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Some weeks back I heard about the Google local Business Representatives program and so I decided to apply. If you haven’t heard, Google is contracting with people to go into local businesses, collect information (hours of operation, payment types, etc.) and then get a good picture of the front of the business. Once that’s done, the information is uploaded to Google who in turn accepts or rejects the information (rejections come from duplicate entries, not the right type of business, or bad pictures). Once an entry is accepted I will get $2.00. Now for the hard part. Every business I visit will recieve a postcard from Google with the information I collected. The person I dealt with will then have to verify the information is correct and then send the postcard back to Google (postage is paid by Google) and once this happens I am paid another $8.00. So for that effort I get $10.00. Not too shabby. I’ve read that the turn-in rate for the postcards is pretty low. I’ll need to come up with some sort of follow-up program to ensure success.
I have started a “Group” at Squidoo call the “Top Ten list” group. We’re about featuring lenses with great top ten lists. If you would like to create a lens featuring your top ten products in your niche we would be happy to have you join. Simply put together a list of your top ten products and the reason I should buy them, go to squidoo, search “top ten” in the groups search (we should be number 1 or 2). On the group page to the right simply add your lens. I’ll get an email, check it out, and then approve it. This is just a little something different to market your products.
Google adwords allows you to set a specific budget, per month and per day when you set up an account. Each keyword you select has a specific cost for $.05 to infinity. It depends on what you would like to spend to have your ad show up. Now you can bid high enough to get the top ad position if you would like to but that’s usually not the way to go. Google has great tools to show you what to bid in order to get a specific position. A general rule is that you should bid to get the third, fourth, or fith positions. Some keywords will give you the top position for $.05 while others may cost you $5.00 to $10.00 or more! If you’re just beginning with adwords do what I’ve done. I put $50.00 in an adwords account, you can put less, the minimum is $5.00. I also set my daily budget to just $1.00. Why? Because I need to know which keywords I should bid more on, my average position for a keyword, and which keywords don’t work. By doing this I’ve also found some great niche keywords for future endeavors. For instance, I have two keywords that have given me over 2000 impressions in a little over a week. If I can target these keywords I will have success. Best yet, it only cost me $.05 to get a two or three position on the page. Keywords can be great, just remember it cost you everytime someone clicks your add so make it count.
When you sign up for Google adwords you have the option of allowing content sites to show your ads. Now this may sound like a good idea but here is what happens. I went to dmoz.org and submitted my site. If you go to dmoz.org and you do a search for your url and it’s not listed you can then check for your site on about ten other search engines. I did this and found I was listed on a lot of these so called content sites. Basically all I find are sites with nothing but links. People will buy a domain name with the word “lamp” in it for instance and then host the site with Google adwords on the page. Every time a link is clicked they get paid. Let me tell you the proper way of doing this. Do a search for your keywords. If you find a “real” site such as a blog that has Google adwords listed you can request to have your Google ads listed on that particular site. If the site looks good and there is great content, then by all means advertise there.
Thanks Starfire for pointing out the fact that I am listed #2 on the first page in Google for the keywords “lamp bargains”. It’s a start anyway. Google crawled my site within three days. I think it’s because I had an ad on Yahoo Shopping and also at magazines.ivillage. I’ll take what I can get! My other BIG keywords will take some time. I’m just wondering what original content I can add to my site.
Since I’ve changed my Google adwords ad I have seen an increase in clicks. It’s only been a day so I’ll check again in a couple of days and give you hard numbers.
I’ve found a great place to advertise almost any item, absolutely free! Better yet, the page has a Google rank of 6! It counts as a great incoming link and you can post as many items as you want. Ever heard of Country Living magazine? Go to this site http://magazines.ivillage.com/, click on Country Living, and scroll to the bottom, click on flea market and start selling. You can even upload a picture.
I have just recently bought some google ads. In two days I had over 4000 impressions (4000 people have had an opportunity to view my ad) and only 5 clicks. I’m experimenting with different wording and have just recently put the fact that I’m offering 10% off storewide. I’ll keep you informed on how well this is working.
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