Google AdWords’ Quality Score has often been a mystery to many online marketers. But many AdWords experts agree that there are three main components to achieving a high Quality Score and lowering your minimum cost per click — your ad copy, your clickthrough rates (CTR) and your landing page copy.

Here are four easy steps you can take to boost your Quality Score and get lower minimum costs per click:

1. Include Your Keywords in Your Ad Copy

Having your keywords in your ad title and body copy is one of the keys to writing a relevant ad. Also, this simple act makes your keywords bolded and gives it more prominence among the listings, improving your CTR and lowering your costs per click. It’s a ‘vicious’ cycle!

2. Include Your Keywords in Your URL

Include your keywords in your URL. Again, this has been proven to increase CTR and that is one of the strongest determinants of a good Quality Score — the clickthrough rates.

3. Increase Your Clickthrough Rates by Split-Testing Your Ad Copy

Write two different ads and have them rotate evenly. You can do this under your Campaign options. Doing this will show you which ad is performing better and getting a better clickthrough rate. Always create new ads to test against your ‘control’ ad, or your current best performing ad.

4. Include Your Keywords on Your Landing Page

Landing page relevancy is another important factor of Quality Score. Having your keywords on your landing page indicates relevancy and it allows you to pay lower costs per click.

Fabian Tan is a well-known Internet Marketing expert and the author of the free popular 51-page report, “Murder Your Job: How to Build Cash Sucking Autopilot Businesses in 30 Days or Less!”

We are always looking for ways to increase traffic to our website for free. Did you know that some of the best, free, targeted search engine traffic can result just from your domain name alone? Domain names that are keyword rich or specific to your niche can result in higher rankings on the search engines. And higher rankings means more targeted traffic to your website, completely free.

How to Use This Method

Let’s say your niche is “working at home.” You’re going to want to find specific keywords that relate to your niche topic. To do this, go to the Google Keyword Tool and type in your niche. Try searching for several variations of your niche topic, such as “work at home online,” “find work at home,” etc. (you may also want to search for synonyms of your niche topic as well). Research the average search volume on these keywords, then write down the keywords that are specific to your niche and have the highest search volume. I would say to find around 20-25 keywords that have a high search volume and are related to your niche.

From here, swing over to GoDaddy and go to the “Register Domains in Bulk” option on their menu. Take your entire list of keywords and add “.com” onto the end of each keyword and place them in the area to check the domains for current registrations. Search to see if any domain names are available. If some are available, consider purchasing them. If none are available, try to tighten your search method or be more specific.

Once the domains have been purchased and you begin to lay content on them, you have a very good chance of landing a top ranking on Google and other search engines for those keywords. Why? The answer is simple: Your domain is a keyword. Each time this keyword is searched via a major search engine, such as Google, you have a high chance of being ranked first. This will bring in targeted traffic specific to your niche, all for the initial cost of the domain and some time to put up some content. So give this method a shot, because you really have nothing to lose.

Bryan Hufford is a former corporate slave turned online entrepreneur. He has successfully launched several businesses online, working directly from home. Find out how you can start working at home and join his newsletter about earning extra income online at his website.

Banner ads are a very popular form of advertising on millions of websites . Blogs and websites are loaded with banners advertising any and every product you can imagine. The presence of so many banners would lead one to believe that this method of advertising is extremely effective. The reality is banner ads only average a 2 percent clickthrough rate, and clickthrough is the “bread and butter” of online advertising. Thought the 2 percent is not impressive, you can increase your ad returns by using them effectively.

Avoid Burning Out. After how many impressions do people start ignoring your banner? Studies show that after the fourth impression, response rates drop, which is the point at which the banner no longer produces a good return.

Use Animation. There is no doubt that animation catches the eye of the reader. A little animation has shown an increase of 25 percent over static banners in some studies.

Use Bright Colors. Once again, the goal is to catch the reader’s eye. Use blue, green or yellow — they show better response rates than colors like white, red and black.

Direct Response. Simply put, tell them what to do — Click Here, Visit Now, or Enter Here. This has shown a response increase of 15 percent.

Questions. Statements and pictures are not enough. Cause interaction with the viewer. “Looking for Free Ebooks?”; “Have You Used…?” — pose a question and get the viewer involved!

Target the Viewer. The Web is full of places you can target your customers. Use forums and blogs that relate to your product. Chat rooms are another example — the object is to make your site and your ads produce. Take advantage of the Web’s ability to precisely reach your intended audience.

Joe Hunley has spent several years developing and promoting websites and blogs. For nore information on Internet marketing and promotion, visit his site, Tennreb’s Marketing Thoughts.

With the popularity of Google AdWords, many businesses are turning to paying for top placement on search engines. This is a surefire way to get exposure, but who wants to pay all that money? I was paying about $5.00 a click for a swimming pool website in the winter! So I put together this short list of free advertising possibilities to market your website.

• Get a MySpace or Facebook account. Yes, it’s free, and if you just spend about 2 hours a day trying to get friends, you will substantially increase your visitors. I started a MySpace account and had 400 friends by the end of the day and about 300 hits to my website.

• Start a mailing list. This sounds easier than it is. Trying to get people to sign up is the difficult part. You can offer a free download or some kind of free offer if they sign up. There has to be something in it for the visitor. But this will keep your visitors coming back.

• Optimize your website. I will say this a thousand times, but it’s really the big key here. If you have a pretty site with no text, chances are no one will find you. Content is king, so write that content. Oh, and it’s free!

• Comment on blogs or write your own. In order for people to know you exist, you got to talk and interact. The Internet is one big social gathering, and you need to gain popularity and you have to talk and gossip to get ahead. Find a blog you really like and contribute to it everyday and add your link. Or you can write your own blog if you want. WordPress and Blogger are free!

• Submit articles to EzineArticles.com. I sometimes write articles regarding pool care and Internet marketing and will post them on my blog and on EzineArticles.com. A lot of Web publishers will sift through these articles and use them on their websites, spreading out your link. Sometimes even I use them.

• Here is the key: persistence! Keep at it every day, adding new content. Patience! Traffic will come with more to offer and time. Keep adding to your knowledge.

Matthew Giovanisci is the marketing director of Killer Pickle, an Internet Marketing, Web design and search engine optimization blog.

Too many business owners are overlooking the opportunities that may arise from marketing over social networks. With the population of Internet users rising exponentially over the past few years, social marketing has become a very useful tool for most Web-based businesses, but not for small business owners. However, with most customers having a MySpace or Facebook account, why aren’t they utilizing these networks for a free way to market? The reason why this has been overlooked is due to the lack of knowledge on social marketing.

Most people don’t understand the concept of social marketing because the Internet has been moving at such a swift pace that the older generation is having a hard time keeping up with the younger generation. But as technology progresses, business owners must keep up in order to maintain high sales growth. So, here are some tips to those needing some help with the social aspects of the Internet.

First tip, define the niche that you want to communicate with on a regular basis about your business. Knowing this niche will allow you to search for various groups that may have an interest in your business

Second tip, pick the social website that is appealing to you. You do not want to pick a site that will annoy you. This is to boost your social marketing, but it should also be an enjoyable experience.

Third tip, have an address book ready to start uploading or searching for people you may want to add to your “friends” list. Once you have sent out invitations to your contacts make sure that you write them a personal note. This little note may help them remember how they know you or where they may have met you.

Fourth tip, start personalizing your profile page. You want the page to reflect you and your business. If you are trying to sell a mortgage through MySpace, it may not be wise to have crude pictures on your page. Remember that whatever you post represents you and your business.

Fifth tip, try to have a unique subdomain tied to your profile. For instance, my MySpace page has a subdomain of pitchyourbusiness. This will allow you to share your profile a bit easier in your emails or blog comments.

Here is a list of just a few of the big social websites that have the most traffic from users on a regular basis:

MySpace.com – a place where you can create your own personal page that can be modified and you can update your own personal profile while keeping in touch with your “friends.”

Facebook.com – a little more structured and it was once a tool only used by university students, but has since been open to the public. You are also allowed to have a business page that allows you to gain fans. Here is an example of the business page feature.

LinkedIn.com – generally used by business people to keep in contact with sales clients and is now being used by many headhunters and HR departments.

Friendster.com – a place where you can have a circle of friends. Similar to Facebook and Myspace, but there are some slight variations.

Hi5 – This is used by many in places around Latin America and countries like Romania or Cyprus. This is simply the same thing as Myspace.

The list goes on and on, but you can check more of them out at Wikipedia by typing in social networks. Depending on the location of your business and type of business, you may want to spend more time on a particular social networking site instead of a site based outside of your niche.

This is just the beginning of social marketing, but taking baby steps helps you build a solid foundation before you start trying to run. You want to walk before you run in online social marketing. There is a lot to grasp and simply just building a profile on some of these can be a challenge.

Bryan Kress is in his last year of Accounting and Economics & Finance studies. He has worked in a variety of industries, including farming, fast food, retail, cold calling, personal lending, and consulting. He owns three companies and hosts his own radio show. For help with your small business, check out his site, Business on the Mound.

Good for pointing out incentives or bonuses (especially time-sensitive ones) if prospect takes action.

This first installment of a 2-parter (free access until 4/17) tells you what you need to know before sitting down with a broker to shop for lists to use.

Read “Renting Email Lists…” »

How to monetize RSS feeds. Formats, pricing, response rates. What RSS ads work best?

Includes:

• Ad formats, costs and response rates
• RSS user characteristics
• Listing of feed advertising networks and major publishers who accept ads in their feeds

(free access until 4/10/7)
Go to report »