Employment911

Affiliate Help for You

fred — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 20:19:00 GMT

I have just wrapped the affiliate reports for May and just wanted to give you some insights to help you increase your affiliate commissions.

There has been an increase in Federal and military conversion resume sales this last month, while the medical, finance fields as well as job board have been doing well as well. Sites that have however been losing sales across the board are resume service reviews type sites – from looking at them, they keep adding more and more resume service listings, which is known to dilute sales and bring confusion to visitors: tightening it up with just a few services should bring sales back up.

I’m glad to report that affiliate sales increased in May and am particularly happy to see that quite a few new affiliates have been able to quickly make sales and earn commissions. These affiliates are pretty Internet marketing-savvy so for those of you who would like to make more sales, I will take this opportunity to give you a few tips:

WEBSITE CONTENT

With the latest Google Panda update, sites featuring duplicate articles got a big slap – this means that if your site’s content was heavy on articles borrowed from articles directories or other sites, you most likely lost organic rankings for major keywords and, as a result, a lot of targeted traffic; this is not only affecting your overall traffic but also your affiliate sales. Why? Because, by losing rankings for important keywords that were attracting qualified visitors (those who were the mostly likely in need of professional resume writing), you are not sending us those qualified visitors anymore.

Here is an example: Some affiliates were ranking high for terms such as “resume writing” and have now be booted around Google’s page 10 results. They are still ranking well for terms such as “resume sample” though. So what’s going on? Well the visitors coming to their site for “resume writing” were pretty qualified and once redirected to our site, were buying resumes. Now that rankings for this keyword has dropped, we are not getting those visitors anymore and these affiliates’ sales have dropped. While they are still sending us traffic from terms such as “resume sample”, they are not able get sales out of them because these are the people looking for something free.

-> What should you about this? Well, you are going to need some new original content, which you can write yourself or outsource to services such as Need-an-article, fiverr, etc …

ORGANIC SOURCES OF TRAFFIC & BACKLINKS

As you read in the previous section, article marketing isn’t working anymore, whether it’s as a source of traffic or backlinks, since Google slapped article directories a couple months ago.

-> What should you about this? Well, you need to diversify your traffic and linking strategy. You have several options: videos (making them and posting them to video sites such as Youtube), posting articles to third-party blogs and blog networks, forum postings and ad buying.

PAY-PER-CLICK

Pay-per-click still works but the market being so competitive, it’s not as easy to make sales as it used to be. The good thing though is that 70% of people using PPC don’t know what they’re doing so there is room for you if you do your homework. Here are the factors to consider: 1. the market being crowded, bids have increased considerably. 2. people have become more search savvy and the buying process takes more time; for example while 6 years ago, a keyword like “resume” was bringing sales, this isn’t the case anymore.

-> What should you about this? First, do not advertise for broad keywords such as “resume”. Instead look for buying and long tail keywords – I would recommend using intelligence keyword tools such as spyfu, market samurai or keyword discovery or to find out which keywords are profitable. Also before starting a big campaign and spend a lot of money, you can also contact me for advice – I have been doing this for more than 10 years and know what works and what doesn’t ...

Affiliate Resume Writing Sales Increasing Sharply In January

fred — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 19:35:00 GMT

Some of you might have noticed that resume writing sales were slow in December, which is normal and happens every year as people save their cash for gifts, food and partying. However, I'm sure you are also aware that January is the time for new resolutions, which means that this is when people start looking for jobs and when companies start posting job openings. In addition, beside this seasonal trend, the employment market is finally going back up, compared the previous couple years, the private sector - and mostly small businesses - having just added more than 295,000 jobs. As you can see, this beginning of the year seems to be particularly favorable to resume writing sales so make sure to take advantage of it: Now is the time to promote prominently our resume writing services to earn big affiliate $.

2010 Top 10 Affiliates

fred — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 21:19:00 GMT

I have started looking at our yearly affiliate reports and wanted to start the year by sharing a few things with you. While I won't give you the name of our 10 higher-earning affiliates for 2010, I can however tell you what type of sites they are, which should help you figure out what websites can earn big with our affiliate program.

- 3 of our top 10 affiliates are sites offering Federal employment resources

- 2 of our top 10 affiliates are sites focusing on resume writing

- 1 of our top 10 affiliates offers military to civilian transition resources

- 1 of our top 10 affiliates is a job board

- 3 of our top 10 affiliates are niche employment sites specializing in one industry (nursing, engineering, finance).

And, in case you are wondering, most of our top 30 sites are similar to the ones listed below.

In terms of commissions, these sites are earning somewhere between a few hundred $ and $2,000 in affiliate commissions every month.

This should tell you a few things. First, that the most profitable sites are sites that are specialized on one field. Second, this should give you an idea about what fields are currently hot when it comes to resume writing sales. A couple other things that might surprise you is that, except for 1 affiliate, all the sites listed below have a quite modest traffic but because they are able to attract the visitors they are catering to, their sales conversion rates are pretty high. Also, most of these sites have a very basic design, which underlines that what matters is the information provided not the way it is presented; as a result, you don't need to spend big bucks in website design to be successful with our affiliate program.

Get ready for resume writing sales peaking in January

fred — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 20:45:00 GMT

I just wanted to let you know about a couple things today.

First, I am leaving on vacation tomorrow and will be back right after Christmas. So if you email me the next couple of weeks, I won’t be able to reply until after Christmas.

Also, as you probably know, while affiliate sales are usually slow around that time of the year, they always peak right after New Year, as January and February are the busiest months when it comes to job hunting. So make sure to plan ahead and be ready when January comes, as job seekers will rush to buy resume writing services.

How can you take advantage of January job hunting rush? Here is a list of proven practices:

- Feature our resume writing affiliate banner or link on your home page

- Feature our resume writing affiliate banner or link in your your job ads

- Include your affiliate link in the emails you send to your mailing list

- Post your affiliate link on Facebook.

- Post your affiliate link on Twitter.

- Post your affiliate link on your Blog.

Post your affiliate link on classifieds.

Have a Merry Christmas!

Martial Arts Affiliate Program

fred — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 22:39:00 GMT

For those of you who asked for me for recommendations about other affiliate programs, here is another one that is worth the try. Budovideos, a well known site specialized in martial arts, offers a martial arts affiliate program, which commission rate is 10%. I did get a sneak peak at how the program works and can attest some of their affiliates are generating several thousands dollars in sales every month. Because Budovideos has exclusive access to lots of martial arts events and has its own line of DVDs, the site has a high conversion rate. In addition, martial arts afficionados tend to buy a few items at a time so the average sale order is higher than your average affiliate program. So, if you are looking into affiliate program diversification, you might wanna give it a shot. They are managed through the google affiliate program and you can apply to their program here ....

Healthcare job search activity booming

fred — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 21:23:00 GMT

Just a quick note to mention that there are currently plenty of healthcare jobs available and an increasing number of candidates are getting into that field. As a result, we've noticed an increase in medical resume - and most particularly nursing resume - packages sold. So if your site focuses on the healthcare industry, I would recommend promoting our healthcare resume service to increase your online revenues.

The college job hunt is on

fred — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:50:00 GMT

Those of you whose websites attract a younger crowd and, most particularly students, might be interested to know that now is the time when they start looking for college jobs. As school starts, they usually also look for jobs, whether it's on campus, internships etc ... You might, as a result, want to promote our college resume writing service in order to increase your affiliate sales. Offering a page featuring resources on how to find those jobs might also be useful, whether it's to increase conversions or attract organic traffic and if you are looking for ideas you can even have a look at our college jobs / expired job search listings.

This trend usually happens twice a year and lasts a couple of months: It obviously happens in September / October but also in January / February so if you want to cash on it, make sure to act fast ...

Another great affiliate program

fred — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 23:22:00 GMT

Since quite a few of you guys have been asking me if I could recommend other good affiliate programs, I will from now on let you know whenever I hear of a program that is performing well.

This obviously doesn't mean you should stop promoting Employment911 - quite the contrary as September is always a very good month when it comes to resume writing sales - but since several of you have an entrepreneurial spirit and are always eager to start new sites, why not sharing a few insider tips with you …

The program I will recommend to you today is the 1800Pools affiliate program which, as its name implies, specialized in swimming pools and spas. This program is available through the Google affiliate network and all you need to do is to apply here to get your application approved. What is interesting about this program is not only that it gets some good sales - I've checked their reports - but they have strong sales in summer, right when employment-related sales are slow, which makes it a great complement to the Employment911 affiliate program. In addition, for the rest of the year they offer a wide selection of winter products, which should allow you to keep your sales constant throughout the year. Now, here is a bonus tip: if you decide to promote this program now, you should be able to make a killing in swimming pool covers …

Offering Job Listings to your visitors

fred — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 22:23:00 GMT

While I usually focus on our resume writing services to show you how to earn commissions, you can also earn commissions with job listings. Indeed, you can also make money with leads as, whenever somebody signs up on our site and post a resume, you will earn a commission (from $0.25 to $0.50 depending on your affiliate level).

I can tell you from experience that when people look for jobs on our site, they tend to sign up and post their resume, since it's free to them. So, it is to your advantage to allow your visitors to look for jobs (we offer a job search banner in your affiliate account, under Static Banners) - job seekers can look for thousands of jobs whether it's by state (for example: Florida Jobs), by industry, by keyword and they can even browse through old jobs (see our expired accounting jobs for example), in order to find the contact information of additional companies they might be interested to work for.

Will you make thousands of $ in commissions with leads? Probably not but you could easily make a hundred $ in leads, which would nicely complement the commissions you got from resume sales ...

New Contest: Increase your Sales by 20% & Earn a $20 Gift Card

fred — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 20:15:00 GMT

Would you like to earn a $20 gift card? Would you like to get a bigger affiliate commission check?

Well, we have a new contest for you: Increase your Sales by 20% & Earn a $20 Gift Card.

How does it work?

It's easy: increase your affiliate sales by 20% in March, compared to your February sales and you will be eligible to earn one of our $20 gift cards - the winners will be drawn ...

This means that not only you might earn a $20 card but in addition, your will earn 20% more commissions in March.

Since this contest starts in one week, I would recommend you start preparing for it now so that when March starts, you are already ahead of the game. To help you win, here are some easy ways to increase your sales:

place our top-selling resume writing banner or link on your home page
promote our resume writing service to your mailing list, in your newsletter.
upsell our resume writing service to your customers.
If you have an employment site, place our top-selling resume writing banner or link on the pages featuring the job descriptions.
Create a page presenting our services.
Use PPC advertising to promote the pages where you have our ads.

Also, make sure to read the following posts, which include some great tips on how to earn big commissions:

If you have any question, feel free to contact me ... and Good Luck!!

Making Affiliate Sales with an Opt-in List

fred — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:43:00 GMT

While most affiliates post links and banners to websites to make affiliate sales, another great way is to build an opt-in list. For example, if your site is about accounting, you can get people to sign up for your list by telling them you will offer them news about their industry. What you can also do is offering them some kind of freebie in exchange for signing up - for example an accounting-related e-book.

Once people are on your list, it's pretty easy. Not only can you send them a series of auto-responders after they sign up but you can also send them broadcast messages. Make your messages sound personal, like you were talking to a friend. Give them some tips, solve their problems. Obviously, somewhere in your message promote your affiliate offer but make sure it is something your subscribers might be interested in. For example, an accounting site could promote our accounting resume writing service.

Finally, while some marketers do not hesitate to just send promotional messages to their list, you might want to mix things up by also sending them some good articles or news; this will minimize the number of people unsuscribing from your list.

How to earn more than $4.50 per click with our affiliate program

fred — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 23:18:00 GMT

So if you read this blog or our newsletter regularly, you might have noticed that I always use the earning per click as conversion rate, which is calculated by dividing your affiliate commission $ by the number of clicks you send our way.

There is always a dozen affilites that can pull off earning more than $1 per click and if you read my previous post, How to be a successful affiliate, I gave you a blueprint on how to do it.

While most of our top affiliates get their traffic mostly from organic rankings, there is a method that people have kind of forgotten but still works: Using PPC traffic to make sales. To give you an idea, there is currently one affiliate who is earning more than $4.50 per click by mostly sending Adwords traffic to a page that presents one of our service. That affiliate did his homework and is only advertising keywords that generate sales so that he doesn't spend a lot of money and gets high Return on Investment thanks to laser-targeted traffic. Here are two things you should know:

He is advertising with Adwords in a midly competitive market - so yes Adwords still works ...
As for knowing the right buying keywords, there is two ways: first you can use the Adwords suggestion tool and if you dig around, you will figure out what they are. Second, you can just look at our landing pages, since I optimized them for those buying keywords ...

No Affiliate Links = No Affiliate Sales

fred — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:09:00 GMT

Before I get started, I hope you guys read my previous post, How to be a successful affiliate, because there is really all the ingredients you need to make sales.

Now let's get back to the title of this blog post. By this I mean that if you guys don't put any affiliate link on your sites or don't promote them to your mailing lists, you will never make any sale.

Why am I saying this? Well even though it might sound obvious, there are plenty of affiliates who sign up with our program and never put any link up. Lots of these affiliate sites have potential and by not putting any resume link up, they are losing on affiliate commissions, most especially as resume writing sales are currently going strong.

So once again, I'm recommending to those who haven't done so yet to put some links up. Just putting our best selling link or banner on your site won't take more than a couple minutes ... So you have to ask yourself "is spending a couple minutes copying and pasting a banner on a page and ftping it worth making a few hundred $ in affiliate commissions every month?" ...

How to be a Successful Affiliate with the 2009 Employment911 Affiliate Program Recap

fred — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:03:00 GMT

Let's have a look at what happened last year and what lessons we can learn from it.

First, I am glad to announce that once again, your affiliate revenues increased in 2009 and it's looking good - to give you an idea, your affiliate income doubled in two years! This means two things: First that some of you guys did a great job at promoting our services to highly qualified traffic. Second that our affiliate program is working well and that our landing pages have strong conversion rates - and just to let you know, I am always testing and tweaking our pages so that your sales conversions increase.

Now let's look at conversion rates (calculated by dividing your monthly affiliate revenues by the number of clicks you sent us):

The highest conversion rate for an affiliate last year was $4.74 per click.

A couple affiliates had the highest conversion rates for at least 3 months.

This is telling us two things:

If you focus on getting visitors that have a need for our services, you will make easy sales, work less and won't waste money and effort on unqualified leads.

If you do intelligence work when it comes to keyword research, you are 100% sure to succeed.

As for the most successful affiliates, here is some interesting data that you can use, whether you are starting your website or updating it:

2 of the top 5 affiliates are in the Federal employment field

1 of the top 5 affiliates is a resume service review site

55% of the top 20 affiliates are job board sites

65% of the top 20 affiliates are industry niche sites

30% of the top 20 affiliates are content-rich informational sites

Regarding the types of resumes you guys sold the most, here is what you should know:

47% of affiliate sales were Federal resumes and other documents needed for government job applications.

33% of affiliate sales were standard entry, mid-level and executive resume sales.

7% of affiliate sales were engineering resumes.

6% of affiliate sales were finance resumes.

3% of affiliate sales were nursing resumes.

2% of affiliate sales were military to civilian resumes.

2% of affiliate sales were resumes for temp and seasonal jobs.

So here you go … with all the data I just gave you today, you should have enough information to become one of our most successful affiliates and earn big!

January Affiliate Program Sales

fred — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 20:45:00 GMT

Hello, I got back from vacation a week ago, as you might have noticed on Twitter and just wanted to give you an update about current sale trends. While I will give you soon more details about how the affiliate program performed in 2009, here is some information that might help you increase your sales:

As expected, affiliate sales increased sharply the weekend following new year's eve, which means that people are getting back to looking for a job - new year resolutions are contributing to this as well.

As for what's selling, here are the details: What is currently selling the most is our regular professional resume writing package, whether it's entry level, mid level or executive resumes. Federal resume writing is also selling but, for the time being, it's pretty modest as most jobs haven't opened yet - remember government jobs have strict deadlines. There are also quite a few finance resume and military resume sales.

If your site isn't specialized in any industry or field, I would recommend promoting our top-selling resume writing banner or link (remember putting it on your home page guarantees you a 20% commission rate, instead of 12.50%). And if your site is specialized in any of the fields listed above, I would recommend promoting the appropriate links, which you will find in your affiliate account.

Holiday Vacation

fred — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:56:00 GMT

I just wanted to let you guys know that I will be on vacation from December 11th to December 28th, spending the holidays with my family in Europe. So if you email me while I'm gone, I will only be able to answer your messages when I come back on the 29th.

In the meantime, you might notice that sales might get slow these next couple of weeks. This is actually normal and happens every year during the holiday season, as this the time when people focus their spending on Christmas gifts. The good news is that however business should be booming after January 1st as not only companies start recruiting but job seekers also go back to looking for jobs as part of new year's resolutions.

So I would suggest taking advantage of the next couple of weeks to prepare your site for the job search rush that will occur in January - I can tell from experience that resume writing sales will jump as soon as the new year begins.

That's it for now! Have a great Holiday!

Going on vacation

fred — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:22:00 GMT

I just wanted to let you guys know that I will be on vacation from November 13th to November 22nd - in case you are wondering, I am heading to Peru. So if you email me while I'm gone, I will answer your messages when I come back on the 23rd.

In the meantime keep up the good work and keep promoting our resume writing services as, with unemployment remaining strong, we have several affiliates earning more than $3 per click (conversion rate) ...

Follow us on Twitter to earn big $

fred — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:05:00 GMT

Just a reminder that you should follow our affiliate program on Twitter. Why? Because not only I give you updates about what's going on every day but most importantly I give you insider tips about what products and services are selling ... in real-time - this is very important as, since some of these resume sales are seasonal, depending on hiring trends and application deadlines, you will know what is currently selling and what you should currently promote to earn big $.

To follow us, click http://twitter.com/employment911af

Bing and Yahoo joining forces

fred — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:10:00 GMT

So it's finally official: Bing will provide organic search engine results for Yahoo while Yahoo will provide PPC ads for MSN's Bing. This is good news for three reasons: First ranking organically with Bing is easier than with Yahoo. Second, since Oveture has high conversion rates, this will allow you to increase your sales since it will also cover MSN's traffic. Finally, this will mean you won't get as much dependant from Google anymore as with Bing and Yahoo joining forces, you will get a new bigger source of easier traffic, which will be almost as important as Google's.

So I would suggest you start optimizing your site for Bing right away so that you take advanatge of both Bing and Yahoo's free traffic ...

Affiliate Sales Increasing in August

fred — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:40:00 GMT

While I've noticed that some of you guys were on vacation these last few weeks , I however wanted to emphasize that it is time to get back to promoting Resume Writing heavily, if you are interested in earning big affiliate commissions.

I can tell you from experience that Resume sales usually start increasing sharply in August - to give you an idea, sales increased by 32% in August 2008, compared to the previous month. This trend will of course continue the following months so it is recommended to start working on this right away to maximize your profits. Not only will you be ahead of the game as lots of marketers usually wait until September to promote employment offers, unaware of the potential there is in August, but it will help you be all set for the following months as well. In addition, since Internet marketing is about testing, it's not a bad idea to start testing new strategies these following days and if you find that something works better, then you can have it already implemented when job search season part 2 starts in September.

Latest Trends

fred — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:01:00 GMT

First I want to thank you for having been patient these last few days. We experienced technical difficulties, which were coming from external factors and our IT department had to work hard to fix and then update everything - which is why parts of the site had to be taken down temporarily. This makes following us on twitter even more important as I was updating our followers on the status of our work - if you're not following us yet, click here

In terms of affiliate sales, I can tell you that the affiliates that have been having the highest conversion rates lately are sites about summer and temporary jobs, which is obviously a seasonal trend. Since we're in early July and there are almost 2 months left for summer jobs, you still have the time to create a section on your site to promote resume writing to summer job seekers.

You might also be interested to know that there has been an increase in military conversion resume sales last month. Another specialty that has been having strong sales is Finance resume writing, while our best link and banner have also proved to perform well. I guess this should give you an idea about what to promote right now ...

Finally, for those playing the PPC and SEO games, I can tell you that traffic and conversions coming from MSN ads and search results have been increased sharply, which is the result of the launch of Bing. I guess it's time to realize that Google isn't the only player in town anymore ...

Why it's a good time for affiliates to promote Federal resume writing services

fred — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:32:00 GMT

If you pay attention to what I write in the affiliate newsletter, you might have noticed that Federal resume writing is one of our best-selling services and that most of our Federal affiliates are doing pretty well. If you haven't considered promoting Federal resume services yet, I would strongly suggest you create a section about Federal jobs on your sites as, how the following data can attest, Uncle Sam is going to keep hiring:

The defense department is going to open around 19,000 positions
The Veterans Affaire will recruit for 9,800 jobs
Homeland Security will seek 7,000 new employees
Social security will hire 3,200 candidates

With these numbers in mind, you can even center your pages around these departments to get even more qualified traffic, which should increase your Federal resume sale conversions.

As a reminder, you will find all the affiliate Federal links and banners in your account.

And if you're not affiliated with us yet but want to promote Federal resume writing, join here ...

Affiliate Success Blueprint

fred — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 17:18:00 GMT

With a lot of our affiliates doing extremely well, I wanted to give you a blueprint to give you a chance to replicate their success:

Our most successful sites are for the most part sites that target job seekers from a certain profession - for example sites specialized in engineering, healthcare, finance, IT, Federal, Military, summer jobs, etc … - and know how to attract qualified visitors to their sites. These sites do not need to have huge traffic; most of them are actually pretty small sites but they have done their keyword research home work and focus on attracting traffic for these keywords, whether it's through SEO or PPC ads. Here are a few steps you should follow, if you want to be successful with our program as well:

1.   Find a professional niche you are familiar with
2.   Do some keyword research to find out which searches job seekers are doing (use Google keyword tools and any free keyword tool available)
3.   Develop content for these keywords - you can even hire writers to do this
4.   Create pages optimized for these keywords
5.   Place our affiliate links and/or banners that are specialized in that niche
6.   Promote your site organically with link building and through advertising with PPC if you have a budget for it

Finance Affiliate Program Sales

fred — Tue, 26 May 2009 20:24:00 GMT

I've noticed an increase in Finance Resume sales these last few weeks so I wanted to share this with you. Finance is one the employment sectors that might get back to increase hiring quickly, despite the recession; Knowing that our Finance resume writing sales are currently going strong, they should even grow higher as more finance jobs open. I would therefore recommend to any affiliate site appealing to finance professionals to promote our finance resume writing service to their visitors - finance resume affiliate links and banners are available in your account under "Finance/Accounting".

As for those of you who haven't joined our program yet but are interested in promoting Finance resume writing, you can join here.

Summer Jobs are Hot

fred — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:57:00 GMT

With summer getting close and students getting ready to graduate, the demand for summer jobs has been increasing sharply. As a result, I have been noticing an increase in resume sales coming from affiliates specialized in summer and temporary jobs.

Since this is a niche with not much competition, this is a good opportunity for affiliate marketers looking into getting new markets. All you would need to do is creating a section - or site - with a few articles on the subject so that you can attract organic traffic and sell resumes (we provide links that you can find in your affiliate account under seasonal).

While this a pretty big and untapped market, make sure to act fast, as your site or pages should be up and running within a few weeks - you don't want to wait until August to get started as it will be too late!