Google Adwords to Drive Traffic to Our Website

Highly targeted traffic is one of the most important entities in the internet universe. Any website owner or administrator recognizes the importance of driving traffic to a website. The success of any website does not rely entirely on the site itself. We may have a terrific idea for a website, offer an excellent product or service, or have an exceptionally designed site with superb content, but if we do not use the right strategies to advertise, our site would not attract the high traffic we need. Attracting targeted traffic is a task that should be taken seriously for any site to succeed or make a profit. Fortunately, there are internet-marketing tools that help the website marketer to drive traffic to his website. One of the most significant, and effective, of these tools is Google’s Adwords. Adwords is one of Google’s advertising services.

How does Google Adwords work? Google is the largest search engine on the web receiving over 200 million queries each day through its various services. As Google is the most popular search engine today, webmasters are keen on having their websites achieve a higher ranking in the search engine results it provides. A high ranking can mean high traffic for that website. The search engine results page is also a great venue for advertisers to promote a product or service through ads and links. Consequently, Google launched its Adwords service, as a way for businesses to advertise products and services to a targeted audience. Google Adwords can guarantee instant traffic. In this service, Google displays relevant text based ads within its search engine results page termed as “Sponsored Links”. Whenever a particular keyword is searched on, these relevant links appear in a separate section giving excellent exposure to the sites listed.

How do we use Google Adwords? First, we have to open an account with the Google Adwords Service. Then, we should indicate our target language and country. This is important because we would not want our products advertised in countries where our product or service cannot be sold. Afterwards, we should now create an ad group. This involves designing the ad, selecting keywords and determining maximum cost per click that we are willing to spend and defining bid amounts. The most important step in creating a successful Adwords campaign is selecting an effective title tag that will catch the attention of our target audience. The title tag, generally a short phrase, is the most important part of our Adwords campaign so make sure that it is attractive and catchy. We should describe the website clearly and accurately. The most effective advertising conveys a clear message to the target audience. With a clear message, we will be attracting qualified leads, which can eventually convert to sale. Thus, the importance of selecting the right keywords cannot be overemphasized.

There are keyword variations we can adapt to reach more prospects. Using these varieties, misspellings and derivatives can help increase the chance of our ads being served. Broad match is targeting keywords in a loosely defined manner. Here, the ads appear based on the keywords that have been queried by other users as opposed to exact match, which calls for the keyword to match the query exactly. Meanwhile, a keyword phrase set to phrase match will only appear when the exact phrase is searched on. A negative keyword is helpful in filtering unrelated pages.

After we have decided on what title tag to use in our ad, we must now define a budget in order to maximize exposure. Google Adwords recommend a daily budget for each campaign. However, we should determine a budget that is suitable and affordable. We should also determine the maximum cost per click. Google will offer a recommended cost per click, but we do not have to stick with this. Usually, a number one position is not ideal as it can also attract unwanted traffic and useless clicks. A number two position is more preferred as it can filter useless clicks and provide traffic with a higher conversion rate.

To conclude, Google Adwords is an excellent strategy and tool in giving our site maximum exposure. Nevertheless, Google Adwords should not be our sole advertising campaign. It will definitely help we find the all-important, highly targeted traffic we need.

SEO for Affiliate Marketers

There are no secrets on how to rank high with the major search engines because effective search engine optimizations are now immense. What is search engine optimization? Before we discuss that thing, we have to understand first how search engines work and a bit of know-how.

Search engines are into providing their users with the most relevant and up-to-date information to match the search term that was used. They are sophisticated pieces of technology which allow users to quickly find relevant websites by searching for a word or a phrase. Search engine results are useless to users if the information doesn’t relate to the search term, or if the results are old. People expect the most up-to-date and fresh information that is useful to them.

Updating our website everyday and adding some materials will help us get noticed by the search engines. So, if we are going to sell any type of product or service online, we have to optimize our website for the search engines, in order to boost traffic and sales. It is because over 90% of our business will likely come directly from search engine results. And for that reason, it is absolutely important to optimize our site for search engines for us to have the greatest deals in the entire world.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process by which webmasters or online business owners utilize strategic copy to augment their website’s status. It is certain that the internet has grown so fast over the years and the competition for the best search engine position has created an enormous market. Therefore, better understanding the fundamental elements of Search Engine Optimization is vital for an online business’ success.

Making use of effective search engine optimization techniques will improve the page rank of our website. There are many tricks that can be used to increase page rank; the most effective method is to provide high quality content consistently. This seems like a simple concept but there are many websites that fails to provide content that visitors find interesting. Sites which provide content that are interesting, well-written and regularly updated create highly engaged visitors who are more likely to return to the website in the coming days. So, if we can set our website apart from those boring, lifeless sites then do it. We’ll surely have a step closer to achieving high page rank through search engine optimization.

The next significant factor for an effective search engine optimization is to include keywords and phrases within our content. To make sure that we are properly targeting our market, we have to make sure that the keywords and phrases we have on our site are the keywords and phrase that our site is actually optimized for. The more keywords we use in our content, the more likely it is that online visitors will find our site when they do some research with those words. If we are unfailing with these techniques, then our overall search engine optimization will increase, boosting our page rank.

We should also have to develop a linking strategy as a part of our search engine optimization. Not only does this provide free advertising for our site, but it makes the impression that our site is imperative because of its affiliated links. For each link that we have pointing back to us, that is another chance for our potential customer to find us. The more inbound links that we have pointing to our site, the higher we will be ranked in the search engines.

Another is to develop a content stratagem. People who get to search from the internet are looking for information. The more information we provide for them and the more helpful it is, the more likely we will make the sale. Writing articles is the most effective way to build up content for our site. When writing articles to post on our site, make sure that we develop a clear means of arranging their content. We can do this by simply adding a new page to our site. This will allow room for extra articles to be added as we write them, and will allow us to build up an archive of articles which will maintain to draw online visitors. Make sure also that we have included our archived articles in a directory that is next to the root web of our site so that the search engines will catalog our online articles.

Always keep in mind that search engine optimization methods are important in developing our site’s status. With that thing in mind, make sure that we write high-quality, keyword rich content and link our site to and from a deliberate family of other sites. These things will help improve our site’s popularity and coerce increased business through our online business.

Incorporate Adsense Into Affiliate Marketing

A lot of people are lured by affiliate marketing because it can be financially rewarding, even if we just stay at home. Affiliate marketing programs are best alternatives to those who are sick and tired of their arduous daily work just to climb up the venerated corporate ladder.
We don’t need products to sell, we just have to market them in our own web site and we don’t have to worry about processing the customers’ payments and the shipment of the products. If we are already into affiliate marketing, probably we were thinking about these benefits, too, before deciding to join an affiliate program.

Of course we want earn huge amount of commission. Who would not want it anyway? Keep in mind, however, that affiliate marketing cannot guarantee us instant success if we don’t work on it. There are a lot of ways of maximizing our income. The Internet is a huge library of information, use it to learn of other opportunities and ways to increase our income. We can partner with several merchandisers and promote different products in our website; thereby, increasing our chance to earn a commission.

The easiest way for us to rev up our revenue potential is by incorporating Google AdSense into our marketing campaigns. What is Google AdSense? What are its advantages? How can it boost my revenues? These are some of the questions we might want to ask. Let’s try to probe into Google AdSense, so we would know how it could help us in our affiliate marketing program.

Merchants place their ads in Google, which is one of the most popular search engines or tools for locating various resources in the World Wide Web. Now the Google AdSense program allows us to display these ads in our website and when our visitors click through them, we earn. The advertiser, which is the merchant pays Google for every click-through made by the customer and we as a partner of Google, gets a share from that payment.

What’s great about the Google AdSense is that the ads are relevant to the content of our web page. Most likely, visitors of our web site are interested on the theme of our site and specifically, on the content of our web page. So, seeing ads related to their interest would definitely drive them to click through the link or the ad. Using state-of-the-art technology, Google scans our web site and matches the content of our pages to their large database of advertisers; this way, Google is able to find ads that are targeted by the users of our site. In addition, Google changes the ads in our site as we change the content of our pages, so we can always expect the ads to be relevant to our site.

Having Google ads in our website is also a way of convincing our users to return to our site. Repeat customers multiply our income without having to exert extra effort to convince them again to click through our links. And our potential to earn doesn’t depend on them alone. Since we already have their confidence, they can be our endorsers as well. They could refer our site to family and friends who probably share the same interests with them.

Advertisers in the Google AdSense program range from large international brands to small-time domestic and local businesses, so the targeted market for the ads can range as well. This adds variety to our site; thereby, attracting different kinds of users. As we attract more users, we increase our earning potential as well. If we are targeting a specific nationality for our site users, don’t worry because AdSense can be used in different languages.

In order to boost our revenues through Google AdSense, we must pay attention to making web pages of high value topics. Make contents related to high-paying ads, so we can earn more. Some ads pay only a few cents while some ads pay us dollars just for a single click. We would need to do a little research on this so we can come up with a more relevant content. Join affiliate marketing forums and get tips from experienced affiliate marketers.

Becoming an AdSense affiliate marketer is easy and fast. We just have to apply online and once our application is approved, we can instantly set up Google ads in our site. All we need to do is copy and paste some codes in our web pages and in no time the ads will appear in our site.

Strike while the iron is hot! Take advantage of the favorable circumstances the Internet is offering us. Make the most of our affiliate marketing opportunities, use Google AdSense!

Step 01 - Set A Goal

Let's start with a modest goal. Say we aim to earn a total of $300 (US) a month in affiliate commissions and AdSense revenue. Imagine what we could do with that money. A holiday? A better lifestyle?

I've kept the amount low, because it's important that we believe we can do this. Achieve small successes first, see the money in our hands or in our bank account, and then increase our goals.

Perhaps we have much larger goals. That's OK. Whatever our goals, I strongly recommend that we serve our apprenticeship by taking these 18 steps. They'll give us solid knowledge and experience on which to build our affiliate business.

Step 02 - Find Your Niche

Read Ken Evoy's free Affiliate Masters Course and use the excellent advice in it to find a niche that suits us and our interests.

Print out the Affiliate Masters Course, find a quiet, comfortable spot and read it several times.

Spend a lot of time thinking carefully about this and jotting down notes. We're planning a business, so don't rush it. It's very important.

We'll probably avoid Internet marketing topics because that field is so overcrowded and competitive. It's much easier to succeed if you locate a less competitive niche.

Choose a topic that is easy to write about.

Even if we've already chosen a niche, we must to read the Affiliate Masters Course. It might make us change your mind.

We can follow your passion or chase the money. With luck – and a bit of keyword research – we may be able to do both.

Don't decide definitely on a niche topic until we've taken the next two steps...

Step 03 - Choose Profitable Niche

Do some research on Google AdWords and Wordtracker to choose the most profitable niche from among the ones we've chosen. Because we're planning to use AdSense, we want valuable keywords or key phrases, if possible ones that people are paying at least 50 cents per click for on Yahoo! Search Marketing and AdWords.

We're going to build a site the search engines love, so we also want to find key phrases that many people are typing into search engines. We don't realy on guesswork.

We must do this BEFORE we start building our web site. That's critically important.

Here's a useful free tool to using for quick, rough keyword research: pixelfast.com/overture/

Type in a phrase, for example, "hiking boots", click "Go", follow the instructions, and we can see how much advertisers are paying per click for that phrase on the Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture) network of web sites.

We can also see how many people searched for the phrase the previous month. For a number of reasons, this figure is often unreliable and can be grossly exaggerated. That's why I double check results using Wordtracker.

Wordtracker's free trial is fairly limited. Fortunately, they allow you to subscribe cheaply for a day or a week at a time. It's very fast, so you can do an awful lot of keyword research in a day. I use the annual subscription now.

Go to Google's AdWords and find out how much advertisers are willing to pay for the keywords or key phrases you're interested in. You can do that by playing around with Google's free Keyword Tool.

For example, try putting in a keyword or phrase, such as "recipe" and click on "Get More Keywords". Pretend you're willing to pay the maximum per click the tool allows - 100. (It won't work properly if you ignore this.) Over on the right side of the page, make sure that "Cost and position estimates" is selected.

The tool will calculate for you the estimated average CPC (cost per click) for a whole lot of words and phrases. Try entering a different word, say "debt" or "hosting", click on "Re-calculate" and watch how the CPC changes.

You don't HAVE to choose a topic which has expensive keywords. Often topics that have expensive keywords are very competitive. You may do better choosing a less competitive niche with cheaper keywords.

If you use Site Build It you'll find the brainstorming tool in it awesome to help you come up with ideas and phrases you wouldn't have thought of without it.

Beware: If you choose certain topics, Google will not allow you to place AdSense ads on your site and you'll miss out on a very lucrative opportunity.

Such topics include gambling, firearms, ammunition, balisongs, butterfly knives, and brass knuckles; beer or alcohol; tobacco or tobacco-related products; and prescription drugs.

For a full list of topics you may wish to avoid see: https://www.google.com/adsense/policies?hl=en_US

Publishers can choose to have their ads displayed only on Google or also on a large network of sites. Will AdSense ads you see on Google appear your pages? To get an idea, find web pages that have material similar to the content you're planning to create and look at their AdSense ads. You can also use AdSense's preview tool to see which ads are being displayed to people in different countries.

Step 04 - Research Affiliate Merchants

Do research to see if there are suitable affiliate merchants which match our topic.

We want ones that have excellent products, excellent reputations and sites that look as though they're good at selling. We can search the AssociatePrograms.com affiliate directory for ideas.

Consider aiming for lifetime commissions.

If we're lucky, we'll manage to select a web site topic that has affiliate programs which pay lifetime commissions or residual commissions – the sort reviewed in this directory..

We'll earn repeat commissions when "our" customers make more purchases.

Step 05 - Build A Useful, Interesting Website On Our Niche.

Create a content rich, keyword-rich site, designed to be found in search engines.
Show our personality. Have a bit of fun. Be memorable. We need to connect with our visitors. Remember that people like buying from people they like.

There's no space in this affiliate program tutorial to describe how to build a web site. For that, we'll need a good instruction manual.

We can hunt for free information on sites such HTMLGoodies.

We'll save yourself an enormous amount of time and frustration if you take the plunge and buy a good instruction manual written specifically for affiliates.

Here are the two best options:

• • For keen do-it-your-selfers, I recommend Rosalind Gardner's Super Affiliate Handbook.
    
    Rosalind is a real been-there-done-that super affiliate.
    
    Her instruction manual shows you how she builds very successful sites using web authoring software.
    
    It starts right at the beginning, discussing topics such as myths about doing business online, mistakes to avoid, how to choose the best topic, how to choose the right domain name, etc.
    
    The book, updated in May 2006, takes you step-by-step through the whole process.
    
    One particularly useful feature is her explanation of how she achieves high conversion rates (visitor-to-sales ratios), achieving conversion rates of 4% or 6% while most affiliates are happy with 1%.
    
    Another of the strengths of the book is her descriptions of a wide variety of ways to get traffic to your site. This is important - too many affiliates rely on just one or two traffic-generating methods. The more traffic-gemerating methods you have, the safer your business is.
    
    Rosaland is genuinely successful, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Now she's also a very successful author, with sales of more $1 million from her book, which is excellent value.
    
    When you learn from her, you're learning from a winner.
    
    Learn more about Rosalind's Super Affiliate Handbook here.
    
    
  • For affiliates who want to simplify things as much as possible and automate the tedious techie stuff, I recommend Ken Evoy's Site Build It (SBI).
    
    SBI is a site-building, site-hosting, site-promoting suite of tools, all in one place.
    
    Once you have SBI, you don't have to go scurrying all over the Net adding more tools and software. You have almost all you need in one package, so you can concentrate on the fun part – creating useful, interesting content.
    
    (Once you have SBI, the only addition you need to buy occasionally is a cheap, one-day subscription to Wordtracker. It's useful to double check the SBI brainstorming results against Wordtracker results.)
    
    SBI comes with a newly updated, truly comprehensive instruction manual, a step-by-step Action Guide.
    
    SBI is the tool I give my assistants.
    
    Ken Evoy's instruction manual is doing my work for me. First it taught Rupert and now it's teaching Ros how to build a high quality, successful, revenue-generating site.
    
    You could build a site without SBI, but using it saves you time and effort by simplifying the process.
    
    SBI teaches you how to optimize your web pages so they'll be found in search engines. After building a page, you click the "Analyze It" button and it tells you what you need to do to improve it.
    
    The SBI technique really works. Two of the SBI sites that Rupert built are included in the case studies on the SBI site.
    
    See the proof in the SBI case studies
    

Step 06 - Add Affiliate Links

As we write the articles for our site, weave affiliate links into them. Always have a typical visitor in mind as we write the articles. Speak to that visitor.

Our task as an affiliate is to help our visitor decide what to buy.

One successful technique is to gradually lead our visitor towards a purchase. Start by outlining a problem, discuss a good solution that has worked for us, and end the article with a link that is a call to action, such as a hyperlink that says, "Find out more here."

Our task as an affiliate is NOT to sell (that's the merchant's job) but to presell, to warm up our visitors. We want our visitors in a ready-to-buy frame of mind when they arrive at the merchant's site.

For superb advice on preselling, I strongly recommend we join Ken Evoy's 5 Pillar Affiliate Program. It's free to join.

Ken is an absolute whiz at preselling and he's renowned for working extremely hard to help his affiliates succeed. He has a superb program. It's been No.1 in my Top 10 for several years.

Step 07 - Place Adsense Ads On Our Site

Here's an excellent free AdSense tutorial.

If you have a good, popular site, it's remarkably easy to make good money with AdSense.
Do It so we will be happy....

Step 08 - Get Links

First, link to other sites. Choose sites that have similar or related themes, and invite those sites to link to us.

This is hugely important. Search engines love sites that have many links to them – especially if those links come from sites which are themselves popular.

Now we see why I said build a useful, interesting web site. If we do that, people are more likely to link to our site.

Here's an article describing how to get reciprocal links.

Step 09 - Anchor Text

You'll also need to understand the importance of anchor text, the words you use to link to pages on your site, the words people use when they link to your site.

To search engines, anchor text is very important.

We can find how anchor text can boots our search engine rankings in this link.

http://www.associateprograms.com/articles/17/1/Anchor-text-explained/

Step 10 - List Our Site In Mojor Directory And Niche Directory In Our Industry

We probably already know about Yahoo! (good but expensive), DMOZ (often takes months to get into) and Zeal (tricky to get into; for non-commercial sites).

Here are some more directories (some charge a fee):
Gimpsy
Skaffe
Joeant
GoGuides
Business.com
SevenSeek
ThisIsYourYear
Looksmart (probably too expensive)
BlueFind
WowDirectory
Best of the Web
GeniusFind


Guides to web directories
David Mahler has a Guide to Web Directories. It's a good list of recommended web directories.

Here's another list: http://www.strongestlinks.com/directories.php


How to find niche directories:

• Go to http://www.associateprograms.com/searchit (It's a very handy free research tool.)
• Scroll to the Search Category, "Specialty Hubs and Directories"
• Choose one of the 4 options in STEP 2
• Read the "Click Here for Information..." help before proceeding
• Complete STEPS 3 and 4, and then click on Search It!
• Read the tutorial. It tells us what to do with the search results
• Get our search result. We should be able to find relevant, themed hub sites and directories which will list our site. Some charge a fee, some are free.

Step 11 - Write Article

Write articles and distribute them to article directories (fairly easy) and try to persuade newsletters and other sites to publish them (more challenging). This step isn't absolutely essential, but it helps enormously if we do it. Now we understand why it was so important that we chose a topic that was easy to write about.
If like the topic we will not bored to write about it.

Step 12 - Add More Pages And Get More Links

Keep adding useful, interesting, keyword-rich pages (we do research at Wordtracker for this) and keep encouraging more sites to link to our site. Remember..... google or the others search engine love the fat and rich site, don't let our site skinny.... :D

Make friends with other web site owners, and more people will link to you...

step 13 - Be Patient

Be patient.......!!!!
If our new site is typical, nothing much will seem to happen for the first couple of months or so, and we'll probably become frustrated and find it hard to believe that this is going to work.

We're likely to feel annoyed, cheated and ready to quit. We're likely to be a prime target for people selling get-rich-quick junk.

Many affiliates give up at this stage. Stick with it. If we're persistent and get the details right, the process I'm describing works beautifully.

Learn something new every day. Do something to improve our business every day. If we do that, success is inevitable.

Step 14 - Expect To See Sign Off Success

Eventually, because of all the links to our site on other sites, Google, Yahoo! and MSN will find our site and start sending us traffic.

Perhaps around the three-month or four-month stage we'll be receiving 100 visitors a day. Visitors will like what they see and some site owners will start linking to us and asking us to link to them.

Keep at it. We're just getting warmed up.

Step 15 - The Payoff......

About six months down the road, after little expense but quite a lot of hard work and research, we hit our magical $300 a month mark, from affiliate sales and from AdSense ads on our site.

Depending on the niche we've chosen and the skills we've learned, we might earn considerably more than $300.

Perhaps after 12 months, you'll be earning $500 to $1,000 a month from our site.

The checks keep coming in, month after month, even when we take a little vacation. We start telling friends how easy affiliate marketing is, and are puzzled when they're not convinced.

Of course, it's not really easy. It just seems easy after we've done the hard work.

...or the NON-payoff

If we've merely scanned the instruction manual and jumped right in without doing any research and built a "Make Money on the Internet" site, we'll probably earn very little. A search on Google for "make money" displays more than 4 million pages. If one of those is us, we have a LOT of competition.

If we did this and it isn't working for us, go back to step 1 and start again.

Step 16 - Tweak Our Site

To boost our conversion rate (our visitor-to-sales ratio), try little experiments, one thing at a time.

Try changing the heading on a page, the words, the colors, the placement of our links. With each change wait until about 1,000 visitors have seen the change, and monitor our affiliate commissions to see if they rise or fall.

We do this because we understand that if 1% of our visitors are buying and tiny changes boost our success rate to 2%, we'll DOUBLE our commissions.

Step 17 - The Future

When we reach our goal of $300 a month, we wonder whether we should expand our site, perhaps adding a newsletter, an autoresponder course or two, a forum, RSS newsfeeds, a blog, a whitepaper, a report to sell ... and turn it into a portal. We dream big. Perhaps we even start dreaming of having our own affiliates promoting your reports for us...

Or perhaps we just research another little overlooked niche and start on our next simple little, low-maintenance money-generating site.

The $300 a month target is very conservative. If that's all we earn, we've done something "wrong". We haven't chosen profitable keywords carefully enough, We haven't built enough attractive, keyword-rich pages, We haven't learned the basics of optimizing pages for search engines, or We haven't attracted enough good quality links to our site.

That's the wonderful thing about this business. Weou can make lots of mistakes and still earn useful money. Just don't make TOO many mistakes :D

Step 18 - Take The First Step

That's the one that matters most.

I suggest we go back and read through this affiliate program tutorial again, and again, and again............ and again. Until we sure that we already take right steps.

Picture ourself owning a successful Internet business. Picture ourself opening letters and finding checks in them.

Imagine enjoying ourself spending the money, perhaps even giving up our day job so that wecan concentrate on our own business.

Now take the first step.

Affiliate Bussiness Online

Affiliate marketing is an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts.

Affiliate marketing is also the name of the industry where a number of different types of companies and individuals are performing this form of Internet marketing, including affiliate networks, affiliate management companies, and in-house affiliate managers, specialized third party vendors, and various types of affiliates/publishers who promote the products and services of their partners.

Affiliate marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, and in some sense display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner.

Affiliate marketing—using one website to drive traffic to another—is a form of online marketing, which is frequently overlooked by advertisers. While search engines, e-mail, and website syndication capture much of the attention of online retailers, affiliate marketing carries a much lower profile.