PPC Web Spy

Good morning, my friends, to the show that never ends.
We're STILL iced in -- and the kids are STILL home from
school -- and I've got to watch them while the wife works
today! Oh, boy. Just try to get any work done!

Back in NY, growing up with major snowstorms each year,
schools seemed to rarely close. Even if the snow plows
plowed in your driveway, the show must go on, and you were
expected to get there, even if you had to walk. And we did!

In Tulsa, if we receive an inch of ice, the city drops to a
standstill. The highways are fine but the side streets are
pathetic. Even if you can get out easily, you might get hit
by some car sliding out of control. Within the first 90
minutes of the ice storm on Monday afternoon, there was a
reported 90+ accidents, most of them serious enough to keep
the ambulances pretty busy. Amazing.

But you have to be prepared. You need a full tank of gas,
lots of windshield wiper fluid, a heater, and a scraper.
You need the right tools. You need to be proactive.

Of course, I'm one of those guys who procrastinates when it
comes to putting money into my car. I just got it paid off
and I don't want to put another dime into it. You can
understand that, right? I don't even want to pay for a car wash!

Problem is my tires are almost bald, I have no heater, and
my windshield wiper fluid pump ain't working. So even
though I have a scraper, driving home in the ice storm on
Monday afternoon was not fun. A 10 minute ride turned into
an hour long nightmare with me shivering and praying every
mile closer to home.

Now a lot of people are like me when it comes to their
business. They may serve their clients very well, but when
it comes to taking certain precautions for their own
business, they fail to do so. They may lack knowledge or
tools and stubbornly refuse to address their deficiencies.
Like they say, the cobbler's children always have the worst
shoes.

For me, I shiver in my car instead of getting it
serviced. I don't do a great job marketing my own business.
I tend to ignore critical tools I should purchase to improve
my business and marketing.

Well, here's a free tool you can download that helps you
with competitive analysis and improves your pay per click
strategy at the same time. It's called PPC Web Spy and it
is a plug-in for the popular FireFox Mozilla web browser.

You simply download it and install it, and the next time
you do a search on Google, you will see green buttons
saying View Keywords display beneath the AdWords text ads
on the right side and at the top of your screen.

When you click this button, you will see a very nice
tabular report which shows you all of the keywords the
advertiser has purchased on Google AdWords, the text ads
they are using, the cost per click, the average number of
clicks per day per word, and the related costs.

Now how can you use this to your advantage? First, if you
are selling widgets in Tulsa, you would use Google to
search for "Tulsa widgets". You look at the sponsored text
ads that pop up on the right side of the results as well as
on top of the results. In most cases, these will be your
competitors who are selling widgets in Tulsa.

Now you can click on the View Keywords button and see their
keywords and all of the related information behind their
advertising strategy. It's like giving you x-ray vision
into their business and marketing plan.

Having this information tells you which of your competitors
are using Google AdWords effectively, which ads and words
work best, and how deep their pockets are. It allows you to
compete on an equal footing and use their information to
your advantage.

I'm using these results to help my clients understand the
importance of using Google AdWords to support their web
presence. By showing them what their competitors are doing,
I can show them how to compete against them with a sound
and economical strategy.

It also helps me to define the keywords and site
description for their META tags on their web site. This
ultimately helps with improving the organic ranking of
their site on the major search engines.

This is one very special marketing tool. I like it. A lot.
Not only for the knowledge it gives me, but also because it
helps me be better prepared to compete or show my clients
how to compete in the Google Ad wars. I think you will find
it quite useful, too.

You can read about it here:

PPC Web Spy

There is also a very nice viral component you should know
about which can help you to generate some passive income.

The free version will display 10 keywords, but the Gold
version will display 50 keywords and the Platinum version
will display 100 words. So depending upon the depth you
feel you need, you may feel compelled to upgrade. I
upgraded to the 50 word level.

There's another reason to do this, too. When you upgrade to
either Gold or Platinum, you can earn money as an affiliate
-- which is always nice -- but more importantly, through
some sort of ultra cool and impossible to explain
technology. I can't do it justice. You'll have to watch the
video to get it.

So there you have it. A cool tool you can begin using to
improve your marketing at no cost, or upgrade and make some
back end revenue while you sleep. Up to you.

Hope this was helpful.

Until next time,

Steven