Missed Camp Checkmate Chicago? Camp Checkmate Durham coming up mid-October: http://CampCheckmate.com

Wanted: Six industrious entrepreneurs just itching to implement everything you KNOW but aren't DOING (more below): http://askhowie.com/workshop

Should you outsource your AdWords management? Zero-cost webinar tomorrow 1pm EDT: http://theppcagency.com/outsourcing

Ah, 2004, how I miss thee!

I was selling an ebook on how to beat Gout (a form of arthritis) through a combination of diet and lifestyle.

My AdWords clicks cost an average of 8 cents, my book netted $15, and my conversion rate was a little over 1%.

Do the math: I earned 7 cents every time someone clicked my ad.

I split tested ads semi-regularly, but without brilliance or true creativity.

I added an opt-in box and some audio to my landing page, and tweaked the headline and some testimonials, but you couldn't really call it "scientific testing."

I was complacent. Life was good, clicks were plentiful, and gout, in my mind, was on the verge of eradication thanks to my excellent book and brilliant marketing.

The Bird Extinctions of Guam

Let's detour from this happy tale of commerce and healing (with its ominous foreshadowing) to discuss the fate of several bird species on the Island of Guam.

Starting in the 1970s, one species after another become extinct, or so endangered that the only mating pairs were in protective custody in American zoos.

Farewell to the bridled white-eye, the Guam broadbill, the rufous-fronted fantail. Adios Guam rail, Micronesian kingfisher, Mariana crow.

The Bird Killer Identified

For a long time scientists had no idea what was killing all the birds. They hunted for viruses, bacteria, pesticides, and found no evidence of harm.

Then they discovered Boiga Irregularis.

Boiga Irregularis (can we just call him Boiga?) is a snake not native to Guam that seems to have arrived on a military supply boat just after World War II.

Boiga is a bird-eating tree snake, hailing from New Guinea and coastal Australia. It doesn't mind chomping on a lizard or rodent if necessary, but prefers eating birds and eggs that it finds in the plentiful trees of Guam.

The thing is, Boiga was the first "real" snake ever to set foot (if that's the word) on the island. The birds of Guam had evolved, structurally and behaviorally, in the absence of snakes.

They had none of the protections, habits, instincts or judgments that would have protected them. Unlike bird species that co-exist with serpent predators, the birds of Guam didn't place their nests in hard-to-reach branches, didn't employ stealth or discretion in making trips to and from their nests to keep the locations secret,
and didn't develop warning calls.

Their perfect snake-free world had made them naive and defenseless once Boiga slithered into their lives.

The Boigas of Gout

By 2006, my gout ebook was also threatened with extinction. Non-native AdWords advertisers had slithered onto the Google search results page:

Big pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer had discovered the Internet and were willing to spend crazy amounts per click to show their drugs at the top of the paid listings.

Marketers of herbal concoctions had perfected the long-form web sales letter and were selling $80/month recurring subscriptions to bottles of pills.

I couldn't compete against either business model. My sales funnel wasn't sharp or effective enough. My product line wasn't deep enough. And I didn't understand my prospect well enough.

For a while, I retreated to the Content Network and found clicks under 15 cents at About.com and other AdSense-driven sites, but by 2007 the only reason I kept advertising was to collect screen shots for AdWords For Dummies.

By 2008, my gout business was extinct.

The Fastest, Fiercest Ecosystem in Business

If you're using AdWords, you should realize that you're playing in the most competitive ecosystem that's ever existed.

Like the Yellow Pages, all your competitors are elbow to elbow, jostling for position and mind share.

Unlike the Yellow Pages, many of your competitors are skilled marketers, testing and learning and improving continually.

If you aren't moving forward, you're retreating so fast we can hear the Doppler effect as we pass you.

Too Busy to Compete?

If you've read Google AdWords For Dummies or been on my mailing list for any length of time, you know the best practices in online marketing.

Things like:

• Deep market insight
• Checkmate positioning
• Testing and measurement
• Lead capture and followup marketing
• User-freaking-obvious website design
• ROI-based conversion tracking from click to sale
• Multiple lead streams

If you're like most of my students and clients, you KNOW a heck of a lot more than you DO.

You're busy running your business. You devote time to STUDY to stay on the cutting edge, but you often don't ACT on that knowledge.

And it may seem like you're not paying the penalty by coasting like that, but history shows differently.

Overture had a monopoly on Pay Per Click advertising in 2001. AdWords came along, and Overture was history. (Now Yahoo! Search Marketing, they're hoping to be rescued from oblivion by Bing.)

MySpace was the 600 pound gorilla of social networking just a couple of years ago. Facebook did a few things better, and now dominates the space.

Coasting is never a sustainable strategy. Not in evolutionary biology. Not in business. And especially not in online marketing.

What to do?

Imagine carving out a time and space just for implementation of online best practices.

Let's picture it together…

• Two full days of implementation without interruption or the need to handle details
• Delicious, wholesome meals provided – no cooking, shopping, ordering, or cleaning required
• A beautiful setting, including nature, room to spread out and think, and fast online connectivity
• A small group of fellow entrepreneurs all engaged in the same activity with the same focus and intensity
• A workshop leader and coach who has led thousands of entrepreneurs through the path you're on

Is that investment of time and money ($3995, by the way) worth it for you?

The big questions you have to answer are:

What are the future costs of present inaction? (How much money am I leaving on the table each month by not taking the time to implement best practices in my online marketing?)

Is there a better option than the Get It Done workshop? (Can I buy, beg, borrow or steal the time, space and expertise I need to get everything done? Will it be easier, cheaper, more efficient?)

Am I available on Thursday, September 30 through Saturday, October 2, 2010?

If you're interested, go here to find out more:  http://askhowie.com/workshop

I'm limiting the workshop to six participants. In my experience of giving workshops to groups as small as three and as large as 350, six is the perfect number for the kinds of outcomes we're looking for: individuals doing lots of work, supported by each other and a helpful facilitator.

And since a lot of the value you get comes from the other five participants, you have to apply and be accepted in order to attend.

Read more and find the application form here: http://askhowie.com/workshop

This week, David Pogue wrote an article in the New York Times about OpenDNS.com, a company I had never heard of before.

He began, "I’m about to make your life better. No need to thank me."

Then, following a brief description of the DNS system (the one that turns numerical IP addresses like 74.125.53.100 into www.google.com so you and I can easily navigate to websites), Pogue explained the key benefits of OpenDNS:

1. Surf the web faster
2. Get to websites that are unavailable to everyone else due to crashes of the DNS system
3. Correct typos (like askhowie.cmo) automatically
4. Protection against phishing sites that try to steal your sensitive data by spoofing real sites like PayPal and eBay
5. Shortcuts, so you can just type ahblog in your browser's address bar instead of askhowie.com/blog
6. Parental controls such as site blocking
7. Totally free for individual users

Sounds great, huh? So I surfed over to OpenDNS to download or setup whatever it is and give it a try (I trust Pogue).

Here's what I found:

What on earth are they talking about? 

Premium DNS?

Integrated security?

What does that mean, who is it for, and why should I care?

The Curse of Knowledge

According to Pogue, OpenDNS is perfect for me, and you. Yet the folks at OpenDNS either strongly disagree, or else think that you and I already know enough to see the obvious sense in a bunch of complicated and intimidating router reconfigurations.

If we asked OpenDNS to think about it, of course they would realize that their home page is perfectly inscrutable to their ideal consumer end-user. But nobody has asked them to think about it.

They suffer from the Curse of Knowledge – the inability to recall what it was like NOT to know what you know.

Pogue, on the other hand, writes to his readers. He knows who they are. He knows what they care about. And he knows how to explain complicated topics in accessible ways. 

So the best OpenDNS can do is put a link to Pogue's article on their home page. "We can't explain what we do, but here's a guy who can."

Get Your Pogue On

For kicks, send a few ideal customers to your home page, or your landing page, or whatever page is most important to you. Then ask them three questions:

1. What's the big benefit of doing business with me?
2. How am I different from everyone else offering the same or similar benefit?
3. What makes you believe the claims I make?

If they get all tongue-tied and vague, you need to channel the Pogue. Or hire someone who can. (I'm available, for a price ;)

Start with Your Customer

The way to Pogue-ify your writing is to start with your ideal customer, not your product or service or delivery method. 

The most effective way I know to do this is the Checkmate Method, which you can experience for free here (email required).

However you do, though, remember that you know too much about the features, and not enough about how your customers experience the benefits. Writing effective copy is an exercise in recapturing innocence.

So your homework is to imagine Pogue were going to write about your business, regardless of your industry. You could be a travel agent, an author, a broker, an office supply dealer; doesn't matter. You provide something that makes someone's life better, and you have a competitive advantage. (If not, stop reading and get yourself a competitive advantage.)

How would Pogue simplify and highlight the benefits of what you do so someone would have to be a fool not to give you a try?

Need guidance on writing clear and powerful benefit-laden copy? Check out the 3-part Landing Page Clinic. 10 more days at the crazy-low price of $115.87.

Perry Marshall's July newsletter was a brilliant meditation on fear, and how it can paralyze us and keep us small.

I've had some experience with this.

I once spent 5 hours hugging a tree outside girl's bunk B21 at camp because I was so terrified to ask Cindy to the square dance (and her friends had already told me that she wanted to go with me).

I always played in the orchestra in school musicals, despite my burning desire to appear on stage, because of the fear that I might not get the lead role.

And that's just the stuff so old that I don't mind sharing it here.

But you see how that kind of fear can infect every aspect of a person's life. Keep their career small. Keep their social life timid. Keep the potentiality of their life force caged and cramped.

How Not to Conquer Fear

Most of the self-help advice I come across in the entrepreneurial space urges us to become bold and powerful. To claim our power. To throw off the shackles of fear.

To focus on the positive. To set motivating goals. To visualize success. To model successful people. To repeat affirmations. To "fake it 'til you make it."

The trouble with these approaches, at least for me, is that they don't get at the root of the fear. Read the rest of this entry »

Landing Page Clinic: Just $115.11, going up to $187.65 in September. Lifetime free updates. Go here to check it out: http://askhowie.com/lp-clinic

A reader from the UK writes:

I'm a UK adword convert after buying and reading your book. I'm running what I think is a reasonably successful campaign and learning all the time. Recently one of my competitors adverts has been carrying underneath it a little blue cross and the words "show products from ….http://co.uk" when you click on it his advert extends and you see four of his products complete with images and descriptions. I've tried using google help to find out how to do it for my adverts but have drawn a blank. Can you tell me how to access this feature please?

My reply:

You can access this feature by setting up a Google Merchant Center account and connecting it to your AdWords account.

For those of you who aren't sure what we're talking about, here's a quick visual tour:

The first and third ads both have "Product Plus Boxes", such as the reader describes in his question. When a searcher clicks the plus sign (at no charge to the advertiser), they see an array of relevant products:

If you sell physical products that people are searching for by name, make, model, function, or price, and you're not using Product Plus Box and your competitors are, you're at a definite disadvantage. 

So let's take a quick look inside AdWords to see how to set that up.

First, though, you need to get a Google Merchant Center account at http://www.google.com/merchants. Then you have to do all sorts of complicated things, like set up XML product feeds, upload products directly, or use the Google API to let Google know what you've got to sell.

Then, go into your AdWords Campaign settings to hook up the Merchant Center:

When you click the "Edit" link within the red box above, you're given an opportunity to connect the Merchant Center:

The bad news about this is that it isn't something you can put together in a couple of hours. The good news, of course, is that this isn't something your competitors can put together in a couple of hours, either. 

Oh, and one more thing

If your eyes were peeled as you were looking at the Google screen shots above, you may also have noticed the "[Merchant] is rated [Number of stars] on Google Products" feature next to select ads.

Right now, Google automatically shows this line if you have at least 30 reviews averaging 4 stars or higher. And the advertiser doesn't get charged for a click if the searcher goes to the review page. Here's an example of what you'd see if you clicked the amazon ad:

So as the title of this post says, if you're not moving with AdWords, you're falling back rather than standing still.

If you'd like help navigating the ever-changing world of AdWords from folks who spend a lot more time than you do fretting over these things, here are some options from the world of askhowie:

1. Get an AdWords X-Ray with me 
2. Hire me to tell you what to do with an AdWords Genie
3. Hire my online marketing company, The PPC Agency, to manage your AdWords and Facebook accounts on an ongoing basis
4. Join the Ring of Fire and get answers to your marketing questions, as well as interviews and group coaching calls, starting at $20/month

A reader wonders:

Since Google has removed the "More Sponsored Links" button, can you give me a specific explanation on how to find out the number of advertisers for a given keyword?

My response:

There are a couple of ways to get this information. Unfortunately, none of them is accurate. Fortunately, the exact number isn't important. 

First, how to determine the number of advertisers?

1. Use the Google Keyword Tool

You can use the free Keyword Tool within AdWords to see the relative competition for a keyword (relative, that is, to all other keywords in Google's database.

In the example below, I use the keyword Canon battery charger.

As you can see, these keywords are all very competitive. Compare them with keywords related to buying vuvuzelas, the plastic horns that are blaring at the soccer World Cup in South Africa this summer:

Not quite the same supply (or demand, I dare say ;)

2. Free Spyfu lookup

You can go to www.spyfu.com and enter a keyword and receive a pretty good chunk of information about it.

Here you can see 11 PPC competitors listed, and a month by month analysis of their tactics below.

3. The Paid Keyword Spy Tool

For $140/month, you can get the Rolls Royce of Competitive Analysis tools, Keyword Spy. (Full disclosure: that's my affiliate link, which means I get paid if you click it and subscribe. To keep things clean, you can click this link – www.keywordspy.com – and go there without giving me a penny.)

Here's what Keyword Spy says:

OK, so now we've got 54 advertisers, not the 11 that Spyfu claims. Which one is correct? No idea.

You can also see Keyword Spy's assessment of the trend over time, from the previous 10 months (red arrow).

Why Don't You Need to Know the Exact Number?

Because it isn't actionable information. 

Are you going to choose a different ad or bidding strategy for 11 competitors than for 54? No.

The number of competitors is interesting only when you are assessing the market, seeing if it's robust enough to support advertising. Once the competition has filled up the first page of Google search results, you've got to do enough things right to get into the first page affordably, given what a visitor is worth to you.

What are the Right Things?

1. Writing an ad that attracts your ideal customer and repels non-buyers
2. Taking them to a landing page that immediately converts their attraction into interest, so you can harness their desire and turn it into action
3. Bidding just-right for each conversion, so you're neither underpaying nor overpaying for clicks

Once you've committed to a market, you go in with the intention of being the most successful advertiser on the page. Regardless of whether you have 11 or 54 or 230 competitors. If you aren't in the top 10, you're not in business. If you're not in the top 3, you're not profitable.

(And by "top" I don't mean position, but effectiveness. You might be in position 7, and still cleaning up for that keyword by virtue of a perfectly tuned ad and website.

Google has just made it easier for you to connect your business location or locations with AdWords.

If you're a local business, you need to know about these features if you want to stay competitive:

Check out the new YouTube video editor:

Now with a cheap video camera and a youtube account, you can do some amazing things to promote your business.

(Thanks to Shelley Ellis for pointing this out.)

Ball #1: Jabulani

A bunch of the world’s soccer goalkeepers are having fits about the new Adidas Jabulani ball. As the World Cup approaches, the goalies are near-unanimous in their complaints: Too light, too curvy, too sleek, too slippery, too unpredictable.

Here are some quotes about the Jabulani from the goalkeepers of several teams playing in the Cup this summer:

Hugo Lloris of France: “A disaster.”

Iker Casillas of Spain: “Like a beach ball.”

Gianluigi Buffon of Italy: “Shameful.”

David James of England: “Dreadful.”

Fernando Muslera of Uruguay: “The worst I’ve ever played with.”

Ball #2: The Worst Call in Baseball History

And on Wednesday, the Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga was one out away from a perfect game (only 20 of these games have been pitched in the history of Major League Baseball) when first base umpire Jim Joyce completely blew it and incorrectly called a runner safe with two outs in the ninth.

Galarraga’s response at being cheated out of a history-making achievement? “[Joyce] probably felt more bad than me. Nobody’s perfect.”

Wow.

While the goalkeepers are already making excuses for the goals they haven’t yet allowed, Galarraga responded with more grace and integrity than I can imagine.

Arguing with Reality

Here’s my confession: While I would love to say I would have reacted like Galarraga, I act like a whiny goalkeeper much more often.

It’s so easy, after all, to blame the world for what it’s withholding from me.

Even when it’s a patent absurdity, such as a soccer ball that will challenge all teams equally.

But as Mick Jagger and Buddha so wisely remind us, You can’t always get what you want.

And as one of my teachers, Byron Katie puts it, “arguing with reality” is a sure cause of misery.

After all, the Jabulani ball is equally bad for everyone. Kind of like the other excuses I like to trot out when the world doesn’t deliver exactly what I want: the market, the economy, the labor market, the demands on my time.

Unless I pay attention, I can become a veritable font of excuses that can keep me victimized, aggrieved, and helpless.

Accepting Reality

Contrast that attitude with Galarraga’s, whose near-instant acceptance of the irreversible bad call has made him synonymous with hugeness of spirit.

He showed us all how to make friends with reality.

And by “reality” I don’t mean anything more than what is actually going on right now. As opposed to the constant comparison with the story of how things should go.

Suppose Galarraga had done the “normal” thing and yelled and protested and complained and told the world he had been robbed.

Would that have changed anything?

Clearly not, as it didn’t work when the Tigers’ manager. 

Here’s what it would have changed: Galarraga’s experience of the event. As it unfolded, he ended the game with a big smile, a huge ovation, and what looks suspiciously to me like inner peace. A tantrum would have erased all that good stuff.

Plus, as my friend Brian pointed out, his story has become a resonant social fable far beyond baseball. Millions of people with no interest in baseball admire and will remember him.

How many of you can name the men who pitched the first two perfect games this season? If you’re not a baseball fan, I bet you can’t. (FYI: I can’t. Despite being a baseball nerd in my teams, I quit cold turkey after the 1978 season, reasoning that for a Yankee fan, life could simply not get any better.)

The Power of the Invisible Sun

Just to add a bit of irony to the goalkeepers’ moaning, the World Cup is being played for the first time in South Africa, a land with great energy and great challenges. I spent two months in South Africa this past year, and I’ve seen enough of childhood poverty to last me a lifetime.

While the high-tech Jabulani balls are slipping through fingers in goalkeepers’ recurring nightmares, many South African kids dream of owning a soccer ball that consists of something more rugged and aerodynamic than rubbish and garbage bags held together with string.

Photographer and philanthropist Bobby Sager, who took the above photo, teamed up with former Police frontman Sting and inventor Tim Jahnigen to create an indestructible soccer ball.

Instead of a bladder that can be punctured, the new ball can be stabbed with a knife, run over with a car, and rolled over broken glass without any problem.

The bright yellow balls, inscribed with the words “Hope is a Game Changer,” are being handed out by the thousands all over the world.

Why? Sting answers, “This is instant joy. Kids need fun, too. Imagine living in a refugee camp. I mean, what is there to look forward to? Very little. This is concrete. Very, very substantial.”

(To support this effort, go to The Power of the Invisible Sun.)

My fantasy is that one day a child who grew up in a South African informal settlement will grow up to be goalkeeper for the South African national team. I bet you he – or she – will be very happy with whatever ball is used.

And that, like Armando Galarraga, he or she will realize that the greatest victory is not the final score, but the way we conduct ourselves no matter what life throws at us.

So from my own humble place of learning, my gratitude goes out to my teachers: Armando, Bobby, Sting, Tim, and Byron.

May I be inspired to accept reality with grace and confront it with courage.

And so may we all.

Remember math class your senior year of high school? Pretty meaningless stuff, for most of us. The answers were in the teachers' edition of the textbook, and our job was to figure out the formula and apply it, with as little thinking as possible.

We were being trained – and rewarded – to be impatient solvers of trivial problems.

Fast forward to our professional lives. Things are different now.

We engaged marketers know about patient problem solving. There are no problems in our businesses that are straightforward. That we can solve by applying a known formula. For which we have exactly the right information, no surplus and no deficit.

So why are we teaching kids a method of problem solving that has no use in the real world?

Check out this inspiring 10-minute talk by math teacher extraordinaire Dan Meyer: