Guide to using TNX successfully!

First lets take a look at some existing advertisements which are in the TNX system. In order for me to see these adverts I added an old web site of mine which was sat around doing nothing so figured I may as well try and earn something out of it.

After I waited a day for TNX to approve the web site and index some of the pages I was excited to go in and see what adverts I could choose, that was until I saw this:

I have blanked out ID information for privacy reasons.

If after looking at that screen shot you are saying to yourself 'Well whats wrong with those adverts?' then you are probably going to be one of those people that complains about TNX not working for you; if you are not already one of them. From that list of 10 adverts, only 2 come close to actually using the TNX system properly.

Why? Well the TNX system has been designed to specifically allow you to enter up to 75 characters of text including your link. This, when used properly allows you to build contextual links which work much more effectively than simple links on a page.

The two adverts from that list which will actually work are the 5th and 6th in the list. The rest of them are a waste of credits as far as I am concerned. They will be largely ineffective in improving the search engine rankings of the web sites with which they link.

Now some of you might ask the question that if these links are so ineffective why does TNX approve them. Simply put, they don't know what you want to achieve from your advertising campaign and therefore the emphasis is on you to learn and implement. The only role TNX plays when approving a campaign is to ensure that it doesn't break any of their guidelines.

If you want to be successful with TNX then you are going to have to spend a little time preparing your campaign. Yes, this is the part that requires a little time, a little thought and a fair bit of effort.

First make a list of the web pages within your web site which you want to promote. Then for each page in your list write down 3 key phrases which you want to target (Note: It helps if you have already carried out your on page SEO for the three key phrases and that they are included in your meta tags, titles and headings).

Now you need to go and do a bit of research over at Google and see what the competition is like. Enter each key phrase one by one and look at the number of results returned by Google.

You may need to adjust the following numbers depending on how competitive your market is. However this formula has worked well for me across several markets so should be fine for most people.

If the number of results is less than one million write down 'x1' next to your key phrase. If the number is greater than one million but less than two million write down 'x2' next to the key phrase. Finally if the number of results returned by Google is greater than two million write down 'x3' next to the key phrase.

As I am promoting a one page web proxy which is targeting MySpace users, this is how my notes look:

URL: http://www.myproxydomain.com/

Key phrase 1: myspace proxy 'x3'
Key phrase 2: myspace web proxy 'x1'
Key phrase 3: myspace unblocker 'x2'

Right, now that we have done that we need to prepare advertisements for each keyword. I usually write 3-5 advertisements per keyword and focus on one keyword at a time. We already know that TNX allows us up to 75 characters in our advertisement so try to use them all!

Here is a screen shot from my text editor, note the first line is my little guide so that I know I haven`t gone over the maximum character limit. I am sure there are better editors out there which can be set up to help you out with this.

Important: I know that this takes some effort, but try to make sure every advert is completely unique. You should never place your key phrase at the beginning or end of your advert, it should always be somewhere in the middle.

Once you have completed your advertisements you are ready to move onto the next step.

Now that you have all of the information gathered together you can begin creating your campaign with TNX. This in itself is a three step process.

Create Campaign - Step 1

In this step you need to give your campaign a name, I usually just use the name of the web site I am promoting perhaps with some reference that means something to me.

The categories really depends on what you are targeting. If it is something specific such as a car forum then select the 'Auto' category and forget the rest as this will bring you the most benefit. If you are going after more general terms then I tend to go for 5 - 7 categories and pick a mixture of cheap and expensive (the cost is represented by dollar signs, the more signs shown the more expensive).

Similarly the Geo-targeting depends on your site. Using the same example above of the car forum I would go for English language only, but if it is a general term then I tend to tick them all.

Unless I am targeting a very difficult set of key phrases I leave the Yahoo Backlinks and Google PR settings at the default. Plus if I were targeting a tough key phrase I would likely set up a separate campaign specifically for that phrase.

The higher PR links cost quite a few points so it is better to keep a separate campaign (even if it's the same web site your promoting) because you don't want to have your easy keywords end up on high PR pages. Seperate campaigns give you greater control, so if you have a mixture of easy and very hard key phrases split your campaigns.

Create Campaign - Step 2

Step 2 requires you to enter all of your advertisements. I prefer to copy and paste using the "Simple" system because the "Advanced" doesn't provide the control I need for my campaigns and the "Upload" tends to give me problems.

So it is now time to go back to the advertisements you prepared earlier and begin inserting them into your campaign. Also do you remember the little 'x1', 'x2' and 'x3' you noted down next to your key phrases? This is where you will be using that information.

Your advertisement breaks down into three parts. The leading text, the key phrase and the trailing text. Using the first advertisement I prepared in my earlier example, this is how it looks when entered into the TNX system:

It can take a while to enter all of your advertisements, but the results will be worth it.

Create Campaign - Step 3

The last step is to decide how many links you want for your campaign. Once your campaign is approved TNX will allow you to place orders for additional links, so to speed things along a little bit what I do here is enter '1' into the very first box entitled 'Number of links'. This will enter '1' as the default for all of the category, language, PR and back link combinations that you selected in the first step.

I then scroll right to the bottom of the page and 'Limit' field. This allows you to control how many links can appear on the same web site. Again this depends on your type of campaign, if it is highly targeted like the car forum example earlier then you will need to set this value to 3 or 4, if it is more general with lots of categories and languages then I go for 1 or 2.

Click the complete button and your campaign is sent for moderation.

Important: Note down the date that you submit the campaign. The TNX system for some reason does not remove and credit you with links that are not placed on the publishers web site. You are required to go through the list of links and delete any links which are shown as 'Not Found' by the TNX status checker.

This date will be your reminder date, in exactly 25 days after the date of campaign creation you should go into the system and manually verify that all links are working; ensuring that you delete those with the status 'Not Found'. You will be refunded for any links which you delete so it is important to do this before the system renews those links. After renewal, you will not be refunded for the previous month.

It can take TNX a little while to review and approve your campaign and then it takes time for the links to be placed. This is actually a good thing especially if you have ordered a large quantity of links because you don't want them to hit the web all at the same time.

At this stage, go away and just forget about it. It can take anywhere from one week to a month for TNX to fulfill your campaign, the more links you order the longer it will take. It is pointless going in and checking every day as you will just be wasting time.

After a campaign has been activated by TNX using the above methods I have started to see results in as little as two weeks. I use a great tool called SEO Elite to track my search engine rankings and below is a screen shot for one of my key phrase rankings in Google which is currently being promoted using TNX:

I typically rank in 1st or 2nd position for this particular key phrase, no I wont mention which one it is but I can tell you it is none of the ones which have been used in examples.

Implement these methods, they work and TNX works!