Online Marketing Your Home Business With Google AdWords PPC – Practical Do’s and Don’ts

There are many ways to marketing your home business online. Whether you are a season internet marketer or a newbie, it is always good to review some practical tips regarding your online marketing efforts. Whether it is articles, videos, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Bing, Yahoo or Google, marketing online requires some basic principles to ensure that you are executing your campaigns in an effective manner.We are going to focus on some practical do’s and don’ts when it comes to marketing via Google AdWords PPC.Let’s start with the Don’ts.

Don’t: Start using Google PPC without gaining knowledge. I know, this sounds like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised at the number of people that think “I’m smart enough, I’ll figure it out”. These are the same people that run through all the money they had with nothing to show for it. There are plenty of resources online that will get you up to speed on the in’s and out’s at basic level so you can go into PPC with a solid foundational understanding of how it works. Google has some good, free online training. There’s also Perry Marshall’s Definitive Guide To Google AdWords that will take your knowledge even further.

Don’t: Start without reviewing Google’s Advertising Terms Of Service. Recently Google has been cracking down on violators of its terms of service. It is important that you understand what is and what is not allowed with Google. Chances are that if you violate these terms, you will be suspended and in some cases, banned from advertising on Google.

Don’t: Market duplicate websites. Google has a very complex algorithm that calculates the quality of your website. One thing that is known is that this algorithm takes into account whether the content on your website is duplicate. If you are going to market via Google PPC, make sure that you have a unique website with content that is unique.
Okay, now that we know some of the don’ts, lets look at some of the Do’s.

Do: Keyword Research. Before you initiate any campaigns, the first thing you want to do is your keyword research. Find out what keywords you want to target that your potential buyers are using to search for you. Without the right keywords, you might get some traffic, but it will not be the right traffic. You want certain type of people visiting your website, you want to attract your target market. There are some free keyword tools that Google provides including Insights, Trends and External keyword research tool. You can also purchase some more elaborate keyword research tools online. Don’t underestimate the importance of this very basic step!

Do: Competitive Research. It’s always good to do competitive research. Find out what your competitors are doing. Review the top ads in your market, the ones that continue to appear at the top of the list, day after day, week after week. Take a look at their website. How does their ad tie back to their website? Put yourself in the shoes of the buyer, What about their ad attracted you? Did the website make sense after you clicked on the ad?

Do: Test, Test, Test. The most successful PPC marketers constantly test their ad copy and websites. Always have two or more versions of your ads running so you can split-test to find the best performing ad. Once you do that, make another small tweak and test again. Keep making minor improvements, but more importantly…

Do: Analyze Your Results. The only way you are going to make any sense of testing is if you analyze your results. PPC marketing involves a lot of analysis. Constantly testing means constantly analyzing your results so you can move forward with the best performing modifications. Google provides reporting, charting, trending that will provide you with the tools you need to do some thorough analysis.

Do: Track Your Results. Always track what works and what doesn’t work. Don’t forget that you are in this to make a profit. What good is a great ad, great website, great product, if you can’t track what does and what doesn’t make sales?
Google PPC marketing is a force in the internet marketing world. There are plenty of people that have made tons of money using this method of advertising. Always remember to diversify your efforts, make sure that you’re marketing strategy includes PPC but does not completely rely on it. Treat your marketing strategy as you would your investment portfolio. Diversify, diversify, diversify. Just be sure to follow the practical do’s and don’ts when dealing with Google PPC.

Things to Know About Small Business Online Advertising

Small businesses are the heart of every country. Almost every one of us has a tendency to buy your car from the same car dealer as your parents or your friends even if it a local retailer you know of or to shop at the same neighborhood store every week. Consequently, most of the jobs in our economy come from these small business owners. However, there are some cases wherein many of these business owners fail within their first year of business. The major reason for this is the lack of proper advertising and marketing strategies.It is quite obvious that small business owners do not have a budget to launch a large scale advertising campaign. However, internet is a cheap and effective method of advertising since it can reach to a huge audience and thus can help in increasing your business to a large extent. Just like advertising in newspapers of your region to attract local consumers, even in internet you have to find out the websites and search engines that are mostly used by the people in your locality and region. This can be a bit time consuming but there are some websites that are aimed at a particular geographical area. Thus if you aim at such websites your work is greatly reduced.Just like newspaper, there are classifies ads even on the internet. These are one of the cheapest ways to advertise online. For effective small business online advertising, you have to be a good copywriter in order to create effective and attractive ads that will be noticed by the users. Another very effective method is to send personal emails.You can rent email lists from various companies and select the recipients according the geographical area and other demographics. However, you need to supply an attractive headline which will cause the recipient to open your mail and read your advertisement.There are different ways in which online advertisements are paid. There are some banner ads that are put up in popular blogs and other websites. These ads are paid for each time they are clicked and viewed. Clicking on the banner will lead the user to the website of the product. Sometimes depending on the keyword these advertisements are placed on websites that are related to the keyword. For instance if you are florist and are advertising for your shop you can place your ad in websites that are related to flowers and buying flowers. However, there are some advertisements that are paid for each time they are simply put up online.Unlike big and established companies, small business owners are mostly new to the area of online advertising. There are some companies that are specialized in small business online advertising. You can take help from these services in the beginning in order to understand the advertising and marketing strategies in online market.They might even help you in drafting your advertisements in an attractive way that will definitely attract online users. It is necessary to create advertisements that have bright colors and graphics which can be easily seen among all the other ads.

Shoe Repairs And Several Other Things When I Was 7

Shoe Repairs And Several Other Things When I Was 7
My Dad repaired most of our shoes believe it or not, I can hardly believe it myself now. With 7 pairs of shoes always needing repairs I think he was quite clever to learn how to “Keep us in shoe Leather” to coin a phrase!

He bought several different sizes of cast iron cobbler’s “lasts”. Last, the old English “Laest” meaning footprint. Lasts were holding devices shaped like a human foot. I have no idea where he would have bought the shoe leather. Only that it was a beautiful creamy, shiny colour and the smell was lovely.

But I do remember our shoes turned upside down on and fitted into these lasts, my Dad cutting the leather around the shape of the shoe, and then hammering nails, into the leather shape. Sometimes we’d feel one or 2 of those nails poking through the insides of our shoes, but our dad always fixed it.

Hiking and Swimming Galas
Dad was a very outdoorsy type, unlike my mother, who was probably too busy indoors. She also enjoyed the peace and quiet when he took us off for the day!

Anyway, he often took us hiking in the mountains where we’d have a picnic of sandwiches and flasks of tea. And more often than not we went by steam train.

We loved poking our heads out of the window until our eyes hurt like mad from a blast of soot blowing back from the engine. But sore, bloodshot eyes never dampened our enthusiasm.

Dad was an avid swimmer and water polo player, and he used to take us to swimming galas, as they were called back then. He often took part in these galas. And again we always travelled by steam train.

Rowing Over To Ireland’s Eye
That’s what we did back then, we had to go by rowboat, the only way to get to Ireland’s eye, which is 15 minutes from mainland Howth. From there we could see Malahide, Lambay Island and Howth Head of course. These days you can take a Round Trip Cruise on a small cruise ship!

But we thoroughly enjoyed rowing and once there we couldn’t wait to climb the rocks, and have a swim. We picnicked and watched the friendly seals doing their thing and showing off.

Not to mention all kinds of birdlife including the Puffin.The Martello Tower was also interesting but a bit dangerous to attempt entering. I’m getting lost in the past as I write, and have to drag myself back to the present.

Fun Outings with The camera Club
Dad was also a very keen amateur photographer, and was a member of a camera Club. There were many Sunday photography outings and along with us came other kids of the members of the club.

And we always had great fun while the adults busied themselves taking photos of everything and anything, it seemed to us. Dad was so serious about his photography that he set up a dark room where he developed and printed his photographs.

All black and white at the time. He and his camera club entered many of their favourites in exhibitions throughout Europe. I’m quite proud to say that many cups and medals were won by Dad. They have been shared amongst all his grandchildren which I find quite special.

He liked taking portraits of us kids too, mostly when we were in a state of untidiness, usually during play. Dad always preferred the natural look of messy hair and clothes in the photos of his children.