To visitors to this blog, Andy Silak’s Marketing Acts:
Please note that I have started a new blog on my own domain, which is more updated and comprehensive than this one.
I would be honored if you could visit my new blog with fresher and more variety at http://CanEarnOnline.com
Hope to see ya there!
My First “Google Slaps”
The first time I read about the so-called “Google slap” was after I had been slapped twice.
When I got slapped the second time (without really understanding what was happening), I paused my campaign and walked away. That was several months ago and I am only now ready to log into my Google Adwords account again.
It was a rebellious reaction. Me saying to Google: “If you don’t want to display my ads and I don’t get clicks, then stuff you and keep your stupid Adwords”. (A typical cut-your-nose-to-spite-your-face reaction. Unwise, but human).
Since that time I have learned a little more about Google Adwords. I am now also less emotional about it, more rational and more understanding of the somewhat tricky affair of formulating the right keywords and how to bid on those keywords.
I’ll get back to keywords later. What is important now is that I am feeling less hate for Google. Perhaps it might just be possible for the two of us to get back into bed together again.
So, what exactly is the “Google Slap”?
My understanding, based purely on personal experience:
The Google slap is when on the one day you sit grinning in front of your computer, staring gloatingly at how your ads received an average display rank of between one and six (never lower than six!) and you have received the maximum number of clicks allowed by your daily budget; only to return the next day to find your campaign in a complete sate of paralysis! Your ads are hardly displayed, let alone first page rankings! Clicks, what clicks? Your daily budget has hardly been touched and the day’s end is nigh! In a panic-stricken state you rush to your keyword settings to come face-to-face with a cold, mercenary Mr. Google Adwords bluntly informing you that your keyword bids are pathetic, so pathetic that your ads deserve no right of display whatsoever!
That is the Google Slap!
On Discovering Tools and Resources to Master Google Adwords
I tried to forget about Google Adwords and carried on with my other marketing strategies like working on good quality contents to publish, traffic exchanges, email campaigns, networking sites and last but not least, building my own list of prospects. (Watch out for my next post on list building).
However, through all of this, Google Adwords kept nagging me at the back of my mind. I couldn’t shake it off, realizing all too well that maximizing results without Google Adwords is very difficult if not impossible. But I needed something more than the Adwords tutorials I had been studying and got me going, relatively successfully, with my Adwords campaigns. I needed a tool or a blueprint to identify the right keywords to attract the most targeted visitors for the specific sites and products I am promoting. Moreover, I needed cost-efficient bidding strategy and at the same time minimizing the risk of getting Google slapped.
Great was my delight when I discovered not one, but two brilliant software packages offering exactly what I had been missing to “outsmart” Google Adwords and push my Adwords campaigns right up into the company of the top performing Google Adwords advertisers. So, now not only can I get into bed with Google Adwords again, I will be sleeping with the big dogs!
Here they are, yours for the taking to join me at the top Google rankings and in sleeping with the big dogs:
Affiliate Elite (2007), created by Brad Callen (He’s a genius. I’m convinced of that)
And
PPC Web Spy (2009!), another ingenious Brad Callen creation.
By the way, PPC Web Spy is still on promotion and 100% without any expense to you.
You can get hold of the full Affiliate Elite Software package for something like $5 and test-drive it for a month with a full $5 back guarantee. (You will never let it go, though)
I’m closing with quote reflecting my feelings on the above:
Any form of advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
(I don’t remember who said this, but I think he is still alive)
Social And Business Networking: A Fundamental Requirement For Internet Marketing Success
November 20, 2008
Internet Marketing Success Takes Time and Determination
Regardless of thousands of instant money making proposals and offers you may receive on the internet, I am prepared to put my head on a block that it is not possible. Internet marketing success comes with time, research, acquiring skills and knowledge, perseverance and determination.
For people like me who want to embark on a road of affiliate marketing, the confusion with all the junk and rip-offs thrown at you, and with all the processes and techniques to implement can be so overwhelming that you take on the hit-and-run approach or simply throw in the towel.
It took me several months to sort the wheat from the chaff and to get process and structure into my activities. Focus, structure and process are vitally important or you will get swept away by a tide of confusing and haphazard affiliations and activities.
For anyone serious about earning online: It is all about Internet Marketing and Internet marketing requires knowledge, skills and tools. Get training first! There are some excellent online courses and learning sites available requiring a nominal expense, which must be regarded as an investment rather than an expense. I owe the jump-start to my success, as far as fundaments knowledge and skills go, to the Profit Lance Course. It is excellent with a treasure trove of online resources, tools and training modules. Ideal for beginners.
Once you have mastered the initial and fundamental essentials, subscribing to membership sites offering more advanced training and resources, with tools to tap into as they are required, is as important. Learning to earn online is a progressive and never-ending process. Membership sites can provide peer support, guidance and a wealth of resources, as well as opportunities to enter into joint ventures with other Internet marketers.
The training resources I referred to above will also teach you about the importance of NETWORKING , or interacting with people to be successful. Networking online with other people so that you can become known and trusted.
Regardless of your knowledge and skills, get people to know about you!
You might have heard this before: The Money Is In The List. That’s true, but not any list! It must be a list of people YOU have established a rapport with, people who know about your online identity, people who trust you sufficiently to receive information from you about whatever you want to inform them about. So, fundamental to your success, even if you have the greatest products/services to sell, is networking with people, getting them to know about you.
The Money is In The List You Have Built!
So, unless you want to bankrupt yourself with pay-per-click advertising with the hope that one in a hundred visitors to your site will buy from you, start networking. (That’s correct, you cannot expect to get a conversion at a rate of more that 1:100 and unless you are a Google PPC expert you will can pay between 50c and $2 per click.
You can network with people for free and get them to know you and build up a list of top quality leads. People who know about you, people who are keen to listen to you and who have an interest in what you are promoting. Then you can email them with peace of mind and without having to worry about spamming people.
Network and List Building Sites
The largest and oldest business and social networking site in the world is available to you with free membership. Direct Matches has hundreds of thousands of members where you can be matched with people who are interested in YOU and what you have to offer. Direct Matches is huge and reputable and established in 1994. If you click on the link above, you will see my picture welcoming you to the site!
I am also mesmerized by a new and very FRESH site allowing you free advertising on the site and generating free business leads opportunities. I’s called Orange Leads and they have alive chat room where you can get known AND publish your website with a “shameless” add while you are in live chat with others looking for business opportunities. This is an awesome site and you will know what I’m talking about just by visiting the site.
That’s it for today!
To your networking success!
Orange Leads. Unlimited Free Business Opportunity Leads and Advertisements.
Free Website Builder. Yes, Really It’s For Free
October 11, 2008
MyFreeWebsiteBuilder: It’s For Free!
The reason why I’m offering this software is simple.
One of the biggest hurdles for any beginner to
the internet business is the website…
And with MyFreeWebsiteBuilder, it makes it easy
for you to create your own website in minutes.
It even comes with a complete user guide AND
step-by-step video tutorials to help you out.
Set aside a few hours to learn how to build your
own website…because this is a SKILL you will
monetize from forever once you learn it one time.
My own income didn’t skyrocket until I learned
this basic skill.
With MyFreeWebsiteBuilder, and the complete guide
and video instructions – there should be NO excuse
for you not to acquire this important skill…
It’s really up to you.
And remember, you can also make free cash by
giving away this top-notch software too.
Help your friends learn this skill and profit from
doing so…it’s the simplest thing in the world.
Get the full details here and start recommending
MyFreeWebsiteBuilder now…
Bookmark this CiteUlike del.icio.us Furl Google ma.gnolia Netscape Netvouz reddit Shadows Simpy Sphinn Squidoo StumbleUpon Yahoo MyWeb
Choosing An Affiliate Network: Essential Selection Criteria
October 10, 2008
The Profusion (and Confusion) of Affiliate Marketing Opportunities on the Internet
About three months ago, as I started exploring Internet marketing opportunities, my first experiences can be best described as total confusion and getting completely lost in a very murky labyrinth of hundreds of big-money-from-home opportunities flaunted on the Internet. 
Along with the confusion and exacerbating my disillusionment, came the shocking realisation that many of these “quick-rich” affiliate marketing opportunities were scams and rip-offs
In my quest to find Internet related opportunities to earn a living, I have been conned more than once and have also lost money in the process of buying in on some of these “opportunities” in the belief that that the sweet sales talk in which these “products” are wrapped, couldn’t possibly all be lies! It must be due to my nature, which perhaps is somewhat gullible, but more trusting the innate goodness (also implying honesty) of humankind.
After my three months sojourn of exploring Internet marketing opportunities I am a wiser, less gullible person. Still believing in the goodness of my fellow human beings, I am now more wary of the vulnerability of human nature, particularly when it comes to the temptation of greed.
To cut my somewhat lengthy introduction short, I have extensively read and studied and researched Internet marketing opportunities, strategies and techniques to the present point where I can say I am marketing and succeeding in Internet marketing. My home business is working and it is growing. I am no guru, not by a long shot, but I know the essential basics about Internet marketing, affiliate marketing and, alas, network or multi-level marketing.
Network Marketing: The Internet’s Cinderella
Network marketing is frowned upon by many and spit on by some Internet marketers and even avoided by some Internet directories and because of this, I initially shied away from network marketing opportunities. “They are pyramid schemes”, I thought. I thought multi-level or network marketing was a typical example of a scam scheme, an Internet rip-off. I avoided familiarizing myself with some affiliate network marketing opportunities because I was under the impression it is about enrolling people into the scheme without a product/service or a dubious product or service and that it was all about building layers of people joining and earning commissions from their enrolments rather than from earning revenue from the sales of the company’s product and/or service. To me this was like contributing towards blowing up a bubble and because the network had nothing to sustain it, the bubble was bound to burst or, at least, deflate, sooner or later.
These would indeed be pyramid schemes and it is because of illegal pyramid schemes and dodgy network marketing companies with dodgy products or services that network marketing got its bad name.
Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bath Water!
It was only later that I discovered (out of curiosity about people’s testimonies about the leveraged income possibilities with network marketing) that network marketing opportunities offered by reputable companies with real, substantive and marketable products and services offer the enhanced income generating opportunities for an affiliate Internet marketer.
The reason network marketing offers increased income earning potential over regular affiliate marketing opportunities is because of the network or down-line of people enrolling under you through whose sales you will also earn commission.
The implication of this multi-level income generating model is that once your down-line is firmly established and successful, your business goes onto auto-pilot and your income becomes passive income, like the passive income from an investment. Hence, a carefully selected network marketing enrolment offers an income opportunity into retirement.
Essential Selection Criteria for Choosing an Affiliate Network
- The company whose affiliate network you consider to join must have credibility and reputability. Don’t rely solely on their sales pitches and other promotional material, Google the company and search for them in forums and blogs on network marketing.
- Don’t join before you have established exactly what the products and/or services are. If there is vagueness about what they expect you to market, be skeptical. To me total openness and transparency about the products and services is an essential prerequisite for affiliating myself. If you cannot establish this beforehand, chances are good the network marketing is more about building the network than centring on the marketing of the product. When the incentives for recruitment are greater than for product sales, again, be very skeptical.
- Establish the appetite in the market for the products and services offered. How has the product been selling? Are their clear signs of growth? Is there a demand, preferably internationally, for what they are offering?
- Can you identify with the products/services for sale? If not, how would you succeed in marketing these offerings enthusiastically and honestly?
- Determine the level of support, the availability of promotional tools and process guidance you could expect from the company and your up-line.
- Transparency about your marketing efforts. For example, would you be able to track visits and conversions to your unique affiliate website/s?
A Last Word: Assessing Affiliate Networks Calls for Greater Scrutiny than would be in the case of linear affiliate marketing products due to the potential pit-falls of multi-level marketing as I have alluded to earlier on in this article. The negativity with which network marketing is viewed by some in the Internet marketing community and broader society are compelling enough reasons not to compromise any of the criteria I have listed and to go for only the top-notch companies, like a Top 50 Inc500 Listed Company
If you make the right choice, to combine Internet marketing with network marketing presents you with a very powerful affiliate marketing opportunity!
If You’re An Internet Marketer You Can Even Sell Lingerie Online
September 16, 2008
An Internet Marketer Selling Lingerie…
I have been out of circulation for a while and have not posted a single blog or an article for about a month. The reason: I had to attend to lingerie matters. Yes, lingerie matters and now I am also revealing my interest and investment in something of a much more traditional and conventional nature; being an importer, wholesaler and retailer of…women’s underwear, or lingerie rather. My perception of the term lingerie as opposed to “women’s underwear” is that it denotes chic, class, sophistication, style, fashion, designer, etc., while underwear is just, you know – bras and panties…Some people are in the women’s underwear business, others in the lingerie business. My business falls into the latter category. You get the idea?
How come lingerie?
So yes, I am an internet affiliate marketer and a marketer of my own imported and exclusive lingerie. And I am a man, with the rationale for my involvement and interest in the lingerie business being firstly my admiration of feminine beauty and my appreciation of the importance of lingerie in enhancing femininity, feminine beauty and sensuality and, secondly, my identification of a market for broader and more exciting and exclusive lingerie ranges in my country, South Africa.
As you become knowledgeable about internet marketing, you realize the internet has no limit to where you can market
In exploring affiliate internet marketing opportunities and learning about the incalculable possibilities and techniques that can be applied with relative ease to bring in substantial income, it struck me how I could utilize and exploit the internet as a marketing platform and tool for my lingerie business and create an audience, a public visibility infinitely larger than my little boutique in Cape Town, South Africa could ever achieve. Hence, the re-focussing and re-alignment of my business from an importer/small-shop-retailer to an importer/large-scale-wholesaler with the world as my oyster…
Online auctioning and wholesale selling of lingerie
I have just started advertising and selling lingerie on the internet and it produced great results within one week. Not by selling individual items, but by selling in bulk at wholesale prices on a South African e-commerce and online auction site called Bid or Buy. And, hey, my profit margin is bigger than my expensive little boutique in a shopping mall, because it’s costing me almost nothing to sell over the internet and I turn over large quantities at a time. Compare this scenario with the overheads of the lingerie boutique with its staff salaries, rental, maintenance etc. with only the local community and seasonal tourists as my potential market. My lingerie business: Linda Mujer Lingerie (this site was designed to focus on the shop only and will soon change dramatically) is now being fully integrated into my internet marketing web-activities. You know what, I think I must shut the little shop…This is really how I feel now and only after my successes with one online site. I haven’t even touched eBay!
Internet Marketing Opportunities in Developing Countries
August 1, 2008
Before we Start, Chuck the Term: “Third World”
An African Market
At the outset, and without wanting to offend, please allow me to caution about the use of the term “third world”. “Third world” and “third world countries” are dated and politically insensitive terms, having the connotation of inferiority, backwardness, sub-standard, low etc., and also denotes inferiority of the people of those countries. Something like: “Third grade people live in third world countries”. It is terminology associated with and rooted in imperialism, colonialism and the oppressive regimes of the “superior conquerors”
Perceptions of and Approaches to Developing Countries are Crucial for Marketing Success in those Countries
Notwithstanding the above and without venturing into the very role of imperialism and colonization in the creation of these discrepancies, the reality of wealthier and poorer nations cannot be negated. Hence, the more acceptable and less patronizing terms for “third world” would be “developing countries”, or better still, “emerging market economies”. I think a shift in how people in emerging market countries are referred to and perceived would probably be a prerequisite for successful business and marketing ventures in such countries. It is inevitable that the perceptions and attitudes about the people targeted for marketing purposes will infiltrate the marketing approach and strategies.
Developing countries: Fertile Ground for Home Business Opportunities
Human beings have vastly more in common than the differentials of income, status and standard of living. As much as poorer people may not have the material means to be perceived as potential customers or clients, as much should their aspirations, their drive and hence their potential to achieve and succeed never be underestimated. With this in mind I have no doubt that the market for products with skills development and income generating components integral to them, is absolutely massive and gravely neglected in developing countries! Just consider this against the background of the sky high levels of unemployment in developing countries. In the vast majority of cases unemployment = poverty. However, unemployment does not equal a lack of ability. More often than not is it merely about the absence of opportunity which is sadly overwhelmingly more prevalent in emerging market economies. Furthermore, there are a disproportionately higher number of well-qualified and computer literate unemployed people in developing countries compared to the number in developed countries. Hence, developing countries offer very fertile ground and untapped opportunities for quality home based work and business opportunities.
Internet Affiliate Marketing is Ideal for Developing Countries
This is especially true for internet marketing type positions that require a nominal financial investment to get started, and more so for affiliate marketing positions where the products have been tested and tried and where comprehensive guidelines for an effective internet marketing campaign are provided together with the tools, including product websites, to greatly enhance the chances of marketing success.
In considering the developing world for marketing purposes it must also be borne in mind that all developing countries have a strong developed component. In fact, there is a middle-class boom taking place in most of the developing world with the economic growth rate of many developing countries by far surpassing that of developed countries. This is the reason why these developing countries are also referred to as emerging market economies. It tells us a tremendous lot about the potential of these countries for new business opportunities.
As a person from a developing country, my primary focus as an internet marketer is without doubt on developing countries and my successes, within two weeks of starting off with internet marketing, with the promotion of the Top 10 rated home business opportunities, can bear testimony to that.
An African Market
