In pay per click advertising, the sooner an Internet user finds what he is looking for the greater chance you have to convert him into customer. This of course achieved through a careful consideration of combination of keywords and landing pages. You do not want, for example, to send a visitor who is looking for digital camera to page featuring computer monitors. Even with a perfect combination of both (keywords and landing pages), in affiliate marketing an Internet user will never arrive to a product just with one click, unless of course you are permitted to sent visitor directly to your merchants website from PPC ad.

When I was interviewed by Fraser, who asked me how did I like the new Panama platform at Yahoo! Search Marketing, I never thought that few weeks later I will find myself ranting in dissatisfaction. For the most part Panama was great. But recently I have noticed increasing amount of clicks coming from websites like these:

www.layoutech.com

search.thinktarget.com

www.livestv.info

www.amklemanski.50meg.com

www.gugle.com

www.29eyewitnessnews.com

search.thinktarget.com

www.searchnut.com

I doubt very much that any of these sites are bookmarked as “default search engines” by majority of Internet users. It is obvious that these websites strive on so called pay per click arbitrage, while contributing to an overall poor experience.

I believe Yahoo! Search Marketing needs to eliminate the “minimum” cost per click which currently is at $0.10. They should make it possible for advertisers to bid $0.01 per click (both for the Sponsored Search and Content Match). I am sure there is a reasoning behind having minimum cost per click set at $0.10, but it does allow, in theory, a margin of $0.09 per click for the “(g)arb(itr)age” websites to strive, should their webmasters choose AdWords as the source of traffic.

If you are new to affiliate marketing and thinking to use pay per click advertising, avoid at all cost (at least in the beginning) showing your adds on so called “content websites”. Unfortunately in my case these clicks came from a campaign that had “Content Match” turned off. Yahoo! Search Marketing scored some very low points with me this past week.

That is my rant for today. Hope you are having much better week than I.

If you are a Text Link Ads publisher but actually never purchased links through them, you may not know how hard Text Link Ads is working on your behalf.

Last month I have decided to purchase few links through Text Link Ads and if your budget permits I highly recommend to give them a try. I saw some improvements in traffic as well as in search results for the websites involved. But what really impressed me was their e-mails to remind me that the month was up and it is a good time to renew the ads placement for the following month. Granted, I have not continued this month simple because I did not budget for it. But that was the only reason, otherwise every single website would retain me as an advertiser for this month as well.

Unfortunately when I first signed up for Text Link Ads, my blog did not “qualify” for a “publisher” and I am not sure how often do they review websites like mine again. So meanwhile I was able to benefit from their affiliate links. I do hope some one from Text Link Ads notice this post and reviews my website again. (Yeah, I am shameless ).

Meanwhile I have introduced my own system for that purpose, but as I was receiving these reminders from Text Link Ads I realized shortcomings of my system. So if you are offering advertisers to place link ads on your website while managing it by yourself, be sure to implement a follow-up/reminders e-mails. Chances are you will be able to retain your advertisers for the following term and sometimes all that they need to have is a reminder that time is up. Simple huh?

If you are planing to attend Search Engine Strategies conference in New York City (April 10-13), one of the companies you should look for is Adapt Technologies. In a recent press release company has announced that it will participate in the conference with intention to promote their new product SEM-in-a-Box.

I have previously written about the product. The reason company caught my eye was that their product SEM-in-a-Box offers you an opportunity to manage Panama, Google AdWords and MSN AdCenter  (Update: Erica Forrette from Adpot Technologies just e-mailed me to correct me that MSN AdCenter is can not be managed via SEM-in-a-Box, hopefully “yet” I will add) pay per click campaigns in one interface. Campaign Converter, which comes free with SEM-in-a-Box, allows you to prepare properly-formated campaigns for Yahoo! Panama using your current Google AdWords campaigns keywords, settings and configurations.

In the press release, Micheal Harris, CEO of Adapt stated:

As search marketing becomes more complex and time-consuming, even smaller companies need help with optimizing their efforts while spending less time on campaign management, SEM-in-a-Box offers a cost-effective solution to these marketers who may not be able to afford hiring a consultant or agency.

While I personally am still not convinced about cost-effectiveness of the product when it comes to smaller advertisers like myself, company definitely has my attention and I will try to cover closely Adapt’s latest developments and products.

Ok, I may be slowest person in the world, but after six months of active blogging I still do not understand/see what is so great about Technorati? I noticed that my blog is hanging in lower 90,000 when it comes to incoming links from other blogs. I am not sure what good the button you see in this post is, but I am just taking on an idea from a prominent blogger and will begin to reciprocate in this regard. So it is simple, you add my blog to your Technorati favorites I will add yours. What will this do? I have no idea. But when I notice something I will let every one know. If you know what is the benefit of being ” please enlighten me.

It made me feel sick to read Kathy Sierra’s post. Her post and comments of people offering support speak for themselves. Offer her some support. I just dugged the story.

I also hope these people who made the threats will be dealt with accordingly.