Article Marketing 101: A Cost-Effective Method of Business Advertising

Most of what you know about a business, a brand, a service or a product will come to you via a method called article marketing. Although it is currently one of buzzwords in the online business industry, it's actually been used for a long time. In fact, its use goes as far back as the advent of mass printing. So what is it exactly and how does it impact a business?

What is article marketing? At its core, article marketing is actually advertising, a means to promote something related to a business or brand. It comes in the form of a short article, which can contain news, an explanation, directions, clarifications or any relevant information about the product or service being promoted. Articles can appear in all types of media, more commonly in print and online.

Materials used in article marketing are distributed and published for free.

How is it used? Article marketing is often used in conjunction with an advertising campaign. Notice how write-ups in related subjects often appear in newspapers or on websites each time a company or brand is launching something?

A company producing cocoa powder, for example, will come up with articles discussing the different types of cocoa and how best to use them for cooking or baking. A car company can publish or post write-ups about road safety and vehicle maintenance prior to a promotional blitz for a new model.

Online article marketing Traditional article marketing is similar in many ways to its online counterpart. However, there are also several differences, many of which are considered beneficial by business owners. Some of these are:

Keyword relevance People who use the Internet look for information in a different way. In traditional media, promotional materials have to catch the viewer's eyes. In online marketing, an article can appear solo on a web page and have all the attention of the visitor.

In online article marketing, a write-up has to be search engine optimized, containing the necessary keywords that will help it appear high on search engine listings. As such, articles become highly targeted promotional materials, able to hone in on the relevant market – the kind that will be interested enough to buy, subscribe or participate.

It can go viral. Online article marketing allows limitless access and use of articles. Visitors can flag them, share them, vote for them or interact by leaving comments. If the article impresses a visitor, he or she can even promote it to others, thus spreading the word about the business without the owner having to pay extra.

Articles also get spread online a lot faster and can reach more people than traditional methods. It's quite possible, for example, that a write-up posted today can reach thousands within 24 hours and millions within two to three days.

Online article marketing is free. There's no need to pay for a half-page ad or a 15-second spot on TV. Articles may be sent to an article database or directory, a website that serves as a repository of write-ups.

Directory or database owners offset the cost of providing the site for free by charging advertisers instead. Articles are categorized so visitors easily find them.

Authors and business owners have more control. With online article marketing, the author can pretty much do what he wants to do with the write-up and how it appears on his website. He can, for example, post the article with just one single ad or post only the kind of ads that will be relevant to the article.

Article marketing continues to be a popular method for business promotions. The only disadvantage is that the method becomes overused and abused – hence, the appearance of low quality write-ups. Hopefully, with more discerning readers, article marketing will regain its respectability as a very effective means of promoting a business.

If you're looking for the best articles to populate your site with, Article Shark is where you can find articles that will suit your niche.

Make Money off Google

In less than 10 years Google has become the dominant power of the internet. If someone needs to search the web for something, Google is who they trust to direct them in the right direction. Being such a powerful and innovative company, Google is also very trusted in general. They are extremely reliable and have constantly found new ways to make money in intelligent ways.

One of Google’s primary sources of income is their advertising programs. They have a program called Google AdWords that has become a necessary part of generating traffic for just about any site on the web selling a product. The way it works is that people who want to drive traffic to their webpage will bid on specific relevant keywords. When someone runs a Google search on these specific keywords, the bidder’s page will show up in the sponsored links on the results page. It is a fast way to make your webpage available to the public. The interesting thing about Google AdWords is the bidder pays-per-click, or in other words, the bidder pays only when someone click on the link leading to their page.

Another advertising program is Google AdSense. This program allows people to place ads on their webpage for other people’s services. It is a way to maximize you site’s potential income. The way it works is Google looks through a given webpage, and finds its relevant topics. It then says, “This page talks a lot about flowers (just an example). This would be a good place to put ads for site that sell flowers. ” Google AdSense then places the ads on your page and every time someone clicks on an ad on your page, you get a commission of what they pay to have the advertising there.

Now here’s the point. Google makes a ton of money off of these programs which means they can pay tons to have people promote the same programs. They want more people to use them. So here’s the little known big secret. Google Advertising has affiliate programs! Google will actually pay you to get other people to sign up for their advertising programs. This is an overlooked but powerful way to make money in the affiliate world.

Entrepreneur Kimball Roundy has developed a system that teaches you how to make money off of Google Advertising via video lessons. This system is called The SpiderWeb Marketing System and not only does it teach you how to promote Google Advertising, it does it for you through the system itself. Kimball gives this system away for free for this reason: by signing up for this Google advertising through The SpiderWeb Marketing System, he gets a commission from Google. You, the user, get to use the system for free, and then the system allows you to get other people to sign up for Google advertising under you! That means that you will start making passive income by successfully generating a downline and it’s all free! The SpiderWeb Marketing System will do everything for you. So to recap, you can make money off of Google, and now, you can do it better than everyone else.

Is Google in Trouble & Facing Bankruptcy?

[NEW YORK - Wednesday] - by Devon Melk. Rumors are now running amok that the 2nd most powerful website on the entire Worldwide-Web may file BANKRUPTCY, with the deadline set for this December; being the date of both discharge and dissolution in a Federal Court of Law.

This would come as a SHOCK to investors and "Googlers" alike who both profit and benefit from the use of the World's largest and most powerful search engine which receives far in excess of 100 MILLION unique daily visitors and well over 300 million individual searches daily - making it perhaps the single most valuable public data resource as an "information bank" online the world over.

But is the rumor true or false?

The origin of the rumor occurred when some savvy Internet marketers began making statements that they had heard "insiders' talk" that the company (now publicly traded since April 30, 2004, just over 3 years ago) may face financial disaster with the release of a "new system" that would allow advertisers to get their otherwise pay-per-click (PPC) advertising completely free.

This, of course, would naturally lead directly (like a domino- effect) to the collapse of Google's sibling program AdSense; as its only revenue comes from the direct sales of AdWords "clicks."

The "new system" in question and responsible for the controversy over getting AdWords pay-per-clicks free is that developed by Dr Jon Cohen of New York City, New York (now retired) who discovered a simple, yet effective means, for getting Google PPC ads without having to suffer the costs involved.

The retired New York doctor and native has a publicly disclosed net worth now in excess of $70 million [US], having generated well over $377 million in product sales from sixteen (16) separate online businesses within just nine

(9) years since first venturing online in 1998 (about the same time as Google was founded).

It is estimated by company insiders and leading financial analysts that the

"good doctor" (as he's called by "all who know him") has purportedly saved well over $93 million (some estimates suggest closer to $136 million) in otherwise paid advertising at Google and the other major players in the PPC targeted-search arena online - including Yahoo, MSN, AskJeeves, AllTheWeb.com, HotBot, AltaVista, Lycos and Netscape, just to name a few.

The "secret" became available to the general masses last April, and its very release caused such a major sweeping stir among the community of Internet-marketers, affiliate-marketers, webmasters, ecommerce company owners and surfers alike that the site quickly rose to break the top most visited 1,000 websites on the entire planet briefly; and as can be seen here:

http://tinyurl.com/39lnjn (Alexa data on this!)

When asked if the "secret" would somehow ruin Google, Dr Cohen revealed almost cryptically that it actually would bring about just the opposite effect, and "stimulate" even more business volume for the virtual giant.

Many people were dismayed to find that Google itself is deliberately allowing the purchase of 100,000's of PPC ads offering the secret system to the general public -- which indicates to most observers that either they [Google] haven't caught it, or they simply feel that it somehow is not a threat to their continued operation.

For anyone's inspection factual and hard evidence supporting this can be seen by simply looking to the right-hand column when doing a search for

"get google ads free" (specifically in quotation marks) at Google.com under the "Sponsored Links" section.

Or take this direct and instant SHORTCUT:

http://tinyurl.com/2ctu6j

You can also see nearly 100,000 specific results in the "organic" fields index located in the center and which occupies the bulk of the results pages.

One would think that if Google felt threatened by such a release as this earth-shaking "secret" is, they would hardly allow for either paid-ads or organic content to make the top searches regarding it.

However, evidence supports to the contrary - and this being the case now for a full six (6) months.

Mysteriously, within just two (2) hours of its initial release last April, Google itself actually did in fact 'pause' the parent firm's attempts at advertising the new system using PPCs on their search engine - only, however, to release the hold after a Review Team consisting of some of Google's top executives completed performing an in-depth investigation and made the determination to ALLOW the ads to run.

The secret system was recently revised however to include "major new content" and "more exhaustive instructions," and is now available at its Home Site:

http://www.DigitalProductSearch.com/freegoogle

The most important addition is that of a so-called "string of code"

(tech-talk for some HTML) that can be added to any webpage(s) that instantly causes the elimination of the page owner's AdWords costs right away.

Even a "live" woman spokes-representative ("Rachel") has been added to the site, and who appears to literally walk out onto the webpage and talk to visitors and explain a bit more how the mysterious new breakthrough system works.

Since the addition of this new "live" spokes-woman has now appeared at the site, company Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Mr Todd Coutrin states that "sales for the system have skyrocketed above 2,430 percent suddenly and

with no limit in sight."

Coutrin continues: "With the newest revision now in place, plus all the additions added, affiliates for the new system can expect to earn even more than ever before!" (Note: Affiliates make up the bulk of the firm's sales generation.)

The refund rate for the new revised version of the secret (named V5.1) has dropped to less than half of what it was before the newer version's release; meaning it's now even more readily-received and put to use than ever before

(perhaps in large part to the newer simplicity of application) - now making it the safest and one of the best resellers for the networks of affiliate marketers who earn their revenues from the reselling of other electronic publishers' stock and digital product lines.

When asked, Google company representatives stated matter-of-factly that the rumors of bankruptcy for the ecommerce giant are simply not true, and that the rumor millings are in fact simply the result of "panics" brought on by the usual hysteria associated with anything large, new or revolutionary - or in this case, all three.

Attempts to contact both Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the former Stanford University students who founded Google in 1998, to request comment were unsuccessful.

Again, Google itself seems to be the biggest supporter of the "new system" as it's allowing more and more advertisers to promote the new system on its search engine before over 100 million daily searches and surfers.

10 Tips To Improve Google Adsense Earnings

As predicted in last months MyBlogEarnings, my Adsense income has taken a bit of a hit this month as advertisers start to reduce their spend. So far this month my CTR has remained fairly constant, but my CPM has dipped by a few dollars.

I haven’t really worked on my adsense optimisation for a while, as after growing my adsense income from a few hundred dollars to over $4k in 8 months, I’d assumed that I pretty much had it cracked.

However, after this months CPM reduction I’ve added adsense optimisation to the list of things I’m going to focus on this month. Here are 10 Tips To Improve Google Adsense Earnings that have worked for me in the past, that I’m going to focus on this month to get my CPM back up for the rest of the month.

Make The Most Of Google Love

One of the common reasons bloggers don’t make a lot of money from Google Adsense is because they don’t write about topics that people are searching for answers on i.e. using Google. Just writing interesting articles isn’t going to get you a lot of clicks on ads as your readers won’t be searching for answers or certain products.

If you take a look at my top posts in the sidebar you will see that most of the posts are giving tips, or useful links for services, or are product reviews i.e. posts that get lots of Google love which sends lots of click happy people through to my site. If you post more articles of this ilk your adsense earnings will increase. These articles are also timeless and will continue to get Google traffic long after my regular readers have moved onto newer material.

To maximise your Google traffic don’t forget the basics like making sure your post titles are clear and that your first paragraph clearly explains what the post is about, so that even if you are not the top result you have increased your chances of being clicked on. Take a look at my top posts - every one of the post titles makes it clear what the post is about, which is why they do well on Google.

Smart Pricing - Less Is Better

I’m stunned by how many blogs haven’t factored in Google Adsense Smart pricing into their site design. If you haven’t come across Adsense Smart Pricing before, then in one sentence this is where Google looks at your site’s overall CTR and if it’s low then it will display lower value ads and if it’s high it will display higher value ads.

So, for many sites a quick way to improve earnings is to actually display fewer ads i.e. to remove poorly performing ad units like sidebar ads, or ads that are below the fold etc. This will increase your site’s average CTR, which will make Google display higher value ads in your better performing spaces which will raise your overall earnings.

Smart Pricing works across your Adsense account, not just on a site by site basis. So, if you are displaying a significant number of Adsense ads on other sites that have a poor CTR then you should remove them as your main sites will benefit.

If You’re Going To Place Ads Put In Best Spots - Don’t Kop Out

In my view, if you are going to run ads on your site then it doesn’t make sense to do it half-heartedly i.e not put your ads in the best slots. If you do you’ll never get to see the full benefits - if you’re going to do something in my view, then do it right!

This heatmap shows where the best positions for Google Adsense Ads are.

Blend Your Adsense Units

Following on from the previous tip, again if you are going to add Adsense ads to your site then again I think you should make sure that they are fully optimised. The best way of doing this is to blend the ads into your site by making sure that the text and link colours match.

To maximise CTR you should also wrap text around your ads. Many sites have tried placing ads above text or even before articles, but in my opinion this is a bad move, as all it does is encourage readers to ‘jump’ past your ads straight to the content.

Get A Good Stats Package

One of the difficulties with Google Adsense as it’s virtually impossible to see for certain which posts have a high CTR. But, if you have a good stats package then at least you can see which of your posts are popular so that you can try and write more of the same to further grow your traffic.

How to Test Google AdSense Ads (and Improve Your Revenue)

Improve your revenue from Google AdSense ads by using this simple PHP code to test your ads and identify the ones that pay better. You could run one ad format for a week, then run the second format and compare results. Better yet, test formats simultaneously and start getting side-by-side results to compare the same day.

Lots of articles suggest trying out different types and formats for your ads. Then they say you will figure out the format, size and placement that gives you a better click-thru rate and increased revenue. That's all very nice. But, because of all the ways you can vary your ads (different sizes, shapes, locations on your page, link colors, text, border colors, etc.), this can be a long process. That is why I wrote this.

This site recommends Google AdSense for targeted ads This article is written specifically for Google AdSense ads. You might be able to modify it for other types of ads. Because ad providers and their code is always changing, this article is about Google AdSense only, but the general concepts might apply to other advertisers.

The Ad Testing Code

Google lets you vary many settings including colors of links, borders, text, backgrounds, plus ad sizes and shapes. Modify the default Google AdSense ad format and you are likely to increase your earnings.

In our example, we test an ad without a border against an ad with a border. This page has a white background, so “no border” means the color of the border is set to white. I wrote this code to test ads and found that ads without a border had better click-thru rates than ads with a border.

Take a quick look at the two ads formats we are evaluating in our coding example before we get too deep into the explanation. Only the border color is different. Everything else remains the same so we do not confuse and confound the test. (The channel ID assigned by AdSense changes, but that is not part of the appearance of the ad.) You could easily vary some other setting for your own purposes.

Building the Ad Testing Code

Log into your AdSense account and create 2 custom channels for your site. One channel is for each format you are going to test. (Adsense help explains how to set up custom channels.)

In the PHP code on your site, generate a random number of 0 or 1. We use this number to serve up one of two AdSense ads.

srand(time());
$random = (rand()%2);
?>

In your AdSense account, generate the AdSense code for the first channel. Our first channel has no (a white) border. Paste it in to your PHP code. Then, back in AdSense, generate the code for your second channel, selecting the appropriate custom channel and setting the border color. You will build something like the following:

To make it easy to see below, the border color we are varying is in bold text.

if($random == 1)
//test with white border (no border)
{
?>


}
else
//test blue border around ads
{
?>


}
?>

Let the ads run. In your reports you will see roughly equal numbers of each ad being served up. When you determine which format is better, try changing another setting to see what will give you even better click-thrus and revenue.

Download the code source (adtest.txt)

View page with both ads showing so you can see the differences.

Notes About Testing AdSense Ad Formats

Just like we tested two different border colors, we could have varied another setting. For example, if you want to see whether black link titles perform better than blue, set one color:

google_color_link = "003366";

and a second color:

google_color_link = "000000";

You can run a more complex test, with, say, three options for a single variable. Modify the random number generating portion of the code to generate a 0, 1 or 2. You should test only one variable at a time (holding all other variables constant). If you test too many variables, you do not know what is performing better.

When you get more comfortable with custom channels and with testing various ad formats, you can get more sophisticated with your tests and how you use my little PHP script.

AdSense’s Terms and Conditions require “not modifying the JavaScript or other programming provided to You by Google in any way.” The above ad test does not modify Google’s code. We are simply randomly serving up one of two scripts. When you look at the HTML source for each format that PHP generates, the scripts are exactly what AdSense generates. We have not modified Google JavaScript or programming in any way.

Mobile Advertising Click Through Rates of 5%, 12%, 25% and 29%?

I am not the only one who finds the recent high profile comments about Click through Rates hard to swallow.
It started with Vodafone’s Ray de Silva quoting 25% at Mobile Advertising and Marketing Forum in London in January.
Then, at the MoMo Peer Awards Blyk’s CEO quoted 29%. Both Vodafone and Blyk have not shown any proof about this and they do sound like figures pulled out of that hat.
I spoke candidly to AdMob about the “reality” of these figures and there was agreement that these figures can only come out of very controlled circumstances or campaigns managed within a week or month. These are not the industry standard for on-going mobile advertising services.

As a market leader AdMob says that its click through rate on average is about 10 to 15% - which is impressive and on top of that realistic. But quoting figures as high as 29% is doing little that building up home for mobile advertisers in the market.
I would actually go so far as to say it’s like a “please advertise with me” number that sounds appealing but without justification or signing up – one will never know.
We know mobile advertising is a growing market. But quoting figures without substance is a bad move.
If you look at the chart above it’s from a campaign that I ran with AdMob. I made the same charts in more detail for campaigns run with Decktrade, Google and JumpTap and others.
By using examples of bkimedia.zinadoo.mobi and gomonews.mobi in campaigns run over 2 weeks I managed to track to see what campaigns were more effective by terms of cost and click through over each vendor. If you would like to know more, then contact me – but in the diagram above over two days the sheer volume of impressions on AdMob drove down the click-through vs cost ratio. The above is only a very small example and the click through rate for the campaign was about 2% - but then the cost of the campaign was also only pennies.
Finding a rational between cost vs click through vs impressions is the first step that companies need to take in the mobile advertising and marketing space before quoting unrealistic click through rates.

Google AdSense Expands Contextual Ad Placement Program To Small Sites

Google has expanded its contextual ads program to allow many more content sites to carry its paid listings. The new Google AdSense program allows site owners to sign-up for the program in a self-serve manner, similar to becoming an Amazon affiliate.

Google's contextual ads program, Google Content-Targeted Advertising, was officially launched in March. In the program, Google negotiated deals with large web sites to integrate its paid listings into their web pages. Smaller web sites were not able to take part.

"When we rolled out content ads a couple months ago, we had set a threshold of 20 million page views per month for web sites we'd consider for the current program," said Susan Wojcicki, director of product management for Google's ad syndication programs. "We found there are huge number of very high quality web sites that did not meet that threshold."

The new AdSense program corrects this. It allows any site to apply, even those with only a few thousand page views per month.

"We built an online automated way for web sites to come to Google, sign-up and apply to be accepted into our network," Wojcicki said. "This program will be a way for web sites to earn money by putting ads on their pages."

Those accepted into the program simply insert some short JavaScript code into their web pages. In response, Google will deliver a banner or skyscraper-sized ad module filled containing paid listings.

While the program opens the doors to many more sites than before, not all will be accepted. Google will review the sites to ensure that they meet certain program policies. Among those not eligible are sites that include content about drugs, pornography or gambling.
Google Ads & Blogs

The program policies do not allow "personal pages" to take part. What's a personal page? This isn't defined. However, a traditional personal home page listing things like interests or family news certainly wouldn't be eligible. Similarly, some blogs may find themselves rejected, under this rule.

"In general, we're looking for at this stage web sites with more standardized content," Wojcicki said. "Blogs are an example of a gray area, and we will review them on a case-by-case basis to see if they fit our network."

This will be a difficult area for Google, because blogging tools aren't just used by those wishing to express personal views. Some use them simply because they are an easier way to publish a web site focused on a particular topic.

Gary Price's great search and research site, ResourceShelf, is an example of this. Gary moved to using the Blogger.com tool, now owned by Google, not out of great love to be blogging but because it was an efficient way to publish his content, he has told me in the past.

ResourceShelf is so tightly focused around a particular topic that it should be a natural for Google's program. But how about blogger Jeremy Zawodny's site?

Zawodny has a section of his blog archives that are specifically about Linux, which might be perfect for ads about Linux (should he wish to carry them). However, the home page of his blog is far more diverse, such as including a post (at the moment) about determining the optimal temperature for Heineken beer. Not exactly the standardized content Google wants.

Why even care about standardized content? Google's contextual technology automatically delivers paid listings that are deemed relevant to a page, based on that page's content. So, a blog that covers a wide variety of topics may be difficult to target.

For example, the jimpunk blog is about, well, a lot of pictures that have no apparent theme to me. But since this is a site making use of the free Blogger service, it already carries Google's contextual ads. This was done as part of the initial Google rollout of its contextual program.

What are the ads about? Buying "Iraqi Most Wanted Cards." Why? There's a part of the page that flows an article across the page that appears to be about the Iraqi conflict. As best I can tell, this may be what's causing Google to make the bad guess that ads for "Most Wanted" cards might be relevant to this page.
Helping The Web, But...

Google makes the pitch that its ad program should be a boon to everyone who uses the web, since the revenue will help publishers keep making good content for users.

"From the user standpoint, this will be good. No only will it fund quality publishers to produce quality content, it will also produce a better user experience, because they'll be able to see ads that are related to the content," Wojcicki said.

An excellent recent article from Business 2.0 explores in more depth the idea of contextual ads as helping support good web content. It's an idea I buy into. When I got involved with building web sites back in 1995, I always hoped there would be a way to connect those with good content with advertisers to fund their work. Google's program certainly will help with this.

Nevertheless, one major downside remains to the expansion of Google's contextual ad program. It leaves the company even more vulnerable to accusations that it may favor sites carrying its ads in its search results, as I explained when the program first announced.

At that time, Google denied that this would happen. The company has even added a FAQ answer denying it. And Google cofounder Larry Page reemphasized this last month, when I spoke with him about the issue.

"That's not something we would ever consider doing. We wouldn't bias our search results based on the monetary relationships we have with people," he said. "It would be sort of dumb for us from an economic perspective. Let's make a little bit more money and in return get everyone in the world upset."