This is an interesting question because how do you define a “good quality” article and why would you strive to create a bad one?

When I think of “Quality Article”, I am referring to an article that its purpose is to entice readers, create followers, and provide the reader unbelievable content.  I usually personally write these articles or I may pay a well-established (usually pricey) writer to do it for me.  These types of articles I usually put on my own websites as well as places where my name and my authority may be recognized (like eZineArticles, Twitter, Facebook, etc.).

Now the “Quantity Article” is usually done for the sole purpose of creating backlinks.   These DO need to be readible and usually the quality is not too bad.  Still, I usually would pay a lower priced author to write these types of articles and I may even go the extra step of “spinning” the article.  The can produce a lot of unique articles (and hopefully good backlinks) without the cost.

In fact, I usually have the “Quantity Articles” linking back to the “Quality Articles”, among other things.  It is just good SEO and Social Media Practice.

cheers…matt

Well, it sounds like a classic Google Slap to me. A few things are happening here…

1) If you were getting a lot of impressions before and few clicks, you CTR was probably pretty bad. Because of that, you were probably getting bad placements resulting in the poor CTR (catch-22, right?).

2) Google is completely automated so everything depends on when the bots want to visit your site. When you initially bid, its rules were probably different and when you changed your bid, Google will automatically (again) spider your site for quality. Now the rule is probably stating that the landing page is of low quality.

3) About quality score… The index title on your website has good keywords in it, but it might flag as “too much”. The rest of the page has some text (as well as the website) but not tons. The link titles on the page don’t re-inforce the terms you are trying to bid for (as well as some of the backlinks to your page). Again, try to be a “robot” in your mind, not a person. If there is any reason why it thinks you are doing something not right or not adding any value to the internet (or a correlation to the keywords you bid on), it will slap you. Writing a few articles about some of the tasks (like what you have written in the SERVICES section) and then putting anchor text rich on the footer of the page may help a lot. Also, if you are bidding on a term, you might send them specifically to a page on that topic.

4) About your keyword selection. First, this is a very competitive niche. If you are trying to get rank high for these terms, you may need to have higher bids (assuming no Slap). Also, you said that you set your daily limit low (to about $25/day). This will not only suppress the number of impressions, but it will also rank you lower. For terms like this, you need to be doing a LOT of ad text testing to increase your CTR. Again, all of this is kind of a catch-22 (spend more to get higher rankings so you can pay less!?). Just a warning, too…beware of bidding on terms that are too broad. In TruGuru, I call these Broad Tier keywords. They usually have a lot of volume but little traffic. Look into some Focus and Money Tier keywords. This will lower your bid (and volume, of course), but if you can achieve higher CTR’s with these words, you can slowly start dripping in some broader terms (which can be a root of the focus or money keywords) and in many times, these will leverage off of the rest of the campaign resulting in lower prices and better positions for these hypercompetitive terms.

My suggestion: Work on the landing a page and website a little bit more…Add a bit more content, like articles with some keyword-rich anchor texts from at least the homepage (possibly footer!). Don’t optimize too much (like you may have done on the index title). Do a little more keyword research focusing more on the Focus and Money tier keywords (and in this case, you probably can get away with a lower daily budget). At this point, you may want to create first a new campaign and try again…if you get slapped about, you probably want to create a new account. But I think if you beef-up the landing page and choose less competitive keywords, you will probably be fine (just create a new campaign at least).

Tell me how it goes and good luck!

Cheers…matt

— Expert Author Case Study Questions —

1.    What sets you apart from other Expert Authors?

Personally, my writing skills are not the best.  In college, I almost got kicked out because I could not write an argument and I never got better than 390 on the verbal section of an SAT test.  My writing is very “speech” sounding, but the content is always good.  My goal is to communicate my strengths, even though writing itself is a weakness.  I’m honored to be listed as an Expert Author.

2.    What’s your secret to article writing and marketing success?

Content is king!  Providing useful information to others to key to making article writing work.  No need to be promotional within the article (a resource box is great to send them to your promotional sites)

3.    How do you stay motivated to write articles?

If people are willing to read my articles, I’m more than happy to supply them.  (The traffic and the SEO from the resource box is pretty darn good motivation, too!)

4.    How do you decide what to write about?

I originally started to write articles primarily to support the SEO efforts of my websites.  The SEO IS strong, but I was surprised at the amount of direct traffic EzineArticles has provided to me, too.  The content usually goes hand-in-hand with what I am currently working on with my websites.

5.    How do you balance writing for quality and quantity?

There are times and places for quantity.  I’ve always respected the traffic and leverage EZineArticles has provided me over the past and focus entirely on quality, non-duplicated content with them.  Still, I do hire-out quantity article writing for other efforts (which includes creating backlinks TO my EzineArticles).

6.    How has using EzineArticles affected your traffic?

I did a test in an unspecified niche.  My goal was to see how much traffic I could build to a website solely on article writing.  After one year, one article per week, the website naturally received 200-300 unique visitors per day (and it still does!).  Of that, 60% of it is organic search and 13% of it comes exclusively from EzineArticles. 

7.    How does article marketing fit into your overall marketing plan?

Article marketing is CRUCIAL to the success on my marketing.  Pay-per-click has become too unreliable over the years.  Social marketing is great, but it can take a lot of time.  Article marketing has solidified most of my SEO efforts plus, as an added bonus, can provide some quality traffic to the site, too (and this doesn’t cost me anything).

8.    What EzineArticles tools do you find the most beneficial?

I don’t specifically use any EzineArticles tools, but the resource box is crucial for creating quality backlinks and references for external traffic.

9.    If you had to start over again, what would you change?

At the beginning, I focused too much on promotion within the articles.  It is not needed, and in fact seemed to push people away.  As long as you provide good, useful information (and not trying to sell anything), you will find it will rank better, more people will read it, more people will repost it and more people will click onto your resource links.

10.    What advice you would give newbie article marketers?

#9 is very important, but consistency is also very important.  If you are going to do article marketing, do it regularly (think of it almost like a blog).

11.    Anything else you’d like to share?

One of the biggest fears I hear about article marketing is “I Can’t Write”.  My answer to that is:  “Neither Can I!”.  You don’t need a PhD in literature to write articles.  As long as you know something that someone else doesn’t know and you can convey that into words some way, you CAN be an article writer.

cheers…matt

Visit Matt Bredel’s EzineArticles Profile and Articles

I do agree that .com’s seem to rank better than others, in general. My practice these days is to always purchase a .com if I am targeting either SEO traffic OR word-of-mouth traffic (because most people assume a .com). Though, don’t be afraid of other domain extensions, though. If you do the right SEO, you will be able to rank strong (it just may be a little more work).

Keywords in the domain seem to matter these days! In the past, my argument for keywords in the domain were based on basic SEO backlink and anchor text theory (i.e., people are likely to link back to you naturally using just your Domain name, making the domain name itself the anchor text and “relevant keywords”…if you want to understand more about SEO and backlinks, watch my free videos at SEOExciter.com). Therefore, your domain is already optimizing your keywords. So I recommend getting some good, well researched keywords within your domain name (without it being too long!)

Just one more note…Even the word “The” in front of the keywords is not bad, in my experience (i.e., TheWebReviewer ranks well for “review” keywords). I have used dashes (-), too, with some SEO success (but that is not great for word-of-mouth).  I would do some research (even if it is as simple as a Google Keyword Tool research) and find some keywords and phrases with some decent traffic. Including broad keywords in your URL is not bad because it will give you leverage (like the word “review” did for TheWebReviewer.com). But try to keep it somewhat specific, especially for the terms that are most profitable to you.

As you can see from the video, I am a little bit behind to release this, but I really wanted to do it right!

If you don’t remember, I was in Australia for most of the Christmas holiday season (about 4 weeks).  One of the best things about being an internet marketer is that it is quite easy to relocate your business and Australia was one of those opportunities.

Yes, I did do some work, but there was plenty of fun, too!  And then there was a mix of business and pleasure…

Business and Pleasure

If you don’t know who James Schramko is, you need to get to know him.  A few years ago, James and I first made contact and over time have become good allies.  But being an Australian as James is, most of our friendship was quite virtual.

But I knew James was a natural at internet marketing the minute we first started talking and his successes and his status as a bona-fide marketing guru are less than an exaggeration.  (Recently John Carlton wrote that James was the online entrepreneur of the year for 2009!).

2009?  Are you kidding?

I kept thinking “How could 2009 be a killer year for anyone?”  We’ve been seeing the industry in flux and many big players going down fast.  Yet, here is James prospering and growing at an exponential level.  Huh?

So while in Australia, it just so happened that we were staying about 2 miles away from James and graciously, he invited me and the entire family over for a traditional Aussie barbeque.  We ate steaks. My kids played on the trampoline, in the pool and did a  little bit of Playstation3.  The “adults” hung out and drank beers and wine.

After a few beers, I boldly just asked James straight out:

“HOW ARE YOU SUCCEEDING SO MUCH RIGHT NOW?”

He gave me a little James Schramko grin and said: “It’s actually EASIER right now than ever before, mate!” (he might not have said the “mate”, but to keep him sounding Aussie, I’m just adding it!)

“So, are you going to tell me the secret?”

This is when we started to casually talk about my businesses and he said:

“I KNOW WHAT’S WRONG, AND I CAN FIX IT” (mate)

I wanted to hear what he had to say and I know James is in high demand these days and commands quite high fees for his consultation time.  We worked out a deal and I returned the next day.

We spent well over 4 hours breaking down my business, finding the holes and coming up with solutions.

And the Solutions Where So Easy

We both agreed that afterward, we would share our conversion with our own clients.  We spent another couple of hours recording this consultation on video.

I’ve now put them all together and they are ready for you!  For current members of TruGuru, they are already in the portal ready to be watched.

For the rest of you, I debated awhile on what I wanted to do.  I think this is too good to keep closed to non-members. And these videos are important to both experienced marketers as well as “newbies”.

Here’s the deal…

If you want to watch the videos, too, they are available for purchase at BizBreakDown.com.  The price is ridiculously low, but then again, I am only opening this to the “public” for a limited number of buyers at this price.

To start with, watch James and I talk about what we did and learn more about getting BizBreakDown today!

Watch the video now

cheers…matt

Hey Bill,

In my opinion, there are three “tools” that I use for my keyword research.

Google Keyword Research Tool

I always start with the simple Google Keyword Research tool.  It is free and it provides an abundant wealth of information (especially since most of us are targeting Google anyway). Here you can find some decent long tail keywords.

Market Samurai

The next step (or tool) that I use is Market Samurai.  I LOVE this tool!  It is a one time purchase (and quite affordable!) and incorporates a lot of the Google Keyword Research tool but goes above and beyond.  You’ll get more SEO and PPC analysis on the keywords plus more statistics about its competitiveness and it effectiveness.  There are also the other SEO tools, article & social research and affiliate tools that makes this tool not only a killer keyword tool, but a great general research and affiliate tool, too. (Market Samurai usually offers some pretty good free trial software, too, just to check it out!  Go here.)

Wordtracker

As a final (and most thorough step), you can go and check out Wordtracker.  This is a membership based tool but it is really insightful, especially when it comes to find long tail keywords.  In the past, I will usually join for about a month and then try to get all of my keyword tasks in that I have collected over the months.  Personally, I find the tool a little more complicated than the others, but then again, it is just more complex and deeper than the other two, as well.  I think you can trial it for the first 7 days for free (though you will need to cancel out before the trial if you don’t want to be charged.  There is more details about this here.

I was just reading over a blog comment from my FTC Regulation post (with 1 hour audio interview!) and the commenter made an interesting point about affiliates getting screwed these days.   I have a few comments on this worthy more than just a comment on that post…

Affiliates ARE getting screwed!

Kenneth (the commenter) first makes the point about trust.  How do we, as affiliates, know about the developers of products (you know, the advertisers?).  As he suggests, maybe you have to do your own research first find out the truth about these companies, including where they are located.

Is the Affiliate Accountable for OverSeas Shenanigans?

This was the biggest concern.  If you are promoting a product that ends up screwing over people or breaking US Laws, can you be liable?  Well, I’m not a lawyer at all, but my assumption is that there is always the possibility.  (This is one reason why I chose to incorporate TheWebReviewer back in 2006 when it started to make some money.)

This is a Two-Way Street

But still, just because the affiliate can take some liability in the circle of internet marketing, it is still the advertiser (the person selling the product) that has even greater risk.  Despite the efforts of companies like Google to thwart affiliate efforts online (because they say it “adds no value”), the affiliate (also called a publisher) is actually in a better legal position than the advertiser.

Advertisers Are Getting MORE Screwed Now.

Being both a publisher and an affiliate, I have good insights and experience in both sides of this game.  And lately, as an affiliate, I have come across conflicts such as Google Adwords Bans and FTC Compliance.  Nothing that couldn’t be resolved.  Nothing that can get me into trouble.

As an advertiser, though, I have first found the new FTC regulations slowly making the product seller responsible for their affiliates.  If I choose to put an offer in a network and an affiliate chooses to SPAM it to 1,000,000, it is really MY problem.  Sure, I can ban those affiliates, but it is usually too late.  If an affiliate creates a flog, yes, per the new FTC regulations they are liable for that…but so is the advertiser.

And What About Merchanting?

Call me a Conspiracy Theorist, but I think all of these things are related:  Google Bans, FTC, and now Visa stepping in and shutting down online merchant accounts.  And this gets back to Kenneth’s original point…Can you control what is going on overseas?

• Google tried to ban them, but there is no way of patrolling it (too many sites, too big of an internet).
• The government (FTC) stepped in and tried to outlaw this (still, people just moved their companies overseas).
• So now (with pressure from Google and the FTC…conspiracy speculation!), I think Visa is stepping in to tap the whole system off from the top.

If you cannot process credit cards online, you don’t make money.  It is that simple.  Of course, we are now seeing surges of overseas merchant accounts forming, but the business models have changed!  Higher reserves, huge increases in rates (over 10% in most cases) and payments usually take days or weeks to make it into your bank account.

This makes it tougher for the rogue product owners (still, it doesn’t stop them, but costs them a lot of money and puts their own cash flow in jeopardy).

Legitimate Businesses Getting Screwed!

But what sucks is that it hurts the Legitimate businesses domestically who DO follow the rules.  Again, this is something that I have recently fought (and resolved!).

As you can see, everyone is being hit here…not just affiliates.  And remember, if the affiliates are hurting, it is logical that it hurts the advertisers as well.

In part 2, I’ll talk about what should you do in this current climate…Give up?  HECK NO!  Despite all of this mess, there are many new opportunities in the horizon (especially the for “just starting” internet marketer!).

Off to take the kids to school…cheers…matt

For those of you who attended my disaster of a webinar last month when I was attempting to give a Wordpress Thesis demonstration, you might remember that one of the most requested questions concerned adding a image to your Thesis theme header.

For as great as Thesis is, this functionality is not straight-forward.  (Maybe in their new version 1.7 that is coming out soon?)

So for now, I want to provide you with the key to installing your image file into the header with the least amount of pain.

Yes, there are some minor technical things, but if you watch the video and keep it “simple” (i.e., copy and paste), you should be fine.

The main thing you probably need is the copy and paste code that you will place into your custom.css file (as shown in the video):

That is pretty much all your need!  Remember that you need to put in your image file location (put it in quotations, too!).  Also, you may need to change the height parameter to match your image.  That is about it.

Just copy and paste the rest and you should be set!

cheers…matt

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Don’t Know What Thesis Is?  You Should Really Check it Out! It Rocks!

Learn more about the Wordpress Thesis Theme…

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P.S. I used the code shown here from the blog post at DoubleMule.com

To answer your question about my mentor, I did a lot of trial and error and over the years I’ve developed relationships with people that really helped.  I did start out with StomperNet when it first began and that was quite a community then (now, it is not so much).  I do regularly attend local meet-ups (like from meetup.com) but at the end of the day, I took and idea and ran with it.  If it failed, learn and move on.  If it worked, cha-ching!  Having the right guidance can help, though, get through it quicker.

I know I am about 2 weeks late with this video, but better late than never, right?

(Actually, I have some Australia videos that I haven’t gotten to yet, either…all in due time!)

But for today, I wanted to give Shawn Collins and Missy Ward some props for their new book Internet Marketing for the Real Experts.

Yes, I did receive the book for free at Affiliate Summit, but I have to admit that I am not much of a “book reader” (I wish I was).  I wasn’t actually expecting to read this book, but its structure tempted me.

It is a compilation of 88 affiliate marketers within the “Affiliate Summit Inner Circle” each contributing a page or two on their strengths.  This includes topics such as general affiliate marketing, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), social media and more.

I liked it because the tips were quick and to the point.  Chapters are only a couple of pages long and it makes for great night-time reading (especially for those like me who can only make it through about 4 pages before going to bed).

Personally, I found some real gems in the book (and I’ve been doing this for years).  And still, for the new marketer, this will give you a lot of fundamental insight to many of the aspects involved with internet marketing.

I liked it and recommended it.  You can check it out at Amazon:

Learn more about Internet Marketing from the Real Experts

cheers…matt