February 25, 2011
When you’re advertising with Google Adwords, you need to pay extremely close attention to your competition. It is possible that you could start advertising on this popular advertising medium and be shocked at the expense of the costs per click.
So here are a couple ways you can determine what you’re up against before you launch your first campaign. This will give you a huge advantage and enable you to adjust your strategy if the clicks are too high.
1) Type in your main keyword into Google.
Simple enough right? What you need to do is count the number of competitors you have for that keyword. It could range between 6 and 66.
You see, in order to be on the first page of Google, you need to be within the top 1 to 8 or 11 best ads on the page.
Regarding what is considered “best”–Google will take into account your bid price, clickthrough rate, and quality score. So it’s not neccessarily the highest bid that wins out when it comes to Google Adwords.
2) Go to www.spyfu.com and estimate what everyone is bidding on your site.
This is a really neat technique you can use to see what everyone else is paying per click for your target keyword.
This website will also let you know who is bidding on these keywords.
Keep in mind this is only an estimate. You will not know for certain until you start bidding on your own campaigns.
If you find that the click costs are too high, you will need to use less competitive keywords. You can do this by going to www.wordtracker.com and choosing keywords that are targeted for your niche–but are lower in compeition.
You can also change your offer, add a couple of upsells, and tweak your copy so you get more conversions. You see, Google Adwords is all about constantly testing and tweaking–but once you find the right combination you’re golden!
Keep Selling!
Sean
Sean McPheat
Internet Marketing Academy
February 16, 2011
One of the biggest mistakes most Internet marketers make is they don’t realize what is going through their prospect’s mind when they are surfing online. You have to really delve into what your prospect is thinking about at the time they come to your website when you’re trying to make money online.
This blog post will give you a good profile of the typical prospect. Keep this in mind when you are writing your ad copy.
1. Your prospect has tons of distractions!
When your prospect is online, they are experiencing a lot of distractions. Among these distractions includes endless pop-up windows, e-mail notifications, and instant message alerts.
In other words, there is a lot of chaos going on online when your prospect comes to your website. They have tons of distractions and your sales message has to cut through all that in order to get their attention.
2. Your prospect has a lot of problems going on in their life.
Today, people are being bombarded with all kinds of challenges. This includes financial, health, and future concerns. Most people work in jobs they hate and basically do not go out and meet interesting people or go to interesting places.
Your website has to be the most exciting message they have read all day. Assuming you target that prospect’s hot buttons, you will be able to get their attention, and perhaps turn them into a customer.
But none of that will work if you do not realize your target prospect has a lot of problems going on in their lives and are constantly distracted.
3. Your prospect is being bombarded with advertising messages constantly.
We live in an over-advertised society. There are advertising messages attacking us via billboards, television, radio, and storefronts. It is literally impossible to escape this.
You have to realize this when you create your advertising and website. Your prospect has probably been pitched tons of times before they see your website. So you have to make sure that the advertising message on your website cuts through all the noise in your prospect’s life.
So keep these three tips in mind as you construct your website. Knowing what your average target prospect is going through, and what you’re up against, will help you create a website that will grab your prospect by the lapels and force them to read your ad.
Live, Love, Laugh!
Sean
Sean McPheat
Internet Marketing Academy
February 15, 2011
In my last post, we went over 5 Google Adwords ad-writing tips that could boost your conversions. They are what any person who is fluent in Adwords should be familiar with.
Now we are going to cover 5 more tips that could boost your profits with Google Adwords. So let’s get started!
1) Are you taking full advantage of the space Google gives you in each line?
In general, the more you tell, the more you sell. You do not want to shortchange yourself by not filling in the entire space Google gives you to sell the click. So make sure you utilize all the space Google gives you.
2) Are you listing the benefits first?
Many times people will put the features of a product first. This is not the way to do it. You need to put the benefits first as people want to know what the product is going to DO for them. There are exceptions to this rule, but there aren’t many.
3) Is your display URL relevant to what your searchers are looking for?
Your display URL is also a piece of copy. If you have an obscure URL, it’s not going to connect with the audience. Try sending your traffic to a domain like, “www.datingsecrets.com” so that people will know what they are clicking on when they see your ad.
4) Are you testing capital vs. lowercase letters to see what gets the best clickthrough rate?
This is important. Sometimes having capital letters can boost conversions–and sometimes they cannot. You never know until you test what is going to convert the highest.
5) Are you playing to your hunches?
Sometimes when you’re in the shower and playing with the kids, you could be thinking of new ad copy for your Adwords to test. Always be thinking of new ideas during your idle time–it could mean boosting your clickthrough rate for your Adwords ads.
So make sure you implement these Adwords ad-writing secrets into your marketing arsenal. You could conquer Google Adwords and bring more income to your business!
Keep Selling!
Sean
Sean McPheat
Internet Marketing Academy
February 9, 2011
Google Adwords can be intimidating to some people. But like anything else in marketing, you can easily master it if you know certain tricks to working with this critical pay-per-click search engine.
Here are 5 things you need to keep in mind with creating your Google Adwords ads:
1) Are you entering into the conversation going on in your customer’s head?
Frequently when people write Adwords ads, they do not spend a lot of time analyzing where their customer is coming from when they enter their search term. For example, some keywords are obvious “buying” keywords and others are just general “searching” keywords.
Generally, the more specific the keyword, the greater the chances that visitor is going to buy from you. And the ad copy needs to match.
2) Are you bidding on longer phrases, e.g. “how do I stop chewing on my fingernails?”
Frequently, the keywords you should be using might not appear in your favorite keyword tool. Long-tail keywords are those you’ll need to think of when you’re brainstorming what your target market would type into a search engine.
3) Are you trying to “beat your control” by rotating at least 2 ads?
This is critical to constantly ratcheting your conversions higher and higher. You never want to only run 1 ad, as the advertisement that’s going to double your conversions could be on the top of your mind.
4) Are you reading your ads out loud to yourself to see if they have a good flow?
A good ad is conversational and should not sound “awkward” when you read it out loud. Fine tune any advertisement that doesn’t read right when you read it to someone out loud.
5) Are you always keeping a close eye on what your competitiors are doing?
You need to be constantly monitoring your competition, as they could bid higher than you, or change their ad–thus jumping higher than you on the page. All of this can happen in the matter of minutes and you need to be abreast of your competition at all times if you’re going to survive the PPC game.
Those were 5 tips you need to be implementing in your Google Adwords campaigns. Tomorrow I am going to reveal 5 more so stay tuned!
Live, Love, Laugh!
Sean
Sean McPheat
Internet Marketing Academy
February 1, 2011
One of the biggest mistakes most beginning marketers make is choosing the wrong market. They have a hobby or interest they want to pursue but when they launch their product, they don’t make any money.
In my previous blog post here, we touched on the importance of search volume in Google and what those numbers really mean regarding whether or not people are going to actually pull out their wallet and buy something.
In this post, we are going to cover the 5 traits of a strong market. The best part is it only takes a couple hours or so to research all this to determine if your market is viable.
1) Are there real people selling real products in your market?
Find this out by going to Google and typing in the keyword for your niche. You should be seeing a lot of Google Adwords on the right hand side of the page. This is a sign that there is a good market–as most people are paying good money to advertise on Google.
2) Are there affiliate programs in your market?
Another technique to determine if there are buyers in your market is to type in your keyword followed by the word “affiliate”. This should bring up affiliate programs in your marketplace–a sure sign that money is to be made in your market.
3) Are there books on your subject being sold on Amazon.com?
Do a simple search on Amazon to determine if there are books in your niche. Better yet, go to your local bookstore. Are there a lot of them or only 1 or 2? This could be a sign that the market might not be as strong as you think.
4) Are there periodicals in your market?
An almost slam-dunk way to determine if there are buyers in your market is to determine if there are magazines or periodicals in your marketplace. The fact that people are willing to pay money to have a periodical sent to their door is a sure sign that market is ready to buy!
5) Are there advertisements in these periodicals?
When you look in magazines, is it full of direct response advertising? If this is the case, you will want to make note of that–as a sure sign of a vibrant market is seeing direct response advertising in offline periodicals.
Now not all markets are going to fulfill this criteria. However, if you have an idea and you come up blank in all of the above for your market, you better choose a new one!
Keep Selling!
Sean
Sean McPheat
Internet Marketing Academy
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