The SEO News Blog from Pat Marcello

I’ve done some advertising with Google AdWords, but it usually ended up being more expensive than it was worth. Oh sure, I got optins and sales, but they were either break-even or only marginally profitable. I don’t have that “special code,” I’m afraid. It takes a lot of trial and error to make it work really well than I have to spend at this point. I mean, I know I can make it if I focus on it and nothing else. But remember, I work for Tellman.

But…

Working for him has its perks.  Well, lots of them actually, not to mention he’s a great guy. (In case you don’t know, he’s running across the country for Homeless Teens and well… in his bare feet. Pretty cool… go donate at http://RunTellmanRun.com. It’s a very worthy cause, and well… bare feet, people!)

Anyway… Tellman got me to go through Frank Kern and his cousin Trey’s “Screw Google” course, and I have to say that it’s great! It’s short enough to run through in a few hours, and the information inside is easy to follow and really spot on. It’s typical Frank Kern style,  of course, and he’s one of the LEAST boring people to watch no matter what he’s doing. He just has that kind of personality that makes you smile. (It’s a no-brainer that he and Trey are cousins, either. They even sound alike. Both of them are good at teaching and keeping things light.)

The course is based on PPC advertising with Yahoo, and I have to tell you that after having worked the AdWords stuff for OE and myself, I find Yahoo to be 1) less anal and 2) far less expensive. My most expensive click to date has been around 12 cents. Plus, I’m getting tons of optins and I don’t have a mega keyword list, either. I have a very select group of keyword phrases that I’ve tested and know work for my & Tellman’s product, Spider Language, which (in case you don’t hang here regularly) is a basic course on SEO. continue reading »

The question that gets asked most by new Internet marketers is, “What niche should I be in?” I think. They have ideas about what they’d like to do, but are concerned about whether or not it will be a “good” niche, and rightly so. Selling clothes for racoons probably isn’t a great idea.

What to do?

Research.

The first thing to do is to think about what you really like to do and what you can work on for hours and hours without becoming tired or bored. What’s your passion? That’s really important. If your heart isn’t in it, guess what, neither will your mind be.

So, your first step is to sit down and to make a list of things you really enjoy doing, no matter what those things might be. It’s amazing that there are markets online for some things you’d think will never sell. And then again, things you think are a sure fit might totally suck. Or, they might be seasonal. Or, they might be so over.

Once you have your list, take your search for a niche over to http://SEOBook.com. Plug each word into the search bar and see how many searches a day are happening in Google. If you find that 3,000 to 10,000 searches are being performed each month, you’re on the right track. But that’s just the first step.

Move over to the column that says “G Trends,” and see whether the trend for whatever you’re searching is rising, falling or consistent. Rising and consistent is good. Falling isn’t.

Then, move over again to “Google TE” and see how much people are playing for clicks at Google AdWords. Anything over $1 is promising.  Anything under that is iffy.

So, there are some general rules of thumb. SEOBook, also has a great blog. Peter D, who  wrote “How to Spot Keyword Trends,”  pulls Twitter into the mix, and some other factors that you can track to decide on a good niche to be in.

The whole idea is… do it! Why waste a lot of time working on things that nobody is interested in? You’ll lose time and money chasing something that just won’t work.

When I talk to people that are relatively new to Internet marketing, I’m astounded that they don’t see the value of building a list. Your list is the most important asset of your entire business! Without a list, you don’t make money, it’s just that simple.

Oh sure, there are some folks that have cracked the AdWords code, who know how to make AdWords pay off, but I guarantee that they’re also building a list around that activity. If they’re smart enough to conquer AdWords, they’re smart enough to know that the list will help them to make even more money, and not only that, but it will cost them far less cash. Emails are free, whereas we all know that AdWords is definitely not.

There are all kinds of ways to build a list, too. Obviously, you can put up a squeeze page and drive traffic to that. You can have an opt-in box on your blog. You can start a free site of some kind and pick up a huge list that way, or you can even buy a list through co-registration. But there are plenty of other ways to build a list, and if you aren’t doing it… good luck.

I spent the first couple of years online thinking that a list didn’t matter. I wasn’t making any money, either. It wasn’t until I connected with Tellman that he smacked me upside the head (virtually, of course), and said… “Start NOW!” And so, I did. And I have to say that my list means more to me than all the tea in England. Really. And my life is very different from what it was three years ago, too. It’s all because of my list.

Your LIST is your bread & butter. If you’re not building it… Start TODAY!

And if you need help with that, if you’re not sure how to begin… there’s always the ListBuilding Club. I assure you, it’s worth every single penny. Yes, I”m prejudiced, but I also know that you can’t find better training anywhere. We have thousands of satisfied customers, and I know that because they send us wonderful testimonials every single day. It’s really great to be part of that.

And it’s great for members because every single one of us at Overcome Everything cares. That’s our edge. We’re not just in it for the money. We want every single person that comes to us for help to succeed in a BIG way, and many have.

If you’re drowning out there and feel like you’re overwhelmed and don’t know where to start… Click Here and STOP the frustration. We really can help. And when your list is growing and you start making regular, steady money from it every day… you’ll “get” it, and be totally glad you did.

So, I was at jvAlert last weekend, as you know, and Simon Leung was telling us how Google prefers short copy and that they see long copy as spam. Hmm… That’s total crap. Not that Simon is telling us fairy tales, but that Google AdWords wants advertisers but they aren’t supposed to sell things? What?

Well…

I proved that what Simon said was right.

I started an AdWords campaign on Friday for a social marketing product, right? All of the keywords I used were rated “Great,” and I just knew it wouldn’t last. They probably do that for all new keywords, until human eyes evaluate your campaign.

But, here’s the thing: This particular campaign was based on a long copy sales letter, which I had doubts about, but thought I’d try it anyway because creating landing pages for each ad group (though Simon says you need to create them for each keyword… argh) is a bit of a logistical issue (won’t go into that, but it’s not a simple upload to a hosting account for various reasons) and we just wanted to get something up there.

Sure enough, Saturday morning when I buzzed in to check the campaigns, every keyword was turned off and Google wanted $10 a click!

Well… Hmm… Proof.

I didn’t really need that proof, but there it is. I mean, $10 for words that should cost about 33 cents? Argh. What better way for Google to say they hate you?

I created those new landing pages today, issues or no issues, and our tech department is working on getting them up. I’ll let you know what happens when they hit and I can alter the campaign. This is totally interesting to me.

I can be such a geek.

I want to go even further and create pages for each keyword to see how well that works for at least one ad group. If it works, guess what Pat will be doing all week? And into infinity?