Using HitTail to Increase Your Organic & PPC Traffic

Although I believe directly targeting keywords on new websites can lead to being penalized by Google, I still believe it’s beneficial to indirectly target them within articles and pages on our websites.

For example, if you have a website on Weight Loss and noticed the secondary keyword ‘weight loss cure’ in Wordtracker reporting 689 searches, instead of targeting ‘weight loss cure’ and making that a title of a page, I believe it would be better to name the page ‘The Cure for Weight Loss Revealed’.. then you aren’t blatantly targeting a highly searched for term thus more likely to avoid any penalty which I strongly believe exists on Google, although I’m no professional.

I heard about HitTail a while back when it was first released and I’ve only just got around to taking a look at it and signed up today for their plus package at $4.95/month. HitTail is an analytics package with a difference. It’s uniquely focussed on tracking the search terms people use to arrive at your website, specifically the long tail search.

The Long Tail of Search

The keyword ‘weight loss’ receives 10,354 searches according to Wordtracker and of course this is a hugely competitive search term. The chance of the lowly webmaster or ameature ranking for it is zero - but you can get just as much traffic by targeting the secondary keywords related to ‘weight loss’.

The next 99 results in Wordtracker containing the keyword ‘weight loss’ contain in total 12,812 searches - more than ‘weight loss’ - and there’s over 1,000 of these terms so you’re talking perhaps in total over 30,000 searches per day on what’s called the ‘Long Tail’ of the search term ‘weight loss’.

Example of long tail keywords for ‘weight loss’:

• fast weight loss diets (78 Searches)
• best weight loss program (76 Searches)
• weight loss information (76 Searches)
• weight loss foods (75 Searches)
• free weight loss program (75 Searches)
• online weight loss programs 72 Searches)
• weight loss food (72 Searches)
• simply weight loss program (72 Searches)

These secondary words in the long tail are easier to rank for thus it’s more beneficial to target these when trying to achieve ranks in the search engines.

HitTail Is Different From Other Analytics Packages

You may think Google Analytics or other packages already track the phrases people search when they arrive at your site, and they do, but this is where HitHail differs - it creates lists of those keywords which you can sift through and decide to create pages around. It lets you move keywords and phrases on to a ‘To Do’ list and it won’t display duplicates once you’ve removed them from the original list or chose to delete them. Currently other analytics packages don’t offer these features.

It is possible to do this manually by importing your logs in to Microsoft Excel but to do it at the level HitTail performs at requires quite a bit of advanced knowledge of Excel - filtering duplicate entries etc and even then you’re unable to access keywords immediately as they happen without having to constantly import them and apply filters.

Using HitTail to Increase Your Organic Search & PPC Traffic

If by using HitTail you find people are finding a page of your website by typing in ‘blue widgets discount’ and you discover you’re ranking for ‘blue widgets discount’ in Google in 6th position, then you can go about improving that rank by tweaking the corresponding page with some basic SEO or even creating a whole new page specifically targeting the term.

For example, if the title of the page they’re finding is titled ‘Widgets Discount’, you could simple add ‘Blue Widgets Discount’ to the title and find in a short space of time that page getting a better rank - perhaps from 6th up to 1st place, delivering you a bucket load more traffic from that search term.

Not only can you use HitTail for improving your organic results but you can also use it to discover unique phrases that your competitors may not know about or be able to find in tools such as Wordtracker. You could then create pages for these terms to improve your organic results and also target them in your PPC campaigns on the cheap.

I’ll post an update on HitTail once I’ve used it significantly enough over a period of time to demonstrate its capabilities. At just under $5 per month I believe this service is invaluable to almost any website. Visit Hittail.com to learn more

UK Clickbank Vendors & Affiliates: Clear Your Cheques In 5 Days

This super time-saving tip is strictly for vendors and affiliates of Clickbank within the United Kingdom.

Waiting 30 days for your cheque’s from Clickbank to clear at your bank is a real pain as I’ve discussed already on my blog, especially as it costs £10 for the privalidge or more depending on what their currency exchange rates are.

I’ve found an alterantive method and it’s called AuctionChex - it was primarily created for Ebayers to cash overseas cheques but they also allow any USD cheques to be cleared using them.

There’s a few methods of using AuctionChex and they are:

1. You send the USD cheque to them by post, and they send you a cheque back from them for the ammount in British Pounds, which you can then cash at your bank with the usual 3-5 day clearance time.

2. You send the USD cheque to them by post by Thursday, and they deposit the amount in British Pounds in to your bank account which you receive the following Tuesday.

I use option 2 as it’s easier, with the only fee being the one they skim off on currency rates. Generally it costs more to use AuctionChex and you can cheque the currency rates on their website, but you’re getting the money in 5 days instead of 30 which is great for cashflow and they do offer reasonable rates. You can use the calculator on there site to workout how much it will cost you to use them for each cheque.

Today it’s reporting you can exchange $500 for £232 UK pounds. XE.com the authority on currency exchange is reporting $500 at £254, meaning it would cost £22 to use AuctionChex for $500 - just £5-£10 over the amount the bank would charge and you get the funds 25 days before. Bargain I say.

I suggest you head off to the AuctionChex website to find out more about them. I can totally vouch for their authenticity as I have used them for 3 cheques so far.. I just wanted to be sure everything worked tip-top before recommending them.

Test Campaign For Ringtones Started 300 Clicks for $50

As mentioned a few days ago I applied to Azoogleads to promote their ringtone offers but I also applied to Maxbounty and Jamster on Commission Junction. Maxbounty approved me minutes ago so I’ve started my test campaign with them

I created a small test campaign using $50 and I’m paying 0.16 (with any luck) per click for 300 clicks on Adwords. The campaign is very targetted therfore I’m expecting at least 1 lead. I don’t expect to break even, but 1 lead would suggest it’s worthwhile persueing the avenue I am in regards to keywords. If I get a poor conversion, I’ll call it a success, wait for when I can promote Azooglead’s offers and get serious with promoting ringtones.

Watch this space for results of my test.

Creating 2 Clickbank Products With $4,052

I decided I should really blog a lot more so I’m going to detail everything that I get involved with from now on, so here’s how I’m in the middle of creating 2 new products for Clickbank.

How I Researched for Product Ideas

The most important part! Firstly I checked what was selling well on the Clickbank Marketplace in one particular niche with as little competition as possible, knowing I can improve upon the current best sellers. Things I looked for: Poor sales copy, poor offers, lacking in general quality or actual ‘proof’ of their claims etc.

I was also looking for products that could exist forever and never get old. I don’t go for the flash in the pan type of products that rake in a lot in a short space of time and then the bubble bursts… I’m looking for long-term income with these products.

The Hunt for Great Domains

Then I went on the hunt for some great keyword domains I could snatch up for as little as possible for each product. When you put your products in the Clickbank Marketplace back-links will pour in from review sites and affiliates etc therfore if your domain is favouring a specific medium-searched for keyword, I believe you’re guaranteed to rank for it sooner or later.. especially if it’s one of the top 3 TLD’s, ie .com / .net / .org. This will ensure you’re at least getting some organic, free traffic so you may not have to blow a ton of money on Adwords testing conversions (visitors to sales ratio).

I managed to find one two keyword domain (example: greenfrogs.com) that was searched for 270 times per day according to Wordtracker. The best thing was the domain was already ranking for the keyword in about 15th position - awesome. I managed to purchase it from the current owner for $600 which I thought was a bit of a bargain.

The next domain I found for my other product was a three word keyword domain (example: growplantsquick.com) and wasn’t ranking at all, but it was searched for 190 times per day, with a longer tail of that keyword totaling 340 searches/day. This was owned buy a domain company with an asking price of $2,500. I e-mailed them an offer of $400 and they called me back. We finally settled on $1,000 - saving me $1,500 off the original price. Cool, eh?

Finding People to Write The E-Books & Bonuses

I confess, I didn’t know hardly a thing about the actual products I was going to make, but that’s not a problem when you have an account with Elance. You can find all sorts of people to contract and outsource work to. Graphics artists, writers, musicians, video producers etc - the world is really opened up to the type of products you can create once you begin looking at outsourcing. I didn’t actually use elance this time around as I knew I could pluck a knowledgeable person off of a large forum related to the products to write them for me.

I agreed a price which was as follows:

Product no.1 - 60 pages long, 5 bonus guides at 3-5 pages each. $800
Product no.2 - 30 pages long, 3 bonus guides at 3-5 pages each. $600

It really isn’t that expensive to create your own products - I think a lot of people shy away from the idea of creating their own products but I think it’s awesome, and once you know where to go to get your products created it’s a simple process.

Finding Someone to Write The Sales Copy

The copy on your products page is the most important aspect along with your actual offer. In my opinion you should pay what you can afford. It’s worth researching copywriting reading up on the topic to understand just how important it is for the success of your product.

I could of looked on elance, but I knew a copywriter from a previous project (who I found through elance) that could do the job for a nice price.

Total cost for sales copy for the 2 products was $800, plus $200 on completion.

Big copywriting names such as Michel Fortin cost up to $8,000 - but when there’s other great up-coming copywriters looking for work on elance, if you’re on a budget like I was they’re a fantastic choice.

Designing E-covers for the Products

I always design my own graphics for everything I do - I just used some e-cover photoshop actions that I purchased a long while back. I can’t remember where I bought them now but if you want to create your own I just saw this advert on Adwords for an ecover maker that looks like it producers good quality covers - providing you make a great design to go along with them! If you’re not that savvy at design you could head off to elance where you will find some great graphics designers who will be happy to create you one on the cheap.

Total cost so far: $4,000

Costs to be added once the guides are written and it’s time to add them to the Clickbank Marketplace: $52

The first product should be up within a month from now, and the second a month after.

While I wait for the products to be written I’ll be working on the ring tone thing mentioned below. Hope this gave someone some insight or tips!

Got Ringtones? GADOOD Enters the Ringtone Market!

I’ve noticed on my travels there’s a lot of people making a lot of money in the ringtone market - and dare I say a lot of them don’t even seem that smart to me.

The industry was brought to my attention last year and popularized by Shoemoney from Digitalpoint, who I would assume is responsible for a large influx of eager beavers rushing to Azoogleads in the search of gold. Azoogleads are responsible for the largest paying CPA ringtone offers in the industry.

It’s time to wet my feet in what seems to be a cash-cow if you’re able to purchase cheap targeted clicks through PCC, which I believe I’m able to do. Whether or not Google will slap me after a while and raise the prices of the keywords I know I’m able to purchase right now for peanuts, I’m not sure. *shrug*

I have created my website, which I won’t disclose for obvious reasons and Azoogleads have approved my application. Once they receive my W8 Form from those nice IRS guys over in America, I’ll get cracking.

Watch this space.

Fuck The Irish - It’s MY Birthday!

That’s right - I can be an attention-seeking self-absorbed twat when I want to be, so it’s my birthday today. I’m 24 (although I went through all of last year thinking I was 24) and it’s my day, and I thought random people who come across my blog ought to know this fact. Who’s St. Patrick anyway?

Quoted from Wikipedia: The person who was to become Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was born in Roman Britain about AD 385. His given name was Maewyn, and he almost didn’t get the job of bishop of Ireland because he lacked the required scholarship.

Far from being a saint, until he was 16, he considered himself a pagan. At that age, he was sold into slavery by a group of Irish marauders that raided his village. During his captivity, he became closer to Christianity.

He escaped from slavery after six years and went to Gaul where he studied in the monastery under St. Germain, bishop of Auxerre for a period of twelve years. During his training he became aware that his calling was to convert the pagans to Christianity.

He wished to return to Ireland and to convert the native pagans to Christianity, but his superiors instead appointed St. Palladius. However, two years later Palladius transferred to Scotland. Patrick, having adopted that Christian name earlier, was then appointed as second bishop to Ireland.

Patrick was quite successful at winning converts which upset the Celtic Druids. Patrick was arrested several times, but escaped each time. He traveled throughout Ireland, establishing monasteries across the country. He also set up schools and churches which would aid him in his conversion of the Irish country to Christianity.

His mission in Ireland lasted for thirty years. After that time, Patrick retired to County Down. He died on March 17 in AD 461. That day has been commemorated as St. Patrick’s Day ever since.

Sounds like a bit of a cunt to me.

My parents inform me the doctor at the hospital I was born in suggest they called me Patrick - thank God they stuck with Pete I say. Pat’s a snake-chasing raising-people-from-the-dead pussy sort of name if you ask me.

Enjoy my day and have a beer on me.

The Pilkster decided to celebrate my birthday with beer and curry. Nice. Very nice.

Goodbye You Muscly Jerk, I Love Ya.

Hey Future Stud!

Looking for the Muscly Jerk’s Guide to Getting Buff to Attract The ladies?

Visit the Official Muscly Jerk Website Now!

(Don’t wait around.. beautiful women are just waiting for you to hunk-up and look sexy)

Continues….

In December 2006 I brought the Rich Jerk angle to another niche, bodybuilding, and The Muscly Jerk was born. I had an interest in bodybuilding and the Jerk angle seemed suitable to take.

This was the first time I really ever created a product before or tried anything a bit quirky, and I scored slight success managing to conquer the number 1 spot in the Google Video top ranked videos, scoring over 3 million views (it’s hard to comprehend just how many people have been exposed to the Muscly Jerk) and a smooth mention on Shoemoney’s blog and even one issue of the Sitepoint tribute, which I can’t find the link to right now!

Talking numbers I probably spent $1,300 on the site, sold around 70 none-affiliate copies at $37 taking in a few thousand dollars.

Not having the cash-flow to actually take The Muscly Jerk further I decided it was a good time to sell and let him go to a new home. I settled on $3,000 to sell to an Australian who’s a year younger than me who get this, flips property and does Internet marketing on the side. Impressive.

In all I made around $4,500-$5,000 with The Muscly Jerk.

He served me well and I hope he’s taken to lofty heights. Best of luck to the new owner, and goodbye you Muscly Jerk.

Don’t forget to buy your copy of the Muscly Jerk’s guide to getting buff.

What Are You Waiting For?

I don’t like wait. It’s 2007. We’re supposed to be living in a fast-paced and modern world, yet the big wait seems to plague every facet of I.M. life.

I even begrudge taking a trip to town just to place funds in to my bank account - why isn’t there a better way by now. Why must I get dressed, do my hair, spend a few pounds getting in to town and take 2 hours out of my day just to deposit funds in to my account?

Anyway, here’s a couple of things I’m currently waiting for:

- A large USD cheque to clear in a UK bank (They take 30 days. Oh, that’s a wait alright).

- Clickbank Support to get back to me

Due to waiting for the above, my to-do list is on-hold until I receive funds from USD cheque and clickbank resolve my situation so that an escrow transaction (were I’m the seller) can be completed and the money sent (more waiting). The list is:

- Purchase the cheapest workstation from dell.co.uk $700

- Purchase an $800 domain name

- Contract a writer to write an e-book for above domain $987

- Set-up e-book on Clickbank $50

So here I sit twiddling my thumbs after more than 30 hours waiting for Clickbank to resolve my situation and for that USD cheque to clear so that I can progress with future projects.

What a pain in the arse.

..So what are you waiting for?