In the software section of our web siteyou can download a program called "GoogleSponsor Lister". The main purpose of this software toolis to find out how many advertisers thereare for a particular keyword in Adwords.But there are quite a few ways you can usethis software that you probably never eventhought about… Use it to block competitors If you display Adsense ads on acommercial site that sells a product (asopposed to a content site) you probablydon't want your competitors advertisingthere! For example, if you have a site thatsells cell phones, you don't want links toother sites that sell cell phonesdisplayed. But you probably don't care ifthe ads are about ringtones or cell phoneaccessories because you don't sell them. So how do you block only adds from cellphone retailers? Just put the keyword "Buycell phone" into the software and it willlist every advertiser who targets thatword. When we tried it there were over 90companies targeting that keyword! How longwould it have taken to find that manycompetitors by hand? Use it to research a niche This is probably what most people usethis software for. How much competition isthere for a particular keyword? This is valuable information because akeyword that has a lot of competition isalmost always a high-paying topic! Why?Because if 50 companies are all bidding onthe same keyword, they will have to bidmore if they want their ad displayed inthe top 8 spots on the front page ofGoogle. Conversely, if there are only 8companies bidding on a keyword, they couldall bid the minimum amount and their adwould still be displayed on the front pageof Google. Use it to convince sponsors to addyour site This is one of the coolest ways to usethis software! We've kept this a veryguarded secret until now! A lot of companies that advertise onAdwords choose not to have their adsdisplayed in the Adsense network. This isbecause some feel like a lot of the sitesdisplaying Adsense ads are junk. But if you have a web site that is veryprofessional and "advertiser friendly",you should try contacting sponsorsdirectly and asking them to create a"Site-targeted Campaign" that includesyour URL. Site-targeted campaigns are a newfeature of Adwords that let sponsors showtheir ads on certain web sites they like. Just put a keyword into the software,copy the list of URLs it provides, andcontact each of those sites directly witha friendly email! Use it to block low-payingads We noticed that a lot of blogs andforums that display Adsense ads have ahard time making money because of all thelow paying ads that show up. For example, even if you have a blogthat targets a high-pay keyword such as"Real Estate", you might only have adsthat target the keyword "blog" showup. The keyword "blog" pays very poorly butseems to show up a lot because the word"blog" is used a lot on the site. You can block these low paying ads byputting blog related keywords (blog,blogger, blogging, weblog, etc) into thesoftware and adding these sites to yourCompetitive Ad Filter in your Adsenseaccount. The same goes for forums. If you have aforum that targets Real Estate, you willprobably also get a lot of ads for"forums". This is another low payingkeyword that you don't want displayed onyour site. Use it to setup jointventures This is a little more advanced anddoesn't have anything to do withAdsense… but it can help you make alot extra money! A joint venture is when two people orcompanies work together on a project orhelp each other promote theirproducts. Here's an example: You run a webhosting company and want to offer yourservices to web site designers. You canplug the keyword "Web Design" into thesoftware and get a list of web designerswho are advertising on Adwords. Then youcontact them and say you will give them$20 for every client they refer to you.Since web designers have a lot of clientsthat need web hosting, they are theperfect people to setup a joint venturewith! Of course this works for things besidesweb hosting... you just have to use yourimagination! Use it to block unrelatedads Google does a pretty good job ofserving ads that are targeted to yoursites content. But this isn't always thecase… Sometimes Google gets confused andplaces ads on your site that haveabsolutely nothing to do with your theme!This isn't good because your visitors areless likely to click on ads that theyaren't interested. Here's an example: You have a web siteabout programming languages. One of yourpages is about the programming languagecalled "Java". You notice Google isconfused and thinks your web site is aboutCOFFEE! What do you do? Just put the word "Coffee" into thesoftware and add the sites it lists intoyour Competitive Ad Filter. Now Googlewon't show ads about coffee on your website! Use it to find link exchangepartners This is a quick tip but exchanginglinks with similar sites is a great way toboost your rank in the search index. You can use this software to find sitesthat are similar to yours and send a linkrequest to them. And since they advertisewith Adwords you know their site gets atleast some targeted traffic! Use it to report Adsensecheaters We've actually used this software tohelp report an Adsense cheater. The person was asking his friends toclick on the ads on his site. We contactedGoogle directly but nothing was done aboutit. So what did we do? We contacted all the sponsors whotarget that keyword and told them aboutit. One person we contacted was a largesponsor (think tens of thousands ofdollars a month spent on advertising!) andwhen they contacted their Adsenserepresentative, the cheater lost hisaccount that same day! Now obviously you should do this tohelp out other sponsors. This really isn'ta money-making idea. But that largesponsor ended up getting a big refund fromGoogle and they sent us a $250 giftcertificate for Amazon.com! Feel free to contactus if you can think of other creativeways to use our software! |