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SWeCS NEWSLETTER - 20 October 2003

In this issue...

- Target Breaking News Through PPC Engines
- Recent Search Engine News
- Affiliate Directory
- Resources For Small Business

TARGET BREAKING NEWS THROUGH PPC ENGINES

Imagine there's a breaking news story. It's big. It's nationwide. It will be the talking point for everyone all week. And it's somehow related to your product. How can you take advantage of that sudden, and temporary, interest in the subject?

It's possible through some Pay-Per-Click (PPC) search engines. If you aren't sure of what a PPC search engine is, we aren't going to re-explain it in this article - read our article on Pay Per Click Advertising.

Some of the major PPC engines allow you to place advertisements on their sites, that can target thousands of people, within minutes!

Let's say that for some reason there is a very sudden, and perhaps temporary, interest in your product or industry. If you wanted to take advantage of that interest using traditional forms of advertising, you'd find it very difficult. It just takes too long to organise media advertising, posters, mailouts, and so on.

But through some of the major PPC engines, you can log into your account, write a quick 2 line advertisement, set how much you're willing to pay per click, and hit submit. Within minutes, your advertisement can be sitting at the top of the search engines and immediately drawing from the surge in traffic caused by the breaking news story or whatever the reason might be. In the case of Google, they process 200 million searches per day, so the potential traffic could be huge, depending on the subject.

In order to do this though, you do need to already have an account with the PPC engine concerned. Most of them will take you through an initial sign-up process that can take several days. But once your accepted, you can set up and remove advertising campaigns in real time.

There are some PPC engines, however, that do like to screen and approve all advertisements before making them "live". In these cases you may need to wait a few days before your advertisements appear, but that can still be a lot quicker than other types of advertising.

RECENT SEARCH ENGINE CHANGES

There's been a number of changes and announcements in the search engine industry recently. Here's two of the big ones:

• MSN is dropping Looksmart.
  
  MSN, one of the world's largest search engines, currently uses the Looksmart database to provide it's main results. They have since announced that this arrangement will cease as of next year sometime (around February). The Looksmart share price crashed after this news, as it is a heavy blow to them.
  
  MSN have not said what they intend to do after February, but it has been rumoured for some time now that they are building their own database using their own "Spiders", in an attempt to rival Google.
  
  It should be noted for Australian readers that the Australian version of MSN, (NineMSN), have advised that at this stage they intend to continue using the results provided by the Australian version of Looksmart after February.
  
  
• Overture opening Australian site
  
  Overture is probably the largest PPC search engine in the world, and their database currently provides results to other major search engines such as MSN, Excite, HotBot, AltaVista, Yahoo, All the Web, and Lycos. So far they have PPC databases for large countries overseas, such as USA, UK, Japan, and so on. But they have now announced that they intend to start an Australian site very soon. This is fantastic news for Australian sites who want to advertise in this way, as it will finally provide them with a PPC engine that targets Australian viewers only (besides Google).
  

AFFILIATE DIRECTORY

Those of you who have tried out Affiliate advertising may know by now that it is a great way to use your current web site traffic to earn some extra money. For those who still aren't sure, check out our article on Earning An Extra Dollar As An Affiliate.

We've been busy testing out a number of Affiliate programs and have now started to put together the results in an Affiliate Directory on our web site.

This allows you to browse through a number of Affiliate programs and read our reviews, and then try out any good ones for yourselves.

The directory is at www.southwestecommerce.com/affiliate-directory.htm. If you'd like us to review a particular Affiliate program, please email us the details.

RESOURCES FOR SMALL BUSINESS

Ecommerce Library

Browse through the SWeCS Ecommerce Library, full of FREE information about getting more out of the Internet. Sections include Web Site Development, Web Site Promotion & Internet Marketing, Online Commerce, Computer & Technical Issues, and Miscellaneous.

Newsletter Archives

The SWeCS Newsletter archives provides a wealth of FREE information on small business and the Internet. Browse through the main topics or search for your particular query.

SWeCS Affiliate Program

Start up another income stream, by earning $60 for each referral who signs up for our search engine ranking package. Also earn $50 for each referral who signs up for our web site package.

Affiliate Directory

Browse through a list of reviewed Affiliate programs. Let us do the work of testing it out for you!

Do you know of a resource that should be added here? Email us and let us know. There is only one condition - it must be free.

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