Today’s Byte is a big happy testimonial. I buy keywords for clients. I generally buy them from Google (http://www.google.com/ads/) or Yahoo/Overture (http://www.overture.com).
The keyword ads show up on search engines and various partner content sites. You may be able to picture them on the side of your search results listed as “sponsored links” or as “ads by Google.”
When you buy keyword ads, you only pay when someone clicks through to your ad (or pay per click). People bid on how much they will pay so the price is set by the market. The lowest bid allowed is $.10 per click. The highest bid I’ve seen is $12.00 per click. Usually they range from $.25-$1.50 per click.
Yahoo/Overture (which brokers ads for a several search engines) lets you bid on terms and set daily and monthly limits. So you might set a limit of $180 a month or $6 a day. That is the limit we set for one account. So, imagine our surprise when we chocked up $300 in one day!
I was pleased to find out in their small print that if you go more than 15% over a budge amount you may be in for a refund. Well, we contacted them and they agreed to refund all but $6 of $300 we spent that day.
So, the lesson learned is that Overture has a refund policy IF you have set a daily and monthly budget and they will stand by their word. I have learned in past lessons that budget limits are always a good idea – if only to stop a high clicking streak. Too much of a good thing is still too much.
Yesterday I had lunch with a friend who had a sad technology tale. Her laptop died. She hadn’t backed up her files in a long time (years). Everything was lost. She learned some things in the process of trying to breathe some life into her computer and was OK with me sharing what she learned.
First and foremost – you gotta back things up. I have written articles in the past about how to do that:
http://www.treacyinfo.com/byte.htm#resolutions or
http://www.treacyinfo.com/2003byte.htm
Second, if your computer has been wonky – and then you hear clicks when you turn it on – you’re in trouble. It’s time to close it up and take it to the experts. The least you’ve done to fix it yourself the better their chances of recovery. (One of their last ditch efforts is to actually freeze your computer in the hopes of contracting files and improve odds of getting in to recover files.)
Third, some of the more difficult files to recover are email files. For many of us I think we’d miss them more than anything. When you backup your files remember to export the email files too. (These articles can help:
http://www.sitedeveloper.ws/tutorials/outlook.htm – for Outlook & Outlook Express
http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/inside/computer_resources/manual/email/netscape/m
acnetscape_backup_howto.htm
Remember a couple of weeks ago when I said I found a web email list tool that I loved. You might not remember because that message may have never reached you, which leads me to report that I no longer love simplelists.com.
Having lunch with some Byte subscribers I learned that they hadn’t heard from me in weeks. If you have been missing me too – I apologize.
I’m trying a new list and I thank Rick & Mike from Minneapolis for setting me up with it. (Unfortunately they don’t really offer lists commercially or I’d tell you all about it.) For this week’s Byte I have a quick Valentine’s tip:
Poems for Free: http://www.poemsforfree.com
It’s just what it sounds like. There’s a special section for Valentine’s Day: http://www.poemsforfree.com/valpo.html
For those who have missed me, you can see most recent Bytes on my blog, which I’m trying to be better about updating: http://byteoftheweek.blogspot.com/
You can see older posts on my web site: http://www.treacyinfo.com/byte.htm which I’m trying to migrate to the blog. I’m doing this in my free time so it’s a little slow.
This week I had a very fun working vacation in Brainerd (Northern MN). I spoke to a group of resort owners about web sites. I thought I’d share my handout with the Byte readers. Many of the resources have been mentioned in previous Bytes (so I won’t add too much to my notes) but I thought it might be a fun review.
Creating (or Recreating) a Guest-Friendly Web site
A checklist to help you use your web site to distinguish your resort or campground:
Does your web site highlight your best features?
Tools to help: www.marketleap.com/siteindex
Do you follow standards?
Tools to help: http://watson.addy.com (strange politics; good tool)
Do you answer common questions?
How do you rank with search engines?
Tools to help: www.linkpopularity.com, www.mikes-marketing-tools.com/rankingreports, www.searchengineworld.com/cgi-bin/sim_spider.cgi
Do you use other Internet Tools
www.simplelists.com
www.blogger.com
http://groups.google.com
www.google.com/ads
