PPC

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.

No need to get freaked out :). I’ve added a few things to the site.

I’ve added adsense to the site in two places. One is in the nasty big block in the top right. This is where the conversions happen - or that’s my claim. I’ve also added it in a sidebar down the right. You’ll see I’ve used contrasting colours.

The rationale is just general testing. I’m trying out some things with adsense on a number of sites. Maybe nothing comes out of it, or maybe I start seeing something. If so, I can use that information on my main sites.

But the ads will also tell us a few things; like who’s running SEO ads in Canada, and how Google sees the site based on the ads that are displayed.

And no need to click the ads to pay me (I disagree with that principle anyway). Treat them like regular ads. The 50 cents a month the ads are likely to bring in aren’t going to make a lifestyle difference for me :). And I don’t run this site for the money anyway.

I’ve also added tag clouds. The reason (and partly the adsense addition as well)? The kids toy review blog site I mentioned earlier has both adsense and the tag cloud on it. And that site is rocking in the serps. Toy reviews are ranking on the front page for the name of the toy. Now I think it’s all about the backlinks, but I’m wondering about the kick of tag clouds as well. So we’ll try it out here too, on another non-primary website.

It’s an example of tinkering and testing. I recommend you do stuff like that too. You never know what you’re going to learn.