEO industry continues to grow. PPC refers to advertising on a search engine that charges on a per click basis whenever a visitor clicks on one of your ads. The order of ads is usually based on bidding prices, meaning that the advertiser who bids the highest price per click will be listed first. These sponsored listings are known as PPC listings.

SEO tries to change your search engine ranking by looking at a number of factors including link popularity, Page Rank and so on. If your web site is search engine optimized then obviously you are more likely to have a good ranking in the search engines. A well-optimized and marketed site will be listed in the top results whenever a person searches for related keywords. One of the best benefits of SEO marketing is you don’t have to pay for any clicks! So, how can we decide which method is better? Both methods actually serve different purposes. However, one is likely to be a better fit for your business than the other one.

PPC

PPC traffic, rankings and results tend to be more stable and predictable than SEO, and, combined with its low cost, this makes PPC one of the more popular ways of advertising. Most companies try PPC before they try SEO, because it’s seen as more stable. In many cases PPC lets you rank well on the search engines, without having to do the tedious work involved in SEO &ndash no finding link partners, posting links, creating content and so on. As long as you have the budget for it, the ranking is yours. Another advantage is that the listing will get posted when you want it and not when the search engine gets around to it. With PPC’s popularity growing day by day, the market is also getting competitive. You will find that CPC’s (costs per clicks) are steadily rising, and for a common man it is getting tough to invest much. As with most auctions, the more people bidding on PPC, the higher the prices get.

SEO

The main benefit of SEO is that it does not cost per click. The disadvantages are that the traffic to your website is more unpredictable and requires a lot of work. With SEO, you have to adapt and constantly change strategies as search engines change their algorithms. SEO is also slower than PPC, as many search engines don’t list new sites. So what should you choose? Well, it depends on how much money you are willing to spend, what your time line is, and what your return on investment is. If you have cash then PPC should be your first choice, as it produces fast results. PPC can also be used for testing the effectiveness of web sites. If you have time and money to invest in long-term results, SEO is an excellent option as well.

All and all, the best marketing strategy is typically to go with PPC in the short term to get immediate traffic and analyze conversions. SEO should then be taken with a long term view in mind, so you can reap the benefits of free traffic later on.

For realtors the Internet can no longer be ignored. Significant numbers of home buyers on going online to do their preliminary research for real estate and agents. Recent surveys suggest over 50%.

I personally know a number of local realtors, and it is interesting to see how some are easily adapting to this media, while others are sitting on the sidelines wondering why they are seeing a decrease in prospective buyers.

The Internet is not going away, and if someone plans to make real estate a viable career they must incorporate online marketing in order to not only succeed, but to survive. So how can realtors cost-effective connect with potential customers? In addition to MLS listings, they can reach a very targeted audience through search engine marketing. There are basically two forms of search marketing, organic and pay per click advertising.

Organic Search Marketing

Organic search marketing is about ranking at the top of the search results. It is accomplished through search engine optimization (SEO). The goal is to get your web pages at the top of the search results for targeted terms and phrases. For example, if you are a realtor in Boise it would be profitable to have your site rank at the top for terms phrases like “Boise Realtors” or “Boise Real Estate.”

How do you accomplish this mysterious feat? First, you have to optimize your web pages around certain phrases like “Boise Real Estate.” That term becomes the theme of the page, and there are certain techniques that let the search engines know it is the theme.

In addition to optimizing the page you have to convince the search engines that your site is important enough to deserve a prominent ranking. This is achieved by getting other web sites to link to your site. When a web site has a hyperlink to your site, the search engines consider this a vote of confidence. It is more complicated than just getting a bunch of links, since some links are considered more important than others. But in general, the combination of optimized pages and external links results in top rankings. SEO takes time and effort. If you are a new site, you may not see results for 6-9 months with Google.

Pay Per Click Advertising

In contrast to SEO, pay per click advertising (PPC) can provide instant gratification. With Google you can set-up a marketing campaign in less than an hour. With Yahoo it takes 24-48 hours to be approved.

PPC is where you pay to have your web site listed at the top of the search results for particular terms that are relevant to your business. There are basically two search engines where you want to pay to market, Yahoo and Google. PPC is based on an auction model, where you bid for the position of your ad. The ads appear above and to the right of the organic search listings. They are listed as “Sponsored Links.”

PPC advertising is based on an auction model. You bid for positioning on terms that are relevant to your business, just like how you would optimize your web pages for similar terms. Once again if you are a realtor in Boise, you would bid on terms that your prospects would use to find services in your area. The position of your ad depends on how much you bid in relation to your competitors.

The appeal of PPC advertising is you set the bids, you set a maximum daily expenditure and you can turn your campaign on or off at any moment. Even more important is the ability to track exactly how your advertising dollars are being spent. With with this information you can tweak your bids and your ads for maximum performance.

It important to note that buyers who search online tend to be better informed, spend significantly less time with their realtor, and preview fewer houses than traditional buyers. That is another reason why search engine marketing is becoming essential.

Time is running out to ignore the Internet. Either you are going to be a player or you will be cut from the squad.

Now that my system is set up, all I have to do is check that my affiliate partners are sending me cash, suggest the odd joint venture to a partner, and stay in touch with my customers. I rarely spend more than three hours in front of my computer each day.

But it wasn’t always like that. It took a lot of effort and a lot of work to get into the position I’m in now. When I first started, it was a bit of a struggle to organize myself. My first website took ages to launch and while the other ones went up quickly, my family went days without seeing me.

Let’s be frank, if you don’t set up your business properly right at the beginning, you’re going to make your life much harder&ndashand your income much lower.

The problem is that until now, you’ve always thought of your home as a place to relax and the office as a place to focus and work. Now you’re going to have to focus at home&ndashand that’s not an easy shift to make. You need to keep the same rhythm (without stopping to watch your favorite daytime soap!) and the same kind of discipline you had when you had to commute every morning.

The first thing to do is to give yourself an office. I’m not talking about a laptop on the coffee table or a corner in the library; I mean a proper room with a door you can close and a desk full of goodies: from a computer with broadband to a place to put your safety clips. If you don’t have a spare room to start with, then use your bedroom. But if you’re serious, think about finding an office once your business gets running.

The next thing you’re going to need is a schedule&ndasha realistic one. This is one of the greatest challenges when you begin working for yourself. At the end of each day, I’d make a list of all the tasks I was going to do the next day. If I got half of them done, I was lucky. I spent weeks frustrated and grumpy.

Once you get a feel for how long each task takes you, whether it’s approving a new site design, planning a new marketing program or answering customers’ emails, set yourself a timetable and keep to it. Turn off the radio, shut the office door and get to work! And at the same time, don’t get annoyed if the day ends before your work does.

Whether you are new to Internet marketing or frustrated by the experience, the concept is undisputedly a challenge. As they say, there is more than one way to skin a cat.

One Internet Marketing Approach

Before we get into a one particular internet marketing approach, we need to define what we mean by approach. Internet marketing is entirely different than brick and mortar marketing. The structure is composed of a number of factors including long and short term strategies, indirect branding marketization and traffic analysis. If you can master these subjects, you will have the right approach and be successful.

To achieve a better marketing approach, you must conform to the basic outline of every successful site. You need to realize there are distinct short and long term strategies, and that they mesh. Short term strategies are all about pay-per-click search engines while long term strategies are all about search engine optimization.

Pay-per-click search engines [ppc] have serious benefits and limitations. The primary benefit is they create immediate traffic to your site. They allow you to get prospects on to the site and determine how they convert. The downside of going ppc is they add significantly to your overhead and the traffic may be of middling to poor quality.

To properly pursue PPC advertising, you should stick to Google Adwords and Overture. They have the highest quality of traffic. When using these platforms, you should start with as wide a scope of keywords as possible. Track the results through your server stats to determine the specific phrases that produce paying customers. Turn off the ads for keywords phrases that don’t produce revenues. This will improve your return on investment.

Long term Internet marketing is all about search engine optimization, a misunderstood subject if ever there was one. The advantage of seo is you generate free traffic. This is accomplished by moving your site into top ranking positions on MSN, Yahoo and Google. No other search engines matter. As your rankings improve, you can begin turning off corresponding ppc advertisements. Eventually you will able to entirely eliminate your ppc cost, effectively converting the site to a free marketing position.

To nail search engine optimization, you must focus on the needs of your prospects. Your view or opinion on your product or service is irrelevant. You must identify the exact things your prospects are searching for and create or modify pages on your site to provide a solution to that need. To conduct this research, you need to do keyword research.

Wordtracker is the secret weapon of profitable sites. The site provides a list of the exact keyword phrases being used by your prospects, the number of searches a day and the number of sites competing for top rankings on the keyword. You can enter your primary keyword phrases and quickly see which phrases you should use to produce the most traffic as quickly as possible. You might be thinking you can use Overture for this as well, but Overture should only be used to determine if there is general traffic for a subject. It

Branding is a phrase used for Internet marketing by those who do not really understand the Internet. The Internet is huge, making your branding efforts a waste of time if it is your primary goal. The only time branding should be used, in my humble opinion, is in the form of indirect branding. This occurs when you dominate every keyword phrase for your particular area of interest. To do this, you should create pages for every need identified for your prospects. When they see your listings over and over, your brand is established. Put another way, branding is a secondary benefit of your marketing, not the primary goal.

If you pursue this internet marketing approach, you should reach a point where you are earning significant revenues and little for marketing. Put another way, you are maximizing your profit margin, which should be the goal of every site owner.

Using Banners to market your web site

Banner advertising is on just about every web site you visit today. Banners are a form of advertising. This advertising is used to help pay for the site and help make the owner money. Regardless of the type of business or web site you have, you can use banners to help increase your income. The advertising revenue generated from banners falls into 3 groups: Pay Per Impression (PPI), Pay Per Click (PPC), and Pay Per Sale/Lead (PPS).

Pay Per Impression

With PPI banner advertising you are paid each time your advertiser’s banner is shown on your web pages. A term CPM is often used with banner advertising. It means cost per thousand, which basically means you will be paid $x.xx for every 1000 banners displayed to the visitors of your web site This is the easiest method to earn money with as every time someone visits your web site you get paid. However, this is not used very much and is very easily abused. If you have a 1000 visitors per day and are paid $5 per thousand then you make $150 per month. As an advertiser you do NOT want to use PPI. It would be like paying the newspaper or phone company money every time they said someone opened the newspaper or phonebook.

Pay Per Click

With PPC banner, you are paid more than with PPI but only when the visitor actually clicks on the banner rather then just seeing it. With PPI you many be paid $5.00 CPM (per thousand) and with PPC you could be paid $5 per click. However, not as many will click on the banner. Banner design has a lot to do with what we call the conversion rate. That is basically how effective is the banner. Conversion rates for banners is usually less than 1%. A very good banner may have a 5% conversion rate. Remember that is a passive income stream. It is working around the clock and requires no work on your part. So, if you have 1000 people a day coming to your web site and you have a 1% conversion rate with a payment of 50 cents per click, you could be earning $150 a month just for having the banner there. As an advertiser this is a little better than PPI. At least now the visitor is on your web site and you have a chance to gather information about them and possibly sell them your product or service.

Pay Per Sale/Lead

PPS banner advertising using pays the highest dollars of these three methods, but only generates income when the advertiser makes a sale to someone visiting from your web site It will have the lowest conversion rate of the three. PPS banners only work well for the web site owner if the advertiser does a good job with the banner design (creating a desire to click), selling (presenting information), and closing (getting the sale). None of these do you control directly. Selecting PPS advertisers for your site should be well thought out. As an advertiser, this is the preferred type of banner advertising.

Where to find advertisers

I think the best place to find people that want to place banner ads on your site will be the affiliate programs. This is also a good place for you to advertise that you would like to place banners on others sites as well. Read the pages carefully. Banners can be expensive if you don’t generate any sales.

If you have friends or business associates that you do business with you can ask them if they would like to place a banner on your site or if you could place a banner on theirs. These exchanges become more and more popular as your site becomes more popular as well.

A new source for banner ads are from the major search engines. Google Adwords are probably the best known new source for advertising on a pay per basis. This works both ways. You can pay to have your ad/banner placed on others sites as well as have other web site ads placed on your site. When your ad is displayed and someone clicks on it they will visit your site and you pay Google for the visit. When you allow Google to place ads on your site and someone clicks the ad, you get paid.

In the resource section of rd-webhosting.com you will find more information on using banners to market your website.

Using Classified Ads to market your web site

Classified ads are just like in the newspaper. They are small detailed ads that offer your product or services and provides a contact (your email or web site). A quick search on Yahoo for classified ads will find over 58,000,000 entries for sites and people who will either sell or place your classified ads on their web sites.

Classified ad sites fall into two categories: Free and Paid. Free sites should be avoided. BE CAREFUL… most free classified ad web sites. are farming your email address to sell to others. You will find you email box loaded with tons of offers and once it starts it will never stop. Paid classified web sites, however, can be like having a store in the world’s largest shopping mall for pennies a day in rent.

One of the largest classified ads web sites is…eBay. Think about this. For about 30 cents an ad (item to sell) you get listed for one week where over 1 million people a day come to shop. I have more information on eBay and other auction sites under Web Basics.

There are other forms of advertising as well. One of which we discussed before was newsletters. Others include, your email signature, banner ads, ebooks and affiliates. Each are discussed here. Click on the Marketing Resources to review each form of advertising.

This is part one of a multi-part series of Marketing you web site. Please visit us at rd-webhosting.com for the rest of the series. In the next section we will cover marketing you web site using email, e-books, letterhead and magazines. More information on marketing, website design and other areas of Internet Business can be found at rd-webhosting.com in our resources area.

With its global audience, the Internet provides a unique revenue generation platform with search engines. This is where your business will be made or thrown on the refuse pile.

Marketing on Search Engines &ndash Getting the Biggest Bang for Your Buck

Search engines are similar to the streets of a major city. Some search engines represent the major avenues where people congregate while others are more similar to back alleys where almost nobody goes or at least not the kind of people you want to meet in…a dark alley.

Cutting to the chase, your traffic generation efforts should focus on Google, Yahoo and MSN. These three search engines control the vast majority of traffic on the Internet. Not only do lots of people uses them to find things, the big three provide search results to many other search engines as well. For instance, Google supplies ads and search results for AOL. Dogpile compiles the various search results from the big three in its listings. Alta Vista uses Yahoo search results. This scenario is so expansive that the big three search engines are simply the only way to go. This means you need to focus on them to the exclusion of others.

When you focus on these sites, two approaches can be taken &ndash pay-per-click advertising and search engine optimization. Other forms of search engine marketing, such as banner ads, produce poor results and should be avoided. Let’s take a closer look at the big two.

Pay-per-click advertising [ppc] is platform whereby you pay for placement on a search engine. The two major ppc platforms are Overture and Google Adwords. Overture places ads on the Yahoo and MSN search engines. Google Adwords places ads on Google and AOL search results. Both platforms place ads on other search engines and sites, so you will see your listings appearing everywhere.

The advantage of PPC advertising is you get immediate traffic for your site. You can use the traffic to test the content on the site and whether visitors convert into paying customers. The downside is you are paying for traffic, which means you must pay close attention to your return on investment. All and all, PPC advertising should be used at the outset of a marketing campaign while you wait for optimized pages to get natural rankings.

Search engine optimization [seo] is by far the most effective way to go on the big three. Once you obtain top three rankings for a keyword, you receive more traffic than you would from ppc and it is all free! This does wonders for your profitability. If you can figure out seo on your own, your cost of marketing should eventually become your time and a few dollars a month for tools. This results in obscenely high profits margins. If you prefer to use a seo firm, your costs are going to go up significantly. Once the free traffic starts rolling in, however, you should get an excellent return on investment.

The downside to seo is it takes a lot of time and work. You can expect to wait up to a year for top Google rankings, although Yahoo and MSN rankings will appear much sooner. In light of this waiting period, PPC advertising is a must at the outset of a search engine marketing campaign.

Internet marketing is a fairly simple game. Focus on the big three search engines with a combination of ppc and seo efforts. Stick to these two and you should see good results.

The key components of an Internet marketing program include Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Paid Placement, Affiliate Marketing and Viral/Social Marketing. The goal of all of these is to increase a website’s traffic (number of people who visit) however each uses a different tactic to meet this goal. An effective Internet marketing program leverages a mix of these components to maximize their value at a particular point in the overall program.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an attempt to increase your website’s ranking in ‘organic’ (non-paid) search results in Google

In this article, we are going to discuss a major problems involving keyword selection for existing businesses. It is a simple mistake, but one most people do not think about.

Keyword Perspective &ndash Avoid This Mistake At All Cost

The two prime Internet marketing platforms are pay-per-click advertising and search engine optimization. The issue we are going to discuss today applies equally to either of these platforms as well as any other internet advertising you undertake.

The biggest mistake most businesses make with marketing is keyword perspective. Keyword perspective refers to the point of view one has when developing keywords for any type of Internet marketing. There are primarily two perspectives, but each only works with one audience. If you get them crossed up, you are in for a nightmare.

The industry perspective is usually the area where I see the biggest problems. Industry perspective refers to using industry terminology to develop keywords instead of using terms your prospects actually use. For example, a mortgage professional might view HELOC [home equity line of credit] as a keyword. Most prospects, however, are not going to search for this acronym. Instead, they will search for home equity line of credit or simply line of credit. When you are marketing to the general public, do not use industry terms. Instead, use the terms your prospects apply to your services or products.

The opposite of the industry perspective is found in the business-to- business field. If you are providing services or products to businesses, than you may very well want to use industry terms! If you sell medical equipment to hospitals, your prospects are going to be both sophisticated and using technical terms in their searches. They will search for medial collateral ligament isolation braces instead of knee brace. In the business-to-business scenario, use of laymen’s terms for keywords my kill your marketing plan before it gets off the ground.

Whatever your business, picking keywords is all about knowing your audience. Focus on terms your prospects actually use and you will have a good starting point for your marketing plan.