PPC and SEO Tips for 2009

I hope you all had a very merry holiday. I’m back to work and looking forward to a busy 2009.

I noticed already on some of my Google Adwords campaigns that things are picking up. I’ve been tweaking my keywords, both long and shortail to maximize my advertising dollars.

I’m starting to see my positions come up and my cost go down, which is exactly what I needed. It took a lot of patience and fiddling.

To get you off on a prosperous new year, here’s a great post to help you handle your PPC and SEO in 2009.

Marketing outside the box

Today I checked up on some of my favorite feeds and saw that Shoemoney had a post that said “merry Christmas to me!” 

Of course I was curious and just new he got something great from someone so I headed over and yep, he was sent a sick system and 2 big ass monitors from Intel.

A while back he had written a post about how much of a fan he was of Intel. Clearly, the marketing team at Intel pays attention to its fans and sent him this awesome system.

For a cost of shipping, (and using their own inventory) they know their ROI will be great because Shoe will talk about his gift from Intel and people like me will repost about his lucky find and it will spread like wildfire and tada! Intel has put themselves up front.

This is the kind of marketing more companies should do. Sending someone a sticker or a teeshirt is fine but this valuable of a gift shows that Intel clearly appreciates good PR and they reward you with it.

Great marketers think like this. They understand Shoe’s readers and know that by giving the system to him, very targeted readers will be interested.  Shoe has over 30,000 people who subscribe to his feed, tons of twitter followers and that is what Intel is looking at. 30,000 potential customers for very little cost.

Merry Christmas to him indeed… and them.

Finding YOUR Niche = Successful Blog

If you have a successful blog then you’re a patient person. It takes a lot of time to build up a really good blog that outshines all the millions of other blogs. In our social media world, seems everyone takes their blog to write their thoughts for the world to see.

The good old days of static websites has long passed and you need an interesting website or blog now if you want to keep people’s attention.

You also hope to make some money at it too. Unless you blog strictly for hobby, you’re going to have bills that come from running your online site whether it be hosting fees or money to pay for advertising. After all, what good is your blog if no one knows about it.

Most people start a blog with dreams of rollin in the dough in a few months, but the truth is, your blog, whether it be an extension of your current business or your only business, has to think like a business. It’s not your friend, its not your diary. It’s your arm-reach into the pockets of people who are interested in what you sell, whether its expert advice or widgets and you need to approach it as such if  you want to be a successful blogger.

The biggest tip I can give you is to find a niche and be passionate. A really really accurate niche of what and who you are. There are just too many generic blogs for “SEO”, “Expert”, Tech writer” etc. You need to discover what’s different about you and make that the heart of your blog.

Take this blog for example. it’s the essence of what I do everyday in trying to remain relevant online. I’ve been working online for over 13 years and each and every day I handle PPC campaigns, article writing, organic search optimization, research and website design and navigation. By writing about what I do to make my online businesses successful, it makes this blog a niche for me- naturally. It’s natural and easy to come on here and write about all the afore mentioned topics because its what I do everyday.

So if your job is selling ebooks, for instance, then you would have a blog that talks about everything you do to stay relevant in the ebook world. From the latest software to make your ebooks more professional to the most profitable sites to advertise your ebook on, to the best shopping cart or payment processor you use to sell your books. It’s all relevant to what you do day in and day out so it’s a natural fit.

Why do you think Dooce is so successful? She writes what she knows about and that happens to be raising her daughter and dealing with depression. She tells the whole world about her child, her husband, her struggle in coping with depression because its natural and its what she knows.

It comes across to her readers as such and that’s why she is successful at it. She doesn’t take to her blog to tell people how to make money online because that isn’t what she does- naturally. She makes money because of the topics she is well versed in and it leads to a good income for her.

I suppose she could start blogging about making money online now, because she has been successful at it, but she doesn’t. She stays with what her niche was and is and it works for her.

My point is, don’t rush to a blog and assume because Shoemoney or John Chow make money online telling people how to make money online, that you will too. It was their natural niche. Find yours.

It is VERY possible to make money from your blog or website and here’s a few tips from those who do, to help you do it better.

• Problogger: How I make money from my blog- Top earners
• Steve Pavlina: How to make money from your blog
• MSN SMall Business: Five tips to make money from your blog
• WahingtonPost: Money making blog tips
• Ezau: Find your niche and follow it
• SEOmoz: Finding YOUR niche

The best PPC Resources Ever

I really really enjoy SEOmoz because he gives up the goods. I spend countless hours scouring the web for great PPC advice and tips and it eats up a lot of my time, time I could use doing more for my sites, but I have to because I need the advice. Dont we all.

SEOMoz has created a huge list of the best Pay per click resources and it will save you a ton of time. I’ve already garnered some really good tips from these links.

Make sure you bookmark that page. You’ll need it again and again, especially if you’re new to PPC advertising.

SEOmoz big list of PPC resources

Be sure to also check out SEOmoz’ video on PPC basic.

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday-PPC Basics with Tom Critchlow from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.