Wiredniko's Journal - Adventures of the Newbie

wiredniko

wiredniko

Jedi in training
Jul 20, 2010
712
26
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New York
I am just going to use this post as a way to write down my adventures when it comes to launching my first PPC campaign ever.

Just to catch up everyone with my current state of affairs. I got accepted as an affiliate in A4D, my AM is Mike. He is a cool guy, talked to him a couple of times to get to know him a little bit. He gave me the top performing niches and top performing offers in the network.

Took a look at all the offers and decided to go with acai. Then I got cold feet and started thinking "am I going to get owned by the avg CPC?" So I made a post here: http://www.wickedfire.com/newbie-questions/97063-chicken-egg-frustrations-newbie.html about it. Basically most people said

a) Just do it
b) Yes go with something that makes profit instead of something that might not

Sounds right and if I do not make money I will know its because of my inexperience, not because what I am promoting sucks. So in Mike and WF I trust.

Got a cool domain name with acai berry in the title, I am not going to heavily concentrate on SEO but I figure it does not hurt. Even though I am not going to advertise with Google just yet I will have to work on my Quality Score, so I am planning on maybe starting out with 8 articles and then adding an article a week. Get some passive traffic and a better QS is not a bad deal.

I got hostgator as my provider, "business" account. Once my traffic / profit gets there I will move up to VPS and hopefully dedicated after that....but that's the future. For now I am keeping my costs down.

I installed wordpress and added all the plugins I wanted. Nothing too crazy:
- AddThis Social Bookmarking Widget (web 2.0 stuff)
- All in One SEO Pack (passive SEO)
- Exclude Pages from Navigation (figured it would make life easy)
- Google XML Sitemaps (more passive SEO)
- Redirection (for my LPs..even though I have a PHP script I wrote that can do the same)
- Shockingly Simple Favicon (cause its easy)
- Ultimate Google Analytics (keep track of hits)
- Wordpress Automatic Upgrade (upgrade easy)
- WP Super Cache (speed things up)

I then created a Favicon pretty quick. Found a bowl full of acai berries, made it 16x16 keeping the aspect ratio and presto, 5 mins later I have a pretty neat looking favicon.

By this time the DNS had updated so my domain was official.

I made a rudimentary design of my landing page on a piece of paper. I wonder what the hell people do to get images on their LPs. I figured its ok to use images from the offer page. I will just use the ones below the fold. I am also planning on using the same color scheme by modifying my Wordpress CSS files.

And now you are all caught up with what I have done up until now. More to come...

ToDo:
- Decide about my 2 LPs, are they pages that also link to my blog...or are they a blog entry...pros vs cons?
- Install prosper
- Wordpress theme? I almost like the default one
- Look at competition see what they are doing right
- Keyword research
- Create 2 LPs
 


glad to see you are getting going!

looking forward to see the results from jumping to acai, I always figured it was crowded but I'm really interested to see your results and hope you sell those berries.
 
Went to Google Insights for Search and did a keyword search. The search trend volume has been going down for sure, but for the last couple of months it appears steady and it even has a slight curve up.

I guess at this point if I was more experienced I might be able to make a judgement call. But for now I think I am ok. This search also gave me more keyword ideas. Most of the traffic is also US traffic, I guess that's good since I am about to promote a US only offer.

Went to Shopping.com - Find, Compare, and Buy Anything in Seconds. I had made a note that I should check things out here as well for my research, but it seems useless. Fitness is a top 100 search...no shit. Maybe this is useful for small niches that you do not want to be too small.

Went to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. Definitely high search, high competition. Took a note of all the searches that are actually going up in volume. Added them to my keyword list, also added keywords that dealt with buying type of thinking.

Made an Adwords account for research purposes. I read their keywords section along with their tips. Knowledge can't hurt...(as long as it does not lead to inaction). This is an pretty good video for keyword basics: Optimization Tips - AdWords Help
Better than anything Shoemoney has put out :music07:

Went to Free Search Term Suggestion Tool by KeywordDiscovery.com grabbed all the keywords that had 19 or more searches a month. I now have 122 keywords.

Went to KeywordSpy had to register for their free trial offer. This site is sick...almost scary how in depth it is. You can see top ad copies, keywords being used, PPC vs organic competitors....brain melt. If I start making money I think I am buying a subscription to this....damn. $89/mo though, that's the highest subscription amount I have ever seen.

I can see the CPC is high...you know this market has a lot of shit going on when the misspelled word is $1.75. Damn I came across a site that their budget is $7k/day on ads. Sick.

Checking out competitors I can tell why a lot of people fuck affiliate marketing up. No calls to action. Confusing web design where you actually have to search where to click. Too much info...too little info. There is even a site with black background and red letters...so geocities 1997. I was waiting for a spinning pentagram logo.

Wrote down 5 ad copies that I liked from competitors for future inspiration. 178 keywords. I am rapidly realizing that the way I am writing my keywords down is not effective. If you get a new word, you can combine it 5 different way, before, after, plural before, plural after and misspelled. Hmm, there has to be a tool for this.

Heh found it. Free Keyword Phrase List Generator Thank me later! Here is a video explaining it PPC201: Adwords Basics - Module 3C - Keyword List Permutations

I am not sure if I went trigger happy or not. I have a 4617 keyword list....That's what happens when you create a list with possible spelling errors. Removing spelling errors I get a 243 keyword list.

After thinking about this 4617 keywords is silly. I am going to refine it. At the same time 243 seems low. Reading around the web, 700-1000 is about right. Then again some people say focus on specific words....maybe no one knows.

Anyway, added some more keyword ideas reading http://www.wickedfire.com/affiliate...eted-ads-get-highly-converting-campaigns.html

Ended up with 870 keywords from two to six words long. I am pretty happy with what I ended up with.

While looking at keywords I read over some notes I have taken while reading blogs. My LPs should be separate than my blog but they should link to each other. That takes care of another ToDo item.

Check Google Analytics, I am now indexed. Sweet.

Installing prosper202. Of course, hostgator and prosper202 do not want to play well together. :angryfire: Well what now? Looking around I found blue layer media offers a fix for $5. Cheap, but kind of annoying. The older version of prosper202 had a free hostgator fix, but I guess they have not worked to fix the new version.

Went to the prosper202 site, Wes suggested to upgrade PHP. Upgraded my PHP to 5.x. Hopefully that will fix the error. FAIL...and I cannot even buy the bluemedia solution because I do not have a paypal account. Double owned :action-smiley-052:

I will not be defeated fucker. Comparing 1.3.2 hostgator fix to 1.5.1 prosper functions-install.php (notepadd++ is pimp like that) I fixed it. Take that bluemedia...your $5 is denied. Emailing both hostgator and prosper202 with the file I made.

Added quick fix on hostgator page and prosper202 page. Hopefully Wes contacts me so I can give him the file. In the meantime I contacted Hostgator support and emailed them the file I made. That's my good deed of the day...

I have worked for about 10 hours right now. Calling it a day. More to come tomorrow.


ToDo:
DONE - Decide about my 2 LPs, are they pages that also link to my blog...or are they a blog entry...pros vs cons?
DONE - Install prosper
DONE - Look at competition see what they are doing right
DONE - Keyword research
- Create 2 LPs
- Wordpress theme? I almost like the default one
- Create 2 ad copies
- setup prosper202 with my campaigns
- create MSN account
- create Home, About Us, Contact Us, Privacy Policy, Disclaimer, Terms and Conditions
- 8 SEO articles
 
Today I took it easy, its hard working full time and working at affiliate marketing stuff, but I shall keep going.

Finalized my LP design. Brainstormed on the general emotions I want to create. I know I will be targeting chicks so I am going for a Emotions > Visual > Logic approach. Its like I have to read my customer's mind, kind of like the thought process involved with that.

Did some LP design research. I wondered if most people create a giant image LP or actually used HTML for it. Seems HTML....but man I see so many bad LPs. Am I being simple minded or is it that a lot of people suck at Affiliate Marketing. Not really sure, I guess we will see how my campaign fairs. :2gunsfiring_v1:

Tried to create an MSN account but it looks like it requires me to add my ads on the spot, so I guess this just became my last step in the process. Oh well, updated my roadmap for future reference.

Working on my wordpress pages...but I am confused about legalities. I wonder if I can use the company's I am advertising for privacy policy and call it good...or if that's highly illegal. Read around seems like there is nothing like that around. Then again maybe I am searching using the wrong terms. Made a WF post: http://www.wickedfire.com/newbie-qu...tions-images-privacy-policies.html#post931927 We will see what I get there.

On an unrelated note I ordered "Getting Things Done" based on emp's thoughts. I hope it helps me get more organized.

Well crap, now I am stuck on legal matters for both my LP and my Privacy Policy etc...Writing a SEO keyword building article for QS. The article came out pretty good, it even gave me some ideas for my LPs. It also clarified some product questions I had. I need to write 7 more...

ToDo:
- Create 2 LPs
- Wordpress theme? I almost like the default one
- Create 2 ad copies
- setup prosper202 with my campaigns
- create MSN account
- create Home, About Us, Contact Us, Privacy Policy, Disclaimer, Terms and Conditions
- 8 SEO articles
 
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Reactions: darbsllim
You'd be surprised at what works for landing pages. Sometimes simple ugly landing pages out-perform well design beautiful landing pages. Take your best educated guess at what you think will work and optimize from there by split-testing.

As for Privacy policy, I'd just Google "boilerplate website privacy policy" and throw it up. Don't sweat the small stuff at this point. Most likely, this campaign is going to shit the bed, so it's best to get moving and get things out until you hit gold.
 
Ended up asking my AM about the legal questions I had, got a reply in less than 10 minutes. Mike from A4D rocks. Smax0r if you read this, give Mike a raise! :D

Apparently its alright. I even have a lead now for buying photos in case I need some.
 
First day at the gym for a long time. Registering and all that jazz slowed me down.

Nevertheless now I know I can use the legal documents from the product I am promoting and their images. That's convenient.

Added another SEO article.
 
Its been a month since my last update :uhoh2:

I did go with acai and I crashed spectacularly. I did conversions but with the price of certain keywords my conversions where way too low. If I had a huge money base I could probably make it work, but I do not want to spend the next 6 months throwing $500 to it until it works out.

I also got to read Getting Things Done.....that book is amazing. I started applying it to my work and things immediately improved. With this new project I will start applying the GTD principles as well.

Anyway, I am going to go with BizOp offers. Here we go again...
 
Crazy Content said:
Good luck with this. The fact that you are coming back and doing it again makes you better than 95% of the people out there...
Click to expand...

Thanks...I am just trying to avoid going for an MBA at college...if I do not make it by next year I will go for the safer...working option :action-smiley-052:
 
I am planning on actually creating a big BizOp page. Actually create a following for people trying to make money. I am already interested in the subject and I actually think its going to help some people. Maybe one day I will even promote my own products for now I will just push Ads 4 Dough BizOps.

I read http://www.wickedfire.com/affiliate-marketing/81107-ca-hvertising-book-summary.html and it made me think about how I need to become a slightly better promoter.

Went to namecheap.com and registered a website name. I think I came up with something pretty good, satisfies both SEO and gives a good emotional response. I think to date its the best website name I have come up with. Used "HARVEST" for a discount. Apparently namecheap now has a coupon website, namecheapcoupons.com

Installed wordpress and copied the same addons I had for my acai website :p

...my internet is crawling today

Configured all my wordpress addons. Time to find a theme....which always takes too long.

My internet is still crawling...its midnight I am calling it a day.
 
You had conversions on acai? Was it from a handful of keywords? Why not try getting it profitable on those few before moving on. Most people don't profit right out the gate, but after optimizing end up making killer dough.
 
Picking up where I left of. Theme. Since I want to also SEO this idea and hopefully build a following I am going with a magazine style theme. About 300 themes viewed later I found something I really like...resisting the urge to keep looking....

Created a quick favico with a dollar sign, nice, simple to the point. Alright done with look and feel, time to actual start working on PPC stuff.

Did a google insight search Google Insights for Search damn, huge rise for BizOp related keywords, makes sense with the economy decline etc....as a side note much different than the acai graphs that showed a decline.

Keyword searching: https://adwords.google.com ...got 100 combinations.
Note to self, using Open Office for keyword generation makes thing easy since
typing keywords lets me know if they exist already or not..since OF tries to guess it.

More stuff to come.
 
I have 100 keywords. Need some more...

Went to KeywordSpy for more keywords. Hmm, my google research was good enough that I got nothing from keywordspy, not sure if that should worry me or not.

Still at 100, but I have not even used any tools to diversify my words.

I wanted to check out Keywordrockstar....how can someone sell something for $999 and charge per month...that's just er crazy expensive.

Wow Demographics Prediction: Audience Intelligence: adCenter Labs kind of interesting to know. As expected some of my keywords where more male oriented, others where more female oriented. Bookmarked for later reference.

Hmm, to include exact phrases or not...I guess it does not hurt. Sure its more keywords but if no one clicks them its not like I get charged for keywords....right?

Spent about an hour working with Free Keyword Phrase List Generator I now have 396 words. Still seems kind of low.

Checked google analytics it still has not activated. Checked my GA plugin the number is right. Maybe it needs a couple more days. Its not that I have on any SEO anyway.

Prosper is setup already, I will use the install I had with my previous endeavor.
 
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