25th June 2007

Ezine Advertising Tips

By: Nidhi Gupta

Ezine Advertising is a great way to deliver highly targeted traffic to your website. If you pick the right ezines, and the right type of ads, you will experience above-average conversion rates for the product you sell.

What Is An Ezine?

An ezine or newsletter is an electronic magazine delivered via email to people who have signed up (opted-in) to receive it. Ezines are published on different schedules (some weekly, some monthly or bi-monthly) and they can feature extensive content or just anouncements (for example, when a website is updated or when a new article goes online).

The main advantage of ezines as advertising vehicles is that they are delivered to a very targeted group of readers. Usually, the quality of the subscribers will be higher in ezines that focus on a single, very narrow topic.

Types of Ezine Ads

Ezine ads generally falls into one of three categories:-

Classified Ads: They are the cheapest (sometimes even free), but they are also the least effective. Usually, classified ads are buried at the bottom of the ezine and consist only of a few words. Free classified ads are sometimes given away as an incentive to subscribe. Usually the best results with classified ads are obtained in the largest ezines (fifty thousands of subscribers or higher), since response rates are usually very poor.

Sponsor Ads: They are priced higher than classified ads and are usually found at the top of the ezine, or in the middle (within the content). They allow for more words, and are more effective than classified ads. If you are promoting affiliate products with moderate profit margins, sponsor ads may be the way to go.

Solo Ads: A solo ad is an email that contains only your offer, and that is sent to everyone on the mailing list. No other content is included, so you get the reader’s full attention. Since a solo ad is usually seen as an endorsement from the ezine publisher, your message will enjoy a great deal of credibility. Solo ads are expensive, though, and you should reserve them for your best products (those with an excellent profit margin and not a lot of competition).

What is a Joint Venture?

“Joint Venture” is one of the most common buzz phrases in the Internet marketing arena. However, there is nothing mysterious about it. A joint venture is just a Solo Ad where instead of paying a fixed fee to run it you reach an agreement with the ezine publisher to split the profits 50%-50% (or any other mutually agreed percentage split). The beauty of joint ventures is that you can tap into somebody else’s mailing list and pay only if you actually sell something. Joint ventures are a clear example of how email marketing can be utilized to create a win-win situation.

Before you spend money on ezine ads, it is a good idea to do some research: ask the publisher what is the typical conversion rate, or read the testimonials and contact those people to see what kind of conversion rate they enjoyed.

To estimate if an ad will be profitable, you must know what your gross profit per sale is and, based on the size of the subscriber base and the typical conversion rate, estimate what your total gross profit will be. If your total estimated gross profit is more than the cost of the ad, you may want to give it a shot. In summary:

Gross Profit per Sale x Number of Subscribers x Typical Conversion Rate - Cost of Ad = Total Profit/Loss

You must also pay attention to your headline, your ad copy, and the copy of your landing page, since they can all have a dramatic influence in your conversion rate.

Where do I find quality ezines that accept ads?

There are several good online directories that list ezines by topic and subscriber base size, and provide information on advertising options and costs. Probably the best ezine directory is the Directory of Ezines, where you can find relevant information on almost 1000 high-quality ezines, most of which accept articles, reaching around 39 million readers. The Directory of Ezines charges a small yearly subscription fee. However, if you are serious about email marketing it is well worth it.

Other ezine directories you can try are http://www.freezineweb.com , http://www.bestezines.com , http://www.go-ezines.com and http://www.jogena.com/ezine/ezinedata.htm , or go to Google and search for “ezine directories”.

Get More Details At : theinternetdigest.net

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22nd June 2007

Search Engine Algorithm Quandaries

By : Nidhi Gupta

Before you make drastic changes to your website after a rocky search engine update, take time to study your web server logs, changes in traffic to your site, and your ranking in the search engines.

Making Changes Before Analysis

Making rash decisions when you are hearing one thing then another from forum postings and articles is not the best choice to make. Much of the talk about fluctuations in the search engine rankings is just that–talk. Cold hard facts come from established tests of what is going on and why. Don’t jump ship before examining what is going on with your website first. Panic will lead you nowhere.

Basic search engine fundamentals:

Search Engine Rankings Fluctuate

First, you need to know that search engine rankings fluctuate; that is just the way it is. Google is a prime example of ranking changes happening throughout the day. The best way to find out how you are faring is to study the traffic coming to your site over time. Nope, not just a day or two, try a week or two at least to see if your rankings return. A search engine update may last a week before finishing and the rankings settle. Most importantly, are you receiving traffic at your website? Are you still making sales? Okay then, something is working. Don’t jump on the “change everything” bandwagon. Pay attention to what is true in regard to your website.

No One Knows Algorithms Like The Search Engines

The truth is much of the talk about organic (natural) search engine marketing information is speculative. The people who know exactly what the search engine is doing are the engineers who created it, and they are not going to give away their secrets. This means that understanding what happens when updates occur may be difficult to pin down. Keeping tabs with leaders in the industry through articles, forum postings and blogs may give you a general idea of what is happening. Take that information and then apply it to what is actually happening with your website traffic and sales.

You Need A Log Statistics Program

If you do not take anything else away with you from this article be sure you heed this advice: you need a log statistics program in place. With a good log statistics program you will be able to see various reports showing the number of unique visits taking place on your website, what keyword phrases visitors use to find your pages, what pages are being visited, which search engines are being used to find your website, and much more. Knowing what the “normal” website traffic of your website is will give you a good idea of what may be actually changing over time when updates do occur.

Resubmitting Doesn’t Help

Don’t resubmit your web pages in the crush of an update. Search engines have crawlers, known as search engine robots or spiders that are able to pick up a web page through links in order to add it to the search engine databases. For this reason you do not need to submit your pages to search engines anymore. Even if you mysteriously go from “top ten” to number 500 in the rankings, the fact that you are still listed means that you are still in the search engine’s database and you do not need to resubmit. Watch search engine robot activity in your server logs and you will be able to see when your web pages are being revisited by the robots.

Google PageRank Should Not Rule Your Life

So many people fixate on Google’s PageRank. You should be more concerned about the traffic coming to your website, sales, the amount of content on your site and the number of on topic or directory backlinks you have acquired. PageRank is part of a much bigger equation of over 100 ways in which Google evaluates your website. Don’t forget about the traffic that comes from the other search engines as well. Google may not always be the leader in search engines, keep current with other major search engine players in the industry.

Common Sense Makes Sense

Use common sense. If you are a small business you can ill afford to make changes that may adversely affect your bottom line. Observation and patience will gain you more than quick fixes. The true test of an update is watching the search engine results settle over at least a week or two worth of time, then analyze the situation, and see what happens from there.

Moderation may be helpful, whether in gaining backlinks, making website changes or your reactions to changes. Don’t panic. If it isn’t broken…don’t fix it.

Get More Details At : Searchinnovation.com

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22nd June 2007

New Features Added to Google Analytics!

By : Admin

Google has come up with new abilities. These may be said as the new features of Google Analytics that it has recently added to its toolkit! And this has really strengthened it. Google Analytics was already one of the most popular online analytic tools and with this upgrade it is surely going to jump high!

These upgradations were most requested by the Google Analytics users. As on 18th July, it has said bye-bye to the older version!

Let us now summarize these features!

  • Clickable URLs: All URLs displayed within each report will now link directly to the external pages in order to navigate with them. These external outbound links are available in the Referring Sites, Top Content, Top Landing Pages, and Top Exit Pages reports.

  • Increased Number of Data Row per Page: Google Analytics interface now has the ability to view up to 500 rows per page!

  • Bounce Rate Increase or Decrease: Bounce rate increases are now shown in red which is not good and bounce rate decreases are shown in green that is really good!

  • AdWords Integration: It’s now easier to add an AdWords account to an existing Google Analytics account which has improved the ability to link AdWords accounts.

  • Hourly Reporting: All reports are now updated on an hourly base. It allows you to select whether you want to see your data by day or by hour.

  • Cross Segmentation by Network Locations: Many users were upset with the fact that you couldn’t cross segment reports based on network location, but now that capability has been added. Ability to cross segment reports based on network locations. Now you can segment your ISP by whatever field you want, even user-defined.

  • Report Linking Issue Fixed: Reports that are newly added to the dashboard now have their data properly linked to their more detailed versions.

  • Smoother Registration: Some countries have been added to the list menu in Step 2 of the Account Activation process. The list is now consistent with available country choices in AdWords.

  • Translation Errors Fixed: Some translation errors and omissions in the interface and Help Center have been corrected.

  • Search Engine Detection: The list of French search engines has been updated to include aol.fr, club-internet.fr, and voila.fr. US search engines now include mama.com.

  • Added Support: Google Analytics has also added more Help resources to the Email Reports interface.

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