Here’s A Story I’d Like To Share

Y’know we’ve talked about the importance of testing Google
ads too many times but I’ve just gotta tell you this story.

For many years we targeted new businesses to handle their
search engine marketing. As time went by we unearthed
a whopping number of companies that have tried PPC and failed.

So we started analyzing different company’s PPC campaigns
and were very surprised at what we found.

99% of the time these ppc campaigns were a complete mess.

There was no way these companies were going to make money.

“They were dead men walkin.”

These companies were over bidding almost to the company. They were sending prospects to the wrong landing pages. They were paying for the wrong keywords - even over-paying for them.

More importantly they had absolutely no idea which keywords
were actually converting to sales. (The ones lucky enough to
be getting any sales).

You see if you don’t know which keywords in your niche
actually convert to sales, and at what cost, you don’t have a chance.
You’d almost do better buying a lottery ticket.

The companies we looked at weren’t using any of the tools available to them to optimize their ppc campaigns. Hell, most of them weren’t even aware they

    could

optimize their pay per click campaign.

These companies were so busy trying to optimize for seo they were
ignoring the fact that they were leaving tons of money on the table with their ppc campaigns each and every day.

It soon became abundantly clear that we had stumbled into a gold mine.

All we had to do was target the companies that already had PPC campaigns and fix them.

So we immediately started writing ads to target these companies.

These are some of the first ads we ran;

Stop Suffering With Your PPC Mgmt
Get Results You Can See, & Feel.
www.leadpros.com/Free-PPC-Audit

How’s PPC Working Out For You?
It Really Doesn’t Have To Be A Pain
www.leadpros.com/Free-PPC-Audit

Gave Up On PPC? Find Out What You
Didn’t Know That Cost You Money
www.leadpros.com/Free-PPC-Audit

Has Your Pay Per Click Campaign
Been A Bust? Here’s An Easy Fix.
www.leadpros.com/Free-PPC-Audit

These ads did less than 1% clickthrough on average…certainly nothing to write home about. This caused a bit of concern.

Maybe we had misread the market and the number of unhappy ppc customers wasn’t as substantial as we thought it was.

But since we’re always testing, we made a small change that completely transformed our results and the amount of our orders.

Can you guess what it was?

It’s just 3 little words.

We replaced the display url from www.leadpros.com/Free-PPC-Audit
to www.leadpros.com/Save-On-PPC.

We didn’t change anything else except the name pf the landing page to:
http://www.leadpros.com/save-on-ppc.html

The word, “Audit” was killing us. We should’ve known that. It’s Common-sense now. What businessman wants to see the word, “audit”?
For that matter what regular person wants to see it.
Let alone actually click on the word to find out more.

DUH!

Once the change was made we were getting click-through rates of 5%, 16% 33% and in some cases 50%.

This is what I’ve been explaining to you guys all along. Without further
testing we might have assumed there was no market and left buckets of money on the table.

The reason most companies don’t make money with PPC is not Google, Yahoo, Bing or AOL.

The reason is because these companies aren’t using all the tools available to help them:

First tools to pick the right keywords;
Second tools to not overbid for those keywords;
Third tools to know the right ads that attract the prospects typing in those keyword queries;
Fourth tools to send prospects to the right landing pages that motivate them to order today;

If you’re not using these tools that give you this information or haven’t hired someone to use them in your behalf… You’re dead in the water.

Because if you’re not using these search engine tools, the companies we represent are, and if we happen to be your competition… you’re toast.

But I digress. I just wanted to make the point of how important it is to spend less time on optimizing seo and more time optimizing your pay per click.

I’d like to highlight one Google tool today called the Google Conversion Tool. Once you install the Google conversion code on your “thank you” pages you can tell exactly what keywords led to a conversion and at what bid price.

That’s lethal information to have at your fingertips. When you have information this powerful your pay per click campaign can thrive and now you can begin to see what separates the “haves” from the “have-nots”

Y’see you might think a keyword like, “pay per click” would bring a company like mine a lot of business but would you be surprised to know that the keyword, “sem strategies” converts better at a lower price?

Get serious about your pay per click campaign and change your life.

To your success.

Posted on July 13th, 2010 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 8 Comments »

The Simple Truth About Selling Online

Maybe you’re experiencing the same problem as many online entrepreneurs. Somewhere along the line you got sold the idea that internet marketing is like order-taking i.e. MacDonalds or BurgerKing. You just put a website up and the people just come and buy.

Let’s not forget it took the Macdonald’s of the world millions of dollars
in brand advertising to get them to the point of just being able to
seemingly just order-take.

I have to tell you Internet marketing is absolutely nothing like that.

Internet marketing is a combination of directory advertising and
direct response advertising.

There’s never been anything as powerful as this combination in history for advertisers.

Directory advertising is like the yellow pages. Customers spend their time looking for advertisers to come solve their needs.

Direct response advertising is selling… just plain old fashion selling at its finest and most direct. This form of advertising requires the prospect to perform some type of response immediately i.e. buy something or sign up for something.

And it is true that, “If you build it they will come.” But “building it” is a

    helluva

lot more than just building a website. What you have to build is traffic and cash flow.

You build traffic and cash flow with ads and landing pages that sell.

Just throwing up a pretty webpage and throwing a few keywords at it is not selling. It’s an attempt at order-taking.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with
order-taking. It’s just very expensive as a marketing method. It can take years of advertising before you see a return.

The entrepreneur’s graveyard is full of the bones of entrepreneurs attempting that.

Selling is understanding your customer’s needs and showing him you can service those needs.

Direct response is convincing him why he needs to do business with you

    RIGHT

now.

That means you can’t afford to throw money on anything until you
know your sales pages can close deals.

That’s where you must spend your time and effort first; learning what it takes to close the deal today. Once you’re closing deals on a regular basis then you start trying to find more exposure for your pages because they close deals and allow you to live the lifestyle you prefer

Real Internet marketing is very simple…

Real Internet Marketing is about what keyword phrase, triggers what ad, aimed at what landing page at a profitable cost per conversion.

That’s it.

If you can’t answer that question. I promise you, you will never make any real money online.

There’s only one way to answer that question.

The only way you can do that is really target your market with as many keywords as it takes and test your sales pages until you find the gems that bring home the bacon.

That involves getting enough traffic in a timely fashion and testing your sales pages.

Traffic you can only get “

    on demand

” with PPC.

You just have to know how to buy it right and we can teach you that.

It’s not personal, the “PPC” Gods aren’t out to get you. If anything they will train you, and keep you from making bad decisions.

You must find out if your pages really work,

    or not

, and it they don’t you need to fix them. If they do, then you just need more traffic.

The ugly thing about PPC is it makes you face failure straight in the face. Most people don’t like that. It’s more comfortable to blame Google or PPC for their failure but it’s a Blessing in disguise. You get to find out what doesn’t work fast and you can change it until it works and continues to work all the time.

It’s all in how you look at it. Your sales pages don’t take it personal!

It’s not an accident you start making money it’s completely on purpose.

Compared to most things in life adjusting your sales pages are simple fixes. Once you make the necessary adjustments, like any good salesmen would, all of a sudden you start to see why companies make so much on search advertising.

Once you really understand how search advertising works the amount of your real competition starts to dwindle. 99.9% just don’t get it. It’s not about ”

    Not Paying

” for traffic i.e. seo.

It’s about being able to buy as much traffic as you want
and making money faster than you can spend it.

That’s the ride you want to be on.

That’s what I love about selling search engine advertising for a living. You can’t help but learn what works.

People pay you to learn what works.

You start seeing little subtle changes you make in ads or landing pages that make such great differences to the bottom line.

It’s exciting.

To Your Success

Posted on June 2nd, 2010 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 7 Comments »

Wickedly Effective But Often Ignored

I just want to thank you all for all the kind comments.
It’s very humbling and I really appreciate it.

Keep ‘em coming. You know how to get my attention.

I just got through having a fiery discussion about why
people tend not to buy when your customer thinks they should.

A new customer of mine was wondering why when people visit his
website on their own he’s able to close 1 out of 3 but when they
come from a search engine he can’t seem to close anyone.

He was mystified. I wasn’t.

I explained that it was probably because the prospects that visited his
site on their own already knew who he was. He already had credibility.
These hot prospects were coming to his site specifically to do
business with him.

The real question might be, “if these prospects are already looking specifically for your
Website, why are you only closing 1 out of 3? (But that’s another discussion
for another time).

People visiting his site from the search engines didn’t know him
from the homeless guy begging down the street.

He strongly disagreed. He swore up and down these prospects were typing in generic keywords, finding his site and just signing up. Why wasn’t everyone else?
What’s wrong with them?

But the beauty of Internet technology is you never have to wonder, and
you never have to guess.

Fortunately before we started his campaign I had this client install Google
Analytics on his website just so we’d know what was really going on
with visitors to his website.

When we checked the keywords visitors used prior to filling out his
web form we found that 100% of them used his name as the search term.

Just like I thought…these visitors were sold before the even got to his
website.

Anyone using any search term other than his company name didn’t fill
out anything. These people never became customers. They just left.

This proved a very important point that keeps rearing it’s ugly head.

Without social proof, reviews, testimonials, etc getting new business
on the Net is a daunting task if not an impossible one.

People are extremely skeptical of any online business especially if it
has anything to do with money…And for good reason.

Clients will argue me up and down. They say stuff like, “My customers
don’t believe in testimonials!” “Everybody knows testimonials are BS.”
And I just ask them a simple question.

“How many new customers did you get today?
How many did you get last week?

We’ve been doing this since 1995 and the numbers don’t lie. You must have
credible testimonials, and/or reviews from real people if you want to make
any real money online.

Think about it. How many commercials do you see on TV that don’t use
testimonials from other like-minded users? Why is that?

Because, happy, satisfied customers sell better than anything. They are
pound-for-pound the strongest sales element for closing deals and
bringing home the bacon.

You can have the best pay per click campaign. You can be the high
potentate of SEO but if you don’t have serious testimonials or reviews
on your website you better keep your day job.

If you don’t have em..get em.

You should be aware there’s a new law regarding testimonials that basically
says you need to get info from both happy and unhappy customers if
you’re going to use solicited testimonials. So do your best to have happy
customers and get as much feedback as you can.

People won’t believe what you say but they will believe what
someone tells them about you. It ’s just human nature and it’s been
like that since the first cave people learned it’s better to stick together
then venture out alone.

Please spend a little less time worrying about seo and more time getting happy
customers to give you social proof. You’ll never regret it.

To your success.

Robert

Posted on May 5th, 2010 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

Check Out The New Complete Online Resource Guide

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But it’s a whole lot more. Uncover the real truth about online jobs and what it really takes to get that real job that pays real money on a regular basis. If you have to pay money…It’s probably not a real job.

Learn how to identify those real jobs online, what you’ll need, and where to hang out to get them to come to you.

Go get your free copy right now and thanks for supporting our blog.

http://www.completeonlineresourceguide.com/

Posted on February 9th, 2010 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 98 Comments »

The Real Secret To Working At Home!

The real secret to working from home, the one no
one wants you to know is…YOU NEED SKILLS!

You must provide a viable product or service
that actually makes someone else’s life better.

Ripping people off does not make their lives better.

Something-for-nothing is NOT a service.

If you think that just buying someone else’s pre-made
cookie-cutter website is going to make you rich at
home…Let me save you some time.

Buying lottery tickets and sitting on the couch is a better
investment.

Everybody complains about these get-rich-quick programs
being scams. But, who’s the real scammer?

You see the only real scammer is you if you think
you’re going to create a business online or someone
is going to hire you online and you have nothing to offer.

If you’ve spent your whole life NOT learning how to do things,
it’s going to be tough getting real employment online.

If you’re not bringing something to the table, who’s scammin who?

Before you go looking to make money at home, ask, “What am I bringing
to the table?” “What service can I provide?” Who’s life can I make better?”

Once you know the skills you bring to the table…you can find where
on the Internet to look for people who need you.

If you’re good at what you do, people will have no problem paying
you to stay home and do it. It’s no mystery. It’s not magic.

What can you do?

Who needs it?

Where are they?

If you can’t do anything…If you have no skills…Nobody needs you.

So fix it.

Learn a viable skill and you can make money anywhere.

Get better at your skill everyday and you’ll make more money
no matter where you are.

To Your Success

Robert

Posted on January 17th, 2010 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 66 Comments »

Have you ever gone wrong learning a skill?

Skilled people can always find a way to earn money.

Just the other day a new potential student was commenting
about his desire to learn the skills taught in the Ground &
Pound course.

The thing that interested him the most was the fact that
upon completion of the course he would have new marketable
skills that can never be taken away.

I had never really thought about it in those terms before.

I never really thought about what we do as a skill. We’ve been doing
it for so long I kind of just took it for granted.

But knowing how to get traffic on the Internet and resell
it to brick and mortar businesses for profit is an amazing skill
which has allowed my family to live the life and style I want.

The truth is you can have a wonderful life if you’re really helping
other people.

The reason most of the get rich schemes we’ve all seen on the Net don’t work
is because there’s usually nothing of real value being touted. Usually
it’s some scheme where you learn or give nothing.

If the main premise of the business is that you don’t need any money,
marketable skills, or talent to succeed. I can save you a lot of
heart-ache right now by telling you to run don’t just walk away.

Who do you know personally that you consider a success that has no marketable skills
or talent?

Who do you know personally that’s succeeded without years of effort?

If you want success then put the time in and find a business needed by others.
Master the skills and the money will follow.

This new student was purchasing the course because of the skills it teaches.
He was able to recognize the power in just that and what it could mean to his life.

He told me that he didn’t mind selling. He just hated cold-calling. The fact that
he would be selling a product so in demand that people called him was just
what he was looking for.

He’s an example of why we wrote this course. To give people the freedom to
build a real business they could be proud of by learning marketable skills
that could last a lifetime.

I must tell you I felt great after that phone call.

Business must have real solid online advertising if they’re going to succeed
in the 21st Century. No Business can survive without attracting customers.

Help businesses get online customers and you’ll never have to worry about
where your next dime is coming from.

To your success.

Posted on December 11th, 2009 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 106 Comments »

For Money Fast? Affiliates vs Search Engine Advertising

Here’s why I chose search engine advertising.

I get paid to learn how to sell other people’s
products and services.

Just this knowledge is PRICELESS… Getting paid to
perfect it… is NIRVANA.

It’s not as competitive as affiliate marketing. As you’ve
probably found out already… most affiliate programs
just don’t work.

So what ends up happening is all of the heavy hitters
gravitate to the few that do. You end up competing
with the best in the business on a miniscule amount
of programs.

This will hardly ever happen when you sell search advertising.
You end up with very little competition and what competition
you do find is even less competent.

Hey…you can’t argue with getting paid up front.
You gotta admit life’s much easier when you’ve
already got the money. When customers call,
you’re making money from targeted niches
you’d never even dream of.

With affiliate marketing you’ve got to foot-the-bill to find your niche.
How many times will you have to fail before you find a profitable niche?
Even if you’re able to pick a profitable niche you still need original copy?
Who’s gonna write that?

So you’ve found a profitable niche, you got your ad copy written and
you’ve tested it and it works.

How long does it take to get paid?
What’s the minimum payout?
What’s your return allowance?
How long will they hold it back?
What’s the return policy?
Who eats that?

All these things affect your payments. You don’t have any
of these problems when you sell search engine advertising
because you’re in charge and you make the rules.

When you’ve got a recurring customer base sending you
money regularly you’ve got a solid business. When your only
money comes from affiliate marketing building a viable
business is much more difficult. That’s why only 1% of the
affiliates make 99% of the money. Don’t fight over the
scraps in the Internet marketing niche.

Gorge yourself and instantly pocket more money
with untapped niches where simple techniques and
easy-to-implement strategies still lavishly
rake in the BIG Bucks.

Discover a viable skill that will not only allow you to build
a substantial repeat income but gives you the freedom
to call your own shots.

Selling search engine advertising gives you the power.
You’re in the position of Authority. As an affiliate
marketer you’re just another loser trying to find a way to
make money.

I like the security selling search engine ads gives my family.
Businesses will always need search advertising no matter
how bad the economy gets. Customers are the only things
that can save any business large or small from the ravages
of a recession.

I love the adventure. You never know who’s going to be
on the other end of the phone when you pick it up. It
could be a small company or it could be a behemoth…
and change your life instantly. How stimulating is that?

Make your own lucky breaks; Express
yourself in ways you never thought possible. Search
engine advertising gives you the independence to share
knowledge with all the movers and shakers making
things happen on the Net.

If you get the chance, don’t lose out on this extraordinary
opportunity. That would be an unspeakable loss.

Worst-case scenario is that by becoming a master at search
engine marketing you can sell more affiliate programs if that’s
ultimately what you’d rather do. I think once you’re
making money from your search engine customers, getting
paid in advance, meeting incredibly interesting entrepreneurs
you’ll look at affiliate marketing in a whole new light.

For more information about the benefits of search engine
advertising
click here

To Your Success.

Posted on August 5th, 2009 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 134 Comments »

Hate Your Sales Job?

Here’s a place to vent. Tell us what you hate about your current sales job?

Posted on July 19th, 2009 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 148 Comments »

The Real Lethal Cost Of SEO, Exposed

If your business is depending on SEO for survival…You’re already dead.

If your business is built exclusively from SEO traffic you don’t really have
a business.

Here’s why.

Anyone who’s done optimization with any search engine for any length of time
knows that search engine algorithms change all the time.  No search engine
benefits from showing the same results at the top for any great length of time.

Search engines need searchers to continually use the search engine.
If they publish the same results over a long period of time searchers will
gravitate to other search engines to turn up more varied and relevant results.

Unless your business plan involves only being in business for a short time
don’t look for SEO traffic to sustain you over the long haul.

Let’s say your one of the few fortunate businesses that, after months or years
of undertaking SEO, manages to get your site listed at the top of the search results
on one or all the major search engines under one or (even more rare) all of the
relevant keywords you want to target.

And, let’s say because of all the free traffic you’re snapping up and the fact that
your sales pages are closing deals like crazy, you’re making a substantial income online
(Now I have to admit this would be a humongous feat if you never took the time to test
your sales pages while you were doing all that optimizing) But let’s just say you did
everything right and you were booming…bringing in the cash hand over fist.

Life is good. You’re profiting 6 - 7 figures annually.

And then it happens… just like it always does.

The search engines change their algorithms as they’ve done so often in the past
and you’re toast.  All of your positions are gone…Poof…Overnight, It’s all over.

It’s the same story.  Your income went up and so did your expenses.

Now your income is down but your expenses are still up.

OOPS.And yes, it’s unbelievably devastating when (not if) it happens to you.

Welcome to the real world of search engine marketing.

You see, search engine evolution is not over. On the contrary, It’s just beginning.
Search engines are always evolving, changing and attempting to become more relevant.
The only way to survive is to evolve with them in real time as much as possible.

If you think you’re going to get something as valuable as targeted search traffic without
paying for any length of time…you’re drinking the kool-aid.

You want to sleep like a baby. Then build your business using pay per click and spend
your time making sure your sales pages work the very best they can.

When you cultivate your business using PPC you can build in longevity. As long as your paying
for the traffic you’ll always be able to get it. You can put your focus where it needs to be.

As a business owner your focus needs to be on sales. Pay per click lets you do that.

First you need to target the right traffic using the best keyword research tools you
can find. (If you already read it you know we spent a lot of time on that in Ground & Pound)

Next you need to focus on writing search engine ads with high click-through rates so
you get to pay less for the traffic. ( Also covered in Ground & Pound)

After that you need to send that traffic to relevant landing pages that actually get
your prospects to reach into their pockets, pull out their credit cards and order
your products or services. (I know I’m shamelessly plugging Ground & Pound, but it’s my
blog and I can do whatever I want).

Sounds simple doesn’t it?

It’s not.

Getting prospects to actually part with their hard earned income after
simply reading your sales page is one of the hardest things there is to do.

That’s why people that can do it make so much money. They’ve invested
their blood, sweat and tears learning how to do it.

Instead of spending all your time chasing “free traffic”, spend your time
honing your craft…learning how to sell online.

To your success

Posted on July 1st, 2009 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 35 Comments »

Money In The Bank

Here’s Why it’s brutally important for entrepreneurs to test their websites with
Pay Per Click & why that’s money in the bank for you.

Even the most optimistic seo firm would have to agree that it can take 6 months to a year to get a website optimized for one competitive keyword string, if ever… And, that’s just one keyword string.

When you consider that our ppc campaigns can routinely target hundreds even
thousands of keyword strings you can picture what a monumental waste of time this seo effort can be.

Imagine putting in all that time and money in optimizing your site, then finding out that your site doesn’t close orders.

Let’s hope you didn’t risk your day job.

The truly sad part is, you don’t have to imagine it, it’s done everyday, all day, by “educated” people.  The problem is most people purporting to make money online know absolutely nothing about sales.

The fact that you do, is going to make your life a lot easier. The advantage you have over 90% of  the so-called entrepreneurs online is that you know how to sell.

That means that you can transfer the skills you already have to making money online using the written word.

You see,  selling online is not about a bunch of high-tech wizardry. It’s about understanding your clients needs and servicing them better than your competitors. Flash graphics and videos in and of themselves won’t put a dime in your pocket… Only applied sales skills couched in sizzling ad copy will.

As you no doubt have discovered in your sales career you must ask for the order if you want to get paid. You must put yourself out there and risk the rejection if someone rejects your presentation.

If your sales presentation is rejected enough, as an intelligent sales professional, you would adjust your presentation until it worked…or you’d starve.

The Internet hasn’t changed anything when it comes to the basics of the sales process.

That’s why you should do very well selling search advertising. Most of the competition you’re going to encounter just don’t get it.

While everybody else is trying to find some way around selling, you should embrace the sales skills you’ve developed and use them to make a fortune online.

Web pages are nothing more than salesmen in print. If they don’t work, you need to either fire them or fix em.

How can you find out if you web pages are working if it could take you six whole months to a year just to get traffic to them?  It’s no wonder so many Internet start-ups go broke.

Your clients are going to need traffic now. They need to find out if the website they created is doing it’s job before expending unnecessary time and expense.

Believe me if the sales pages you’re targeting can’t close the deal with quality pay per click traffic they aren’t closing one without it.

By explaining the importance of testing sales pages using the speed of ppc to potential clients before they spend a lot of time with seo you’re saving them expense and enhancing your own credibility.

Do this and you’ll make bigger deposits more often.

To your success

Robert

Posted on June 29th, 2009 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized | 112 Comments »

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