Adam Beazley’s Traffic & Promotion Blog

Automation is an odd creature. It usually seems, at first glance, that automating a process can make things easier, simpler and faster. But oftentimes, once an automated process is in place, trouble spots pop up. This is sometimes the case when looking at the copywriting aspect of Google’s dynamic keyword insertion tool.

In case you’re unfamiliar with dynamic keyword insertion (DKI), it’s a feature of Google’s AdWords program. It is often used for large campaigns in order to automatically insert the keyword into the headline of an ad. Truly, it’s a lifesaver for many pay-per-click (PPC) ad managers who have to stay on top of thousands of ads every day. It’s all done with a simple syntax command: {keyword:_______}.

From a timesaving standpoint, this is a wonder tool that has rescued PPC managers from the mind-numbing chore of typing the same keywords over and over. From an economic point-of-view, DKI *can* (not always) perform well enough to make it a viable option for largër campaigns. But what happens with regard to copywriting and eye tracking?

See It and Clíck It

The human eye is normally drawn to things that are unusual. Things that look out of place or different get noticed far more than things that blend in. For instance, on a page full of black text and black & white photographs, a small red square in the bottom corner will get focused on almost immediately. Why? Because it is completely different than everything else around it.

This same principle applies when considering your copywriting strategy for AdWords. When using DKI, you’ll want to keep your eye on the results pages. Why? We’ve all heard that using the keyphrase in the headline pulls better. It does. Most of the time. There is an exception, however. This exception is what you’ll be watching.

In fact, a study done last year by Enquiro, Did-It and Eyetools tracked users’ interactions with the Google search results page. It found that surfers normally reviewed the page in an F formation. They would scan vertically down the left side of the page and then over to the right (where paid ads are) *IF* something caught their attention. That’s the point we’ll explore in this article.

In order to get clicks, you first have to get seen. If your ad looks and reads like all the rest, you’ve completely lost your originality advantage.

See For Yoursëlf

Copywriting using DKI is a balancing act. You have to consider several factors, including the character count of your longest keyphrase, your ability to add text to the keyword-rich headline and how the ad looks on the page.

Take a look at some examples below. Remember that AdWords results show differently at various points throughout the day (and in relation to individual account parameters), so you may not see exactly what I saw when doing this research. I’m sure it will be close enough for you to get the idea.

Go to Google and type in the phrase “cruise vacation center” (without using the quote marks). See how all the ads look different? They don’t all have the same words bolded. They don’t all use the same copy. The bold words stand out because they are different. In this case, your eye will usually go first to the ads with bolded words in the headline.

You see ads offering a 6-night cruise for $xx.xx and other ads promoting X% off on a cruise vacation, etc. There is diversity and that’s a good thing.

Now, what if you type in “home improvement”? (Again, without the quotes.) If your results page looks like mine, practically every ad has the exact same headline: home improvement. Not only do most of the ads look the same, the headlines read the same. Your eye doesn’t know where to go because everything seems identical. But wait! About four or five ads down, something catches your eye. It’s an ad that has no bold in the headline. That stands out because it’s different! As you scroll further down the page, more ads with no bold in the headlines pop out at you. In this case, because everyone else has opted for the DKI feature, their headlines are all very similar, making them less noticeable. But the ones who wrote custom headlines won out, thanks to diversity.

Tips for Writing With DKI

If you want or need to write using the DKI option, consider these tips:
1. Use a descriptive word along with your keyphrase. Instead of just inserting the phrase “airline tickets,” place the word “discount” or “cheap” before your keyphrase to help it stand out.
2. For keyphrases that will take the entire 25-character limit, consider using one word of the keyphrase in the headline, instead of the entire phrase. Rather than “home improvement,” try inserting just “home” or “improvement” along with other text you write yourself.

3. Keep it applicable. Your headline still has to convey a strong message about what the customer can expect at your site.

4. Test & Track! Everything in advertising is subject to change. Smart marketers always test and track to get the best results.
With a little forethought, you can develop a combination of DKI and custom-written AdWords ads that drive qualified visitors to your site.
By Karon Thackston (c) 2006, All Rights Reserved

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Article Syndication, what is it; why is it useful and how can you use it to make money and build your business. These are the questions that will be answered in this article.

Article syndication is the process of submitting your written articles to different content websites. The purpose of doing this is to gain exposure for yourself and your business. You gain exposure when a webmaster likes your article and publishes it on their website. In doing so the webmaster is giving you free publicity by presenting you as an authority on the subject of your article.

The article will generally get placed on a higher traffic webpage on the site where the visitors can read and learn from it. It is required by the content publishing company that the webmaster leave your ‘Author Bio’ information attached to the article, which will effectively advertise you and your chosen website. This non-reciprocal link from your published article to your website serves multiple purposes. One it makes your website more popular in the eyes of the Google algorithm and two it drives targeted traffic to your website. The traffic is targeted because the person who just read your article is clicking on your link; this is done generally because he/she is interested in you and/or your business.

If done effectively, article writing and syndication can do wonders for your business. The usefulness of articles doesn’t stop at the benefits listed above. If you tailor your article correctly you can have it reach top rankings in Google and create multiple instant sales.

The key to getting your article to the top is by targeting certain keyword phrases. You don’t want to target the most used and most popular keyword phrases, instead you want to target less used keyword phrases. What you want to do is look for phrases that only have from 500 - 1500 results in Google.

To start you can research phrases with a handy little tool located here:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

This tool will allow you to input a popular keyword phrase and it will give you a list of related keyword phrases. You can use this to find keyword phrases that gets about 500 - 1000 queries per month. After you find a few good keyword phrase candidates, you can go to Google and check the current number of results. To do this you simply type the keyword phrase in “quotes” and Google will return the number of results for that particular phrase. Remember you are looking for anywhere between 500 and 1500 results.

Once you have your targeted keyword phrase, its time to write your new article. Of course your article will be based on the keyword phrase you are targeting and not only that but the title of the article will need to have the keyword phrase in it. Ill say that again, your article title needs to have the keyword phrase that you are targeting in it, preferably word for word.

Many people are lazy and are not going to write articles and that’s ok, but those people should definitely invest in a good ghost writing company to write their article for them. I use JustArticles and a special home business niche club in addition to writing my own articles.

Once you have your article or articles written, now its time to syndicate them to as many content sites as possible. You can do this by hand or with special software, I prefer to use the software (article submitter pro) because I can syndicate to about 700 sites in a few days instead of a few weeks. If you choose to syndicate by hand you can get a huge list of article directories through this link:
http://www.plug-in-home-business.com/freestuff.html

Simply following the instructions above will do wonders for your business, by getting your article published with your website link at the bottom. However, we are going to take this a few steps further to maximize our profit.

The secret is to embed links in your article body which point to products that you are selling. Not just any products will do, you should have products that directly relates to the article subject matter.

You can NOT embed links on every article directory site. You must read each article site’s ’submission guidelines’ before attempting to put in any live links in the body of your article, otherwise your article will not get approved. Some sites only allow text, some only allow certain types of html code, others allow 3 links in the body and still others do not allow affiliate links at all, so you have to read what you can and can not do. My advice is to submit your article no matter what, weather it has the links it or not.

The fact is most submission sites state that affiliate links are not allowed however they do allow you to link to your own site which can then redirect them to your affiliate product. If you have a website you need to make some redirect links, if you do not have a website then you can use usfreeads.com and redirect (checkbox) through the classified add that you would setup for each product.

To setup a redirect link simply follow the directions at this website:
http://www.macalester.edu/its/docs/howto/urlredirect/

You will need one redirect (name.html) page for each affiliate product that you are selling. Now its time to insert the links into your article using the a href=”" mce_href=”" tag to embed the link in a word. Be sure to save your article as a simple text file before you begin to code. It is a good idea to have a few different versions of your article on hand for each article directory. I usually save a text version, a light (3 links) html version, a heavy (<3 links) version and a full html version. This makes your submission time much more efficient, and you won’t find yourself coding and writing on each article content site.

When you take these lessons and put them into practice you are not only achieving long term traffic and better Google rankings, but you can potentially make some very quick sales.
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Adam Beazley
http://www.Plug-In-Home-Business.com

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How to Turn Your SPAM Into Cash

Spam can really be a good thing. I know most of you are thinking to yourself that I’m crazy, but I’m not. I have built a huge warm market and many affiliates from the information you are about to read. Spam can be good or bad it just depends on how you look at it.

Truth be told, spam just doesn’t work if you’re trying to build a home business. You might get a few new affiliates or sales from spam, but then you get busted and your hosting service cancels your account and you have to pickup shop, get another host, setup your bulk mailer and start all over again. This cost time and money which some spammers chalk up to “cost of business” but ultimately it’s just not worth it.

Knowing this simple fact is what makes your spam so valuable. Of all the spam emails that you receive there are plenty of potential clients; however there are more useless leads. The key is finding the diamonds in the rough, the people who really are trying to build an online business but obviously don’t know how. The emails to ignore are the vast majorities which are selling Viagra, Cialis, penis enlargement drugs and other similar products and services. I would also steer clear of any spam with pornographic content or you could get yourself on multiple spam lists which send nothing but pornographic material.

Now that you have found a few potential clients you need to really take a look at what they are offering. Don’t just send them an email advertising your affiliate program or product, because then you would be spamming. Take a look at what they are offering and really critique it. Look at the positives and negative aspects of their business and ask them questions. Ask them how they are doing, ask them what techniques they are using to advertise and network. Ask them about their business and compensation plan. Put all of these questions into an email and explain how you received their email and checked out their website and now would like a little more information. It is important that the email subject have the name of their business in it so they will likely open and read it.

Then you listen and honestly try to help them, this technique is not an advertising campaign it is a way of building long term business contacts. Who knows, their product or company might be something you need, or maybe you can synergize and work together so you can both benefit. The key is not to advertise to them, you must restrain and build the relationship first. You must give them something, weather it is help, guidance, free e-books or marketing tools that you have picked up, whatever it is just be sure to show them that you want to help.

Going back to my statement before, where I stated that spam is not profitable. This tells us that most of these people are willing to listen to other ideas and techniques that do work, and that’s where you come in. You should also be thinking about a back end product that can really benefit them, not just something you can sell to them and make the most commission on, I mean something that can truly help them. For instance you could offer them an alternative to spam, maybe teach them how to build an opt-in email list which is much more profitable in the long term than spam. Help them install an autoresponder or refer them to a good autoresponder company. Then maybe you can mention that you are an affiliate of a list building company where they can purchase some real leads. Or you can teach them about search engine optimization and give them some free information about linking, blogging and article syndication. Then let them know you are an affiliate of an article syndication automation website.

Do you get my point, get involved with their business and educate them on effective marketing strategies and feed them a back end product down the road. This is a very effective method of networking, if you can restrain from advertising to them and just give them information when they need it. By using this method on a continual basis you can build a great list of contacts that respect and listen to you, which of course will eventually lead to sales and duplication.

Adam Beazley
http://www.plug-in-home-business.com

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