The Click Depot Blog

The Google Content Network: Know It Inside Out

As the #1 ad network, Google content network commands approximately 80 percent of the global network user. Thousands or even millions of advertisers use Google to reach out to their target audience and consumer base. Virtually all websites, big or small, take advantage of Google’s wide audience share and content niche to set their message across the World Wide Web. Although Google have already introduced Google Publication, website owners are still drawn to Google Content Network to effectively establish high traffic.

The network seems to mainly work for advertisers as it aids the delivery of measured ROI, making everyone accustomed to its convenient and easy search campaigns. Although the network presents a number of challenges to demonstrate the same ROI from the ad content, more and more online retailers are continuously impress by how well Google Content Network can influence their target market share. To better understand how the network works, let us explore this practical segment of Google applications.

Google Network is actually composed of a large group of websites and other products, emails and blogs that partnered with Google for their page rank and increase traffic campaign. One thing that makes the network appealing to advertisers is that they run on all Google Network with no extra cost. Taking advantage of such opportunity to reach out to millions of web surfers all over the world is something that a smart advertiser will never miss.

Google Network has two basic components; the search network and the content network. To cater to the ever expanding and increasing number of websites and products that needed to be advertised, Google concentrated postings of AdWords in its content network. That way, all websites and products will be reviewed and monitored to make sure that they comply with Google’s rigorous standards. As the content network grows, the stricter the standards and rules on advertising become.

The effectiveness and popularity drawn by a particular ad will greatly depend on the content theme of the website. Its popularity may be triggered or influenced by its keyword use of keyword placement. Through contextual targeting, a website that contains high-quality content will surely become relevant especially when it comes to the rankings of Google search results. With the right approach to keyword-targeted campaign, Google Content Network may improve the Google page rank or increase the relevance of a particular product or online retailer site.

Aside from keyword use, there are other factors that affect how ad campaigns operate in Google Content Network. Since Google has already partnered with a variety of websites, it supports virtually all categories of online networks. For instance, it works with Reuters and CNN to bring out relevant news by the hour. It also works social networks as well as small niche sites, which practically make Google ad pages accessible to all. Also, ad formats plays a vital role to increasing a website’s relevance in all Google Network. By making the ad page brief, straightforward and engaging ensures the delivery of the message to the right user.

Altogether, the practical applications of Google Content Network help online retailers to bring out the right ad to the right people. It gives full control over some parts of the network so their advertising pages can reach the right audience. As a result, websites can better establish their relevance to the business, product or service they represent in the highly competitive world of World Wide Web.

Image Courtesy : http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=4184E54D3B439FB9

Optimizing For Yahoo, Its Easier Than You Think

Yahoo may only be second rank to Google but it holds a significant volume of web surfers. It is considered one of the major players when it comes to search engine and web crawling applications. For someone who is in quest of keeping his website on its top search engine ranks, working out his Yahoo rankings is not as difficult as it seems. To the eye of an SEO specialist, maintaining the top ranks in Google page ranks is never enough. No website can ever dominate the popularity race without working doing something to optimize his popularity in Yahoo.

For people who have worked on their Google ranks, dealing with Yahoo page optimization should be a breeze. Not because Google and Yahoo are tight rivals, they deliberately work the opposite of ways. Contrary to the common belief, Yahoo and Google work with similar algorithms. However, it does not necessarily mean that a top ranking Google page will get the same marks with Yahoo. Here’s where their differences start.

Similar to other search engines, Yahoo also works with web spiders. It is called, the Yahoo! Slurp or the Yahoo spiderbot. This spider helps the search engine do indexing and database management by performing a specified mathematical operation to produce the pages that appropriately goes in every search result. Actually, Yahoo spiderbot is one of the most active spider crawler in the web. It works with just the same elements that Google web crawlers do. If it happens that your page misses an important SEO element, then it will be rendered not spiderable. This means that your page will never get top position, not yet. Compared to Googlebot, Yahoo spiderbot handles more pages and does more indexing. For someone who wanted to optimize his page, it takes a month or two to make all your SEO efforts to take effect in Google search results, but shorter with Yahoo.

The keywords in the title and in the URL also affect Yahoo search ranks. Similar to Google, keyword placement is also crucial to your SEO efforts with Yahoo. Having the most popular keyword on both places might earn some improvement to your Yahoo search ranks. However, you must remember that you can only place no more than 3 or 4 keywords on both URL and title. Putting your keywords everywhere might turn your webpage into a search derivative. Basically, that means not good. Since Yahoo is first and foremost a directory for submissions before a search engine, a website that carries the listed keyword in the search box stands a better chance of securing first page placements on the search results. In addition, keywords in filenames also work with Yahoo.

Another thing with keyword is keyword density. Keyword density sure makes a big difference. The higher the keyword density, the greater your chances of making it to the top ranks. However, you must not overdo and overuse keywords. Reaching above 7 to 8 percent keyword density, your web page may be classified into the keyword-stuffed category or be banned from the search results.

With Yahoo, it’s relatively young algorithm were found to favor some elements such as title tags, meta description tags, keywords in URLs, headings, Alt text images, inline links and site structure. Making slight changes on these aspects of your website can gain mixed results. You only need to have enough to find out which move works and which changes do not.

Image Courtesy : http://www.nddw.com/yahoo-optimization.htm

7 Essentials to Drive Continuous Traffic to Your Website

If you have a website, then you know that it cannot possibly survive without the right amount of traffic. What’s the use in having a killer page that no one visits? It’s literally like you have went through the trouble for nothing. If you have found yourself in this situation, then you might need a couple of pointers to help guide the way to driving more traffic to your website.

Listed below are some proven ways to start getting the traffic that your website needs to thrive:

1.Sign up to free ad forums – Any time that you have a chance, take some time out to sign up to a couple of these very helpful advertising spaces. The more that you sign up to and post, the more traffic you will get in return.

2. Above all, make sure that you have fresh, up to date, and interesting web content – Only write about those things that you know people are going to be fascinated with. A good way to know is to think about what fascinates you. What is something that you really enjoy talking about? You also need to make sure that you can go into a bit of detail about your subject. Content that is vague and fuzzy has no point of existence. Frequently add updates to your site, and you will notice that people keep coming back to find more fresh, true content.

3. Sign up to an affiliate program – Getting others to promote your site or products is a wonderful way to increase traffic to it’s maximum potential. The only downside is that you may have to allow a percentage to go to the one’s who are promoting the website. But hey, at least they are helping to drive traffic, right? And without them, you most likely wouldn’t have as much traffic as you should. Some people use this method by itself and find that it keeps their website booming with traffic.

4. Sign up to a video casting website – This is another great way to get the word out there about your website, and it is also extremely popular right now. People are constantly logging into those types of sites to see what videos are hot and also to see what everyone is talking about. Just make sure that you include a link to your website in the video, and you will see that traffic is headed your way.

5. Gain traffic through link exchange – All you have to do is contact the individuals who own the site, and give them your website address. You’ll be promoting their sites, and they will be promoting yours. A good way to begin is to contact someone that you know gets a good bit of traffic, because that is where the people are.

6. Keyword your website – Do a search on the topic of which you will be talking about, and figure out what keywords are used to search for pages that are similar to yours. You might even find that some of the search phrases are a bit odd, but just try your best to incorporate them into your content.

7. Use online forums to market your website – Find a forum that you are interested in, and visit it frequently. Talk about things that relate to your website because you never know, your page just might be the answer to someone’s question! And furthermore, participating in online forums is a fun way to promote your page.

Follow these 7 essentials, and your page will end up with more traffic than New York Times Square!

Image Courtesy : http://nasirjafri.com/improve-web-site-traffic/

Improve CTR in 5 Easy Steps

Determining a website’s Click Through Rate or CTR is one effective way of measuring how effective an online advertising campaign is. CTR is usually obtained by keeping track of the number of users who actually clicked on a particular ad with respect to the number of times that a particular user has clicked on the ad. There are a number of ways on which you can improve your site’s CTR. Below is an outline of five easy steps to improve CTR without doing anything highly technical or magical.

One

Getting the number of clicks you needed to fully advertise your site would need the use of certain keywords. Yes people, online advertising is all about keywords. The effective use of keywords is one way of inviting people to click on your ad links, which increases your website’s CTR and improve your ad position.

Two

The use of website content keywords is one effective way of drawing more traffic to your website. This is because URL links are embedded through the keywords. Aside from getting high quality and relevant content, your web page needs to use the right color palette for its keyword links or hyperlinks. Blending ad content with bright colors was never effective. People are used to the blue hyperlinks, which consequently is one of the most clicked hyperlink color. Most advertisers use shades of black or grey because very light hyperlink colors make the reader look too long on the URL, which gives readers enough time to realize that it is an advertisement and decide not to click on the link.

Three

Think about putting signup pages to your site’s homepage. Not only will it collect e-mail addresses to accommodate your website’s free downloads, this step will also help you in running a split test, which is helpful in determining which types of freebies your visitors respond well to. This will also help you manipulate your system of delivering marketing copies and messages such as sales letters and email newsletters to your avid visitors, which is also helpful in provoking immediate response and continuous patronage from your target audience.

Four

Putting individual product pages is a great way introducing your visitors to the product or service you are selling. Product pages are essential in motivating your visitors to make the decision to buy. Just make sure that your product pages are attention-grabbing to ensure best results. Not only will this step improve your site’s CTR, it will also help you effectively increase your sales.

Five

Aside from setting up product pages, complementing them with seasonal headlines is one way of getting more people to click on your ads. It does not matter if your product is not seasonal, making use of headlines such as “Easter Sale” or “Christmas Sale” is one effective way of targeting local audience, which in turn serves to your site’s CTR advantage.

Hence, to get quality CTR scores for your website you need to do an effective and dynamic keyword insertion and setup a strategic homepage design and information pages. Not only will these ensure advertising success, it will also help you connect better to your target audience.

Image Courtesy : http://futureperfectpublishing.com/2008/05/

The Rights and Wrongs of 3 Way Link Exchanges

Becoming more popular as a way to get more exposure to your website, 3 way linking originated around 2007. The problem is that 3 Way Link Exchanges can be confusing so it is easiest to think of it as triangular linking.

The way that 3 way linking works is that website A links to website B, website B links to website C, and website C links to website A. The reason for this linking structure is that Google and the other search engines see all of the links as one way links, so it doesn’t appear you are trying to move your website up the search engines with excessive links. This seems to work for a short period of time, at least until the search engines run their algorithms and get suspicious.

The thing that has been emerging lately is a new kind of 3 way link exchange, where you don’t even know you are being involved in a 3 way link exchange. Where it used to be that you might want to link to a relevant subject website, and then they would link to yours, now they make it appear that way, and the next thing you know you are linked to a site that is just a 3 way link site.

The bad thing about this is that the search engine algorithms may pick this up as manipulating and not only move you down the page, but might cite you for bad behavior and you end up with less exposure than you had before.

Many of the webmasters are not that crazy about 3 way linking, primarily for this reason. They believe in good, old-fashioned search engine optimizations, and there is something to be said for that. If you are legitimately coming out with a good website that is search engine optimized, you don’t have to worry about manipulating your positions.

The other thing about 3 way link exchanging is that there is typically a monthly fee that goes on and on. Some think it is worth the $50 or so to participate in the 3 way link exchange, and sometimes it is if it drives that much in business to your site that you would not ordinarily get.

The most dangerous part of 3 way link exchanging is if you don’t want to be affiliated with a 3rd party link that has a bad reputation, that is not relevant to your site, or worse, may be a lewd or questionable site that would actually steer people away from your website by association or calling your trustworthiness into question.

When it comes to 3 way link exchanging, always be sure you know the sites that you will be 3 way linking to, or it could hurt your online business instead of help it. There are rights and wrongs to everything in life and a wrong move in 3 way linking could get your site suspended from the search engines.

Maybe the webmasters are right-build a good website that is search engine optimized and you will work your way up the search engine results without the cost or hassle of 3 way linking.

Toolbar Marketing : Painting a Rosy Picture So Far

When you are ready to make it big in affiliate marketing, you will find that one of the tools that you might want to look at are toolbars. Toolbars are an interesting intersection of function and advertisement, and there is a great deal of good that can come from using them. While some marketers love them, there are definitely affiliate programs that bar them at the gate because they have had bad experiences. It is important to remember that there are many different options open to you when it comes to toolbars; you do not necessarily need to worry about the so-called “theifbars” that so many people are considering. 
 
First, there are more and more toolbar creators that are taking the chance to engage with their users. These programmers want to know what these toolbars can do for you and what you need to do to make sure that you are going to be able to get your needs met. Many of the best toolbar creators have been able to present a link to these questions directly from the toolbar itself. You can express your needs and make sure that your voice is heard when it comes to how this great tool can help you move forward. This is an essential part of getting your work taken care of. 
 
Remember that one of the big reasons why you might want to find a toolbar marketing tool that works for you is that you are going to find yourself part of a community There are many people out there who are looking forward to making the most out of their toolbar and with the right information and the right kind of intuitive use, you can meet people who are interested in what you have to say. Moreover, you can improve your business and really move forward at a pace that you enjoy. 
 
Consider what your needs are. What drives your business and what do you need a good toolbar marketing device to offer? This is something that many people do not think about, and at the end of the day, you are looking at why they have gone wrong. Of course a toolbar that doesn’t meet your needs is going to fail you! What you need to do instead is to take the time to really consider how toolbar marketing can change the way that you feel about getting the attention you need Whether you are looking to use one or market one, this is a field which sorely needs some attention.

Image Courtesy : http://www.conduit.com/Home/Publishers/Toolbar-Marketing/February-2009.aspx 

The Anatomy of an Autoresponder

Sometimes when you try something new, it’s completely overwhelming. Autoresponders are no exception, and because of the various facets involved you can find yourself struggling for the reasons behind it all. However, it doesn’t take much to figure them out. All you have to do is get a better understanding for the anatomy that revolves around it.
 
The objective goal for using an autoresponder is to keep in contact with your subscribers. This can be through customer support, daily or weekly newsletters, mini-courses, and several other reasons. Whatever the case may be, it allows you to get on a more personal level and give your readers a chance to trust the fact that you are helping them as much as possible.
 
Customer Sign Ups
 
In the beginning stages a potential prospect will be drawn to your sign up area. This could be due to a free report, gift, or contest, but anything that can help them for free is always a good start. Once they have signed up, your autoresponder will automatically send them their free gift (outside of a contest). This is your starting point to the anatomy of autoresponders.
 
The Feedback
 
Once your new subscriber sees the material and “thank you page,” you can set up your autoresponder to send out a feedback email. This asks your prospect to give you feedback about the free information they received. Now, you can have them email you or your can set up a poll, but this will depend on the amount of subscribers you gain. If you are emailing hundreds of people throughout the day regarding feedback, you’ll want to use a poll.
 
It’s important to send this out about 3 days after your initial email. In doing so you will allow your readers to actually go over the material and let you know how they feel about it. What you don’t want to do is bombard them with constant contact because most will feel as though they are being spammed and will eventually unsubscribe. Using this approach will get them back to your site more often.
 
The Special Offer
 
Once you let about a week go by, it’s time to use the autoresponder again. This time you are going to associate a special offer with it. It won’t be a complete sales pitch, but links will be provided to whatever is you are trying to sell. Basically it brings them back to the website, which of course is the main goal. This should only be done once, then all you can do is wait.
 
The Upcoming Months
 
After you have given out your special offer, the autoresponder should start to dwindle off the progressive emailing. Once you’ve put the sales email out there, you should wait to weeks before sending out another call of action. Then it will be once a month. Eventually you will stop sending out your series, and begin working on something new.
 
During this time you will be able to keep in touch with your prospects and help them along the way. The anatomy of an autoresponder is important to maintain in order to get the best results. In the end you will find yourself with better conversion rates and more subscribers then you ever dreamed. However, it’s the ability to gain their trust that will be the most important achievement for later down the road.

Image Courtesy: http://www.squidoo.com/ultimateautoresponderpro

First take on Second Life Advertising and Promotion

In Second Life, there is pretty much nothing that you can’t do. Regardless of your interest or passion, there is going to be some medium for it’s expression on Second Life. With the immense popularity of the game, some big companies have taken notice. Wherever there are a bunch of people congregated, you can make sure that some company will find a way to advertise there. This seems to be the case in Second Life as advertisers are flocking there rapidly. What types of advertising is showing up and does it actually work?
 
There are numerous ways to advertise or promote creatively in Second Life. Being that it is a virtual world, the only thing that is limiting advertisers is their imaginations and the ability to program what they want done. For example, if your product was something that can be consumed, they can put some sort of animation that takes place after the product is consumed. After you eat the product, the avatar does a little dance or handshake or something. While it may not seem like much, all the advertisers are after is to separate their brand from the others. Anything that can make you remember them is what they’re after. 
 
You’ll also see different characters in the game wearing gear with the logos of their advertisers. You might see a hat that says Pepsi or something like that on one of the avatars. This is just another means to keep their brand in your mind as often as possible. You’ll see clothing or tattoos, or anything else that can be shown off on the avatars. Some of the avatars will actually distribute coupons or notecards with information about the product. It might be a link to their website with info on it about their product. This is a unique way to distribute information that was only a figment of someone’s imagination a few years ago.
 
You can also find more traditional means of advertising within Second Life such as a billboard or sign. Since there are malls and shopping areas within Second Life, there are undoubtedly going to be advertisements all over the place. You’ll find bulletin boards with notes all over them about different products or services. 
 
There are also a growing number of companies that utilize one-on-one advertising within the game. These avatars will actually go up to people within the game and engage them in conversation. From there, they will tell them about an upcoming event or promotion as well as give them some information. They’ll hand out coupons, or whatever else they can to get the word out. IMAX is one company that has been successful with this form of marketing. There are even some companies that offer this service for other companies. Think of it as a marketing company within Second Life. They will be paid on a per lead basis by the companies that employ them.
 
Overall, Second Life has developed into an amazing world of technology and imagination. This means that the advertisers will never be far behind. If you’re looking for a way to promote your brand or service, this might be the place to do it.

Image Courtesy: http://image.guardian.co.uk/

Top Five Twitter Applications You Should Check Out

When it comes to Twitter applications, there are so many of them that many new users can become confused as to where to start.  There are a few that stand out and should be considered the top five to utilize if you are new to Twitter.  Based on findings by Compete, monthly traffic chose the top five applications by unique visitors, versus tweets and they are:

• Twitpic lets users share their pictures and it is the number one application on Twitter, with over a million unique visitors per month. 
• Next came Tweetdeck, with about a fourth of the volume of Twitpic, but impressive nonetheless.  Tweetdeck streamlines notifications and tweets. 
• Digsby got third place, which wasn’t far behind Tweetdeck, and it centralizes email, IM and social networks into one desktop program. 
• Twittercounter had over 200,000 visitors,
• Twitterfeed was next with over 149,000 visits and it automatically tweet posts on a user’s blog using RSS.

Of course, everybody that has used Twitter clients and applications has come to find their own personal favorites depending on why they use it.  There is a wide selection of Twitter application databases like Twitdom, Twitter Fan Wiki, Twapps, TwitTown and Twitstat. 

Twitterholic and TWhirl are popular and they come in at number six and seven, for those that are feeling slighted by this consensus.  Many frequent Twitter fans use these two, it’s just that the unique visitor count is lower, and they are frequented repeatedly by the ones that like them in a month.

The other thing to consider is that some think it should be based on the number of tweets and not the number of unique visitors, which makes it a different list, with Twitter.com, Tweetdeck and Twhirl coming in the top three by number of tweets.

Twitter.com was founded in March of 2006 with $55M by three entrepreneurs looking to capitalize on the Facebook and MySpace phenomenon.  Since that time, it has spurned a whole number of different applications to use on Twitter and it seems that everybody has their favorites, even if it is not any of the ones we mentioned.

Some like Twitter Atlas, Squawk, Twitticious, Remember the Milk Twitter, Social Comic Book, Twapper, TwitBin, TwittyTunes, Flotzam and Twitterment.  All of these are popular and offer some neat features. 

When it comes down to listing the top five Twitter apps, it’s hard to know what criteria to use and no matter what, you risk leaving out somebody’s favorite.  It just goes to show that Twitter offers something for everybody, and the best thing to do is to find the ones you like the best to fit your own purposes.

Since Twitter has become a popular way of networking personally and for business and promotional purposes, it only stands to reason that it serves different purposes for different people, so everybody is entitled to their own opinion when it comes to the top five applications.

The only statistical thing you can do is to go by Compete’s list of unique visitors which indicates different visitors in a month versus repeat ones over and over.

Image Courtesy Of: http://www.rickysays.com/

Is Article Marketing Still An Effective Marketing Technique?

There are a number of ways to market a product or service on the internet. Without a doubt, one of the most popular is the concept of article marketing. Then again, maybe an asterisk needs to be placed next to the word “popular”. The asterisk should lead to a footnote that says “opinions will vary on this”. In other words, some folks just don’t believe article marketing works anymore. So, which sphere is correct? Does article marketing work or does it not work. Honestly, it can work quite well or it could prove to be disastrous. Ultimately, it is the method you employ that will make article marketing successful or not.

There are a number of pros and cons to article marketing. The pros include:

• The article is exposed to scores of regular readers of the article directory.

• The search engines will log the article and rank it. This will lead to a great deal of organic traffic.

• Many article directories will funnel the article through RSS feeds for greater exposure.
Of course, there are a number of cons to article directories as well. Here are a few:

•Older articles have a tendency to be forgotten and buried within the directories.

•People that are not regular readers of the directory may not come across it.

•Some individuals do not react positively to article marketing.
 

Far too often, people will assume that writing a few articles and submitting them to a directory will yield a positive result. In other words, they assume the act of merely submitting a generic article will deliver on their marketing needs. That simply is not the case. Successful article marketing relies on a more deliberate approach.

Probably the most common mistakes that undermine article marketing is poor writing. If you are using an article as a marketing vehicle, juvenile, poorly written material will not move products or services. On the contrary, such shoddy work could undermine your entire marketing plan.

Also, writing one or two articles here and there is not the basis for a successful article marketing strategy. It is critical to be consistent in your article writing so that you always have new material promoting your product or services. Once you become inconsistent, the positive results of article marketing will begin to fade away.

It is also important that the articles have something to offer. Writing an article that is filled with common information does little to stir emotions in readers. Honestly, would anyone think highly about an article promoting weight loss that simply stated that eating less was the secret to success? No, such an article would be considered banal. Such pedestrian material needs to be avoided at all cost!Remember, quality material will always deliver much better results than less than desirable material.

So, yes, article marketing can still be a very successful strategy. However, the articles cannot look run of the mill or too similar to other online published works. But, if you can make you articles look unique, special, and temper them with prolific writing they will deliver significant results.

Image Courtesy Of : http://wikimanager.info/bummarketing/2008/09/getting-your-articles-read/