I just can’t seem to keep caught up on all of my tasks lately and needed some help, so I took the plunge and hired someone.

The guy I hired seems like a real bright kid, with a lot of knowledge and ambition. He seems to have a desire to work and accomplish things. This is good!

Right now, I need to spend the next couple of days preparing for having a full-time employee, geting a list of stuff ready for him to do for me.

I’ll keep you posted as to how things progress over the coming weeks and months.

I’m excited about it all.

Now, go and make some money!

Be blessed,

Curt

They should stick to what they are good at.

What they are not good at is understanding internet marketing and internet commerce.

Despite the fact that they have some of the most up-to-date technology and programming, they lack severely in the department of knowing what they are doing when it comes to internet commerce and the searches that are related to it.

Here’s why I say this.

Attempting to market anything on Google is a nightmare. Because they don’t understand how people search when they are shopping online, Google forces all internet marketers to jump through these next-to-impossible hoops, in an effort to create a “good user experience”. Their vague definition of a good user experience is “giving the user more information than they initially wanted”, so that the user would have gained some kind of insight or benefit from visiting your site even if you weren’t selling anything.

This is great for people who are just information-hunting. The casual surfer looks for this stuff. The buying surfer doesn’t. The buying surfer knows what they want and doesn’t want to have to wade through pages of extraneous crap to find it. Give them too much info and they’re gone in a matter of seconds. Give them a direct route to what they’re looking for and they’re more than happy to buy.

Google has confused these two types of traffic and has tried to force them all into one funnel, mercilessly beating marketers to death in an effort to get them to conform. Their insistence that every single website have pages and pages of content is overkill and is part of the reason that Google stock has dropped from a high of almost $800 per share down to half o that. Google’s PPC advertising income has dropped and their share holders know it.

Google is in trouble and they know it. So now they’re scrambling to try to fix it, and you and I (the marketers) are taking the heat for their lack of education in the e-commerce world.

Get a clue, Google, and stop cutting your own throat.

Because of some tracking problems with one of my PPC campaigns, I paused the campaign on Google for less than 12 hours.

Before pausing this campaign, it had been generating several hundred clicks per day and some adgroups had CTR of up to 12%, with none of them dropping below 1.5%.

Quality scores for all of my keywords were either Good or Great.

After having the campaign paused for several hours, I logged back into Google and turned it back on. No big deal, right?

Wrong. Checking my stats a few minutes ago I noticed that I had ZERO leads from this particular campaign. I knew right away something was wrong, so I went to Google and logged in only to find every single keyword slapped with $10 minimum bids.

What the heck is this? What kind of stupid reasons can they come up with for doing this?

This was not a bridge page or a so-called thin affiliate site. This was a professionally-designed review-style site. It had product comparisons, extra info about the niche, privacy policy, about us, contact us, etc. It had everything Google usually wants. But nothing is good enough for Google anymore, except huge corporate-style sites that are there for no other reason than to create a presence and give people information.

Don’t bother trying to sell anything on Google. You will eventually lose and be out of the game.

Google is clueless.

Let me clarify for you. If you are an affiliate for company XYZ, marketing that company’s Red Widget, Google says that you cannot have a single page with the sole purpose of getting people to buy red widgets from you, instead of buying them directly from Company XYZ. It’s OK for Company XYZ to have a single-page site for the sole purpose of selling red widgets, because they own those widgets. You don’t, therefore, you can’t.

With Google, they claim it’s all about a good user experience. What they fail to take into consideration and fail to put into their equation when calculating the quality of a user experience, is that some people are just plain looking for red widgets and don’t care if they buy them from you or from Company XYZ. Google’s logic is seriously flawed, but there’s no changing their minds about any of it. They are Google, which is just another way of spelling “arrogant”. Oh, and you might want to try to fit “stupid” in there too.

If john doe surfer is searching for blue shoes to buy and your ad says that you have blue shoes for sale, then what’s not a good user experience about you selling John blue shoes?

According to Google, you need to give John lots of relevant information about blue shoes. You need to tell John all about the history of blue shoes. You also need to do some market comparisons of different brands of blue shoes. And, while you’re at it, you might as well tell him how to lace up and tie those blue shoes. Then, and only then, will Google begin to think that you’re giving their precious users a good experience.

Here’s how Google defined it to me on the phone and in an email.

A user should want to visit your site even if they are not buying something. If a user visits your site and you give them something of value, such as information, then the user will be happy and Google says that this is a good user experience.

Information is good, but not everyone is looking for information!! HELLO Google…

Have you forgotten that a good number of people today use the web to shop? Or is that not good for their experience.. to buy something without reading through 5 pages of other crap first????

OK.. end of rant (I think).

Like it or not, we have to learn to deal with Google or we will eventually be driven out of marketing on Google. As marketers, we are being forced to build complete, informative sites in order to market as affiliates. It’s sad, but it’s true. The days of one-page sites are coming to a close.

You may have some really nice, really profitable one-page sites out there. Enjoy them while they last, because sooner or later Google will see your page and shut your ads down until you comply with their wishes and build out pages of useless information, which will only serve to lower your conversion rates.

Remember, Google is the search engine god and they like to flaunt that to everyone. Maybe they should flaunt it to their stock holders now that their stock is only worth half what it was a few months ago.

Someday… maybe someday Google will get a glimpse of reality and learn to bend a bit, instead of trying to rule with an iron fist and drive completely legitimate marketers away.

Anyway, go and make some money!

Be blessed,

Curt

p.s. If you have ads or keywords that get rejected by Google, don’t call or email them to ask why. This will only draw their attention to your site and might give them cause to look more closely and then disable your campaign for using a bridge page. Quietly delete the rejected ads or keywords and move on… Don’t Ask - Don’t Tell.

Let’s turn the tables for a minute now. Let’s say someone else is doing market research and keyword research, and they click YOUR ad? Hmm.. seems like a little bigger deal now, doesn’t it?? That random click just cost you money, just like it cost the other marketer money when you clicked on their ad!

What to do??

First of all, when doing research, NEVER click on the ads of another marketer. You wouldn’t like it if they did it to you, so don’t do it to them. What goes around, comes around… right?

Just as importantly, let me tell you how to do research without even racking up impressions on your ads… or anyone else’s ads.

Instead of going to Google.com to do market research or ad testing, go here: Adwords WW

Using this tool will allow you to search and do research, without causing anyone to accrue impressions on their keywords and ads, thereby not hurting anyone’s CTR. This is an awesome way to check to see where your own ads are showing for any given keyword too, again without racking up impressions and hurting your CTR.

Remember… as with anything else, even in the marketing world, what you give is what you get.

Now, go make some money!

Be blessed,

Curt

It used to be that when you used the Google keyword tools, the results would never show you actual search volume, but a bar graph, instead, showing relative search volume.

Now, instead of a plain bar graph, you get to see actual search volume numbers.

This is a HUGE breakthrough, in my opinion, because you no longer have to guess about search volume for a given keyword.

Let me explain. Because the old bar graphs showed their height based on relative volume, a tall bar graph might look exciting, but didn’t necessarily mean that there was, in fact, high search volume for that keyword or phrase.

Now, with actual search volume numbers right in front of you, it isn’t hard to see if the numbers are what you’re looking for or not.

Thanks, Google, for finally making a change that is definitely in the marketer’s favor.

First of all, some of the networks should be ashamed of themselves for even making you have to ask, and then some of those same networks should be even more ashamed for giving you your increase in little tiny pieces, like $.10 at a time, while they skim more profit from you than they deserve, and then make you ask for another increase over and over again. This is just plain stupidity and greed.

Anyway, let’s get back on track here. Let’s take a look at a hypothetical example of what a payout increase (a “bump”) can do for your bottom line.

Let’s use a good set of numbers so you can see how this really adds up over time. We’ll use a Free Trial offer that pays out $15 as our example.

So let’s say that you’re generating an average of 30 leads per day on this $15 offer. This makes your gross revenue $450 per day. OK, so now let’s say that your clicks are costing you $225 per day, for a 50% gross  margin. You’re making a dollar profit for every dollar you spend.

OK… not looking too bad are we?

So now let’s say that you’re running this offer for a few months and have built a good, solid foundation, creating that average of 30 leads per day. Now it’s time to ask for an increase.

Let’s just say that your affiliate manager goes to bat for you (which a GOOD affiliate manager should do) and he/she gets you a good increase of $5 per lead! Wow.. good increase!

OK.. now let’s do some math and see how this all adds up over the course of a year. Now, remember, this additional income isn’t going to cost you any extra money to make, so it’s 100% pure profit.

Now you’re getting $20 per lead, and at 30 leads per day, thats an extra $150 per day of pure profit!! Wow

So let’s take it a step further. Let’s see what that adds up to in a year. You ready for this? $150 per day, multiplied by 365 days equals how much?? $54,750.

Now how’s that for a pay raise?

Is it sinking in now? Can you see the power of the CPA pay increase? I hope so.

So now that you can see this in black and white, you have no reason not to ask for a CPA pay increase. In fact, you’re hurting yourself if you don’t ask for one, especially if you have been working hard and making money for the CPA network and the advertiser. They owe it to you… period.

Ask your affiliate manager for an increase, take your traffic elsewhere or ask for a new manager. Remember, your affiliate manager is supposed to be working for you, not over you.

Build a good relationship with your affiliate manager and you should have no problems with getting increases. Be sure, also, to scan several network and check their payouts, because many of the offers are available on several networks, and the payouts can vary as much as $10 from one network to another! Unbelievable, isn’t it??

Believe it or not, this short little piece of info can increase your annual pay by tens of thousands of dollars in a year’s time.

By the way, if you want to know which networks pay the most, based on my own personal experiences, here they are:

CPA Empire - Affiliate Manager Doug Davis

Clickbooth - Affiliate Manager Harald Anderson

Incentaclick (CX Digital) - Affiliate Manager Waseem Khan

Now, go and make some money.

Be blessed,

Curt

They’re hungry and want one thing… Relevant Content.

The bots decide whether you play the game or sit it out. The bots decide how much money you spend and how much you make. So, feed them

Who are the bots? They are the search engine spiders for Google, Yahoo and MSN and their respective PPC search engines. They scan your PPC campaigns and your landing pages, looking for relevant content, and then they decide how much you pay per click or whether or not you even get to play.

So why is it that so many people try to dance their way around these bots, trying to fool them with phony content, or no content at all?

If the bots want food, give them what they want. It’ll save you a lot of frustration and will let you sleep better at night, so you don’t have to wake up in the morning and run to your computer to see if you got slapped overnight or not.

So now you’re probably saying “ya, but creating content and a whole web site is a lot of work!”. You’re right. It is a lot of work, but it pays huge dividends in the long run. And if you don’t have the time to write articles or build a complete site, hire someone. You should have no trouble at all getting someone to handle these tasks for you for less than $300. It will be money well-spent and will pay for itself in a very short time, as you use that site to make money.

Did I mention that the bots are hungry? Feed them

Now go make some money.

Be blessed,

Curt

Shame on you!

You’re missing out on some very valuable information! Your web server logs can help you find missing pieces to the traffic puzzle.

Did you know that your web server logs will show you exactly how people get to your web site?? That’s right. They’ll show you the exact search terms that people used to find your site… and some of those search terms are probably costing you money that you shouldn’t be spending.

Go ahead. Log in to your web server and view the logs. Look through the list of search terms that are shown and shake your head in wonder. Then, when you’re done shaking your head, start doing some copying and pasting.

Copy those words that have nothing to do with your site’s content and use them as negative keywords.

Then scan through the list and see if you can use the remaining searches to come up with new keywords to add to your PPC campaigns.

Go ahead. I dare you to check your web server logs!

Now, go and make some money!

Be blessed,

Curt

So, on to internet marketing stuff.

I recently had a very unpleasant experience with Yahoo affiliate products. I began promoting two of their products and had started to shape these into two nice little campaigns, clearing about $50 per day within just a few days.

During the 4th or 5th day I got an email from them, stating that I had violated their terms and was forcing clicks, inflating my commissions. Therefor, my affiliation with them was terminated and all of my commissions were being revoked. Huh. Not good!

I immediately went back and re-read their terms and conditions and found that I was, in fact, unknowingly violating their terms, by iframing my landing page.

The biggest bummer is that the only reason I was iframing was to make it easier to do keyword tracking. That was it. It wasn’t for any other reason. So… because I had in fact been framing their page, I was definitely in violation of their terms and conditions. I obviously didn’t mean to violate them. It just kinda happened.

I have tried to contact them to appeal this and ask them to reinstate me to their program, but I doubt anything will change. I mean… this is Yahoo. They don’t need me!

Oh… and they did revoke my commissions. All of them, within a few hours.

Since this happened I have heard of them doing the very same thing to other people too, sometimes to the tune of several thousand $$ in revoked commissions. Wow! Talk about harsh.

So, if you are not promoting Yahoo affiliate products, don’t bother doing so. If you are promoting them, make sure you are 100% completely legal!

Lesson learned. Read the terms and conditions very closely before promoting affiliate products.

Be blessed,

Curt