Froogle? Will you get your educational materials there?

Froogle? Will you get your educational materials there?

As A Binney Smith At Home representative, the first question you need to ask yourself is: "Where do customers shop?"

• Consumers frequent places that are familiar
• Consumers frequent places that are convenient
• Consumers frequent places they trust
• Consumers frequent places with fair prices
• Consumers frequent places that are well advertised

So what does a consumer's shopping preferences have to do with Froogle, the comparison shopping engine? Well simply put; many people are familiar with Google's Foogle and they trust Google because they've been there before, it's well promoted, and as always it is convenient. While Google's Froogle never sets prices on items or markets stuff themself, they do allow shoppers to hunt down good prices and merchants to set whatever pricing they prefer. Google has hammered the consumer's nail right on its head.

It's one of the rare exceptions to the old expression, "there's no such thing as a free lunch". At Froogle, if you're trying to get into a comparison shopping engine, lunch is on them. It's as easy as 1-2-3.

Let's start with a few facts about Froogle and then the 'feed' steps for listing your products or services in Froogle.

Froogle Facts

Froogle is on the Google home page.
Millions of people come to Google each day, and many are actively looking for the products you're selling. Froogle connects shoppers with merchants.

You can list your products on Froogle for free.
Unlike other online shopping sites, Froogle costs nothing. There's no spending account to set up and maintain. No cost-per-click. No cost, period.

At Froogle you control your product information.
Simply upload a new product feed at any time to ensure Froogle displays the most accurate descriptions and promotions for your products.

Froogle provides store ratings and product reviews.
Google's technology scours the web to identify relevant information about listed stores and products. This information is in the form of review 'snippets' from independent ratings sites.

Are educational materials great products to be found in Froogle.

Below are some key instructions toward getting your educational materials found in Froogle using their data feed system:

1. Sign in to the Froogle Merchant Center
   Create or use your existing Google Account to enter the Froogle Merchant Center.
   
2. Create an FTP account
   Set up your FTP account, which you'll later use to upload your 'product info' feeds to us.
   
3. Specify your feed's settings
   Set your feed's filename and other parameters.
   
4. Create and upload your feed
   Create a feed according to Froogle's instructions and upload it to them. Be sure to name your feed using the filename you chose in Step 3 (above).
   
5. Check your feed for errors
   Sign in to your Froogle Merchant Center account to check for any formatting errors in your feed.
   
6. Final content review
   We will review your feed to ensure that its content is consistent with our program policies.

To make certain you don't miss this series of internet marketing tips, you might consider subscribing to my RSS feed.


Technorati:
Binney Smith At Home | Froogle | Dan Hollings | educational products | educational materials
Other recommended blogs:
Nu Skin | Oriflame | Oxyfresh

Binney Smith At Home and the Trends in Mompreneurism.

Binney Smith At Home and the Trends in Mompreneurism.

Source: DSA.org

Based on statistics available from the Direct Sales Association, 79.9% of people in "direct sales" are female. Figure it another way and the males total a paltry 20.1%. Many of the women in our industry (and site visitors we seek) are current or future moms. It's know wonder a new term has come on the scene: Mompreneurism.

Yes, you're reading it right. According to authors Patricia Cobe and Ellen Parlapiano, who trademarked the term "mompreneurs" and were recently featured in Time magazine and various other programs like Fox News Channel; their mompreneurs online website draws millions of visitors each month.

In reading through the Mompreneurs Online web site you'll find that they've interviewed hundreds of at home mompreneurs. Their interviews revealed that these work at home women share certain secrets for success when doing business online. Don't miss the interesting points they offer. For example, below is a sampling of why and how mom-owned businesses are surviving and thriving on the web according to Ellen H. Parlapiano and Patricia Cobe:

• Team Work. Mompreneurs® forge powerful alliances--both online and off! Together they harness technology to build an instant network of personal and professional support through online communities and marketing cooperatives.
• Web Wisdom. Work-at-home moms understand that a dot.com name alone is not enough to power success. But the Internet can be a very valuable tool when used in conjunction with more traditional business strategies.
• A Natural Niche. Cyberspace opens up a wealth of business ideas, allowing moms to tap into their talents, skills and passions to create products and services for highly targeted audiences.

Maybe you think Binney Smith At Home is a great place for moms? Maybe you're hoping to attract at home mompreneurs to your site, blog, product or business? Or, maybe you already have lots of moms and a true mompreneurial mindset?

Whatever the case, these "mompreneurs" working from home are an important niche and your promotional campaigns can target these moms. Moms are both a consumer and a business force to be understood and respected.

Think optimistically that your educational materials will be just the thing these mompreneurs are looking for? Now, let's continue (below) with more tips in our series on pay per click strategies for gaining highly targeted traffic. Maybe you can get some moms clicking!

PPC Tips list continued from previous weeks:

• When cooking-up your keyword phrase list, use an extended "keyword discovery" phase. Your competition, like you, will do basic keyword research. You can only beat them if you take it to the next level, and that won't happen in the first day. Having a large number of targeted keywords in your campaign is a side effect of an extended period of brainstorming, discovery, research, or whatever you want to call it.
• Not very wood with gords? There is a hidden target market of quality visitors who type in incorrect spellings of what they are looking for. Site owners often overlook this. In a recent 30 day period on a major search engine at least 108 people where searching for a 'buisness'? Hundreds more were searching for: 'vitiamins', 'vitimans' and even 'vitamens'... You can bid on misspellings and have very little competition on the search results page.
• Assume that at least half your keywords will be rotten eggs, that is, no one will ever look for them and end up at your site. Because there is no extra cost to add as many keyword phrases as you can think up, treat them like biscuits and bake-up as many as you can... 100 or more keyword phrases for each destination page you list in any PPC search engine.

Can You Be Compelling to a Mompreneur?

Here's one way you can be compelling and relevant in reaching out to at home mompreneurs:

STORIES FROM THE HEART: Mompreneurs provide great stories to share in your advertising and promotional campaigns. Millions of moms dream of starting a business or turning their hobbies into profits. By showing successful mompreneurs who are thriving both at home and in business, you can tap into a powerful desire.

Review my last several blog posts for many more 'tip-set' in this series of PPC search engine tips.



For additional tips visit:
Internet Marketing Tips for Binney Smith At Home

Are you learning valuable ideas? We recommend you check out our previous blog posts for many other marketing ideas. In fact, why not add our RSS feed to your "Feed Reader" so you don't miss future trainings?


Technorati:
Binney Smith At Home | mompreneur | mompreneurs | mompreneurism | entrepreneur | PPC | pay per click | Google AdWords | Dan Hollings | educational products | educational materials
Other recommended blogs:
Nikken | Noevir | Multilevel marketing

Are educational materials great products to be successfully marketed via Google AdWords or Yahoo Sponsored Ads

Are educational materials great products to be successfully marketed via Google AdWords or Yahoo Sponsored Ads

Binney & Smith is a color company. Yes, color - along with creativity, learning and most of all, fun - it is the hallmark of our company. A wholly-owned subsidiary of Hallmark Cards, Binney & Smith plays the lead role in Hallmark's personal development strategies.

As A Binney Smith At Home representative you know your product and you've set your goals. Your web page, site, or blog is up and you're pondering methods to get people visiting your web page.

Can your educational materials be sold via Google AdWords or Yahoo Sponsored Ads or not? That's question #1, right? But equally important, can you orchestrate a plan that produces more measurable results than promotional expense?

Good news, the answer is: "definitely yes."

More tips for your PPC campaign:

• Remember that with PPC campaigns, you are not sending search visitors to a site, you are sending them to a web page (called: a destination or landing page). You must discover keywords and set-up ONE page at a time.
• Remember that people search by typing in more than one word:
• The 7 most used word phrases in search engines according to OneStat.com:
• 2 word phrases 32.58%
• 3 word phrase 25.61%
• 1 word phrases 19.02%
• 4 word phrases 12.83%
• 5 word phrases 5.64%
• 6 word phrases 2.32%
• 7 word phrases 0.98%
• Start your "keyword discovery" process by visiting the destination page you intend to send your search engine visitors to. Put on the 'reading glasses' of a customer and look at your page through their eyes.
• Ask yourself this: "What keywords might a person type in a search box where when they arrived at this destination page, they'd say 'BINGO' this is what I was looking for?" Find these keywords and you've discovered your best keywords.

Review my last several blog posts for many more 'tip-set' in this series of PPC search engine tips.


Are you learning valuable ideas? We recommend you check out our previous blog posts for many other marketing ideas. In fact, why not add our RSS feed to your "Feed Reader" so you don't miss future trainings?


Technorati:
Binney Smith At Home | PPC | pay per click | Google AdWords | Network Marketing | Yahoo Ads | Dan Hollings | AdWords | educational products | educational materials

Flash Pay-per-click Tutorials for Binney Smith At Home.

Flash Pay-per-click Tutorials for Binney Smith At Home.

Sometimes you feel like flipping a coin when choosing a pay per click search engine. Which one is really best for you? The top two are Google and Yahoo. It's a good idea to start your PPC traffic generation strategy with a small budget, spreading it out over a few different search engines to experiment and see where your target market may be lurking.

A good place to start is by viewing the wonderful tutorials and flash overviews offered by Google and Yahoo. Below are samples, you'll find others at Google and Yahoo:

Pay-per-click Yahoo Search: Overview
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/rc/srch/tu_srch.php
Flash presentation explains Yahoo sponsored search.

Google AdWords: Getting Started
http://services.google.com/marketing/links/awsignup_tutorial
How to fast-start a Google AdWords account.

Local Targeting with Google AdWords
http://services.google.com/tutorial/adw_loc_target/adw_loc_target.html
Reach new prospects in specific regional or local areas.

Google and Yahoo Handle Bidding a Bit Different, Let's Look...

Yahoo Ad Sponsoring Rules (bidding)

• Yahoo adjusts your bid to 1 cent over your next lowest competitor. Thus, if you bid $3.00 per click, and the next highest bid is $1.95 per click, you will only pay $1.96 per click.
• Yahoo allows you to see who you are bidding against and what they are bidding, so you know exactly where you will rank, and how much you will pay.
• Yahoo's maximum bid is $999.99
• Yahoo's minimum bid is $0.10

AdWords by Google

• Believe it or not, Google never reveals what you will pay per click. Thus, if you bid $3.00 per click, you will pay anywhere from $0.05 to $3.00 per click.
• Google does not allow you to know how much your competitors are bidding per click.
• An advantage with Google is that you will rank higher if your click-through rate (CT rate) is better (a CT rate is the ratio of clicks on your ad to the number of times your ad is shown). Thus, you may have a better rank than your competitor, even if he or she bids more than you (because of your CT rate).
• Google's maximum bid is $100.00
• Google's minimum bid is $0.05

New Google AdWords keyword status changes: Simplified keyword states and quality-based minimum bids.

IMPORTANT: Google announced in early August 2005 that they will simplify their keyword status system and introduce quality-based minimum bids, giving us more control to run all keywords we find important.

Let's See How This Works

Each keyword will now be assigned a minimum bid that is based on the quality (also called Quality Score) of your keyword in your account. If your keyword or Ad Group's maximum cost-per-click (CPC) meets the minimum bid, your keyword will be active and trigger ads. If it doesn't, your keyword will be inactive and will not trigger ads.

Previosly, keyword statuses were called normal, in trial, on hold, and disabled. Under the new rules, this will be replaced with active (triggering ads) or inactive (not triggering ads). No more slowed or disabled keywords if no do not have a minimum clickthrough rate (CTR) threshold.

More Pay Per Click Marketing Tips Below:

Pay-per-click advertising tips for the Binney Smith At Home representative continue below:

• Forget stupid characters. We are talking search engine listings (not eBay) so cool the clever punctuation it L@@KS stupid!!!!!!!! Don't make SOME words CAPITALIZED; it looks like you're shouting desperately for business. Respect the people who read your search engine listings.
• People are by nature often interested in things like 'saving money', 'making money', 'curing something', 'striking a deal', and getting anything of value that is 'free'... but be careful. The addition of such self-interest phrases in your ad copy may skew your clicks upwards while leaving your sales flat. If you're tempted to try such phrases... test, test, test... while keeping an eye on your bottom-line.
• Bluntness works: 'Refinance 4.5%', 'Viagra $39', 'No Interest VISA', etc
• These are the type words that appeal to searchers: more information, complimentary, love, youthful, safe, new, benefit, gain, money, happy, glad, proven, guarantee, resource, fast, results, discover, how you, how to, your, yours, you'll, healthy, natural, magic, secret, comfortable, save, proud, secure, solution.

Looking for more search marketing tips? Check my posts from previous weeks for more ideas and strategies.


Until next week, happy PPC campaigning...


Technorati:
Binney Smith At Home | PPC | pay per click | Google AdWords | Network Marketing | Yahoo Ads | Dan Hollings | Sponsored Ads | Contextual Ads | AdWords

Binney Smith At Home? What's that all about?

Binney Smith At Home? What's that all about?

Have you ever thought about the public's perception of what you do?

Binney Smith At Home

Binney & Smith is a color company. Yes, color - along with creativity, learning and most of all, fun - it is the hallmark of our company. A wholly-owned subsidiary of Hallmark Cards, Binney & Smith plays the lead role in Hallmark's personal development strategies.

Do you believe that visitors already know this about Binney Smith At Home?

That's perhaps the first challenge in any search engine marketing campaign; you might best think through this issue at the outset (as you are preparing your keywords, your ads, and your landing page) what the majority of visitors already 'know' about you and the educational materials you offer. In most cases you are best to assume they've never heard of you. That's always the safe bet.

If you're selling iPODs or something very well known, you can approach things much differently. Less time explain 'what' you've got and more time explain 'why' they should buy from you.

If your selling something that might be considered a common commodity (vitamins, shoes, cosmetics, telephone services, etc), then you must differentiate your product from the other seemingly similar products or services that customers will associate you with.

Much of these consumer 'mindset' conflicts should be handled on your landing page, that is, the page where they land after clicking your ad; so before you start any strategies for getting targeted visitors, reflect for a bit on how visitors will feel (and what they will think) when they hit your landing page.

Pay per click tips for this week:

Below are this weeks tips for better search engine marketing (using pay-per-click):

• On the subject of ad copy (the words which will comprise your numerous different listing titles and descriptions) we can sum it up briefly: RELATE your listing to the keyword the searcher has typed, SPARK curiosity in their minds to encourage a visit, be TRUTHFUL, be BRIEF, be CLEAR, don't HYPE, and FILTER out bad clicks.
• FILTER OUT BAD CLICKS? Yes, if your product is NOT for certain searchers, be clear upfront before they click. Example: If you bid on the keyword 'herbal shampoo' because your product is an herbal dog shampoo, make sure your ad copy reads: for dogs, pets, or animals. If you only fulfill orders in Canada, state this upfront in your listing ad copy. There is no need to pay for a visitor click if you cannot service a particular customer's needs. Use words to filter out bad clicks.
• There are many good resources to help you with ad copy, writing, and knowing what to say about your product. We recommend the eBook by Kim Klaver, "If My Product's So Great, How Come I Can't Sell It". Click here for a complimentary 'Mini-edition' of this eBook.

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


Technorati:
Binney Smith At Home | PPC | pay per click | Google | Network Marketing | mlm | Dan Hollings | internet marketing | Contextual Ads | AdWords

FadSense? All Google needs now is Jessica Simpson or Jessica Alba to wear this stuff!

FadSense? All Google needs now is Jessica Simpson or Jessica Alba to wear this stuff!

Maybe I'm fantasizing, but Google might actually do this. Imagine Jessica Alba wearing Google FadSense fashions (I'll sponsor those contextual ads regardless of the ROI). And if Google got Jessica Simpson in those FadSense sneakers, they'd have more advertiser requests than they could likely fulfill. For real? Well you decide.

Make sure you're sitting down before you click... Google FadSense™

As A Binney Smith At Home representative, you might be wondering why I'm talking about a futuristic contextual AdSense (AdWord) program like FadSense. It's partially because it's funny, but more importantly, it's because I feel the type of advertising we have been discussing here at my "Internet Marketing Tips for Binney Smith At Home" blog, is critical to your future. What I'm hoping to teach you are skills and tips that will not only work for Google today, but for any similar type advertising in the future. Google FadSense, real or not!

When we boil it all down, here's what we must learn:

• How to find keywords related to your products and services.
• How to determine "tags" that help categorize your content.
• How to prepare your marketing campaign from the ground up.
• How to track your traffic, results, and advertising ROI (return on investment).
• How to manage your advertising budget.
• How to create eye catching headlines for your ads.
• How to use the internet effectively in any marketing campaign.

My Continuing Tips To Help You With Binney Smith At Home...

In my last few blog posts we have hammered away with dozens of valuable tips. This week we continue.

• Sometimes people type in web addresses in those search boxes! So bid on those if the search engine allows it: 'www.website.com', 'website.com', 'http://website.com' and every combination full or partial you think a searcher might actually type.
• Match up keywords with words in your ad copy. Even though a 'spa', a 'hot tub', and a 'whirlpool' might mean the same thing in your mind, if a searcher types in 'hot tub' and your listing says: "Relax and save in your new Spa", you will miss out on many interested customers.
• Think negative... yes, people search for herbs that can kill, plastic surgery pitfalls, mlm scams and sundry other peculiar things. Invite them to explore your related listing. Do you offer cosmetics or skin car as an alternative to plastic surgery? Is you mlm a beacon of light in a sea of seemingly dubious scams?
• Get creative with interest spikes in the news. 'Mad Cow' might be a great keyword for your all vegetarian product line. The 'SARS' outbreak might have generated millions of searches that your 'immunity booster' could have benefited from (just don't make any false claims). And where were all the bra ads when a gazillion people typed in 'Janet Jackson' after the 2004 Super Bowl surprise?

In earlier blog posts you'll find the first, second, third and fourth installments of my PPC tips.


Like what you're reading? Subscribe to my RSS feed.


Technorati:
Binney Smith At Home | PPC | pay per click | Google | FadSense | AdSense | Sneakers | Dan Hollings | internet marketing | Fashion | Contextual Ads | AdWords

On this date... After 118 Years, Google Inc. Closed Its Doors.

On this date... After 118 Years, Google Inc. Closed Its Doors.

www.flickr.com

This is a Flickr badge showing photos in a set called Woolworth. Make your own badge here.

What started as a play on the word googol, becoming the search engine everybody loved (or envied) and grew to become the "five-and-dime" of pay-per-click search engines, pulled the plug on the last server on this date in Mountain View, California. It's a story of a future time that could be soon, or beyond our horizon.

If anyone back in the late 1800's or early 1900's had been thinking ahead to the future of Woolworth Corp., it's unlikely they would have ever predicted that the famous five-and-dime would be a line item on a "Today in History" script published to millions of readers across this thing we call the internet.

Yet today, has I opened my RSS News Reader, there it was. I can recall shopping at the five-and-dime as a kid. It was the "best" store in town. Just like Google; the best. Now, its history. Perhaps the best is not good enough?

As Google co-founder Larry Page puts it, "Never settle for the best, the perfect search engine, would understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want."

Today in History...

By 1997, only a little over 400 Woolworth stores remained in the U. S. (and a few hundred more overseas). It was announced that the stores would be closed and the remaining 9,200 employees terminated. That was on this day.

Could this happen to Google? Well, yes. In the Fortune story, "Search and Destroy" It states that Bill Gates is leading a charge against Google. Forced to watch Google's stock soar the way Microsoft's used to, while Google's Brin and Page enjoy new roles as tech's rock stars, Gates brings to the fight a ferocity that nobody has seen since the Netscape war a decade ago. Google's popularity gets under his skin. For now however, it's all fantasy thinking as the titans of search (Google, Yahoo, & Microsoft) battle it out in cyberspace.

Global search advertising revenue, which was $369 million in 2001, is expected to hit $7.9 billion this year, according to research from Piper Jaffray & Co. Those who work in and cover the industry see further expansion as paid search grows overseas and is embraced by ever- larger companies following audiences to the Web. (Source: Reuters 2005)

Good news for the Binney Smith At Home representative

The Cost Per Lead using Pay-per-click is Cheap Compared To Other Ads

Pay-per-click search listings appear to out perform other methods when it comes to delivering a cost-effective way to get customers. According to Piper Jaffray & Co., the cost to acquire a customer is approximately $8.50 for search, $20 for Yellow Pages, $50 for online display ads, $60 for e-mail and $70 for direct mail. Television data was not mentioned. The choice for advertisers is clear.

According to Jeff Saville, "It's a marketer's dream tool because we can monitor it in so many different ways and watch the effectiveness of it." Jeff is a marketing manager with Deckers Outdoor Corp. (Nasdaq:DECK - news)

Are there dangers or flaws in search advertising?

• At times, advertisers and their online business affiliates find they are competing with each other in auction-style bidding for key words and pushing up their own costs.
• Certain campaigns fail because they are ill-conceived or unsuited to the medium.
• An estimated 5 percent to 20 percent of clicks are believed to be fraudulent -- the result of people clicking on ads to drive up advertiser costs or to make a profit for Web site publishers who get a cut of revenue.

Adding all this up, we come to two conclusions: 1) It pays to get good at pay-per-click advertising if you plan to do business online and 2) we may only have 118 years left with Google :-)

Search engine marketing strategies:

• When thinking up keywords, use examples of specific things your product is used for: 'clean floors', clean countertops', 'wash floors', 'mop floors', 'polish stove top', 'remove grime', 'shine appliances', 'disinfect bacteria', 'hide furniture flaws' etc.
• Explore variations: 'soy milk', 'soymilk', 'soy-milk'
• Add plurals: 'protein bar' and 'protein bars'
• Use abbreviations and acronyms
• Use US and UK spellings
• Keyword phrases may be questions: 'how to repair bad credit', 'when should I diet', 'how do I lose weight', 'where are discount cosmetics', etc.

Like what you're reading? Subscribe to my RSS feed.


Technorati:
Binney Smith At Home | PPC | pay per click | Google | marketing tips | search | Woolworth | Today in history | online advertising