A Stampin Up hostess guide for search engine results without breaking the bank.

A Stampin Up hostess guide for search engine results without breaking the bank.

Who would have guessed that 192 days have passed since the beginning of 2005?

As if racing off for next year's cork popping celebration, 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 traffic generation strategy is just not keeping the beat?

Are you getting your piece of the pie? Internet retail sales are projected to reach up to 110 billion dollars in 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 even a single "interested" visitor EVERY OTHER DAY to come to your site.

If you're asking "What approach should I consider for my online marketing?" 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 attracting targeted traffic by running little ads in the various search engines (like Google's AdSense program). Done correctly, you can get ongoing affordable traffic. And best of all, you can keep within a budget that makes sense when compared to the results you get from that traffic.

Where are people advertising these days? According to TNS Media Intelligence (03/2005) Internet advertising showed the strongest gain (21.4%), followed by outdoor (20.1%), cable TV (13.8%) and national syndication (15.8%).

All around the world you havve reports, 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.

Online retail sales in the first quarter reached $19.2 billion, up 23.8% from Q1 a year ago. (Source: U.S. Department of Commerce 05/2005)

But I'm A Stampin Up hostess, I'm certain it's another story in my situation?

Maybe you are thinking that "some things" sell online but not your rubber stamps, photo albums, supplies & cameras. 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. Ready or not, here they come. This weeks PPC tips to make you rich and famous (well perhaps that's stretching it a bit):

Pay per click tips for this week:

• 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.

Looking for more suggestions? Check my posts from previous weeks for more ideas and strategies.

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 Stampin Up interesting or helpful.

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


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Stampin Up | PPC | pay per click | AdWords | marketing | search | retail statistics | marketing statistics | sales statistics