Why Froogle? Why Not? Are your giftware, home accessories & decor products there?

Why Froogle? Why Not? Are your giftware, home accessories & decor products there?

As A Home Interiors and Gifts decorating consultant, 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 they ve shopped at in the past.

So what does knowing the habits of a happy shopper have to do with Google's Froogle? 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 is obviously an exception to the old expression, "there's no such thing as a free lunch". At Froogle, if you're hoping to get your stuff in front of shoppers, lunch is on them. It's on the house!

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

What is Foogle?

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 is forever free to merchants who wish to participate.
Upload your product info (data feed) and you'll be listed overnight. The entire system is supported by 'Sponsored Links' which are paid advertisements Froogle displays along side the regular Froogle listings.

Giftware, home accessories & decor. Strong sales if found in Froogle.

What follows are some helpful tips toward getting your giftware, home accessories & decor products found in Froogle using their data feed system:

1. Go to the Froogle Merchant Center and sign-in
   If you do not have an account, open one and enter the merchant area.
   
2. Set-up an FTP account
   Set up an FTP account so that later you can upload your 'product or service' feeds in the Froogle system.
   
3. Adjust your feed's settings
   Your feed will have a filename and other parameters. You must set this up as well.
   
4. Upload your feed
   After you create a feed according to Froogle's instructions you'll upload it by FTP. Check that your feed name matches the filename you chose above in Step 3.
   
5. Final content review
   We will review your feed to ensure that its content is consistent with our program policies.

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Home Interiors and Gifts, the Ideal Mompreneurial Business?

Home Interiors and Gifts, the Ideal Mompreneurial Business?

Source: Direct Sales Association

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 customers we seek) are current or future moms. Just when we thought the dictionary had all the words we needed a new term has marched to the forefront: 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 the CBS Early Show; their mompreneurs online site draws millions of visitors each month.

In reading through the Mompreneurs Online web site you'll enjoy reading that they've interviewed hundreds of "at home" business moms. Their interviews revealed that these work at home women share certain secrets for success on the wild, wild web. Of the many things mentioned, below is a sampling of why and how mom-owned businesses are surviving and thriving on the web according to Cobe and Parlapiano:

• 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.
• The Control Factor. Moms start home businesses for family flexibility, so they grow their enterprises slowly and steadily to retain control over their work/family time. The 24/7 availability of the Internet lets them work when THEY want to.
• 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.

Perhaps you think Home Interiors and Gifts is a wonderful opportunity for moms? Maybe you're hoping to attract "at home" business moms to your site, blog, product or business? Or, maybe you already have lots of moms and a true mompreneurial mindset?

Whatever the case, it's an important niche and your promotional campaigns can target these moms. Moms are both a consumer and a business force to be admired and respected.

Maybe your giftware, home accessories & decor will be just the thing these mompreneurs are wanting? Now, let's continue (below) with more tips in our series on how to best implement a successful pay-per-click campaign. Maybe you can get some moms clicking!

Tips, Tips, Tips... They just keep on coming!

• 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.

Becoming Relevant to Mompreneurs...

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

MAKE IT VIRAL: Viral marketing is huge among mompreneurs. Easy-to-forward articles, mini-ebooks and cards are perfect. But low-tech solutions can be equally effective. For example, Clorox offers a new mop which includes several postcard-style coupons that let happy customers share the handy product with their friends.

For additional tips and help visit:
Internet Marketing Tips for Home Interiors and Gifts

Check back next week for the next in this series of pay per click marketing tips...


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Giftware, home accessories & decor. Strong sales if marketed through PPC

Giftware, home accessories & decor. Strong sales if marketed through PPC

Home Interiors is the largest direct seller of home d?cor products in North America. We sell unique, well-known products from the Better Homes and Gardens Collection , The Thomas Kinkade Company and Boehm Porcelain .

As A Home Interiors and Gifts decorating consultant 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 search engine traffic.

Can your giftware, home accessories & decor be sold through PPC or not? That's question #1, right? But equally important, can you orchestrate a campaign that creates more buying customers than cost?

Good news, the answer is: "without a doubt, YES!"

Tricks of the trade for the successful PPC campaign...

• 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.

Over 50 tips have been published in this ongoing PPC tips series; please check our archived posts for many more helpful marketing recommendations. OK?


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Flash Pay-per-click Tutorials for Home Interiors and Gifts.

Flash Pay-per-click Tutorials for Home Interiors and Gifts.

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 pay per click ads 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. View the sample tutorials below, 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.

Bidding and Ranking with Google AdWords
http://services.google.com/tutorial/bpr/bpr.html
Improve your AdWord position and control your costs.

Understanding PPC Conversion Tracking
http://services.google.com/marketing/links/cvt_tutorial
Learn which pay per click ads work and which do not.

Let's compare how Yahoo and Google handle keyword bidding:

Yahoo Sponsored Ads

• Yahoo sets your keyword bid only 1 penny 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

Google AdWords

• 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.

NOTE: 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.

Understanding Google's New Quality Score

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.

Pay per click tips for this week:

Pay-per-click advertising tips for the Home Interiors and Gifts decorating consultant continue below:

• 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 over my last several blog posts for many more sets in this series of PPC search engine tips.


Hopefully you're learning valuable tips. Study previous blog posts for many other marketing ideas. Perhaps you should add our RSS feed to your "Feed Reader" so you don't miss future trainings?


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Home Interiors and Gifts? Does anybody really know what I offer?

Home Interiors and Gifts? Does anybody really know what I offer?

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

Home Interiors and Gifts

Home Interiors is the largest direct seller of home d?cor products in North America. We sell unique, well-known products from the Better Homes and Gardens Collection , The Thomas Kinkade Company and Boehm Porcelain .

Do you know if potential customers already think this about Home Interiors and Gifts?

That's a 'guess-work' element in any search engine marketing campaign; you should consider upfront (as you are preparing your keywords, your ads, and your landing page) what the majority of visitors already 'have heard' about you and the giftware, home accessories & decor you offer. You might consider playing it safe and 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 people consider a common commodity (vitamins, shoes, cosmetics, telephone services, etc), then you must differentiate your product from the other seemingly similar things the public possibly will associate you with.

Much of these consumer 'mindset' challenges must be addressed on the page your visitor arrives at after clicking your ad; so before you start any marketing push, reflect for a bit on how visitors will feel (and what they will think) when they hit your landing page.

More tips for your PPC campaign:

So as promised, below you'll find this weeks installment of search engine tips...

• 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?

Check back over my last several blog posts for many more sets in this series of PPC search engine tips.


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Fadsense: Google Adsense for Fashion?

Fadsense: Google Adsense for Fashion?

Fadsense: Google goes blue jeans and sneakers? Valentino Garavani, Donatella Versace, Ralph Lauren and all the other big names in fashion may soon have a new competitor (or partner) on the runway.

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

As A Home Interiors and Gifts decorating consultant, 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 Home Interiors and Gifts" 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!

Some of it turns out to be as basic as:

• 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 create a destination or landing page that works.
• How to manage your advertising budget.
• How to use the internet effectively in any marketing campaign.

My Continuing Tips To Help You With Home Interiors and Gifts...

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

• 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.

Check back over my last four blog posts for the first, second, third and fourth sets in this series of PPC search engine tips.


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


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It Happened Today... After 118 Years, Google Inc. Closed Its Doors.

It Happened Today... 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 collaboration between Larry and Sergey and initially lead to a search engine called BackRub (named for its unique ability to analyze the "back links" pointing to a given website) 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?

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

It Happened Today...

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 Home Interiors and Gifts decorating consultant

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

$8.50 for search, $20 for Yellow Pages, $50 for online display ads, $60 for e-mail and $70 for direct mail. Those are the average cost-per-customer numbers based on research by Piper Jaffray. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know where to spend your advertising dollars.

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

Are there dangers or flaws in search advertising?

• 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.
• According to WebTrends the data suggests that 60 percent of marketers do not measure sales, leads or key actions resulting from campaigns. [This is a dangerous number because that means you are competing with people who don't know what things are truly costing them. You need to be extra analytical when going head to head with this guy.]
• 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.

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 :-)

Pay per click tips for this week:

• If your product or service is something that can be related to a locale, like a city, state or region you may be able to find some ripe tomatoes in phrases like: 'retirement homes in Florida', 'Mississippi flat rate phone service', 'herbal sunscreen for southwestern sun', 'indoor air filters for Los Angeles'.
• Discover more keywords by narrowing down to extreme specifics. People can be VERY specific when they search. Use names of months and years like '2004 tax savings', 'May flowers', 'Christmas of 2005' or 'September back to school supplies'.
  
  Let's say you are marketing a broad line of herbal products... why not get a list of all herbs (there may be thousands) and use that list as a keyword list. Maybe your product doesn't contain every herb on the list, but people searching for any ONE herb specifically may be interested in others. Try specific model numbers, makes and designs if your products are sometimes referred to this way: 'Epson stylus CX6400', 'Apple G5', etc.
• Add adjectives to your keywords like: big, purple, new, cheap, affordable, soft, aromatic, healthy, etc.

Check back over my last three blog posts for the first, second and third set in this series of PPC search engine tips.


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


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