Steve Wagenheim’s Home Business Blog

There is no doubt that Google is really dropping the hammer on AdWords users. It’s all about the end user experience, as it should be. So what’s ultimately happened is that PPC users have found that their squeeze pages have been getting bitch slapped all over the place. Surprise, surprise. Anyway, this prompts the question, “Are squeeze pages for AdWords a dead duck?” The simple answer is, yes, they are. Kiss them goodbye. If you use them, you will get slapped into last century. Question number two is a little more complicated to answer. If this IS the case, what do we do about it? Keep reading to find out. You’re NOT going to like the answer.

Ultimately, Google has decided that it’s sick and tired of Internet marketers who slap together these crappy sites and call them content. Squeeze pages are now looked at as nothing more than email collectors. And they want nothing to do with them. Think I’m kidding? Go put up a squeeze page and see how long it takes before it’s pounded into dust. Google wants content, plain and simple. REAL content.

So, if you want to compete in the AdWords game, this is what you are now going to have to do. You’re going to have to build something very close to an authority site on your subject. You’re going to need a home page, a page with content, a contact page, and maybe even an FAQ page. Anything you can think of to add to the site to make it look like the big boys…do it. Okay, great, but then how do you get your opt ins if that’s ultimately what you’re after?

Well, you’re going to have to do what I do with my sites. At the end of your articles, or whatever content you offer your target market, you’re going to have to have some kind of resource box or blurb that says something like, “If you’d like more information, go to…” and then give them the URL of your squeeze page which MUST be different from the main domain you’re using. This way Google will be content with the end user experience that you’re giving your visitors.

Will this lower your opt in rate? Yes. Will this make your AdWords campaign more costly? Yes. Will this make using AdWords less desirable? God I hope so. See, the truth is, you don’t need Google to make money. PPC costs are insane as it is. And with Google putting down the hammer on just everything that actually WORKS for Internet marketers, it almost makes no sense TO use them. But by all means, knock yourself out if that’s what you want.

There ARE better ways.

To YOUR Success,
Steven Wagenheim

Sick and tired of getting slapped by Google? Want a better way to promote your affiliate products or even your own products? Get a hold of my Affiliate Assassin at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/affiliateassassin/index.html, promote your products at absolutely NO cost, and tell Google to kiss your backside.

I cannot believe the amount of misinformation that gets passed around in regard to PPC advertising. Just recently, somebody started a thread on PPC claiming that direct linking was not dead because on their first day, they made about $200 and change. Well, I have a news flash for your PPC folks…enjoy it while it lasts because it’s not going to last long. I’ll bet my whole bank account on it. This article is going to explain why.

Let’s start off with explaining just what direct linking is for those who aren’t sure. Direct linking is sending a prospect directly to the merchant’s sales page whether it be via an affiliate link (this is really a no-no) or by a redirect domain. Don’t think that because you’re buying a domain and forwarding it to the sales page that you’re fooling Google. You will for a day or so, but that’s about it.

It was mentioned that this person started off with a quality score of 7/10. Well guess what? That’s the default for a human review. Once a Google rep actually looks to see what you’re doing, that quality score is going to go down fast, and with it, your profit as your CPC is going to go through the roof. At that point in time when it happens, and it WILL happen, you can say goodbye to direct linking.

You’re probably asking, “What’s the alternative?” The alternative is to stop trying to game the system and add something of value to the Internet. I’m personally sick and tired of lazy marketers. So how about trying this on for size?

Get yourself a domain and put up a blog with a review of the product that you’re selling. Make sure the header of the blog matches the ad that you’re using to send traffic. When a person gets to your blog, they want to know IMMEDIATELY that they are in the right place.

Make the review of the product as thorough as possible. And, what you might want to do, in order to distinguish yourself from all other affiliates, is offer a bonus that will greatly enhance the product. If this is something that nobody else is offering, you will get more than your share of sales.

Direct linking may work for a day or so, but trust me…once a human being gets a hold of your campaign, you are going to find that your income dries up pretty quickly.

And you can take that to the bank.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Sick and tired of spinning your wheels trying to make a buck online? Visit the products page of my blog at http://stevewagenheim.com/blog/products and get a 6 figure education for pennies.

In case you haven’t heard, Google has thrown the hammer down on affiliate marketers who use PPC advertising yet again. If you’re an affiliate marketer who uses AdWords, you probably already know this. What you may not know is how to get around this problem. Well, it is going to take some work, but if you follow this blueprint, you should have no trouble at all.

For those that don’t know, Google has essentially lowered the quality score of blogs with affiliate links on them. Now, I know what you’re thinking. How can I do affiliate marketing without an affiliate link? And the really bad part is, blogs with really good content are getting slammed too. It doesn’t matter how good the blog is. If there is an affiliate link on it…you’re toast. So, how do we fix this problem? The fix, is really a very simple one. Let me explain.

What you need to do is not sell to prospects directly off your blog. At least not the affiliate product. There are two ways of getting around this. The first way is to, instead of giving them a link to the product, giving them a link to your autoresponder series and have them opt in. This way, you get them as a subscriber and have multiple chances to pitch to them instead of just the one. You will have to offer up some kind of free report on the subject or newsletter to get them to opt in. This shouldn’t be a problem.

Another alternative is to sell your own product on the subject. Yes, this is going to take some work on your part, but it doesn’t have to be a full blown product. It can be a short report that you sell for $7. Your conversion rate on this should be very good. Then, inside the short report, you include your affiliate link to the main product.

Of course, you can combine the two methods above…get them to opt in, sell them a short report to start with, in order to get them into your sales funnel and then pitch them the affiliate product and other products down the road. As long as you’re providing them value along the way, this method should work very well.

Bottom line is this. If you’ve been hit by the latest Google slap, this should solve the problem nicely.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of being an affiliate failure? Want to turn yourself into an affiliate assassin like I am? Want to land in the top 20 of every affiliate promotion you tackle just like I do? Check out my site at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/affiliateassassin/index.html and start earning a solid income as an affiliate marketer.

There is no question about it. Pay per click advertising is one of the most targeted ways to get people to your sales page and make sales. And the best part about it is, you only have to pay for the people who click on your ad. However, having said that, there are a few things that you could be doing that could be dooming your pay per click campaign right from the start. While I can’t go over all of them, this article is going to cover a few of the most important ones.

For starters, one of the biggest mistakes marketers make when starting a new pay per click campaign is improper keyword targeting. I see keywords that have absolutely no business being in there simply because they are way too broad. For example, let’s say you’re selling a book on how to do magic. If you use the keyword magic alone, you don’t know what the person is really looking for. For all you know, they may be looking for that song that Olivia Newton John or Pilot did. However, the keyword phrase, “how to do magic” will most likely get you the prospects you want. Get rid of all keywords that are too broad.

Another big mistake is with geographical targeting. Many marketers will simply run their campaigns for the whole world. Their thinking is simple. The more people who see their ad, the more sales they’ll make. The problem is, in some parts of the world, because of cultural or language differences, your product may have absolutely no use for them. So it is important to keep your campaigns targeted to the people who you feel most will be interested in your product.

Finally, there is the failure to test more than one ad. Many marketers will run just one ad and hope for the best. What if the ad is junk? It’s never going to make you any sales. However, if you test two ads against each other, even if they are both bad, one is going to outperform the other. You can then get rid of the worse performing ad and replace it with a new one. Eventually, you’ll hit an ad that actually does the job for you.

By simply avoiding these three common pitfalls, you’ll greatly increase the effectiveness of your pay per click campaigns.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to discover the secrets of pay per click and a lot more? Check out My Secret Articles at http://www.mysecretarticles.com/ and turn yourself into a marketing expert.

There is no question that pay per click advertising is one of the most effective ways of promoting your products. But…are you spending to much on your clicks? Do you even know? Many marketers think that they aren’t when it fact they are spending way too much. This is due to a number of factors. I’m going to cover some of these in this article. If you’re making any of these mistakes, you might want to correct them quickly before you end up going broke.

At the top of the list is the fight for the top position. I don’t know what it is with pay per click advertisers. They think that the only way to make any money is to have the number one position. Well, there is something about this position that you need to know. For one thing, it attracts a lot of freebie seekers. It’s true. Many people who click on that first ad are looking for free info. More importantly, people who click on the first ad are usually in the initial buying stages and aren’t really ready to commit yet. So many of those clicks will end up to be wasted. You’re really better off going for positions 3 – 7.

Next on the list is your keyword selection. Many pay per click advertisers feel that they have to target as many keywords as possible, in many cases using keywords that are way to broad, such as acne for an acne cure product. A person looking up acne may not necessarily be looking for a cure. A click on your ad could very well turn out to be wasted because the keyword itself is not targeted enough. This is money that is literally thrown out the window.

Finally, there is your landing page. Many landing pages are just plain awful. There is no other way to put it. Well, guess what happens when your landing page gets a poor quality score according to Google? It raises the cost that you have to pay for each click. The higher the quality score the lower the cost per click. The lower the quality score the higher the cost per click. It’s that simple. So make sure your landing page is as optimized as possible.

If you simply attend to these three items above, you’ll find out that you’re spending less per click and making more sales in the process.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to discover the secrets of pay per click and a lot more? Check out My Secret Articles at http://www.mysecretarticles.com/ and turn yourself into a marketing expert.

Affiliate marketing is an easy way to make a buck. No product of your own to worry about and no customer service headaches. Just promote the product and collect. And the easiest way to promote is through PPC. Or is it? Well, because of new rules, this may not be the case any longer. There are things you need to be aware of that could make the difference between success and failure.

In the old days of affiliate marketing, you could send a person directly to a merchant’s sales page. However, because of people complaining about seeing the same page over and over with every ad they clicked, Google made changes saying that only one URL for the same site would be shown at one time. So affiliate marketers who wanted to show their product had to create their own landing page on their own domain. Where the problems popped up was in designing these pages in order to convert well.

Well, there is an easy and quick way to do this so that your pages are effective. It all goes back to the keywords that you choose to promote the product and the actual ad that you’ve written to get people to the landing page. See, people who are looking for specific things have their mind a rather myopic state. If they’re looking for “ways to build a dog house” then that’s what they want to see in your ad and ultimately what they want to see on your landing page somewhere, preferably in the headline. This way, they make the connection all the way through.

Think about it logically. If they’re looking for ways to build a dog house and get to your landing page and don’t see anything that reassures them that they are in the right place, they’re just going to leave. So you have to make it perfectly clear that they are in the right place. This means having a relevant headline, review of the product, maybe even some photos. Think about what YOU would want to see if you were looking for a product. Yes, if more marketers would just think like consumers, we’d have more successful people in this business.

So if you’re going to promote affiliate products using PPC, make sure you have a relevant ad and a solid landing page.

The sales will follow.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Tired of being an affiliate failure? Want to turn yourself into an affiliate assassin like I am? Want to land in the top 20 of every affiliate promotion you tackle just like I do? Check out my site at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/affiliateassassin/index.html and start earning a solid income as an affiliate marketer.

In the old days of pay per click advertising, you could just send people directly to the person’s sales page if you were an affiliate. Then too many search users complained that they were seeing the same sales page over and over, so Google and many other search engines changed the rules on us. Now, you have to have your own unique landing page and domain. This was a major change in the PPC landscape. In this article, I’m going to provide you with a few tips to make your landing pages better so that you make more sales.

Probably the most important aspect of the landing page is how it ties in to the keyword you’re choosing to target and how the ad itself is worded. For example, let’s say you’re targeting the keyword phrase “natural acne cure” and the first line of your Adwords ad says “Natural Acne Cure” in order to tie in to the keyword. Guess what? You got it. The headline of your landing page should have “Natural Acne Cure” in it. The reason is because by guiding the user through the process, focusing on the same keywords all the way through, you’re reassuring them that they are in the right place and have found what they’re looking for.

Another thing you want to focus on with your landing page is reviews of the product. The world we live in is a skeptical one. When the dot com bust hit the Internet, it left a lot of people just plain scared to buy anything online. So you want to reassure them that the product they’re considering is actually a good one. By writing an honest review (yes, be honest) you’ll help alleviate any fears that they might have. Make sure you focus on both the pros and cons of the product. This will help establish credibility.

Finally, you want to make sure that your landing page has a clear call to action and that it is plainly visible. The last thing anybody wants to do is have to look for the link to get whatever it is you’re selling. So make it plain as day.

These few tips are by no means all inclusive, but I have found that they are probably the most important when it comes to designing a landing page specifically for a pay per click campaign. By making sure your headline contains the main keyword phrase, by writing a solid review and by having a strong call to action, you’ll be surprised at how effective your pay per click campaigns will become.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to discover the secrets of pay per click and a lot more? Check out My Secret Articles at http://www.mysecretarticles.com and turn yourself into a marketing expert.

I already have my fatigues on and I’m prepared to duck into my foxhole from the aftermath of this article. A lot of people think that they need to have a number one PPC position in order to succeed with AdWords or any PPC site for that matter. Well, that is just not true. You don’t need a top position and I’m going to explain to you why. All you PPC experts can begin throwing hand grenades.

Okay, so why don’t you need a number one position? Actually, not only don’t you need one, you don’t want one. You’re probably wondering why. Well, it comes down to a lot of psychology on the part of your prospects. See, when your typical prospect goes to the search engines and sees those paid ads, the very first ad they rush to is the top ad. But at this point in time, they’ve done no research at all. They’re essentially just tire kickers. So for the most part, they’re not ready to buy yet, and thus…you end up with a wasted click. Plus, a lot of top position clicks are from freebie seekers.

Now, let’s combine that with the cost factor. A top ad is going to cost more than any other position. So in addition to throwing away clicks on freebies seekers and those who are not quite ready to buy, you’re throwing away more money than everybody else. This is why so many people lose tons with PPC campaigns, because they think they have to have a top position ad.

Okay, so what position do you want? My experience tells me that positions three through seven are the best spots to occupy. You avoid the freebies seekers and for the most part, the people clicking on your ads are ready to buy. This lowers your costs and increases your conversions. No, you won’t get as many clicks, but most of those are wasted anyway.

So do yourself a favor. Stop fighting for the top spot for a PPC ad. It’s not going to get you the results that you’re looking for.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to discover the secrets of pay per click and a lot more? Check out My Secret Articles at http://www.mysecretarticles.com/ and turn yourself into a marketing expert.