Archives for 2011

How To Make Thousands Buying and Selling Websites

While I first started developing my own websites for profit in 2007, I got my first taste of buying existing websites in June of 2008. Back in those days, before Flippa existed, BuySellWebsite.com was the place to buy and sell established websites. In June of 2008, I ended up buying a nice little AdSense website for $2,500 (plus a $20 wire fee and a $81.25 Escrow.com fee) for a total of $2,601.25. Just a few years later, that website has yielded $3,825.40 in AdSense earnings alone (I also received extra earnings from direct advertisements). On AdSense alone, that’s a yield of 147%. Since then, I’ve made building websites and also buying established websites a huge part of my passive income plan. I’m here to say first hand that buying established websites is a great way to make money online! Of course, selling websites (for more than you paid) is also a great way to make money, but I’m more of a cash flow kind of guy so I’m holding my websites for the long haul.

Flippa Makes It Easy To Buy and Sell Websites

Thankfully, these days it’s a lot easier to buy and sell websites for profit. There’s a new marketplace called Flippa that makes the process far easier than when I started back in 2008. It’s my firm belief that anyone reading my blog can make thousands, like I have, buying and selling websites. That said, the marketplace is also more competitive now so you really need to know what you’re doing. Don’t worry! There’s a brand new 147 page eBook that guides you through the process step-by-step. I’m talking about Zac Johnson’s Flip This Website.

Zac Johnson Flippa Guide

I Bought Zac Johnson’s Guide and It Rocks

Have you heard of Zac Johnson? He’s a super affiliate and owns one of the top affiliate marketing blogs on the Internet. Over the years, Zac has literally earned a fortune with affiliate marketing. I regularly frequent his blog and have a ton of respect for Zac. It’s for this reason that I knew Zac’s eBook would totally rock. I personally purchased Zac’s eBook (screenshot at the end of this post showing my ClickBank receipt) and couldn’t be more pleased with my purchase. For only $33.49 (temporarily on sale from $67), I’m armed with 147 pages of amazing information, from the king of Flippa. Moreover, I’ve got 6 bonus videos at my fingertips too.

After reading Zac’s book, I’m now ready to buy more websites in 2011-2012 than ever before. Web development takes a ton of work, I’m ready to scale my SEO affiliate earnings quicker than ever before with my new Flippa tips and strategies.

Buy Zac’s Guide From PPC Ian and I’ll Reward You

If you’re serious about Internet marketing (whether you have a corporate job like me or are a full time affiliate marketer), Zac Johnson’s Flippa Guide is a true must have. At only $33.49, you are getting an invaluable education for next to nothing (I’m surprised it’s on sale for this price). Now, here’s where things get interesting! This just wouldn’t be PPC Ian if I didn’t reward you guys. Remember when I promoted Keyword Winner and ran a Keyword Winner Contest where I reviewed the blogs of PPC Ian readers who purchased via my link? (By the way, you can see here the Keyword Winner Contest Winners.) Well, I’m at it again!

Buy Flip This Web Site via my affiliate link and I will feature your website or blog right here on PPC Ian. I will write a few sentences about your blog or website and also provide a link to you as well. All you have to do is purchase Zac’s guide via my link before July 31st! I’ll be featuring the winners in early August. In my opinion, the $33.49 is worth it just to get featured here on PPC Ian, a leading online marketing blog that gets over 1,000 visitors/day. It’s just my way of rewarding PPC Ian readers (I truly can’t thank you all enough) while spreading the word about a product I truly believe in. After you purchase Zac’s eBook via my link, simply email me your ClickBank order number and website or blog you’d like reviewed (family friendly sites only).

Want to learn a bit more before buying? You can see the table of contents from Flip This Website below:

Introduction
My Story
Overview: The Three Business Models
Flippa: The eBay of Web Properties That You Can Trust
Chapter 1: What You Should Watch Out For When Buying Domains and Websites
Chapter 2: Introduction to Flippa
Chapter 3: Buying and Selling Web Sites with Flippa
Chapter 4: How to Build Your First Site to Eventually Sell on Flippa
Chapter 5: Promoting and Outsourcing Your Web Sites
Chapter 6: Next Steps – 3 Action Plans for Your Business Model
Blogging Tips: The Before, During & After Process of Buying a Web Site
Flippa Case Studies
Interview with Matt Mickiewicz
Your Gift: Free Flippa Credits to Get Started
20 Memorable Flippa Sales
Web Site Flipping Resources
A Final Word on Web Property Flipping
BONUS: The Mini Niche Web Site Guide

Flip This Web Site

Ad for Flip This Web Site © ZacJohnson.com
Screenshot of ClickBank order © PPCIan.com

Surpassing 3,000 Fans on Facebook Via Paid Traffic

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Jul 3 10

Just a few weeks back, I wrote a post about how I Got 1,242 Facebook Fans for Only $347.70. The post became really popular, got some great comments (thank you to all who commented), and inspired me to push my campaign even further, much further!

Today, I’m thrilled to announce that I drove a total of 3,156 likes! (This is not the PPC Ian Facebook Fan Page, but is a Fan Page for another one of my authority sites.) Out of my 3,156 likes, 2,938 are from my paid campaign. Since I paid $965.42, but got a $50 coupon thanks to my wife, I ended paying $915.42 or $0.31 per paid like. Not bad, and very consistent with my results last time. Today, I wanted to close out my test by sharing a few thoughts (while hopefully inspiring you to run your own Facebook paid like campaign)!

75 Wall Posts or Comments Within 1 Week

Paid likes are some of the highest quality Facebook Fans around! Just check out the image above. Over the past week, there have been 75 wall posts or comments. The majority of these have been fans commenting on my wall posts, fans posting their own questions, or fans liking wall posts. For only $915.42, I created a vibrant community that is sharing my content and driving traffic to my site. Paid likes are of really high quality (just like paid search traffic from search engines).

Facebook Fan Page = PPC (Except You Pay 1st)

I’m viewing social media, especially Facebook, in a new light. I’m a paid search guy and am used to paying per click as I go. Facebook is the same thing, but you pay first! Think of it this way: You pay/invest a lot of money, drive paid likes, leverage those likes to drive interaction on your page, and then get visits from your fans over time.

It’s estimated that Each Facebook Fan Will Drive 20 Visits To Your Website. $0.31 (my price per fan) for 20 visits is really great, that’s only $0.016 per visit (certainly cheaper than AdWords or adCenter). Even better, this doesn’t even take into account the branding and SEO advantages of having a vibrant social media program. Looking at things in this light puts a whole new spin on Facebook and is a great way to pitch the idea of increased social media budget to your organization.

Watch Out For New Account Limits

When you open a new Facebook Ads account, Facebook will throttle you. In my last post, I mentioned how my impressions were throttled and then I got a surge of traffic all of the sudden at the end of the test. I originally thought this was due to Facebook fighting ad fatigue and evening the impressions over time. I was wrong. It’s because Facebook put a $50/day budget limit on my account but then lifted the limit to $200 once a number of successful credit card charges went through. Just something to be aware of when you open a new account.

My Self-Sustaining Community

If you drive enough likes, you can create a self-sustaining community on Facebook. My interaction with my Fan Page in this case study has not been very extensive at all. Fans have actually been asking other fans questions. The community is vibrant and self-sustaining to a degree which is super cool! I just need to keep an eye out for community members posting their own links. I’ve had to remove a few, but other than that the comments and interaction has been super genuine. Of course, I do expect this interaction to decline over time as the hype and freshness of my page wears off. It will be at that point that I jump in with some clever ideas and/or run another like campaign.

So there you have it! Now, my campaign is paused as I didn’t want to go over $1,000 total media spend for this initial test. What are your thoughts on paid Facebook like campaigns? At $0.31/fan, should I keep running this program until the price per fan starts going up? I’m certainly tempted!

All Images In This Post © PPCIan.com

Acquisio’s Amazing Remarketing eBook

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Jun 26 11

Have you heard of remarketing? How about site retargeting? These are some seriously hot topics right now in the world of online marketing. Site retargeting, now available in all Google AdWords accounts, allows you to serve display (or text) ads to users who have visited your website. The applications are incredible. Just think: You can now deliver a special offer to someone who got all the way down your conversion funnel but stopped one step short. Or, you can target someone who visited your homepage but left to compare prices on other sites. It’s a truly amazing technology, but one that could also be confusing!

Today, I am thrilled to share with you the most comprehensive guide on site retargeting I have ever seen, the guide that will teach you everything you need to know! Our friends at Acquisio, the leading performance media platform for agencies, have done it again! Today, I’ll be reviewing Acquisio’s free 13 page remarketing eBook titled Using Remarketing To Drive Increased Display Ad Results.

What You’ll Learn About Site Retargeting

Acquisio has a long history of putting out amazing eBooks, whitepapers, and webinars. Some of my favorites include Acquisio’s Display Advertising eBook and Acquisio’s Facebook Webinar. Their brand new remarketing eBook, however, takes it all to the next level. Here are a few of my favorite highlights:

The eBook offers an amazing, comprehensive guide to setting up your first AdWords site retargeting campaign, with eight steps. Even better, each step includes a screenshot. This really is the best how-to documentation I have seen on site retargeting.
Acquisio offers clever ad copy and landing page ideas, catered to site retargeting campaigns. I especially enjoyed a neat SnapTotes case study.
I learned about advanced topics such as frequency capping and building interactive creatives.
The eBook closes out with really cool ideas that will get you thinking. Just one example: Site retarget visitors who converted one month later, in an attempt to get further sales.

So there you have it, one of my favorite eBooks of all time. I highly recommend downloading Acquisio’s Remarekting eBook. After entering some really quick info, you will get a link to the eBook in your email, just moments later. It’s super easy!

Image of Acquisio Website © Acquisio

How I Got 1,242 Facebook Fans For Only $347.70

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Jun 17 13

I’m a huge fan of Facebook advertising, especially when my goal is driving fans. I currently have three Facebook Fan Pages: my PPC Ian Fan Page (please like me, I would truly appreciate it) and two others for my top two authority sites. The main goal of my Facebook Fan Page strategy? Drive repeat visitors to my sites, communicate with my top visitors (people who can be evangelists for my brands), and of course create SEO value (social media is driving SEO and will only continue to do so more, in my opinion). I’ve had a lot of success with my newest Facebook Fan Page. I basically went from 0 fans to 1,242 in less than a week for only $347.70. That’s only $0.28 per fan! (Make sure to check out the screenshot from my Facebook account at the bottom of this post.) These are real fans, fans who are interacting with my page, fans who are helping me build my business. I feel that this point is absolutely critical because I can get 1,242 fans for cheap on Fiverr but those wouldn’t be real, quality fans the way you can drive with a paid campaign. Today I’m excited to share my strategy!

Step 1: Leverage The $50 Coupon

First and foremost, it always pays to have a coupon. My wife found one for me in the recent issue of Entrepreneur Magazine. I put it to good use immediately and this lowered the cost basis of my campaign. If you don’t have a Facebook advertising account yet, make sure to leverage this coupon or another one when you open your new account. Even if you don’t have money to spend on your Facebook Fan Page, at least the coupon will give you $50 in free spend.

Step 2: Write Great Creative

I’m sure you’ve heard this hundreds of times, but I truly can’t underscore the importance of testing creative (both text and images). Just check out the screenshot below. The second ad is the clear winner with a CTR of 0.217%. The other ads have CTRs of 0.126% and 0.080%. What’s really crazy here is I didn’t vary my text too much. I already have a winning model that starts with "Poll" and then asks a simple question. If the answer is "yes", I ask the user to click "Like". This copy has worked really well and I encourage you to try it out. Amongst the three ads, I really did vary the images. The winning image actually surprised me, it’s hard to predict the winner so I always recommend testing!

Step 3: Give Your Facebook Campaign Time

I put a budget of $250/day on this campaign from the start. It made perfect sense, I was targeting a huge audience of around 300,000 reach. However, Facebook really surprised me this time! It seems that they throttled my campaign. Despite having a good CTR and low CPC, I didn’t hit my daily budget. The frequency is lower than I’ve seen in the past and it took many days (almost a week) to hit just half of my target audience.

I almost prefer it this way. I was able to run my campaign for about a week and I’m seeing no signs of burnout yet! I’m still running it now and perhaps the Facebook Ads team is working on the burnout problem. The moral here: We don’t appear to be in a churn and burn environment right now. I used to run Facebook campaigns that would experience ad fatigue within 24-48 hours. I’m not seeing that with my most recent campaign and recommend stretching your time horizon out a bit.

My Typical Experience With Paid Facebook Like Campaigns

Over the last year or so, I’ve run a multitude of Facebook "Like" campaigns (paid campaigns with the goal of driving likes). I’ve seen truly varied results. Some verticals, despite my best efforts, come in at a lofty $5/like. In a more typical situation, I have seen likes between $1 and $2 each. For the reasons outlined in the introduction, I can’t imagine running an authority site without at least a few hundred real, dedicated likes so I’m happy to pay the price even if it is in the $1-$2/like range.

I’m truly thrilled with this campaign, however, because I’m coming in at $0.28 per like. I spent $397.70 so far, but I got that great $50 coupon so I actually only spent $347.70. $347.70 divided by 1,242 fans is a sweet $0.28 per fan. Knowing how well my website converts and the value of these fans, I will keep running this campaign until it experiences fatigue. I expect that to happen after I hit 2,000 fans since at that point I will have hit the majority of my target audience and the ad frequency should get up to the 10+ range.

I truly hope this helps you out not only with the strategy but also with some numbers so you know what to expect. Want to learn more about driving fans on Facebook? I highly recommend my post about Three Ways To Drive More Facebook Fans. Also, Acquisio’s free Facebook Webinar is truly awesome. What has been your experience? Anyone driven fans via paid Facebook campaigns for less than $0.28/fan?

Image in this post © PPCIan.com

My SMX Advanced 2011 Pictures and Recap

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Jun 9 14

I just got back from SMX Advanced Seattle and had such an amazing time. I always have so much fun at these conferences, but must say SMX Advanced Seattle 2011 was one of the best. Why? I really took time to network more than ever, as you can see in the many pictures throughout this post. Today, I’m really excited to talk about my epic experience at SMX and share tons of pictures (thirteen of them)!

An Amazing Whirlwind First Day At SMX Advanced

PPC Ian and Craig Danuloff (ClickEquations)

On Tuesday, I had a truly great day at SMX Advanced. I had one of those whirlwind days where the day is packed from 8:00 am through 11:00 pm at night! My day started off going to the sessions at SMX Advanced. I must say that the first session about pay per click quality score was the best session of the entire conference.

My favorite part of the session: My friend Craig Danuloff (CEO of ClickEquations provided a multitude of insights about quality score and announced his brand new quality score book (which I purchased and plan to review here soon). Craig is the leading expert in our industry about Google’s quality score algorithm and it’s always an honor to hear him speak. While I was at the ClickEquations booth, I also caught up with my friend Alex Cohen. Alex also spoke at SMX and is truly impressive. I highly recommend his blog, Digital Alex.

Geoff Shenk, David Rodnitzky, and PPC Ian

As the day progressed, I really enjoyed walking around the expo hall (twice as many exhibits as last year) and eating the great food and snacks that SMX provided (they went all out and I feel like I ate way too much, but it’s all good). While walking around SMX, it seemed like I was always running into people I knew! Truly cool stuff! In my opinion, the biggest value of these conferences is the networking. My advice to you: Go all out and network with as many online marketers as possible. It’s amazing the connections you will build.

Right around lunch time, for example, I ran into my friends Geoff Shenk (Managing Director at Kenshoo) and David Rodnitzky (CEO of PPC Associates). Kenshoo is an amazing online marketing platform that I highly recommend. I recently blogged about their new Watchdog product. I’m friends with a lot of people at Kenshoo and they truly have an amazing company. PPC Associates is one of the hottest paid search agencies in the Bay Area.

PPC Ian and My Marin Software Friends

While walking around the expo hall, I of course ran into my good friends Michael Cook and Jana Fung from Marin Software. I’m a huge fan of Marin Software and have blogged quite a bit about their SEM platform and whitepapers. One of my favorites: Marin’s Free Guide To Facebook Ads.

Later in the day, I also ran into my friend Matt Lawson, Marin’s VP of Marketing. Matt’s a real visible guy, I’m always running into him at all these conferences and he truly does a great job representing Marin Software. Marin is located in San Francisco so I enjoy having lunch with Matt from time to time.

PPC Ian and John Rampton From TechieMania

Here’s where it starts getting really crazy! Out of the blue, I ran into John Rampton from TechieMania. I have never met John in person before but he’s a regular commentator here on PPC Ian and I truly appreciate his contribution to the comments here. John came up to me in the expo hall and recognized me from my blog! That was a real milestone for me, my blog is starting to get truly noticed thanks to all of you! It was great hanging out with John and I highly recommend checking out his blog. John is a great guy and I hope to network with him more in the future.

Later in the day, I attended more exciting sessions while diligently taking notes. Overall, I felt the SEO content from SMX was stronger than the PPC content. Don’t get me wrong, the PPC content was great. It’s just that the SEO content was unparalleled. The SEO track pulled out all stops. At the end of day one, I really enjoyed watching the You&A session with Danny Sullivan and Matt Cutts. There’s always some great comedy in this session and I truly enjoyed it!

PPC Ian and Chris Guthrie (Make Money on the Internet)

At the end of the sessions, I headed over to the expo hall floor for the Expo Hall Reception sponsored by Yahoo! and Bing. It’s there that I met up with my good friend Chris Guthrie from Make Money on the Internet. Chris is an inspiration to me. He’s a big time blogger and affiliate marketer. He makes a ton of money online and works really hard to deliver value. That said, he stays humble. He’s got the best attitude around and truly enjoys helping others. I was really hoping that I’d be able to catch up with Chris at SMX Advanced like I did last year and was really happy we were able to connect two years in a row!

Awesome Dinner With Friends, Talk About Great Times

While I was hanging out with Chris Guthrie and enjoying some free drinks thanks to Yahoo! and Bing, we met up with a variety of great people including Nathaniel Broughton from Growth Partner (Nathaniel is a big time affiliate marketer, entrepreneur, and leader), Sujan Patel from Single Grain (Sujan owns an SEO agency right here in San Francisco), and Max Wellenstein and Steve Kroll from RocketClicks (these guys are truly inspirational and make an amazing name for RocketClicks). I had such a blast networking and making new friends. I learned that Sujan’s office is just down the street from mine in San Francisco and we already have lunch on the books next week. Talk about great networking and building my network with high impact professionals. We were all having so much fun at the expo hall that we decided to head out to dinner. You can see a picture to the right of us all enjoying dinner!

We really enjoyed dinner in Seattle because it stays light so late in the summer! The long days are really neat. After dinner, which ended around 10:00 pm, I caught up with my great friend from Stanford who happened to be in Seattle for Microsoft conference. We had drinks and enjoyed catching up. Like I mentioned, a true whirlwind day and a true blast!

SMX Advanced Seattle Day 2, My Time To Chill Out

Richard Couture, PPC Ian, and Marc Poirier

Day one of SMX Advanced Seattle was amazing, but was also a bit tiring. So, I decided to take it a bit easier on day two. My day started off with a 7:30 am breakfast at the Edgewater Hotel. I truly enjoyed meeting and networking with the CFO of a local Seattle startup. After that, I checked out of my hotel and headed over to the conference. Just like day one, I enjoyed the sessions, networking with new and old friends, and eating some great food and snacks.

I had a ton of fun in particular catching up with my friend Marc Poirier CMO and co-founder of Acquisio. Acquisio is an amazing performance marketing platform for agencies. I have blogged quite a bit about Acquisio here on PPC Ian and recommend checking out their free Facebook Webinar. I learned a lot by watching this webinar. Marc is a truly impressive professional and one of the nicest people at the conference, I always enjoy catching up with him. I also enjoyed meeting Richard Couture, Acquisio’s co-founder and VP of Product Management.

I ended up leaving the conference a little bit early and flying back to San Francisco in the early evening. Next year, I’m thinking of staying another day so I can take in the parties and festivities at the end of the conference on Wednesday night. Seattle is such an amazing city and I want to take this opportunity to give a shout out to Danny Sullivan and the entire SMX team. You guys did a great job with this conference! Everyone who I networked with at SMX, it was really great meeting up with you guys! Please stay in touch.

More Amazing Pictures From SMX Advanced 2011

SMX Advanced Seattle 2011

SMX Advanced Seattle Edgewater Hotel

SMX Advanced Seattle Convention Center

SMX Advanced Seattle Marc Poirier

SMX Advanced Seattle Skyline

All images in this post © PPCIan.com

Amazing Times With My Friends At Google

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Jun 6 7

I’ve been networking with Google like crazy lately, it has been a real blast! Today, I wanted to share some cool pictures with you, in addition to my insights about Google as an organization. In short, Google is on an amazing roll, they are reaching out to clients like never before and it really means a lot to corporate marketing professionals like myself.

Let’s Start With The Fun Events

PPC Ian and Kit (Google Employee) at Google Mountain View

As you can see throughout this post, I enjoyed two amazing Google events within the last few weeks. Highlighted in the first picture, I recently visited Google’s Mountain View campus to meet with Kit from the DoubleClick team. As a follow up to my recent speaking engagement at Google, Kit reached out and scheduled a meeting with me for my feedback and insights on some of their new tools. I really enjoyed viewing their new tools and contributing feedback. Our meeting lasted a good hour+ and was super productive. I must say, it was quite the honor! It’s not everyday that I get invited to Google for 1-on-1 time regarding their latest products.

Google Giants Stadium Luxury Suite

Kit was really gracious to treat me to an amazing Google lunch (I can’t get enough of their gourmet food). I even got a tour and was amazed to learn Google has a new bowling alley. It’s really slick, better than the real thing! Kit and Google/DoubleClick, thanks so much and please don’t hesitate to reach out if I can ever be of further assistance.

Also within the last few weeks, I attended the Giants/Marlins game in Google’s luxury suite. This event was hosted by none other than Dennis Woodside, Google’s President of the Americas. This exclusive C-level executive only event was a true blast and reminded me that I have truly made it big in online marketing. I was able to catch up with old friends from the executive teams of Nextag and Apollo Group (University of Phoenix’s in-house onith line marketing agency). I also enjoyed making new friends!

View From Google Giants Luxury Suite

Since the Giants game was an executive only event, I didn’t really have the opportunity to take too many pictures with attendees, but I certainly snapped some of the suite and food. I’ve been to four Giants games in the last year and three have been in luxury suites. (You may wish to check out my recent post about A Day In The Life of PPC Ian where I highlight Marin Software’s luxury suite.) Now that I’ve been spoiled, I never want to go back to regular seats. This is just one more reason I love the corporate online marketing career path so much! Thanks again Google!

Google Is Building Deep Relationships

Food at Google Giants Luxury Suite

So, what does this all mean? More so than ever before, Google is building deep relationships with their top advertisers. They have their sights set on the long term and are making impressive relationship investments that will last decades. I commend Google for their strong efforts in this arena because I’m also a long term type of guy. It is all about relationships, at the end of the day.

Now, don’t get me wrong, Google has always been focused on client interaction, it’s just that they are now going 110 miles per hour versus 100. What does this mean for you, the corporate Internet marketer? Seize the opportunity! Now is your chance to reach out to Google. Now is your chance to get heard! Now is your chance to build relationships that will last forever.

Ask and You Shall Receive

Snacks at Google Giants Luxury Suite

I want to close out today with an important tip that has served me really well: If you truly want something, you need to ask for it in a nice but strong way. How did I get invited to originally speak at Google? How did I get invited to an exclusive C-level executive Giants game with the top executives at Google and in the Bay Area? I asked! Opportunities are all around you. If you remember to ask, you shall receive (most of the time). Even when it comes to promotions/raises at work, it never hurts to ask, as long as you’re a top performer. Just remember to always give back and prove your value over and over. Thanks for reading everyone and now go reach out to your Google account management team and start networking!

Drinks at Google Giants Luxury Suite

All Images in this post © PPCIan.com

How I Earned $4,874.36 on eBay Partner Network

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Jun 5 43

In the last three months (February – May), I earned $4,874.26 on the eBay Partner Network (EPN). That’s an average of about $52.98 per day of pure margin SEO income (no media costs attached). Considering I hold a demanding full time job (that I love) and that the time I invest in my eBay Partner Network websites is low (maybe 1 hour/week on average), I couldn’t be more thrilled with the results. Since my prior posts about my EPN earnings have been so popular (Scoring Record EPN Earnings and My EPN Earnings Rock), I thought I’d do another eBay post today to share my success and a few tips so you too can build your own passive income stream while driving substantial user value. When you’re done reading my tips, make sure to check out the screen shot at the bottom of this post that highlights my earnings!

Tip 1: Focus On An Authority Website

My eBay Partner Network Earnings come from one authority website that I started back in 2007. I started this website about a topic I love! Due to my passion, I was able to write hundreds of articles that users love while really sharing my own personality and perspective with my visitors. I consistently get emails from my visitors saying they love my site and I’ve truly helped them. I invested a ton of sweat equity in the early days (mainly 2007-2008), and continue to update my website consistently to this day (although my commitment right now is about 1 hour/week). (Side note: I don’t want to give the illusion that passive income is easy. It takes a ton of up front work, it’s just that I’m now enjoying the passive aspect of my income stream because my EPN operation has matured.)

By focusing on one site, I was able to build a ton of quality traffic within a particular niche, thus having the ability to send eBay lots of qualified visitors. I have found that the large scale approach (when combined with quality) works really well! So, if you’re thinking about going the multi-site route versus the authority site route, I’d highly recommend going with an authority site.

Tip 2: Don’t Go Overboard With Links To eBay

You’d be surprised! I don’t have a ton of links to eBay on my authority website. I almost make my visitors look for them. This is really important. eBay is measuring results (in the form of account sign-ups and also winning bids) and will pay you higher EPCs if you drive higher quality traffic. In fact, they tend to over-reward their highest quality sources of traffic. (Side note: You can learn more about this in my review of eBay’s Quality Click Pricing.) For this very reason, it’s of paramount importance you don’t go overboard and you only send quality traffic. My personal approach has involved extremely long, complex, passionate articles that truly help users with maybe one link to eBay. I could send probably 5 times as much traffic to eBay as I am now, but I don’t want to compromise the quality because then my EPCs would plummet.

Tip 3: Leverage Text Links To eBay

eBay offers a ton of complex ways to link to them. They offer widgets, the ability to embed eBay results right on your website, and all sorts of options. When it comes to SEO, my strategy is one of keeping it very simple. As such, the majority of my eBay links are text links. Of course, I sprinkle in a few widgets too, but those represent the minority of my EPN clicks. My advice is to not overlook the simple, text link strategy because it works really well with Tip 2 (keeping your traffic quality high).

I hope these tips help you out! I’m super thrilled with my eBay results because of the passive income, but more importantly because I’m learning. I’m learning new skills that help my corporate online marketing career while having fun and making some extra income!

My eBay Partner Network Earnings

The Best Domain Names For PPC and SEO

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment May 30 3

I’m a huge fan of domain names and now own several hundred domains across the dot com, dot net, dot org, dot me, dot us, dot co, dot biz, and dot info extensions. I also own over 100 developed websites across these same TLDs. Domains are the real estate of the future and one of the best investments around, in my opinion. I recently got an excellent question from a PPC Ian reader, Anthony, which I paste below.

Red and Green Apples

Hello Ian,
I came by your site via a dot co article you wrote some time ago. I am in the process of deciding wether to purchase a .co or launch a site under a .info, which the article was critical off. How has you experience been with .co, have they ranked well?
Any advice would be welcome.
Thanks,
Anthony

The post Anthony is referring to is my piece titled Dot CO Domain Names Rock. I’m thrilled to answer Anthony’s question about dot info and dot co domains in today’s post.

PPC Domain Names

The first point I want to call out here is the difference between PPC (pay per click) versus SEO (search engine optimization). If you know up front the domain will be primarily used for paid search, you will have a lot more flexibility. If you’re building a PPC only site, you can really build it on any TLD you’d like.

My main advice for paid search domains: Make sure they are keyword rich. If the keywords you’re buying are in the domain, your display URL will display bold, which in turn helps you earn a higher CTR. These days, keyword rich domains are table stakes in paid search (unless you already have a hugely recognized brand name within your industry). Of course, I always prefer an exact match dot com. Those, however, can be pricey. Quinstreet, my old employer, recently purchased CarInsurance dot com for a cool $49.7 million (domain name plus existing business). By contrast, your going to be able to pick up the same name with a dot me or dot co TLD for considerably less.

In sum: Get the best, keyword rich domain you can find for PPC. Don’t worry as much about TLD as long as it’s one of the big ones mentioned at the top of this article. Want to learn more about paid search domains? Check out my article all about PPC Domain Strategies.

Best SEO Domain Names

Let’s now look at domains for SEO (or for a hybrid PPC and SEO strategy). First and foremost, I’ve had success with all TLDs in SEO, some more than others. Of the second tier domains, dot us, dot me, and dot co are my favorites when I just can’t get the dot com dot net, or dot org (although I’m less of a dot org fan versus dot com and dot net).

There are really two point that go into this. First, I have found that search engines have a higher affinity for certain TLDs, with dot com and dot net topping the charts on Google. On Yahoo, dot com, dot net, and dot us rank the quickest and the best. You might pay more for these domains but they will rank quicker and higher, helping you recoup your investment.

Second, SEO is all about branding these days. Build a great brand and you will do quite well. Gains are exponential so I’m really focused on my top sites and recommend a single site strategy (or handful of sites strategy). I personally own over 100 active websites, but that’s because I love testing new stuff and I’m addicted to big numbers (even though this might not be the best financial decision). In my experience, it’s much easier to build a brand on a dot com or dot net domain. Therefore, if Anthony is going for an authority SEO site, I’d recommend going after a good dot com or dot net. (Side note: Check out my guide for Buying Domains on Sedo. This will come in particularly handy when buying high quality domains on the aftermarket.)

A quick distinction: While my bias is dot com, dot net, and sometimes dot us for authority SEO sites, I’m much more flexible when it comes to smaller minisites. In the case of minisites, I’d consider all the domains listed in the intro and definitely rank dot co ahead of dot info. Dot co has a ton of marketing dollars behind it and is a hot TLD right now. It screams ©commerce" and "e;commercial", making it perfect for most sites. Dot info is regarded as a cheaper domain name and has many questionable sites on it due to its ultra-cheap price for the first year on GoDaddy.

Intent of The Domain Name

I’d like to close out today with one last word of advice: Buy the TLD that most closely matches your business. Let’s say your are going to build a pure, informational site. In this case, dot info could make sense. Let’s say on the other hand, you are building a site for a non-profit organization. Of course, dot org makes the most sense. Let’s now say you are building a personal blog. In this case, dot me might be best. Last, dot us makes a ton of sense for sites that are strictly about the United States. I’ve had a ton of success with finance-oriented sites on dot us. I’m a huge fan of making sure my website strategy aligns with the true intent of the domain TLD.

As you can see, there is no clear answer since there are so many sub-questions that go into choosing the right domain name. The best news: The opportunities in domain names right now are unparalleled. My closing advice is to really think it through, but at the same time just go for it! The sooner you start, the quicker you will achieve success!

Inflection: The Hottest Bay Area Startup

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment May 23 6

Last Friday, my wife and I went to an amazing party at Pampas Palo Alto hosted by Inflection (formerly People Search Media). In my opinion, Inflection is the hottest startup in the Bay Area. I’m proud to say that I used to be Director of SEM at Inflection and am excited today to share my high level thoughts about the future of this fast-growing business.

I Used To Work At Inflection

PPC Ian and Matthew Monahan (CEO)

As mentioned in my post I own shares in Inflection, I used to work at Inflection and own shares in this awesome company. I’m a very proud shareholder, indeed. Inflection is one of the best companies I worked for and I had a true blast managing their entire search marketing team, the backbone of the business.

You can read all about Inflection on their corporate website and particularly their about us page. Inflection is a true force in the Bay Area right now. They operate some of the largest sites on the Internet such as Archives and People Smart. They are very profitable, and have an amazing team. Perhaps most excitingly, they just raised $30 million in funding and are moving to a new office because of their rapid growth. The best part of it all: Inflection did not need to raise funding, they were self funded and profitable from their early days due to good old fashioned sweat equity.

As portrayed throughout this post, Inflection threw an awesome party for both current employees and also graduates (like me) last Friday to celebrate their new office. They are truly growing fast!

Inflection Is An Amazing Employer and Investment

PPC Ian, Don, and Brian Monahan (VP & Co-Founder)

Anyone who says employee stock options are worthless is a fool! I feel strongly about this. When I was a senior at Stanford someone told me that I shouldn’t worry about stock options because they had friends who worked hard and their options didn’t pan out. Well, I proved them wrong and went onto several companies that each had major liquidity events. My options did extremely well! This is how I made it big in online marketing.

My advice: Ignore the naysayers. If you pick your employers wisely (which you can when you’re in PPC because of the huge demand for our profession), you can accumulate stock option positions that will become a great source of your income. In my opinion, Inflection is the perfect company to consider if you’re looking to accumulate some really special stock options. If you’re interested in a job at Inflection, you’ll definitely want to check out their careers page and benefits page. Also, please feel free to contact me and I can pass your resume along directly.

Pay Per Click Jobs Are Fun

Inflection Party at Pampas Palo Alto

I couldn’t be more excited about the pay per click career path. Over the years, I’ve attended a plethora of Inflection parties, just like the one featured in this post. I even joined Inflection in Las Vegas (paid for by the company) to celebrate a milestone.

My current job also provides truly amazing opportunities, I couldn’t be happier! We had a team offsite in Las Vegas, I get the opportunity to travel quite a bit, and I attend tons of conferences such as SMX West and SMX Advanced. Check out my post A day in the life of PPC Ian and you’ll see just how amazing the search marketing career path can be. My closing thoughts: This is the best career path around, and think strategically about your employer as an investment. Pick a winner like Inflection and you’ll make a very wise investment in your future and your happiness!

Check Me Out In The Pay Per Click Mindmeld

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment May 18 4

Today I’m thrilled today to announce an exciting project I’m involved in, The Pay Per Click Mindmeld. The idea is simple, yet extremely powerful. The PPC Mindmeld hand selected the top 60 experts in the pay per click field (I’m one of them). Then, they had each expert record a 1-2 minute soundbite with their top PPC tips (specifically, what makes or breaks a successful PPC campaign). The result: An amazing mp3 file with 60 pay per click experts each sharing their favorite PPC tips.

The end product is a truly invaluable resource and I couldn’t be more excited about it. Not only am I thrilled to be personally involved in such an extraordinary project, but I’m excited about the tips I personally took away from the other speakers. The best part of it all: The Pay Per Click Mindmeld is 100% free. All you have to do is enter your email address and then you will be emailed a link to download the mp3 file and listen for yourself.

Now, The PPC Mindmeld officially launches soon (Thursday). However, I have a special link exclusively for PPC Ian readers. If you Click This Pay Per Click Mindmeld Link, you get exclusive pre-release access to the Mindmeld and can download the file right away. Once you download the file, you can skip directly to my soundbite by going to 1:35:30. That said, I really encourage you to listen to the entire project because the tips from all the speakers are truly amazing!

A closing tip from my friend running the Pay Per Click Mindmeld: There will be a tweet-to-win iPad 3 (due out in September) contest. It’s really easy: Just download the PPC Mindmeld. Then, click the twitter button on the Pay Per Click Mindmeld homepage. Once you tweet, you are entered to win – it’s that easy! I hope you enjoy my tips and all the tips in this great project.