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SEO, Traffic and Panda - How to succeed in 2012

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:05:06 -0500

Hi everyone,

Last night I ran a live webinar with Mike Ullman and Adam Franklin, who produced a really fantastic webinar on the topic of SEO, Traffic and Panda - How to succeed in the new world of internet marketing.

Google's "Panda" updates are merely the beginnings of a fundamental shift in the way search engines operate. Unless you understand the sea-change that is going on, it will become increasingly harder to succeed online. Inside this webinar Mike covered many important topics thoroughly including:

How to get traffic when everyone else is losing it What you need to do to get & hold top rankings going forward What Panda *really* is, and *specifically* how it works How to avoid getting "Pandalized" How this "new world" is shaping up What 'Internet Marketing 2.0' business models will be the 'fortune-makers' of tomorrow.

I hope you enjoy this webinar, please leave your comments and questions below.

Kind regards,

Mark Ling

Founder of Affilorama and Traffic Travis...

How to Improve Your Affiliate Site’s Search Engine Visibility in 2012

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:01:00 -0500

There have been a lot of changes on how Google ranks pages over time. Judging from the algorithmic updates that they have continuously implemented the past several months (from Panda, Freshness, Parton and to the recent Search plus your World), it is clear that the task of being more visible in this area of marketing is getting more challenging than ever, particularly for smaller websites, like affiliate sites.

Given that search engines are now more adept in identifying weak and irrelevant pages, it’s very vital for marketers to be more adaptive and well-versed on the best practices of SEO to keep on surviving. Google has had this love/hate relationship with affiliate marketers for almost over a decade now, but they seem to be more determined in removing this business model (but not entirely) this time.

However, there’s always a better side of things, and the great news is that there are still so many ways for affiliate-based business websites to rise above these ordeals and stand out in search result pages. So I’ve listed below some of the most significant aspects of online marketing that could greatly impact your search marketing efforts.

Online Branding

Obviously, Google favors brands and sites acting like one to show up prominently on their search results, based from the trust users see in them as a credible source of information, products and/or services.

This is why building a strong brand presence as well as a unique and recognizable identity in your industry is essential these days, as it allows your online business to grow in so many ways, in terms of:

The natural links that you’re site will be able to acquire (knowing that it will be known as an authority in your field) Those brand-driven links and signals will put traction to your domain’s ability to achieve better rankings and search engine visibility. Building a strong following base and eventually loyal consumers who will trust your judgment when endorsing a product, which more often than not increases the conversions of product reviews. It’s conventional wisdom that the more people trust you, the more they’ll buy from you. This principle is very much applicable to the affiliate industry as well. It will be easier to promote products through affiliate links if your audience can trust you. The good news is that there are so many ways to build a brand, particularly over the web – you’ll just have to know where to strike. Here are some pointers when starting an organic branding campaign: Invest in a visually attractive web design and catchy logo. Implement content marketing strategies (which will be explained further below) Build your own entity in your industry by knowing your unique selling proposition (know what will separate you from your competitors) Become known by being more active in your industry’s online community (identify top people in your industry and build relationships with them) Optimize your site for trust, by allowing your audience to know more about your affiliate brand, the people behind it, its mission, and its business value proposition (you’ll definitely need to create an identity for the website) Content Marketing This method of marketing a website is somehow seen as the new age of link building. The great thing about content marketing is that it benefits a website in many ways, not just through acquiring high value links that can really influence rankings and overall domain authority, but it also helps develop brand awareness to a specifically targeted market and brand loyalists in due course. The main principle of this strategy is to get links, traffic and customers by putting out great content, consistently, content that your audience is searching for with a topic that is in demand and solves a problem within a certain industry. Once you have that content put up together, marketing comes in. In which you’ll have to promote that great content to places that it will be of high relevance and high-utility to the linking pages’ targeted audience. There are many types of content that you can use to promote your affiliate business such as: Comprehensive blog posts, based on extensive research Creating or investing on infographics Videos Slide presentations Offering expert content as a guest blogs on other high authority blogs in your niche Free ebooks Expert interviews or crowdsourcing Don’t forget to use your target keywords when creating content, especially in title tags, as when people start linking to your content, people will more likely use the title as anchor texts when linking back to it. The strategy doesn’t just stop on creating high value content, as the key to a successful content marketing campaign depends on how you market your content. You can leverage content through various channels such as Social media and SEO/link building. You can use this linker outreach method to start with when reaching out to linkers that have high probability of sharing or linking to your content. It’s always important to have a high quality content when you’re reaching out to other webmasters/bloggers/industry linkers, as the link-worthiness of your content enhances the approval rate of your requests. You can also promote your content through relevant forum threads (or forum marketing), as most people there are seeking for information. Use your content as a resource when contributing on industry forums. Build Relationships In any industry, building relationships has proven to be effective as a marketing strategy, and this works well when applied as an SEO strategy. Why? Because this method can simply give you lots of scalable opportunities for link building and lead referrals. This method requires a lot of effort, but can certainly bring long-term results. The processes that it involves are not that advanced and will mostly rely on your social engineering skills. To start off, it’s best to first identify your link targets, probably the ones that your business will benefit a lot if you have massive brand impressions and links from their site (sites or blogs that are highly relevant to yours, have high-traffic and provides high value content as well). Engaging them will be the most part of this strategy, wherein your activities will revolve around online interactions. Here are some of the most common approaches to this method: Following your link targets’ blogs regularly and engaging them through giving solid contributions via blog comments. Sending emails to them, where you can discuss industry-related topics, suggest topics for their blog postings or pitch a guest blog post. Sharing their content on social networks, like Twitter, Facebook and/or Google+, and building conversations with them along the process. Once you have established a good connection with them, it will be easier to request social shares or links from them, though sometimes they might just do it on their own, especially if they can notice that you are also providing great content on your end. Perhaps, the strongest form of endorsement that anyone can get are from your peers, so start building relationships around your business, because it’s one of the most powerful tools in online marketing. So how does this improve your search engine visibility, besides the links? If you’re friends with influencers in your industry (especially on Google+), you’ll have higher chances of showing up on your target market’s search engine result pages for queries related to your website, as Google has recently released Search plus your World, a version of search (for logged in users) that merges social and personal search results. Google+ Page Optimization Google’s search results have been pushing a lot of pages from Google+ since they have rolled out Search plus your World, for users who are logged in on their Google accounts, which means the search that most of us have been accustomed to have met its end, as users are now finally seeing different search results based from their own activity as well as the content that their connections are sharing over Google+. Creating a Google+ strategy is imperative to improve the chances of getting free traffic from both the social network itself and their search engine. And the most apparent foundation of this strategy is through building your authority in Google+. This means growing your following base in their social platform, and proving that you’re an authority through your account’s activity. I recently wrote an extensive guide on how to build a brand/site’s influence on Google+, and here are some of them: Use the authorship markup (rel=”author”) on your site that reciprocates with your Google+ profile. I have a post last year here that includes steps on how to implement authorship markups on websites, and you can check it out on this post. Having the authorship markup on your site increases your authority, to both search engine and users’ perspectives, as this markup allows your profile image to show up in Google’s search results, especially if you have built your authority on Google+. This can increase trust and improve your site’s SERP click-through rate, assuming that people will more likely click your listings since it looks more trustworthy. Install the Google +1 button on your site and make it very visible for your visitors, as the more you can get +1s from your readers, the more positive signals it sends to Google – hinting them that your content is being voted to be a valuable resource by their users. Optimize your Google+ brand/profile page, by simply completing all the necessary details on your profile and making use of your keywords on your introduction and/or tagline (this helps search engines know what your brand is all about). Increase the amount of people having your Google+ page on their circles. There are many ways to do this such as promoting your Google+ page through the content you’ll continuously produce, by building conversations within the social platform, and by sharing other people’s compelling work on Google+. Your activity within the social network can also improve your authority, as the interactions that people are having with your brand/profile page (re-sharing your content, mentioning your page, and voting your shared content) can be the metrics that Google might use to determine your influence. User Experience Optimization Google’s search algorithms heavily rely on usage data or on how users behave on the websites they are visiting. When people find your website useful and relevant, they stay longer and the explore more of your pages, and that’s definitely a positive signal for search engines when rankings pages from their indices. Studying your traffic’s behavior once they are on your site is extremely important nowadays, though completely basing your analysis through plain metrics such as your site or pages’ bounce rates, average time on site, average pageviews per visit, and visitor loyalty can be misleading sometimes. It’s best that you test your important landing pages (particularly your money pages, or pages that are getting high conversions) on a real user’s standpoint, by checking elements on your site physically. Say if you’re a new visitor to your own site, would you really read its content, or would you actually buy from it. These things are essential, as this method can reduce the traffic that can be wasted (visitors that bounces off because they probably didn’t like what they see or it wasn’t relevant to what they are looking for at all). There are many ways to do this method, but here are some of the most important ones: Make sure that your important landing pages – particularly pages that are getting good traffic from search engines – are actually relevant to the search terms that they are ranking for. Rooting for irrelevant keywords will only skyrocket your bounce rates, and low user-activity, which can affect your site’s ability to rank its pages. Improve your site’s navigation scheme, and make sure that your new visitors will not be confused of where to go next once they are on your site. Leading them to where you want to be is a good way to convert your visitors into sales, so put emphasis on those important pages (making them as destination page for your call to action) Optimize your site for speed, since Google is also using this as a ranking factor. The likelihood of staying longer in your site is greater, when your users can easily and quickly access your pages. Remove disruptive elements in your site such as too many advertisements and irrelevant links on the sidebars. Making certain of quality experience for users when it comes to the content, in terms of grammar, readability and/or reading level of content. You can also test what your site looks like on different platforms, browsers, mobile devices and screen resolutions to ensure that all sort of traffic will have the best experience in your website. If you have questions related to search engine optimization, feel free to ask us on Affilorama’s Google+...

Is Article Marketing Dead?

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:16:57 -0500

If you browse the big Internet Marketing forums like Warrior Forum or Digital Point, there is one question that always pops up:

“Is article marketing dead?”

Those of us who have been involved with affiliate and Internet marketing for a while probably remember the “glory days” of article marketing. Around 2007/2008, you could make massive profits with just an Ezinearticles account, and a simple landing page or URL redirect to an affiliate offer.

This approach, immortalized in Travis Sargo’s Bum Marketing Method, involved writing short articles with lots of keywords and a strong call to action in the resource box. The aim was simple; piggyback off the authority of article directories and Web 2.0 sites to get first page rankings, and watch the money roll in.

Then, in 2011, the article marketing world took an almighty sucker punch from a Panda. The Google Panda, to be specific, brought on the end of article directory marketing for most. As Google sought to improve the quality of search results, article directory listings disappeared from the front pages. Many lost incomes and clients overnight, with the fallout still being felt to this day.

But enough with the history lesson- we’re here for a reason. Does article marketing still work? Yes, but you have to get “smart” about it.

It’s no longer enough to write mediocre articles that don’t offer anything of value, and then submit them to article directories hoping for a miraculous first page ranking. Instead, here’s how you should be tackling article marketing in the post-Panda wasteland:

Focus on quality – This is the key “metric” for all content these days. No amount of clever SEO or keyword-stuffing is going to be able to replace honest, quality content. Make sure you deliver stellar content that meets the promise of the article headline, and actually offers something of value (for example, if you promise to teach ten cool iPhone hacks, actually teach them, and don’t just waffle for 500 words then point to a landing page) As a caveat, longer articles are not necessarily better quality. Avoid the temptation to pad out a short article with lots of meaningless sentences and “weasel words”, as there is no magical article length that guarantees success. Look for syndication opportunities – There is still lots of power in article marketing, but it comes not from the directories themselves, but actually getting your content syndicated. This means that other webmasters pick up your articles, and republish them on their own blogs or websites. You need to actively encourage syndication by writing articles that deliver massive value to readers. Here’s a little bonus tip – Search for your article headlines in Google and then visit the sites that have republished your articles. If they look like human-edited websites, and not just automated scraper blogs, contact the admin and offer your articles personally (so they can cut out the middleman directories) In exchange, request that you get to add an anchor text link to your website in the body of the article. Voila- more links from higher quality sources! Move toward guest posting – Reaching out and connecting with quality blogs and bloggers in your niche, and then offering your best (unique) articles as guest posts is a powerful way of leveraging a hybrid form of article marketing. While everyone else is running around like headless chickens, trying to work out why they aren’t seeing results from article directory marketing, you will be laughing all the way to the bank with a proper guest posting campaign. Keep an eye on this blog for my next post, which is going to show you how to make the most of guest posting! Research keywords thoroughly - “He who fails to plan, plans to fail”. This rings true when talking about article marketing and preparation. Research your keywords thoroughly, so you are sure that you have the best phrases possible. If you aren’t sure about keyword research then make sure you watch the Affilorama how to do keyword research video. If you can do proper research for your articles, you will experience Put content on your sites first – One of the biggest ways that people were stung by the Google Panda update was through having their original content wiped out of the search engines, because it was all on article directories. It is crucial that you focus on putting quality articles on your own website or blog first, so that you build up a base of content. The ultimate aim is to get your sites ranking well, and not someone else’s!

Article marketing isn’t dead per se. What has departed is the era of being able to churn out dozens of cookie-cutter articles and submit them to a few article directories, and then forget about it and watch the money roll in. This is bad for affiliates who want an easy way, but if you are willing to work diligently at creating content then you actually stand to benefit from the drive for better quality.

Rather than writing three or four 300 word articles of ‘average’ quality, spend that time creating one amazing piece of writing that will attract readers, captivate search engine spiders, and generate links to your website. I promise that you will reap the rewards.

How have your experiences with article marketing changed over time? What do you find works effectively in our post-Panda world? I’d love to hear your opinions, comments, or article marketing tips, and I’m sure other Affilorama members would too. Just leave a comment below!

PS: Make sure you are following Affilorama on...

How To Find Hot Physical Product Niches

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:16:43 -0500

Many affiliate marketers tend to skip over promoting physical products. If you aren't promoting physical products, and are just focusing on digital products such as eBooks sold through Clickbank, then you are leaving a lot of potential niches (and money) on the table. In fact, when done properly physical products can often be more profitable to affiliates than digital products, it depends on the affiliate and the plan that they have.

Today you're going to learn how to find hot physical product niches that are overflowing with eager customers; and how you can profit from them.

One of the biggest reasons you should promote physical products is because the conversion rates are often higher. There are reduced barriers to sale when promoting physical goods for a few reasons:

Familiarity. Everyone knows brands from Adidas to Zippo. We are bombarded by advertisements from brand-name physical product companies every day. We buy their products, and we feel familiar with them. Therefore, people are much more likely to feel comfortable buying something they feel familiar with online. Most people are not familiar with digital information products, however. Trust. Your visitors will probably have dealt with a large website like Amazon before, but may feel unsure about handing over their credit card details to a digital product publisher. Tangibility. This is something you don't hear many people discuss. One of the biggest draw cards of physical products is that they are tangible. If you buy a home gym kit from Amazon, you get something physical delivered; it is highly tangible. However, a weight loss eBook is not very tangible, as it just exists on the computer as a digital file.

So now you know the big benefits of promoting physical products, how do you find hot niches?

Here are some powerful ways of researching physical product niches, and that are also very easy:

Using Google Product Search

Google Product Search (http://www.google.com/prdhp) gives you a great overview of what products are hot right now. It also provides seasonal insights into popular physical products.

For example, we are still in the month of January, which means all those New Year's fitness resolutions are in full swing. A quick look at Google Product Search seasonal products shows us that fitness equipment is a big seller right now:

You could build a number of smaller physical product websites around seasonal products, maintain them throughout the year, and then really work on promoting each one so it hits the "boom time" for sales. For example, you might have a Christmas gift idea website, a Valentine's Day site, and a "Black Friday" site (tech products do well here) Shift your focus around each site whenever the season calls for it.

Using Amazon to Find Hot Product Niches

The Amazon Bestsellers page (http://www.Amazon.com/bestsellers) is a really effective way of finding hot physical product niches with large demand.

It lets you see best-selling products, and sort through them by category. You can even see how many days the particular product has been in the top 100 in its category; if a product has been there for a while then it could be a good item to promote.

Another way you can use Amazon to help find physical product niches with high demand is to look at the Most Wished For items in any particular category. These are "hot" products in their own right, and are well worth investigating.

Remember to sort by category so you can actually drill down through the niche.

Using the Google Keyword Tool

You should also use the Google Keyword Tool ( to help you find great niche ideas and hot products. Start by entering some generic "product niche" terms like 'toaster oven' or 'smoothie maker'. You will then get an idea of the sort of terms and items people are searching for in that particular niche.

Using the Alexa "What's Hot" Page

One more site you can use to help you find physical product niches is the Alexa Internet "What's Hot" page (http://www.alexa.com/whatshot) It has a convenient guide to the top ten hot products right now.

Using eBay Pulse

eBay Pulse (http://pulse.ebay.com/) is another great way of seeing what items are hot and popular right now. You can filter your results based on category, and if you scroll down the page even see what items are the most watched in any particular category. It can be used alongside the Amazon Bestsellers list to give a more holistic view of what products are popular.

Using Google Insights for Search

Another tool you should be using for physical product niche research is Google Insights for Search (http://www.google.com/insights/search/). Although this is currently a beta service, it allows you to see geographical demand, as well as interest over time for particular keywords and products. It is handy for determining if a niche is seasonal, or whether it is a niche with consistent demand.

For example, as search for 'rose bouquet' shows double the interest in February (when everyone is panicked buying roses for Valentines Day)

Searching for 'mp3 player' shows that this is not a seasonal term, although interest peaks slightly around Christmas time, which means that mp3 players are probably very popular gifts:

Make the most of Google Insights for Search to help your niche research.

You want to be looking out for product niches where there is plenty of demand, and where you stand a strong chance of hitting page one of Google. Because the commission rates are generally lower on physical products it is important that you are promoting multiple products over a few different niches. Unless you are an affiliate for hugely expensive physical products where you earn lots of money per sale, you want to ensure that there is lots of demand so that you can keep making plenty of sales.

This is particularly important for Amazon affiliates, because of the tiered commission system. The more sales you make, the higher your percentage commission (although some categories are actually capped) This means that you need to be selling plenty of items to boost your commission rates. Here's a little bonus tip - build a site that sells inexpensive items on Amazon in a very high volume, and these will count towards your sales total. You can then earn greater commissions on more expensive items that are harder to sell in a high volume!

Health supplement products often provide some of the highest commission rates in the physical product niche. Websites like CommissionJunction.com and MarketHealth.com are good avenues for finding health supplements. When promoting health products it is very important that you do solid research into whether the product is effective, or if it is perceived as being a scam (look up the Acai Berry scam for a great example of this)

Promoting physical products as an affiliate requires a different approach to digital products on networks like Clickbank. Starting at the very beginning, with niche research, you have learned a few different methods that will help you find profitable physical product niches. Try all of them, and see what sort of niche ideas you come up with.

Just to recap, you learned how to find hot physical product niches with:

Google Product Search Amazon Bestsellers and Wishlist Google Keyword Tool Alexa "What's Hot" Page eBay Pulse Google Insights for Search

If you have any questions, comments, or tips about finding physical product niches then share them in the comments section below!

PS: Make sure you are following Affilorama on...

How to find profitable Clickbank niches

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:16:24 -0500

Hi there, a few days ago Sam wrote a blog post on How to Find Hot Physical Product Niches, and to follow on from that, today I've recorded a video for you which shows you how to find great digital products to promote through Clickbank.

The good thing about Clickbank products is that they often have high margins and some also offer recurring billing too, which means you get paid over and over once you make a sale until the customer cancels their membership of the site you recommended.

Just click play on the video below and you'll see me walking you through how I go about finding profitable Clicbank niches:

I hope you enjoyed this video, please post your comments, questions and suggestions and I'll reply through this blog

Kind regards,

Mark Ling

PS: Make sure you are following Affilorama on...

7 Ways to Boost Your Conversions

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:58:12 -0500

Getting traffic to your website is only half the battle with affiliate marketing. You also need to have a healthy conversion rate if you want to maximize your profits.

Think about this little math problem:

You have a website that receives 100 visitors a day. Of those visitors, 5 buy your offer.

I have a website that receives 1000 visitors a day. Of those visitors, 15 buy my offer.

Who has the higher conversion rate?

You do! Your conversion rate is 5%, whereas mine is only 1.5%. Even though I am making more sales in terms of number of products sold, your website is performing better in the key metric of conversion rate. If your conversion rate held at 5%, and you increased your traffic to 1000 visitors a day, you would be making a whopping 50 sales a day!

Now do you see the power of a good conversion rate?

Here are seven ways to boost yours:

1. Write catchy headlines

Having an eye-catching headline that encourages people to read on further is crucial for a high conversion rate. Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, here are some time-saving ideas for effective page headlines that really work: Get [desired result] in [desirable time period] - "Get rock hard abs in 4 weeks"

[ X ]ways to [desired result] - "7 ways to boost your conversions (oh the irony)"

[desired outcome] + [undesired result] + [mysterious/secretive solution] - "Cure acne with this secret herbal remedy"

[social proof] + [hard-hitting question] - "Hundreds of happy affiliates: Is it your turn to make money with Clickbank?"

Experiment with different headlines to find what works well for you. Article pages probably won’t work too well with “promotional” headlines, but the [X] ways to [desired result] formula is a good option.

2. Appeal to Emotion

We humans are emotional creatures. It is in our nature to act off emotion, rather than pure logic. Emotion is warped and controlled by people who want to sell to us. Take the fragrance industry, which sold $30.5 billion worth of product in 2006. Logically speaking, fragrances are all manner of odd chemicals placed into shaped bottles, designed to make us smell “better” (even though it is an unnatural smell).

However, smelling pleasant makes you feel better about yourself.

Humans like to purchase based on emotion. Therefore, emphasize the emotional benefits of any product you are promoting or selling.

Cold, hard facts are useful of course, but you want to wrap them up in such a way that there is emphasis on emotion.

3. Study copywriting

You probably spend lots of time studying traffic generation methods, SEO strategies, and maybe even PPC marketing tactics. However, you should dedicate some time every week to learning the skill of copywriting.

Being able to persuade others through your words is a valuable skill, not just for Internet marketing but also for all aspects of life. As your copywriting knowledge grows, you will be able to adjust and improve your pages, and see increased conversions.

Affilorama's copywriting blog category is a great place to start.

4. Use bullet points/lists on page

The majority of visitors to your website will not thoroughly read every single line of content. When reading online, people tend to skip and skim-read. Therefore, make sure all of your important content (whether it is informative or promotional) is included in bullet points or lists.

A good structure to use is “sub heading” à “introduction” à “bullet points/list” for each main part of your content.

5. Use graphics and images

“A picture paints a thousand words”. Sure, that’s a bit of a clichéd saying, but it really is true for boosting your conversion rates. Using eye-catching graphics and images will help break up boring text and draw your readers down the page. A few simple images can save you dozens of lines of text, which in turn reduces buyer resistance.

Another benefit of using images when selling information products is that it makes the product seem more tangible and real to the customer. There is a good reason why the highest converting Clickbank sales pages have quality graphics of their products – it helps reassure the customer that they are getting something real, which in turn boosts conversions.

Try placing an image linking to your offer above the page fold. This means that whenever a visitor loads your page they will see the image without having to scroll down the page.

Go to the Clickbank Marketplace and look up the sales pages of high gravity products in any niche. They will all use lots of images, pictures, and graphics.

6. Provide Proof & Credibility

Your visitors will not believe your claims until you provide solid evidence to back up what you are saying. The vast majority of people are sceptical of big claims, especially online where the personal element of selling is not present.

Testimonials, especially video testimonials, are hugely important for selling information products online. The best testimonials are ones that demonstrate how your product solved a problem. When promoting products as an affiliate, contact the product owner and ask if you can use their testimonials on your own pre-sell pages. Social proof is hugely important for good conversions, so you need testimonials.

Another way to add credibility is to make sure you emphasize “safe” website features like encryption technology. Actively tell your readers to look out for the little padlock symbol in their browser window, so that they know everything is safe. If you are promoting as an affiliate, then make sure the products you promote offer some form of safety net for customers; Clickbank addresses this automatically, but other affiliate programs may not.

Finally, consider adding social proof statistics to your pre-sell or sales pages. If the product you are promoting has been around for a number of years, tell visitors about its proven history. Another useful statistic is the number of sales of the product – people tend to buy what other people buy.

Important – The U.S Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently updated their rules for testimonials and consumer endorsements. Many policies were changed, and it is crucial that any testimonials or social proofs you provide follow the FTC’s requirements, which you can find here.

7. Offer Exceptional ValueOne of the best ways to boost your conversions is by offering truly exceptional value to your customers.

The problem with value is that it is subjective. Value can change from person to person. What I think is good value is probably going to be very different to what you think is good value.

You can provide value by:

Teaching people what you promised to teach Meeting customers’ expectations Offering good support and contact Understanding the problems of your target market and offering great solutions Explaining difficult concepts and ideas thoroughly Take your information to the next level – offer information that other sites and products aren’t offering Go the extra mile for your visitors and customers

Remember that value and price are two different concepts as well. Just because a $30 eBook is cheaper than a $3000 training course, it doesn’t necessarily mean the eBook is better value.

How can affiliates offer exceptional value? This is a bit trickier, because as an affiliate you cannot really control the value of a product. Here is how to give value as an affiliate:

Make sure your website teaches visitors something useful or solves a problem. Don’t just use it to funnel people to your affiliate sales page. You want people to click through, view the offer because they liked what you told them, and want more information. If you are just funneling visitors to your affiliate page, your conversion rates will be very poor. Offer your own bonuses. If you can offer bonuses to your customers then you will make more sales than affiliates who just sell the product and offer nothing extra. How do you implement bonuses? Create an awesome report that solves common problems your visitors might be having, then use a program like Easy Clickbank Bonus Manager to automate bonus distribution. Get a fully featured trial version free here. Let your customers and visitors contact you. Providing contact details on your website where you can personally address problems (or answer questions about the products you are promoting) is a great way of adding more value as an affiliate. People want to know they are dealing with a real person who cares about their problems.

We’ve covered a lot of material in this post, but it is all important stuff. Increasing your conversions is important for making more money, whether you are an affiliate or a vendor. Let’s quickly recap the seven ways to boost your conversion rates:

Write catchy headlines Appeal to emotion Study copywriting and improve your skills Use bullet points and lists Use graphics and images Provide social proof with testimonials Offer great value

Implement these concepts on your website and watch the extra cash roll in!

Do you know any other ways to increase your conversion rates? If so, I'd love to hear from you. Just leave a comment below, and let others know your conversion boosting...

Forum Marketing Tips & Tricks

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:37:18 -0500

If you are looking for an effective way of getting backlinks and traffic that is also fun, consider forum marketing. In my opinion, too few affiliate marketers actually use forum marketing. Everyone seems so caught up with article marketing, blog commenting, and Web 2.0 that one of the easiest ways to get floods of traffic and quality links is consistently overlooked.

What is forum marketing?

Forum marketing is simple. It is a type of marketing where you participate in ‘forums’ (also known as message boards) and discuss different topics with other like-minded individuals. You can get backlinks by leaving a link to your website in your ‘signature’ file (this is displayed automatically every time you post on a forum) You can also put links in the main body of your comments, and there is another nifty little backlink trick I will show you as well.

Why is forum marketing effective? Forums are targeted. Forums are highly targeted to specific topics or niches. A dog training forum is going to be full of people interested in training their dogs, for example. As you may already know, search engines look favourably on links that come from related and targeted websites Forums are specific. No matter what your niche is, there is most likely a forum based around it. This means you can really ‘drill down’ and find highly relevant forums. Imagine that you have a website that sells parts for classic American muscle cars; you don’t just have to settle for forums about cars in general. Instead, you can go one step further and comment on forums that are all about American muscle cars. Forums are active. Rather than just getting links from static web directories and websites that are updated rarely, forums are living and breathing communities. Even the smallest of forums receive updates a few times a day by new posts or comments. Search engines love fresh content, and forums fit this criterion very well. Forums are fun. Let’s face it, link building is not a lot of fun. Submitting articles, exchanging links with other webmasters, submitting to directories – this all gets very boring! Forums are lively and enjoyable places, full of interesting people. Because forum marketing is fun, you are much more likely to be consistent with your marketing efforts. Forums are well established. There are many forums online (especially in bigger niches) that have been around for years. Search engines reward links from established, authority websites. How do you find forums?

The first step in successful forum marketing is finding a list of forums you can join. This is actually not as difficult as you might think. Simply use a Google search for your niche keyword plus “forum” or “message board” to find potential candidates.

You can also use the Google Discussion search, available on the left hand side of the search screen.

It really is that simple.

How do you join forums?

So you’ve found a list of forums, now how do you join them? This is usually a very straightforward process too (if you haven’t noticed by now, forum marketing is also easy) Simply navigate to the forum you want to join, and look for a “register” or “join” button. Provide the details requested, and then you are ready to go. Tip - If you cannot easily find the register button, just browse to a message ‘thread’ and then try and leave a comment. A screen will come up saying that you need to register to post. On this message, you will usually find an option to register.

How do you actually build links with forum marketing?

Now we come to the important stuff, actually building our links.

There are three main ways to build links and get traffic with forum marketing:

1. Using a signature file. Most forums use platforms such as vBulletin or phpBB. These platforms allow you to add a ‘signature’ to the end of every message you post. In your signature, you can often include an anchor text link to your website.

For example, if the main keyword you want to target with your website is “American muscle car parts” then your signature could say something like “Visit Sam’s American Muscle Car Parts today for a wide selection of rare parts for your pride and joy”.

Tip- Avoid being too promotional in your signature file, as this will quickly get you banned or ignored. Some forums will require you to have a minimum post count or level before you can put links in your signature – this is a common anti-spam measure. Finally, some forums will only allow plain text links, meaning you can’t use anchor text. This isn’t as good for SEO, but if the forum is very active and you write a great call to action then you can see some serious traffic.

2. In-post links. Instead of linking in your signature, you add links to the individual posts you make. In-post linking works well for forum threads where someone asks a question or wants help about a problem. You give a structured, detailed response, and then write something like “read my American muscle car tuning guide for more” – remember to use anchor text where possible. You are offering your website as an additional resource to supplement your reply. Make sure your reply actually helps or offers something useful, and don’t just spam your link.

You are more likely to attract the attention of moderators by adding links to your main post, rather than your signature. Don’t link with every post you make, and consider adding links to sites other than your own.

Tip-In-post links provide a great opportunity for “deep linking” to pages on your website. Make sure that you link to the most relevant resource on your site, and not just the homepage. Not only will this have SEO benefits for your website, but it will also reduce your risk of being flagged as a spammer – if your links point to useful articles or pages deep in your site, this looks better than just linking to the home page. Use your signature file to link to your homepage, and use in-post links for deep linking!

3. Profile links – Another quick and easy way of building backlinks from forums is to make use of your public profiles. The majority of forums let users have a public profile where you can share personal information. On these profiles is often an option to share a “homepage URL” or “site URL”. Just add your link to the profile, and save your profile. Voila, you just got a one-off backlink for mere seconds of effort.

Are there any "secrets" for forum marketing?

There most certainly are! If you want to get the most from forum marketing, make sure you do the following:

Always abide by the forum rules. Forum users, especially moderators, tend to be very good at spotting spammers who break the rules. Give before you take. Consider building up a number of posts before trying to add links to your signature or comments. Prove yourself a valuable member of the community. Post regularly. You should be making multiple posts per day across a number of forums. Posts don’t take long to make, so in an hour you should easily be able to make 10 posts or more. You will get the most links and traffic by doing this. Avoid digging up the past. A mark of true forum spammers is to resurrect old message threads, especially ones that are ranking in search engines for keyword phrases. Forum users call this “thread bumping”. You will quickly find yourself being ignored or banned if you dig up old threads.

To recap, forum marketing is a great way of building links to your website and getting more targeted traffic. Few people seem to use this powerful method fully, so there is huge potential in forum marketing.

If you only take one thing away from today’s post, you should remember to add value to any forum you join. Don’t just leech off the community for some easy links – you will see the biggest benefit if you are contributing great ideas in a friendly and polite manner.

Do you have any forum marketing tips or tricks you like to use? Are there any questions about forum marketing you would like answered? To share your knowledge or get an answer, just leave a comment...

Introducing Caleb Johnny Ling :)

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 19:44:34 -0500

Hi Everyone,

I meant to get this post out several weeks ago, however I've been taking a lot of time out to be a full time dad lately, so I thought I might as well wait till I had some Christmas snapshots to share also before announcing that I'm once again a proud father :)

Here is the story of what happened:

Six weeks ago, on November 16 my 2nd son, Caleb Johnny Ling, was born (pronounced 'Cay-lib').

When he came out I thought he looked so much like my other son Benjamin, here is a photo of Benjamin when he was a newborn - notice the similarities?

For the first 20 hours or so, everything was fine with Caleb, then after that he started breathing really fast (120 breaths per minute, normal is 40-60). He then got rushed into intensive care, which was very frightening for my wife Michelle and I as we didn't know what was going on.

They tested him for all sorts of things from Pneumonia to Meningitis, and concluded that there was not foreign bacteria and that the problem was that he had a small puncture in his lung which caused a lot of trapped oxygen to escape. That was a good thing as this is quite a common problem apparently and was one that healed itself over the 10 nights that he was in hospital.

The intensive care unit people were amazing and who knows what would have happened if they didn't get on to this right away, as they needed to help him by putting him on a ventilator, plus all sorts of other stuff like morphine to help with the pain. Now you wouldn't know there was ever a problem as he is totally healthy and doing really well! :)

Here are some more pics, this is one of Benjamin showing his interest in his new brother (he has been giving him lots of kisses every day and has been a really good big brother):

Here is one of Caleb having his first bath at home (almost 2 weeks old):

Caleb catching up on a bit of light reading :)

Benjamin loves his wee brother:

While Ben is way too young to know what was about to come on Christmas day, he sure did love the Christmas tree! As you can probably imagine, he is usually on the outside of this playpen :)

Caleb sleeping (3 weeks old):

Grandad (my dad) spoils Benjamin with a bike for Christmas - yes Ben is only 20 months old riding it, though my dad is assisting him with the help of a special attachment :)

Ben loves his little digger from his Santa sack - Lucky boy got so spoilt by all his family!

Caleb chilling out, now 6 weeks old:

I hope you've enjoyed seeing these photos of my 2 wee boys, and I wish all of you a very merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous 2012 ahead!!

All the best,

Mark Ling

Founder of Affilorama and Traffic...

Five Ways to Leverage People Power in Your Marketing

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:39:33 -0500

The Internet gives people the freedom to find what they want, and communicate with others all across the world. When running your online marketing campaigns, do not forget the power that people have! Not only are they your customers, but they can also be a source of fresh ideas, content, and advertising to help spread the word.

Here are five social marketing strategies you can use, all of which rely on people power:

1. Get content ideas from blogs comments and forums

Are you ever stuck for great content ideas? This happens to all of us from time to time, but luckily, you can harness people power for some awesome content ideas. Blogs and forums provide a fantastic opportunity to put your finger on the pulse of a niche community and discover what the people want to hear about.

If you run your own blog that gets comments then read these carefully to see if any trends appear. For example, if you have a blog about American muscle cars, and comments keep appearing about sourcing hard-to-find parts; why not write a blog post all about this? Content doesn’t come much more targeted to an audience than this.

Forums are also useful for finding fresh and exciting content ideas. Look out for threads related to common problems or concerns, and then write articles on your own website or blog that address them. Here’s a little tip – once you have created these targeted articles, promote them on the forums you got the ideas from in the first place.

2. Add a forum to your website

You probably already know how important fresh content is for SEO and getting high search engine rankings. The theory is very clear, but putting that into practice is difficult as creating fresh content takes a lot of time.

What is the solution? Add a forum to your website! Let other people build a community on your website that generates its own fresh content.

The search engines generally seem to love forums. They are places where things stay fresh, and where other users usually remove spam and poor quality content.

The benefits of adding a forum to your website are clear:

Constant supply of fresh content to tempt the search engines Keeps visitors coming back to your site over and over again Great source of content ideas for your main website Build up trust with your audience Develop an active and responsive community 3. Social bookmark & network the “right” way

Social bookmarking is an effective way of getting your websites and pages indexed and building some basic links, but 99% of marketers seem to be using it incorrectly.

People tend to go into social bookmarking with the wrong mindset. It’s not about what you can take, but instead about giving the people what they want. If you provide what the people want then your chances of being republished, Tweeted about, shared on Facebook, or blogged about sharply increase.

So, what is the “right” way of doing social bookmarking and networking?

Create and share engaging content that is:

Funny Offbeat Emotionally charged Topical Non-promotional

Submitting normal niche articles to social networks and bookmarking sites is not what you should be doing.

Some examples of content that is more likely to go viral on social networks include:

Quirky or amusing videos Articles that entertain Technology or politics related stories Environmental news Breaking news Content with strong emotional elements

The adage of “bread and circuses” works well for social networking and bookmarking. The majority of people want entertainment or information that is easy to swallow. Provide this on social networks and bookmarking sites and you will be in a prime position to profit.

4. Use Wikis on your Site for User-Generated Content

If you want more user-generated content then consider adding a Wiki to your website. This means that you can have a section on your website where visitors can come, register as users, and then add, remove, or edit articles.

There are a number of different Wiki platforms available; options are there for static website users and those of us who like to build sites using the Wordpress platform. In fact, Wordpress makes adding a Wiki very simple with the Wordpress Wiki Lite plugin. You might also want to read this guide to installing a Wiki on a normal website too.

The benefit of running a Wiki, or having one installed alongside your main website, is that you can get lots of fresh content easily. Search engines also tend to look favourably on Wikis as the “poster-child” of Web 2.0.

There are downsides to running a Wiki, however. Firstly, there will always be people coming to spam your Wiki with links to their website. The most famous Wiki of them all, Wikipedia, suffered so much from this problem that it changed all outbound links to “nofollow” to discourage link spam. Problems can also develop with moderating Wikis, as disputes between moderators are common.

A good compromise is to register another domain in your niche, get hosting, and then build a Wiki on this website. As traffic and links start coming in to the Wiki you can link through to your main “money” site and reap the rewards.

5. Building Trust & Boosting Reputation

Perhaps the biggest benefit of leveraging people power in your marketing is the way that you can build trust and boost your reputation with your target audience. Part of the power of the Internet, especially Web 2.0, is that it allows a closer relationship between writers and their audiences.

Think about “traditional” forms of media like television or radio – beyond writing in with a suggestion or letter of complaint, it is almost impossible for the audience to communicate with the broadcaster. There was a famous sociologist, Jurgen Habermas, who summed this problem up nicely. He said that the structure of modern mass communication imposes a “don’t talk back” structure on audiences.

This is bad for both parties, as this one-way relationship creates issues of trust. How can you trust if you cannot make your opinion heard?

Trust is also hugely important on the Internet. If your audience trusts you then they will be more likely to buy based on your recommendations; they are much more likely to recommend your site or service to others; they will keep coming back for more.

How do you get your online audience to trust you?

Implement technologies and strategies that revolve around people power! Here are some examples:

If you haven’t already, add a blog to your website. Let comments and discussions flourish, and take the advice of others to heart. Provide actual contact information. This is a huge part of building trust with your readers. Give them the opportunity to contact you in person if they have any suggestions or queries. At the very least, have an email address for your website that you check regularly. Recommend quality products. If you are promoting products as an affiliate, make sure they are of a high quality and actually offer value to the customer. You will soon lose the trust of your audience if they discover you are promoting poor quality products, just for the sake of making a quick buck. Add a suggestion box to your website where visitors can suggest improvements to the website, or new content they would like to see. Always offer value. Many marketers seem to forget that there is a big difference between value and price. A $5 eBook might have a low price, but if it contains nothing useful then it actually has no value. Always go above the expectations of your customers to deliver value, even if you are selling something with a high price tag.

Today you have learned five effective ways to leverage “people power” to boost your marketing efforts. If you can harness this then your online marketing business will take off. All the SEO knowledge in the world is useless if people don’t actually want to do business with you. Make use of people power, however, and you will open the gateways to massive profits and happy customers.

I'd love to hear your "people power" marketing success stories - just leave a comment below! Likewise, if you have any questions you want me to answer about using social marketing, drop a line and get the discussion...

Link Building Tips Audio Interview

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 02:04:18 -0500

Hi Everyone,

A couple of days ago I recorded a really intriguing interview with Search Engine Rankings expert, Matt Carter, on the topic of link building.

He ended up covering a lot of other important aspects of getting a high search engine rankings, such as how to manage your link building process, the importance of variety in your links, several link building methods that he uses and more.

Listen to the interview below and post your comments (I'll get Matt to jump in and reply to your comments too):

Here is the link to download the mp3 version of the above audio interview:

Right click this link here and select 'save as' to download to your computer

Also, I highly recommend you check out Matt's free videos where he shows you how to build high value links to boost your search engine visibility

Click here to check out Matt's free videos Kind regards, Mark...