December 29, 2008 By

Affiliate Marketing During a Recession

It doesn’t take a genius to understand that the world is into one of the deepest recessionary slumps for the moment and it is going to continue this way for some time. But, it does take some brain storming to understand the business opportunities in this recession period. The emergence of click only companies has made brick and mortar companies suffer in their businesses and this has resulted in a decrement in their profitability.

So, the question springs up, what is the best business to be in now? Bet me on this, the answer is Affiliate Marketing.

This is the time where affiliate marketers actually can earn as much as they desire just because the payment depends on the performance. Also, the products being promoted can be ordered via online shopping which is actually a booming business presently.

The best of the reasons for online shopping catching pace is because it is a cost effective way and a competitive one as well. There have also been various polls being conducted which have emphasized the importance of affiliate marketing through SEO during the recession. There are various internet marketing strategies which can also be followed successfully.

Aojon describes it in one of his posts as -

When the market goes up, spend more on advertising.

When the market goes down, spend as much as you possibly can on advertising.

Few other strategies which affiliates should implement in times of recession to come out successful:

  • Target the niche users always helps as there increases the chance of a focused search by a prospective customer who is desperate and has the drive to generate sales for him/her and profits for you.
  • Increase in conversions and traffic also plays an important role and there comes in effect the role of proper promotional efforts for your product. It is worth remembering that this is a ‘numbers game’ and the more efforts you put in, the more numbers you get.
  • Focus more on PPC because there could be a decrease in the final sales of a product, but there would always be focused searches. So, the scope of earning money through pay per click should be well grasped upon.
  • Improve networking in these times with fellow bloggers, websites, community forums etc. as these people would be of help when the recession ends. On the recovery, you could be in a good position to capitalize on the surge in spending. Nevertheless, always keep in mind the target market of yours while interacting and making friends.

All said and done, it could also be the right time to change the design of your site and make it more attractive. Always remember, “Looks do Sell”. Also essential is to understand the fact that there cannot be a mercurial rise in the market conditions in the near future, thus it is time to focus and strategize in a better and effective way. Stress more on the volume which can be generated and keep a close eye on the present rends with the decline in spending all across the globe.

Implement these and I hope to see you smiling all through the recession.

Filed Under: Free Tips Tagged With: , , ,
December 26, 2008 By

The Future of Internet Marketing

As Market-Vantage aptly puts

Internet Marketing is the process of using the interactive technologies available via the Internet to further create a dialog with potential customers by connecting with them with good educational content about your company’s products or service offerings.

1 “Change” is the keyword of every practice and Internet Marketing has also evolved over the years. There has been a sudden burst of click only companies and the success shows that there are a lot of revenues that people have generated. The future of online marketing has been a hot debate topic for quite some time now, but nevertheless, it seems bright.

The online marketing business has grown by leaps and bounds and as this digital revolution keeps growing, the motive behind it has not changed one bit from consumer marketing. The motive has and will remain the same i.e. increasing awareness about your product or service, tracking potential customers and creating value for them. But without doubt, the approach has seen a sea change; be it the way we do business, the way we market, service , sell, communicate, distribute, and work.

The future of online marketing may have the following implementations;

  • There will be a transformation from static sites to personalized and dynamic sites which would more effectively enable actual e-commerce. Investment worth millions of dollars in an online business would not raise eye-brows.
  • Search Personalization, SEO, rankings and search results will have specially devised internet marketing strategies which will generate more revenue for both the client and the company. This would obviously mean new advertising methods being implemented for the success of the same. This would further result in diversification of strategies and focus on a combination of strategies and advertising models. The concept of 4C’s of Internet Marketing will actually be implemented.
  • The corporate citizens across the globe will operate in new digital marketplace wherein almost all e-commerce applications such as shopping, paying bills, entertainment, and banking everywhere will be dealt online. The harbingers of some of these applications have already been implemented in some developed continents.
  • The problems of spam, frauds, phishing scams and identity theft concerns will continue, but strict measures will be implemented. This would lead to a reduction in display of banner ads, PPC methods, click frauds etc. Another important concept will be the upsurge in information publishing and copyright of free copyright articles.
  • The achievement of Marketing ROI will become more difficult as there would be a plethora of similar services being offered by many sites. This would further result in increased competition which may go the unethical way at times.

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The future might also have many surprises in store when it comes to internet marketing strategies, promotional activities, functional specifications etc. but one thing is for sure, there seems to be very less saturation in the online marketing sphere in the few decades to come. Making money online would not remain a secret anymore and internet marketing would evolve to be something more than just another business tool. The internet and internet marketing would probably become more than “OUR LIVES”.

Filed Under: Free Tips Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
October 22, 2008 By

PPC Classroom Review – Affiliate Marketing With Pay Per Click

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A few days back I had the chance to really go through my copy of PPC Classroom, and the first thing that caught my eye is the wide range of PPC and keyword research tools available to members. Besides that the course looks great, and it was developed from the collective knowledge of Anik Singal and Amit Mehta, who generated over 2.4 million in affiliate commissions last year from PPC marketing.

One thing I noticed about PPC Classroom is that it’s not an “ebook” – all the content is presented via web pages protected by the members area. This way they integrate the text / audio / video parts very well. Once there, you can select the different modules via a drop down menu or go through them one by one.

  • Forward: Hitting the Tipping Point to Super Affiliate Success
  • Module 1 – Market Research
  • Module 2 – Keyword Research and Building a Killer Profit Pulling Keyword List
  • Module 3 – Direct Linking, Landing Pages, and Your Own Affiliate Site
  • Module 4 – How to Set Up Your AdWords Campaign Properly
  • Module 5 – How to Design a High-Converting Landing Page
  • Module 6 – Understanding the Google Quality Score
  • Module 7 – Launching Your Campaign… Do You Have a Dud, or a Winner?
  • Module 8 – The Importance of Split Testing and How to Do it Correctly
  • Module 9 – Bid Optimization Strategies

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You can also take the PPC Classroom quiz after c going through the modules, and view your scores. If you pass a certain score you’ll receive certification from PPC Classroom – this is the incentive they give their members to not abandon the modules.

I’ve dabbled with Google AdWords since 2003 when there were very few advertisers, clicks were cheap and the program itself was very straightforward. But ever since, AdWords has become ever so more complicated with the introduction on Landing Page Quality Score and other metrics that makes PPC though, and risky, for the absolute beginner.

However the allure of being able to set-up an ad, pay for some clicks, and make money before you go back home from work is what makes PPC so darn attractive. PPC is definitely something you wouldn’t want to learn from “trial and error” as every mistake you make costs you money. If you have no idea what to do, when to do it and how to do it, you’re going to lose more than just pocket money.

If you’re thinking of getting PPC traffic to your blog, as I mentioned in Super Affiliate Blogger, I highly recommend you get at least the basic PPC Classroom course. They also have additional videos and “Behind the Scenes Bootcamp” which you may want to get if you’re truly serious about PPC.

Overall, the way PPC Classroom is done gives me inspiration to revamp the way I sell and design my own information products. Great stuff.

Filed Under: Free Tips Tagged With: , , ,
October 20, 2008 By

Unique PPC / Keyword Research Tools

image Was going through the PPC Classroom material finally, and I found their range of keyword research tools to be awesome. I’ve been doing some PPC using Google AdWords for a long time now but I’m not a hardcore user like pure PPC affiliates are. I just relied on my trusty Keyword Elite to do most of the work, while I also use the Keyword Suggestion Tool.

I know that serious PPC affiliates always recommend more tools to get even more keywords and get an advantage over everyone else who just relies on the “common” keywords. But I never seemed to find any that I could understand and use easily.

But in PPC Classroom, I found several simple but effective keyword tools:

Keyword List Cleaner - Enter your list of keywords, and you can remove duplicates, whitespace and even convert keywords from/to uppercase or lowercase.

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Google Match Type Tools – Easily build Google "match type" keyword lists and negative keyword lists. Plus they have done all the hard work and listed tons of common negative keywords you can use for most campaigns. You can also generate exact / broad / phrase matching keywords.

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You wonder why AdWords doesn’t allow you to do this easily within their system?

Key Phrase Multiplier – Enter your primary and secondary keywords, and it generates a whole lot more keywords based on possible combinations.

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AdWords Ad Writing Tool – This is perhaps the most interesting tool of all – it helps you write AdWords ads easily. There’s a chose of Headlines, Ad Copy and “Power Words” that you can basically just select to create your ad, then fill in the blanks with your keywords.

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The problem with writing AdWords copy is that the space is extremely limited. So you tend to settle for words other than what you really want to use. With this tool you are presented with many synonyms you can use. It also tells you how many characters are left.

Typo Generator – Misspelled keywords are a gold mine, and although my trusty Keyword Elite does give me typo keywords, this tool allows you to specify what type of typos you want, such as:

  • "Missing Letter" will systemically delete letters from each keyword.
  • "Double Letters" will systemically double letters within each keyword.
  • "Reverse Letters" will systemically reverse letters within each keyword.
  • "Skip Spaces" will remove space between multi-word key phrases.
  • "Inserted Letter" will systemically add each letter of the alphabet within each keyword.
  • "Missed Letter" will systemically replace one letter from each keyword with each letter of the alphabet.

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PPC ROI Calculator – Enter your keyword cost data and your sale commissions as well as conversion rate, and it will basically tell you if the campaign is profitable or not. Good to roughly predict the profitability of affiliate programs you want to promote.

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Long Tail Keyword Generator – Most keyword research tools will not give you massive long tail keyword data. For example using this tool you can add colors, city / area names and other words before or after the keyword to create long tail keywords easily.

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Geo Keywords – Sometimes people go to Google but type in keywords to find information about their specific state or city only. This keywords lets you add those “geo” locations to your keywords.

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The basic idea with all these keyword tools is to create a massive keyword list, hopefully uncovering keywords that are not used by too many people yet. Then you would have a lot of clicks with virtually no competition.

PPC Classroom also comes with a full guide to AdWords / Pay Per Click advertising designed by Amit Mehta, who made over $2.4 million dollar in affiliate commissions last year with no list, no products and no website. From what I see, the information in there is really good plug it’s an “ongoing education” thin which means that they will be adding webinars, teleseminars and additional content from time to time.

I highly recommend you check out PPC Classroom.

Filed Under: Google AdWords Tagged With: , , ,