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SEM, SEO, RSS, Web Marketing, Google Adwords, Overture, PPC, Podcasts,Website Traffic Tips: August 2004

RSS Questions: Adwords Give Away Nearing Closing

WOW, I knew I had loyal readers of my newsletter but I am overwhelmed. You have stepped up to the plate and really done one heck of a job in swamping me in questions in response to the RSS Question contest...

So here is the deal. I am going to stop accepting questions Thursday at midnight west coast U.S. time. Then I will Announce The Winners here by friday night.

Just a refresher: I am looking for your most burning questions about RSS and how it can help you market better and help your business.. check your email and respond to the email, please don't post your questions here on the Blog(too cumbersome to handle all the data here) .

Thanks again for all that have entered and sent me questions.

Rodney

RSS Marketing FAQ

RSS is a great tool for marketing whether you have your own products/website or are trying to promote other products as an affiliate. We are in the process of getting to mass market acceptance of this technology by the general intertnet user population. There are various way you can market online with RSS with tremendous success.

RSS is going to be one of the killer apps of the internet. It has actually been around for quite some time but the buzz is picking up. Most ad agencies, internet marketers, affiliate marketers, and websites owners know little or nothing of this technology. The ones that do know about it are not using it at all or are using it to about 10%-20% of it's true potential.

There are many ways to increase your profits and generate several income streams with this technology.

RSS can drive website traffic in an expotential way, in a very targeted way, and in a viral way. Remember how no one knew what google was a few years back and now even grandmothers know "How to Google". My simple point here is this new form of media/communication is going to gain mass acceptance in the coming years. So now is the time to become informed.

One of the side benefits of a properly done RSS Feed is much higher search engine rankings if it is done properly. This is another way to increase your website traffic.

OK, Sorry I am rambling on and on here... I am just such a junkie about this stuff. I have a few clients that have doing been this for some time with great success. I challenge all my readers to either email me or to put up a post about your most burning questions regarding RSS and how you can become successful with this new communication tool. Simple questions, difficult questions, goofy questions are all encouraged.

Rodney Rumford

www.semmarketing.com

www.adwordsexpert.com

www.adwordprofitsoft.com

RSS Marketing

I am taking a quick informal survey relating to RSS and how many of my readers are familiar with RSS. Don't have a clue what the heck RSS is. That's OK, You will find out soon enough.

Hint: RSS is a new way to reach new and existing customers, get repeat visitors, execute marketing, drive free targeted qualified traffic, improve search rankings, has a viral component, etc.

Let me know what you do or don't know about this RSS technology by posting a comment. Thanks.

Rodney Rumford

www.semmarketing.com

www.adwordprofitsoft.com

www.adwordsexpert.com

Google Adwords FAQ

Many people ask the questions such as is adwords right for my business, how can we drive qualified visitors to our website, will this be with in our advertising budget, how difficult is it to use google adwords, should we also be using Overture, etc? We have put together a quick FAQ to help people out.

Post any questions you have here in the forum and we will answer them. In the meantime here is a list of the 7 most common questions regarding adwords and pay per click advertising.

http://www.adwordprofitsoft.com/faq_adwords.htm

You might also want to check out www.semmarketing.com for services for managing and setting up pay per click advertising campaigns (Google & Overture) if you do not have people within your company that can do this.

Rodney Rumford

Google IPO price set at 85 dollars

Google's Initial Share Price Set at $85, at Low End of Company Expectations; IPO to Raise $1.67B.... Still enough to make Billionaires out of the 2 founders!

While this is lower than a lot of peoples expectations, I am not surprised. 85 dollars is actually a fair price for this stock in my only slightly informed opinion.

Since google used the Dutch auction approach, a lot of wall street was not real pleased with this approach and the wall street PR machine was talking up every possible problem with google that they could dig up, while in the dot com boom the were sweeping details under the carpet.

Let me know what you think about the whole issue.

Rodney Rumford

Overture Meeting

OK. So I am going to go to an Overture meeting for 2 days and see what these guys really know and see what they reveal. I have been using Overture for quite some time and was familiar with them when they were goto.com I actually worked for a sister company owned By Idealab(who started overture). So I have a few contacts still over there.

I want you to post your most difficult(or really simple) questions about Overture, problems, concerns, anything you wanted to know about Overture but were afraid to ask! I am looking forward to these sessions and getting the latest tips for getting the most out of overture campaigns.

I will see what I can find out.

Rodney

Adwords Conversion Tracking

Conversion tracking is critical if you want to be financially successfully with adwords. Many people never set up conversion tracking on their campaigns. This is a huge mistake. It's like driving with blinders on. You could crash and burn if you cant see where you are making/losing money with your adwords or overture campaigns quickly.

Google has a simple conversion tool that only requires that you cut and past a simple piece of html code on your "Thank You" or Sales Complete" page. Google will then give you simple metrics to measure conversions. At the minimum you should always do this.

I will write more about this topic as time allows. I have also written a 40 page in depth special report called "Eye on the Gold" which fully discusses how to maximize your Return On Investment (ROI) of your adwords campaigns. You can get a free copy of this PDF Report by clicking on the link above. I have been selling this special report for 30 bucks but just decided as I was writing in my blog to set up a page and give it away to my blog readers. Enjoy!

Rodney

Contextual Advertising: Is this right for my business??

Contextual advertising on adwords can be a great source for increased traffic. However, you should really measure your return on investment and how well these clicks convert. As a general rule for most campaigns that I have run, contextual advertising never converts as well as pure search.

In the past you paid essentially the same amount per click as pure search. This made the financial aspect less attractive. However after much feedback from many advertisers(myself included), Google has come up with some program changes that I applaud. They have essentially lowered the cost per click on the contextual advertising. This was long overdue, and due to the changes; I have had many clients revisit and start using this feature in adwords with good success.



Your ads are shown thru the google adsense program and show up on websites other than google's search results.

Let's get the ball rolling on this subject and tell me your experiences with this...

Rodney

Affiliate Marketing With Google Adwords

I wanted to get this subject up on the blog as i frequently get emails from people asking about affiliate marketing with adwords and does it work. The short answer is yes it does work.

The more difficult question is how hard do you want to work to become a success? There is no free ride in this world, but adwords is a terrific direct marketing tool to really make some great additional income if you know what you are doing, have the right products to promote, and your website converts well.

I would like to hear more questions, comments, FAQ, and success stories about how people have had winning campaigns.

I am not an expert in the area and would welcome contributions from our readers. I have read Chris Carpenters book Google Cash and found it quite informative.

Rodney

Adwords Blog Launch Announcement

Greetings,

I wanted to put a welcome post for the first entry. It is my hope that this blog will give you some insight to the challenges that I face on a daily basis while launching and managing hundreds of pay per click Google Adwords and Overture campaigns for my clients.

I have operated online business' since 1996. So I guess I am a bit seasoned in internet terms. I am a junkie when it comes to using the latest technology. I Read voraciously to try and stay on top of new developments and trends that could change the landscape of online advertising, customer acquisition, driving traffic, SEM, SEO, etc..

I will share my frustration and insights to all of the problems(rules and changes) that are typically encountered with this pay per click advertising medium. This will be a fairly informal forum as i don't have time to be perfect in all most posts.

I have been using Adwords for about 2 years and have seen the services popularity explode. My clients are in many industries, software, nutrition, consumer goods, golf, mortgage, credit, auto, etc....and the list goes on...

I have authored an eBook on the subject( www.adwordsexpert.com) that has been fairly well recieved; as well as developed software products that help users increase their profits with Google Adwords. (it's real easy to overspend with google if you are not on top of how to maximize your ROI)

If there are related issues you would like to discuss please make a comment and I will try to respond. This will make this forum more of a personal discussion that will be of great benefit for the readers and posters.

All my best,

Rodney Rumford