Opportunities

Generating Traffic for your Site
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
Overture.Com
Autoresponders
Resources

Lots more to come in this section...


Also see Joint Ventures under the Opportunities Section for More Traffic building exercises!
 

Pay Per Click Definition:  Pay-Per-Click is exactly what it says.  If you want to advertise your site, you can pay to put various advertisements up on the Net (i.e. on Google, AltaVista, Yahoo, etc.) or have your website come up on the top as a 'Sponsored Link'.  If you enter a pay-per-click campaign, you simply pay every time that someone clicks on your advertisement.  You can pay anywhere from 5 cents on up for each click and the great part about it is that you get to choose how much you're willing to pay for each click. 

-     Let's say that you just want to test the waters...you can easily pick the keywords that describe your site, (the same keywords that people will enter to find your site), and type in your maximum bid.  For popular keywords, like "Make Money," you could easily bid 10 cents for the word, however you might end up on page 12 of the search listings.  That means that surfers would have to click next for 12 pages before they even have a chance to see your advertisement.

-     The more you bid the higher you'll be on the search results.  From what I've read, this is where you really have to spend some money to get your site promoted.  You simply cannot wait to get listed on Yahoo! or the other famous search engines; it may take months or may never appear at all! 

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• I highly suggest that you actually figure out how the keywords and the pay-per-click agencies work.  I went to Overture.com with as much information as I could find; however looking back, I could have done with some extra pointers!
   
• In order to join, there is no fee yet you do have to pay a nominal fee to cover you pay-per-clicks.  (I had a $50 free credit given from my hosting company, so I didn't use my money at all.  See hosting review for details on the free credit)
   
• Once you enter your contact details, credit card information and select what kind of account you want, Overture.com asks you to enter up to 40 different keywords.  For example, these are some of the ones that I entered:
  • Working from home
  • Work at home
  • Reviews on making money
  • Generate Income Online
  • Work at home computer job
     
• I managed to get a long list like above by using overtures keyword search tool - it allows you to type in something like, "Work from home" and then it spits out other keywords that are similar.
   
• Thereafter, you're asked to create a title and few sentences to appear when the advertisement comes up.  Overture.Com warn you that you only have 90 minutes to do it before you'll lose your data, so I started to freak out.  Fortunately, I managed to create titles and wording for 24 keywords and then submitted them.
   
• Overture.Com confirm that they received your listings and thank you for joining their service.  They explain that it may take a bit of time to get access to your control panel, however I had immediate access.  Once inside, it's very daunting.  You can see your keywords and everything is set at the lowest bid price of 10 cents.  You can change your text, urls, titles, bid prices.  There are tons of features and reports - none of which I know how to use. 
   
• One cool tid-bit that I learned was that if you add a '?' after your url it doesn't get read however you can use it to track where leads came from.  For example, if I put www.moneyonlinereview.com?overture you'll still go to my homepage, yet my statistics package will note that you came from an overture advertisement.  (A statistics package usually comes free with your hosting company or you can buy separately.  It breaks down where people come from and how they get your site).
   
• Once finished I assumed that my ads would appear instantly - not the case!  Overture.com have to physically review your titles, urls and make sure that what you say you have on your site is what you have.  Apparently, there are a few people out there that try to get you to their site using false advertisement. 
   
• To my disappointment, Overture.com actually rejected a handful of my keywords saying that they were not relevant to my site.  Ho-hum!  I'm learning.
   
• So far, Overture.com estimates that it will take 425 days before my $50 is used up, so I've got to make some serious changes.  (In other words, either no one is using the keywords I've entered or I'm too far down the list of other advertisers that I an not getting looked at!)
   
• UPDATE 12 January 2003 - I've added new keywords and I'm now up to approximately 40 keywords and am definitely getting more traffic.  I think that I really need to play with the wording on my ads and start to fine-tune them.  Overall, I'm down to about 50 days rather than the 425, so that shows me that something is working!

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It has been said that people may have to be marketed to up to 7 times before they feel confident to buy.  With autoresponders you can make sure that x amount of eMails are delivered to your audience and thus increasing the return traffic to you site or affiliate sites.

• On my eNewletter form (over the to the left and up) once you enter your name and eMail address, it gets sent to my autoresponder company, your name gets added and I get an eMail notification that you subscribed. (cool - huh!)
   
• I can also enter a series of eMails to go out to you at any time and any day.  That is how people run eCourses.  The get you to sign up and then the autoresponder sends you out a sequence of eMails automatically.  SO - if you're thinking of doing an eCourse or even following up after a sale, autoresponders can make your life easy!
   
• They are also helpful for sending mass eMails out like eZines or eNewsletters.  As I've experienced, my host only allows me to send 100 eMails at one time.  In the past, I had to send my eNewsletter out in chunks every couple hours and that is a PAIN.
   
  • With the autoresponder, you simply create the eNewsletter in a text editor like notepad, copy and paste into the autoresponder website and click send to list.  The great thing is that it looks like it sent from your domain (i.e. it comes from kim@moneyonlinereview.com not the autoresponder address).
     
• When deciding to purchase an autoresponder, I researched what the professionals use and I came up with Aweber.  They have a 30 day money-back guarantee, so you are able to test it out and see if it works for you.
   
• From what the experts say, Aweber is the easiest to use - don't let that fool you...I spent at least 5 hours figuring out how to get my list on the system, create the form to capture eMails and various other things.  It's not an instant, easy-to-use system if you're not use to these kinds of things.  The good news is that they have excellent help guides AND after asking for live help, I received and eMail response in 5 minutes.
   
• Check out www.Aweber.Com

For updates on various services and items that can help you make the best of your Online Marketing efforts, please consider the benefits of reading my weekly eNewsletter - you'll get all sorts of reviews that will help you find your way!

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• To check out Overture.com, click here (another window will open)
   
• Also - there are several other pay-per-click agencies, so don't limit yourself to Overture.  Off the top of my head, I've looked at FindWhat.com and I'm sure if you do a search you'll find several others.

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