Epicenter Network Blog

One of the best ways to keep an edge in affiliat marketing is to keep up-to-date with technology, trends and search engine updates. So on that note, here are the most recent updates at Google (minor changes, but still important to take note of):

AdWords API
New version is now available featuring asynchronous calls, keywords and placement ideas and location extensions previews. Upcoming features will include ReportService, AccountService and the ability to pre-check for errors.

Custom Search
This is now available on smartphones and higher-end mobile devices. Your mobile custom pages can be hosted by Google or you can host them on your mobile site.

Google Search Appliance
Added new Self-Learning Scorer that analyzes employee clicks and behavior to automatically improve its built-in relevance tool.

Google Reader
Just added an Explore section and Personalized ranking. The Explore section will organize new content based on popular and recommended sources. The personalized ranking uses a sort option called “magic” to organize items in your feed based on your personal usage and overall activity.

Google Friend Connect
Now you can strengthen your blog’s community with the Google Friend Connect Wordpress pulgin.

In search marketing, getting your message saturated into the market is the best way to gain control and ensure that as many people as possible are viewing your page or product. This gives you more creditability and increases the likeliness that the user will click on your link.

When a user enters a search query, Google will present them with 10 organic and about 11 paid listings, presenting you – the marketer – with about 22 chances to win them over. The goal is to gain as many of those spots as possible and to achieve a stronger presence for your targeted keywords than your competitor.

There are many ways to go about saturating your message and becoming successful with organic and paid search takes time and a lot of testing. Here are a few ways to gain more control of the search market through “free” and paid techniques.

If you are striving to dominate in a competitive market organically, you’ve got to get creative and use your competitors to your advantage. Start by running a query on the keyword or phrase you want to rank for and see who your competitors are and what they are doing. Then brainstorm ideas that can make you stand apart from them and offer a more specific, targeted solution. You can then incorporate your messaging into your page titles and meta descriptions and write them like ad copy.

Gaining saturation in a competitive marketing through paid search is not an easy task and will require a lot of time, money and monitoring. To get the most out of paying for top listings, you may want to consider day-parting, placement testing, geo-targeting and determining your most lucrative timeframes.

When working in a less competitive market, using long tail phrases for organic results saturation may help you jump up the page quicker. Focus on getting more than one page within your domain to rank for a query. This way, Google will combine your listings and you can move up a spot or two on your results pages. For example, if you were displayed at spot 4 and 6 before, Google would combine your listings and move you to spots 4 and 5.

For paid search saturation, gain rank through buying directory listings and paying for sponsored ads to be placed on competitors sites. You may also consider building multiple web sites and buying PPC ads for these sites for the same keywords and phrases. The only downside to this strategy is that it can be expensive and you need to make sure that you aren’t bidding against yourself. Additionally, this may grab you a large share of the market, but also gives your competitors a chance to drive up the bids on your long tail phrases.

Overall, the best way to gain saturation of the market is to stay one step ahead of your competitors. Keep an eye on what they are doing and strategies they are using and then try to optimize on them.

Using ppc marketing is the best way to reach a targeted audience and drive more potential buyers to your sales page. If you are using Google AdWords to manage your campaigns, one of your biggest focuses should be on relevancy and creating the most targeted ads possible.

Here are 5 tips to help you succeed in AdWords and create the most relevant ads for the search engine and your customers.

#1 – Don’t group all keywords into one campaign and one ad group. Instead, split up your campaigns according to base keywords and split up your ad groups to have variations on your base keyword. The more your separate and micro-organize, the easier you can view the performance of different terms and help you to create more targeted, specific ads.

#2 – Make your ads as targeted as possible. Not only does this make your ad more relevant to a search term, but it also makes it more relevant to the user and will encourage more people to click on your ad.

#3 – Incorporate your keyword into your ad. This plays into tip #2 and helps get Google’s attention and the user’s attention. When you include a specific keyword in your ad and that keyword matches the search term of the user, it appears bolded on the search results page. You can see this if you type in “shoes” or “backpacks” into Google.

#4 – Create multiple ads and run tests. Create three or four good ads for each ad group and let them rotate through. Keep an eye on the stats for each one and you will probably start to notice that one or more of them will outshine the rest. This will help you to further optimize your ads and make them even more targeted.

#5 – Keep up with Google. It seems like Google is always evolving, adding new features, changing up algorithms or creating new policies. Use this to your advantage by staying up-to-date on their newest tools and announcements and periodically check out their Help Center and Learning Center.

We are pleased to announce that this year’s Affiliate Summit Las Vegas trip for two is going to Aaron Rosenthal. Aaron has won a two night trip for two which includes airfare, hotel and tickets to a Vegas show of his choice. Congrats, Aaron!

Thanks to everyone that stopped by our booth and be sure to stay tuned for our next big giveaway announcement!

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