What's Froogle? Can people find your health, homecare, personal care, skincare & cosmetic products included?

What's Froogle? Can people find your health, homecare, personal care, skincare & cosmetic products included?

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

• Customers shop at a place that s convenient
• Customers shop at a place they trust
• Customers shop at a place with good prices
• Customers shop at a place that s well promoted
• Customers shop at a place they ve shopped at before.

So what does all this 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 doesn't establish pricing on any items listed in their comparison shopping engine themself, they do allow shoppers to hunt down good prices and merchants to set whatever pricing they prefer. Froogle has hit 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 attempting to promote your products or services, 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.

Highlights of Froogle

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.

Health-fitness-wellness, homecare, personal care, skincare & cosmetics... Can you explain how these might be ranked in Froogle.

Below are some important tips toward getting your health, homecare, personal care, skincare & cosmetic products ranked 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.

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


Technorati:
Stanley Home Products | Froogle | Dan Hollings | wellness | fitness | health | cosmetics | skincare
Other recommended blogs:
EcoQuest | Electrolux Vacuums | Fifth Ave Collection

Stanley Home Products and Mompreneurism?

Stanley Home Products and 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 customers we seek) are current or future moms. It was only a matter of time before 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 Good Morning America; their mompreneurs online web site (www.mompreneursonline.com) draws millions of visitors each month.

In reading through the Mompreneurs Online web site you'll find that they've interviewed hundreds of moms running their own business from home. Their interviews revealed that these special women share certain secrets for success when doing business online. I borrowed a few points about mompreneurs from their site... 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:

• Money Smarts. Moms don't overextend their financial resources and are less likely to use outside funding during start-up. So they don't have to worry about venture capitalists pulling the plug on their businesses.
• 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.
• 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.

Maybe you think Stanley Home Products is a great place for moms? Maybe you're hoping to attract moms running their own business from home to your site, blog, product or business? Or, maybe you already have lots of moms and a true mompreneurial spirit?

Whatever the case, mothers in business at home are an important niche and your marketing campaigns can target these moms. Moms are both a consumer and a business force to be admired and respected.

Think optimistically that your health-fitness-wellness, homecare, personal care, skincare & cosmetics will be just the thing these mompreneurs are desiring? 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!

More Pay Per Click Marketing Tips Below:

• 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.

Making Yourself (or Your Business) Attractive to Mompreneurs

Here's one way you can be very appealing in reaching out to moms running their own business from home:

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.

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



For additional tips and help visit:
Internet Marketing Tips for Stanley Home Products

Until next week, happy pay per click campaigning...


Technorati:
Stanley Home Products | mompreneur | mompreneurs | mompreneurism | entrepreneur | PPC | pay per click | Google AdWords | Dan Hollings | wellness | fitness | health | cosmetics | skincare
Other recommended blogs:
CUTCO | Direct sales | Discovery Toys

Health-fitness-wellness, homecare, personal care, skincare & cosmetics... Can you explain how these might be marketed through a pay per click search engine campaign

Health-fitness-wellness, homecare, personal care, skincare & cosmetics... Can you explain how these might be marketed through a pay per click search engine campaign

Stanley Home Products (SHP), offers high-quality household cleaners, brushes, and mops. Stanley Home Products is part of the well known Fuller Brands, and they also offer 80+ personal care and wellness products which combine the essence of vitamins, milk proteins, and other ingredients to pamper your body and help maintain good health. In the home cleaning category, SHP is perhaps best known for its Quality-Plus® products, including the recognized trademarks of Aquilaun® Concentrate Delicate Fabric Wash, Original Degreaser, and Orange Miracletm Spot & Stain Remover

As A Stanley Home Products 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 health-fitness-wellness, homecare, personal care, skincare & cosmetics be sold through a pay per click search engine campaign or not? You've got to answer that first, right? But equally important, can you put together a campaign that generates more measurable results than cost?

Encouraging news, the answer is: "YES!"

Pay per click tips for this week:

• 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.

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


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


Technorati:
Stanley Home Products | PPC | pay per click | Google AdWords | Network Marketing | Yahoo Ads | Dan Hollings | AdWords | wellness | fitness | health | cosmetics | skincare

Pay-per-click Help. Yahoo and Google for Stanley Home Products.

Pay-per-click Help. Yahoo and Google for Stanley Home Products.

As you consider which PPC seach engine is for you, you might find our tips this week particularly relevant. The top two are Google AdWords and Yahoo Sponsored Search. It's a good idea to start your marketing drive 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.

Google AdWords Keyword Matching Options
https://services.google.com/marketing/stats/tutorial_redirect

Refine your ad targeting and reduce irrelevant clicks.

Google AdWords Account Navigation
http://services.google.com/tutorial/acct_nav/acct_nav.html
Getting arround in your AdWords account area.

Google Vs. Yahoo? Do the bidding policies make a difference?

Yahoo Sponsored Ads

• Yahoo places your bid at 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

AdWords by Google

• Google doesn't tell you how much 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.

NEW: 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.

How it 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.

PPC Tips:

Pay-per-click advertising tips for the Stanley Home Products representative continue below:

• 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.

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


Until next week, happy PPC campaigning...


Technorati:
Stanley Home Products | PPC | pay per click | Google AdWords | Network Marketing | Yahoo Ads | Dan Hollings | Sponsored Ads | Contextual Ads | AdWords

Stanley Home Products? What's the public's impression?

Stanley Home Products? What's the public's impression?

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

Stanley Home Products

Stanley Home Products (SHP), offers high-quality household cleaners, brushes, and mops. Stanley Home Products is part of the well known Fuller Brands, and they also offer 80+ personal care and wellness products which combine the essence of vitamins, milk proteins, and other ingredients to pamper your body and help maintain good health. In the home cleaning category, SHP is perhaps best known for its Quality-Plus® products, including the recognized trademarks of Aquilaun® Concentrate Delicate Fabric Wash, Original Degreaser, and Orange Miracletm Spot & Stain Remover

Do you guess that people visiting your web page already think this about Stanley Home Products?

That's a mystery-factor in any search engine marketing campaign; you should factor in from the start (as you are preparing your keywords, your ads, and your landing page) what the majority of visitors already 'know' about you and the health-fitness-wellness, homecare, personal care, skincare & cosmetics you offer. If you're not sure, 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 has become 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' challenges must be addressed on the page your visitor arrives at after clicking your ad; so before you start any search engine advertising, stop and think for a moment about what your potential customer might perceive as they arrive at your landing page.

Search engine marketing strategies:

Without any further delay, I'll continue with my tips this week.

• 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.

Last week I posted the another round of search engine marketing tips and yet more in the weeks before that. Check previous weeks for more ideas.


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


Technorati:
Stanley Home Products | PPC | pay per click | Google | Network Marketing | mlm | Dan Hollings | internet marketing | Contextual Ads | AdWords

"No clicks allowed" with Google FadSense? Still, I bet clicking will be irresistible in some situations!

"No clicks allowed" with Google FadSense? Still, I bet clicking will be irresistible in some situations!

Yes, I took one look and I said, "this click!" I get it! But then I read you can't click, and I was lost? Google FadSense is perplexing at best. But I'll be at the mall soon, looking for potential spots I might want to click :-)

Is this the future? Google FadSense™

As A Stanley Home Products 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 Stanley Home Products" 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!

Before we continue with this week's tips, let's look at what we must concentrate on:

• 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 write effective ads.
• How to use the internet effectively in any marketing campaign.

My Continuing Tips To Help You With Stanley Home Products...

This week I shall continue with my PPC search engine recommendations. If you have been following (or subscribing by RSS feed) to these tips, you are aware that over the past few weeks we have hammered away with dozens of valuable tips. This week we continue.

• 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.

For additional tips that might improve your pay per click ad campaign review the tips in my previous posts.


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


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

"No Results Found," after 118 years, somebody turned the lights out at Google...

"No Results Found," after 118 years, somebody turned the lights out at Google...

www.flickr.com

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

What started as a search engine using a unique approach to link analysis (initially called BackRub) 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."

On this date...

One of retail's most successful pioneers, F.W. Woolworth, and his empire of department stores that defined the shopping experience for millions over the course of its 118-year existence. Woolworth, considered by his first boss to be the "worst salesman in the world," overcame repeated failure and financial hardship to open his first store in 1879 in Lancaster City, Pennsylvania. Through trial and error, the young Woolworth learned that selling large quantities of low-priced merchandise led to profit. It all ended on this day in 1997.

Could this happen to Google? Well, yes. Bill Gates is on a mission to build a Google killer. What got him so riled? Google, the darling of search is moving into software and that's Microsoft's turf. Fortune story here. For now however, it's all fantasy thinking as the titans of search (Google, Yahoo, & Microsoft) battle it out in cyberspace.

Research shows global Web search advertising revenue, which is big business for the Internet giants, will be almost $8 billion in 2005 -- more than 20 times what it was four years ago. (Source: Reuters 2005)

Good news for the Stanley Home Products 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?

• Certain campaigns fail because they are ill-conceived or unsuited to the medium.
• 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.
• 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.]

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 tips:

• 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.

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


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


Technorati:
Stanley Home Products | PPC | pay per click | Google | marketing tips | search | Woolworth | Today in history | online advertising