Like almost everyone who is anyone getting into Internet Marketing we had done it all – searching Google for instruction, buying DVD courses, going to seminars, you name it, we'd done it – looking for the "insider secrets" that would make our Internet business fly.
We got some good stuff, too. Particularly some of the DVD's recorded at Internet seminars, like the Entrepreneur's Bootcamp, the 2006 World Internet Summit or the Internet Superconference. Lots and lots of good ideas from lots and lots of "serious" Internet gurus, ranging from Ed Dale's Underachiever system through Armand Morin's systems for trading property on Ebay, and all of them looked good ways to make money. However, all of them had a flaw: in every case we looked at, there was detailed explanations of the system right up to the point where you had the system set up and in place, you had the website up and ready and the key was all set to be turned, and the next instruction was "…and then you drive the traffic and watch it happen!"
But here's the snag – no-one ever said how you drive the traffic. Sure, we all know there are ways to get instant traffic, like pay-per-click, and we all know that search engine optimisation is either a black art or a breeze, depending on who you listen to or who you believe. We all know as well that there are any number of websites and internet publishers/marketers out there who will be only too pleased to take your money, and you never really know whether or not the website or the manual or whatever you have paid for will do the business for you.
I have to say we were becoming cynical. We were downloading more and more stuff and becoming very jaded with looking at similar stuff over and over again. Eventually, however, we found the "nuts and bolts" information we needed to get going - and without it we would still be struggling to understand what to do.
So, having struggled so hard to find the information needed to get going, I decided to create a short ad-hoc series of articles about "Getting Started for Beginners" from a recent beginner. Although I don't claim to be an "expert" (yet!), having just gone through the process of getting started there doesn't seem to be much for the newbie - plenty if you want to refine and hone your skills, but not much for people like us!
So where did we start? The obvious place to generate quick results - Google AdWords. And this in itself became clear that it is anything but simple! I found that I had to study the Google tutorial videos quite carefully to begin understanding the system. This is how I tackled the problem:
I began with a product the I felt was likely to be a good seller, Michael's Traffic Videos, for the simple reason that this was the first product that had given me the basic information I needed to get started. Having gone through the product I felt that this was a worthwhile project that even as an affiliate could earn reasonable money. Why go for an affiliate product to begin with? Simply because when starting up there is a ready-made reservoir of products already created and available at sites like Clickbank that the authors/creators will pay commission on when you make a sale for them. Commission rates vary from 30% up to around 75% of the sale price, and if there is a market for the product this is a good way to get started with no product of your own - exactly like us! However, identifying the market is crucial - if there is no market then the product is unlikely to sell!
So the next step was to research the market, and the easiest way to do this is to research the keywords that relate to the product. There are any number of sites available to do this research, probably the best-known being Overture. This tool allows you to enter a word or phrase and will return the number of searches per month on the Yahoo search engine for that word or phrase, and will show suggestions for related words and phrases, also with the search numbers. From this I identified some possibilities that were refined further using the free trial at Wordtracker, which has the added functionality of showing the competition for each word or phrase you check, and arrived at a list of 20 keyword phrases for my ad. The objective was to find keywords and phrases that looked highly effective, ie had good search numbers and predicted searches and few competitors.
The charging and ranking system within Google AdWords is very complex, and is partially reliant not only on how good and relevant your ad is (what Google refer to as the "Quality Score") but is also related to the Quality Score and highest price ("bid") from other advertisers using similar keywords to your ad. Unfortunatley Google don't tell you what your Quality Score is so it can be difficult to assess why or how your ads are ranked and charged!
Following on from that, the next step was to set up an autoresponder to capture subscriber data to build a mailing list. There are any number of autoresponder sites available that offer more or less sophistication and functionality at a variety of prices, and the cheapest doesn't always mean inferior and expensive doesn't always mean best! I recently changed autoresponders because I found a far better service at a lower cost! The autoresponder will generate an HTML form (sounds scary but isn't) to incorporate in a website or "squeeze page" to enable the prospective subscriber to enter his/her details, typically just a first name and an email address. The good autoresponders will operate a "double opt-in" system where the prospect has to confirm his/her subscription after the initial data submission. This is not only to comply with US and other countries' anti-spam laws but is good practice to make sure that the people on your list really should be there. This "squeeze page" is important as this is how we will build our list, capturing data as people pass through the site.
Having got the HTML code from the autoresponder for the subscription form, the next step was to create a simple website using Dreamweaver and inserting the autoresponder code into the web page form and uploading to the server. I had previously registered a domain name and set up hosting for this particular campaign. The web pages were very simple: one landing page with the signup form and another confirmation page after the prospect has confirmed his/her registration. Simple! The landing page forwards to the affiliate link for my chosen product once the form is completed and submitted. One important point: there is a link on the landing page to allow the prospect to continue to the affiliate page without being forced to sign up. Having noted the URLs of the two pages it was back to the autoresponder to enter the relevant page URLs and then TEST to make sure the whole process works as it should!
OK, checklist time: I now have a product, a market, keywords and phrases, an autoresponder, a domain name, hosing and a website, fully tested and working. The next piece of the puzzle was to create the ad and get it out into the market.
To begin with I created an AdWords Starter Account, which is a simplified system that allows one ad campaign with simplified pricing and setup for the campaign. I needed four things: a headline, body copy (very short on two lines), display URL and a destination URL. These last two confused me to start with - I had always assumed that the web address you see on the Sponsored Links ads was the actual web address you were taken to, but this isn't the case. Google will allow you to have a different destination address (the "real" address) from the address you see, provided they are closely enough related. However, in my case the two were the same - I had enough to worry about without complicating matters even further! Next, copy-and-paste the selected keywords into the ad and then submit the ad to Google for approval. Once approved, continue on to the payment and billing sections and the job was done! So now, I'm monitoring the performance - early days yet.
So that was my introduction to Google AdWords. I hope this article was of interest to beginners in Internet Marketing like ourselves!
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