My Valentine to the Virtual Assistant Networking Association

My Valentine to VANA

Virtual networking is where it’s at
Even if there’s occasionally a friendly spat
From Australia to Canada and everything in between
If there’s something you need to know it’s already been seen

The reason I’m not a writer is clear
But to know there are so many VAs near
Makes me feel so secure in the night
To know there is always an answer to my plight

From websites to keywords to admin to books
Even logo design and great sales hooks
The ladies, and men, here at VANA are great
Too bad I’m married or I’d score me a date!

So this is my virtual hug to you all
Even if your posts are rare or quite small
Each post has great worth and a nugget of knowledge
I wish I’d known about this before wasting that money on college

February 14, 2007 | Filed Under The Everything Basket | 1 Comment 

Web 2.0 bringing tears to my eyes

I think this is one of the most amazing videos I’ve ever seen. It explains Web 2.0 in a touching, personal way.

Well, it’s touching and personal if you’re a total nerd like I am!

Enjoy.


February 10, 2007 | Filed Under The Everything Basket | Leave a Comment 

A Letter from Perry Marshall

I received a letter from Perry Marshall in my inbox today, and would like to share it with you.


Before I get into today’s topic, a word or two about Overture’s Keyword Selector Tool at inventory.overture.com.

Rumor has it that Yahoo is taking this site down.  Lately it’s been rather unreliable, sometimes available, sometimes not. 

First, a plea for sanity to our friends at Yahoo Search Marketing: Guys, I know and you know that most people come to your site and take your handy keywords and go dump them into Google.  I know that makes ya mad.  ‘Cuz Google passed you by 3 years ago and you’ve been trying to catch up ever since.

Yahoo, I submit to you that taking this keyword tool away can only drop your stock price even lower, because then Google advertisers will have one less reason to even know who you are, much less advertise on the Yahoo/Overture network.  (When analysts at giant mutual funds who own $500 million of Yahoo stock call me on the phone and ask, that’s what I tell ‘em.)

Yahoo, the most strategic thing you can do is make your tool even better, and perhaps even put a link on this tool to some videos or something that explain how to use your own PPC system.

Oh, and just in case Yahoo decides to can this thing for good, there’s a handy alternative available now at http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/  My thanks to Mike and Mindy Mindel for providing that.

Onward to the topic at hand.

Most people don’t pay near enough attention to negative keywords.  Or maybe they stick in words like "free" or "cheap" but usually that’s not enough.  Sometimes the total success or failure of your PPC campaign hinges on the proper use of negative keywords.

Here’s an example – the keyword "soap."  Here are the results you get from the Overture inventory tool:

Searches done in December 2006
Count     Search Term
 91393      soap opera
 63090      soap
 41891      soap opera digest
 34895      soap central
 21779      soap opera central
 17220      soap making
 13494      soap opera update
 13439      cbs soap
 12595      abc soap
 7271      soap digest
 6977      soap city
 6794      soap dispenser
 5608      soap opera weekly
 5178      daytime soap
 4974      handmade soap
 4778      cbs daytime soap opera
 4685      soap making supply
 4629      soap dish
 4525      daily soap opera update
 4344      passions soap opera
 4234      soap opera spoiler
 4136      all my child soap opera
 4099      young and the restless soap opera
 3787      soap spoiler

If you’re bidding on the keyword ’soap’ and using anything other than exact match [soap] it’s gonna be real, real hard to make this keyword work.  If you sell soap related products, then the list you see here is actually more valuable in terms of the negative keywords it gives you (opera, digest, cbs, daytime) than the positive keywords (handmade, dispenser, dish).

So what you should do is bid this way:

[soap]
"soap"
soap

with negative keywords

-opera
-digest
-central
-cbs
-abc
-daytime
-passions
-children

….and you should go all the way down the list, plucking out as many negative keywords as you possibly can.

When you do that, your CTR on broad match and phrase match will go up, sometimes even double or triple.  On a term like ’soap’, broad and phrase match will probably not work AT ALL unless you have a very extensive list of negative keywords.

2-3 years ago on PPC, the name of the game was slinging a lot of mud against the wall and seeing what sticks.  Today, less is more, and negative keywords are just the kind of ‘less’ that will sharpen your saw and make you effective.

One last thing: My bookstore book is out on the shelves now.  If you give Amazon $16.47 and commit 10 minutes a day to reading The Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords, then 30 days from now you’ll be smarter than 98% of all Google Advertisers.  Not only about AdWords, but all essential online marketing skills.

For a blow-by-blow explanation of the book, why we wrote it (hint: I’m a self-aggrandizing egomaniac) and what’s in it, go here:

http://www.perrymarshall.com/google/ultimateguide.htm

To your success,

Perry Marshall


I thought everyone knew this. Seriously. It doesn’t matter if your keyword is as broad as "soap" or as narrow as "green scented aloe soap" you need to have as many negative keywords as you can find. The free keyword resource from wordtracker is great! It does what Overture used to and is far more reliable!

We have studied Mr. Marshall’s Definitive Guide to Google AdWords, we have trained with some great guerrilla marketers…we know our stuff. We’d be happy to answer any questions you may have, or take a look at your campaign to see how it could be improved. Send an email to ppc@atypicalva.com and let us know how we can help you get your PPC on track!

February 9, 2007 | Filed Under The Everything Basket | Leave a Comment