How To Build Extensive Search Engine Traffic?
There’s more than one way to skin that traffic cat!
Goal-of-the-DAY... Open an account at each of the 8 pay-per-click engines. Bid on 3 keywords at Overture.
Ongoing Goal... Broaden your bidding until you have placed bids for 100 keywords at the 8 biggest Pay-Per-Clicks.
When your site reaches 10-20 pages, submit to directories and consider Pay For Listing/Placement programs.
With these goals in mind...
At this point, we’ll cover the final two of the BIG 5 TECHNIQUES for building traffic, Pay-Per-Click Search Engines and the major directories. Let’s start with #2 of the BIG 5, Pay-Per-Click Search Engines...
Pay-Per-Clicks allow you to bid for keyword placement. For example, if one of your pages focuses on the topic of “fashion models,” you can bid for the #1 placement (or any other #) on the first page (or lower, but what’s the point of being on page two?) of search results.
Boy, does that save time! No tweaking, submitting, etc.
But there’s a catch, of course. The most popular keywords have become quite expensive at Overture (the first and biggest engine) and are rising at the others.
So your best strategy is to work the niches. Bid on hundreds of less popular keywords related to your Theme-Based Content Site. This can be an extremely cost-effective way to build a big list of lifetime customers in a hurry.
There’s a drawback to bidding on hundreds of words... the time involved to research and actually bid upon them all. Luckily, Site Build It! Manager takes care of all that (more on SBI! Manager below).
Let’s quickly review the top 8 Pay-Per-Clicks. The grand-daddy of all the Pay-Per-Clicks is...
Overture http://www.overture.com/
http://www.overture.com/d/about/advertisers/
See this comprehensive article about Overture in Sales from the EDGE (an e- zine that only SiteSell product owners receive). Its principles and strategies apply to all the Pay-Per-Clicks...
http://www.sitesell.com/edge/backissues-005.html
Register for a bidding account with Overture at...
https://secure.overture.com/s/dtc/center/
While you’re there, download their mass-submission Excel template (Basic or Power form, either one is OK -- they prefer if you use the Power form). Site Build It! Manager speeds this whole process up and makes it easier, too. The Manager works with all of the Pay-Per-Click engines’ mass-submission spreadsheet templates.
Some tips from Overture...
http://www.overture.com/d/about/advertisers/tips/index.jhtml
And their relevancy policy...
http://www.overture.com/d/about/advertisers/relevancy.jhtml
Bottom Line on Overture.com...
Overture will generate more traffic for you than all other Pay-Per-Clicks, combined – at this time. Overture is now “must marketing. ” (However, it is important to note that the other Pay-Per-Clicks are starting to “come into their own.”) Of course, due to its great popularity, each click from Overture will cost you more than from the other Pay-Per-Clicks.
Even though the other engines are cheaper, it normally might not be worth your time to prepare bids for them. Why? Because, even though they deliver cheap traffic, they don’t deliver a lot of it! Factor in the cost of your time and it might not be worthwhile.
Now, though, thanks to Site Build It! Manager, submitting bids on the other seven Pay-Per-Clicks only amounts to a few minutes work per engine! Good, cheap, targeted traffic!
So let’s take a quick look at the next tier...
In order of approximate importance, here are the next 7 Pay-Per-Clicks. There are many others beyond these, but they do not generate enough traffic to be worth your time...
Bay9.com http://www.bay9.com/
Register for an account with them at...
http://www.bay9.com/cgi-local/login.cgi
While you’re there, download their mass-submission Excel template.
Bay 9, formerly named RocketLinks, delivers substantially more traffic than the remaining six. If you only have time for two engines, make it Overture and Bay9.
Naturally, with the Manager, you’ll have time for all of them. So here are the remaining 6 “worthwhiles”...
FindWhat http://www.findwhat.com/
Register for an account with them at...
https://secure.findwhat.com/accountmanagement/
They do not have a mass-submission template. Recommendation: E-mail an Overture spreadsheet (as an attachment), per the information in Site Build It! Manager.
7Search.com http://www.7Search.com/
Register for an account with them at... http://7search.com/scripts/advertiser/v2/advertiserdologin.asp While you’re there, download their mass-submission Excel template.
Kanoodle http://www.kanoodle.com/
Register for an account with them at... https://safe.kanoodle.com/login.cool?return=/client_services/manage.cool While you’re there, download their mass-submission Excel template.
Ah-ha.com http://www.ah-ha.com/
Register for an account with them at...
https://secure1.ah-ha.com/bid/
No template, but you can submit a spreadsheet that lists your keywords and their URLs, titles, descriptions, and bid amounts. Yes, the Site Build It! Manager will do this, too.
ePilot http://www.epilot.com/
Register for an account with them at... http://www.epilot.com/backoffice/members/default.asp?cn=pa While you’re there, download their mass-submission Excel template.
Sprinks http://www.sprinks.com/
Register for an account with them at...
https://sprinks.about.com/userforms/login_user.htm
While you’re there, download their mass-submission Excel template. It’s a major pain to work with, though. Recommendation: simply submit the template that Site Build It! Manager prepares for you for Sprinks.
For more info on Pay-Per-Click engines, see...
http://www.PayPerClickSearchEngines.com/
Before you bid on anything, it’s wise to research. And keywords are no exception. During DAY 2 of the course, you had an optional exercise. If you haven’t had time to do this yet, here it is...
Let’s create an Overture BID-FOR-KEYWORD LIST. (Do it for each engine. But since Overture will drive 80% of your traffic, we’ll start here.)
Label the first column “KEYWORD” (yes, the same KEYWORD as in your MASTER KEYWORD LIST. Now add 23 more columns to the right of KEYWORD (yes 23, or better still -- Site Build It! Manager has already done all this for you). Here’s what to do for each of your HIGH-PROFITABILITY keywords...
Label the first two columns to the right of the KEYWORD column “Price I Should Bid” and “Buys #” -- leave these two columns empty for now.
In the next column, enter the number of sites that have bid AT LEAST A NICKEL for each keyword (ex., let’s say that you do a search for “fashion model” and you find that 15 sites bid at least one nickel for “fashion model” -- enter “15”).
Now, in the next 20 columns, enter the price for the “Top 20” search results spots (searchers are unlikely to scan any result past #20 -- so bidding for a spot beyond #20 is a waste of time). In our example, since only 15 sites have bid for “fashion model,” you enter these bid prices in the first 15 columns -- leave the last 5 blank or enter 0.00.
Some Pay-Per-Click engines only show you 10 sites on the first page of search results. In that case, only enter the bids for these. Enter “0.00” for #11-20, because there’s really no point in bidding for a spot on Page 2.
Now, back to those first two columns to the right of your KEYWORD. Enter the best price you should bid in “Price I Should Bid.” And in the next column (“Buys #”), enter what spot in the search results that bid will yield (Site Build It! Manager calculates this spot automatically).
If this seems like a lot of work, it’s really not. And with Site Build It! Manager, it’s quick and easy! Here’s why...
Site Build It! Manager features powerful pay-per-click functionality. The Manager contains a BID-FOR-KEYWORD LIST for every significant Pay-Per- Click engine to make your job as fast and profitable as possible.
It automatically researches all the bids at all the engines, showing you where your best bid should be. And it automates mass-submissions to the major Pay-Per-Clicks, too. (All excel templates are available at SBI!'s Site Central.) Now it only takes minutes to do what previously took days.
For more information about Site Build It!, including the Site Build It! Manager tool...
http://buildit.sitesell.com/
If you have not yet done so, please read this solid primer on Overture. Its principles apply to all Pay-Per-Clicks...
http://www.sitesell.com/edge/backissues-005.html
In general, bid a penny higher than the highest site that seems to reach your target visitor. If the descriptions for the first three sites are clearly aimed at someone who is not your target, why outbid them?
Stay a penny higher than your competitors, as long as that bid makes financial sense. You do not want to be below your competition... the click through drops off quickly as you go down the page.
What makes financial sense? Whatever makes a profit...
The Sales from the EDGE article (above) discusses how to figure out what your highest bid should be. Work through the same process, from a profit-making viewpoint...
Suppose you are paying 5 cents per click for a keyword (minimum bid at Overture). That means 1,000 clicks costs you $50. Suppose you do a decent PREselling job and a total of 20% of your visitors click on at least one of the five in-context text links on your Keyword-Focused Content Page. That’s 200 people visiting your merchants. If your merchants average a 1.5% Conversion Rate, that’s 3 sales. So, if the average commission is $20, your $50 has returned $60. And if you’ve chosen good affiliate programs, ones that offer lifetime customer commissions, you’ve gained 3 lifetime customers...
... which means ongoing income with no further expense!
If you are referring visitors to your own online store or sales site, do similar profitability calculations.
One special bidding strategy for Overture...
Overture does more than just provide its own search results at its highly popular engine. It supplies listings for many major search portals (such as AOL Search, Netscape Search, Lycos, AltaVista, etc.) and large meta Search Engines.
These search services tend to “cherry-pick” the top search results. So... your very best strategy for maximal distribution across all of the Overture search partners would be to make a bid that puts you in the Top 2. Next best is in the Top 3. And then in the Top 10. Of course, anywhere in the Top 40 puts you on Overture’s first page of results. But you’ll get far less traffic if you appear further down.
You’ll have to balance the per-click cost of being in the Top 2-to-10 against the financial benefit of the extra clicks. You may even be willing to lose some money, on a per-first-sale basis, to gain precious lifetime customers.
As always, your bids must make financial sense.
I can’t OVERemphasize that the key to success is to bid upon hundreds of keywords related to your site. Yes, hundreds. So the mass-submission templates are absolutely essential. Don’t let them scare you... except for one engine, they’re easy to work with when you use the Site Build It! Manager.
Let me tell you a bit more about SBI! Manager, a productive piece of software that comes with Site Build It!. The Manager runs off your computer. The rest of Site Build It! (i.e., the no-HTML SiteBuilder, World-Submitter, the link tracker, the reporting functions, etc.) runs off of ours. Together, it’s a terrific marriage.
Basically, SBI! Manager is a marketing tool for developing highly profitable keywords related to a theme that is in turn related to products of affiliate programs that you represent. It automates much of what you have studied so far in this course.
Use SBI! Manager as follows...
1) MASTER KEYWORD LIST... build a list of KEYWORDS, including PROFITABILTY (i.e., DEMAND and SUPPLY) data about each, with SUPPLY SITE INFO research for each. Use the “PROFITABILITY” info for each KEYWORD to help you pick the best topics for your site.
Yes, Site Build It! Manager does all this for you... and it only takes a few minutes. For example, if you enter “fashion,” and then click on the “Brainstorm and Research” button, it does all the DEMAND and SUPPLY and even BREAKOUT window-functions (as covered in DAY 3) for you, creating a comprehensive list of KEYWORDS related to fashion!
Then use the Site Build It! server-side site-building tool to develop your Theme-Based Content Site, full of Keyword-Focused Content Pages. Attract traffic to these pages and then refer visitors to affiliate-merchant sites (or to your own sales sites that sell products or services).
2) PAGE SUBMISSION INFO Form... prepare for submitting bids to the Pay-Per-Click engines by entering the info that they require into the Manager’s PAGE SUBMISSION INFO Form...
a) Title -- Same idea as when you made the Title for your Web page (DAY 6), except your title does not have to be the actual page title. It should contain the keyword that you bid for, since the click through will be higher. Overture cuts the title off after 40 characters... so keep it short.
b) Description -- Get your most important, biggest point up front. Copy-and- paste your META description that you prepared in DAY 6. Same basic rules and principles apply. (Yes, the Manager even reminds you if you forget to include the KEYWORD in the Title or Description.)
c) URL -- Direct searchers (i.e., your potential visitors) to the specific page on your site that has the information they request, not just to your home page.
One important rule of every Pay-Per-Click...
Each KEYWORD that you bid upon must clearly relate to its Title and Description, and to the contents of your site. For you, that’s natural... already done!
With Overture, you basically want as few clicks as possible. Actually, let me rephrase that... you basically want only targeted clicks... people who understand exactly what your page is about and who click for that reason.
Why? Because you pay for each click!
So, you don’t really want as few clicks as possible... you want as few off-target visitors as possible. Gear everything you do to maximizing ON-target visitors for the least amount of money.
Bottom line strategies?...
1) Bid for hundreds of ON-target keywords, especially the less-obvious ones which will be quite cheap to buy. Obvious, and popular keywords have become too expensive. I’ll tell you this -- there’s no way I’m paying $5.00 for popular keywords – not unless I’m selling a product that has a profit of $500 and I have a 10% Conversion Rate!
2) Write your Title and Description so that only your target market clicks (since each click costs you). An Overture searcher who reads your Title and Description should clearly understand what she'll get if she clicks. If it does not interest her, she’ll give you a pass. Which is exactly what you want when it comes to Overture. Why pay for a click by someone who hits the back button as soon as she arrives? Write your title and description so that they...
• really relate to the keywords that you are bidding
• really are relevant to your site -- you definitely do not want to trick anyone to your site.
• compete effectively against other listings with similar subject matter
• shout “Click Me! Click Me!” But only the right customers hear the shout!
Now, where was I? Oh yes... I was explaining that the Site Build It! Manager...
1) brainstorms & researches your MASTER KEYWORD LIST for you
2) makes it easy for you to prepare your bids through its PAGE SUBMISSION INFO Form... and now for my favorite part...
3) BID-FOR-KEYWORD LIST -- The Site Build It! Manager contains a BID- FOR-KEYWORD LIST for every significant Pay-Per-Click engine. It researches the “# of bids” and the Top 20 bids for all of your KEYWORDS (as described above), at the simple click of a button! Only one difference...
It researches the “# of bids” and the Top 20 bids at all of the significant Pay-Per-Clicks, not just Overture’s!
Use the Manager's pay-per-click automated research functionality to quickly get all the info at each engine about all of your KEYWORDS, showing you where the bid should be for each KEYWORD. All you have to do is the fun part... enter your bids!
When that’s all done? Just one more click...
Click upon the “Create File” button to create a file for Overture’s mass- submission template. The Manager automates mass-submissions to all the major Pay-Per-Clicks. Now it only takes minutes to do what previously took days. E-mail these files to the Pay-Per-Clicks and...
Presto! Instant, cheap traffic! With no hassle.
To summarize Site Build It! Manager...
Site Build It! Manager is software that you run on your computer. The Site Build It! Manager automates and greatly accelerates...
• building your LIST of HIGH-PROFITABILITY keywords
• researching those keywords
• preparing content for your Theme-Based Content Site
• researching affiliate programs that fit with your Site Concept
• preparing Pay-Per-Click Search Engine bids
• researching and bidding optimally at the Pay-Per-Clicks
• making mass-bidding-submissions
Pay-Per-Clicks are outstanding, cost-effective ways to build traffic to your site. Site Build It! Manager is currently compatible with the eight major Pay-Per- Clicks.
For more information about Site Build It!, including the Site Build It! Manager tool...
http://buildit.sitesell.com/
The Wrapup on Pay-Per-Clicks...
As you’ll see in DAY 10 of this course, you’ll be able to use Site Build It!'s special server-side tools to create tracking links. These links enable you to track the effectiveness of each of your pay-per-click programs.
Site Build It! is the ultimate way to build pay-per-click traffic. Use the client-side Manager and the server-side Tracker to create and monitor a powerful, cost-effective, pay-per-click traffic-building program.
It’s totally do-able. Unlike the free Search Engines, all you have to do is bid.
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