Let’s look at some ads and their corresponding pages, and see if they have the right landing page. Let’s say I was searching for “mickey mouse toaster” (would you believe 6,600 people search for these monthly?), and here is the first PPC ad:

The ad looks good, though if it was me, I’d make it more specific. Once you click on that it takes you to this page (BTW, don’t worry, I copied the link, I didn’t click through from the ad):

WOW! Do you see a Mickey toaster there? I don’t! And I think the conversion rate on this ad is minimal. BTW, I don’t know if you can see this, but the ad was linked to a page that has the search results for “Mickey essentials”: nothing to do with toasters.

The second PPC ad is this:

And the corresponding landing page is this:

While I see a Mickey toaster, I also see a lot of other stuff going on that page. Of course, if you are the merchant, you are probably benefiting in other ways from your PPC campaigns (branding for example), even if you are not making a sale on that specific page. But if you are an affiliate marketer, you want every penny to count, to give you back a sale.

Here is how my landing page would look like, if I was trying to sell Mickey Mouse Toasters ( I did this quickly in less than 10 minutes in my Front Page program). My landing page is simple and to the point.

Are your landing pages cluttered and hard to navigate? Is your advertised product lost in that clutter, wasting you money? Take a few minutes and check your landing pages: make sure they deliver what you promised ion your ad, and that the potential buyer doesn’t have a hard time knowing how to buy the product.

As promised in my original post about this PPC challenge, this is an update on what I’ve been doing to meet my challenge goals.

Just as  a reminder, I am shooting for 50 PPC campaigns before March is over: that means 2 campaigns a day, 5 days a week, and this past week, I haven’t met that goal. I did 7 campaigns:

- 1 to  a landing page (I purchased some domains a while ago for specific products, and never did anything with them, so built one small site and I am directing some traffic to it with PPC). This page is monetized with a specific product from Amazon.com

- 1 direct to a merchant on CJ

- 5 direct to merchants on SAS

My ads are getting too many impressions, and not so many clicks, which makes for a very low CTR (see image above). That’s not good, and it means I probably have to tweak my ads.

Here are my starts as of now:

Impressions: 19,427
Clicks: 96
CTR: 0.49%
Cost: $34.52
Commission: $61.18
Profit: $26.66

This week, I need to get more serious, and start even more campaigns, as next Sunday I’ll be heading to Jamaica for a few days, and the following week I won’t be adding any campaigns.

I’ll let you know how I am doing next week.

If you’d like to join me and others in this challenge, there is still time: check out Matt’s Campaigns blast report before you get started: it will save you from making many mistakes.

A few weeks ago I did some research for the truck accessories niche, but realized there is so much more to this niche, so I decided to go wider.

If you are an AdSense publisher, you’ll love the Trucks Niche: awesome payouts!

Resources

Truck forums will be one of the best resources for both content ideas and (if you get involved) traffic.

Also, if you know a truck driver, take him out to dinner once in a while and pick his brain. That type of information will be invaluable.

Possible Affiliate Programs
Yes, Amazon.com has offers for this niche too: truck accessories, truck tool box, truck gps, truck tents and a lot more.

CJ.com & Shareasale.com have some great programs as well.

Monetization Suggestions

AdSense is amazing for this niche. If you like to learn more about the niche, or if you just love trucks, you may just hit gold!

Of course, intertwine affiliate offers in your content, as well as in the sidebar of your site. you can also create specific pages for commonly used/needed items for truckers.

Here are some domains available for this niche at this time:

UsedDumpTrucks.biz & .info get 18,100 exact searches a month.

CheapTrucksForSale.org & .biz  get 9,900 exact searches a month.

ClassicTrucksForSale.biz & .info  with 6,600 exact searches a month.

MilitaryTrucksForSale.net, .org, biz & .info, with 3,600 exact searches monthly.

AftermarketTruckParts.biz & .info have 4,400 exact searches a month.

CommercialTruckTrader.biz & .info, with 12,100 exact searches mothly

TruckTraderOnline.org, .biz & .info, with 12,100 exact searches a moth.

There is a lot more research that can be done for this niche, digging deep into it to find long tail keywords and phrases. Let me know if you need help.

The clicks are good because they’re clicking on your URL and heading on over to your website where you can close the sale and make a profit.

There are different PPC programs through various search engines and companies however the most popular PPC service is Google AdWords.

It’s free to participate in AdWords however, before you to sign up there are a few questions you’ll want to answer including:

1. How many people are looking for your products or services? Keyword tools will help you find this information and it’s key to creating an effective PPC campaign.

2. How much will your click’s cost? Google’s traffic estimator will tell you how much it’ll cost you each time someone clicks on your ad. This is important because you can quickly spend thousands of dollars and if that’s not in your budget you need to design your campaign carefully.

3. Who are your competitors? Using Google, search for your keywords and pay attention to the ads that pop up in the right hand column of your search results. These are your competition. Study them carefully. Scan through the first couple of pages. When you see an ad that’s a repeat, you’ve gone through your competition. If there are more than 50 ads, you may want to reconsider a PPC campaign with those keywords.

Setting Up Your First Ad

Once you’ve determined the keywords you want to include in your ad, it’s time to write your first PPC ad. AdWords has a strict character limit. You get 25 keywords for your headline, 35 each for the next two lines of text, and then your URL. This means it’s time to get creative. You want a headline that captures attention and hopefully promises a benefit and then two sentences that inspire curiosity, evoke emotion, and motivate clicks through to your website.

Each PPC ad you create will be optimized for very specific keywords and should thus send readers to a relevant web page. If, for example, you have a PPC ad selling a dog training eBook and people who click through land on a page that sells dog care information you’re not going to have the same conversion rate as if you sent them directly to a sales page for that dog training eBook.

Once your ad is written, the rest is easy. Simply log onto or create your Google AdWords account and follow the steps. Set your budget low (you can always adjust it), create your ad, enter your billing information and you’re good to go. Oh, one final thing. Track the success of your PPC ads. You can fine tune them for optimal results, delete them and start over or add to your campaign.

It’s an intense 5 weeks, but the results are usually incredible. As a matter of fact, the very first blast challenge I participated in helped me find my first wildly successful PPC campaign, and I only did about 10 campaigns, not 100. Here is a snapshot of that campaign:

This month my challenge is to do 50 PPC campaigns (even though I participate in Matt’s challenges, I am in the group that only do what we can). I’ve never done 50 campaigns in a month: my highest was 35 I think.

So, here is what I will do: every Monday for the duration of this challenge, I’ll post my progress here: how many PPC campaigns I did so far, what network I used (CJ, SAS, etc.), if my campaigns are direct to merchant or to landing pages, and my results for that week.

I’ll also concentrate a lot of my blog posts on how to succeed with pay per click this month.

I hope you’ll follow along with me, and if you’d like to try a campaign blast of your own, try out Matt’s blast guide and forum: there are no contracts, and the knowledge you’ll gain from doing a blast challenge may change your life. Come on: join me!

First, I was going got post at least 5 times a week, and since the day of the challenge (February 7th) I posted 19 posts, so I met that challenge.

Second, I was going to submit one article a week to a few article directories, and only submitted one, so I fell short on that one.

Third, I was going to guest post at least once, and I did 5 guest posts, so I exceeded that.

So, did all that help me increase my visitors 75%? Unfortunately, no. I fell short by a couple of hundred visitors. Here is a snapshot of my February visitors.

What I learned form this month’s challenge? I can guest post! And if I can, so can anyone else. Yes, it takes me a long time to come up with a good guest post, but the rewards are incredible!

Here are my guest posts for February:

Keyword Research with Shopping.com

How to Select Keywords for a Pay Per Click Campaign

5 Online Business Models You Can Start Right Now

Follow Me Buttons on Sidebar

How To Do Keyword Research With EBay

I also learned that posting daily on my blog is too much for me: I’d rather write quality content than try to push lots of content that doesn’t meet my quality standards.

In the end, I am happy with what I accomplished this past month, and I will continue to come up with monthly challenges to grow my business.

How about you?

Edited to add: I actually did one more guest post, so a total of 6. Not sure how I forgot it. Here it is: Plus Size Wedding Dress Niche, a guest post similar to my own free niche research.

I was talking to a person today who was asking about my work as an internet business broker.  He was wondering what sort of timelines I see in preparing a good website for sale and how quickly it takes for me to sell it.  My response to him is the same response I give to every potential client that asks me how long they should expect it will take to sell their business: it depends entirely on the quality of the internet business.  Some website businesses sit on the market for a long time while others are snatched up remarkably quickly.

What is the difference between the sites that have to find ‘that right buyer’ and those sites that buyers will trip over to get a chance to buy?  It usually isn’t the price point (we’ve had offers on 7 figure businesses within a few days of listing them).

If you were to start an internet business today, what would be the best way to build that internet business to fetch the most money possible in the shortest amount of time?

Here are four principles that you would ideally follow if you were to build an Internet Business today with the intent to eventually sell it as quickly as possible for the best price possible.

Keep Detailed and Clean Financial Records

The biggest mistake people make when selling their Internet business is that they do not have a clean, easy to read, understand, and verify financial history.  If you are looking to sell any business for more than $30,000, having a clean financial history is paramount.  A clean financial history will inspire confidence (and reduce the invitation for closer scrutiny), put you ahead of other sites looking to sell, and give buyers quick and easy methods to place a value on your business.

Here are a few key things to do to keep your records clean:

• Use Quickbooks!  If you don’t know how to use Quickbooks, learn.  If you don’t like Quickbooks, figure out another common accounting program that will be able to generate profit and loss statements for you.
• If you absolutely hate doing accounting, then hire a book keeper.  If you are building a business to sell, this isn’t ideal, though, as you will want to keep your expenses as low as possible to show a higher cash flow.
• Incorporate the business as its own entity.  It can be a huge mess to try and separate the revenues and expenses for two or more businesses.  Don’t have your businesses share the same bank account – separate for the sake of clarity.
• File very honest taxes.  This may be the most difficult thing for a business owner to do. Don’t take expenses on that you don’t need to.  Yes, you’ll probably pay more in taxes, but if you can produce tax returns to verify your financials, buyers will go crazy for it.  Plus, if a buyer needs to get an SBA loan (only available at this time on acquisitions below $200,000), those tax returns will be used by the lending bank.
• Don’t mix personal expenses with business expenses.  Most business owners do it – those meals with the wife or friends where ‘business’ happens to come up in passing, but 100% of the bill is charged to the business.  Most buyers will understand, but if you can avoid doing this it will make verifying your financials quick, easy, and painless.

If I were to offer just one piece of advice to any Internet business owner, this is the bit of advice I would give. Keep your finances clean, easy to read, up to date, and easily verifiable.  Buyers will thank you (they rarely see well organized financials).

Keep It Automated

I have a great job I would like to offer you.  The salary is $100,000 per year.  All I need from you is to have you pay me $300,000 and work 60 hours per week for the next 3 years.  After that, you may get a bonus check.  Do you want to take it?

(Hint: you are supposed to say no. If you did say yes, call me – really…).  Most buyers won’t take this either.

Buyer’s are not interested in buying a job.  They want a business, which means you have to build a business.  When you can automate part of your business, automate it.  Outsource the boring stuff, outsource the specialized stuff, and focus on bringing your total hours as low as possible.

I’m personally not a fan of Tim Ferris’s “Four Hour Work Week Book” (although Tim Ferris is a fantastic author, business person, and thinker), but his principles are ideal for building a business that would sell well.  Implement those principles and understand this: the more you are crucial to the day to day operations of your business, the less appealing your business will be to potential buyers.

The ideal business for sale will have buyers imagining themselves walking in on day one and earning money without having to hurdle a significant learning curve or spend 60 hours per week just trying to keep up with the business model.

Jump Some Hurdles and Build Stability

Get familiar with the phrase “low barriers to entry” and learn to avoid business models that are associated with that phrase.  A key question many buyers ask when looking at buying an Internet business is “what’s to prevent someone else from starting up the same thing and being just as successful”?  Many website business buyers are not technical in nature and feel as if they are a bit behind the Internet curve.  This is why they are looking to buy an established Internet business – it takes some of the guess work out of having a successful online business.

Make your business difficult to copy and emulate.  In a competitive field this may require having a unique blend of vendors, a core set of keywords that you rank well for, and a blend of partners that drive traffic to your site.  Alternatively this may be finding a nice niche without a lot of competition that you can quickly dominate. Even if there is nothing to prevent someone from entering your market, being able to point to a loyal customer base is something that cannot be replicated in a few months.

While assuring that you have entered a market that has some challenges to enter into, be sure to build some stability.  If you rely on vendors or suppliers to supply products, don’t rely too heavily on just one vendor.  Similarly, if you receive most of your web traffic from a handful of well placed organic ranking keywords, figure out how you can stabilize your market.  Always ask yourself what you would do if one key component of your business disappeared tomorrow.  Don’t rely on any one person, company, or vendor to be loyal to you or your company.

Know When to Sell

This may be the most difficult thing for an Internet business owner to determine.  The fastest selling businesses are growing businesses.  However, when you are growing, it is difficult to imagine giving up something that is fun and exciting.  Here are a few key tips to keep in mind:

• Not all businesses grow forever.  Entrepreneurs especially have a tendency to get their businesses to a certain point, and then find that they are unable to bring it to the ‘next level’.  Know your limits and skillset and sell before you hit your limit.
• It’s fun when its growing, it’s not fun when its shrinking.  The reason so many Internet business owners miss out on the best time to sell is that they are having too much fun.  When times get rough, however, and their businesses are no longer putting  charge in their day (and similarly are no longer putting green in their bank accounts), they think it is a good time to sell.  Ask yourself why someone else would find your business fun when you no longer find it fun? Chances are, not as many people will be interested.
• Don’t max out your value. Buyers love to see a clear path for continued growth. Few Internet business buyers are in this business to hold a steady asset. This is a high risk, high reward type of acquisition which usually attracts those who want to see big dividends for their investments.  Don’t exhaust all the growth potential of your business and paint a clear picture for a new owner so they can see just how easily they can grow what you started.

Does it Make Business Sense?

Building the ideal business to sell involves making a lot of decisions that may not make the best business sense.  As always, you need to weigh the potential benefits of selling your business against what is good for your business today.  I personally wouldn’t recommend following all of these principles to the letter, but rather follow the spirit of these principles as they can apply best to your individual Internet business.

Buyers are constantly seeking quality online businesses to buy.  If you can carry some of these traits, and carry them better than other, similar businesses for sale, you’ll have buyers tripping over themselves to make you a quick, cash offer.

==>> Mark Daoust is the owner of Quiet Light Brokerage, an Internet Business Brokerage firm. He also is now blogging over at Thoughts of a Website Broker.

Even though it may not feel like it, wedding season is right around the corner, and that reminded me about engagement rings.

Let’s dig right in, and see what possibilities lie in this niche.

Resources

Wedding forums will be a huge resource for you: get involved!

Also, bridal magazines, and event coordinators are great to connect with for this venture.

Possible Affiliate Programs
As always, Amazon.com has many possibilities. They have diamond engagement rings, princess cut diamond engagement rings , engagement rings white gold and more.

Of course,l don’t stop at rings: offer your audience everything they need for a great engagement party

CJ.com & Shareasale.com have some great programs as well.

Monetization Suggestions

AdSense has good payouts in this niche, but as always, I would include affiliate offers as wll

Build a list! Create a report about  “10 most romantic ways to propose”, or something similar, and build a list. Couples need so many things once they are engaged: romantic getaways, wedding planing, gifts, wedding dresses, etc.

Here are some domains available for this niche at this time:

BezelSetEngagementRings.biz & .info get 14,800 exact searches a month.

EdwardianEngagementRings.net,  .biz & .info get 4,400 exact searches a month.

VintageStyleEngagementRings.biz & .info with 6,600 exact searches a month.

AquamarineEngagementRings.biz & .info, with 8,100 exact searches monthly.

Do you have questions? Feel free to ask in the comments below, and I’ll do my best to help you.

And if you need research done for your own niche, don’t hesitate to look at my keyword research offer!

Who wants a website without traffic? Let’s face it: you need traffic to your site or there is no reason to having it.

But how do you get traffic to your site? We all know about content, but are there other ways to increase traffic?

1. Answer questions - if you see the same question asked over and over again, write an answer to it, and then direct those who asked it to your post. This way, not only do you have new content on your site, but now you have someone happy that they found an answer to their question. They’ll promote your post, letting others know about the answer to their problem.You can find all types of questions on Twitter, FaceBook, in forums, etc.

2. Write a Glossary for Your Niche – there is always a term someone doesn’t know: why not write a list of terms specific to your niche and define those terms. This information will be a magnet for links, and it’s not hard to do.

3. Invite Guest Bloggers -  there is a lot of buzz about guest blogging these days, so why not ask people you admire and follow to guest post at your blog? It’s not hard, and the worst that can happen is that they’ll say no. But if they say yes, you’ll have a nice traffic boost when their post goes up, as most people would let their followers know about the guest post.

4. Use Tags for Your Posts – I am not sure how many take advantage of the tags on their blogs, but I get a lot of visitors that come through tags I created for my posts. And  if I see enough visitors come through a specific tag, I create a blog post for that specific term: give people what they want!

There you have it: all of the above methods are easy to implement. What methods do you use to increase your traffic?

An Internet marketing affiliate program is a method of marketing that makes use of one website in order to drive web traffic to another one. So, a business will recompense an affiliate each time a customer is driven to the website or purchases a product because of the affiliate’s advertising endeavors. The marketing modes most commonly used by internet marketing affiliate programs are search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, and display advertising.

As a word of caution, however: make sure you thoroughly research each affiliate program before you sign up. There shouldn’t be any tie-ins or hidden terms and conditions waiting to trap you. I’ve heard horror stories of people whose commissions were kept because they didn’t make a certain number of sales, even though the amount of commission was quite large.

There are programs with great commission, but poor conversion, and there are programs with lower commissions, but great conversion. See what other affiliates are saying about a merchant before you start promoting them.  A good placed to do that is the ABestWeb forum.

Also, it’s important to talk to the affiliate manager, and see if they are willing to help you grow your business. Some couldn’t care less, while others will get out of their way to help.

Some of the most popular places to find affiliate offers to promote are:

Clickbank.com

CJ.com

ShareASale.com

Pepperjam.com

An affiliate program can be a very effective method of boosting the sales of your online business and consequently, making you more money.

Read the amazing true story of how one woman, with no previous business experience, earns $435,000+ per year … selling other people’s stuff online!

In her down-to-earth, sincere and often humorous style, Rosalind Gardner guides you through the entire process of building an affiliate marketing business on the ‘Net. In 220+ pages, and more than 68,000 words, you’ll learn how to pick the best programs, negotiate a commission raise and save time, money and effort on everything from affiliate software to web hosting.

To learn exactly how she does it, Click Here.