Google's Groundbreaking AdWords Select ProgramWritten by Lee Traupel
One of absolute best online marketing processes available to any business today is Google's AdWords Select advertising program. It produces immediate results within minutes after being setup, drives highly qualified traffic via selected keywords and can be monitored and modified on a 24/7 basis via Google's excellent online interface. There are no hidden fees - it costs a mere $5. USD to setup a campaign and requires a credit card submission at startup. We highly recommend this interactive marketing process to all of our clients and incorporate an AdWords Select component with all of our marketing campaigns.Google's Pricing Model Google charges you on a CPC ("Cost per Click") basis - you only pay for each clickthrough to your web site from Google's, no more no less. You don't pay for "impressions" (number of times someone views your add) like many first generation Internet advertising models - it's truly a results driven marketing process. Keywords costs can vary tremendously ranging from $.05 to $11. USD or more per keyword - Google assigns a "minimum cost per click" for specific keywords based on "market value" and "performance history" via Google's AdWords Select program history. Be prepared to pay a much higher rate for very popular keywords and this is a moving target all of time - more popular this program becomes more you will be forced to pay for selected popular keywords. Creating your Sponsorship Ad Your Ad's position is based on a combination of CPC ("Cost per Click") you selected and relevancy of your ad - if your ad and keywords are relevant and drive clickthroughs, then your ad will rise in position on sponsored column versus your competitors. This is an innovative feature and helps to distinguish Google's program from all other PPC ("Pay per Click") campaigns (Overture and their primary competitors) - most of these programs have an "economic bias" built into them; i.e. whoever pays highest fees gets top placement. Dynamic Ad Placement Google's unique AdWords Discounter keeps track of your costs per click versus your competitors. You select maximum amount you want to pay for your keywords and ranking algorithm keeps track of your keyword costs, ensuring you only pay one cent above CPC ("Cost per Click") cost you specified when you setup campaign versus your competitors. Setup Process - Sponsored Link Ad and Keywords AdWords Select is based upon driving highly targeted traffic to a web site via a set of keywords that are selected via Google's account management interface. There are two primary components to setup process, creating your "sponsored link" ad and selecting your keywords. You start by creating a "sponsored link" ad that is subsequently inserted into Google's search results on right hand column - targeted by keywords that you have selected. It only takes a few minutes to have your campaign go "live" after you've completed setup process.
| | Should You Submit your Web Site to Yahoo! ?Written by Alan Grissett
By even most conservative estimates, Yahoo! is single largest search directory in terms of overall quantity of searches. This is due to a number of factors including its early entrance onto Web (1994), popularity of its value added services (e.g. Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, and My Yahoo!), and overall quality of its directory listings. So what does large quantity of searches performed at Yahoo! mean for sites that are listed in directory? It means that, with a good listing, a Web site can expect to receive a good amount of targeted, keyword-specific traffic. In fact, Yahoo! is so confident that it can generate traffic for Web sites that it now charges submission and annual listing fees for commercial sites listed in its directory. (Yes, you read correctly, annual listing fees).Yahoo! uses human beings to organize Web. These human editors find sites or review submissions, then, if sites are of sufficient quality, place those sites in one or more categories that are relevant to them. Beginning in November 2000, Yahoo! implemented a mandatory submission fee for review of commercial sites. This fee only guaranteed that an editor of Business Express service, as it was then named, would review site within seven business days. It DID NOT guarantee a listing in directory, only that a site would be reviewed. At time, a lot of Webmasters felt that this was extortion, but for many businesses, it was a relief, because previous submission process had no specific time frame for review. In fact, average review time before introduction of Business Express service was two to three months.
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