GROWMAP.COM http://www.growmap.com MAP Your Path to GROW Your Business Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:07:23 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 gmprsshttp://feedburner.google.com Gift Affiliate Programs Make Dollars and Sense http://www.growmap.com/gift-affiliate-programs/ http://www.growmap.com/gift-affiliate-programs/#comments Thu, 01 Jan 1970 06:00:00 +0000 growmap http://www.growmap.com/?p=2312 No matter what niche you are in we encourage you to read our guest post at Murray Newlands Marketing Blog on why gift affiliate programs are the ideal fit for just about any blog or Web site. Who doesn’t shop for gifts during the holidays or for some other special occasion? Surely your readers do!

Right now is the perfect time to start creating or increase your affiliate income. No matter what niche you’re in there are products to interest your readers. The more personal your suggestions and reasons for recommending specific gifts and the stronger connection you can make to either you or your site the better.

It has never been easier to add affiliate products to any site. Read our entire guest post Gift Affiliate Products Fit Any Niche to find out why and how. There will never be a better time than now.

]]> http://www.growmap.com/gift-affiliate-programs/feed/ 5 What is UP with Backlinks from Google, Yahoo, Bing? http://www.growmap.com/backlinks/ http://www.growmap.com/backlinks/#comments Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:45:44 +0000 growmap http://www.growmap.com/?p=2325 While Google is promptly indexing content from some very active bloggers:

Murray's posts are indexed within the hour. See the notation "48 minutes ago" in this image.

Murray's posts are indexed within the hour. See the notation "48 minutes ago" in this image.

The number of backlinks they are counting compared to Yahoo! and Bing continues to decline:

Change in GrowMap backlinks being reported by Google, Yahoo and Bing

Change in GrowMap backlinks being reported by Google, Yahoo and Bing

This information comes from the free test version of MazeCore Monitor we are currently testing.  It shows our indexed links at Google and Yahoo are down -1 and -374 respectively while our links in Bing are up 4 and backlinks at Bing are up +1280!

MazeCore Monitor Backlinks for GrowMap

MazeCore Monitor Backlinks for GrowMap

The dark blue line on the bottom is Google, the red line is Yahoo and the huge increase shown on the orange line is Bing. Does anyone else wonder why Google only counts 28 backlinks, Yahoo counts 1,647 and Bing counts 5,090?

Could Bing be counting Social Networking activity? What do YOU think?

MazeCore Monitor certainly looks interesting. The free version allows you to track one Web site and three keyword phrases.

What the MazeCore Monitor SEO Tool does

What the MazeCore Monitor SEO Tool does

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]]> http://www.growmap.com/backlinks/feed/ 11 Best of GrowMap: Our Pillar Foundation Content http://www.growmap.com/best-of-growmap/ http://www.growmap.com/best-of-growmap/#comments Sun, 25 Oct 2009 04:06:09 +0000 growmap http://www.growmap.com/?p=2284 Look for Our GrowMap Avatar Across the Web

Look for Our GrowMap Avatar Across the Web

Every blogger has posts they feel have really hit the mark; what many call pillar articles or foundation content. When Liz Strauss (Liz Strauss) decided to celebrate the 4th Birthday of her Successful Blog with a Bring ONE Link offer she motivated me to compile these links for my readers.

There are now so many posts I wish every regular and new visitor knew about here that I decided to write this compilation so YOU don’t miss some of the most important information I’ve researched and shared.

This would be a great post to save in your Delicious or StumbleUpon account so you can return to it for reference. We will continually update and add to these important resources to keep them current just for you. Is there anything else you would like to see here? Just let us know.

HOW TO MAKE MONEY BLOGGING:

KEYWORD RESEARCH / SEO:

BLOG COMMENTING:

AFFILIATE MARKETING:

PAY PER CLICK ADVERTISING:

LOCAL SEARCH DIRECTORIES:

  • Why Local Search is so important. Use our shortcut to getting any business or Web site with a physical address listed in Major Local Search Directories including Google Maps, Yahoo! Local, Bing, SuperPages and many more.
  • Coming soon: the Top Ten most important Local Search Directories

ORGANIC SEARCH SEO SEM:

BLOG DIRECTORIES:

  • Coming very soon: Which Blog Directories are most important and why. Start with PostRank, Technorati, MyBlogLog, Blog Catalog and the blog directories reviewed by Keller Hawthorne  at FresheVenture.

WEB ANALYTICS:

LOGO DESIGN:

  • What Makes a Great Logo – How to create or buy one; the differences in deliverables between $50 and $1000+ logos.

SOCIAL NETWORKING:

  • Social Networking is NOT Chat – How to get your content shared by others, where you can find us and what to do if you would like us to comment in your blog and send you traffic in our daily travels across the Internet.
  • Twitter FriendFeed Quick Start – How to get up to speed right away at Twitter and on FriendFeed
  • Coming soon: Our process for maximizing our reach across Social Networks
]]> http://www.growmap.com/best-of-growmap/feed/ 44 How to Evaluate a Merchant Gift Affiliate Program http://www.growmap.com/gift-affiliate-program/ http://www.growmap.com/gift-affiliate-program/#comments Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:50:04 +0000 growmap http://www.growmap.com/?p=2203 Image credit: Most Cool Media Web Development

Image credit: Most Cool Media Inc. ~ Web Development and Ecommerce Web Design

I just found a great post on Beginner Basics of Affiliate Marketing by SugarRae (SugarRae)  while doing research for a post on affiliate marketing experts similar to yesterday’s Top How to Make Money Blogging Resources.

Some of the things I learned during my years of managing AdWords accounts are effective for evaluating merchant affiliate programs too. If you are a merchant you can also use this list to evaluate and improve your ecommerce store.

When it comes to conversion rates check for these specific attributes on the merchant’s site:

  1. An improved search function: search for several words related to their products and make sure you get relevant results. No results or page after page of results that are not specific will cost them sales and you commissions.  Most users will only make one search and leave if they don’t find what they’re seeking. Use a color plus the product, or material plus product, or brand name and product name, etc.
  2. Make sure shipping costs are easy to find; the earlier they are displayed during the shopping process the better. Free shipping increases conversions more than any other factor because high shipping costs (even when they aren’t) is the number one complaint of online buyers.
  3. If the site requires potential buyers to register or create an account before they can shop don’t bother promoting that site. Conversions will be dismal. If they require registering or creating an account prior to checkout but after putting items into the cart that is still bad but will not depress sales nearly as much as not even being able to shop first. Buyers will give you personal information AFTER they’ve decided to buy – but rarely before. Most will just leave.
  4. So many common shopping cart solutions don’t work consistently that I started accepting only stores built at Yahoo! Stores, Volusion or ProStores or using Google checkout. If they use anything else you need to know how to test the shopping cart – it won’t matter how well you pre-sell or advertise if good sales are rejected because the merchant account has fraud controls that are set too aggressively or the cart returns errors the buyer can not figure out how to fix!
  5. Look for additional store upgrades such as shop by brand, search by price range, add to a wish list function (either in-house or WishPot) and upsell tools that suggest related products
  6. What payment options do they offer and do they display icons indicating their store has been Security Verified? The more methods of payment available the more likely visitors are to buy.
  7. Look for and subscribe to their mailing list function to see what and how often they send newsletters with sales offers. Email is very beneficial to increasing sales – and your commissions if the cookie duration is long enough.

When I managed pay per click (ppc) accounts I knew that it did not matter how well my ads brought merchants traffic if their sites would not convert. Having access to Yahoo! Store data plus analytics plus AdWords made it easy to test changes to an etail store and see how they affected sales and conversions. Wise online retailers quickly learn that improving their store increases their profits.

RECOMMENDED AFFILIATE MARKETING PROGRAM:

Follow @ExecGifts at Twitter

Follow @ExecGifts at Twitter

One of the stores I’ve worked with the longest is Executive Gift Shoppe, a Yahoo! Store offering a huge selection of personalized gifts including business card holders, Official Sports Team Logo Memorabilia, Corporate Gifts and groomsmen gifts. I manage the Executive Gift Shoppe gift affiliate program for them and am seeking affiliates who would like free consulting and personal assistance sending them traffic.

Their affiliate program provides these advantages to affiliates:

  1. Two affiliate programs: ShareASale paying 12% with 60 day cookies plus an in-house program paying 20%
  2. Conversion rates between 2-3% and an average sale value of $60-$70 – very large sales are not unusual
  3. The ExecGifts data feed is available at DataFeedFile, DataFeedr, PopShops and Bridaluxe
  4. Over 6,000 products in stock; I provide custom spreadsheets of their top selling products by type on request
  5. Fast, accurate engraving
  6. Enhanced site search including search by brand, by gift recipient, and by price range plus an upsell upgrade that suggests related products on each product page.
  7. Expanded product descriptions with reviews
  8. Regular mailing list specials
  9. Discount coupons
  10. Free shipping on all sales over $75
  11. Their shopping cart is 128 bit SSL secure and verfied by both TrustGuard and ShopperScanned.
  12. They accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express and PayPal
  13. An exceptional guarantee – they replace products and deal with the manufacturer’s warranty themselves
  14. Excellent reviews and an A+ BBB rating
  15. An active ExecGifts Twitter account with 1,252 followers
  16. We provide personal free advice and one-on-one assistance to affiliates via email, chat, phone or in the comments
  17. We teach affiliates how to promote their sites, build links, generate traffic, comment and share on Social Networking sites and will personally send them traffic and link to them from our blogs

We hope you’ll check out their store and seriously consider collaborating with us. The holiday season is already upon us and their inventory is perfect for many niche sites and holiday shopping.

If you love creating content and do not have the skills to build your own site our Joint Venture partner Derek at Threaded Web (@dereksemmler) can build one for you. If you do not have the funds to pay up front he may be interested in collaborating with you for a percentage of sales IF you are very serious and will work with us to make sure you make money. Read our post How to Create a Successful Blog Based Business for more details.

THE Premier Affiliate Marketing Conference

Click for Details on THE Premier Affiliate Marketing Conference in Jan 2010 in Las Vegas

AFFILIATE MARKETING EXPERTS ON TWITTER:

  • TweepML has many Affiliate Marketing Twitter users. Easily select those you wish to follow and click once for each list to follow everyone you leave checked.
  • To follow all the Twitter users mentioned on this page use this button:

EXPERT AFFILIATE ADVICE:

LOCATING BEST AFFILIATE PROGRAMS:

AFFILIATE BLOGS:

SUPER AFFILIATES:

AFFILIATE MARKETING FORUMS:

AFFILIATE TRAINING:

AFFILIATE MARKETING FOR MERCHANTS:

AFFILIATE MARKETING DATA FEED SOLUTIONS:

  • DataFeedr – Quickly and easily feeds products into WordPress blogs
  • DataFeedFile – Free affiliate feeds with price comparisons
  • PopShops – Winner Best Affiliate Marketing Tool 2007-2008
  • Bridaluxe – Higher commissions and WordPress plugin for Wedding related bloggers

AFFILIATE COMPETITIONS:

  • Publisher Challenge – runs competitions for various affiliate networks by giving away great prizes to the top new and/or highest earning publishers – they have generated over $1 million in sales and given away $30.000+ to affiliates.

TOP INTERNET MARKETING BLOGS:

** Special thanks to Murray Newlands for providing recommendations on great affiliate related resources to include. **

PREMIER AFFILIATE SITES:

Visit our Favorite Shopping Comparison Site

Visit our Favorite Shopping Comparison Site

ShopWiki is our best current affiliate and a great example of a really useful shopping comparison site. I’m including my ShopWiki review at StumbleUpon because I consider them very useful and a great role model for other affiliates:

The best thing about ShopWiki is you can use it to quickly find exactly what you want and I just found additional ShopWiki sites for the U.K., France and Germany. If there are others I will find out and add them. (Links to each of these at the bottom of this review.)

ShopWiki crawls over 200,000 online retailers and manufacturers so the selection is huge. No wonder they are such a popular shopping portal.

They have a really useful and powerful search tool that allows you to search for a very specific range of products. You can specify a price range, only see items with specific features or only those products in your favorite store.

They also feature a number of tools to help you find exactly what you’re looking for, including search by color and brand.

They also have some very useful ShopWiki buying and gift guides to help shoppers through the research stage of shopping.

From the site: “For example, if you’re interested in a digital camera, but you don’t know a megapixel from a memory stick, the digital cameras guide outlines what you need to know to make a smart purchase.

Or maybe you’ve been invited to your old college roommate’s brand new house and are stumped on what to buy. The housewarming gift guide helps you decide between the traditional options and something more Feng Shui.”

Additional ShopWiki sites specifically for other countries:

U.S. ShopWiki
U.K. ShopWiki
ShopWiki France
ShopWiki Germany

]]> http://www.growmap.com/gift-affiliate-program/feed/ 28 Top How to Make Money Blogging Resources http://www.growmap.com/make-money-blogging/ http://www.growmap.com/make-money-blogging/#comments Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:53:04 +0000 growmap http://www.growmap.com/?p=2144 Make Money with WordPressYes you can make money online IF you really learn what works and avoid what doesn’t – and THAT is not as easily done as one would hope. Since I have been studying how to make money online since 1994 and making a living totally online since 2000 I know who is the real deal and who just writes about making money. The resources I’ve found the most valuable are linked below.

I recommend you check out several, select ONE that offers an ebook, email training or video/email training, and dedicate yourself to going through their process.

IMPORTANT: Focus on IMPLEMENTING what just one teaches!

You can always learn from the others later. Believe me there is more to do than you can ever learn from just one source. The very best method for getting started is to follow a specific course laid out by a highly experienced and successful blogger. As Bilal wrote in The Secret to Becoming a Six Figure Blogger:

“The difference between Darren Rowse and your average blogger is, Darren Rowse didn’t sit down all day with brilliant ideas and not put them into action… He took all his ideas and carried them out. Put your ideas into action and become the next blogging superstar.”

HOW TO MAKE MONEY BLOGGING:

The bloggers / Web site owners below make substantial money online and – more important for you – are good at teaching what they’re doing well. Click this button to use TweepML to follow them all on Twitter:

probloggerlogoProBlogger – (ProBlogger) – Darren Rowse is possibly the most famous Blogger and purported to make the most money online. Learn more in this excellent Problogger interview from BloggingWithoutaBlog. Darren offers a ProBlogger community forum, the book ProBlogger: Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income, and the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog workbook.

copybloggerlogo CopyBlogger – (CopyBlogger) – best blog for persuasive copywriting and more on how to make money. Also read and apply his exceptional free ebook Authority Rules: The Ten Rock Solid Elements of Effective Online Marketing.

Remarkablogger LogoRemarkablogger – (Remarkablogger) – Free How to Start a Business Blog workbook: Step-by-step guide with exercises to help you plan, set-up, and create content for a business blog.

John Chow LogoThere is a free Make Money Online ebook download on the top right corner of John’s site.  This link goes to his Make Money Online page which lists all of the ad networks and affiliate programs he uses to make money online.

Successful Blog logo

Successful Blog – (LizStrauss) – Offers Coaching and the Book:  The Secrets to Writing a Successful and Outstanding Blog

fresheventurelogoFresheVenture – (FresheVenture) – The speed Keller’s new sites growing grabbed my attention. She offers an easy to understand free ebook guide Fresh Start for Your Online Business.

BecomeABlogger LogoBlogMastermindLogoYaro Starek (Taught FresheVenture and many more) – Start with the free video tutorials and ebooks at BecomeABlogger and BlogMasterMind. Also see the Podcast video interviews of Yaro published by FresheVenture.

30 Day ChallengeThirty Day Challenge – (30dc) – Free thirty day series (videos and text) on how to make money online. It does offer some tools that cost money but often it is worth spending money to save time and work more productively.

Matt LaClear Logo

StartUpBizLogo

MattLaClear – (mattlaclear) – Matt has 800+ money-making sites (not primarily blogs) and a multiple six figure income. He is an expert on the use of autoresponders and mailing lists which is key to making money online. He offers an Online Gold Training System and is extremely active in his STA.RTUP.BIZ network blog where he shares quality content including 160 free ebooks.

Blog for profitGrant Griffith of Blog for Profit offers Building a Successful Blog and 28 Days to Build a Successful Blog processes starting with defining your Goals through how to use Social Networking and other traffic increasing methods. If you’re really ambitious you might want to add his methods to any of the above.

Take the time to check out the above offerings then select the one that most appeals to you and dedicate the time required to APPLY what they teach. You must have confidence that they know what they’re doing and that you can replicate it. If you skip steps or ignore things because you don’t think they’re important you are very likely to go astray so unless you’re already an expert trust that there is a very good reason for every single thing they teach. Don’t torpedo your results by ignoring anything.

Once you’ve been blogging a while be sure to watch for these Five Ways to Know if Your Blog is on the Right Track and keep working to increase your visibility and incoming links. We will have a tracking process available here soon to assist you in making sure you consistently focus on the tasks that grow your blog most efficiently.

My apologies to whomever I may have forgotten; there are many but these are the strongest off the top of my head. I created this post on the fly based on an answer I just posted elsewhere. Do let me know in the comments or elsewhere who I’ve missed and I will update this post. I continually make improvements, additions and corrections to my posts so they stay current.

This why I do not post as often as other bloggers – I prefer providing reference resources over breaking news. For those who are still waiting I want you to know that research continues for my much-anticipated post on the best way to post to multiple social networking sites efficiently. It is getting closer to completion each day.

MOST INFLUENTIAL / HIGHEST INCOME BLOGGERS:

WORDPRESS BLOG INSTALLATION GUIDES:

HOW TO BUILD A SUCCESSFUL BLOG BASED BUSINESS:

We write often about the differences between most blogs and a highly optimized blog. Read How to Build a Successful Blog Based Business for details. You may want to have someone else handle the technical details of getting your site up and running so you can focus on creating content. That post contains details and contact information for doing just that.

Thank YouTHANK YOU FOR SHARING:

If you use StumbleUpon we would really appreciate your sharing this post there. If you don’t already have a StumbleUpon account nothing will be as important to growing traffic to your blog or business so why not open a StumbleUpon account and/or download the StumbleUpon Toolbar today?

As a thank you to anyone taking the time to recommend our posts or share them on any Social Networking site be assured that we reciprocate. Share us anywhere and we will share your best content at Twitter, StumbleUpon, Facebook, FriendFeed and Delicious and will be expanding to Digg, Reddit and many other sites. We also take time to mention those who cross our path wherever we travel online – and we are almost always online.

HelpfulTipsHELPFUL TIP: Use the tag function at Delicious or StumbleUpon to save posts for future reference or to organize your research. A tag is simply a word or phrase to help you find a web page again.

You might save this post under blogging or how-to-blog or make-money-blogging or make-money-online.

StumbleUpon allows you to use up to five tags.

]]> http://www.growmap.com/make-money-blogging/feed/ 26 Social Networking is NOT Chat http://www.growmap.com/social-networking-overview/ http://www.growmap.com/social-networking-overview/#comments Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:05:59 +0000 growmap http://www.growmap.com/?p=2006 Social Networking is all about Socializing ~ Tamar and friends at SES NYC 2007 ~ Photo by Search Marketing Gurus ~ Click photo to visit them

~ Social Networking is all about Relationships ~ Exceptional Social Networking User Tamar and friends at SES NYC 2007 ~ Photo by Search Marketing Gurus ~

Are you missing the power of Social Networking and especially Twitter by trying to use Social Media sites as though they were chat? I ask this because many on Twitter are limiting the number of users they follow – most likely to reduce the number of Tweets they receive. If you have a business, blog or Web site, limiting yourself in this way will greatly limit your success online.

The simple solution is to have separate Twitter accounts for friends, family and business or use other methods for keeping in touch with them such as chat. Your business Social Networking sites can be dedicated completely to your business – and they do not need to function like one-on-one chat!

Social Networking is all about NETWORKING and for that to be effective you must be willing to follow those who are important to you. If you refuse to follow them why would they follow you? [They won't!] If they don’t follow you your networking will fail. Read on to find out who else you should be following to grow your business.

First we need to understand what the goal of Social Networking should be because many people just don’t seem to “get it”. Seth Godin made some very strong points in a video in SmallBizBee’s post Seth Godin on Social Networking and How to Do it Right:

  1. “Superficial” Networking is “a waste of time”!
  2. Counting sheer numbers is “worthless” (followers, friends, subscribers, etc.).
  3. “Helping People Achieve Their Goals“…Do this “Reliably and Repeatedly” so that “over time people have an interest in helping you achieve your goals because they have a stake in it”.

So how do you ensure you are not counting worthless numbers and engaging in “superficial” networking? Simple. First,  understand What Social Media is and is NOT. Then see point three above and burn it into your thought process or write it on your white board or stick it on your PC – whatever it takes to remember this:

The exact path to getting Social Networking to achieve your goals is by HELPING OTHERS ACHIEVE THEIRS!

How can we do that? First, identify who is important to your goals:

  1. Fans of your products or services – especially if they are vocal, blog, or are very active in Social Media.
  2. Potential Customers and Clients – go out of your way to offer assistance, answers, and suggestions.
  3. Collaborators – others with similar goals or who share the same potential buyers, clients or customers.
  4. Mentors – people who know what you would like to know more about.
  5. Influencers / Thought Leaders – focus on those IN YOUR NICHE and those who are generous and very active in Social Networking. (We’re working on a list to share.) You will get far better results from that than you will pursuing the same famous individuals everyone else is contacting.

Determine what you can do to help them achieve their goals:

  1. Read their bios on Social Networking sites, visit their blogs, read their about pages – find out what they do best and share that information with others.
  2. Share their best content. If you use our Comment Then Share strategy you will be benefiting them and you at the same time!
  3. Use MrTweet to recommend those you admire; writing a strong, specific recommendation is key here. Include #followfriday in your recommendation to get more visibility for them.
  4. Go out of your way to send business to potential collaborators and mentors. DO be clear on how strongly you can recommend them including explaining whether you only know them online and do NOT know their work personally.
  5. Ask those you admire intelligent questions – preferably in the comments of their blog whenever possible. When someone takes the time to answer DO be sure to acknowledge the answer. (Subscribe to the comment and check for replies at Twitter and elsewhere.)

Observe These Unwritten Rules of Social Networking:

  1. Do NOT use your accounts as one-way broadcast stations. Interacting to create relationships is key!
  2. Do NOT only post your own information and links. You can include yours but make most of what you share about others in your niche or of interest to them.
  3. Do check links BEFORE you share them so you don’t get blamed for the misdeeds of others.
  4. Do NOT fill your timeline with the same Tweet over and over; you will look like a spammer! For the same reason, do not RT or DM fads like how to get a zillion followers automatically.
  5. Be careful who you recommend and retweet because what you share reflects on you.
  6. Follow those who follow you unless they are spammers or post objectionable content. (It IS a good idea to block obvious spammers.)
  7. You are NOT expected to read every Tweet! Who could possibly do that? If you want to send someone a DM (direct message) also send them an @User to let them know you did. DO keep up with your @ messages. It may not be possible to keep up with DMs. More on how to make sure you see what is most important to you on Twitter in an upcoming post.
  8. Do NOT expect to receive instant responses or to be able to always respond instantly yourself. The busier someone is the longer it may take, but do answer as soon as you can.
  9. If someone fails to reply do NOT assume they are ignoring you or annoyed at you. Assume they may not have seen your communication or are very busy. Follow up intelligently and consistently.
  10. If you send a lot of Tweets use su.pr and CoTweet to spread them out so you don’t fill up the timeline of people who follow you who have few or very inactive followers. More on that in the next post on how to be more effective on Social Networking sites.
  11. If someone Tweets your content share theirs. (If theirs is not of the quality you prefer, retweet something they have tweeted instead). You can also thank them; however, many very active users do not because that would fill their timelines with thank yous and annoy their followers. They are likely to share something else for you instead – and that is even better!
  12. When someone recommends you, thank them. If you admire them do make the time to recommend them at MrTweet and for #followfriday and elsewhere.

5 Ways to Cultivate an Active Social Network - Created by Intersection Consulting

~ ~ ~ Five Ways to Cultivate an Active Social Network ~ ~ ~ Attribution:Intersection Consulting

Social Networking Success Tips:

  1. Regularly share quality content from your most-admired sources across multiple Social Networks. (How to do this efficiently will be spelled out in an upcoming post.)
  2. Follow and interact with those who are active and who regularly support the efforts of others by retweeting and recommending them at MrTweet and elsewhere.
  3. Create a list of important blogs in your niche and those that contribute to your learning. Regularly visit them, leave quality comments, share what they write in Social Networking sites. WHY? Because every time you do you are building a relationship with them and relationships are what count.

I want to make this even more clear. Everyone is busy and most people are not thinking about you EXCEPT when you cross their path – so if you want them to be interested in your goals you must:

  1. Be interested in and assisting them with theirs!
  2. Cross their path regularly by commenting in their blogs and sharing their content. Do this for the right people and they will do the same for you!
  3. Link to and recommend their sites from yours.
  4. Follow and recommend them at Technorati, MyBlogLog, Blog Catalog and across Social Networking sites.

We can not promise results from what you do from every person you promote, but we CAN promise that many will and when someone crosses our path we DO go out of our way to assist them. Sometimes that is with recommendations, reviews, Tweets and Stumbles and sometimes it is with specific suggestions to improve what they’re doing. Often it is both.

Below you will find a list of specific things you can do to improve your Social Networking relationships. We are using our own accounts as examples; however, we want it to be clear that you, too, can use these same sites to achieve your own goals and to support the efforts of others.

If you have questions, ask in the comments. If you need personalized assistance we will provide it. We will write up some step-by-step how-to instructions for many of these and link them to this post to make it even easier. If you want to cross our path regularly here are some great ways you can help us:

[NOTE: You have to have accounts at each of these sites to take most of these actions. Pick the ones you know how to do or already have and we'll teach you any others you are willing to learn.]

WHERE TO CONNECT WITH GROWMAP:

  1. Follow GrowMap on Twitter.
  2. Recommend GrowMap on MrTweet – provide a strong reason and include #followfriday.
  3. Leave comments and questions in our dofollow blog. Be sure to take advantage of KeywordLuv to select your own Anchor Text and add your Twitter ID so we and our readers can follow and retweet you. If you aren’t sure how just ask and we’ll assist. Use our comment then share strategy to drive more traffic to your site and your Twitter account too.
  4. Tweet our posts. Use su.pr to maximize traffic to your Tweets.
  5. Review our posts at StumbleUpon. Reviews can include a personal comment, an image, and excerpts from the post. Nothing drives traffic as well as we have from StumbleUpon. If you’re short on time at least give our post(s) a thumbs-up and consider adding a review later.
  6. Subscribe to us, friend us and most importantly review GrowMap on StumbleUpon. (If you don’t know how we’ll show you – how-to post in the works.)
  7. Subscribe to GrowMap at FriendFeed.
  8. Bookmark your favorite GrowMap posts on Delicious. Be sure to use the tags you can find at the bottom of each post. You can see which GrowMap posts other Delicious users have saved.
  9. Favorite GrowMap on Technorati. (Click Favorite It just under the Authority number in the top box on the page.)
  10. Write a review of GrowMap on Technorati. (Scroll down to find the review box in the center of the page.)
  11. Link to GrowMap from your blog. Ask and we’ll suggest specific posts most relevant to your site.
  12. Go to the GrowMap MyBlogLog page and click Join Community (on the right under tools).
  13. Visit GrowMap Blog Catalog Blog Page and click Add to Favorites; then visit GrowMap Blog Catalog profile and click Add to Friends.
  14. If you use Google Reader or another RSS reader that allows you to share us please do.
  15. If you are active on Digg, Reddit or other Social Networks and any of our content fits your niche thank you for sharing it.
  16. If you are a regular in a forum or answering comments and notice that our answers would be useful for others we would appreciate your recommendations.

Let us know where you’ve been active and we will immediately reciprocate. We spend far more time on Social Media than most anyone else you know so we can regularly expand your efforts each time you cross our path online or here. Write about us in your blog and we will write a post than incorporates your business with appropriate anchor text into it here. We will eventually do that anyway even if you do not give us a heads up.

There is far more you can do in Social Networking sites and we’ll be explaining that in the future. As you can see, achieving any kind of consistency across so many different sites is not likely to happen by chance. That is why we are actively working on a complete process we can all use for tracking our Social Networking activities.

For now all you need to do is understand the above concepts. If you are already active in Social Media apply any you can. If you aren’t or you need assistance watch for our very next post:

Coming this week: a step-by-step process for efficiently using Social Networking.

To be sure you see it Subscribe to our RSS feed (if you use a Feed Reading Program or Subscribe via email to get updates by email.

SOCIAL NETWORKING RESOURCES:

SOCIAL NETWORKING DIRECTORIES:

BEST SOCIAL NETWORKING BOOKS:

There are dozens of books on Social Networking; however, those below are some of the very best. The first is by Tamar Weinberg, pictured in the photo at the top of this post and well know and loved by many online. You may remember her unique StumbleUpon Avatar of a grinning goat wearing braces.

The second is by Chris Brogan, whose Social Media blog is ranked number three today on the AdAge Power150 Daily Ranking of Marketing Blogs. There are over 65 recommendations for Chris Brogan at MrTweet – the most I’ve come across.

]]> http://www.growmap.com/social-networking-overview/feed/ 58 How to Evaluate Your AdWords Accounts http://www.growmap.com/adwords-evaluation/ http://www.growmap.com/adwords-evaluation/#comments Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:46:28 +0000 growmap http://www.growmap.com/?p=1990 AdWordsMost AdWords accounts are not set up to maximize results for the advertiser. Of the dozens and possibly hundreds I have personally evaluated, most could be quickly and easily optimized to decrease spending and greatly increase traffic and revenue by following the strategies laid out below.

NOTE: Be sure to also check out these two highly recommended posts:

ADWORDS OPTIMIZATION OBJECTIVES:

  • Maximize Traffic
  • Minimize Cost Per Click (CPC)
  • Increase Click Through Rate (CTR)
  • Maximize Return on Investment (ROI)

EVALUATION and SETTINGS at CAMPAIGN LEVEL:

  1. RECOMMENDED BUDGET:  Ensure the Daily Budget is sufficient to buy all available quality traffic by using Google’s Recommended Budget Function so your ads will show as consistently as possible. If you wish to limit spending it is better to selectively pause some Ad Groups so that ads for your most important keywords display consistently. Many potential buyers will look for you the same way they originally found you when they’re ready to buy. If they can not find your ad you may lose their business. [WARNING: Raising or setting your budget significantly higher than necessary can result in increased spending and VERY POOR QUALITY traffic! Keep your budgets just high enough to prevent your ads from being limited.]
  2. BUDGET DELIVERY METHOD: Standard or Accelerated? I recommend always setting it to Accelerated to ensure your ads are running consistently and the recommended budget is adequate.
  3. BUDGET OPTIMIZER: It is not advisable to use budgeting functions to limit spending because they cause ads to appear inconsistently.
  4. AD SCHEDULING: Not recommended. Best results are obtained by having ads running consistently. Your buyers use the Internet 24×7 and your ads should run all the time. The only exception is for a business that only sells live via telephone during their business hours – and if you are doing that you really need a better business model and improved Web site.
  5. POSITION PREFERENCE: This function did not work as advertised the last time I tested it. IF it works now it would be worth using. Testing to verify that would be necessary.
  6. AD SERVING: Optimize or Rotate. It is best to leave this set to optimize except when testing new ads or landing pages.
  7. SEARCH NETWORKS: I recommend running ads on the search network and NOT the content network (more detail below). You can run your ads on Google.com only or on Google.com and the Google Search Partners Network. You can not choose to run them on the search partner sites unless you run them at Google.com. While logically one would think that Google search would convert best, I have tested and found that often the search partner network converts better. Unfortunately you can not usually opt out of poor quality search partners so you either accept all qualities or get none of them.
  8. CONTENT NETWORK / CONTENT BIDS: Content ads almost always convert far less than search ads because someone specifically looking for something is more likely to take action soon than someone clicking out of curiosity. For most advertisers, I advise only considering content or display ads if they are already buying ALL available SEARCH trtaffic. The exception can be carefully targeted ads on hand-chosen content sites with the results tested. Content can occassionally convert higher than search in some niches on some sites.
  9. LANGUAGE: If your site is in English you would normally only run ads in English.
  10. LOCATIONS: If you sell across your entire country select that country. If you ship outside your country location select those countries IF you meet the language requirements. If you sell regionally you should start with ads running in your desired location and then expand to running national ads with two types of Ad Groups: 1) that contain general keyword phrases and contain locations in the titles of the ads and 2) that use phrase or exact match keyword phrases that include locations.

AD GROUP SETTINGS:

  1. BROAD, PHRASE or EXACT MATCH? Broad match keywords or phrases are entered without quotes or brackets around them. Those new to AdWords will often be using only broad match without realizing the danger. Phrase match keywords are within parenthesis: “phrase match keyword” and Exact match keywords are within brackets: [exact match keyword]. Exact match is the safest and should be used to test new keywords. Your ads will be displayed when that exact phrase without any other words is searched. Phrase match can be fairly safe if you use at least two words. Your ad will display for any searches that include that phrase in the exact word order plus any other words before or after it. Although broad match is responsible for sending at least half of sales and traffic in most accounts, it is now so broad that it can be dangerous to use. Before adding any broad match keywords ensure you have as many negative keywords as possible and watch carefully for high traffic and dismal conversions that indicate poor targeting of your ads.
  2. KEYWORD SELECTION: The best keywords and keyword phrases are specific to what you are offering.  ALL keywords in an Ad Group should be similar and appear in the ads – preferably in the Title if they will fit – and on the selected landing page. DO NOT put unrelated keywords in the same Ad Group. Using separate Ad Groups for each set of similar keyword phrases works best; however, you must balance increased effectiveness with additional management from having hundreds or thousands of Ad Groups.
  3. USE OF GENERAL KEYWORDS: Never use keywords that are so general that they are not specific to what you’re offering. They can be used as part of a phrase that DOES relate to what you advertise.
  4. USE OF SPECIFIC KEYWORDS: Good use of specific keywords targeting specific products produces the highest conversion rate. Consider adding as many low volume, low cost keyword phrases (commonly referred to as “long-tail” keywords) as possible. Targeting additional specific products by brand, model, model number, color maximizes profits. [NOTE: Most keyword tools only show search phrases that have been used more than a set number of times in a month - usually 10-12. Logical choice of phrases that do not appear in these tools can generate sales especially for high dollar products.]
  5. NEGATIVE KEYWORDS: Negative keywords are essential for targeting your ads and elminating clicks for products and services you do not offer. They lower your impressions for unrelated searches which increases CTRs which in turn can greatly lower your CPC. Both can reduce ad spend and increase ROI.  [WARNING: Running ppc advertising without thoroughly researching and adding negative keywords has been accurately referred to as financial suicide.]
  6. NEGATIVE EMBEDDED KEYWORDS: These are exact match negative keywords used to block specific phrases from triggering your ads without blocking ads that use those words but not that exact phrase. See how to use Negative Embedded Keywords.
  7. BID AMOUNTS: There is a tactical advantage in bidding odd amounts. Because most advertisers will end their bids in 0 or 5 and use similar amounts ($0.25, $0.50, $0.75, $1.00, $2, $5) you can easily move in front of many ads for only pennies per click. If more than one person manages your AdWords account each can choose a different odd number to end their bids. That way they know who last changed each bid.
  8. BIDDING STRATEGY: For maximum traffic at minimum cost, select a target ad position range and adjust bids to display within that range. For most advertisers I recommend third to fifth position as providing the best Return on Investment (ROI) and fifth through eighth for maximum traffic at least cost. There are only rare exceptions that make bidding into first or second position necessary or advisable.
  9. KEYWORD MATCH ADS: Make sure your Ads and ideally your Ad Titles match your keywords in each Ad Group. If they don’t they should be split out into additional Ad Groups running matching ads which use a landing page specifically optimized for that product.
  10. ADD TESTING and EFFECTIVENESS: Review all ads and delete any with poor CTRs. Test additional new ads to improve CTR, increase traffic, lower CPC, and increase ROI.  [NOTE: For best results always leave one ad unchanged, add new ads, and then delete the existing ad later if desired. Deleting or editing the only existing ad can cause your ads to disappear temporarily. Google manually reviews new ads. Existing ads also have a historical advantage which is lost if they are edited or deleted. Editing ads in AdWords equals deleting and adding a new ad!]
  11. URLS in ADS: Google allows the capitalization of words within URLs. Use this to make your domain name easier to read. For example, instead of http://growmap.com I would use http://GrowMap.com.
  12. KEYWORD RESEARCH: Use keyword research tools and review your site logs to find new and negative keyword phrases to add.

Anyone buying Google advertising needs to understand all of the above to ensure they are not overspending – and this isn’t all you need to know. Really understanding AdWords can greatly increase your ROI. Although the systems are different, these concepts can also be applied to other pay per click search engines.

Some may not agree with all of my recommendations and they are welcome to leave comments if they do not. Remember that being Google Certified in AdWords means they passed training designed by Google to benefit Google.  I believe in managing AdWords accounts in the manner that most benefits the advertiser – not the search engine.

While I once made a living managing AdWords and other ppc accounts I have been away from doing it full time for a couple of years and systems do change. I believe all the above is still accurate and will ask other consultants who are still full-time AdWords consultants to review it and make suggestions.

Do also read my post You Missed the Golden Days of Internet Pay Per Click Advertising for specific AdWords issues to be avoided. We also recommend using AimClear Search Marketing’s 6 minute audit for evaluating the performance of your AdWords account. Even better, as my regular readers already know, I highly recommend attending this ppcSummit to greatly hone your skills and improve your ROI:

September 15, 2009 was the last day to get the 25% discount; however, the discount is still available as of today September 16, 2009.  They are the best so if what they teach does not agree with the above believe them – and let me know!

We have recently come across a brilliant PPC management company and highly recommend their blog posts:

]]> http://www.growmap.com/adwords-evaluation/feed/ 57 Save 25% ppcSummit Deadline Extended to Sept 15 http://www.growmap.com/ppc-seminars/ http://www.growmap.com/ppc-seminars/#comments Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:00:15 +0000 growmap http://www.growmap.com/?p=1976 September 15, 2009, is the new extended deadline to save 25% off the regular registration fee for attending the very best pay per click seminar available. Read Why I recommend ppcSummit to find out how you can grow your business using ppc advertising. Seminar covers Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing (or how to transition), Microsoft AdCenter,  and all the smaller ppc engines.

Find out what the best strategies are for growing your business with ppc without losing your shirt.

New seminars are scheduled regularly so even if you missed this deadline do read our review of ppcSummit and check for when and where they will be held next.


]]> http://www.growmap.com/ppc-seminars/feed/ 13 Instantly Acquire 76 High Quality Incoming Links http://www.growmap.com/ubl/ http://www.growmap.com/ubl/#comments Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:20:24 +0000 growmap http://www.growmap.com/?p=1954 Universal Business ListingsEvery business – whether they operate in a limited geographic location or totally online – has a HUGE opportunity to quickly and easily improve their visibility and  get more business.

Taking this ONE action can:

  1. Make sure your business contact information is easy to locate online
  2. Increase the number of search phrases that can be used to find you
  3. Move all of your search listings up in search engine rank
  4. Potentially get your business featured at Google, Yahoo, Bing and on many other major sites
  5. Encourage clients and customers to review and recommend your business
  6. Automatically garner new incoming links on the booming number of metro and other geo-targeted sites

What can do all this for you?

Maximizing your listings in Local Search Directories!

I have been writing about Local Search for a year and consider it so important it is the subject of half of only four pages that appear on every page of this site. Lately I have been spending most of my time researching and compiling over one hundred Local Search directories, prioritising their importance, and creating a process for even better results. Today though, I want to recommend a shortcut that I firmly believe every business can act on immediately to their great benefit.

The only drawback before now to listing in Local Search directories was the days of monotonous entries required and the horrendous usability issues found on the Web sites of many Local Search engines.  (They really need to hire a usability expert!)  Fortunately for us all there is now a fast, efficient, inexpensive way to get over seventy-six listings and counting in one fell swoop. Many thanks to a really sharp SEO expert I know who shared this information.

Simply create one listing for your company at Universal Business Listing and they distribute it to all the major Search Engines, Online Yellow Pages, Local Directories, City Guides, 411 Directory Assistance, iPhone apps and GPS services. You can update your information in that one listing any time and feed the changes to all the sites they cover.

While many advise against using automated submission services for regular search engine listings, I have thoroughly researched and have found no drawbacks to using Universal Business Listing (UBL). It saves me over thirty-five hours in getting a business listed well in local search directories for only $30 which includes listing fees in some of the other directories that are covered.  I have no idea why they have priced this service so low and suspect it will eventually go up because it saves so many hours and has other benefits listing manually does not have.

The most important of those is being listed almost immediately in infoUSA instead of waiting the usual 30-60 days. The infoUSA database powers 85% of online directories (including Google Local Search,  Yahoo! Yellow Pages, Microsoft Live Local Search (now Bing), AOL brands including Compuserve, Netscape and Mapquest, and 90% of in-car navigation systems.

You won’t recognize many of the sites UBL feeds but they are extremely important to your business because they are databases used to populate almost all of the new niche sites targeting specific locations, subjects, and metros that are popping up all over. This is a huge growth area on the Internet and your business will automatically be included in those new sites and provide an ever-growing number of incoming links.

I will be adding a list of all the directories and databases to which UBL will send your listing, a how-to for their specific process plus a best practices Local Search Listing process for upgrading only those listings where it is possible and beneficial and claiming others that UBL does not reach.

I can not recommend highly enough that you go to Universal Business Listing and do this NOW.

This is too fast and easy a way to grow your business presence to put off. While you could do this manually trading $30 for 40+ hours of work is worth it in my book. If you are offshore and $30 USD is prohibitively expensive contact me. There arebusinesses here that would gladly pay the fees if you will do the work.

The great thing about UBL is you can quickly get your listings up by submitting them and then use their free editing ability to take your time and really optimize your listings for your best keyword phrases. See Local Search Ranking Factors for tips on what is important.

Here are the seventy-six directories I have identified as being fed from the Universal Business Listing process so far. This list will continue to grow and I will add more sites as I find them. I hand selected the most important and placed them at the top with the rest in alphabetical order. If you feel others should be listed at the top please share your thoughts in the comments below.

UNIVERSAL BUSINESS LISTINGS:

  1. Google Maps
  2. Yahoo! Local
  3. Bing Local
  4. SuperPages
  5. Yelp
  6. Merchant Circle
  7. Acxiom
  8. ALK-Pilot
  9. AllPages
  10. AnyWho
  11. AOL Local
  12. Areaconnect
  13. Areaconnect Canada
  14. AskCity
  15. AssistGuide
  16. BeanPool
  17. BigBook
  18. Blackberry/RIM
  19. Canoe Inc. (aka Quebecor) – Canadian
  20. Citysearch
  21. Collarity  – any idea where on this site?
  22. Comcast Local
  23. Deep Data
  24. DensoAutoNav
  25. DexKnows
  26. DigiWalker
  27. Disney  – anyone have a link for this?
  28. Earthlink Local
  29. eLocalListing
  30. getFave
  31. Electronic Directories
  32. Go2
  33. HelloMetro
  34. iaf.net
  35. iBegin
  36. Idearc (aka infoUSA)
  37. infoNXX
  38. InfoSpace
  39. InfoUSA (aka Idearc)
  40. JVC GPS
  41. Insider Pages
  42. kgb_USA SEE infonXX
  43. Kudzu
  44. LiveDeal
  45. Local.com
  46. LocalMatters
  47. Loqal
  48. Lowrance (aka Navico)
  49. LSSI-Volt
  50. Menu Networks
  51. Mobio Networks
  52. OneCallNow – anyone know how they use listings?
  53. Onstar
  54. OpenList Local
  55. Quebecor (aka canoe inc.)
  56. Search Bug
  57. Search Initiatives
  58. Spock – anyone know how this People Search uses
  59. SwitchBoard.com
  60. TeleAtlas
  61. TeleMap
  62. TellMe
  63. TomTom
  64. Topix
  65. US City.net
  66. V-Enable
  67. viaMichelin
  68. Vindigo
  69. WhitePages  – anyone know how they use business listings?
  70. YP.com
  71. YellowBook
  72. Yellow Bot
  73. YellowPages
  74. Yellow Page City
  75. Zenrin (Phones & GPS devices)
  76. Zingy – Any idea where data is on this site?

Disclaimer: We are an affiliate of UBL and the links in this post are affiliate links. That is NOT why we are recommending them. We are actively using their service for ourselves and our clients. If you are in a position to recommend them in your own blog please do so. If you feel what we share here is valuable to you we thank you for using our affiliate link.

]]> http://www.growmap.com/ubl/feed/ 53 Happy Birthday GrowMap – One Year Old Today http://www.growmap.com/growmap-birthday/ http://www.growmap.com/growmap-birthday/#comments Wed, 19 Aug 2009 22:10:23 +0000 growmap http://www.growmap.com/?p=1925 Happy Birthday GrowMap

Happy Birthday GrowMap

Today is the one year anniversary of the first post ever published at GrowMap. In case anyone is interested here are some stats on what has happened in that year:

  • 130 published posts
  • 2,402 active comments
  • 1,300 subscribers

Most important to us is whether what we have shared here has been of value to our readers. We know some have applied what we have shared. We hope many have seen an increase in their traffic and sales.

Many thanks to our regular readers and commentators and welcome to new readers. You are personally invited to jump right in:

  • Ask any questions you have while we still have time to give personal answers
  • Comment regularly to generate incoming links to your own site
  • Interact with us here and on Social Networking sites because we regularly send traffic to those who do
  • Tell your friends and share what we write so others can benefit.
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