A 4Life Research independent distributor 'cheat sheet' for search engine marketing.

A 4Life Research independent distributor 'cheat sheet' for search engine marketing.

Old man "Time" is rather unforgiving, and I bet he didn't mention to you that 192 days have passed since the beginning of our current year?

Yes, 2005 is rapidly marching on, yet for may web entrepreneurs few visitors are marching over to see what's up. Are they marching to a different drummer or is it that your marketing drive is just not keeping the beat?

Are you getting your piece of the pie? Web sales in the retail sector will climb to over $109.6 billion this 2005. (Source: Shop.org/Forrester 05/2005)

With 173 days remaining in 2005, imagine how much different your business would be if you could get perhaps one "take action" type visitor to your site per week.

If you're asking "Tell me the secret? (because everything else I've tried has flopped)." Maybe a little internet advertising is in order? Seems that's what a lot of successful online marketers are doing. And of all the methods out there, nothing seems to beat a well managed pay per click search engine campaign...

Of funds budgeted for search engine marketing this year, marketers said they would spend 51% on paid search ads, 6% on paid inclusion, 10% on contextual ads, 12% on search marketing agency fees for paid search, 11% on search marketing agency fees for optimization, and 11% on other areas of search marketing. (Source: Forrester Research 02/2005)

In the U.S., Canada, UK or most any internet savvy country you'll discover stories and statistics that prove "it can be done". Yes, online sales are happening. Reports are continuing, sales are up, and the drum beats on.

91% of merchants ranked keyword search as "very" to "somewhat" valuable, the highest percentage of 39 features that respondents were asked to rank. Other highly ranked features include E-mail as a merchandising tool, 89%; Sales and specials, 89%; Seasonal promotions, 84%; Cross-sells/up-sells on the product page, 78%. (e-tailing group, 2004)

But I'm A 4Life Research independent distributor, is it a waste of time for me?

Maybe you are thinking that "some things" sell online but not your nutritional supplements. Nothing could be further from the truth. In most cases, it is not the product or service that hinders a sale, it boils down to traffic, strategy and page presentation. Whether you advertise using Google's AdWords, or do pay-per-click at Overture, Yahoo or MSN search, it's the campaign strategy that's important.

In my previous blog entries (last week and the week prior) we started our series of PPC search engine tips. These tips will unquestionanly help your marketing campaign and hopefully put some of the statistics on your side. Without any further delay, I'll continue with my tips this week.

Tips for your PPC campaign:

• Expand your keywords by asking your spouse, friends, neighbors, relatives, existing customers and strangers to look at your web page and offer their keyword suggestions. In this phase you cannot have too many cooks in the kitchen.
• Put your biscuits in the oven and watch'em rise... That is, use web based 'keyword expanders' and research tools to expand your keywords beyond what you can come up with on your own.
• Remember, searchers may type in something that describes your product, but more often than not they will be typing in words describing their problem. If your product or service solves, fixes, heals, masks or even distracts them from their problem, you want those keywords on your list.
• "In-house" keywords (those used frequently by others in your industry or business) are often the most costly because lazy business owners don't often think beyond their own nose. The result is these limited keywords get bided-up sky high. Customers on the other hand seldom search using "in-house" keywords. Your goal is to find keyword niches popular with customers but less popular with your competition.

In addition, I've written a many 'how-to' articles specifically to help get your internet marketing strategy on-track. You might find these internet marketing articles for 4Life Research interesting or helpful.

Check back next week for the next in this series of PPC tips... Until next week, happy PPC campaigning...


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