Topic: internet marketing

Once in a while a good Free Affiliate Marketing Training comes along. Nothing is free of course, but if I am going to invest time into something, it had better be good, high quality, and produce a great ROI! I think I have found such a training;

The black ink project
“the Black Ink Project is an affiliate success course designed to help new affiliates bridge the gap between my e-book and making a profit. Some find that the book and forum support is all they need to succeed, but others need a little more hands-on training to connect all the dots.

The project focuses on four key areas:

* Setting realistic goals, based on your time and budget. You’ll discover how much time and money you need to invest to achieve your goals.
* Researching prospective opportunities. You’ll learn out how to avoid potential pitfalls and find the right niche and the best advertisers.
* Learning the software, scripts, and tools to help you create your site. You’ll not only leave the course with a complete tool belt, you’ll learn how to use your tools alone and together to create beautiful high-converting sites.
* Develop and launch a campaign from start to finish. At the end of the course, you’ll have a complete action plan and checklist you can use for future sites.”

I do not promote very many programs, gigs, offers, and other crap people forward to me or that I come across unless it is really good. My time is just too valuable. That is why I am recommending this one. I have already got a lot of value out of the forum and the members I have met in this free affiliate marketing training!

Post written by: Russ Page Why doesn’t my website show up in Google? My wife sent me an email from one of her friends asking why a website didn’t show up in a search engine. It was kind of a fun exercise to see if I could explain to someone the “why” knowing they didn’t know anything [...]

I get an email from HR that says “free pizza in the break room.” The second I read it I call out, “Free pizza - RUN!” I’m hungry so I sprint. Then the entire SEO team starts running behind me. I’m laughing as I run. I have flashbacks to the movie Run Lola Run. We arrive and it’s already a madhouse but we beat most of the crowd there.

At OrangeSoda we’re still hungry. I find that makes for the most creative juice. It fuels a startup. It might explain why people are leaving Google (cashed in on stock options) to go to Facebook (possibility of lucrative stock options). That hungry stage usually fades to complacency and order.

Interesting enough in my personal life I’m going from famine to feast and I have mixed emotions about it. It’s welcomed but I want to keep that hungriness too. Except I don’t like worrying about eating (irrational though it may be). I noticed my fridge is a lot less full these days because when I’m scared about money I stock up. Now I’m clearing out to make and keep space.
5 mins after the email I hear there are 2 slices left…and speaking of still hungry….

About a year ago I created an Internet Marketing Road Map for one of my clients. It included each of the main areas of Internet Marketing, including SEO (Search Engine Optimization), PPC (Pay Per Click), and so on. It came about because the client simply said they are a small company (2 internet entrepreneurs), and they do not have time to learn each area of internet marketing. They had a hard time understanding what were the most important activities in Internet marketing that they need to focus on. What could they do each day for a few minutes that could have the biggest impact on their Internet business.

So, I developed a marketing plan with specific recommendations for each area of Internet Marketing. The outcome was fantastic. I have now created dozens of Internet Marketing Road Maps for clients based on the the stage of their Internet Business. The roadmap is very straightforward and usually only a couple pages long. Basically it tells the internet entrepreneur / small business owner how to spend their time each week if they only have 2 hours for internet marketing activities. If they have 5 hours or 10 hours on some weeks the roadmap will breakdown how they should spend their time in each area. Basically it is a way to bring the most important activities to the top, and the entrepreneur can spend as much time as they have available to work on marketing their business online.

I have found that most internet small businesses have a hard time understanding how to get the most out of their online marketing efforts. Having a good Internet Marketing Road Map is one great way to do that.

Post written by: Russ Page Marketing Tips on a Budget ConnectMagazine has an excellent article on marketing on a budget in the February 2008 issue. I’d particularly like to highlight the section offered by Todd Wolfenbarger of The Summit Group because of the consulting nature of which he offered advice. He posed five excellent questions one should always [...]

Post written by: Russ Page 5 Internet Marketing posts worth reading I’m convinced even more. If you’re employed in public relations or traditional marketing, you need to start learning more about internet marketing. That being said, I gathered 5 articles from around the web that are well worth reading. - 7 Ways to Use Keyword Analytics to Your [...]

Since I got into Internet marketing and fell in love with it the holy grail was a work-from-home job. I thought now I’m free! I can make money anywhere. I thought to truly arrive you had to work at home for yourself. That’s what I wanted. Then I got it, mostly.

At first working for myself was an adventure. I exercised most days, I met and talked to friends during the day and worked until late at night. I had flexibility. I worked in my pjs or sometimes in a towel (I don’t recommend you do that very often).

Then it started to wear off. I missed working with a group of people. I had some big disruptions with one of the companies I worked for and suddenly what I’d spent months building started to fall apart. In just a few months I lost over half my income, crashed my car, and had a rough go of it. You can probably tell from the tone of this post about getting a job.

I chose two places to apply. I’m not in a position to move or I’d be in the hipper Sugarhouse area of Salt Lake. But being environmentally and family - conscious I didn’t want a long commute. For a few reasons, I also had lingering trauma over having a regular job. I knew I wanted to work for a place where I wasn’t fighting for Internet marketing by myself. I wanted a team and a friendly or at least not hostile IT department.

I thought of not blogging about this but I notice a trend that even big time execs blog about departing or starting new jobs. It’s fashionable and in the dynamic industry I’m in, the average time at a job tends to be about 18 months. Then note that I live in an extremely entrepreneurial place. Most startups I’ve worked for over the years are out of business. Or they have VC funding that can mean quick unexpected layoffs.

Besides, Andy Beal outed the news on Twitter. I have built a bit of a following there, thanks in a large part to him. So I drank the Orange soda and rode the beach cruiser around the office. I’ve joined a few fellow Utah bloggers and others doing SEO for businesses at a company called OrangeSoda.

A thank you for inspiring this change goes to Penelope Trunk. I talked about how over time Internet marketing went from being my obsession to being a job I love. That means more balance and better separation between work and home life.

Orange Soda has grown quickly as agencies outsource their Internet marketing services to them. When someone says “free food” people here stampede. It’s young, hip, and still hungry like the beginning days of the web. Plus I love the noise.

Aaron Wall of the SEO Book blog wrote a great rant about PPC vs. SEO. He talks about how PPC (paid per click advertising) is a continual race to the top - eroding profits and starting bidding wars. Who wins? Search engines. Remember that Google makes 99% of their $16 billion revenue on advertising.

Both methods have some barrier to entry, because they’re both technical and take a certain amount of skill. SEO (search engine optimization) on the other hand is more difficult to copy. SEO is sustainable.

You start a client on blogging or an SEO strategy and they get nervous about how much time and/or money it costs and they stop. If they continued they’d see that it’s a worthwhile investment. The links don’t disappear after your budget does. However, it’s not a straight line to profit like PPC can be. It takes a slower, less direct path.
SEO shows a work ethic and builds credibility. It separates the legit long-term businesses from the get-rich-quick schemers:

This is why I like SEO so much more than PPC. Most people are too lazy to spend years researching their topic, years building a brand, years building links, and years building social and customer relationships. We are afraid of failure, afraid of success, and afraid that we are investing too much in one place. But, if someone sees me ranking in the organic results they can’t just clone it unless they know SEO well, and are committed for the long haul. In many cases, knowing SEO well means having capital, time, passion, and a lot of marketing knowledge.

Then he wrote about how if you do well, it’s easy for someone (or your ad network) to steal or copy you. Aaron had this happen - someone stole his ad copy - and here’s his response:

SEO separates out real businesses from 95% of the people buying PPC ads. The guy stealing ad copy is too lazy to compete at that level. I’ll enjoy the logarithmic growth in profits (which have been at least doubling every year) while he keeps stealing table-scraps from Google and other affiliates until his accounts get banned.

This is why successful internet marketers who are the real deal start to give away their secrets. After they’ve built their business, they can afford to tell people how to do what they do. They know most people won’t have the skills or work ethic to get where they are. Some do, but it’s a small percentage.

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Yesterday my business partner and I had lunch with Courtney Tuttle, a blogger and Internet marketer (www.courtneytuttle.com).Up until a few days ago I didn’t know he lived close so I contacted him and the next day we met him. Courtney is just as generous in real life as he is in his blog. He openly teaches what he’s learned as an internet marketer. He’s built a successful small business with several virtual employees.

I asked Court for a quick interview about our discussion. Sometimes I’m writing more than actually interacting, so I followed up after to get things in his own words. Keep reading to see what other topics we covered and for some excellent advice.

Please enjoy:

Q: What is the best way to make friends with other bloggers?

The best way I’ve found to make friends with bloggers Janet is by writing about them. This comes very easily to people that are unselfish and can be a huge asset. I’ve written quite a few posts that are about bloggers that I look up to and some of those posts have turned into very cool and rewarding friendships.

For an example on his blog see Top 7 Internet Marketers you Can Trust - which features Wendy Piersall and other well respected bloggers. This post is how he got to know most of them!

Q: What is the most rewarding part of blogging - to you?

Educating people on topics that they don’t understand. There is so much bad information out there it’s almost scary. I have always been honest with people about what internet marketing is and people appreciate that.

Q: What’s your favorite (most utilized) internet marketing tool?

Honestly, I’m not a big user of many tools. I do use Wordze [to find the most searched keywords] for most of my keyword research.

But I make the final decision on what keywords I want to target based on my own evaluation of the sites that rank well in Google for the keywords I’m researching. I guess I should say that my favorite ‘tool’ is testing. I have enough sites to test literally thousands of ideas and that is how I learned most of what I know.

Janet inserts - I haven’t tried Wordze.com but they really should optimize for the word Wordz - because they were nowhere on that search. Also, Court told me they have will show you what sites rank highest for the keywords you want to target and show backlinks. It also shows the rate at which they add new links. He also mentioned for less trafficked web sites, he uses StatCounter to get stats.

Q: What’s the best idea you’ve had for your business?

Getting help! Honestly I don’t know how I used to do everything on my own. I know have a group of people that help me with my day to day tasks, and that has really improved my quality of life. Increased time has helped me to think more clearly about what my business needs.

Q: How do you determine which keyword phrases to concentrate on?

Well there are a lot of different strategies that I use to select keyword phrases. For a niche blog, I choose keywords that have very little competition so that I can rank in Google very quickly. For a flagship blog, I choose the biggest and usually hardest keyword phrase in the industry because it will give me the most traffic once I get ranked in the top few sites.

Q: What’s your favorite linkbuilding strategy?

I actually don’t have a favorite because you have to have huge diversity to have success in your link building campaign. I would have to say that my most powerful link building strategy for CourtneyTuttle.com is the brand that I have created.

If you are really helping people to learn a business, they will show their gratitude and excitement by linking to you. If you aren’t giving them knowledge and skill that they can use, they probably won’t. They will start to believe in you and your brand if you can give them information that works and this will lead to praise and links. I would say that a pretty high percentage of my links are of this type.

Q: Has Internet marketing changed your life?

Well to be honest I have always approached internet marketing as pure business. I’m able to separate my life from that and other than having a nicer car than I used to, I don’t really think it has impacted my life at all. To me, business is business and life is life. I like to reserve my life time for friends and family and I try not to let my business get in the way of that.

Q: What technique for making money online consistently performs best for you?

Well I’m a web developer that likes to use a lot of diversity, but I would have to say that the content approach has always been the best model for me. My biggest skill is my SEO knowledge, and creating content sites works very well with that knowledge.

Q: How do you work for hours on end with absolutely no human interaction?

Well, to give anyone that reads this interview a little background, Janet and I had lunch yesterday and we figured out that in one area we are very different. Janet seems to really like interaction with people while she’s working. I prefer to work alone, as strange as that sounds.

To answer your question Janet, I’m just very different from most people in this area. I have a abnormally high amount of focus when I’m working on something, and distractions kill that focus for me. I can usually work two to four hours (sometimes up to 10 hours) without blinking. During some of these times that I have had huge moments of clarity that have helped my business to move forward.

To some people this trait is very strange Janet and I can understand why. Most people need constant interaction and I can understand that. As cold as this may sound, I simply don’t have that need. One thing that might to contribute to that trait while I’m working is my ability to turn off ‘work mode’.

I live with some good friends and we are always doing stuff at night. Last night, for example, there were about 15 people at my house to just hang out and watch the Jazz game.Tonight we’re having people over for game night - it’s looking like we’re going to have about 15 people again. We’re always hanging out with different people.

I don’t really feel like I have to have as much interaction during the day because I have more than enough at night. That means that during the day I can get more work done than I would be able to do otherwise and I can still be a good friend and have a social life. There are, of course, emergencies that can pull me out of work mode - taking care of family and friends has to come before anything else or you just can’t be happy.

I’ve been writing a lot more SEO press releases again and so it’s on my mind. I want to go over the steps of writing an SEO press release.

1. Assemble the facts, news angle, and begin writing.
   To me, the best quality press releases involve actual interviewing, on the phone. There is so much more information you get by talking to someone. Sure, you can use email and that works, especially because you can’t misquote and you have a record. However, when you interview the right person, their passion for the subject can shine through and you can capture that essence in your writing. It also makes the story unique. But it takes longer.
2. Identify the keyword phrase or related phrase you want to optimize your press release for.
   This can be easy if you already know the phrase but most of the time you need to do keyword research to see the competition and demand for a keyword phrase. You may want to go for a niche keyword that you can rank for more quickly. If you choose something like “Internet marketing” then you’re up against at least 100k other web sites who want to rank for that. That’s a long-term investment.
3. Incorporate the keyword phrase into the press release.
   You need to make the keyword phrase an anchor, use it in the first sentence, title, and body of the press release. Don’t overdo it or it will look like spam. There are times I take an existing press release from a PR firm and add SEO. Otherwise you may want to start out with keyword phrase first rather than adding it later. I like my press releases to read well and the feel of them to come through first and then add keywords.
4. Submit the press release to a press release distribution service.
   This sounds easy, but this is almost as much work as writing the press release. Each press release service has different rules according to how much you pay.
   Links - Some won’t allow links, most regulate how many links your press release can have. Even the process of creating links is different for each service (and not always intuitive).
   Optimization in the code (you can’t see this because it’s just for search engines) - You might need a list of 20 related keywords and write a summary with keyword phrases. This is SEO that no one sees but is very important.
   Categorizing your press release - You may need to categorize your press release by subject and geographic areas.
   Social media optimization - You may be able to add tags or other aspects, like Digg, Delicious, etc.
   Attachments - If the service (like PRWeb) allows attachments, images, podcasts, etc, you need to identify and upload those.
   Timing- Most of the time you need to submit your release a day or more before you want it to go out. For the media, you want to make sure that’s not on a weekend.

I’ve crafted a great press release for search engines and for people. I know that my editorial score will be high so there will be upwards of 50k (conservatively) clicks. Then they change it so it sounds right to them (but messes up the search engine optimization piece). Sometimes legal, a few VPs, and directors have to buy off. That can seriously affect the success of your release (and takes much more time).

I’ve written press releases for newspapers and the media and we just faxed or emailed them to a list. Not much thought after writing except to target the release to the right people. Writing for search engines is much more technical and takes quite a bit more time.

Feel free to add information that I may have overlooked, or reference your posts about SEO press releases. Within the SEO industry we know a lot and none of this is news to you. However, I wanted to distinguish the difference between regular press releases and SEO optimized press releases.

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I just read a feature about blogger John Chow on the Unusual Business Ideas that Work blog. I met John Chow at Blogworld a few months ago. The post talks about how much he’s made from blogging - $25k a month. He started out making $300 a month. He spends about $550 a month in expenses. He’s only been blogging for a little over a year.

The article talks about how he makes money giving away his ebook free (with affiliate links). The article says he uses more than 100 ad networks, like AuctionAds and Kontera ContentLink. 100 ad networks - my head hurts thinking about managing that!

“There are no rules or limits in blogging,” he said. “Your earning power is only limited by the traffic you can attract.” Which is the same with web sites, only blogs take a lot less effort to update.

Today my business partner and I met Courtney Tuttle (you should read his blog too). We discussed how web sites attract people once and they usually don’t return. Blogs create a community that people return to again and again to read the latest. That’s why blogs and social networks have such marketing power.

They sum up with this: Blogging isn’t just a pastime or marketing gambit anymore; it’s a living.

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I wanted to link to an earlier post about Walmart and then I discovered something: my blog is messed up. None of my permanent links work [this has since been fixed]. I can’t quite express how I feel about the fact that almost 3 years of work and writing is inaccessible to the search engines right now. [Now I can express this - I’m glad they are back!].
I won’t detail the things that have broken lately - but I’m fixing them just as fast as they break. When things like this happen in my life it is a sign - a sign that it’s time for some changes. If you read my blog you can see this theme build over time and it hit crescendo recently. I have honestly learned a lot about this dynamic and what it means just by blogging about it.

Internet marketing has been my passion, almost like a love affair. I ate, breathed, and lived it. I wrote about it. When I started this profession it was an enormous challenge to learn. Reading and learning about it filtered into almost every aspect of my life. Over time, starting with being laid off last year, it’s become a job. No more and no less. Still a job I love, but not with the fervor that I’ve had for four years.

It was a grand adventure. I learned the best and worst about internet marketing. I tried a lot of things. There was nothing else I’d rather talk about. But I don’t stay up all night doing Internet Marketing that often any more. I value my sleep. I’m reading about other things. I value balance. This was a horrible realization at first, one that rocked my world. But over time I see it as a necessary and healthy one. It sounds like a break up, but be assured, in this case we’re remaining close friends. lol.

If I chose a word to describe this past 6 weeks it would be: broken. The word I want for the next 6: is restoration. After that I want it to be: resurgence.

I want to distinguish that I’m not burned out. I’ve read posts from other bloggers that signal it’s time to change professions. They are very negative and say that nothing works. Internet marketing works - it’s one of the best lead generation techniques I know. I’ve detailed why several times, but no other marketing technique can you get so targeted in your message, let you measure it so precisely, and do it for such a low cost.

What I’m saying is when my day blogging and consulting ends, it ends. My attention goes to other things. And that marks a big shift in my world.

I just learned a bit more about Innuity - the company that does the Internet Marketing services for Sam’s Club. They have a tie to a Utah company that became a bit infamous - 10x Media. In 2005 Innuity acquired 10x Marketing. I didn’t know that until today.
Here’s a quote from a press release about Innuity’s earnings for the first quarter of 2006:

Innuity reported “a 317% increase from $1.2 million reported during the same quarter of 2005. Contributing significantly to this substantial revenue increase were Innuity’s 2005 strategic acquisitions: the Internet marketing company, 10x Marketing, (now Innuity’s Lead Generation Services business) and the point-of-sale systems (POS) company, Jadeon (now Innuity’s In-Store Systems business).”

First, I hope Paul Allen cashed out on the sale like he did when MyFamily.com was acquired. Second, I want to set something straight. I’ve noticed how the blogosphere has blasted Sam’s Club (or WalMart) SEO or Internet Marketing services. Of course I can see why - because it brings a certain connotation - that of cheapness.

As professionals, we like to think that we are exclusive or elite, not something you can pick up at a discount retailer. But remember, though the services are being offered through Sam’s Club, the work is done by a reputable company. I will try out their services and as always, report back.

“…even years after beginning the process of starting a business, only one-third of people have a new company with positive cash flow greater than the salary and expenses of the owner for more than three consecutive months.”

This from Guy Kawasaki’s blog and it relates to what I’ve been writing about and thinking about lately. This is a guest post with ten myths of entrepreneurship. Before you think I’m down on entrepreneurs, let me stop right here.

Being an entrepreneur in the stage I’ve been at is hell at times (and I think if it truly was for me I would recognize the challenges but still want to plug on). I’m both the technician and the manager and so is Paul. This is a pretty predictable stage until you can hire out one side and focus on the other.

Here’s another quote:

“The typical profit of an owner-managed business is $39,000 per year. Only the top ten percent of entrepreneurs earn more money than employees. And the typical entrepreneur earns less money than he otherwise would have earned working for someone else.”

But we’re so optimistic that we’ll be the exception. And a lot of us are. But, if you knew that’s about what you’d make - $39k a year, would it be worth it to you? Even if it meant you work far more hours than a typical job with no benefits? I know so many people who’ve done far better than that. It’s just that it it’s usually a very long term investment and sometimes means going without a lot for a long time.

Side note: It’s amazing how long it takes to build blog readership and how quickly it can tank if you slow down and stop blogging. My blog was down for a long time before I even knew about it. An hour on the phone with technical support and now I’m up again, (but things aren’t quite right - starting with having to disable every single plugin). I started this blog for me and it’s still for me, recording a journey.

What I’ve found lately is how difficult it is for me to separate life and work - something I never considered a problem before (but those around me probably did think it was). It’s a good sign in some ways, but a transition nonetheless. It frees me up to take on other passions and expand a bit.

What I’m saying is, when you’re in love with something you will give it everything and the ride is fun, not harrowing. Many times entrepreneurs love what they do. They don’t mind the sacrifices because of the benefits.

What about you: are you enjoying the ride? What stage are you in? What’s next for you? How does the money play into it? What have you learned? (maybe you should read The Entrepreneur Story for inspiration?)

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I just got back from the jumpstart corporate alliance event that was held at the Energy Solutions Arena in Salt Lake City.  This was the first official Salt Lake City Corporate Alliance Event, at least I am pretty sure it was.  I have been to several of their events in the past in Provo, Utah and have [...]

As I was catching up on my blog reader today, I did a double take on this revelation: Sam’s Club (or WalMart) offers Internet Marketing services. The company that offers the services is called Innuity. It’s not new but I’ve never heard of it until today. I spoke to them to find out more.

First, Sam’s Club members get a free web site. It will be yourbusinessname.samsbiz.com until you get your own domain. 5 pages, content only (no shopping cart). For $10 a month you can get a CMS template ecommerce site. For $900 they will design the site (you write the content).

If you want to run PPC advertising to your site, for a minimum of $50 per month for 6 months, they will set it up in 4 days. Google only unless you want to spend more ($200+). About 15% of this is administration fees and the rest is for your ad budget.
Otherwise there are SEO services of $500 per month for a minimum of 6 months. That includes an article a week and landing pages for your top keywords. Basically building links.

So does this mean Internet marketing has officially hit the mainstream? And who is doing the work? Are the services any good? Anyone tried it or have any insights?

Next thing you know they will offer business blogging and email marketing

Update: Innuity is quite saavy, despite the connotations of working with Sam’s Club. I got two emails from them the day I wrote this post (without so much as a trackback to alert them). They have 30,000 clients and focus on taking “enterprise” level internet solutions to the small business owner. Like most SEO companies, their target market -  small business owners - often don’t know they need or can afford Internet marketing.
They have larger clients that include well-known companies like: Overstock, ADP, and Amazon.

It’s great to see the The New York Times report on the benefits of blogging - especially for small or mid-sized businesses. They say blogging is a “low-cost, high-return tool.”

It’s not just for small businesses though - Google probably has more blogs than any other business I know. They seem to create one for just about every product they have. Blogs are ideal for encouraging word of mouth marketing (see my post about word of mouth marketing on Marketing Pilgrim) by giving people reasons to keep talking about your businesses.

Even if you don’t blog, you should be sending your news releases to bloggers in hopes they’ll write about you. That reminds me I have one to follow up on (feel free to send me news using my contact form).

Top reasons for a business to blog:

• for marketing your products and/or services
• reduce your PPC budget by building permanent links rather than paying for ads (I recommend doing both)
• search engines favor fresh content and frequent updates
• improves your public relations, by regularly communicating with your community
• raises your company profile online
• excellent for building your brand - even unknown companies can get high rankings fairly quickly

I’ve long been an advocate of blogging for businesses. I provide blog writing and design services with some of my partners. We basically handle it all for you from building the blog to writing posts.

Blogging has helped my own business grow as well as boosted my reputation. Right now I blog for two companies (including Podango’s Google podcast) and train and manage a staff of bloggers.

Our experience is that within a few months our clients start seeing higher rankings in search engines for key terms relating to their business. For small businesses blogs help you compete with much larger businesses.

For example, type in “internet marketing” and a company you’ve never heard of pops up first. Notice how they basically feed in blog posts on their home page. This is a very competitive term too - with over 111,000,000 results in Google.

Most businesses can benefit from a blog and it’s one of the first things I recommend. It doesn’t take a lot of technical expertise or cost. I’m also biased in that I love to write and the conversational tone of blog writing makes it simple to dash off a quick post.

Got home today, got the mail and found the Insider’s circle newsletter.

This is the newsletter for Glazer Kennedy local chapter. BuzzBooster was highlighted there. Great way to end the day!

Dan Kennedy is my favorite marketer. I like his style a lot.

To give you an idea, how much I like his marketing strategies, in our way back from Vegas- 8 hour drive- we listened his cds the whole trip.  It is that bad!

 The group meets locally once a month. You learn every time and meet some amazing people.

Check it out here

Ideally, the best marketers utilize both on and offline marketing together. While I’ve never advertised in a newspaper (not even a classified ad) I was an advertising rep for my college newspaper. It was volunteer but I learned a lot from doing it. Plus one of my regular customers owned a Cajun restaurant and offered me free food (like hush puppies or fried alligator).

Back then I thought I was furthering the cause of our paper, but really I was learning about business and sales with no pressure on me. I wish I’d done even more volunteering like that.

I’ve been interested in Google’s newspaper advertising or as they call it Google Print ads (this goes to a video explaining how it works). Today I gave this a closer look. Note: you have to have a Google AdWords account to access this. First, I was surprised that they don’t just include traditional papers but have some weeklies, Spanish papers, college papers, and other niches. Over 600 in all. Note: if you live in Utah you can choose from the Salt Lake Tribune and/or Deseret News and that’s it.

The pricing is like Priceline bidding except there is more interaction. You get the newspaper’s list price and then you submit a bid. You don’t compete with other advertisers, publishers review your bid and get back to you in a day or two. They can accept, deny, or negotiate on the price. You can send an email to the publisher through the Google interface.

Here’s a quick example: you probably want to run your ad at least 3 times minimum. You select the newspaper(s) and set your budget. You can choose what section you’d like to advertise in. The list price for the paper I chose was around $1200 an ad for a daily (in a mid-size city). Your minimum bid is going to be around $300. Contrast that with a college newspaper that is around $800 with a $170 minimum bid. This is for 2 columns wide and about 11 inches tall (Google recommends at least 10 inches high or if you run smaller ads increase the frequency).

You’ll get an electronic tearsheet - or PDF file of your ad, after it runs.

There is an excellent “Tips for Beginners” section within your account that gives a lot of guidance, research, and advice. The nice thing is you don’t have to sign any agreements or contracts with the paper, like you normally would have to.

Newspapers have high trust and people tend to look at them longer and keep them around. I’d like to experiment advertising my SEO blog writing services that I offer.

If you want to try Google Print ads, you have to sign up for an AdWords account first.

After last week I have even more empathy for Seth Godin after Paypal seized his account. I recently had my biggest client bounce a rather large check. Being paid on time and paying other people on time is one of the biggest challenges I face. That’s why as an affiliate a lot of us like Commission Junction - they pay monthly and they collect so you don’t have to. Plus no invoicing. Not only did this check cause my account to go in the red, but it emptied my business savings instantly. Needless to say last week was stressful. But I’m not the only one who has things like this happen.

I thought of going to Paypal only because at least it almost guarantees the money is there. But after reading this I’m not sure that’s the best solution either.

Seth wrote about his bad experience trying to get his account back. I wish he put more detail about other’s dealings with Paypal (this is definitely a time when I wish he accepted comments). I wonder how Google Checkout compares or how it will evolve.

What solutions have you found to this problem? Have you had bad experiences with Paypal?

—— Burning through your cell phone minutes? I use Skype… ——

Since I’ve started blogging on Marketing Pilgrim I’m posting less on Newspapergirl. My blog has become a place for more commentary and local news for the time being. I will blog about what I learn if it’s helpful information.

I also appreciate hearing from businesses in the internet marketing space. I like to keep up on what’s going on and so this Thursday I’m going to this workshop by Constant Contact. It’s in Murray, Utah.

Constant Contact is a less sophisticated but very useable email marketing program. I liked Gold Lasso better because they are more secure and have more tracking features (I lost track of you!). But the user interface was much harder to use and has a bigger learning curve for beginners.

Email Marketing with Constant Contact
Thursday, December 6th Email Seminar
9:30am - 12:00pm
Cost: FREE

Workshop Location:
Webster University
5251 S. Green Street Suite 300
Murray, UT 84123

Description:
This workshop will walk you through the Constant Contact Email Marketing System while you learn email marketing best practices, winning strategies and tactics. You’ll learn how to build and manage your contacts, how to create great looking emails, and how to track and maximize results.

The workshop also covers basic email optimization concepts including building a bigger list, getting email opened, and ideas for email content. They won’t have wireless access.

To attend, register online at http://utah.constantcontact.com

(Space is limited to the first 30 registrations.)

UPDATE: The class is full. You can get on the waiting list. I asked them to do another workshop and will keep you posted on if they open up another class.

UPDATE: I got a reply to my email and they say classes often fill up very fast and to subscribe to their RSS feed if you want to attend (the calendar doesn’t work in Firefox so put it in IE and click to see the entire list of events to find the RSS feed. Not very user-friendly on this front.

We are leaving Vegas now and going back to Salt Lake after attending the PPC classroom.

Usually we don’t have high expectations when we go to an event because we are so used to get there and just experience a pitch fest.

This one was really different. The speakers were really good.

The ppc classroom was an event put together by Jeremy Palmer and Anik Singal, and they did it very well.

My favorite speakers were David Bullock with the Taguchi method, Greg Cesar that talked about offline marketing and who is a guy that every time I got near him, he was giving someone a very good tip. Anik gave an awesome presentation about using content network but my favorite was Kirt Christensen.

I’m not a note taker and I guess I filled 4 pages with very good info coming from him. I couldn’t wait to go back to the hotel room and put some of those tips into practice.

I’ll share a lot more to the members of E30 pretty soon.

They said they would put the event again in 6 months, so keep an eye open and don’t miss it!

My friend Boris at the SEO magazine Search Engine Standard let me interview him by email about how they got started. He is also offering newspapergrl readers a really good price ($4.95) on a subscription. So if you know any SEOs, this could make a great gift. It would be great reading for small businesses trying to understand how search marketing can help their business.

The idea for the magazine started because 5 years ago not many people knew about search engine marketing. That presented a problem because the company sold a product called AdWatcher (www.adwatcher.com), an ROI tracking and click fraud management tool. A little early in the game, they needed to inform people about search marketing so they started a web site and later published a book (Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing Handbook). The book sold about 5,000 copies during the first year or so - not bad, especially for a first book and self-published.

Later, Andrey Milyan, who is currently the editor-in-chief for Search Marketing Standard had the idea of a quarterly magazine about search engine marketing. Milyan was working as an in-house SEO at a Bridal magazine at the time. Now two years later they have a staff of 7 people and the magazine is going strong. Boris reached out to me several months ago and keeps me updated, which is another great way to publicize your product (find bloggers who write about the subject and reach out to them).
Boris set up a coupon code so you could subscribe to Search Marketing Standard, and get a 67% discount, which makes a 1 year U.S. subscription cost just $4.95 (International - $6.60). Use coupon code: 67PILGRIM (I asked him to make it available for Marketing Pilgrim writers too. If your company wants to offer a special discount for your product, please contact me, I think this is a great idea).

For every new subscriber until Dec. 10th who uses the coupon code, they’ll donate $1 to Toys for Tots.

Today, more tips on how to use technology in your business.

Shahar Boyayan gives you some cool tips.

Listen to the Buzz and Biz Show now.

Some Tech tips on thios show that you can use in your business.

Here with Pat Vaughn president of Utah Women in Technology

Listen to the Buzz and Biz Show now.

Here is a great post full of no-nonsense advice on getting more sales on your web site. A whole 65 tips ranging from running your pay-per-click advertising, to SEO, copywriting, and email marketing.

My tip is about product descriptions. Make your product descriptions as complete as possible. Show related products or accessories. Get as much information as you can from manufacturers. Search online reviews and see what customers value most and incorporate that information into your product description. I keep reading studies on how much product descriptions factor into the decision to buy.
Anyone have another tip to increase sales on your web site?

We are leaving today again to Vegas. Now, for a seminar on Affiliate Marketing.

We didn’t have time to post the pictures from last week and here we go again….

But I’m sure it is going to be fun!

I’m heading out to LA tonight for ILM 2007.  OrangeSoda will have a booth, so if you’re one of the many who emails me about our orange cruiser giveaways here’s your next chance ;-).  Also, if you’re interested in our small business internet marketing services please track me down.  Maybe this time I’ll actually get around to posting some conference notes about local search.

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I’ve been a fan of Craig’s List for years. Craig Newmark - THE Craig has even commented on my blog! I’ve been working with Mike Berry to find a VP level IT position in Utah and rediscovered my love for Craigs List. Last night he sent an email about a contract job and was called within an hour. I found a possible business connection and a few leads.
In a spirit of giving thanks here are the things I love about Craig’s List (and be sure to use CrazedList to search multiple locations at one time).

• Local is where it’s at. The Internet makes the world global but personal connections in real life are still the most powerful. Craig’s List has introduced me to some amazing contacts locally. It’s full of entrepreneurial types like me.
• I’ve found people to help with my business. Again, these are locals who I can meet with, so it’s a good networking tool.
• While local is where it’s at I also found a great writer in Oregon for some contract work.
• Unlike corporate job boards, Craig’s List often gives you direct contact info for the person hiring.
• Craig’s List is a great place to find contract jobs.
• I comb Craig’s List for places to live, things I want to buy, etc. I’ve never used the forums but that’s another great resource.
• If you’re a local business you can list it on CraigsList and even work in some keywords - even if you don’t have a web site.

Best of all it doesn’t cost anything. I know it’s not to this level here but my friend Ariel (congrats on passing the bar!) just explained how in San Francisco Craig’s List is a culture. You buy or sell something, you share a beer and chit chat. There is almost trust built in just by using the site - they’ve managed to create community around it. So it’s no wonder I’m a fan and I hope that the culture expands here like it is in California.

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