In their Weather Report yesterday Yahoo! announced another Search Update is on its way.

The Yahoo! Search engineering teams are rolling out updates to crawling, indexing, and ranking algorithms. Similar to previous updates, you may notice some ranking changes and page shuffling during the process, which we expect to complete over the next few days.

Do you think this will make a difference to your site? Yes? No? Don’t know?

Keywords play a major role in Search Engine Optimization. Generally people choose 2 kinds of keywords while optimizing a site.

They are:

1. High competition – highly profitable keywords.
2. Low competition – highly profitable keywords.

Generally it takes couple of weeks to months to get ranked for high competition – highly profitable keywords as the competition for these keywords will be too high.

I always go for low competition – highly profitable keywords as the competition for these keywords is low and they are easy to get ranked in Google in a shorter time.

Here is my strategy for finding low competition – highly profitable keywords. The goal is to find relatively high-search-volume, low-competition ‘keyword phrases’.

1. Open a spreadsheet.
2. Brainstorm and write down all relevant keywords that are related to the product you’re selling including synonyms. For example, if your main keyword is “dog beds”, list other keywords also like “pet beds”.
3. Go to google keyword suggestion tool and type in with the keywords from your spreadsheet. Make sure to select “Broad search’, analyze the results. Select the appropriate keywords by clicking the Add button at the right-side column. It is a bit tricky to select the keywords as nearly all results seem to be related to our products. Just choose the key phrase that you think is closer to your niche and for which you can write content for your website. Do not select, say, “discount on dog beds” if you don’t have or can’t provide discount on your products.

Note: Approximate Search Volume is not exactly the search made in Google.com. According to Google, this column shows the approximate number of search queries matching your keywords that were performed on Google and the search network.

Google Suggest

Go to Google.com (not a regional Google website like google.co.in) and start typing the keywords from the spreadsheet. Google Suggest analyzes what you are typing in the search box and provides relevant suggested search terms. You can choose one of the suggested key phrases by moving up or down the list using the arrow keys or mouse. As you type, it gives you you key phrases. You find few key phrases that are not in our spreadsheet. These are hidden keywords.

Try to find more and more key phrases by typing slowly in the search box and going alphabetical.

Examples:

“dog beds ab”
“dog beds b”
“dog beds ba”
“dog beds c”

Note down all such keywords. Put everything that you discovered to the spreadsheet.

Yahoo!’s version is called Search Assist.

However, unlike Google, Yahoo! suggests phrases that do not necessarily start with the letter or word you typed in. You find few keywords that do not exist in initial search of “dog beds” in Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

Try different terms and combinations to reveal more key phrases. Note all the keywords you discovered in the spreadsheet.

Yahoo Answers

Since most people visit Yahoo! Answers to ask a question, you have very valuable data — the actual keyword phrases used to find information related to your niche or the product that you’re selling.

Within the questions, we can spot phrases such “quality dog beds online” and “cheap place to buy dog beds“.

With a little imagination you can find more long-tail keywords that have little to no competition at all. Add all these phrases to the spreadsheet.

Need a website but worried that building your own website will be complicated or too expensive because you’re NOT a geek?

Fear NOT!

It has never been easier to build your own website.

A number of services offer website building packages that let you create your own personal, business and/or ecommerce websites without the need to know how to code HTML.

Better yet, it won’t cost you an arm and leg to build your site using a website builder as you won’t have to hire a developer to create the site or a designer to make it look great. They’re all plug ‘n play. Choose your template, input your information and you’ve got a website that you can manage yourself.

Below I list and differentiate between website builders that I recommend for affiliate marketers and small business or ecommerce sites.

BizZites

I LOVE this website builder for affiliate marketers, especially those affiliates who want to integrate merchant datafeeds into their sites without the hassle of using a third-party service. Structured on a WordPress platform (with beautiful template choices) BizZites sites will be natural traffic magnets. There’s absolutely nothing else like it currently on the market.

Go to BizZites | Read my BizZites Review

SiteBuildiT! (SBI)

Around since 1997, this might be the perfect website builder for small business owners who want to build ecommerce sites. Tools include domain name registration, site builder, point-and-click page creation, a content management management system, search engine optimization, autoresponders (newsletter management), traffic stats and more.

Go to SiteBuildiT! | Read my SiteBuildiT Review

Yahoo’s Site Builder

Used by Lance Armstrong, the Oakland Raiders and Ben & Jerry’s sites, Yahoo! Small Business solution was winner of PC Magazine’s Editors’ Choice Award in June, 2008. Yahoo! Small Business is chock-a-block full of features to start your own online store. Plans start for as little as $25.97 per month. Note: I mention Yahoo’s website builder only in passing as I have no personal experience with it, except to have spoken with small business owners who have used their services successfully to build ecommerce sites.

Go to Yahoo

NOTE: Yahoo Hot Jobs affiliate program is now defunct. They sold out to Monster in early 2010.

NOTE: Yahoo! Hot Jobs affiliates should note that the program is moving over to Yahoo!’s unified affiliate program as of November 1st, 2006.

NOT yet an affiliate?

The Hot Jobs program pays $1.00 USD per sale when a customer submits new resume and 20.00% USD per sale when a customer submits a new job listing.

Prices for job listings vary by location. Here is a sample:

• New York $349
• Houston $299
• Pittsburgh $199
• Des Moines $99
• Flexible Location $369

Twenty percent of a New York listing would therefore work out to $69.80… a nice chunk of change!

Cookies are set for 45 days.

This program could work especially well on any site directed at college students, opportunity seekers or a regional portal site.

Use your imagination and see if there isn’t a way to incorporate Yahoo! Hot Jobs into your plan.

Got the Google Adsense Pink Slip?

Have you received the proverbial ‘invalid click’ pink slip and been dumped by Google Adsense?

Maybe you’re not seeing an adequate return on your Adsense ads and want to see whether you can do BETTER with something other than Adsense?

Or perhaps you haven’t figured out how to replace those Public Service ads and want to elimate them?

If THAT’s the case, you can load an alternate ad when Google can’t find a matching ad. Just set the google_alternate_ad_url variable in your AdSense layout code:

google_alternate_ad_url = "/adsense-alternate-ad.shtml";

Otherwise, here is a nice list of Google AdSense alternatives.

1. adagency1

   Adagency1 offers 70% payout – net 60 days via Stormpay.

   To qualify:

   • site must be written in English
   • site must have 15,000 or more monthly impressions.
   • site must be professionally designed and include useful content
   • site must have top level domain (www.example.com)
   • site cannot contain any adult content
   • site can not infringe on any personal, intellectual property, or copy rights

2. AdBrite

   Revenue split is 75/25 in your favor. There are two distinct things you can do with AdBrite — buy ad space and/or sell ad space.

   Advertisers can choose relevant sites on which to advertise on a PPC basis.

   Publishers can sell ad space, and approve or reject every ad that’s purchased for your site. Place a “Your Ad Here” link on your site to sell the space.

3. Advertising.com

   Select offers from a diverse range of advertiser partners and ad placement options including:

   • WebSelect: Select from cost-per-click, cost-per-acquisition and revenue-share offers. We provide you with real-time reporting and net 15 payouts.
   • RegSelect: Co-registration platform enables affiliates to supplement their registration path with advertiser offers. Advertising.com will host and serve creatives and landing pages to your site.

4. AzoogleAds

   Ousted from the CJ network in December 2005 for being “non-compliant” and because CJ “identified a series of isolated violations with Azoogle and has worked closely with them to rehabilitate and make the necessary corrections, to no avail”, AzoogleAds continues on as a CPA network that places great emphasis on lead generation through email marketing.

   In addition to offering third-party affiliate program management, AzoogleAds’ in-house programs center around debt relief, credit card assistance, satellite dishes, dating, car quotes and loans, and extended warranties.

5. Bidvertiser

   Pays monthly, by check or PayPal with a minimum of only $10.

   All ads are pre-approved by Bidvertiser’s editorial team, but you can block unwanted ads as well. Only the highest bidders’ ads are shown on your site.

   Detailed reports are available.

   Note: Yet another merchant/advertiser that doesn’t recognize countries with states and provinces outside the U.S. (Try putting Canada in the drop-down folks!)

6. Burst! Media

   BURST! delivers more than 4 billion monthly advertising impressions, across 477 content channels, for its more than 2,000 specialty-content web sites.

   Eligibility:

   • Represent specialty content. Portals, search engines, and sites of links to other people’s content generally do not meet the criteria.
   • Have at least 5,000 page views per month.
   • Site language must be English.
   • Have a publicly stated privacy policy.
   • Agree to post BURST!’s Demographic Survey somewhere on the site.
   • Reside on its own top-level domain.
   • NO content or links to adult or sexually explicit content.
   • No unmoderated content.

7. Casale Media

   Your site must receive more than 10,000 unique visitors per month, attract an English-based audience, and be hosted under a root domain to qualify for Casale.

   Pays 70%, Net 30.

8. Chitika eMiniMalls

   Although they serve up the most attractive contextual ads, the jury still seems to be out on the Chitika eMiniMalls network.

   With many affiliates reporting income audits with losses of 30 – 50% of their expected Chitika earnings, numerous publishers have pulled the plug on this fledgling contextual advertiser, still in beta.

   While Chitika publishes Net 30 payments, so far that hasn’t been the case, and to make matters worse, rather than sending publishers notice of this contraventionof their terms of service, they merely posted in on their blog.

   Maybe they haven’t heard about ‘blog to email’ yet?

   Follow the boards on this one though and cross your fingers that they rise to meet their initial expectations.

9. Claxon

   Claxon Media pays 85% of gross on the 15th and 30th of each month check, wire, or PayPal.

   Offers multiple ad formats, accurate stats, and the ability to preview ads, opt out of ads, and set up defaults.

   Hurray! They also guarantee “speedy replies to questions and the best customer service possible”.

10. Clickcent

    Pays 65% – on 25th of the month for the previous month by check or PayPal

    Non-exclusive, no volume contracts required.

11. Clicksor

    Pays up to 85% of the advertising revenues, net 15 terms on a bi-weekly schedule. Check (min. payout: $50), or PayPal (min. payout: $20).

    Media includes Text Banners, Graphic Banners, Pop-Under Advertisements, Search box and XML feed to host on websites or blogs.

12. contextWeb ContextAd

    Targeted ads are rotated across your Web site are optimized based on relevance, performance, and price.

    Pays 50% (fifty percent) of the net revenues for countable clicks. May provide Advertisers with free bonus impressions or clicks.

    Pays within 15 days of the end of the month during which the cumulative total exceeds $25 (USD).

13. DynamiContext (Kontera)

    Payments via check in US Dollars on balances over $100 US.

    Who knows what percentage they actually pay?

14. Enhance Interactive TopLinks™

    TopLinks™ pulls the most popular Enhance Interactive advertisers (based on the content of each page) and displays them in an advertisement form. Media includes pop-ups, pop unders, sidebars, skyscrapers or banners, or button/text links.

    Commission is paid out every 30 days.

15. Fastclick

    Earn up 65-percent on all advertising revenue your website generates. Fastclick pays by the 25th of the month for the previous month by check or PayPal.

    No fees, exclusivity contracts, volume contracts or serving charges.

    Note: Pretty much a pain to try and sign up for. They turned me down the first time… apparently the person responsible for doing site reviews, DOESN’T do site reviews. A phone call is required if you’re really interested.

16. Kanoodle BrightAds

    Kanoodle BrightAds ContextTarget™ and BehaviorTarget™ sponsored links are mapped to “topics” and “segments,” not to keywords, which matches the content of your site to hand-picked areas of interest.

    Pays a 50% share of the advertiser’s charge. PayPal Payments.

17. MIVA AdRevenue Xpress

    Add relevant content through predefined keyword searches, a co-branded search box or category and directory searches based on site content.

    MIVA pays within thirty (30) days of the end of the calendar month in which MIVA receives the revenue, on balances $25.00 and over.

    I was unable to locate a percentage value for the amount pays its publishers on contextual advertising.

18. Quigo AdSonar

    Pays thirty (30) days of the end of the calendar month during which Quigo collects any Click Through Revenue, Quigo will pay to Publisher a percentage of Net Revenue set forth in the version of the Agreement that is presented to Publisher after Publisher receives a user name and password, minus any applicable withholdings.

    Note: Doesn’t specify WHAT percentage of net revenue is paid.

19. RealCast Media

    Advertising Size and Location. All banners must be placed above the fold on your web site screen. Banners must be viewable without scrolling…

    I don’t think so…

20. RealTechNetwork

    Net 60. Requirements:

    • At least 25,000 impressions per month (12,500 Unique).
    • Root level domain name (Http://www.mydomain.com ).
    • 80% US/UK/CAN audience, however, will pay for all international traffic.
    • No applications from free e-mail accounts (I.E. email @ Hotmail.com) will be proccessed.

    Referal network – Earn 5% of referred advertiser’s expenditure and 5% of referred publisher’s earnings for life of referral.

21. Revenue Pilot

    You will be paid 60% of each search term bidded value. That means that if keyword “flowers” is bidded at $1, you will automatically earn 60 cents from that click.

    Payments are processed on the first business day after the last billing period. You will get paid within 60 business days via US check for the previous month’s earnings or choose PayPal.

    Minimum payout amount is $25.00

    Referal program pays 10% of all earnings from accounts that are referred by you.

22. RightMedia

    Right Media serves ads through Yield Manager, which is their auction-based transactional platform.

    Note: Not your standard ad agency site. TONS of good info, but I found it nearly impossible to find the signup form!

23. SearchFeed

    Two ways to monetize with either the “Search Engine Generator” or as a “Category Chaser”.

    Search box and a specialized results page match the look of your site.

    Referal program offeres monthly commissions of up to 7% for advertisers and up to 5% for affiliates – based on actual click activity for each new advertiser and/or affiliate who joins one of Searchfeed.com’s services.

    Board comments: “Will accept any type of site, but don’t expect more than a penny per click”.

24. TargetPoint

    You are guaranteed to receive at least 50% of the total on–click revenue. Payment options include bank checks, PayPal and Wire transfers (if eligible).

25. Traffic Marketplace

    Pays 65% of the revenue your site’s users generate. Reports that top publishers are earning over $10,000 per month.

    Net-30 terms.

26. Tribal Fusion

    Tribal Fusion™ pays publishers 55% of all revenue secured by your site.

    Payment terms are net 45. Tribal Fusion™ will issue and mail you a check 45 days after the last day of the month during which your site generated more than $50 in net revenue.

27. ValueClick

    Commission Junction’s parent company, use the “IAB” methodology for measuring impressions, clicks, leads and acquisitions, and payments are based upon delivery in accordance with these measurements and tracking data calculated by ValueClick.

    On the first day of each month, ValueClick will total all accumulated data for the previous month. Payments made Net 30 to Publishers who have earned more than $30.00 .

28. Vibrant Media IntelliTXT & SmartAds

    Contextually relevant banner ads are dynamically delivered (see pic below) adjacent to immediate editorial content. Publishers receive fixed CPM for all paid SmartAD units served on the site.

    

29. Yahoo Publisher Network

    To be considered for the Yahoo! Publisher Network beta program, you must have a valid U.S. Social Security or Tax ID number, and web site content that is predominantly in English and targeted at a U.S. user base.

Joel Comm’s Google Adsense Secrets 4.0

As you are aware, Joel is known for having written the definitive guide for making money with Google AdSense. His AdSense Secrets book has sold thousands upon thousand of copies and is still a best-seller to this day. Joel has charged up to $97 for this must-have guide to tapping into Google`s multi-BILLION dollar bank account, but… He is shocking the online world by doing something absolutely incredible. Joel hasn`t just lowered the price of this book. He has demolished the price!

In fact, for a limited time you can download the entire 230-page AdSense Secrets 4.0 book from Joel’s site for FREE!