Are your Web Site Pay-per-click Costs Killing You?

Well, it’s been awhile since we have posted any ezine articles, and you may have wondered why that is. Well, Bob and I have been very busy looking at alternative ways to drive traffic to our web site, but first we had to figure out how to get that cost prohibitive, money-sucking web site out of the basement in the search engine rankings; it was at 3.8 million. Our pay per click costs were killing us.
Our goal has always been to learn Internet Ad Copy well enough to be in the top 10 organic listings, the free listings, on the left side of the page, instead of paying per click for advertising on Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Being in the organic listings, the free listings, on the left side of the page means a huge financial burden would be lifted off our shoulders. All we had to do was get our web site ranked in the top 10.
Our gut instinct told us that having a Multi-Media blog was the answer. Multi-Media means you have video, audio, and content on your site. We call this Network Marketing 2.0. We just had no clue how to do that. Being pioneers, we decided to look into a Word Press blog as we thought that was the way to go.
From February on of 2007, I worked like a dog on a free WordPress blog, doing all the maintenance and multitudinous upgrades myself. I complained and whined to Bob on a regular basis saying, “This is an absolute crock.” You see, the biggest fly in the ointment was the unbearable amount of maintenance on the blog while still doing our main business activities to generate revenues. Bob took most of that load off my shoulders, but still, it was a nightmare involving 10 to 20 hours a week with techno tard skills. I don’t know what plug-ins work where, what didn’t work now because of an upgrade, and so on. The blog upgrades started coming in at the rate of one to two per month. The first three times I upgraded the blog, I wiped the whole thing out and had to start over which meant our blog was not even appearing on the web.
Back in mid August 2007, Bob and I agreed that something had to give. We were fortunate enough to pay attention to our email from Simon Leung and got on a call about blogging and automated blogging software. Our prayers were answered even if we knew nothing else about blogging.
As we continued to listen to the call about using a blog to drive traffic, we got more excited by the minute. The tools seemed so logical and simple and now we could get the education about how to use these tools. My partner was in total agreement with what needed to be done. Naturally, my partner was going on vacation again so he said, “We’ve got the tools. You go, girl.” And so I did. Shazaam. Ninety days later our web site was assigned a Google Page Rank of one (1). We felt like we died and went to heaven.
So if you’re still with us, you’re saying to yourself, What’s the catch? What’s the trick? To be honest, the ranking did not come from the web site itself. It came from where we linked to. We’re not talking about trading links and all that sort of rot. Not at all. We linked to our own sites.
The best link we have from our Building Your Biz site goes to our blog. Now, this is just not any blog, obviously, if you can move that quickly up through the search engine rankings on Google. It’s special. You can go out and get a free blog through any one of the hundreds of companies out there or you can get some cut-rate job. However, you have to look at what the blog software does for you. Is it easy to use? Does it get your posts, podcasts, videos (we don’t have one yet on the site that is ours) out through the RSS feeds and wherever else it’s supposed to go? Remember, I said we are techno tards.
Well, the traffic is really picking up from all directions and sources we never even imagined. People are opting in and staying on our lists. Now all we have to do is figure out the next step, conversions. Again, that process will happen in another 90 days as we are now getting more tools to help us do that again. (However, this time Bob’s vacation time is canceled until further notice.)
By the way, Bob being a doubting Tom and me being a doubting Thomasina, we really had to know if a high page rank really lowers your pay-per-click cost. I just had to try it one time to see if our theory really worked. Can you imagine having 15 click-thrus to your site for under $4? We were ecstatic.
The key to everything we do can be boiled down to one practice every home business owner must adopt, and that is Learning with a capital L. Learning is a nonstop process for those who are dead serious about their businesses and want to generate really, really good revenues. Whether you’re an affiliate marketer, direct marketer, or network marketer, education is key. Take it from us, Bob and I have spent thousands and thousands and more thousands of dollars on courses that ended up being worthless trash. We have an incredible stack of CDs and DVDs we’ll sell you. Someday, we’ll even review them for you.
However, no matter where your traffic comes from (and a lot of it will be free if you follow what we’re doing), you still have to continue using 20th Century Marketing skills and build your business through the telephone, Internet, and Ad Copy. We say this for two reasons. One, do you want to forget about making money for 6 months or more while you learn? Two, if you are a network marketer trying to build a business with the verbal marketing skills of a dolt, you may have some serious problems with your credibility. Building your biz requires a phenomenal amount of knowledge and business know-how. There are tools to be mastered. But most important of all, you want a prospect who is totally warmed up to you, knows, likes, trusts and respects you before they ever meet you. A blog helps you achieve all that and more, like a great Page Rank. Building your biz in the 21st Century can bring you the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. You can bang your head against the wall and wonder why it hurts like we have, or you can try shortcuts until you are lost in the Kalahari Desert, or you can do what two techno tards did and have a tried and true path to success. To find out how we blog, click How To Blog under Blogroll on the right side of the screen. Your Coaches,
Nancy Dewitz & Bob Listerman
co-Founders, Promarketers
National Growth Business Experts
http://www.buildingyourbiz.com
http://buildingyourbiz1.com