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There are billions of keywords to choose from, some are expensive, some are cheap, some get millions of searches per day, some get only a couple of searches per month. So which ones should you pick?

Relevant Keywords

You want to pick a collection of highly relevant keywords on what you are trying to sell or promote. I will go more into keyword research at a later time, but as a primer to keywords you should be looking for keywords that are directly related to your product or service. Google prides themselves on providing their visitors with the best user experience possible. When someone does a search, google wants them to find exactly what they are looking for.

What Not To Do

Not all traffic is the same. 100 highly targeted visitors is a thousand times better than 1 million untargeted visitors. The purpose of keyword selection is to try and match what the searcher is looking for, with what you have to offer. You do not want to bid on random keywords just to try and capture traffic.

What google wants you to do

Google wants you to pick a portfolio of keywords that will provide their visitors a great user experience. If you have a selection of poorly selected keywords google will penalize you by making you pay more per click, or they may even turn your ads off.

So what is relevance?

Relevant keywords should be common sense. If your selling dog supplies then you should be bidding on dog supply related terms. If you bid on the keyword “dog training” but your site does not contain any training materials or supplies, then your keyword is no longer relevant. Your portfolio should only contain keywords like dog leash, dog collar, dog biscuits, and dog outfits. Assuming you actually carry these items of course.

What can be mistaken for relevant?

I was reading a forum the other day of someone who was promoting weight loss supplements and guides. This person wanted to know if the keyword “beating hunger” was related to weight loss. In this case the keyword can be mistaken for a relevant keyword as those who are dieting may be hungry because they are eating less to lose the weight. However, if your in the weight loss industry, this would not be considered a relevant keyword as it can apply to many other niches such as world hunger.

I will go more into keyword research on a later article, but when you are looking into keywords try and select those that are the most directly related to what you are selling or promoting. Keywords such as”buy [product name]” are great buying cycle keywords. Dont waste you money on cross related keywords until your campaign is at the point where you need to expand to increase profits and sales.

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When it comes to choosing match types, many people get confused on how to go about it. Should you just go all broad, or all exact? Use all 3 or mix and match. What is the best and most effective way to use match types within the Google Adwords system? Well, let’s break it down and evaluate the 3 match types and how they work

Broad Match Type

The broad match type is considered the default option (probably because it can spend the most money) which means that your ad will be eligible to be shown anytime a users search query contains your keyword, in any order, and plus similar phrases. Your ad will also be shown for singular and plural variations, synonyms and “other related terms”. This can get a little tricky and a little costly, especially if you do not realize what Google is about to do

If you bid on tennis shoe your ad may be show when users type in the following search queries

Any order - tennis shoe, shoe tennis

Singular / Plurals - tennis shoe, tennis shoes

Similar phrases - shoe for tennis, I need tennis shoes

Synonyms - tennis dress, tennis cloths, tennis apparel, tennis outfit

Relevant terms - tennis sneakers, new balance, adidas tennis clothing, (you might even get mapped to basketball shoes)

PROS of Broad Match

Broad match is great if you need to discover new keywords, especially ones that convert, find new keywords that you would never normally have thought of and generate for traffic to your site.  If you are having a hard time coming up with a keyword list or have low traffic volumes then use broad match to cover many more keyword possibilities without physically having to think of them on your own.

Broad match is great for keyword discovery, getting volume, covering many keyword possibilities and marketers with keyword mental block.

CONS of Broad Match

Broad match is bad for marketers with limited budgets. Since there are millions of searches done per day on Googles network, it can get very costly to get mapped to an endless selection of keywords. Many niches with high volumes include make money, dating, health, and free stuff.

If your marketing in one of these niches broad match can blow your budget within hours so be sure to choose your keywords wisely and be ready to use many negatives to help reduce and remove untargeted traffic

Phrase Match Type

The phrase match type works like broad match. It will match you to many keyword variations, however the variations are restricted to the keyword order that you specified. With phrase match your ad can only be mapped to a search query when a user’s search term contains your term exactly as typed plus anything before or after your keyword.

If you bid on “tennis shoe” your ad may be show when users type in the following search queries

Anything Before - red tennis shoe, green tennis shoe, cheap tennis shoe

Anything After - tennis shoe sale, tennis shoe online, tennis shoe fdsafragdfa

You will never be mapped to shoe tennis, tennis shoes, shoes for tennis, tennis sneakers, or any other variations.

PROS of Phrase Match

Phrase match will not spend as much as broad match, will be more targeted traffic than broad match, and will get more search volume than exact match. Phrase match will never be mapped to “related” search queries that are not really related. If you are in an industry with lots of search variations or are afraid that broad match may blow your budget to fast then phrase match may be a better option for you

CONS of Phrase Match

Since phrase match only maps you to exact keyword variations you lose out on finding goldmine keywords that you otherwise may never have thought of.

Exact Match Type

The exact match type is the most restrictive match type of them all. The only time your ad can be shown is if the users search query is exactly what you’re bidding on. You will not get any other variations, related terms and you will not even get mapped to plurals and singulars. What you type is what you get in this situation

For example if you bid on [tennis shoe] your ad may be show when users type in the following search queries

Exact phrase - tennis shoe

That’s it! You will never be mapped to shoe tennis, tennis shoes or any other variation.

PROS of Exact Match

Exact Match offers the most control over your campaign. You are bidding on exactly what the search user is looking for and your traffic will be highly targeted. Since your ad only shows up for the exact search term and no other variations, you will also have greater control over messaging to the search user, position of the text ad on the page, and the avg CPC paid per click. Since no other keywords can have effect on these factors you can easily manipulate the outcome in your favor. Any conversions resulting from this keyword can easily be tied back to the sale and therefore you can increase or decrease bid depending on if you want a higher position to capture more clicks or if you need to lower position to increase net profit per conversion

CONS of Exact Match

Exact match search volume is usually much less than Phrase or Broad match

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Here are the top 14 things a newbie should know before he starts internet marketing using Adwords

1. Adwords is not for everyone

I will tell you now that internet marketing is not for everyone. Mostly it’s not for the faint of heart. If you’re afraid to take risk, lose money, handle pressure, make decisions, and miserably fail… Then ADWORDS IS NOT FOR YOU.

2. It takes money to make money with Adwords

Adwords is a money hungry and greedy program that is really meant for the big boys. However it is accessible to just about anyone with $5 to authorize an account. Be prepared and understand that you will need lots of money to get started and that advertising online is not like taking out an ad in the local newspaper. The average company will spend over 100k per month on Adwords alone. The average super affiliate will spend about 100k per month in Adwords alone. You may not need 100k to start, but remember that $100 is probably not going to do it and if you have no money then… ADWORDS IS NOT FOR YOU.

3. There is a learning curve involve with making a profit on Adwords, usually about 6 months to a year

If you can handle stress, risk and failure and you have some money to make money, then the next thing you need to know is that setting up a campaign and making a profitable Adwords campaign is not going to happen overnight. I have trained many SEM (Search Engine Marketing) employees and affiliates and on average it takes about 6 months before I can allow them to make decisions on their own. Be ready to learn, be ready to fail, be ready to spend the next 6 months to a year learning to turn a profit. If you are looking for success overnight then… ADWORDS IS NOT FOR YOU.

4. Everything you read online from gurus was designed to make the guru money, not the reader

If you are willing to learn, fail and spend money, then you’re probably going to start looking for advice. So of course we want to take advice from those who have made it already. Those are the eBook “Gurus”. The eBooks run anywhere from $25 to $250 and practically claim to guarantee success. What you don’t know is that those eBooks have 2 problems. First the information in them was put together to make someone else money and is usually full of hype, nonsense or contains up selling for other products and services. Of course there would be no value if they didn’t leave any golden nuggets on how to manage a campaign, so they leave fool’s gold. These are techniques that no longer work, but used to work. They no longer work anymore because Google likes to patch the holes in their system and as affiliate marketers discover and exploit those holes, Google figures them out and shuts them down. Then an eBook comes out shortly after about a magical system that made them millions. Well that’s the key, it used to make them money and now they are milking the remaining method by selling an eBook for $99 to anyone who is willing to pay. If you’re not sure what eBooks I’m talking about I have created a PPC eBook Wall of Shame

5. The best way to learn basic Adwords is to pass the Google Adwords exam

Before you can run you must learn to walk. That means learn what the system has to offer and how it all works. You need to know how to make a campaign, change things, edit, update and you need to know what all the settings do. There are lots of links and buttons so be sure you know what each one of them does before you proceed. The best way to learn this is by studying Googles help guide, watching the Google Video Lessons, and then pass the Google exam to become an Adwords professional. This course will ensure you know all the basics and kick start you to learning the system much faster.

6. The best way to master Adwords is with a mentor

If you are really serious about learning Adwords and internet marketing, then you need to find a mentor. Find someone who can spend lots of personal time with you to hold your hand. Mentoring however is not cheap and expect to pay a monthly base tuition plus a percentage of income. However if you want the fast track to learning and success online then this is the way to go. It ensure you campaigns are done properly, your landing pages are made right, proper keyword selection and a marketing strategy. If you want to get mentored, PPC Kings offers a mentoring program where you will be trained by the PPC King himself, or one of his students who has mastered the system. If you can’t afford a mentor then try teaming up with a select group of students to learn and share secrets.

7. Google does not favor specific accounts, any account can be great (It’s not a hit or miss situation)

Sometimes affiliates feel they are just getting picked on or that Google just simply picks accounts at random for who they want to be successful and who they don’t. This is not true and every account has an equal opportunity to turn profits and make money. The accounts we manage are all in great standing and turn serious profits per day. Many times a poorly constructed account is revamped to perform just as you would want it. So if things are not going right, you’re probably just doing something wrong and there is nothing wrong with admitting to failure. Just figure out what is failing and why, then stop doing it and do something else. My all time favorite quote is “If you keep doing what you’re doing, then you’ll keep getting what your getting”.

8. Google is used to budgets of $1k per day up to $10k per day per campaign.

I hear so many times, “I spend XXX amount of dollars with Google every month, why don’t they pay attention to me or give me better customer service”. The truth is if you’re not spending upwards of $50k or more per month, you’re considered a small fry to them. It’s sad and unfortunate but it’s the reality and from what I have seen they are not concerned about losing the guy who spends $10k per month, because advertisers are a dime a dozen, willing to throw money at them and lots of it. They are used to advertisers spending $50k, $100k, $500k and some companies pay in the millions per month for Googles services. They are going to invest their personal time on the accounts that matter and that’s the guys with the big budget. But don’t let this get you down, just be happy to even have the opportunity to use their system to make money from the comfort of your own home and possible lots of it…

9. You need to know HTML, PHP. and even MYSQL, or at least know someone who does

Bet you would have never guess you needed to be a geek to run an internet marketing campaign, but it’s the unfortunate truth. You need to know how to create and manipulate web pages because you cannot simply send traffic to another website, also known as direct linking. You need to have your own landing pages and these days most pages are done in HTML and PHP. You will need to know PHP so you can pull information into your landing page dynamically. Secondly you will need some understanding of mysql because many times the information you are pulling via PHP is from sql databases. If you don’t know these then I recommend reading up at W3 Schools where you will learn all the basics of these languages. You will also need to visit the PHP website frequently to freshen up on all your function and variables. Lastly here is the link to learn about MySQL.

10. You will need your own hosting account, and not from Godaddy either

You’re going to need a place to host those HTML, PHP and MySql databases and free or cheap hosting is not going to cut it either. If you plan on sending hundreds or even thousands of visitors to your dedicated landing pages then you’re going to need hosting that can handle the load and bandwidth to make those pages load fast. Personally I really like Media Temple and there grid server hosting, because its fast, reliable, can handle heavy server loads, and only costs $20 per month to start. If you don’t use Media Temple then ensure whoever you go with is fast and reliable. I have ran into many hosting nightmares and so far this one is the most trustworth.

11. 3rd part traffic analysis and conversion tracking is a must. Do not rely of Google to provide you the information you need to optimize

If you are going to spend lots of money and take on risk, invest all this time on learning and mentorships then you better know what you’re spending your money on and unfortunately Google is not going to provide you with that solution. You are going to need a 3^rd party tracking and analytics solution. New analytics programs and services are coming out all the time so here is a link to my resource for PPC analytics and conversion tracking which I will keep updated on all the time. However the best solutions are in house solutions designed around your business and kept on your own servers so that nobody can take a peek at your campaigns. It’s OK to be a little paranoid and secretive about analytics and conversion data, because this data is the journal to your success and failures on how your internet marketing campaign is doing.

12. Adwords is meant for businesses, so if you’re an affiliate marketer you need to treat your venture like a business. That means have a business plan, marketing strategy and etc…

No matter how your making money it should be treated like a business and that means treat your affiliate campaigns and strategy just as if you were opening up a business on the street. Have a game plan, do your research, study your competitors and find ways to excel above and beyond the rest. There are so many lazy affiliate marketers expecting to make a quick buck and those are the ones you hear griping that internet marketing doesn’t work or that they lost thousand on Google with no return. Those people never did their home work, and then never made a plan for success and they never had goals to guide their direction. The goal was simply to make money and that’s not a real goal. I was told once to envision myself already successful. Picture and image what I would be doing at that point once I have completed my goal, then… make your plan backwards. How did you get there, what were all the struggles and hurdles and what steps were needed to be made to get to my goal. Don’t plan forward from nothing. Envision your success and then map out the plan of action backwards.

13. Google is not a set it and forget it program. You may make money while you sleep and 24 hours a day, but its going to take you 8 - 10 hours of optimization per day to keep on top of things

There is a big misconception, and I think this is one of the biggest ones, is that internet marketers make money all day long… While playing tennis, surfing, traveling the world on vacation, while in bed sleeping and while relaxing on the sandy beaches of Oahu. Well, if that were true, they are probably doing all that while simultaneously working on their laptop trying to optimize their campaign and while on the phone with their account managers, business associates, vendors, suppliers, banks, accountants and lawyers. It’s as much of a headache as any other business and it has it pros and cons too. The internet marketing making money in his pajamas 24/7 while on vacation is a pipe dream and a marketing hoax to sell eBooks full of ways to lead you on and take your money. Internet marketing is a full time job and sometimes its 60 hour weeks, don’t be fooled, be prepared.

14. If you fail, try… try… …try… again

I was once told that every time you fail, you just found a new way not to do something and if it takes you 1,000 failures to figure out how to do something right then at least one day you will have met your goal. If your goal is to make money online from home, then you will need to fail, but every time you fail consider it a win, because you just learned to never do that again. I have failed many times doing internet marketing and even today sometimes I fail and learn something new, but I have so many failures under my belt that my campaigns now go the way I want them to… most of the time. Expect to fail… Want to fail… ensure that you fail, because without failure you can’t do something right and if you’re not failing then you’re failing to fail…

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What Is PPC?

PPC is an acronym for Pay Per Click and Pay Per Click is a marketing method used on the internet as a mean to generate new leads and sales using a nontraditional form of advertising. Traditional forms of advertising include newspapers, phone books, TV and radio ads which have been used for decades, in not centuries. With pay per click advertising businesses only have to pay when a web surfer actually clicks through to its website and this presents a great opportunity for businesses to be highly selective about who visits there website through creative, targeted and highly relevant text ads, banner images and keyword selections.

Who Uses PPC?

PPC marketing is used by many businesses and these businesses range from startup companies, brick and mortar turn internet, fortune 500’s and affiliate marketers. PPC marketing has revolutionized the way businesses and individuals make money. PPC has given many smaller businesses access to a larger pool of possible clients, sales and leads and has turned many mom and pop shops into national or international giants.

Why Use PPC?

PPC marketing is considered direct response marketing because the marketing efforts online can be immediate. Online pay per click internet marketing is one of the only business marketing venues that you can turn on today and have results within hours or even minutes. If you are new to internet marketing then expanding your business reach via internet marketing can be very lucrative. Traditional marketing methods such as TV, radio and print ads all have common issues.

• It takes time, weeks or even months to get published on TV, radio or print.

• The reach and targeted audience is often large and untargeted.

• The upfront costs are much higher to get started.

• Traditional marketing usually likes to have contractual commitments

• The marketing response is often hard to track and monitor

Where to find PPC Venues?

There are many PPC marketing venues with many different ways to generate clicks. I have developed a resource list of pay per click search engines, but one of the most popular venues is Googles Adwords, which generates clicks to your website via search network keyword queries or through contextual marketing.

Currently Googles Adwords maintains about 80% of all advertisements on the internet, so if you’re looking for the most reach with the least amount of effort I highly recommend learning to master the Google Adwords marketing platform. This platform has many ins and out, best practices and methodologies. Internet marketing, and Adwords especially, is not a set it and forget it marketing method, so you are going to either have to spend the time to learn master the Adwords system, or hire a professional to do the work for you.

There is nothing wrong with outsourcing your internet marketing campaigns and many small businesses, affiliated and large fortune 500 companies do it. Maintaining the logistics of your business is far more important that maintaining your marketing campaigns, but many smaller businesses who cannot afford marketing managers will tend to take this role on themselves, or at least until they can afford one.

PPC Cautionary Note!

Keep in mind that internet marketing can also be very costly if done improperly. Search engines generate lots of traffic per day and get millions of search done per day. If you are in an especially expensive and competitive industry such as web hosting, mortgage, insurance, health, beauty, dating, and many other industries, then your monthly expenditures can exceed the $100k marker.

Since internet marketing is available to the world there are many businesses and individuals who are willing to spend hundreds of thousands and even millions per month on their marketing campaign because the expense is in line with their ROI (Return on Investment). Since PPC is a cost per click marketing venue and there are millions of searches done per day then this can equate to big budgets and big spends.

There is a misconception out there that internet marketing only costs pennies per click, but the honest truth is that getting 0.01 costs per click is rare and hard to find and is not common in most industries. The current national average CPC is around $1 per click and as more competitors and uneducated marketers jump onto the internet marketing bandwagon, the higher the avg CPC raises.

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