SEM Stuff

In a previous post I mentioned that .ca domains were still going cheap and that there were plenty of opportunities still available. I’m going to add some additional thoughts on that.

First, mine your logs. Go get some log analysis software and look for what people are searching on. Let’s say your in the mortgage marketplace. You see lots of hits for ‘ontario mortgage rates’. Go register ontariomortgagerates.ca. You’ll find your logs are the best place to go find new keyword rich domain name suggestions. Last year when I checked, somewhere between 2 and four of the top search terms in my logs, the domain names built from those keywords were available as .ca’s.

Next put up some content. Even just three or four pages talking about ontario mortgage rates. Make sure you have a means for visitors to convert (either to buy or to convert to a lead somehow) prominently on the site.

Now go use some of the link building techniques we’ve talked about previously to drive 10 or 20 links to the site. Now sit back and wait.

Eventually you’ll start to get some search engine traffic. Are you going to set the world on fire? No. But you will accomplish three things. First, put together a couple dozen feeder sites like this and you’ll get a nice flow of leads. Secondly it helps diversify your online SEO efforts. If your main site gets burned somehow, or just stops ranking you won’t be completely bone dry of business. And thirdly, when the time comes that you need to go grab an aged domain to do some testing or build out a new site you’ll already have a stable of sites to choose from. It’s real nice to be able to go grab a two year old domain whenever you have a new project or want to do some testing.

(The following post makes more sense if you’ve bought the ebook and read it). If you bought Andre Chaperon’s Marketing Bully ebook today and have had the time to review it you’ll notice in one section on advertising (I’m being vague deliberately) he talks about using about.com to get lists of websites in a specific niche.

Well, let me extend this a bit - there’s another place you can get lists of websites in a related niche - Google adwords. And here’s how:

Go to Google. Click on ‘preferences’ and set the number of search results shown to be 100. Now go do your search for your niche. Of course you’ll get all the adwords listings. Now click on ‘more sponsored listings’. Now I think Google just changed the layout of this page, but you should now have a three column listing of at least 100 advertisers on that search term. That gives you a ton of information to use in conjunction with the ebook’s suggeste strategy. And combine each of those websites with the about.com technique in the ebook, now you’re cooking with gas.

My apologies if this specific strategy is mentioned in the ebook. So far I’ve only glanced at it and picked up a few points. I saw the new Google layout on the sponsored listings page and just kind of put two and two together.

Now, for those of you not following along in the ebook there’s still something to be learned here. Watching the PPC ads are a good indicator of what’s going on in the industry. How can you use that in what you’re doing? Worth giving some thought to.

I watch the PPC ads relatively closely in my niche to see any new players. Normally what I see are incompetents spending money which is kind of nice. But sometimes there’s more going on. Players who are getting slaughered in the organic listings moving to PPC. PPC players trying to move into organic. And just two weeks ago I was investigating a new player in the PPC market (see my previous post on researching your competitors online) and found a very high quality backlink. I’ve not completed my research yet, but I may be able to duplicate the link. If so - watching the PPC ads paid off, didn’t it?

Andre Chaperon, who I think I’ve mentioned before, has just released his Marketing Bully report.

I just bought a copy, it’s $49.95 and after my first 5 minute read through seems well worth the money. I suspected as much, since it’s clear he knows how to market online - he had me waiting for the release of this. If you can market like that to me, even when I know you’re marketing to me, you’ve really got something.

Here’s basically what he did. He created a squeeze page that I stumbled across while visiting his site. Now we all hate those squeeze pages, but this one, well this one I actually read. Then I signed up to receive emails from him.

He sent me a couple emails basically creating some excitement. Telling me it’s coming out tomorrow, and probably less than $300. See? He’s creating expectation that it’s value is $300. And I’m thinking to myself, ‘Self, should I spend $300 on an ebook? I know it’s going to be good, but $300? I’ll think on it.’

Today I get the email. The product is released - for $97. So I’m pretty much in right? Except what he notes is that his payment vendor has him capped at $50 and it takes a few days to raise the cap. So temporarily its $49.95. I’ve no idea if there’s a cap, but by this point my hands are shaking I’m so anxious to send the guy my $50.

So I bought it, and as I expected, my initial review is that it’s well worth the $50. And I’m not even an affiliate.The reason SEO folks need to buy this is because it’s good for research. Learning how hardcore affiliates get traffic and convert can only be good for your business. Even if it’s not methods you use, it may spawn other ideas.

Now, I haven’t read it in depth yet, but one thing stuck out right near the top - and it goes full circle back to the initial squeeze page that roped me in. He describes in detail how he does this. Basically he researches his market then speaks their language. And that’s what he did. Let me elaborate.

I know how to do SEO. And I know how to do Pay per click. I do both pretty well. What I don’t do well is affiliate marketing. Seems kind of funny if I can do SEO and PPC, but there you go. I’ve never quite put my mind to it. However I know SEO and PPC are less about ‘tricks’ and more about reading, trying, and basically just doing the grunt work until you figure out the steps. And I’m pretty sure affiliate marketing is the same way. And that’s how his squeeze page roped me in. He knows that I know there’s no big secrets. Just test and learn.

One part of the problem though is before you can test, you need a roadmap of what to test. A push in the right direction, a list of things to test, that kind of thing. This I didn’t have for affiliate marketing. For SEO, years ago I got my roadmap by reading for a week straight, and then getting some paid consulting from SugarRae. Both actions paid off in spades. But with out the paid consulting from Sugarrae, well, I’d probably still be drifting. Hey, I still had to do the work, but I had a push in the right direction.

So I knew I need a roadmap. I knew the process is likely methodical and testing based rather than some big secret trick. And I’m willing to pay a bit of money to get a push in the right direction. And if you read his squeeze pages at marketingbully, you’ll see that this is exactly the buttons he’s pushing. And as I noted, he talks about finding these buttons in the document.

What it is is detailed instructions on how to begin testing for affiliate marketing, from start to finish. How to set up squeeze pages that work, how to find keywords, how to bring in traffic. And so on.

I likely won’t get to trying this stuff out anytime soon because I’m so busy. But if you’re into SEO, this one’s worth the $49. And if you’ve ever thought you’d like to be one of those affiliate marketing folks, this is probably the place to get started: Marketing Bully.

New layout. Ripped from sugarrae’s blog where she talks about the new thesis WP theme. I bought the developer’s license to use it on multiple sites, it’s a great theme.

I actually bought it for one of my business sites, then upgraded to the developer’s edition so I can use it on multiple sites - specifically this one. And the reason I did is very straightforward - conversions.

If you look at the layout, you’ll see a rotating image in the top right of the blog. Sometimes it’ll be a picture of soup, or some clouds, or some people. Wonderful stuff I suppose. But I want conversions - and that spot where the pics are is a hot spot for visitors eyeballs.

So on my money site I changed those rotating images to be a form. The form is how I convert visitors to leads or purchasers. That form is the basis for all my clients. Bring the traffic in and convert. And this seem so far seems to be doing well as a result. The form is there, right in front of all visitors on every page, no matter what long tail search term they came in on. (the nice thing about the DIY theme? Making that change can be done through the theme controls. Just turn off the ‘images’, turn on ‘custom code’ and paste the code in. Poke me with a fork I’m done.)

Conversion of visitors is something you should spend some time on. Realistically, I’m no onpage conversion specialist. But check out this scenario; you get 100 visitors a day and convert 2% of them - two buyers daily. Now you want to double your business. Most people react and want 200 visitors. But that’s a lot of work - and may not even be possible. Double your visitors? A pretty lofty goal.

However, there’s a far easier way to double your business. DOUBLE YOUR CONVERSION RATIO! Spend some time figuring out how to take that 2% to 4%. You’ll find this a far easier way to double your business than doubling your traffic. It’s the low hanging fruit.

There’s three ways to do this (again, I’m not a conversion specialist). First, Google your brains out and read. Secondly, do A-B or split testing. Try one page, try a second page. Find out which one converts better. Thirdly, hire a marketing firm who specializes in this (or find an on page conversion specialist).

P.S. I suck at blogging. I don’t think I should be talking about two seperate unrelated topics in one blog post. Ah well. I guess that’s three topics; new theme installed to increase conversions, a tip to focus on conversions, then a tip on don’t blog on multiple topics.