I recently had the opportunity to be interviewed by Lynn Terry of ClickNewz.com and  Self Starters Weekly Tips. Lynn is a full time internet marketer with over 13 years experience in this industry. She’s fun, interesting, and full of great, practical advice for internet marketers!

I was first introduced to Lynn through the “Internet Marketing This Week” podcast. I love listening to this podcast and recommend it if you’re interested in the bigger picture of what’s happening in our industry. I contacted Lynn on Twitter which led to me joining in the discussions at her Elite Mastermind Forum (which is just awesome, by the way!).

I thought you might enjoy listening in to our chat. It was so much fun!

Just click on the arrow to listen.

Be sure to leave your comments below!

Have a fantastic day -

Resources mentioned in this interview:

Super Affiliate Handbook by Rosalind Gardiner

Elite Mastermind Group at Self Starters Weekly Tips

AffiliIT – Internet Marketing Training

ClickNewz – Lynn Terry’s blog

What do you need to be successful?

Perhaps you are brand new to the idea of internet marketing. What information do you want to learn more about? Pay per click, article marketing, SEO?  Or maybe you’ve been around awhile, learned a little, but haven’t taken much action. Why do you think that is? What would make the difference for you?

Let’s start a discussion:

• Are you brand new or have you been around awhile?
• What are you working on?
• What traffic method do you prefer? SEO or PPC?
• What’s your biggest challenge right now?

I’ll kick off the discussion with my own thoughts: I haven’t been around long. I started my online journey just under a year ago. I feel like I am learning new things every day.  Right now, I am working on SEO affiliate sites, Facebook advertising, and a little bit of Pay Per Click ads here and there.   I get excited about SEO as a traffic method because its FREE! But the results from Pay Per Click ads are instant.   My biggest business challenge right now is lack of knowledge and skill when it comes to landing pages and design.   I’ve also had a few of my campaigns die off completely this week, so I have been busily rebuilding them.

What about you? Where are you at right now?

P.S. Join in the conversation….leave your comments below. Thanks!

As internet marketers, our email in-boxes are inundated with the “latest and greatest” tools known to man. Don’t you just love that?! (kidding!) When I first heard about Market Samurai, I have to admit that I dismissed it as just another one of those “guru tools” that people push to get affiliate commissions. If there is a free or cheap option available – I’d prefer to use that.  But there is something about Market Samurai that is totally different.

Simply put – I love it!

Now, let’s get this out of the way, this is not a paid review and these links are not affiliate links. I paid full price for my version of Market Samurai, and I receive no financial benefit from writing this post.  I’m just so happy I found out about it, and I want to be sure you know about it too.

What is Market Samurai?

Market Samurai is a multi-purpose internet marketing tool from the team at Noble Samurai.  Market Samurai will help you quickly find keywords that are worth your time and effort. Of course, it is possible to do this manually, but Market Samurai will automate and speed things up for you. It will also help you determine the competition level of those keywords, find products to promote using those keywords, design and publish ads and blog posts, find content to add to your site, track the rank of your site in the SERPS, and a whole lot more. It truly is an “all in one” solution.

Sounds too good to be true?

What are the “downsides” to Market Samurai?:

• INITIAL COST – Market Samurai has a $149 ticket price with no monthly fee.  For a new internet marketer, $149 can be a LOT of money to invest in a tool.
• TECH TALK – There is a lot of technical info inside of Market Samurai. Again, for a new person, this is intimidating and overwhelming. What is “phrase match, broad match, page rank, SEOC, SEOT, etc.”?
• TOO MUCH INFORMATION – Information overload? With Market Samurai,  you are able to generate an enormous amount of information with the click of a button. Immediately you are faced with a ton of data. This can be overwhelming if you don’t know what you’re looking at.

What is the good news?

• SAVE TIME – Using Market Samurai, I have been able to save a ton of time. My keyword research is easy and effective because I am targeting low competition, high spend keywords that “buyers” are using to search the internet.
• TARGET KEYWORDS – What are the “golden nugget” keywords in your niche? Wouldn’t it be nice to know?
• COMPETITION ANALYSIS – I know all about my competition even before I start = Priceless!

Within minutes, you can research keywords, determine PPC spend, SEO competition, and find affiliate products to promote, whip up some unique content using the speedy “content” module, and publish it all to your site.  Doing all of these tasks in one place saves you a ton of time.   That is REALLY good news!

With Market Samurai, you will be able to focus on high traffic, high profit keywords that don’t have too much competition. This means your websites will rank high in the search engines.

So, is Market Samurai worth getting?

I can’t answer that question for you.  Only you know that.  I can say that it has been amazing for me so far. I am thrilled with how easy it is to use, the information I can learn about my competition, and the Rank Tracker module is so cool! (Market Samurai charts your site’s ranking in the search engines for your target keywords! You can compare yourself to your competition and check on your backlinks too!)

If you’re just going to use it to research keywords, then  – No, I don’t recommend it. There are some great free keyword tools out there. Also – if you are new to internet marketing, I also don’t recommend spending any money on tools until you are profitable. That is so important.

However, if you ARE profitable and you are looking for an all-in-one SEO website solution from start to finish, then I suggest you check out Market Samurai right away. They have tons of video tutorials and a FREE trial too. Check out their site by clicking here : Market Samurai. Then, be sure to come back here and tell me how you went, OK?

I know that several of you are already using Market Samurai. What do you think about it? Please leave your comments below….

P.S. Remember to sign up for my newsletter to get more info!

Surprise!!

PPCMom has had a makeover and I am eager to hear your feedback.

What do you like?

What’s not so great?

What am I missing?

Obviously, I am still ironing out the final adjustments and if you find something that is not working, please let me know.

On a different note, you have been so helpful and supportive since I took over PPCMom in early September. I appreciate all the feedback, emails, tweets, advice, and suggestions I have received. Blogging is new to me and I absolutely love this experience so far!

A huge, special, enormous, thank you to Karrine at HerMedia for all her help! You are a star!

So, please, leave your comment below and let me know your first impressions…..Thanks!

P.S. Karrine ROCKS!!  If you need any kind of design work, social media help, Twitter profile update, etc – Karrine is awesome!

What price do you pay?

I’m back again with another opinion post about sponsored tweets on Twitter. You know where I stand on this issue. My previous post  – Sponsored Posts and Tweets – generated a lot of comments and emails. No doubt about it, this is a hot topic.

The topic of sponsored tweets is not going to go away. My guess is this is here to stay. Therefore, it is wise for each of us to consider our position on the matter.  ShoeMoney has had a huge impact with his announcement that he earned $15,000 from sponsored ads on his Twitter account last month. Wow. $15k for a few tweets. That is incredible and made me stop and wonder…

Is this whole concept totally ridiculous?

Or is it worth a closer look?

I know that many internet marketers are going to take a serious look at this method of generating income. (If you haven’t already!) Before you decide to jump in the deep end, I think it is wise to do some research and weigh up the potential risks and possible benefits.

There is a great blog post by Media Shift @ PBS.org which covers the whole idea of sponsored Twitter accounts in great detail from a media and an advertiser’s perspective. I found it to be a very interesting read and want to say “Thanks” to one of our readers, Simon @ Bloggasm, for bringing it to my attention. Thanks! 

Here are 8 steps to make sponsored tweeting work for you:

(courtesy of the Media Shift blog post mentioned above)

1. Protect your reputation. (this is my main concern)
   
2. Beware of systems based on Pay Per Click.
3. Be transparent and clear that your tweet is an ad.
4. Ads perform better if you have fewer followers. (presumably because your followers have chosen to follow you and they trust you?)
   
5. Go beyond a simple product pitch.
   
6. Ads should be conversational to be effective.
7. Beware that the networks won’t allow fake twitter accounts.
8. Too many sponsored tweets will turn off your followers. (I wonder how many is too many?)

I am sure this topic will be discussed in great detail. Where do you stand? Please leave your comment below….

Image courtesy of: John Althouse Cohen

SEO writing is not a mysterious, complicated process. So don’t freak out if you’re new to the concept. SEO writing uses common sense and a practical approach, and that aspect of it appeals to me.

Before I can share some SEO writing tips, it’s important you understand one of the ways I do business. I know many/most of you do not do things this way. However, this is one way I have found and so far, it’s very effective.

One of my approaches to internet marketing involves complete immersion into my niche market. This means that I become a member of that niche. For example, let’s say I have done some research and discovered there is a great opportunity around “digital scrapbooking”. I have found a fantastic affiliate program for some “digital scrapbooking software” and I want to promote it.  This is what I do: I create a personal blog related to “digital scrapbooking” which I update regularly. I also subscribe to other blogs related to digital scrapbooking, and spend some time getting to know other people who are also interested in it. I provide quality content related to digital scrapbooking, and participate in that market.

When you are writing blog posts or articles in your niche market, there are a few key things to remember:

1)      Keep the Reader in Mind – Who are you writing for? What are they interested in? Will they gain anything by reading your blog post or article? Provide value and interesting, informative content and you’ll find people will keep coming back for more.

2)      Keyword Research – Research your market and find out what they need. Are there questions that go unanswered? Is there a hot topic buzzing around the forums? Research long tail keywords and write your blog posts to address those keyword topics.

3)      Tools & Plugins – There are several awesome SEO tools and plugins available to help bloggers and internet marketers. My favourite right now is the All In One SEO plugin. Be sure to use “tags” and keywords in your blog posts. You can also create a category on your blog for your keyword to help you rank highly for that phrase.

4)      Social Bookmarking – Although this is not a long term SEO strategy, bookmarking your blog posts on Digg, Propeller, StumbleUpon, etc can help you gain quick search engine listings. Experts debate the value of social bookmarking on every SEO forum, however, I still use these services to gain visibility quickly.

One of the drawbacks to my method of “complete immersion” into my market is the sheer volume of work required to keep niche blogs updated with high quality SEO content.  If you are unable to keep up with the volume needed to maintain high visibility on the Web, consider hiring the service of a professional writer skilled in SEO practices to enhance the relevancy of your site. You’ll find the work will pay off as you gain the trust of new customers.

At first outsourcing may seem daunting (it sure was for me). But I see now that everyone can do this. The job I posted was a very small job – only $20. If you can spare $20 to have someone write a few quality blog posts or articles for you, it will free up some of your time to focus on other things.

But that is a topic for another day! Time for me to get back to work! Enjoy your day!

Okay, something strange has happened to me.

I like SEO.

There. I said it. It’s out in the open. PPCMom is officially an SEO convert and I love every minute of it!

I have been learning a lot about internet marketing, building websites, writing blog posts, and developing products for a few different niches that I work in. It’s been a lot of fun to watch my sites rise in the search engine rankings over the past few weeks. I’ve even started to get sales on sites where I have never used any Pay Per Click advertising.

Free traffic!

And not just any old traffic – traffic that converts! WooooHooo!

I’m so excited that I find it hard to sleep. The potential of this is huge and exciting!

I know to many of you more experienced internet marketers, this does not seem newsworthy. But to me, it is huge news. SEO has always been a mysterious voodoo, witch doctor type science that I knew nothing about. I didn’t know much about writing SEO content or keywords and phrases. I could never find a formula to follow to ensure I’d get traffic to my site.

PPC, on the other hand, is completely straight forward. You create an ad, pay for clicks, and receive traffic to your site within minutes.

But that’s the thing. You have to KEEP paying for clicks to keep getting traffic. If you stop paying, the traffic stops as well. Not so with SEO. With a well-optimized blog, your traffic is free and continues to flow to your site over time. The key phrase here is “well-optimized” and I have learned there are several steps you need to take to maximize your SEO potential. I’m eager to share a bit of what I have learned.

Stay tuned for some SEO tips from me….(never thought I’d say that!) 

P.S. I’ve included some links to sites that have helped me recently in my quest to learn more about SEO. You may be interested in reading more. Lynn Terry has an amazing amount of valuable internet marketing information on her site – ClickNewz.com , and I’ve been learning my SEO formula at AffiliIT.

It’s time for a little discussion – lets talk Internet Marketing tools.

Over in the forums there’s been a lot of talk about different tools, software, applications, and plugins that helps us improve our results as internet marketers. I’m loving reading the different opinions and experiences and thought it’d be a good question to open up to the wider community – what are your favorite tools?

I suspect most of us will probably be DYING to include affiliate links, but please control yourselves and refrain from posting links.

Perhaps it’s a keyword research tool, perhaps a site builder, perhaps a plugin for your blog, or some sort of cloaking software – what do you love? Anything goes! List your 3 favorite tools – but limit it to three!

I want to be very clear about something: I don’t care if you use the affiliate links on this site or not.

PPC Mom’s purpose here is to write, share, help, and discuss all things internet marketing. I am not here to make money off of you. I am a full time internet marketer. I will not push a whole lot of products on you and tell you that you “need” the latest guru crap. I write about what I do daily. If I find a new product that I love, chances are, I will write about it. If I come across something I hate, I will write about that too.

If I am writing something here in a post, these are my true feelings. I am not writing sponsored posts. You are going to read some very enthusiastic posts from me. Yes, they are full of excitement. That is just who I am. I get excited about stuff.  Especially when I am passionate about something! Some might say it’s pushy. Others might say I have a hidden agenda. Whatever. Deal with it. That is me.

The same thing goes for Twitter. My Twitter account is not for sale. No sponsored tweets from me. You can follow PPC Mom on Twitter here.

So, I thought it would be good to get this all out in the open. Yes – there are affiliate links here on this site. Yes – I get paid if you click on one of those links and make a purchase. So the choice is yours. If you think that the product/service will be of value to you- click on a link and I will get credit for referring you. If not, then don’t click on a link. That’s cool too.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way – Let’s get back to business! 

Facebook Advertising

I love Facebook advertising!

Of course, it is challenging, expensive, volatile, and short term. And I absolutely love the thrill of it!

The reason I am so excited about it today is because I have been testing a set of ads in a niche for over a week. FINALLY it’s working!! And once you find something that works on Facebook, it usually works in a big way. And I tend to get excited about stuff – that’s just how I am.

Great Offer + Unique Image + Headline = $$$$$$ = A Happy Jen

Now, before you get too excited, and run off to start your first advertising campaign on Facebook, there are several things you should know.

1. RESEARCH – It pays to learn strategies from someone who is experienced with FB ads. Several forums now have “facebook” areas specifically for this purpose. Get into these forums, and read everything you can get your hands on re: facebook advertising and how to create a killer ad. I have been working my tail off reading the forums at Affiliit and PPC Coach for every scrap of information I can find. If you are new to this, I highly recommend you do your research before spending a dime.
2. GET CASHED UP – You need money to test offers. It will take you some time and money to test your ads, images, and offers. So be prepared. Facebook will charge your credit card every day for your advertising spend. Be sure you are with a good CPA Network who can pay you quickly. Weekly wires are a must for me.
3. MARKETING - Think like your target audience and decide what kind of Headline/Image/Offer would grab their attention. You need to be creative on FB. If you do what everyone else is doing, you will fail.
4. DEMOGRAPHICS – Use keywords, age, gender, location, sexual preference, marital status, employer to pre-qualify your audience and target them specifically. Keywords here are not the same as they are in AdWords. You need to use kw that people might add to their profile to explain their interests.
5. BUDGET – Set a low budget for each campaign in the testing phase. Keep a very close eye on your campaigns. $$$ flies out the door with high CPCs and HUGE traffic volumes. Remember: Ads will still get approved if you pause them. So pause your campaigns once you create them. Then wait for approval (which can take 24 hours). Then unpause and watch carefully.
6. TRACK – Watch your conversions at the network (or tracking). Facebook have a very long delay. You want to be sure conversions are flying IN faster than the advertising spend is flying OUT.
7. THE BIG SECRET – Ha!  There is no big secret. You just have to work – test – fail – be creative – and test again. Every affiliate who banks on Facebook has followed this process. We are not holding out on you. There really is no secret. Hard work is my secret – if anything. Boring, I know, but it’s the truth.
8. BE PREPARED TO FIGHT – This is bloody hard work. You will lose money. Most of your ads won’t work. You will get frustrated. You might even want to give up. If you don’t have a fighting spirit, I don’t recommend Facebook advertising. It’s tough and you will have to fight. No one is going to hand you anything on a silver platter. You can here to make money online, and Facebook is a great tool for that.  So -  if you ARE a fighter – get in there and give it a go!

Keep reading: How To Pre-Qualify Your Clicks on Facebook