There are plenty of keyword tools that you can use to come up with a killer campaign for Google Adwords and other search engine advertising services. There is always this notion among marketers that paid keyword research services are much better than their free counterparts. I don’t argue the fact that some of the paid services on the market do present data in a way that is easier to analyze and get more out of. And they do give you a different perspective on your market and you niche. But if there is one free tool that you should be using to set up your advertising campaigns, it’s Google Adwords Keyword Tool. The tool is going to be soon upgraded by Google and is more powerful than ever. It may not the only tool you will need to come up with a killer advertising campaign. But at the same time, the tool is more than capable of helping you out in developing a comprehensive keyword list.

I have found the new Google Keyword tool to be easier to use. For starters, you can still generate your keyword list by using your core keywords as your starting seeds. You can also use the website search function to find out what your competitors may be using to advertise on Google. Let’s say you want to figure out what keywords Fox News is using to advertise online. (more…)

Not all keywords are created the same. If you have been advertising on Google, Yahoo!, and other search engines you know that by now. Even the smallest details matters. A lot of marketers make the mistake of not targeting enough keyword phrases and only going after the ones that are highly popular. In reality, you can bring your CPA down by finding those hidden gems of keywords that are not that competitive but convert well. Let’s take misspellings for instance. They are not usually as competitive as other keywords, but they can still bring you conversions. At the very least, you should take time to test these keywords out. So as you can see, having a powerful keyword research tool that would simplify things and helps you expand your keyword list is a must.

There are plenty of keyword research tools out there on the market. We have all heard of WordTracker, Keyword Discovery, and more. These tools have been around forever and do provide you with the basic features that you need to expand your keyword lists and make more money online from PPC. Keyword Country is not one of those tools (in a good way). If you have been using the above tools and are looking for a tool that provides you with a better way to differentiate between your SEO, PPC, and Adsense keywords, you are going to need Keyword Country.

Keyword Country not only provides you with an easy way to find new keywords to add to your adgroups, but it also helps you expand your keyword lists by adding misspelling and the not-so-obvious keywords that you may be missing. Keyword country allows you to find out what your competitors are using to drive traffic to their website from Google Adwords. It also shows you what keywords are worth going after (as far as competition is concerned). (more…)

The concept of red-ocean/blue-ocean has been around for a while. Essentially, to put things in very simple terms, a red ocean is a market that is mature and has a bunch of established players vying for market share. Entering and dominating such a market could prove to be difficult as you do not have too much wiggle room and will have to stare down and beat some pretty established players in the market. What does that remind you? For me, it does somewhat remind me of Google Adwords. If you intend to go in and outbid everyone and stick with the strategies that used to work 5 years ago, you are going to get involved in a bloody war with a bunch of other advertisers that are practicing the same old habits. In the end, Google is going to be happiest of them all as it gets your money while you engage in bidding wars with your competitors.

Top Adwords players are always testing and finding new ways to beat their competitors without engaging them in wars that is not good for both sides. In essence, they treat Google Adwords as a blue ocean and innovate with their campaigns, adgroups, and ads. In order to do that, you are going to need to have understood how Google Adwords work, and what strategies are currently being used by the top players in your market. Once you understand the limits of “the box,” you can then think of ways to think outside the box. (more…)

Have you ever wondered how super affiliates and online marketers make money online? A lot of people assume that all these top marketers do is sit around and play with their keywords and campaigns. Don’t get me wrong. These top marketers have got their game together. They know how to design, optimize, and revamp their campaigns to keep making money online from their online advertising campaigns. But a big part of their success happens on content networks. I am not just talking about Google Adwords. There are plenty of other content websites that can drive lots of traffic to your business.

Take a look at the below screen-shot taken from Fox News’ official website:

If you notice, there is an advertisement on healthier teeth on the right side of the screen. These ads usually lead to a landing page that encourage people to read success stories about the solution being advertised. Take a look at the below landing page to see how the landing page is designed. These landing pages combine videos (usually hosted on YouTube) with comments (can’t say if they are real or fake) to encourage people to sign up for this offer. After having gone through hundreds of these offers, I can tell you that the majority of them are offers that you would find on sites such as Hydra or LinkShare CPA network.

You can use the same approach on other top content sites around. It doesn’t have to be on FoxNews. Obviously, you are going to have to pay a bit more to show up on those highly popular sites but think about all the traffic that you would get on these offers. You will have to test and optimize your ads and campaigns a lot, but it’s all much more straight forward as you’ll be getting a lot of hits, and you can easily test ideas and watch your conversion rate change before your eyes.

Content networks require their own unique strategy. But they should not be ignored if you are planning to make a career out of promoting CPA offers. The more traffic you get, the better chance you have of making money online. But you want to manage your CPA as well. Content networks bring the traffic. The rest is up to you.

I have been using StumbleUpon ads for too long that I can remember. If you have been following the Web 2.0 services around, you have probably heard of StumbleUpon. It’s one of the best places to find the best content on the Internet and vote for your favorite stories. StumbleUpon makes it so easy to find and rank top stories to help others find stories that may be interesting to them. The more thumbs up you get, the more traffic you’ll receive.

Viral stories often get a lot of stumbles, and it snow balls from there. If your story gets a lot of votes, you are going to get a boost in traffic that will last for more than just a couple of hours or a couple of days. That’s just the nature of this community and why it’s one of my favorites.

Sometimes it’s tough to compete with stories that have gotten hundreds of stumbles already. Besides, not everybody knows how to work the community to get more stumbles for stories. That’s where StumbleUpon Ads come in. StumbleUpon Ads is an innovative service that lets you advertise your website in front of StumbleUpon community and get the votes you need to go viral. The service is unlike anything else on the market. You are not paying per click or per keyword. Instead, you pay per each view. So your site is going to be viewed as long as your account’s balance is more than zero. Each view only costs $0.05, so it’s very cheap if you think about it.

StumbleUpon Advertising does come with a few options to help you target your audience. You can choose how many times you want your page to be shown each day. You can also choose the location, gender, and age of your ideal audience to make sure you get targeted traffic.

The service has a lot of potential. It’d be great if StumbleUpon allowed dayparting. It would also be nice to have the chance to schedule or stop campaigns at a particular date. These are options that are available on more sophisticated services such as Adwords and Facebook Ads. Even as it is, it’s a wonderful way to get traffic to any website and go viral. With StumbleUpon, those thumbs ups that you get really count. So after you have collected enough thumbs up, you can turn your campaign off and still get traffic to your site from the community. The service has a lot of potential and could be even better if advertisers are provided with more control as not all views are equally beneficial to advertisers. At the same time, you only pay $0.05 per view, so you don’t have too much to complain.