Facebook is officially the most-visited website in the US this week, according to Experian Hitwise, knocking Google off of the top spot – where it has been since 2007.

http://tech.uk.msn.com/news/articles.aspx?cp-documentid=152595476

Interestingly, the last site to nab the number one spot from Google was MySpace back in 2007. Facebook will be hoping that this isn’t an ominous sign of things to come. Personally I don’t think so; I never liked My Space – it was always such a mess, but Facebook seems to have the right amount of order & organisation in its structure, whilst allowing people to still do whatever they want with it.

I currently have an ad for Cashback Shopper running on Facebook, targeting the UK only, but will definitely be using it to promote the American version of Cashback Shopper when it launches!

I’m currently running a PPC (Pay Per Click) campaign on Yahoo (can’t afford Google!) for my new cheap theatre ticket site, which is themed from the main Cheap Event Tickets site.

September is apparently peak booking time for theatre tickets in the UK, so I decided to go for a big push on some of the most popular & well known London shows.

I’ve set up targeted ad groups – for these shows, containing well researched long tail keywords (which all have a decent KEI) and have carefully worded the ads, drawing on existing ads by well established companies in this sector. Most of the ads are displaying ticket prices, so the “clicker” knows what to expect & won’t click just to see what the price is.

Most of the ads are displaying in position 1 on Yahoo (these bids are around £1, on Google you are looking at around £3 for these keywords!!!) & the click through rates are currently between 3.5% & 14%, which I believe is not bad.

So, following all the rules & strategies I’ve read over the last couple of years for successful PPC advertising & marketing, how are the ads doing?

Well, I’ve had ONE SALE, from 44 clicks! Admittedly it was a decent sale & my commission will be £12 from it, but it has cost me £25 to get it!!!! On Google, I’d have paid triple that, without any guarantee of more sales. The companies that advertise theatre tickets on Google presumably make more money per sale than I do, but I still don’t see how they can make a profit when they’re paying such huge amounts for clicks!

It doesn’t seem possible to make a profit from affiliate marketing using Google (or even Yahoo), unless you’re using such obscure terms, that you then really should be able to obtain natural search engine positions for if they’re THAT obscure.

So, once again I’ll be grateful to break even on PPC & would love to know if any other affiliate marketers makes a profit from Google Adwords/Yahoo Search Marketing?!

I received an e-mail from Google, telling me about their new search-based keyword tool!

They state “the Search-based Keyword Tool compares the content of your website against actual Google search queries to provide a list of relevant keywords which you don’t currently have in your AdWords campaigns. This new tool can help your business to grow and innovate on your keyword choices by taking the guesswork out of the process. Rather than adding keywords to an ad campaign based on what one thinks a user might search on, this tool enables you to manage your keywords based on what you know users are searching on.”

I visited the tool & was presented with a list of over 800 keyphrases, which Google says have been searched for & appear on relevant pages in my site. I decided to pick all the phrases that had a suggested cost per click up to and including £1.00 (246 of them).

I’ve spent the last 4 hours adding the phrases to my AdWords campaign, targeting the landing pages to the ones indicated by the Tool & using the suggested bids. However, as soon as I checked the keywords, all bar one are not displaying due to the bid amount being too low (even though it was the one suggested!). The quality score of the landing pages are also deemed poor, despite them being the ones that sparked off the whole process!

So, thanks Google; for suggesting I use your new tool; only to find that despite following all your suggestions, you STILL don’t display any of my ads unless I bid some ridiculous amount per click! I’ve just basically wasted an entire afternoon on this nonsense & on top of it, the new interface is rubbish! It’s slow, jerky & very frustrating to use.

What on earth is the point in giving me this information, which appears to be totally useless? Their e-mail ended:

“The Search-based Keyword tool actually found 2954 recently-searched keywords related to your site. For each suggested keyword, the tool will also show you:

• The average number of searches per month
• The competitive bidding level for each term
• The estimated bid to appear in the top three ad positions
• The suggested landing page for each keyword

To see all 2954 new keywords and decide which ones to add to your campaigns, go to www.google.com/sktool, sign in to your AdWords account, and enter your website URL. We hope that you find the Search-based Keyword Tool useful in driving even more business to your website through Google AdWords!”

Errrrrr! No it isn’t useful, has wasted my time & has not given me any new (& reasonably priced), keyphrases that I can bid on!

I will definitely not be returning to AdWords any time soon!

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Keywords are the backbone and foundation of an online business as they are how people find your website. Without keywords, hardly anybody would ever find your site to purchase whatever it is you’re selling.

When broken down into its simplest form, what separates a failing online business from a thriving one is that the thriving business knows EXACTLY which targeted keywords/keyphrases will send “buyers” to their website. While, the failing internet business (99% of internet businesses) are blindly guessing which keywords to advertise with.

Based on this extremely simplistic view, we know that in order to have a successful internet business, we MUST know with 100% certainty which keywords are going to send potential buyers to our website – people that are actually looking to purchase whatever it is we’re selling.

Now, the question is…How do find out which keywords to advertise and base our business marketing on?

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With PPC Web Spy, you’ll be able to uncover all of the keywords that successful businesses are already making money with. Then, you’ll be able to take those keywords and advertise your own business.

Let me give you an example…

Let’s say you were selling a “how to make money on the internet” eBook. You would use PPC Web Spy to show you all of the keywords that a very well-known, proven, “how to make money on the internet” eBook seller was already advertising with.

Instead of you spending months and even years figuring out which keywords could potentially make you money, you can simply swoop in and take the keywords from this successful eBook seller… The keywords that probably took them months or years to uncover.

Then, just advertise your own eBook with those keywords and you can expect similar results!

Here’s a brief rundown of the specific “features” within PPC Web Spy…

You’ll be able to quickly and easily uncover any Google Adwords advertiser’s keywords in only a few seconds! Then, simply take those keywords and advertise your own product or service and get ready for the money to come rolling in!

You’ll be able to see critical Adwords data relating to each keyword. Data such as:

• The actual Adwords ads your competitors have written for each keyword
• The Cost Per Click, or amount your competitors are paying for each keywords they’re bidding on
• Your competitor’s Adwords rank, so you’ll be able to determine how much money you should be spending to get your site to a similar rank, to expect similar results.
• The total daily amount your competition is spending via Google Adwords
• And much more!

You can use PPC Web Spy to generate your own giant list of keywords based upon any of the individual keywords your competition is using!

You can also generate a giant, targeted keyword list by inputting your competitor’s domain name, allowing you to build an even larger, more targeted keyword list!

You’ll even be able to see the exact landing page (i.e. destination URL) that each Adwords advertiser is sending visitors to, WITHOUT actually clicking on their Adwords ad and charging them money – a very generous touch   )

It means that you’ll be able to shave off hours, days, months, and even years of time doing keyword research and testing exactly which keywords convert visitors to buyers. It means you won’t have to waste massive amounts of money as you slowly figure out your market’s “best” keywords.

PPC Web Spy saves you both time & money… and because PPC Web Spy is a Firefox plugin, rather than a bulky, standalone desktop application, you’ll be able to save money and time as you casually browse Google like you normally would. It’s VERY cool and powerful.

Don’t forget, the software is FREE to download, so why not give it a try & see how it can make a difference to your keyword research?!

Well, I did say I would blog about the downs of affiliate marketing too, so here goes!

What happened to all the Christmas sales?!!! I don’t mean sales in shops, desperate to attract people to them before they all go bust (goodbye Woolies & MFI), but the online sales I was expecting through Cashback Shopper. Transactions had been steadily rising as the membership grew, so I put extra effort (& money) into PPC to try & attract as many new members as possible for the Christmas rush.

But new memberships have dropped to a trickle & the amounts spent have also fallen as we get closer & closer to Christmas! I can only imagine that people have decided that because of the discounts offered in stores, it’s better to go & buy direct than online!! Perhaps this is affecting everyone, or is it just on my site that transactions have been disappointing?!

At the moment, all I can do is get through Christmas & hope things pick up again in the new year. But now there are bigger (national) companies starting up their own cashback sites & I’ve spent everything I can on getting my site where it is & can’t afford to spend any more.

January is a peak time for travel, but I don’t have the budget to push my travel extras site any more & to be honest, I may even have to consider getting a day job again   (   Or, at the very least put the affiliate marketing on the back foot & try to get more small business web design work……

I blogged previously about the failure of my short breaks white label site to make any sales, whilst it was integrated into the main My Travel Extras site.

As a result, I set up the site as a standalone short breaks mini-site & have just set a PPC campaign on Google, using only 3 or 4 (or even more), exact match keyphrases. I’ve created 4 different ad variations & limited my bids to £0.50 so that I’m not spending too much per click. With this budget, Google predicts at an average CPC of £0.37 – £0.49, these keywords could potentially generate 36 – 69 clicks per day (which would cost £20 – £40).

I think this is plenty for now, assuming a few sales come from these clicks(!), but I will be fine tuning the campaign as I go & see if these figures improve. If Superbreak make sales, then using an identical copy of their site & directing relevant traffic MUST generate sales, musn’t it?!!!!!

Time will tell!

I’ve recently dipped my toe back into the world of Google Adwords!

Recently I have concentrated my efforts on Miva & Yahoo PPC campaigns because they are still affordable for particular sites, whereas Google is not. But, with so many UK users only using Google for their internet searching, is it worthwhile; how many potential customers are going to my opposition?

So, I have once again bitten the bullet & decided to run a campaign on Google for Cashback Shopper, with a daily limit of £5. But, as the minimum bid amount quickly went from £2, to £2.50 & then in some cases to £5, is this value for money, or just a rip off?!!

Although the minimum bid to activate the keyword [cashback] is £5, the actual average CPC over the last week has been £2.35. However, this is still taking half my daily budget for clicks – two clicks & my campaign was off / With a CTR of 4.28%, maybe it’s not worth running this phrase & working only on longer tail keyphrases which will leave the campaign running longer and with a higher CTR. The table below shows how many clicks I’m getting for my £5 over the last 7 days & Google reckons I’m not receiving 82% of my eligible impressions!!

18 Aug Campaign activity: 4 Clicks 5.24
19 Aug Campaign activity: 7 Clicks 4.99
20 Aug Campaign activity: 6 Clicks 5.10
21 Aug Campaign activity: 4 Clicks 5.01
22 Aug Campaign activity: 7 Clicks 5.00
23 Aug Campaign activity: 6 Clicks 4.75
24 Aug Campaign activity: 5 Clicks 5.26

Google suggests a daily budget of £27.34!!!! Is this beyond the reach of many affiliate marketers? It certainly seems beyond mine!! But would those clicks convert to “sales”? This is the choice that has to be made & for many new PPC advertisers, it can be an expensive one – I know, I’ve been there!

My overall CTR for the last week has been 6.98% at an average CPC of £0.91, so this isn’t too bad. Purchases made through the site have increased substantially over the last couple of weeks & the new £50 prize draw competition I am running should create more sign ups from friend referrals, at much better value than PPC!!!

Because of the decent ROI I seem to be getting from the Google PPC campaign, I have suspended all my other search engine campaigns for now & have upped the daily Adwords spend to £10 (not yet the £27.34 recommended!) and will keep monitoring the CTR & ROI closely.

Naturally, if spending continues to grow, it would certainly be worth re-investing the income back into further advertising!

Some time ago, I set up a white label dating site, using the DIY Dating webmaster programme.

The site, Looking4Me, is still running but I have to be honest & say it was pretty much a “build & leave it” job; I really haven’t spent much effort in promoting it – added it to a couple of dating traffic exchanges and did some link exchanges, but other projects took over & I felt that the dating market was far too competitive to spend time & money on PPC. I have had 205 people sign up & few have even paid for a membership (they join the existing membership, totalling about 300000 members), but I still haven’t done much pushing of the site.

However, I recently received a brochure from White Label Dating, stating that they had a number of site owners earning considerable sums from their websites (between £20k & £30k a month!!). Obviously, I am not aiming for anything like this, but it seems that Internet Dating is still a booming industry & it would be stupid to not try & take advantage of it as an affiliate marketer!

So I decided to give it a go & set up another dating site, Find Me Dates, using the White Label Dating system. There are a number of big name companies using their system, but it seemed they were all using a landing page, rather than using the white label site as their home page. So I’ve done the same thing myself. A landing page allows you to optimise for search engines & make the site look good.

I was able to add features from the dating engine to the landing page, such as a member search & pictures of the newest members & then any click through takes the user to the membership pages. The landing page has been optimised for 10 dating keyphrases – london dating, dating agencies, dating agency, friend finder, online dating, uk singles, dating site, uk dating, internet dating, dating girls, which all had a good KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index), which is the ration of searches to results in the search engines. I will be submitting to web directories, using combinations of these keywords to generate inbound links & will see how the rankings go.

In addition, I am considering a PPC campaign on Miva, but still need to carry out research on the cost per click for what is a competitive sector – I may have to pick some very exact, long tail phrases to start with!

It is with some trepidation that I hear Google has launched its own affiliate network. Lets forget how many pies Google now has its fingers in, but its “reason to be” is as an unbiased search engine, providing the best search results & experience for its users! The most interesting/worrying statement on the site is: Earn AffiliateVIP status and enjoy exclusive marketing opportunities and greater visibility in the network. So, should I interpret this as “make us money & get pushed up the SERPS”?????!!!!!

Even where PPC is concerned, Google should provide an unbiased platform offering equal opportunities for advertising products & services. Will Google start providing their own affiliates with a “discount” or other advantage over competitors? They way PPC costs have risen for affiliates over the last couple of years has indicated that they’re are not affiliate friendly, but maybe this will all change now they’re running their own network!

About Google Affiliate Network

Performics was founded as the first full-service affiliate network in 1998 and was acquired by DoubleClick in 2004. Today Performics Affiliate operates as Google Affiliate Network and remains committed to delivering affiliate channel growth for advertisers and publishers.

So, I’ve signed up to see what they offer – maybe it will all be American merchants for now, but it will be interesting to see how it develops!

It appears that Yahoo! has given up in their efforts to compete for advertisers PPC dollars, with the signing of an agreement to allow them to syndicate Google ads within their search results. This Yahoo!/Google agreement means that Google’s dominant position in the Pay Per Click market, is now set in concrete.

The share price for Yahoo has been falling after rejecting Microsoft’s takeover bid & shareholders have been very angry at what they feel was a bad management decision. Yahoo has been under pressure from shareholders, for major management changes, while others have even filed lawsuits. This deal with Google is meant to assist Yahoo!’s under performing revenues & appease the shareholders.

With Yahoo! now only achieving 19% search market share, it appears that they have now abandoned the PPC market, its users and advertisers. Google have now increased their already dominant position and bought even more market share, which can only reduce competition & increase costs!

Competition also breeds innovation – for both search consumers and the advertiser & without it, will Google now rest on its laurels & just rake in the money? The paid search market is still relatively young and has been going through rapid changes and growth. But with the battle already won, the need for product innovation is gone. Microsoft may very well have deep pockets and control of the desktop, but Live Search lacks the traffic to be a true competitor – and they also seem to have diverted their attention elsewhere – at least in the short to medium term.

A lack of competition also means that advertisers are likely to pay more for each click. Advertisers will be forced to pay for Google, rather than the cheaper Yahoo! rate & without an alternative, the Google monopoly will mean that they can increase their charges as and when they like! Whilst this is great for Google & the Yahoo! shareholders, it is not great for anyone who is already struggling to make a return from PPC marketing.

Whilst a combined Yahoo!/Microsoft might not have been perfect, it at least would’ve provided competition for Google, benefiting advertisers and searchers alike.

With the small advertiser being frozen out of PPC markting by the big players with big budgets, it looks like search engine optimisation & high natural search engine listings will be even more important for affiliate marketeers!!!