Affiliate Marketing For Employment Sites : Internet Marketing

Price for original content

fred — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 23:36:00 GMT

As already covered in previous posts, one of the best ways to get traffic to your site is to offer original content. Unless you’re a good writer and knowledgeable in various subjects – such as employment –, you won’t have another choice than hiring a writer (using free articles – and stealing content – will result in your site being banned from search engine results as they will be categorized as duplicates).

I know some affiliates have been wondering how much it would cost them to get articles written by professionals: Whether you pay per word or per article, you can find experienced writers that will deliver an original article for around $50.

Freelance sites are probably the best places to find genuine writers – of course you can probably be find cheaper writers on classifieds sites and in foreign countries, but I would suggest staying away from anybody whose rates are too low as you might end up with bad surprises.

How to find great keywords for optimization and PPC campaigns

fred — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 23:17:00 GMT

Whether you optimize your pages for organic results or play the pay-per-click game, it is crucial that you know what are the keywords or phrases that will attract the right visitors, especially in such a competitive environment as the online employment market.

There are several free keyword tools that can help you build relevant traffic: while Adwords and Overture offer free keyword tools that cover results for Google and Yahoo, there are also more extensive -- paying -- services such as Wordtracker.com and Keyworddiscovery.com that will give you a more accurate analysis of global keyword traffic; and if you're looking for a free all-in-one keyword solution, you can use sites such as Nichebot.com that gather sample results from these 4 keyword tools.

Google PR and Affiliate links

fred — Tue, 13 Jun 2006 23:31:00 GMT

Following a conversation with an Internet newbie who was trying to convince me that removing an affiliate link had helped his PR go up, I just wanted to confirm that affiliate links won’t hurt your PR, but rather might contribute to improve it, if they’re related to the content of your site. Employment-related affiliates might therefore benefit from linking to an established site such as Employment911.

While this obsession with PR has somewhat turned into nonsense for lots of webmasters focusing on their PR rather than on the content of their sites, what will hurt your PR is actually inbound links from “bad neighborhoods”, rather than outbound links.

Google Sandbox: Myth or Reality?

fred — Fri, 10 Feb 2006 00:44:00 GMT

After months of debate over the existence of the infamous sandbox, sources from Google have finally acknowledged its existence. For those not familiar with this term, the Sandbox is an algorithm effect, which prevents new sites to be ranked in Google’s search results for the first few months—it usually lasts between 3 and 9 months.

What it means for you, as an affiliate, is that you won’t be getting organic traffic from Google during that time—at least not for competitive keywords—and without traffic, you won’t generate any sale.

The solution? If your goal is mostly to generate revenues, you might consider using AdWords PPC to advertise your site so that you can still catch a chunk of Google’s traffic until you’re out of the sandbox.

Creating original content vs. using article banks

fred — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 00:51:00 GMT

Now that content has become strategic as to gaining high rankings in search engines and generating revenues (paid clicks and affiliate actions), information sites—authentic or fake—have been popping up all over the web to cash on the trend. While the easiest way for some webmasters has been to use article banks as a source for content, others chose to create some original content, would they write it themselves or hire freelance writers.

With the latest Google updates, one of the 2 choices has however proved to be lethal, as thousands of sites using free articles have now disappeared from organic results. Using article banks might the easiest, fastest and cheapest way, but the catch here is that thousands of other webmasters are thinking the same thing and using the same articles, which results in a multiplication of mirror pages—and, as you might know, duplicate content and mirror pages get your site irremediably penalized by Google & co.

Your best solution is to create original content.

Increasing website retention and affiliate revenues with a blog

fred — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 22:08:00 GMT

While blogs have been around for a while, it’s mostly these last couple of years that their use as marketing tools has been fully embraced.

If operated as vehicles for useful information, rather than as diaries rambling about boring everyday lives, blogs can become powerful retention tools that will make your site sticky and bring your visitors back on a regular basis.

Whatever your site’s specialty is, providing insight and tips on your business and/or industry might turn you into an authority in your field, not only increasing site retention but also attracting new visitors, since blogs also have the advantage to be search-engine friendly.

In addition, beside the increased traffic they can generate, blogs can provide an additional source of revenues, through advertising but, most importantly, through endorsements of programs you’re affiliated with. Because recommendations have a higher impact than advertising, if you blog about an employment-related matter, don’t forget to mention our Resume services and include Employment911 affiliate links in your text.

Looking into Affiliate Reports for Marketing trends

fred — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 22:17:00 GMT

While most webmasters constantly make changes to the look & feel of their site, they often forget about the consequences in terms of marketing. Changing the navigation or moving around some links might result in a radical variation in sales, would it be up or down.

For example, since redesigning their site, a couple of affiliates have not only increased their monthly revenues but more than doubled their conversion rate (earning per click). On the other hand, other affiliates saw their sales drop to zero after removing a link that was located in a strategic location such as the home page or the navigation.

A great way to see how design makeovers might affect your overall marketing effort is to look at your affiliate reports. If you spot a sudden change in sales and know for a fact that no external factor is involved, you can be certain that the two events are related, which will allow you to make the appropriate corrections or improvements.

Get-Rich-Quick Schemes for Affiliates

fred — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 21:52:00 GMT

With the boom of the affiliate market, it is not surprising to see some unscrupulous individuals trying to cash on it with get-quick-rich schemes. If you’re surfing for affiliate tips, chances are that you will irremediably end up on a site that promises to give you all the secrets to get rich with affiliate programs — often referred as super affiliate —, if you buy their “magic” membership, e-book, certification, etc…

Not only won’t these self-proclaimed “gurus” give you a real proof of their own affiliate success, revenue-wise, but their secrets are things that you can read on any serious online marketing website or publication. In addition, to be able to work, their methods — and they won’t tell you this — usually imply that your site has high traffic and no competition, which usually isn’t the case when you’re just starting.

I mentioned it here many times, but to make decent online revenues, you need 1) be patient and work hard 2) to build a website that has some value, in terms of information, products or services 3) bring traffic to your website 4) have calls-to-action in strategic locations.

If you need more details about how to make this work, stay away from get-rich websites and bogus affiliate certifications and instead check out well-established and respected sources of information such as 1) Online: Webmasterworld.com & Searchenginewatch.com, where you will be able to read informative articles and ask questions in forums. 2) Print: Revenue magazine. You can also subscribe to the newsletters from Searchengineguide.com & Highrankings.com

Are Meta Tags useful?

fred — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 23:04:00 GMT

There has been a lot of talks about meta tags lately, most webmasters wondering if they should still stuff them with key words or just drop them altogether.

The truth is that what matters the most these days is your title tag as well as your page content, meta tags not really being part of the equation anymore — at least for major spiders such as Google’s. The only tag that might still need your attention is the description, which sometimes shows up as a snippet in search results.

However, if you still have meta tags on your pages, there is no need to get rid of them: they certainly won’t hurt and might even still be used by some minor search engines.

How to measure Traffic

fred — Fri, 22 Jul 2005 20:54:00 GMT

Whenever I talk to affiliates and partners and ask them how much traffic they get, they often answer by giving me the number of hits their sites receive. Sure, getting a million hits per month might look good on paper but marketing-wise, hits have NO VALUE whatsoever.

To give you an idea, a visitor will generate a hit just by mousing over a graphic, which means that while browsing through several pages of a site, your same visitor might easily generate a few dozens hits.

What really matters is the number of uniques (unique visitors), visits and page views that your site generates per month. Other good traffic indicators include the Alexa ranking (check Alexa.com or install the Alexa toolbar) and Google’s PR, which is available in the Google toolbar.

AdWords: Site-Targeting

fred — Fri, 08 Jul 2005 23:44:00 GMT

A couple of weeks ago, AdWords launched Site-Targeting, a new type of campaign that will work on a CPM (Cost/thousand impressions) basis, on their Content network. While this might be a great tool to promote brand awareness, the CPC (Cost/click) seems to remain the best model for campaigns that aim to generate direct online sales, rather than awareness.

This option will only be available for the new campaigns created after having turned Site-Targeting on, in the account preferences.

Opening Ads in new windows or in the same windows

fred — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 22:04:00 GMT

Until a few months ago, and despite what each camp’s supporters might claim, opening an ad in a new window (target=”_blank”, target=”new”) or in the same window was more a matter of look and feel than a strategic choice, as the difference in conversion between the two methods was hardly noticeable.

Opening an ad in a new window was a way to differentiate advertising from content — navigation-wise — and not having visitors loose track of your site. On the other hand, using the same window looked like a “cleaner” and smoother way of navigation, especially catering to online surfers who prefer to use the “back” and “forward” buttons.

However, with the recent proliferation of toolbars — most particularly from Google, Yahoo & Alexa — , which all offer pop-up blockers, new windows will get irremediably blocked, which most of the time will result in loosing sales, as visitors might not know how to unblock ads — or just might not want to bother.

It is therefore recommended to open ads and affiliate links in the same windows, in order to avoid breaking conversions.

AdSense vs. Affiliate Programs

fred — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 18:51:00 GMT

While the launch of AdSense has been providing a new source of revenues for websites, Google ads and affiliate programs shouldn’t be seen as competitors but rather as complementary advertising models.

Online revenues can be maximized through a strategic placement of creatives on a site.

With their customized look and feel, AdSense ads work best when blending in your content, because they are relevant and not too intrusive. The best way to get the most out of AdSense is to use AdWords’ Keyword tool to find out which pages are the most appropriate for AdSense, in terms of cost per click.

Affiliate links work best when included in the navigation—especially when they match the content of your site—while banners are best suited for typical ad-emplacements such as headers as well as right and left hand side columns.

Own domain vs. Free site

fred — Thu, 14 Apr 2005 17:57:00 GMT

A lot of affiliates have been using free hosting sites such as Geocities to build home pages where they place links and banners to promote various associate programs.

While it might seem like a good way to save a few bucks, the opportunity cost of going with a free site, rather than having its own domain, is pretty high as it considerably hurts conversions. Studies clearly show that web surfers will only order from sites that look professional and legitimate. With their long urls and amateurish look & feel, free home pages just don’t look professional enough to convert sales.

If you are serious about making money online, you will need to register your own domain name and get a hosting site, which with all the offers out there, is a rather low investment as you can easily find hosting packages for $20/month.

The next step will be to create some text-rich content for your pages, which will help you get some organic traffic from search engines such as Google.

If you’re using PPC’s to bring traffic to your site, you will notice an important increase of your EPC (earning per click) and you will be able to recoup your investment.

Banners vs. Text Links

fred — Wed, 16 Mar 2005 21:17:00 GMT

While it seems that each advertising format has its followers, banners and text links are actually complementary and their effectiveness depends on their location on a website.

Because a strong percentage of web surfers only check a site’s home page before quickly moving on to another site, it is crucial to catch their attention right away in order to convert sales: in that case, banners are usually a better tool. However, visitors who browse through several pages of a site tend to pay more attention to content, thus making text links an effective format on secondary pages—especially when they blend in content.

While, you certainly need the right combination of text links and banners to maximize your conversion rate, what for sure doesn’t work is the multiplication of banners on a page, would it be for the same affiliate program or for different programs. Not only does “banner blindness” tend to occur whenever too many banners are featured on a page but, in addition, it gives a site an amateurish look & feel, which will break conversion rates.