A while back Jason Katzenback of PPC Kahuna and PortalFeeder fame came up with a neat little tool to help increase conversions by finding Adwords Content Network sites that were likely to have traffic that would be interested in the product or service that Adwords advertisers were promoting.

Adwords Digger is a powerful Pay Per Click research tool for site placement - helping Adwords advertisers to find Adsense Content Network sites that are likely to be able to provide traffic that is likley to convert when they see your Adwords ads.

This software is FREE but performs a valuable role to Adwords advertisers who want to reduce their advertising costs - that is YOU, isn’t it?

I think Jason can better explain how Adwords Digger works and what it means to you as an Adwords advertiser so check out the video above and maybe mosey over to the download page.

Oh, one point, the software is referred to by a couple of different names, I dunno why that is so but Adwords Digger = Adsense Finder!

It wasn’t so long ago that it was devastatingly easy to make money on AdWords. You didn’t even need to know that much about PPC advertising. You could get ads for pennies, and you just needed to have a little bit of funds to get you started, and then you could sit back and watch your income increase as you make money on Adwords.

But, like any easy and simple way to make money, especially when you don’t have to put up a lot of money to get started, soon everybody was getting in the game, wanting to make money on AdWords. The more people there were, the harder it became to make easy money with AdWords. The increased competition drove up the prices on the AdWords ads, and what was previously cost pennies now cost dollars.

People who didn’t pay attention to their PPC advertising campaigns very closely started losing money. This came as a shock to many, who had come to depend on getting to make money on AdWords. Many people who had made a lot of money gave up, saying that it was now impossible to make the kind of profits that they used to when they used to make money on AdWords.

And those people were right about one thing: it certainly wasn’t as easy anymore to make money on AdWords. But it wasn’t impossible. You just need to work smart, not hard. You can’t just throw some money at it and walk away and expect to make money on AdWords. But if you know what you’re doing, it is still very much a reality that you can be profitable with AdWords, no matter what your budget.

What you need to do today to make money on AdWords is simple: you need to research your keywords and choose them carefully, and you need to put some time and effort into your AdWords ad and landing page.

By choosing the right keywords, you can make sure that you don’t have too much competition that will drive the price of the ad up, while still picking keywords that have enough interest and searched to drive enough people to your site. It just takes a little more thought and effort to make money on AdWords than it used to.

By taking time and care with your AdWords ad, and then making sure that you follow up with what you promised in your ad on your landing page, you will find it easier to make money on AdWords. There are so many AdWords ads out there that don’t do this that you will stand out from the crowd as a higher quality ad; the higher the perceived quality of your ads and your landing pages, the easier it will be for you to convert into a sale and make money on AdWords.

If your want to get serious about PPC marketing and AdWords, Click HERE Now to claim your $1 FULL ACCESS to PPCKahuna Now!

Very early on in my business I started using outsourcing to do some of the jobs that I did not know how to do. I was lucky in that in the ‘real world’ I had experience of working with external contractors. I applied this knowledge to my online outsourcing. I was lucky but my next experiences cost me a packet.

A few weeks ago was offered the opportunity to review ‘The Outsource Method’ a comprehensive training package from the guys behind PLRPro.com and several other online businesses. Dan and Marc have spilled their guts on the topic of building an online business leveraged using the power of well applied outsourcing techniques.

Here is a listing of the ten main modules in the Outsource Method training course:
Lesson One - Introduction to Outsourcing
Lesson Two - The Light at the End of the Tunnel
Lesson Three - Establishing the System
Lesson Four - Outsource Method System Overview
Lesson Five - Outsource Method Advanced System
Lesson Six - System Creation
Lesson Seven - Final Words
Lesson Eight - Outsourcing for Content
Lesson Nine - Outsourcing for Design
Lesson Ten - Outsourcing for Software

Please, check this out, it might be the best and most actionable training you ever take in your online career!

Building Quality backlinks is one of the most important factors in Search Engine Optimization.
It is not enough just to have a lot of backlinks, it is the Quality of backlinks along with the Quantity that help you rank better in Search Engines.

A backlink could be considered as a Quality Backlink if
1. The Theme of the backlinking website is the same as your website.
2. It links to your website with the keyword (keyphrase) that you are trying to optimize for.

This tools searches for websites of the theme you specify that contain keyphrases like “Add link”, “Add site”, “Add URL”, “Add URL”, “Submit URL”, “Add Article” etc. Most of the results could be quality potential backlinks.

Backlink Builder Enter Keyword (Theme)

Google has launched an online service designed to make it easy to add various bits of Google goodness onto your webpages. The service is called Google Web Elements and was launched just a few hours ago.
At the start you can use Google Maps, Google News feeds, and YouTube videos, custom search and a couple of others.

it has been possible to add these things before but not too easy. This is pretty much copy/paste so now we can have fun with maps, documents, comments and such without needing tech skills.

http://www.google.com/webelements/

If you have used the YouTube ‘embed’ option then using Google’s Web Elements will be a piece of cake.

I expect to see all kinds of blogs with maps and spreadsheets in them popping up like mushrooms on a damp spring morning!

I was reading at www.adage.com today and I came across an article that rang bells for me. It did not tell me stuff I did not know but it reminded me of stuff I had forgotten about. The article may have new insights for some and for sure it is worth a read.

The article is about change and how we manage it. There is a series of these articles but this one certainly stands on its own and I commend it to everyone here: http://adage.com/talentworks/article?article_id=136590

Does it ring true for you?
Do you disagree?
Why?

One problem with doing business online is that it’s easy to treat it as something other than a business. Many business owners treat it as if the ordinary rules of business don’t apply.

In reality, though, business online is the same as business offline: if it isn’t making money, it isn’t working.

You’d think the business world would have learned from the dot-com to dot-bomb crash that attracted investors simply on the basis of, “Hey, we’re a WEBSITE, and websites are bound to make a fortune.”

Yet, here, eight years later, many business owners still find themselves seduced by the aura of the Web, focusing on metrics that are nothing more than a means to an end.

Metrics like backlinks, search engine rankings, and even traffic are valid metrics. But they must be viewed in the context of what effect they are having on generating revenue.

What role do they each of them play?

Backlinks is a term that refers to links from other sites that point to your site. Their value is twofold. First, they are a potential source of visitors. Second, they represent a vote for the page to which it points.

This vote is important when it comes to search engine rankings. With thousands of websites that seem equally relevant as far as what is on their page, the search engines use incoming links, especially ones from high-regarded authority sites, to determine which sites other sites consider most valuable.

Backlinks can affect your revenues indirectly by bringing you visitors and by helping to increase your search engine rankings. In no way, though, do they measure your revenues.

Search engine rankings, similarly, affect your revenues indirectly. High rankings for highly searched terms bring you more visitors, but they do not directly increase or decrease your revenues.

Website traffic comes closest to affecting your revenue. It represents the living, breathing people who visit your site. Yet it still is not the key metric you ultimately want to track.

In the end, the metric that matters is revenue. You can track any of these other metrics to assess general elements of your website’s potential for generating revenue. But never let them distract your attention from revenues.

Even when you plan expenditures that affect these other metrics primarily, your ultimate concern should not be, “What will this do for my backlinks, or rankings, or traffic?” but “What will this do for my bottom line?”

Always make sure that any discussion of website work focuses squarely on what really matters to your business.

Take a look when you first walk in to Wal-Mart or any other big store. Even if you’ve never been in that particular store before, it takes no more than a second to orient yourself.

How people locate what they want in a brick-and-mortar store
Signs above the aisles direct you toward the departments you want. Signs above the shelves tell you what to expect in each row.

Each sign is concise and clear. You won’t find any long product lists or fine detail on them. Everything is digestible at a glance.

So what can you learn from this brick-and-mortar shopping trip? Make your navigation similar to what you saw in the store.

Remember how you found your way around there? You looked for the big sign with the department name. Then you looked at the smaller signs that listed what was in each row.

How to apply brick-and-mortar navigation principles to your website
You can do the same thing with your website navigation. First, identify the links that lead to your main sections of your website. Place them in your navigation bar in a way that really makes them stand out so your visitors’ eyes will naturally be drawn to them.

Then identify the key links that lead to any subsections of those sections. Place them in your navigation under their parent sections. Make them less noticeable than your main section links so it is clear that they are subservient to your main section links.

What you want visitors to do is to scan the main section headings in your navigation and find the one that suits them best. Then you want them to the scan the subheadings to narrow their search. If you do this right, it should take your visitors two seconds to find a link to click as they move toward what they want.

But can’t my site visitors find their way on their own?
Why is it important to break things down like this? By organizing their search into easy-to-scan blocks, you build their confidence that they will find what they want quickly and easily. They could wade through a long list of links, but you might lose them before they find what they want.

Going back to the Wal-Mart analogy, the Wal-Mart greeter could hand customers a long list of all the racks and what was on them as they came in. They could count on the customers to read the list to locate what they wanted and do away with all the signs. But how many customers would get discouraged and give up before they found what they wanted?

Keep your navigation simple and easy to scan. Put it where visitors expect it to be. Don’t try to be clever. Don’t draw distinctions that match your in-house terminology but that could be confusing to visitors.

Think of your website as if it were a brick-and-mortar store. What would you do to help customers find what they want if they had to walk through a physical store? Then arrange your navigation so their eyes and their mouse can bring them to their destination with as much ease and confidence as they would if their feet were doing the walking.

Ecommerce Facts
Online spending in 2007 increased at a rate of anywhere from 18% to 21% compared against the same quarter in 2006. (http://www.census.gov/mrts/www/data/html/07Q4.html)

Fears of recession are not affecting most online marketers. A February 2008 survey showed that 43% of marketers surveyed plan to increase their online marketing budgets for 2008. 37% plan to maintain them at 2007 levels. Even in time of cutbacks, marketers are finding their customers more and more online. (http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006267&src=dp1_home)

When pressed by Wall Street to explain how his bank was preparing for the double whammy of recession and the subprime mortgage crisis, the CEO of Bankrate, Inc., outlined how his company’s strategy for search engine optimization was helping his business weather the storm. (http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3629390)

How do you know if your website is worth what you’re investing in it? How do you know if a promotional campaign will pay for itself? There are five calculations you can make to have these numbers at your fingertips.

The following list shows you what they are, where to find the data for them, how to calculate them, and how to use them once you have them.

Visitor Conversion Ratio
What it is
The percentage of visitors to your site who complete whatever action you want them to take (for example, buy your product, sign up for your newsletter).

What data you need
• Number of Sales (from your shopping cart or account records)
• Number of Visitors (from your Web referrer logs)

How to calculate
Number of sales ÷ Number of visitors X 100 = Visitor Conversion Ratio

How to use your Visitor Conversion Ratio
Most sites convert at a rate of below 1%, but sites that are well optimized for conversion can enjoy conversion rates of 10% or more. Track you conversion rate as you make changes to your site and work keep increasing it.

Cost/Visitor (CPV) Ratio
What it is
How much it costs you to obtain a visitor. Include all costs of running your website.

What data you need
• Web Marketing Costs (from your accounting information)
• Number of Visitors (from your Web referrer logs)

How to calculate
Web Marketing Costs ÷ Number of Visitors = Cost/Visitor

How to use your Cost/Visitor Ratio
Get an accurate picture of how much it actually costs to bring each visitor to your site. Then work to bring your Cost/Visitor down by cutting expenses that are not successful in producing sales.

Revenue/Visitor Ratio
What it is
Revenue/Visitor is the flip side of Cost/Visitor. It gives you a picture of what each visitor to your site is worth to you.

What you need
• Sales Revenue (from your accounting information about sales that are related to your website)
• Number of Visitors (from your Web referrer log)

How to calculate
Sales revenue ÷ Number of visitors = Revenue/Visitor

How to use your Revenue/Visitor Ratio
Compare your Cost/Visitor to your Revenue/Visitor to determine if you’re spending too much for your visitors. If you have a healthy gap between the two, you can afford to be more aggressive in obtaining visitors. If they’re close, work on raising your Visitor Conversion Rate to make better use of the traffic coming into your site, and work to lower your Cost/Visitor by eliminating spending that is not leading to sales.

Cost/Customer (CPC) Ratio
What it is
How much it costs you to obtain each paying customer. Include all costs of running your website.

What data you need
• Web Marketing Costs (from your accounting records)
• Number of Customers (from your shopping cart or your accounting records)

How to calculate
Web Marketing Costs ÷ Number of Customers = Cost/Customer

How to use your Cost/Customer Ratio
Use it to get an accurate picture of how much it actually costs to bring each paying customer to your site. Work to bring your Cost/Customer down by cutting expenses that are not successful in producing sales.

Revenue/Customer Ratio
What it is
Revenue/Customer is the flip side of Cost/Customer. It gives you a picture of what each paying customer on your site is worth to you.

Where to find it
• Web Sales Revenue (from your accounting records)
• Number of Customers (from your shopping cart or your accounting records)

How to calculate
Web Sales Revenue ÷ Number of Customers = Revenue/Customer

How to use your Revenue/Customer Ratio
Compare your Cost/Customer to your Revenue/Customer to determine if you’re spending too much for your paying customers. If you have a gap between them, you can afford to be more aggressive in obtaining visitors. If they’re close, work on raising your Visitor Conversion Rate to make better use of the traffic coming into your site, and work on lowering your Cost/Visitor by eliminating spending that is not leading to sales.

Ecommerce Facts
A list of online marketing statistics includes eye-opening facts about the growth of the mobile Web, as well as consumers’ growing reliance on the Web to research purchases. (http://www.virtualmarketingblog.com/index.php/20080224/7-statistics-relevant-to-internet-marketing/)

As consumer spending tightens, consumers are turning to the Internet increasingly because of the ability it gives to quickly compare prices and get the best deals. (http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006285&src=article_head_sitesearch)

Although often ignored by marketers, a new survey showed that consumers who are 62 and over are far more active online than previously thought – and show no less willingness to buy online than younger, more “tech-savvy” Internet users. (http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3629395)

If your car runs sluggishly, what do you do? You take it to a mechanic to pinpoint the problem. For most people, a car is too complicated to diagnose by themselves.

For most people, a sluggish website comes across in the same way – too complicated to fix the problem yourself. If your web business gets visitors, though, only to misfire on converting them to sales, there’s a six-second test you can do on your site that will help you diagnose a number of potential problems.

Open your page and glance at it. Let your eyes scan across the very top of your screen. Then scan down the center to the bottom of the screen. Don’t scroll down. You want to see only what your visitor sees the instant your site appears. Then ask yourself the following three questions, based solely on that six-second scan.

• Does your title grab them emotionally?
• Do they quickly grasp what you can do for them?
• Do they clearly understand what to do next?

Does your title grab them emotionally?
Does it clearly identify the problem that brought them to you? Or is it a generic label that vaguely describes your business?

You want your title to show them that you know exactly who they are and exactly what they need. Ask yourself what they’re looking for. Really put yourself in their mindset.

Think of it from their perspective (as a problem that they’re trying to solve) instead of from yours (as a product or service that you’re trying to sell). What words or phrases would they use to describe their problem? Use those words to introduce them to your solution.

For example, this article is titled “How a Six-Second Scan Can Boost Your Sales.” Would it have caught your attention as much if it had read, “Improving Your Website?”

The phrase “Boost Your Sales” caught your attention because it addressed a key problem for you. Combining that phrase with an unfamiliar concept like a “Six-Second Scan” piqued your curiosity. And the phrase “Six Second Scan” suggests a solution that is fast and easy.

Forget any misplaced ideas of what is “supposed” to be professional looking. You get no points for cool, detached formality. The only way you get people’s attention by connecting with them.

Do they quickly grasp what you can do for them?
The second thing to check is whether your page is easily to skim. Does your eye jump naturally to key points on the page? Do headings, bolded text, and graphics give you an instant “feel” for what you’ll find on that page even before you read it?

People don’t want to “work” at reading online. Big blocks of text lead them to hit their Back button and find something more friendly to their eyes. Give them an instant overview of the content and they’ll pick out and read the details they need.

Do they quickly understand what to do next?
The third thing you want to check is whether they’ll grasp THE key point of the page: the action they need to take next.

Many sites waste prime space, front and center, on a rambling introduction. Meanwhile, all the visitor wants to know is, “Can I find what I’m looking for here?”

Make sure your visitors can see, quickly and clearly, what they need to do next to solve the problem that brought them to you. Don’t count on them scrolling down to find this vital information. Put it right in front of them the instant they see your page.

Final thoughts
Granted, it takes longer than six seconds to read these guidelines. The scan itself, though, should be nearly instantaneous. If these elements are not instantly evident on your page, you need to fix them so that they are.

Your visitors will unconsciously make this exact same scan the instant they arrive. Make sure they see clearly and easily how you solve the problem that brought them there.