Are you Froogling? Are your products or services listed?

Are you Froogling? Are your products or services listed?

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

• Customers shop at a place that s familiar
• 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 they ve shopped at before.

So what does knowing where customers shop have to do with Froogle, the comparison shopping engine? Well simply put; many people trust Google's Foogle and they are familiar with Google because it's well promoted, they've been there before and it's always convenient. While Google's Froogle doesn't establish pricing on any items listed in their comparison shopping engine themself, they do allow shoppers to find good prices. Froogle has hit the consumer's nail right on its head.

It seems to be a rare exception 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!

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

Google's Foogle...

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.

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.

You have a product or service, right? But do you know how it can be included in Froogle.

What follows are some helpful steps toward getting your products or services included 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.

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 business | Froogle | Dan Hollings |
Other recommended blogs:
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Could your home business benefit from a little Mompreneurism?

Could your home business benefit from a little Mompreneurism?

Source: Direct Sales Association

Have you been looking around you? Moms, moms everywhere! Yes, according to figures available from the Direct Sales Association, 79.9% of people in "direct sales" are female. Even without a calculator, I can figure the guys total a paltry 20.1%. Many of the women in our industry (and customers we seek) are current or future moms. It seems natural that a new term has appeared on our horizon known as 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 Maury; their mompreneurs online website draws millions of visitors each month.

In reading through the Mompreneurs Online web site you'll learn that they've interviewed hundreds of these "mompreneurs" working from home. Their interviews revealed that these work at home women share certain secrets for internet 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 Mompreneurs® Online:

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

Do you think Your home business is a great place for moms? Maybe you're hoping to attract these "mompreneurs" working from home to your site, blog, product or business? Or, maybe you already have lots of moms and a true mompreneurial ground swell in the works?

Whatever the case, it's 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.

Perhaps your product or service will be just the thing these mompreneurs are seeking? 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!

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

• 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.

Becoming Relevant to Mompreneurs...

Here's one way you can be relevant and attractive in reaching out to these "mompreneurs" working 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.

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



For additional internet strategies visit:
Internet Marketing Tips for Your home business

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Your home business | mompreneur | mompreneurs | mompreneurism | entrepreneur | PPC | pay per click | Google AdWords | Dan Hollings |
Other recommended blogs:
Silpada Designs | Southern Living Home | Stampin Up

You have a product or service, right? But do you know how it can be marketed using marketing on search engines

You have a product or service, right? But do you know how it can be marketed using 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 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 business owner 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 visitors.

Can your product or service be sold using marketing on search engines or not? You've got to answer that first, right? But equally important, can you figure out a plan that creates more real customers than lost money?

Good news, the answer is: "most likely."

Search engine marketing tips:

• 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.

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


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


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

Sponsored Ads? AdWords? Help for Your home business.

Sponsored Ads? AdWords? Help for Your home business.

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. Check below for a few examples, 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.

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 Look at The Google and Yahoo Bidding Rules:

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

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.

NEWS: 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' New Policy

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.

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

Pay-per-click advertising tips for the Home business owner continue below:

• 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.

In earlier blog posts you'll find several installments of my PPC 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?


Technorati:
Your home business | PPC | pay per click | Google AdWords | Network Marketing | Yahoo Ads | Dan Hollings | Sponsored Ads | Contextual Ads | AdWords

Your home business? Have you considered what consumers think of you?

Your home business? Have you considered what consumers think of you?

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

Your home business

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 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 know if customers already perceive this about Your home business?

That's an 'unknown' 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 'have perceived' about you and the product or service 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 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' concerns should be addressed the moment they hit your first web page after clicking your ad; so before you start any pay per click ads, jump into your customers shoes and take a stroll over to your landing page.

PPC Tips list continued from previous weeks:

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

• 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.

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


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Your home business | PPC | pay per click | Google | Network Marketing | mlm | Dan Hollings | internet marketing | Contextual Ads | AdWords

In a society where we are bombarded with fashion, next on the horizon: Google FadSense?

In a society where we are bombarded with fashion, next on the horizon: Google FadSense?

At Google they claim their mission is to organize the world's information and make it useful and accessible. But they also seem to recognize that people do not sit in front of a computer screen all day. This fact seems to have restricted Google from reaching many markets with their search results and AdWord advertisements.

Well, that was then and this is now. Seems they're beta testing FadSense with Geo Referencing. It's a futuristic line of "wearable ad sponsored cloths" designed to make a fashion statement while earning participants extra income.

Frankly, I'd burn all my clothes tomorrow if I could get my hands on some jeans, a t-shirt, and some tennis shoes that would fill my wallet with cash! How about you?

You gotta love it! Google FadSense™

As A Home business owner, 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 business" 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 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 create a destination or landing page that works.
• How to write effective ads.
• How to manage your advertising budget.
• How to use the internet effectively in any marketing campaign.

My Continuing Tips To Help You With Your home business...

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.

• 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.


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


Technorati:
Your home business | PPC | pay per click | Google | FadSense | AdSense | Sneakers | Dan Hollings | internet marketing | Fashion | Contextual Ads | AdWords

Search all you want, but you'll not find "Google." On this day (after 118 years) someone typed in the last keyword and got no results...

Search all you want, but you'll not find "Google." On this day (after 118 years) someone typed in the last keyword and got no results...

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?

Larry Page has an interesting vision on being the best... "The perfect search engine, would understand exactly what you mean and give back exactly what you want, never settle for the best."

Today in History...

In 1997 - After 118 years, the Woolworth Corp. closed its last 400 five-and-dime stores. The Woolworth building (opened in 1919) in New York City was the world's tallest skyscraper until 1930.

Could this happen to Google? Well, yes. If the thought of Bill Gates over throwing Google interests you, read this Fortune Magazine article: Search and Destroy. 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 business owner

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?

• 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.
• 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.

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:

• 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?

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... Until next week, happy PPC campaigning...


Technorati:
Your home business | PPC | pay per click | Google | marketing tips | search | Woolworth | Today in history | online advertising