YouTube Channels Offer Great SEO Value

When it comes to optimizing your website’s organic ranking, quality dofollow inbound links are of paramount importance. It makes perfect sense: Each inbound link counts as a “vote” for your site in the eyes of the search engines. I’ve gone to great lengths building inbound links for PPC Ian. My three tiered approach focuses on PR that drives SEO, guest interviews, and social media profiles. Today, I’m going to talk about one of the top social media profile opportunities: YouTube. In short, it’s mandatory to have a YouTube channel for each and every one of your websites, even if it’s a five page minisite.

Get Your Free YouTube Link

Check out the screen shot of my PPC Ian YouTube channel to the right. As you can see, the profile section has a link to my blog. When you view the source code of my YouTube channel you can actually see that it’s a real dofollow link. In my opinion, this is a really valuable link because it’s coming from one of the most popular websites on the Internet, one that’s owned by Google. Of course, as you build out your YouTube channel and your videos get a lot of views, your link will carry even more weight. In an environment where it’s sometimes difficult to get high quality inbound links, this is truly an opportunity you cannot pass by!

Build Out YouTube Channels For All Your Websites

I currently own over 80 active web properties. They range from large authority sites, like PPC Ian, to small five page minisites. If you’re operating an authority website, you’ve probably already have a YouTube channel. (If you don’t, drop everything and go start one now!) However, I’m here today to argue that you should create YouTube channels even for your smaller sites. Even if your site is only five pages, this is an amazing way to market your website while driving SEO value.

How To Scale Your Time With Multiple YouTube Channels

If you have a YouTube channel, you probably know just how much time it takes to shoot, produce, and upload videos! It’s really time consuming. So, you might be a little intimidated to create YouTube channels for all of your long tail websites. It’s actually easier than you may think thanks to a new website called Fiverr.

Fiverr is basically a marketplace where you can get anything done for $5. Many sellers on Fiverr are amazing at quality, entertaining video. (Some are also really low quality so you’ll want to run a few tests to find the best people to work with.) I’ve personally leveraged Fiverr extensively for video introductions and testimonials for my SEO websites. If it’s not one of my core properties, I go to Fiverr to get videos so I’m able to create a YouTube channel while saving my personal time for my larger websites.

With SEO, It’s Always Important To Think About Quality

Now, you may be thinking: Why don’t I just create a YouTube channel without any videos? While this is possible, I don’t recommend it. Just think about it, what’s a channel with no videos? It really adds no value. I’m all about avoiding stuff that adds no value because it will always catch up with you (and I’m all about doing the right thing). If you’re going to create a YouTube channel, make it something useful. With Fiverr you can build out a high quality YouTube channel with a great video for only $5 and about 1/2 hour of your time.

As a closing tip, I also encourage you to embed your videos on your sites. Video adds substantial value to any website. Search engines like websites that have videos!

Three Easy and Practical SEO Tips

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Dec 20 11

I have been working closely with my friend, and domain industry guru, Morgan Linton from Linton Investments to develop custom niche websites across many services and finance oriented verticals. In fact, Morgan has developed over 25 websites for me so far this year and I couldn’t be happier with the results!

I’m on a roll with my niche websites because of the leverage I’m achieving through smart partnerships, and will soon have over 100 active sites. As I keep developing more and more sites, I have been learning some really great SEO strategies. Today, I’d like to share just three of these SEO tips with you to help you take your own niche sites to the next level!

SEO Tip 1: Exact Match Domains Offer SEO Advantages

SEO Tips

As someone with a portfolio of nearly 200 domain names, I’m a huge proponent of exact match domains especially with the dot com and dot net TLDs. It’s simple: If you have the exact match domain name, search engines will give your domain priority. Sure, you still have to work super hard in building out a great site, optimizing on-page SEO, and building quality inbound links (off-page SEO). However, we’re all looking for advantages over fierce competition these days and the exact match domain gives you that secret advantage! At this time, I’m really only building out exact match domains. Most of them are non-hyphenated domains, but from time to time I’ll go after hyphenated dot com domains such as Cheap-Desk.com.

Now, even if search engines change their algorithm and give no advantage to exact match domains (not likely in my opinion), I’m here to say that exact match domains have another benefit: They attract amazing anchor text associated with inbound links! Just think about it: When someone links to my site PetiteJacket.net, what anchor text are they likely to use? You guessed it, Petite Jacket.

SEO Tip 2: Leverage Smart Anchor Text With Internal Links

Over the years, I’ve gotten very far with my on-page SEO strategy. You’d be surprised: Smart on-page SEO and especially internal link structure can get you amazing results in search engines. As I built out my niche sites, I’ve made it a point of using great internal linking to show search engines which terms are most important to my site. As a simple example, my article about buying a motorbike jacket links back to the homepage of my site with anchor text Motorbike Jacket.

Even on the very homepage of this site, I link back to the homepage (in the top blurb) with the same anchor text. Now, you don’t want to go crazy, but a few smart internal links with appropriate anchor text can get you very far. Another tip: Never link back to your homepage with the anchor text "Home". Instead, use the name of your site. Of course, if you are leveraging an exact match domain name, the name of your site will be a highly desired term (this is why the exact match domain strategy makes so much sense).

SEO Tip 3: Create Tumblr, Live Journal, and Yola Accounts

While my first two tips are all about on-page SEO strategies, my final tip for today is an off-page one. All sites require inbound links to get recognized by search engines. It’s rare these days that you’ll rank well without at least a few inbound links (although this can happen with the right exact match domain name). However, it also doesn’t take all that much to start ranking a strong domain name. Recently, I have been having a ton of success with Tumblr, 350.com, Live Journal, and Yola. These are all great platforms that allow you to create accounts which can add great value to the user while linking back to your niche site. Just remember to post good stuff on your social media accounts, they’re an extension of your brand. So, there you have it: Three simple SEO tips that provide great leverage with minimal work!

Image of SEO Tips © iStockPhoto – Warchi

My eBay Partner Network Earnings Rock

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 21 21

Hey everyone! As you may have noticed, I have been updating PPC Ian a little less frequently lately. It’s not that I’ve been slacking off, it’s just that I’ve been super busy. As you may remember from my 2010 goals, I set the goal to develop six new websites this year. Well, I’m actually on pace now to develop 75 plus. The best part of it? All 75 plus sites are amazing and deliver substantial value to the Internet. How is this possible? Stay tuned, I will be writing a post all about this in the coming months!

PPC Ian still remains a priority and I’m hoping to boost my post frequency going forward now that things are cooling down a bit. I’m particularly excited about today’s post about my October and November eBay Partner Network (EPN) earnings. You may recall that I posted about my Volatile eBay Partner Network Earnings not that long ago, back in early October. Well, the volatility continues, but this time in my favor!

My eBay Partner Network Earnings Skyrocket

It’s really funny! Just as I posted about my volatile EPN earnings in early October, things really started looking up. October was a strong month (compared to prior months) and I ended up earning $500.46. The crazy part of this is the earnings all came in during the first few weeks of October and then started tapering off like crazy. By the end of October, I was only earning a few bucks per day. So, the volatility was still there, it was just working in my favor a bit more. Want to see my earnings in October? Check out the first graph at the end of this post!

November has been even better than October. I’ve pulled in a solid $846.59 so far this month! While the month is not over, I do see my earnings tapering off just like October. Check out the second graph below, the month started really strong and then started getting weaker over time. The click volume has been somewhat consistent, and it’s really my EPC (earnings per click) that has been dropping over time. I’m definitely happy with my results in November and am hoping to break through the $1,000 mark, but definitely could be a challenge if I get back to that few bucks per day level. Again, make sure to check out the second graph at the end of this post to see a detailed view of my earnings.

eBay Partner Network Takeaways

My excitement for the eBay Partner Network is really taking off and I’d like to close out today with a few of my takeaways from this case study:

People love posts about earnings! My last post about my Volatile eBay Earnings got 14 comments and was even featured on the ever popular blog Make Money On The Internet by Chris Guthrie, one of my favorite blogs!
Don’t give up on eBay. When I wrote my last post about my volatile eBay earnings, I was definitely de-motivated with my earnings trends on eBay. While the volatility is still there, I’m now making some good money from it! These last few months tell me that it’s all about the long term and that seemingly permanent trends can and will change!
It’s all about profit and not revenue. The numbers shared in this post are pure margin. The sites on which I run the eBay Partner Network get all of their traffic organically (read: no PPC). That’s a bit ironic on blog called PPC Ian, but I’ll be the first guy to tell you that PPC does not make sense in all business cases. The sites on which I run EPN are information sites. I have found the slow passive income SEO strategy ideal for these types of sites. The net effect: I’m able to pocket all of my EPN earnings! This looks even sweeter when you combine this passive income strategy with a full time job. It looks even sweeter still when you factor in passive income from Google AdSense, Commission Junction, ClickBank, and other affiliate programs. I’m going to be writing a post very soon about my overall passive income strategy and how I plan to retire rich from leveraging multiple income streams.
eBay Still Pays On Conversions. About a year ago, eBay moved to their new Quality Click Pricing model where they smooth out commissions and pay on clicks (and not conversions). However, based on my experience, eBay is still paying on conversions, they’re just smoothing it out over clicks a bit more than in the past. There’s nothing wrong with this, but it’s just something to be aware of. When you drive conversions, you will see a spike in earnings like me. I’m hoping with the holiday shopping season approaching that my EPN earnings skyrocket as more people convert!

There you have it! If you have been observing lower earnings on eBay Partner Network, I encourage you to hang in there like me. Don’t forget to check out the graphs of my October and November (month to date) earnings below…

My October and November (MTD) eBay Partner Network Earnings

PPC Ian eBay Partner Network Earnings October 2010

PPC Ian eBay Partner Network Earnings November 2010

My Volatile eBay Partner Network Earnings

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Oct 4 14

I’m a big fan of SEO web publishing and have developed over 30 sites that drive pure margin to my bottom line. It’s refreshing as a pay per click professional to have SEO margins of nearly 100 percent in my personal portfolio of websites. I’m also a big fan of the eBay Partner Network. I’ve been in eBay’s affiliate program back since the days it was on Commission Junction and it’s always played an important part in my affiliate marketing strategy (although less so over time). Today, I wanted to take a moment to share my September earnings on the eBay Partner Network and in particular the very volatile nature of eBay’s affiliate program.

eBay Quality Click Pricing: Then and Now

Back in November, 2009 I wrote about eBay’s brand new quality click pricing. It has been almost a year now since eBay migrated from its old model of paying affiliates based on sales and leads to paying for each and every click.

Early on, I was a fan of eBay’s new model because my earnings skyrocketed and became much more consistent. While I’m still a fan of eBay, I have changed my opinion on quality click pricing. I like the old model better. Why? My earnings have trended down sharply in recent months and volatility has skyrocketed.

In addition to trending down, my earnings have been very volatile as of late. Case in point: The snapshot at the end of this article is from my eBay partner account. While my clicks are somewhat consistent, the chart shows my earnings per day coming in at only a few bucks per day and they skyrocketing at the end of the month.

I Have Been Diversifying My SEO Affiliate Business

Over time, my Google AdSense earnings have been trending up like crazy! They have been doing especially well since Google’s new leaderboard format. I have been doing well on Comission Junction as well. In August, I had a record month on Commission Junction with nearly $1,000 in pure SEO earnings. Excitingly, I exceeded my August earnings in September. I’m also not doing too bad on ClickBank these days. I’m now trying to make Amazon Associates work, but I have a long way to go.

In addition to diversifying my affiliate earnings by program, I have also been diversifying my portfolio of domain names. I’m proud to announce that I launched five new sites in September and am on track to do the same in October.

All of this diversification is really important in terms of risk mitigation and sustainability. It’s because of diversification that my decline in eBay earnings and volatility really doesn’t impact me. The two takeaways that I wanted to leave you with:

eBay’s partner network is great, but be prepared for some volatility.
Whether you’re managing corporate SEM campaigns, your affiliate marketing business, or your investment portfolio, diversification is key. The graph below is first hand proof that volatility exists even in a program that’s designed to pay you per click, in a relatively consistent fashion.

eBay Partner Network Earnings

My Best Month On Commission Junction

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Sep 7 27

I’m a big fan of passive income. I’m also a big fan of SEO. Put the two together and I have built a network of information sites that drive passive income from affiliate programs. Historically, my main methods of monetization have been Google AdSense and the eBay Partner Network. However, I set the goal in 2010 of diversifying my affiliate programs. Even though I’m the biggest fan of AdSense around (and AdSense dominates my affiliate earnings), it always a great idea to diversify for added stability. To that end, I’m excited to report than I earned $991 on Commission Junction in the month of August, a new milestone for me. My earnings were at 100 percent margin, all from my SEO sites. Moreover, I spend less than 5 hours per month on this stuff (I’m a corporate SEM Director) so I’m super excited with the results.

My CJ Earnings Are Pure Profit

Commission Junction

My friend Jeremy from Profit Addiction said it best. Jeremy’s tagline "When revenue is not enough" indicates that it’s all about profit and not revenue. You hear a lot about people making thousands and thousands of dollars with affiliate marketing. However, most of the time they are talking about revenue and not profit. There’s a big difference!

Just think about it: Pay per click is getting really competitive. If you’re a savvy affiliate, your percentage margin may be 25 percent tops (most are much lower). Let’s assume I earned my $991 via PPC at 25 percent margin (instead of my 100 percent SEO margin percent). That means my theoretical PPC revenue is $4,000 or $48,000 per year. Not bad!

However, PPC margins can be volatile. As such, I would always swap PPC dollar margin for the same dollar margin in SEO. In short, I’m a huge fan of SEO earnings. Sustainable SEO margin is just like a great dividend-paying stock, whereas PPC is more like active trading.

Affiliate Marketing Is A Small Percentage of My Income

So you may be thinking why is Ian writing about a $991 monthly profit, it’s not that much money. Here’s the cool part and why I’m such a big proponent of moonlighting: It’s all gravy on top of my salary and involves only a few hours a month. (Also its just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my affiliate income as CJ is a smaller component of my cash flow.)

However, I’m here to make a point… I spend the vast majority (99 percent) of my time on my full time job. A good percentage of my full time salary goes towards bills. My affiliate marketing income, however, is pure savings that goes directly into my bank account or other investment vehicles. With only a few extra hours a month I have learned invaluable SEO skills (helpful in my career) while building a stream of pure profit that goes to my bottom line.

Since my $991 is passive and recurring, it’s representative of about $240,000 value in my eyes (I would have to invest $240,000 at 5 percent dividend yield to get that same annual cash flow via stocks). In short, no matter how small your affiliate business, SEO margin is much more valuable than you may think!

Give Commission Junction A Try

I’ve been building out a lot of SEO sites and have been placing CJ ads on all of them. I have been very pleased with my results and highly recommend giving Commission Juntion a try. Many people I know don’t use CJ as much anymore since the eBay affiliate program is now managed by eBay (and not via CJ like it was in the past). However, I’m here to say that Commission Junction has many great offers that convert quite well in SEO, especially in "review" style sites.

Google Testing New AdSense Formats

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Aug 20 14

If you’ve been reading PPC Ian for a while, you know that my posts tend to be very long. In fact, I average about 800-1,000 words per post. As such, it’s become an intimidating challenge for me to post more than one or two times a week. However, it became very apparent to me at SES San Francisco that I absolutely must post at least two times per week to maximize the potential of PPC Ian. I have very big goals for this blog! As such, I’m going to start incorporating some more concise posts in my mix, such as this one. I hope you find the shorter format equally entertaining and helpful!

Google’s Awesome New AdSense Leaderboard

So, for my first shorter format post I wanted to highlight a fascinating change I’ve seen with Google AdSense recently. Basically, they are testing an awesome new format for their leaderboard where you see three horizontal ads rather than the four standard ads (image below).

New Google AdSense Leaderboard

My AdSense Earnings Started Spiking Recently

How did I notice this change? I actually pulled this ad from one of my personal sites from the financial services vertical. I own a portfolio of websites that drive passive income via affiliate earnings, IJL Productions LLC. AdSense is one of my favorite affiliate programs and it drives the lion share of my passive income. The other day, my earnings started spiking due to an improvement in CTR (my page impressions stayed consistent). After a quick audit of my sites, I realized that the new format could very well be the driving force behind this!

Higher AdSense CTR At The Expense of Advertiser Conversion Rate?

So I’m super happy right now (more money is good). However, I have two points. First and foremost, I don’t want to get too happy because this could go away. The jury is still out whether this test will turn into functionality that Google decides to keep.

Second, who knows what this higher CTR is doing to advertisers (I’m also on the advertiser side) on the Google display network. It’s always possible that the higher CTR is at the expense of conversion rate. I’m hopeful that it’s a true gain (CTR up while conversion rate flat to up). In fact, I think this is very possible because AdSense, in my opinion, is overdue for some format changes. It’s been the same too long and some users are getting immune to it. By shaking things up a bit, Google is doing the right thing, both for publishers and advertisers.

Image of Google AdSense © Google, Ads Within AdSense © Their Respective Advertisers

My Blog Commenting Strategy

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Jun 1 44

In my opinion, it’s all about PPC. At the same time, you can be even better at PPC if you learn other marketing opportunities and channels as well. Just last week I wrote all about offline marketing and specifically the WebEx Caltrain Station Takeover. Today, I’m excited to share one of my new blog marketing strategies: blog commenting.

Growing PPC Ian’s Traffic Base

Jonathan Volk Top Commentors

I launched PPC Ian, my first blog ever, back in October, 2009 and it has been an amazing learning experience for sure. My marketing strategy originally revolved around my extensive network of friends on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. As the months passed, my strategy shifted to an SEO and PR one with a little PPC mixed in. My traffic stats are now at an all time high thanks to loyal readers like you! However, I’m an ambitious guy and definitely want to grow my traffic quite a bit more. Moreover, realizing that blog marketing requires a whole different skill set than my portfolio of static websites, I’m now experimenting with some new marketing strategies including blog commenting.

Why Am I Commenting On Blogs?

There are many reasons I decided to start commenting on other blogs with the following topping the list. First, I noticed my friend Jeremy from Profit Addiction commenting everywhere! In tandem, I noticed Jeremy’s traffic and comments on his blog spiking. Blog commenting seems to be a strategy working quite well for Profit Addiction so this definitely piqued my interest in running my blog commenting test.

Second, I realized that blogging is a very social phenomenon. It’s all about conversation. If you don’t participate in the conversation, you’re not going to get as much attention. I realized how important it is for me to join the conversation. This is a very different philosophy that the one I’ve historically leveraged with my portfolio of SEO websites and one of the key differences between a blog and static website, in my opinion.

Third, I realized that blog commenting is a great way to get quality inbound links to my blog. Many of the great blogs out there have a top commentors list in their sidebar or footer (meaning the list shows up on every single page of these blogs). Moreover, many of these top commentors lists are real links. Unlike links in the actual comments you make, the top commentors links do not contain nofollow tags so search engines respect these as legit links!

Fourth, and most importantly, it’s just plain fun! I’m commenting on other blogs because I very much enjoy it. There are a number of amazing blogs out there about online marketing and it’s fun to join the conversation.

Where Am I Commenting?

There are two images in this article. The first shows me as the number one top commentor on Jonathan Volk’s Blog. I’m a long time fan of JV and enjoy his blog quite a bit. If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you may know that JV interviewed me a while back. I can always count on JV for quality posts and enjoy interacting with others on his blog. Moreover, his top commentors list gives me that great inbound link I was just discussing. I’m currently reading JV’s new eBook about Facebook advertising and hope to review it here in the coming week or so.

The image below shows one of my comments and also shows that I’m a top commentor on JohnChow.com. In the world of online marketing, JohnChow.com is a man who needs no introduction. I actually just reviewed John Chow’s Book and was also reviewed on John’s blog a while back. Like JV’s top commentor’s list, John’s also provides a quality inbound link.

Want to learn about more of the blogs which I frequently comment on? Make sure to check out my blogroll and also my post from a while back about PPC Ian’s favorite online marketing blogs.

Some Closing Thoughts

While my experiment is still in progress, I wanted to leave you with a few interesting closing thoughts. First, I must say that commenting requires time! Not too much for me at this point, but the commitment is definitely there. Longer term, I may decide to outsource some of the work if I further build out this strategy.

Second, I am already seeing some results. I’m getting direct traffic by participating in the discussions out there about online marketing. At the end of the day, that was my goal so I’m thrilled.

Third and most importantly, I wanted to call out the great fact that I’m learning. If you’re in the corporate PPC world like me, you’re probably laser focused on PPC all day long. That focus is a good thing because it creates a guru level mastery of PPC. At the same time, it leaves little room to learn other stuff. Most of my personal knowledge of SEO, email marketing, and now blogging has been self-taught. If you’re in the corporate world of online marketing, I highly recommend dabbling in a few side projects such as blogging. Your knowledge will skyrocket and will start paying dividends in your corporate career.

Images In This Post © JonathanVolk.com and JohnChow.com

Review: Make Money Online By John Chow

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment May 19 15

Today, it’s my absolute pleasure to review John Chow’s new book about blogging for money, Make Money Online. In the image below, you can see my very own autographed copy of Make Money Online. (Want your own? You can order your autographed copy of John Chow’s book directly from his blog for only $23.99. Of course, you can also purchase a non-autographed copy from all the normal venues.) At the end of this review, you can see an image of me proudly displaying John’s book. In short, I’m thrilled with this book and highly recommend you purchase a copy. It’s one of the best books I’ve read about blogging and I’m looking forward to sharing a few of my personal takeaways. First, however, I’ll start with a little background.

Who is John Chow?

John Chow Make Money Online Book

If you’ve been following PPC Ian for a while, you may know that I’m a huge fan of John Chow. Not only do I link to JohnChow.com in my blogroll, but I also enjoy commenting on his blog. Also of interest, PPC Ian was recently reviewed on John Chow dot com. The review was very positive and ended up driving a substantial amount of traffic to PPC Ian! More than anything, it was a milestone and honor in my career.

John Chow is one of the most celebrated Internet marketers around. In the circle of making money online, there are few bloggers that stand out as much as John, and I personally find quite a bit of inspiration in his blog. For that reason, I’m excited share with you some of my favorite takeaways from John’s new book! The following four takeaways are just a very small sample of the great knowledge I took away from John’s book.

Takeaway 1: A Non-Updated Blog Is A Dead Blog

I’m new to blogging. While I own a portfolio of domains and websites optimized toward affiliate cash generation, PPCIan.com is my very first blog! I launched PPC Ian back in October, 2009 and have been enthusiastically learning each and every day.

One of the trends I have observed with PPC Ian is a dramatic influx of traffic whenever I do a new post. As such, I always look forward to posting new, quality content. At the same time, it really hit home when John Chow pointed out (several times) that a non-updated blog is a dead blog. As someone with a very exciting and important PPC career, I find it essentially impossible to update my blog more than once a week. In terms of my blog’s growth, I know this is not ideal. As John also points out, it’s important to have a consistent schedule and to never compromise on quality – I’m definitely doing those two things right. However, I really do wish I could update at least twice per week.

In terms of solutions, I don’t see one just yet, but I must say this simple yet very powerful advice really struck home and got me thinking about how I can take my blog to the next level! After all, there will come a point when I hope to generate income from PPC Ian. I’m not at that point yet, but I do believe a faster-paced schedule will be critical in reaching my goal.

Takeaway 2: FeedBurner Is Essential

If you’ve been reading PPC Ian for a while, you may also remember when I was interviewed by super affiliate Jonathan Volk. This was quite the honor! In my interview, Jonathan pointed out that I should install FeedBurner on my blog. Similarly, John Chow devoted several pages of his book to this very topic (RSS feeds and their power).

I’m personally not a huge RSS consumer myself. Because I’m a big commenter on the blogs I frequent, I go the old school route and visit blogs directly. However, I should not assume everyone is like this. In terms of taking PPC Ian to the next level, I have officially decided to make FeedBurner a priority thanks to John and Jonathan’s advice. Please keep an eye out for this in the coming weeks. I hope to make it as easy as possible for you to read PPC Ian in the format that’s most convenient for you! John points out that number of RSS readers is an incredibly important statistic.

Takeaway 3: John Chow Will Save You Time!

As mentioned earlier, I’m newer to blogging. I have learned a tremendous amount over the past year. Most of my lessons have come the hard way for sure. I don’t mind it at all, this is how the best lessons are learned. At the same time, I sure do wish I had John’s book when I started. John Chow describes in detail solutions to many common blogging dilemmas such as duplicate content (and htaccess), WordPress SEO (where some of my hard lessons were learned), content generation, essential WordPress plug-ins, and so much more!

Regardless of where you stand in the online marketing game, John’s book is the perfect combination of high level theory and lower level tactical tips. It will save you a tremendous amount of time.

Takeaway 4: I’m On The Right Path!

As my last takeaway, I felt really good reading John’s book. While I certainly jotted down dozens of notes on how to improve PPC Ian (just a few of which I share above), I also realized that I’m doing quite a bit right and am very consistent with the strategies John describes. I started blogging in October, 2009 knowing a lot about PPC, but very little about blogging. In less than a year, I have been able to accomplish a lot with PPC Ian. I owe my success to very hard work, passion for PPC, trial and error, and much more than anything all of you – my loyal PPC Ian readers! I sincerely thank you for your support, it means the world to me! I recommend John Chow’s book and hope it helps drive success in your personal online marketing career.

Condo Domain Names

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Jan 1 2

Anyone who has known me for a while knows that I’m a huge fan of investing. I’m a proponent of stocks, bonds, 401ks, real estate, and of course domain names. Over the long term, investing is the primary way you can get ahead and achieve financial freedom. Today, I’m excited to present a unique domaining strategy that is not only an investment in itself, but is also a way to add equity to the investment you made in your condo. Let’s talk all about buying and developing domain names relevant to your condo complex.

My Wife and I Purchased a Condo Just Over A Year Ago

To provide some context, I’d like to first highlight my personal story. Just over a year ago, my beautiful wife and I purchased our first home, a condo on the San Francisco peninsula. We absolutely love being homeowners from two perspectives. First, we enjoy the high quality of life, amenities, pride of ownership, and of course the ability to make improvements to our home. Second, we are huge believers in the investment value of real estate. One day, we hope to fully pay off our mortgage, putting us one step closer to financial freedom. Moreover, we’re contemplating the idea of renting our condo out one day when we move into our next home.

Real Estate Prices Are Down In This Bad Economy

While we got a great deal on our place, especially since we purchased after the market fell, there’s no doubt that today’s real estate market is a bit crazy. Not only are prices down, but homes are sitting on the market longer before selling. In this type of market, it’s important to do whatever it takes to make your condo and your condo complex more desirable than the next.

Historically, sellers have achieved that extra appeal by upgrading their kitchens and bathrooms, adding wood floors, and investing in a fresh coat of paint. For all you domainers out there, I’d also like to propose that you create equity value for your condo and condo complex by developing a condo domain name.

Domain Names Add Equity Value To Your Condo Complex

Condo Domains

The following idea is really simple, yet extremely powerful in my opinion. Many condo complexes that were built more than five years ago have absolutely zero web presence. Our condo complex was built about 10 years ago. Even though it’s relatively large and has over 100 units, the only information online exists on those big real estate aggregator websites. As a domainer, I went ahead and registered our condo complex’s domain name today with the intent of building out a site with the following features:

General information about condo complex
Pictures highlighting our complex’s beauty
Perhaps a few videos
A contact form where I can respond to inquiries about our complex, or at least direct them to the appropriate party
Perhaps some information highlighting recent sales and also real estate agents in our area (Later I could charge agents a small advertisement fee)

In my opinion, this site will add immediate equity value to all homeowners in our complex. It will create a name for our condo complex and make it memorable for buyers searching on the web. Buyers will now have an added reference point that showcases our condo complex as the premier luxury development in the area (as opposed to all the other complexes that have no web presence).

Two Exit Strategies For Your Condo Domain

I wanted to highlight two great exit strategies for your new condo domain. If you’re like my wife and I, you hope to rent out your condo one day when you move on to your next condo or single family house. If you already have a great domain ranking for your condo complex, you’ll have a great head start in getting leads for possible renters.

As another exit strategy, you could always sell your domain to a local real estate agent. Agents these days need clients more than ever and I’m sure they’d be super happy to leverage your condo domain as a way to generate more leads.

Consider Domain Names For Other Condo Complexes As Well

Here’s the crazy part: I had to register the dot net TLD (top level domain) because the dot com was already taken. Moreover, as I started to look for other condo complexes in our area, many of the dot coms were taken but not all. A For the entrepreneurial domainer, one great strategy might be buying up the names of condo complexes and then approaching the respective HOAs with a two tiered business plan: (1) Sell them the domain name, and (2) develop a website for them that adds equity value to their complex (of course, show examples of your work).

To close out, I wanted to wish you a happy new year and all the success in the world in 2010! I brainstorm new domaining business ideas regularly and am looking forward to sharing more of my strategies with you in 2010.

Important Disclaimer: Please make sure to check the USPTO to see if your condo name is a trademark before registering any domains. I highly discourage registering trademarked names.

Review of eBay’s Quality Click Pricing

By PPC Ian Leave a Comment Nov 11 10

I run a web publishing business in my free time and have found it to be just about the best testing ground to learn new PPC and SEO strategies. In fact, I credit my web publishing business as fueling my corporate career because it has given me the opportunity to learn new things that I simply wouldn’t have the time to learn at work, especially on the SEO side. Today, I wanted to discuss my excitement for eBay’s new quality click pricing.

My eBay Affiliate Program Earnings Are Up 40%

Let me cut right to the important stuff: Since October 1, 2009 my eBay earnings are up over 40% compared to my previous peak month. I haven’t made any significant changes on my end during this time period (I’ve actually been focused 100% on my full time gig) and I credit this entire increase in earnings to eBay’s new quality based pricing.

eBay Has Consistently Innovated Their Affiliate Program

eBay Profits Increasing

I’d like to start off by taking a step back and thanking eBay for their innovation. I’ve been an eBay affiliate forever. When I first started, their affiliate program was on Commission Junction. Back in those days, I did reasonably well, but must admit the program was a bit cumbersome. Since then, eBay has really stepped things up.

First, they brought their affiliate program in house and built out an amazingly helpful tracking and reporting system. Their affiliate portal alone has made a very significant impact on my earnings. In pay per click search engine marketing, accurate tracking and reporting is everything. eBay gets it and has applied that mentality to their affiliate program.

With eBay’s most recent changes around quality click pricing, they continue to push forward with the innovations and I commend them. The new system smooths out your earnings to a per click basis and over-rewards high quality clicks while under-rewarding lower quality clicks. I guess I fall in the high quality clicks bucket because my earnings have risen sharply and have been very consistent on a day-to-day basis!

My Personal Strategy on eBay’s Affiliate Program

My strategy is actually relatively simple. I built out an organic website that focuses on a niche of a niche of a niche. I totally own that niche and picked a niche that meshes well with products sold on eBay. It’s a niche that I’m personally passionate about and have personally purchased all of products I promote through eBay. I talk about my experience and offer honest and useful information to my audience. At the end of my articles, I’ll include a targeted link to the relevant products or seller on eBay. Sometimes, I’ll leverage eBay’s seller widget and include that in the article as well.

Why do I think this strategy works so well? I’m honest with my readers and a personal consumer of the products I promote. Because I’m sharing my own experiences, the reader trusts me and is more likely to make a purchase on eBay. My advice to you: Be authentic in your writing. Only endorse products that you personally buy. Speak clearly and openly with your readers. eBay’s quality click pricing will be there to reward you!

I hope this encourages you to give eBay’s affiliate program a try! I’ve read mixed reviews on other blogs and really wanted to take the time to highlight my positive experience to underscore that it’s totally possible to thrive under eBay’s quality click pricing system.

Want to learn more about my web publishing endeavors? Make sure to check out my post all about moonlighting and your SEM career.