"TARGETED TRAFFIC FOR PENNIES.."

"TARGETED TRAFFIC FOR PENNIES.."

By Jim Daniels

What follows is a proven, step by step formula for driving

highly targeted traffic to any website; for pennies.

Recently, I've been sampling new promotions methods to

drive fresh traffic to my website. I had been reading quite a bit

about goto.com and how other webmasters had been getting

great results with it, so I decided to give it a try.

In a nutshell, goto.com is a "pay for rank" search engine. It

allows website owners to bid on keywords related to their site.

When users search on any term at goto.com they are

presented with a list of sites, with the highest bidders

appearing closest to the top.

Based on my own experience, this site not only offers a great

way to find things on the web, it offers a very inexpensive way

to generate targeted traffic to any site. By following the details

of my own goto advertising campaign, you should be able to

emulate the excellent results I've had.

Just a few weeks into my campaign, I am now generating

between 85 and 100 visitors each day from goto.com. My

costs are averaging about 4 bucks a day. As I continue to

tweak my advertising (I'll teach you how) I expect my numbers

to double and possibly triple. But I'll get to that in a minute.

Let's take things a step at a time...

Step 1: Open your own GoTo account.

The first step is to visit www.goto.com and open an account.

There is a minimum investment of $25 to become a goto

advertiser. The way it works is simple... As an advertiser at

goto.com, you bid on search terms relevant to your site. You

have complete control over how much you pay on a per- click

basis on each of those search terms. The higher your "bid,"

on each search term, the higher in the search results your

site will appear. As GoTo proudly states, "It's targeted,

cost-per-click advertising and you set the cost per click!"

Step 2: Decide how much a visitor is worth to you.

You can do this by checking your current website stats. Add

up your average number of monthly visitors and determine

what percentage of them actually go on to become a

customer. This can be tricky but it is an important step.

Depending upon the average cost of your products or

services, you should be able to come up with a ballpark figure

as to what each visitor is worth.

Example: If I'm converting one sale from every 100 visitors

and my average sale is $100, then each visitor is worth about

a buck. (Keep in mind, this does not take into account the

lifetime value of a site visitor or customer.)

Once you have an idea of how much each visitor is worth to

you, write it down. You will use this number as a "cap" on your

bids. More on this later.

Step 3: Start a file on your computer with keywords

pertaining to your site.

Using any word processor, start typing anything and

everything you can think of that pertains to your site. If you are

selling pet supplies your list would look something like this...

dog

cat

kitten

dog bone

collar

dog food

pet

pet supply

(Don't worry about pluralizing all your words. GoTo's Search

Pluralization feature analyzes your keywords and does this for

you automatically.)

Now before you tackle this step, I must inform you that this

can be the most time-consuming part of your goto campaign.

Why? Well, in order to really get the most from your

campaign you'll be making a list of at least 1000 keywords, or

search terms. That's right, I said one thousand. You don't

"need" that many to get started with goto, but I tried bidding on

a limited number of keywords and the results were nowhere

near the cost- effectiveness of using a large list. A large list

allows you to bid as low as a penny on 90% of your keywords.

Even if 10% of them get a single click each day, you're

generating 100 visitors right there.

Goto offers a "suggested search terms tool" to help you:

http://inventory.go2.com/inventory/searchInventory.mp

When you type in a word there, you get a list of related search

terms that were searched on last month at goto.com. I found

their suggestion tool helpful, although it can still take quite a bit

of time to compile a large list with it.

Actually, I must admit I cheated on generating my own

keyword list... As a registered member of The Challenge, I

have access to a keyword generation script that generated

literally 1200 terms for me in a few minutes. This tool saved

me days of thinking and typing and quite frankly is worth the

price of admission to the private site. (Especially if you are

planning a goto campaign.)

Step 4: Write a title and description to go along with your keywords.

When you place your bids at goto.com you will also be asked

for the title of the URL you are submitting and a short

description. It is important to write something brief, yet

eye-catching. Remember, the main objective is to get people

to click. Use of the words "free" and "you" can be very useful

here. Stick to the tried and true classified advertising axioms

but make an effort to stand out from the crowd. A good idea is

to write something YOU would click on.

You may want to write two or three of these titles and

descriptions, especially if you plan to bid on keywords that

cannot be directed to the exact same URL at your site. Ex:

One of my bids was on the keywords "free downloads" so I

wrote a separate title and description for the software area of

my site

http://bizweb2000.com/software.htm and submitted that specific URL.

You can save time if you can write a description that covers

your entire site and then link all your bids to your main URL.

Although your traffic may not be as targeted when you do this,

it is less time consuming than trying to break your site into

specific areas. It all depends on your individual site and how

much time you have to spend. (Remember, you can always

adjust links once your account is online and drawing traffic.)

Step 5: Place your bids.

Okay, you have a nice long list of keywords, along with titles

and descriptions. Now it's time to get your bids in! You do this

at goto's DirecTraffic Center. This is their account

management tool, where you can add, modify, or delete your

search listings, 24 hours/day, 7 days/week. You can also

check your account balance, add money to your GoTo

account, change your bids in real-time and view your activity

reports. Once you've opened an account you just click

https://secure.goto.com/s/dtc/center/ to log in.

As far as actually placing your bids, there are basically two

methods to utilize --manually (by hand) or by using the Excel

spreadsheet they offer. This is a no-brainer. Go for the faster

and more accurate spreadsheet option. It allows you to

complete one form and email it to chgorder@goto.com for

their review.

Microsoft's Excel is part of the Office Suite and many PC

users have it, even though they may never use it. Although I

had never opened Microsoft's Excel program before, I was

able to learn enough in about a half hour to get me through.

Basic skills like repeating text and drag and drop of my

keyword list were simple enough to figure out. Within an hour

of downloading the spreadsheet they offer, I had a completed

form ready with over 1200 keyword bids.

An important topic to touch on here is the pricing of your bids.

I suggest you price all your bids a one cent. (0.01) Since you

will undoubtedly be submitting some keywords that are not

currently being bid on at goto, why pay more per click than

you have to. A penny bid will put you at the top on these

keywords! Once your spreadsheet has been accepted and

put online, you can then start adjusting for more traffic. (More

on this in the next step.)

Note: Make sure your spreadsheet does not contain off-topic

keywords. Submissions are spot-checked and routinely

refused if they contain keywords unrelated to your site.

Step 6: Adjust your bids.

This is where knowing what a click is worth to you comes into

play. At Goto.com's DirecTraffic Center you can now adjust

your bids in real-time. This area shows you your current

ranking on each of the terms you've bid on and also tells you

how much you need to bid to get to the #1 spot. What a tool!

While I don't recommend you go for number one with every

bid I do recommend you try for a top 50 spot. As of the writing

of this, each page returned on goto searches returns 40 sites.

Getting your keywords on the first page or even the very top of

the second can generate traffic.

What has been working for me is this: As I go through my

bids I adjust only the ones that I feel are highly likely to get

searched on. If I can squeeze into the top ten on any of these

by adding a few cents to the bid, I do it. Then, I make sure that

the real common and super-busy keywords appear at least in

the top 50.

Example: The word "business" was very popular and my

penny bid had me at #153. I had received zero hits from that

low position. So I bid just enough to move it up to the top 50

spot and bingo- six hits the next day. While you may be

thinking that six hits is nothing, remember that I'm bidding on

1200 keywords. I've had time to adjust about 35% of them so

far and I'm up to 100 visitors a day from goto.com. That's over

3000 visitors a month and I'm far from done.

As I mentioned, knowing what a click is worth to you comes in

handy here. If each visitor to your site is worth say, .65, then

set that as your limit, or cap. Bid up to that amount on any

keyword, but not over it. This will ensure that your campaign

remains profitable.

As you make adjustments to your bids, you should visit the

"view stats" area of the DirecTraffic Center frequently.

Checking your stats at least once each week will allow you to

keep on top of your adjustments and maximize your traffic.

That's it! An effective new traffic source for your site!

In closing...

While I'm not much for spending money on advertising, this

new method is cheap and effective. Anytime you can get

targeted traffic to your site for pennies, you need to take action.

I've managed to get some excellent results with goto.com,

even with the huge amount of competition in my industry. For

other webmasters who are focused on less crowded niches,

goto.com could be a goldmine of targeted business.

Take this lesson plan and Goto it!

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Thank You!