Froogle it! In 24 hours your products or services there?

Froogle it! In 24 hours your products or services there?

As A Home based business entrepreneur, 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 that are well advertised
• Consumers frequent places they ve shopped at in the past.

So what does all this have to do with Froogle, the comparison shopping engine? Well simply put; many people have been to Google or Froogle before, it's well promoted, and as always it is convenient. People are basically familiar with Google's various search engines and they trust this newer comparison shopping engine because it's backed by Google. While Google's Froogle does not sell or price products or services themself, they do allow shoppers to search for good prices. 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 looking to marketing something, lunch is on them. It's on the house!

After some few facts about Froogle, I'll cover the steps for uploading your products or services information.

Points About 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 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.

Any product or service can be sold online, but can it be listed in Froogle.

What follows are some key steps toward getting your products or services listed 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.
   

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?


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Your home based biz | Froogle | Dan Hollings |
Other recommended blogs:
Tastefully Simple | The Traveling Vineyard | Tomboy Tools

Mompreneurism and your home based biz? Ever thought about it?

Mompreneurism and your home based biz? Ever thought about it?

Source: Direct Sales Association

Perhaps I was bored when I stumbled upon this statistic, but the more I thought about it, the more excited I got... based on numbers available from the Direct Sales Association, 79.9% of people in "direct sales" are female. Figure it another way and the guys total a paltry 20.1%. Many of the women in our industry (and prospects we seek) are current or future moms. It seems natural that a new term has come on the scene: Mompreneurism.

Books About 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 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 work at home moms. Their interviews revealed that these goal directed women share certain secrets for cyber-success. 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 Parlapiano and Cobe:

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

Perhaps you think Your home based biz is a good place for moms? Maybe you're hoping to attract work at home moms to your site, blog, product or business? Or, maybe you already have lots of moms and a true mompreneurial mindset?

Whatever the case, at home mompreneurs 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.

With any luck, your product or service will be just the thing these mompreneurs are wanting? 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!

Search engine marketing tips:

• 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 relevant and attractive in reaching out to work at home moms:

SUPPORT: Create strategies to support this emerging entrepreneurial niche. Provide convenient pathways and remove as many barriers to entry as possible. Almost every industry can tap into the mompreneur market by making their lives and their businesses run more smoothly.

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 internet strategies visit:
Internet Marketing Tips for Your home based biz

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


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Your home based biz | mompreneur | mompreneurs | mompreneurism | entrepreneur | PPC | pay per click | Google AdWords | Dan Hollings |
Other recommended blogs:
Stanley Home Products | Sunrider | Tahitian Noni

Any product or service can be sold online, but can it be sold successfully via marketing on search engines

Any product or service can be sold online, but can it be sold successfully via marketing on search engines

Perhaps the product or service offered by your business is not widely known by consumers. This can be a positive or a negative depending on the mindset of your potential customer. What's important in all cases, is that you provide the features and benefits that your product or service offers and focus on that. The fact that you are running a "home based business" can often be an advantage, because some people like the more personal touch. If a customer likes what you offer, they will naturally want to recommend it to others and this helps grow your business through positive word-of-mouth.

As A Home based business entrepreneur 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 product or service be sold via marketing on search engines or not? This is question number one, right? But equally important, can you figure out a pay per click strategy that produces more real customers than promotional expense?

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

More 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.

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


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


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Your home based biz | PPC | pay per click | Google AdWords | Network Marketing | Yahoo Ads | Dan Hollings | AdWords |

Yahoo or Google or Both? Pay per click for Your home based biz.

Yahoo or Google or Both? Pay per click for Your home based biz.

When comparing the primary pay-per-click search engines, you might be challenged to figure out which is best for you. The top two are Google and Yahoo. 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.

We recommend you begin by viewing the wonderful tutorials and flash overviews offered by Google and Yahoo. Below are samples, you'll find others at Google and Yahoo:

Yahoo Sponsored Search: Flash Introduction
http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/rc/srch/tu_srch.php
Learn advantages of Yahoo's PPC program.

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

Refine your ad targeting and reduce irrelevant clicks.

Google AdWords Conversion Tracking
http://services.google.com/marketing/links/cvt_tutorial
Which PPC ads work and which need improvement.

Bidding Rules Are Different at Google and Yahoo:

Yahoo Sponsored Ads

• 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

• 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.

UPDATE: 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.

Google's New Rule

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.

Search engine marketing strategies:

Pay-per-click advertising tips for the Home based business entrepreneur 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.

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


Check back next week for the next in this series of PPC tips...


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Your home based biz | PPC | pay per click | Google AdWords | Network Marketing | Yahoo Ads | Dan Hollings | Sponsored Ads | Contextual Ads | AdWords

Your home based biz? What's that all about?

Your home based biz? What's that all about?

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

Your home based biz

Perhaps the product or service offered by your business is not widely known by consumers. This can be a positive or a negative depending on the mindset of your potential customer. What's important in all cases, is that you provide the features and benefits that your product or service offers and focus on that. The fact that you are running a "home based business" can often be an advantage, because some people like the more personal touch. If a customer likes what you offer, they will naturally want to recommend it to others and this helps grow your business through positive word-of-mouth.

Do you believe that visitors arriving at your site already know this about Your home based biz?

That's a mystery-factor in any search engine marketing campaign; you must decide upfront (as you are preparing your keywords, your ads, and your landing page) what the majority of visitors already 'know' about you and the product or service 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 might be considered a common commodity (vitamins, shoes, cosmetics, telephone services, etc), then you must differentiate your product from the other seemingly similar things consumers might associate you with.

Much of these consumer 'mindset' concerns should be addressed the moment they hit your first web page after clicking your ad; so before you start any strategies for getting targeted visitors, think like a customer and look at your landing page.

PPC Tips list continued from previous weeks:

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

• 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.

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


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Your home based biz | 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.

Go to Google FadSense™

As A Home based business entrepreneur, 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 Your home based biz" 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!

To summarize the core of our current discussions, we want to know:

• 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 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 Your home based biz...

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.


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What a day (historically speaking): Google, The Little Search Engine That 'Could,' Couldn't Make It Any More...

What a day (historically speaking): Google, The Little Search Engine That 'Could,' Couldn't Make It Any More...

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?

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

Today in History...

One of the strange things about Woolworth's announcement that it was closing its doors after 118 years, was that many of the calls to Woolworth's corporate headquarters afterward urging the company to keep the stores open were from people worried about what would become of all the fish sold in the Woolworth's store pet departments. Does anyone know what really happened to those fish 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 Home based business entrepreneur

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

As compared to other methods of getting customers, PPC search ads seem to perform better. 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. according to Piper Jaffray & Co. research. Pay-per-click is obviously the lead horse.

"Paid-search advertising has become a do-or-die proposition," says Jeff Saville, a consumer direct marketing manager at Deckers Outdoor Corp. "The market is growing fast, primarily because the ads are trackable and target people who are already interested. The medium is also inexpensive compared with television, radio, direct mail and Web banner ads." (Nasdaq:DECK - news)

Are there dangers or flaws in search advertising?

• Some worry that new advertisers are rushing blindly into paid search and inflating key word prices -- a concern underscored by WebTrends data.
• 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.]

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:

• 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.

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


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Your home based biz | PPC | pay per click | Google | marketing tips | search | Woolworth | Today in history | online advertising