Global Business Builders Blog

Without strong keyword research, your Google Adwords Pay Per Click advertising will fail.  But, finding the right keywords to use in Pay Per Click advertising can be a confusing task.  There are so many avenues to explore, and so many tools that proclaim themselves as being perfect for the job.  But, keyword tools can fall short.

Keyword tools are important, but they are just a tool and don’t do the thinking.  We must do the thinking to get the right keyword research approach.  Then, keyword tools can be used to support the research directions our thoughts and understandings have led us to.

Not that keyword tools aren’t worth using, they are.  But what’s more important is to use your own thoughts to getting into the “keyword conversation” in your target visitor’s mind.  What is the problem they are trying to solve?  What forums discuss their issues and what is important to them.

I talk more about the benefits of this different keyword approach to finding great keywords on the Global Business Builders website.  Here is the link to the Best Adwords PPC keywords.  Ultimately, the best Pay Per Click campaigns are created from the best keyword research approach.

Affiliate programs are one of the most powerful marketing tools for building revenue. For the merchant, it is a chance to grow sales with no risk.  Why is it said “with no risk?” Because your affiliates are not paid until a sale is made. This is the total “pay for performance” model that business owners crave.

For the affiliate, it is a chance to flex his or her marketing muscle and make sales with unlimited commissions.  An affiliate is happiest when a good product or service exists to which their innovative techniques can be applied, and for which they are greatly rewarded.

The use of Affiliate Sales programs, also known as “reseller,” “partner,” “publisher” or “associate sales” programs, are taking the top position for an internet marketing sales channel.  Affiliate Sales are one of the primary reasons Amazon.com pulled into profitability with the launch of their affiliate program in 1996.

Learn more right now about the phases of launching an Affiliate Program with our Complete Affiliate Program Services .

Keyword research is a critical part of our Adwords Management Pay Per Click Services.  In order to develop an effective keyword research campaign, we go broad and deep.  Some of the questions to help develop a great broad and deep keyword list include:

• What are the broad and specific types of products or services that you sell?
• Who are some of your competitors?
• How are your products or services different from your competitors?
• What is your Unique Selling Propostion?
• What are successful keywords you are using right now in PPC campaigns?
• What are the keywords you use on your website? In your marketing literature?
• What advertising are you doing now?
• What is some of the internet buzz or currents trends about the industry you are in?

Going through questions such as these can help in coming up with the hot keywords that make sales for your product or service.

Global Business Builders

Often, I get asked what are some of the major methods for getting traffic to a website. This is very important because you want your site to be seen and to get traffic.  But you want quality traffic for major keywords that are relevant to your product or service.

The term Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) describes this method of getting your site visibility to your customers.  It involves getting high search engine ranking, preferably front page placement in the search results, for targeted keywords.  In SEO there are 2 major important factors involved:

1. On-page optimization with meta tags and internal website anchor text links
2. Off-page optimization with
- Quantity of incoming links
- One way anchor text links to your site is being used
- Domain power of the sites with your links (also called “authority” of the linking sites)

As you noticed in the 2 points above, link building is key.   Some methods for building links include
article marketing, blogs, press releases, getting listed on important web directories, etc.

So, that is a short look at SEO.  It’s a long term but is a major tool in website promotion.

Enjoy your holiday!

Affiliates put their efforts out there, and usually their money too, before anything is returned to them. This makes them very selective and diligent to scout out a good offer. Here are some of the features that are important to affiliates:

• Great sales copy and professional website
• Affiliate marketing tools: banners, links, sample landing pages
• Good Payouts and Reliable payments
• Some merchants offer data feeds with product pictures, descriptions and availability
• Attractive offers
• Good relationships with the merchant or affiliate manager
• Articles, videos or other “viral” marketing material

Established networks can provide merchants with peace of mind and speed of implementation (speed to market).  Sales tracking, payout software and economies of scale savings make an existing network the first choice for many merchants. Also, an existing affiliate virtual sales force can be very compelling.

Here is a more detailed look at the top reasons an affiliate network can be attractive to a merchant:

• Affiliate management staff:  this staff knows the ins and outs of setting up and running a successful campaign. These professionals can help you avoid difficulties and can become key to growing your sales success.  Often, affiliate managers can help you with your offer and with getting affiliates interested.
• Software for tracking sales and commissions. Complete with link tracking and detailed reporting information. Payouts and paperwork filing (such as 1099s) are also handled by the networks.
• Networks have existing affiliates.  Affiliates are available and motivated to helping make sales. Also, affiliate payouts are only made when a sale is made, a very low-risk sales model to the merchant.
• Many networks help with credit card and transaction processing, thereby eliminating the need for the merchant to attain a merchant account.  ClickBank is an example of a network providing this service.

Long Term Traffic and sales techniques:
Sure, PPC programs like Google AdWords are great places to BUY traffic on the Internet, but while those strategies are at work, the next place to work toward are the techniques to get traffic longer term without paying for it…
Search Engine Optimization techniques: SEO is the method of getting traffic from search engines by  appearing high in the search engine results for targeted keywords. The higher - and more often - a website shows up in a search result, the more visitors will visit that site. SEO is a top strategy for longterm traffic to your website. It can take 6 - 12 months, or longer, to reach some of the top placements on the search engines.  Below, some of the techniques for SEO are discussed:
• SEO using website Keywords: Within your website, emphasize the keywords you want to be indexed with on the search engines. This is done using your keywords in the Title tag of the website, the Meta description and keywords tags, and by repeating your content at the beginning and throughout your website.
• SEO using Link Building techniques: What is done off of your website is tremendously important to your website’s Page Rank and Search Engine Placement. Offsite content building, directory submission and other techniques which will build back links to your site - demonstrating your site’s importance to the search engines.
• Article Marketing: Another off-website method for building back links to your site and increase your site’s relevance and importance to the search engines. Starting a viral article marketing campaign is a great way to get traffic, you will need to create an article generating machine to give this strategy the time needed to faithfully write/acquire articles and distribute them to websites and editors on a regular basis.
Other long-term traffic strategies that also give links to your site and build importance with the search
engines:
• Social Media Marketing: Pre-sold traffic to your site! MySpace, Scribd or other social media sites can get your customers familiar with your business, your ideas and thoughts, and win trust with potential customers. When that trust is created, they often become sold before going to your website. This important strategy also builds the natural ranking and search engine placement of your site.
• Press Releases: Let everyone know your big news! Great for announcing your latest products or services, special offers, or other newsworthy events. Establish your brand and get customer mindshare. We will discuss your activities and draft articles to be submitted upon your
approval. Our expertise is in knowing how to do it and what to avoid!

• Blog Marketing and RSS feed: A Blog (coming from the word “Weblog” usually shortened to blog) is a sequential discussion of a topic or topics usually showing earlier ones first. Why is it important to your business? The blogging websites where your business topics are posted and discussed have great traffic which can be directed to your website. Also, the search engines give importance to your website if these articles are written with a certain structure. Setting up a blog and RSS feed is a solid strategy, but can be a lot of work.
• Utilizing viral traffic networks such as Traffic Swarm can bring lots of traffic to any site. This is recommended to get long term traffic for free. The effectiveness of any such “traffic network” typically converts into sales at a lower percentage than traffic that comes from sources such as search engines, articles or personal recommendations, but is still very worthwhile.
Start your own affiliate program:
• Create your an Affiliate Program for your product/service: Have you considered taking advantage of affiliate marketing to sell your products or services? Add affiliate marketing and create a virtual team by tapping into the hundreds of thousands of people selling products and services as affiliates. This is the marketing wave sweeping the Internet and delivering results with no payout until sales are made!

Traffic Right Now techniques:
After the website is up and submitted to directories and search engines, the Internet Marketing/PPC activities would be the best next step for the short-term to get traffic right away. Realize, though, that once the PPC campaigns stop, often so does the traffic. Here are some of the tools of Internet Marketing/PPC.
• Pay Per Click and Search Engine Marketing: Setting up and promoting with a Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising campaign can bring immediate traffic to your website. Promote your products and services on some of the highest traffic sites on the Internet: search engines, social media sites with high traffic, etc…
• Email Marketing: Still a very powerful tool to those who have opted in to receive special offers.
• Banner Advertising: Run ads about your products or service. There are advertising options across the entire Internet.
• Video introductions or animation about your site, placed on other sites. How about a personal greeting to your potential customers? Pictures and words can tell and sell like nothing else!
Encourage repeat visits:
• Add a newsletter to your website to capture names and emails from visitors.  Building customer lists allows you to communicate with visitors and turn them into customers.  Studies have shown that many visitors will visit your site more than 4 times before they buy.
• Forum or discussion areas on your site: Forums can be a powerful tool for letting the visitor interact and spend time on your site. This can get visitors to stay and visit your website longer.
• Contests or Special Offers: Ever won anything? Doesn’t it feel great to win contests or get something free. This strategy, done the right way, can bring great traffic and can result in great sales.

What questions are asked, what is the information we need to know about finding markets? The more
you know about the specific questions you want answered, the better shape you are in. We will provide insights to the questions of when, where, who and what, and why people buy.
OK, now on to the tips…
1. Stay focused with your product or service. Perform research to determine the specific target market for your products or services. What is being sold and to whom and for how much. The key is to stay focused on what you are selling, don’t try to diversify too broadly.
2. Who is the customer? What are their preferences? When, where and how do they typically buy? Learn your customer and their emotional buttons for making purchasing decisions. Market Research resources for this type of information: http://www.census.gov/ or http://www.uschamber.com/sb/default.htm
3. Do you need to obtain a general feel for how key target buyers think about your product/service
category and its various types of items, brands, and buying occasions? If so, talk to your potential customers and clients. What issues are troubling them? Why do they buy? What is their motivation? Ask yourself, “How might their answers impact my online business or be an opportunity for my online business?”
4. Ask yourself, where will you position your online business in the market? How do you want to position your product or service in order to create a Unique Service/Product Offering?
5. Best Sellers. Do a search on best sellers. Many e-commerce sites have a special section discussing their best sellers. Here is eBay: http://product-index.ebay.com/best_selling_1.html .
6. Learn the Pay Per Click costs of the keywords related to your product or service. For this you will need a Google AdWords account, or some other tool that utilizes Google data to learn how much it costs for keywords you want to use for your product or service.
7. Experiment and test. Launch an Email campaign or a PPC campaign to experiment and test your market. At one time, huge companies, statistics and bank accounts were needed to learn about markets before any launch was done. Just think about companies who used catalogues and direct mail, who had one shot to make it rich because a mail out cost BIG money. But, nowadays, an email or PPC campaign is VERY affordable.
8. Do a search on “Free” plus your product or service. Be careful not to start your business selling products or services that are offered for free. This is sometimes overlooked, but all the excitement and passion in the world won’t get people to buy if the product/service is available for free or at a very low cost.
9. Build an online business and progressively grow it in the direction that shows promising market potential. Create a directory website. Then, expand your website and promote affiliate products or services. Next, you can grow your website into a content site with specific categories and move up to selling drop shipped products.
10.Keyword Research. Utilize search engine data to see how often and in what combinations people are searching for your product or service.
11.Start multiple sites. Maybe start a niche site, an affiliate site, and a content site all together and learn which one is the most rewarding.
12.Who is the competition? Enter the product or service in a Google search and see how many webpages come back. What are they selling, specifically? When, where and how are they selling and to whom? Take a look at how many sponsored ads are running for that product or service.

13.Look at what is reviewing well in magazines, comparison sites, social media sites (such as Digg, Technorati), and on blogs. Great reviews will mean the product or service has a good potential and probably a good future!
Global Business Builders, LLC
www.gbizbuilders.com