One thing we looked at recently was the use of video. Used correctly, video is a fantastic creative that can instantly inspire the “must-have” attitude that turns a browser into a buyer and is proven to dramatically increase sales.

However, affiliate take up of Video creative has historically been pretty poor, and a recent poll by a Client Strategist at Affiliate Window asked a simple question - why don’t affilates use them? The answers were very interesting, and allowed us to implement video into ECU in such a way that we could actually solve people’s issues.

42% of affiliates said they don’t use video creative as “The merchants I promote don’t offer Video banners”

15% of affiliates said “The videos are too specific, id prefer a more general advert about a promotion or sale”

11% said “I don’t know where to find them within the network interface”

With one powerful new addition to ECU, we can now instantly solve these problems (and more!)

You can now add any YouTube video to any ECU, instantly making it a VCU! Doing so is as simple as pasting the YouTube URL into the ECU interface - and that’s it! Now every merchant can have a video creative. You’re in control of the videos, so they can be as specific, or as general as you want. And finding them is a doddle - just go to YouTube, and search - find the one you want and paste the URL into ECU - simples! If you somehow manage to get stuck, Jason’s written a how-to guide here with images to help!

Videos can be added to any unit - even your existing ones - just hit edit, and paste the YouTube URL for the video you want.

Example VCUS
Here are some of the VCUs I knocked up last night, showing the power that video can add to a simple content unit, helping to create interest in a product/brand and get people into a “must-have” frame of mind.

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

Video cured the ECU star

Today’s affiliates seem to fall into one of two camps (although many have a foot in both): either broad and shallow or narrow and deep. In other words, some will operate multiple sites (for multiple read potentially very large numbers); whilst others focus solely on one or at most a handful of web properties. Both approaches are valid and have been proven. Both approaches place significant demands on time and resource, with endless data, content, links, on-page optimisation, PPC campaigns, social media optimisation and so forth - all clamouring for attention. Successful affiliates in 2009 are those that manage this juggling act, focusing their attentions on those areas with the highest return.

Where high volumes of traffic may suggest good marketing, smaller volumes of traffic to the right customers suggests more effective marketing. Whether you have one site or 10,000, knowledge of the consumer is paramount. This doesn’t necessarily mean the detailed behavioural analysis seen in some of the large merchant sites. Rather it means a clear view as to what terms are driving traffic and how well that traffic is monetising. Understanding the correlation between visitors, click-throughs via your affiliate links and sales / commission is vital. Sounds obvious? Perhaps but the realities of tracking this data effectively and using it to refine your keyword and targeting strategies result, for most, in a bitter contest between “guilt list” action items.

Getting updates from your partners and colleagues in the industry should be a priority. Much of the ground will already have been covered: after all, you are not operating in a vacuum, with many other affiliates competing for similar traffic. Time spent researching top performing products and related search terms is absolutely vital: far more so than that pretty graphic you keep feeling tempted to implement on your 74th credit card comparison site. Moreover, good communication works both ways. The networks need input from the affiliates as much as the inverse is true. Whilst to some, sharing is an act of altruism to be avoided at all costs, many of the more established affiliates will happily trade relevant information with others, some of whom they would regard as - at least in part - closely connected with the competition.

We’re not suggesting you give away the crown jewels here. Merely that the exchange of information is becoming as much a currency as the financial exchange central to all affiliate marketing. Many of the better known blogs and forums bear witness to daily trades of valuable and up-to-date information - along with the usual selection of rants!

Maintaining a large number of affiliate sites may mean having to chop and change writing styles if they all have different core markets, and unless you have (or have access to) good copywriting skills to write with this flexibility, it is probably better to stick to sites around a manageable number of themes. If nothing else, you need sufficient knowledge of the space to ensure that any copy you may commission is suitable and accurate.

Copywriting in itself can be a demanding job, particularly for the production of SEO friendly copy. Not only must it be engaging for the consumer but syntax and grammar must be to the highest standard in ensuring search engine friendliness. Keyword density is a discipline in its own right as anyone who has ever tried to read “optimised” content from some sources will confirm.

Whilst the best text and imaging content in the world may attract relevant traffic, monetising it presents a set of challenges in its own right. Do you wrestle with the daily vagaries of multiple networks, retrieving text links by hand, battling with inconsistent data feeds? Or do you outsource much or indeed all of this area, using a solution such as Easy Content Units (ECU)? ECU, for example, allows you to search for those products that you think you will be able to ’sell’ best (remember the information sharing from above?). With the right products selected you have considerable control as to the manner in which they are displayed. Images, logos, price comparison, special offers and so forth - all good engaging material for the consumer with monetising affiliate links. OK - end of pitch!

Ultimately, your best focus will be determined by those tasks that are most closely suited to your skills - and to your own preferences. After all, no-one gets into affiliate marketing to simply replicate a day job in which 9/10ths of their daily tasks are a much hated bind. It may feel like this in the earlier days but as you build a business you need to decide what to handle and what to hand-off. A seemingly easy decision that so many of us wrestle with on a daily basis.

We are told that to succeed we need to automate and outsource. In practice some tasks can even employ a degree of outsourced automation, combining the advantages of both. In broad terms, there are thus just two questions to ask of yourself: what are you actually good at and what do you enjoy? Map the (honest!) answers onto the tasks involved in running your affiliate business and then plan to hand-off the rest as time, knowledge, contacts and of course budget allows.

Goodbye juggler. Hello successful affiliate.

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

Sack the Juggler!

Awaiting me in a nice FRAGILE box which no doubt the local posties had been using as a goalpost for the last 24 hours were these two little beauties:

This just gets better and better, not only a delivery for me, but alcohol - woo hoo! These bottles were very kindly sent to me by Fraser Edwards as a rather nifty way of promoting two sites he’s launched - White Wine and Red Wine - I haven’t tasted the wines yet (even I draw the line at guzzling wine at 2pm on a Thursday!), but if they’re as tasteful as the websites, then I’ll be in for a treat!

Fraser’s running a competition on both websites where you can win a case of wine - all you have to do is share your favourite wines with them, via an easy Twitter entry - simples!

The only thing I can see missing from the sites are some nice ECU’s - come on Fraser!

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

Cheers!

The TITLE Tag
Since the Meta Tags are contained within the HEAD section of a page, before looking at them in detail it is worth mentioning the importance of the TITLE tag which is also contained within this section. Although not a Meta tag itself, proper use of the TITLE is widely held to be essential in any effective on-page SEO strategy. The TITLE tag determines the value displayed in the browser window or tab title and is argued to be one of the most important on-page SEO factors. It is essential that your TITLE contains the main keywords or phrases for which you want the page to rank. You should keep the length of the TITLE tag to within the W3C guidelines of no more than 64 characters. A good TITLE tag should describe the page sufficiently well for the reader to understand the type and scope of its content.

The Meta Description Tag
The Meta Description tag allows you to, as the name suggests, describe the page in greater detail than is possible within the length constraints of the TITLE tag. Indeed there are up to 250 characters available. Clearly the content of this tag should support the content of both the TITLE and the Meta Keywords tag (see below). Consistency between these elements and with the rest of the page content is important although making them identical could be seen as over-optimising and thus counter-productive. The search engines’ treatment of the Meta Description tag varies. Google is believed to use it for relevance and ranking but will create its own description for use in natural search results page (SERPs) listings. Other engines may use the contents of the Description tag either fully or in a truncated form depending on the length of the Description you provide and the available SERPs page space.

The Meta Keywords Tag
Originally designed to allow webmasters to provide the search engines with guidance as to the terms for which the page is relevant, the poor old Keywords tag has probably seen more abuse than almost any other HTML element, literally stuffed with endless and repetitive variants of search terms. As a result, the major search engines have for some time largely ignored the Keywords tag. Note the word “largely” here. Although use of the Keywords tag in isolation has very little bearing on ranking, effective use of it to REINFORCE the keywords on page MAY in some cases have a marginally positive effect on rankings. There is absolutely no doubt that it will only have any level of positive effect when used in conjunction with the main page content and to reinforce the contents of the TITLE and Description tags.

Some argue that excessive keyword stuffing here may have an adverse effect on rankings. It certainly doesn’t send the right message to the search engines and with the algorithms constantly being refined it makes sense to keep the keywords real and valuable. Many SEO advisors even suggest that those new to the field omit this tag and there is no real evidence that so doing will have a negative effect.

The Robots Tag
The Meta Robots tag should ONLY BE USED TO EXCLUDE THE PAGE. There is otherwise no need to specify this tag. Some have argued that specifying “follow, index” for this tag can be a positive factor but there is no evidence in support of these claims. By default, the search engine crawlers are designed to index unless otherwise asked. The Robots tag has various extensions, for example to prevent the indexing of multimedia content. Support for these is not, however, uniform across the search engines and most SEO experts recommend the use of the robots.txt file for exclusions.

Other Meta Tags
There are a range of other tags related to, for example, internal site indexing such as the “Dublin Core” Meta tags. There is no specific support for these tags believed to be present in the current search engine algorithms and their use is therefore highly site-specific and irrelevant to SEO.

Meta Tags and Wordpress
Since Wordpress is used by so many affiliates to add articles and content to their sites - indeed for many it is the primary technology by which they build sites - it is worth a mention. Although generally fairly well optimised, by default there is no option in Wordpress to include or edit a Meta description and include keywords for each post. A title is the only element that is included and is generated automatically when you publish. As a result in its basic form you have little control over the information that is conveyed via the Meta tags. If the titles of your posts don’t contain the keywords used elsewhere on your page then those keywords won’t appear in the browser bar or potentially in the search engine’s description of your page. There is a solution to this problem in the form of the ‘all in one SEO’ Wordpress plug-in, allowing you to customise these tags; add keywords and phrases that you’re using as part of the SEO for your site; and generally influence the Meta information about each page.

So Should I Use Meta Tags?
What all of this boils down to is that on-page management of keywords is fundamental to the performance of a web page, and that you should include them as effectively as you reasonably can. This includes adding keywords into the relevant Meta tags with each tag acting IN COMPLIMENT to the others and to the rest of the page content. This is advisable even if you’ve heard people saying that search engines don’t pay attention to them any more. Search engines do not stand still: they are constantly changing and evolving and the different engines treat on-page elements in very different ways to one another. As a result, sticking to the results of one example over another or the opinion of one source over another, no matter how demonstrable the effects or lack thereof of Meta tags has been, just isn’t a safe strategy. Some publishing tools may not offer Meta Tag support by default, but there are open source solutions to many of these problems as we’ve seen with Wordpress. The best option is thus to include valid Meta tags anyway, whether you believe that they will have an effect or not, and to make sure that you are careful about the keywords you place in them.

The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of the Parts
No matter how well you think you may have optimised your Meta tags and TITLE, your hard work will be of little value unless you also pay reasonable attention to other key on-page SEO factors including overall keyword density; use of header (H1, H2, H3) tags; use of ALT text for images; W3C compliance; use of anchor text in internal navigation and links; reduced code redundancy with the “meat” of the content being as close to the top of the page as possible (perhaps using CSS to control layout and sequence) . .and so forth.

Effective SEO in 2009 requires that you address ALL areas effectively. The good news is that there is plenty of public domain information as to how to go about this, both here at Lammo and elsewhere - and some of the experts even agree with each other . . well largely anyway!

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

Should you still use Meta Tags?

The truth is that rather than being mutually exclusive considerations, any work you do on the design of your site and the content you put on it must ultimately achieve some kind of Zen-like balance. You can have great design paired with great content, but this takes time and effort and potentially money if you’ve not got the web design or graphical skills yourself. However, there is a glimmer of light in what seems to be a very dark tunnel (and no I’m not talking about the economy!).

Aesthetics vs. Functionality
It is essential that from the get-go that you understand the difference between the attractiveness of a site versus the other ‘design’ elements that enable you to make some cash from it. This is mostly because the word ‘design’ covers both of these areas. Having an attractive site is something that many people strive for, but in the real world pretty images and flashy, animated menu buttons do not reliably convert into commission. Actually they can be counter-productive.

Let’s consider for a moment the brutal fact that as affiliates, we are all in the referral business. Modern PPC, SEO and content affiliates are sourcing traffic at unit cost A and monetising it at revenue level B. Conversion rates here are king and optimising these requires a delicate balance. On one side of the equation you need a site of sufficient attractiveness to create sufficient confidence in the user to prevent immediate use of the back button — rather you want further navigation to the right exit point. The site must also be content-rich enough to meet PPC quality page requirements and / or to build natural search rankings. On the other hand you don’t want to create something that is so stunningly good that the user never leaves (and never monetises). Therein lies the challenge.

There are plenty of examples of fairly bland affiliate sites out there that do well despite the aging look of their pages. In many cases this is because they are designed well but in a way that isn’t obvious to the naked, judgemental human eye. What matters here is the intuitiveness of the site structure and a relatively simple layout with content placed strategically and in relevant areas of the site. Many site designers agree that keeping things simple doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll create something ugly or overly bland, and there are examples for both sides of the design versus content argument out there.

Aesthetics vs. Monetisation
What we are trying to illustrate here is that although design is important, and it is of course what every visitor ’sees’ it is not going to be the sole determinant of revenues. What you should look to create is an accessible “veneer” of design that drives visitors straight to monetising content. It is the combination of the two that will give the best results in the long run. It’s important to remember that the average web user will ultimately be ‘looking’ for something online, whether it’s product information or views and reviews. An over-the-top design can only serve to distract from the main purpose here. The path to the “meat” of the content should be as simple and uncomplicated as possible.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel - AKA an Unsubtle Sales Pitch
It is hard enough to worry about hosting, basic design, navigation, on-page SEO, text content, linking, PPC management and all of the other factors involved in getting rankings and driving traffic. If you then have to worry about trying to build monetising content based on a mixture of individual text links, graphics and the vagaries of the data feeds from the various networks and merchants, the mountain becomes a whole lot taller. Then you have to merge it in with your design.

Enter Easy Content Units or ECU (created by a team containing yours truly) which provides you with a range of customisable units that allow you to add elements such as price comparison, related products and best sellers to your site. Your users will even be able to change options such as size and colour within the unit before they even leave your site. You can adjust the shape and size of the units to fit in with your site design and choose from over 8 million products to be included. It’s simple to create your own custom content units to suit your site design, and it will also provide your users with a simple interface that compliments the content of your site. ECU is designed to remove much of the donkey work of merging and managing those monetising affiliate links and data with your site design, allowing you to focus on the hard work of getting the traffic in the first place.

Tuning the Balance
So ends the sales pitch! Whether you use ECU or not, striking the right balance between on-page value, confidence levels and click-throughs requires considerable thought and a degree of experimentation. Even relatively subtle changes can make a significant difference to percentages and thus commission levels. Time spent fine tuning based upon stats is almost certainly going to be more profitable than time spent trying to create the world’s prettiest interface. Professional yet bland but effective and content-rich wins over pretty every time!

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

Which came first? The content or the design?

We have talked elsewhere on Lammo about the other factors involved in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) both on-page and off-page. One of the vital elements on your on-page strategy is that of keyword density.

The Right Keywords
Choosing the right keywords is vital in attracting traffic; for the most part this relies heavily on understanding your audience and targeting those key phrases they are most likely to use. Many affiliates already use tools such as the Google AdWords keyword tool and WordTracker in identifying keywords that will 1) actually attract traffic that will monetise and 2) represent a good balance between search volumes versus mad degrees of competition.

Whilst there are several different names for keyword combinations, in their simplest form they are referred to by the number of words that would be entered into a search engine. ‘Head’, “Core” or ‘Shorttail Phrases’ are for many site owners something of a Holy Grail. These are generally key phrases such as “Printer ink”. Naturally these will in general produce a mass of results but will have a lower conversion rate.

‘Longtail Phrases’ are those more specific terms which typically consist of 3 to 5 words (or more) that are searched for in lower volumes but with far greater buying intent, for example, “Canon ink cartridges PGI-5BK”. Using brand names or other relevant extensions to create longtail terms can help to target more specific users. The obvious drawback of longtail phrases is that they will drive far less traffic. However, since that traffic is far more likely to monetise and the degree of competition in both SEO and PPC terms is generally lower for these terms (although still intense in some sectors), a combination of longtail phrases will more often than not outperform the Holy Grail terms.

Sequence of Events
Most experts recommend that a new business identifies its initial choice of keywords before the site is even designed, this makes sense because once the keywords are properly understood, the website can be built around them in order to ensure that all pages have keyword rich relevant content. It is important to remember that multimedia content will not, for the main part, count towards keyword density so it is recommended that most pages of the site should have at least 300 words of keyword rich text content.

Striking the Right Balance
Littering the content with too many keywords can be distracting and downright irritating for visitors and can attract over optimisation penalties (OOP) from the search engines if you go too mad. Thus creating good content whilst reinforcing your target keywords is something of a balancing act. Calculating the keyword density theoretically follows a simple percentage formula:

(Occurrences * Phrase Length) / Content Length * 100

i.e. If your phrase is 2 words long and occurs 10 times in a content unit of 200 words:-

(10 x 2) / 200 * 100 = 10%

However, the count may vary depending on the search engine criteria. For example, some engines count keywords used elsewhere on the page such as the Meta tags, image tags, Title tags as well as the main on-page text content. Others may count from the body tag of the page onwards. In broad terms, when writing text content, a keyword density of some 2% to 4% is generally held to be acceptable and some difference between pages is desirable. Exactly 4% density on each page screams of over-optimisation!

If the density is too low, your page may be considered an irrelevant result for that keyword phrase, however, this doesn’t mean that a higher percentage will produce a more relevant or higher result. Search engines in general attempt to combat spam pages by penalising those pages where the keyword density is clearly too high.

Going Mad
It isn’t just the search engines that will struggle with overly keyword dense content. The following is an example of how content might read if the keyword density is too high. Let’s assume that a new business that sells umbrellas has gone into overdrive with its marketing content.the keywords identified are ‘umbrella/s’ and ‘rain’ :-

“.next time you reach for your umbrella when it rains, ensure that your umbrella is a super ‘anti-rain’ umbrella if you want to ensure that you not only stay dry in the rain, but that your umbrella makes you look good too. An anti-rain umbrella comes in a variety of colours and designs, and these umbrellas are resistant to high winds.”

From the above 60 word content, the word umbrella is used five times, giving it a density of around 8% and lets presume that the content continues to be littered in this manner. This illustrates how distracting keywords can be when used too frequently, resulting in unreadable content and in the user rapidly clicking the dreaded back button!

Keywords and Meta tags
As we have written elsewhere here at Lammo, the judicious use of Meta tags requires that their content SUPPORTS the main on-page content. Remember that some search engines will count overall density including tags as well as the main body content. This is why designing a keyword strategy from the top and ensuring that ALL elements of your on-page SEO support the agreed terms.

Here’s hoping this page doesn’t get penalised for excessive use of the word “umbrella” !!

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

How dense are you?

The truth is, that whilst cold calling has perhaps proved successful in some ventures, the dangers of internet ’spam’ seem to flag up a warning to all of us these days and the risk of viruses or fraud seem all too frightening so most e-mails are deleted without ever having been opened. In some instances, emailing can have the opposite effect to the one initially intended, that is, that potential customers or partners complain vigorously about the “unauthorised” use of their e-mail addresses.

So Why Do It?
The realities of many online endeavours these days require some form of initial email approach. Link building is a classic example. Short of buying a very large megaphone and yelling from the top of the office, there are no viable alternatives in approaching a potential link partner than an email. Whilst most people accept that such emails are “common currency” on the internet and will either respond favourably or simply delete the email, a few will react very strongly indeed.

Handling Complaints
Handling complaints about email in a professional and courteous manner can make a big difference; not least because so few internet marketing campaigns ever respond to user complaints at all. If the recipient does reply with a request to be removed from any emailing list then this should be immediately honoured. In fact, there are regulations managed by the Information Commissioners Office stating that electronic mail marketing messages should not be sent to private individuals without their permission unless the following criteria are met:-

1) That the marketer has obtained the recipient’s details through a sale or negotiations for a sale.

2) That messages are about similar products or services offered by the sender.

3) That the recipient was given an opportunity to refuse further marketing communications when their details were collected, and are likewise given a simple way to opt out in every future communication.

However, the above regulations do NOT cover electronic mail marketing sent to businesses; this in part is because a business is more likely to have a website that openly publishes contact email addresses and accepts the need for emails relating to business opportunities of one form or another. Most businesses will be used to receiving daily cold emails and accept that it is perhaps just easier to delete them or to put a block on the sender. However, in those instances where a complaint is made, then marketers should readily and rapidly apologise for any inconvenience or annoyance caused in the first instance, regardless of the tone of the complaint.

Aggression
Cold emailing may well bring out the more aggressive side of people who are generally frustrated with the high volume of ’spam’ they receive but even those with “more to say” should be handled with great care. ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT AS THE MARKETER, YOU STARTED THE DIALOGUE!! Keep any replies to aggressive responses both friendly and courteous at all times, regardless of provocation. Remember at all times that your own business’s reputation may well be called into question - the threat of negative blog postings is a very real one and can result, if nothing else, in considerable management time to defuse the situation.

As with any ‘complaint handling strategies’, the aim should be to defuse any anger or irritation caused as soon as possible. This can only ever be achieved effectively with a simple apology and whilst some marketers may well feel that an opportunity for a conversation has been opened, continuing to overtly ’sell’ is generally a bad idea and may well cause further damage. That said, a friendly and professional response may well, in its own right, distinguish you from the herd and result in a profitable relationship.

Threatening behaviour from recipients isn’t unheard of either, and whilst some people are naturally able to dismiss this as ‘unprofessional’ and ‘unkind’, others may find dealing with severe complaints rather stressful. It is therefore important to ensure that any staff likely to be handling these complaints are well versed in handling such responses, and that they are also given the opportunity to express their own concerns and stresses about aggressive calls - internally rather than in “right back at you” style at the complainant!

Getting it Right
We would all hope that there is a general understanding that many businesses rely on cold emailing, particularly newer businesses that need to get their voices heard and products seen. This can make it all the more frustrating when complaints are lodged because it would be simpler for everyone if people just politely declined to open the email. However, getting the targeting right in the first place will make a huge difference. Cold emails are one thing but irrelevant cold emails are seen as being far worse and are far more likely to provoke aggressive responses. Try to ensure that any targeting exercise is as accurate as possible and that the communication clearly explains why the recipient was contacted.

Always remember that whilst it is sometimes SO tempting to reply to a complaint in the same aggressive manner in which the complaint was made, remaining professional at all times is a must. Even if a recipient continues to respond in a negative manner, the marketer must accept that it is they who have initiated contact in the first instance and that the recipient is entirely within their rights to reply as they see fit.

Finally, opt-out clauses on any mailings sent should be easily accessible and simple to use. In fact, it is when choosing to opt out that people are more likely to open up the email and so first impressions should be better than good if you only have a few short seconds in which to grab the attention of someone who is otherwise intending to delete your email and any further communications for good.

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

Sorry seems to be the hardest word

With this new year already speeding by (why must this always be the case?) and the peoples of the world seeming to be in a paradoxical state of both despair and hope (depending on the time of day you tune into a 24 hour news channel) it’s time to visit the world of linking and see if the winds of change have been kicking up dust. We have talked before about linking being all about an exchange of value and an essential part of the online affiliate currency, and that partnership is integral to success. However, as many people will have experienced first hand, the realities of linking aren’t as clear cut and as simple as we would perhaps like them to be.

Any form of sales exercise is a numbers game and linking is no different: you still have to “sell” the partner as to the merits of a link relationship. The degree of competition between online players and indeed the activities of off-shore link building firms means that the numbers continue to change — and not favourably. In the last 3 years it has become almost twice as hard to attract a given number of link partners. In some sectors this now renders traditional link building all but impossible. Whilst travel and many of the major retail sectors remain highly “do-able” from a linking perspective, those with electronics, finance, cash back, vouchers, mobile phone, broadband and gambling related sites will find link building incredibly hard going. The reassurance here, however, is that everyone else in the sector is finding it tough too!!

In tougher sectors, there are two primary reasons for the challenges. Firstly, the sheer degree of competition and “link fatigue” caused by so many similar competing sites approaching largely the same set of potential link partners. Secondly, in many of these sectors, there are a diminishing number of potential link partners: more and more webmasters have either become affiliates or are demanding money with menaces in order to establish a link relationship. As we have said many times before NEVER EVER PAY FOR A LINK. Not only is this expressly against Google Terms of Service (TOS) but through personal search industry contacts we know for a fact that paid links are reported and are penalised. All of this is resulting in fewer and fewer genuine link potential partners within these sectors.

Assuming that you operate in a remotely “do-able” sector, you still face the challenge of actually getting your message in front of someone who will actually act upon it. The numbers game means that some form of cold emailing will in almost all cases be required — after all you are after real link partners, not some kind of co-operative network that the search engines can spot a mile off so forget the databases and co-operation sites. No-one likes cold emails and even if you manage to 1) get a working email address, 2) get through ever stronger anti-spam defences and 3) get the mail read, there is still a very high percentage chance that it will still be simply binned along with the adverts for dodgy pills and phoney foreign lottery wins.

So we are now down to a small percentage of those sites with whom you have attempted to make contact. You have made the effort to structure and personalise your emails as best you can and have a number of potentially positive responses as a result. Each of these will now need managing to fruition. As we have seen in other posts here at Lammo, you will then need to arrange a fair exchange of value - there are a number of ways in which to do this. Since payment isn’t and never should be an option, other forms of exchange of value are needed - often hard for new sites and market entrants. And link partners are becoming ever more demanding . .” I won’t link with you until you’re Page Rank 5″ . . .”I want 30 pieces of content for one link . . ”

So now that you have a handle as to the major challenges in finding link partners in the first place, it’s essential to think about what makes a good link partner. Here we come again to the problem of identifying the difference between a link partner who will be complimentary to your own website, and a competitor’s site that the search engines will simply regard as an “artificial” link and will in all likelihood ignore. However, trying to explain this to potential partner is quite a challenge: one person’s complimentary partner is another person’s off-theme link request!

Yet relevance is one of the keys to winning the numbers game in linking. It is well worth investing the time in looking at your competitors and their link equity and in thoroughly considering the question “what types of sites would be useful for our visitors but wouldn’t collide head on with our products or services?”

The easiest way to show the difference between complimentary versus competitive camps is to give a couple of hypothetical examples. If you’ve got a site that is about hats, don’t be afraid of looking for partners who also have sites about hats. Provided that you cover different areas of the market, for example if you deal in woolly hats and the partner in Trilbies and boutique varieties, then they will make a complimentary partner. Equally, partners selling other fashion items will be useful for your visitors and for the search engines, being within a “fashion” or “apparel” classification.

When you understand this area properly you will be able to properly communicate it to potential partners and your conversion rates should improve as a result.

A significant element of SEO strategy still focuses on linking. Despite changing times and toughening response levels, the quality and relevance of your inbound links is paramount. These days it is rather less so about the quantity, reflecting the ever increasing difficulty of attracting link partners. To paraphrase Mark Twain, it is also fair to say that the death of reciprocal linking has been greatly exaggerated. Provided that reciprocal links are on-theme, they remain a valuable part of a site’s link equity and contribute to the all important natural link structure the search engines want to see.

If all of this sounds rather like hard work, it is! Thankfully there are firms who can shoulder the burden for you, using best practice techniques combining some automation and economy of scale with expert team members to deliver effective linking solutions.

Perhaps in an ideal world, all links would be attracted by the sheer brilliance of your site.

Until then. . . .

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

Link Building is still bloody hard work

Social Media Optimisation (SMO) has, over the last couple of years, become a significant discipline in its own right and we will be covering the subject in ever greater depth here at Lammo over the coming weeks and months. In simple terms, Social Media sites are, as the name suggests, sites that are designed to house and encourage interaction between users and the creation of one or more communities with a common theme or purpose.

Whilst many social media sites started life with non-commercial aspirations, the power of the approach has steadily attracted individuals and firms with commercial objectives. It has become a form of relationship marketing but of course entirely online, where website owners can interact and increase traffic to their sites. Social Media thus helps in having an effective ‘conversation’ with a site’s target audience.

Perhaps most significantly of all, SMO extends the “real estate” available to online marketers. There are only so many search engine first pages for given search terms. No matter how hard you may work at search engine optimisation (SEO), in many highly competitive categories and search terms it is becoming all but impossible to attain first page positions. SMO completely changes the game, with immediate access to a potentially targeted audience. No waiting for many months to see if your hard work in SEO will ultimately bear fruit - you can start conversations today!

We are not for a minute suggesting that you replace SEO with SMO. Rather that you do both! SMO completely compliments the foundation work covered in SEO and indeed is a valuable input into the ongoing refinement of your SEO strategy.

Why is Social Media effective in this economy?
Research already shows that recession boosts Social Media marketing spending as this is the time for brands and websites to differentiate themselves from competitors and truly engage with their customers in a personal (and cost-effective) way. SMO is therefore increasingly important in many established firms’ online marketing mix as it attracts a large number of users exposed to and entering into dialogues around information that is sometimes not accessible via search engines.

What can Social Media aim to achieve?

1. Brand Building
From an affiliate perspective, SMO personalisation allows more effective creation of a brand than via SEO where, as we all know, there is precious little in the way of loyalty and everything is driven by optimisation for terms, price and functionality.

2. Reputation management
Brand reputation management has become a necessity when dealing with consumers especially in a competitive market. Whilst the search engines help in a great way to drive traffic, forums, social media, networking sites and blogs are all relevant to companies’ and products’ reputation. It is critical in this environment to know what people are saying about your brand / products / services offered.

3. Reach
Social media technologies provide scale and enable anyone to reach a global audience.

4. Low Cost Accessibility
Although there are time and resource costs associated with maintaining effective dialogues via SMO (much of which can of course be outsourced to SMO specialists if time is an issue), the costs and barriers to entry are far lower than with paid search or indeed a sustained SEO strategy.

5. Immediacy
With the best SEO strategy in the world, your visibility is only as good as the latest search engine index. As we all know, the time lag between SEO work and the results can be significant. This is a particular issue with fast-moving sectors such as vouchers and offers, cash back, finance, travel, electronics and so forth where offers come and go and products change daily. SMO provides a real time communication mechanism with your target market place although it is important to recognise that SMO presence takes time to build and the effects of your efforts will also take time to bear fruit in many cases.

6. Targeting Accuracy
You may have a very strong handle on the relevant keywords to drive targeted traffic to your affiliate sites. However, what you may not have is any level of real understanding of the motivation of the consumers entering those keywords. The more generic or competitive your keywords, the worse this is. The dialogues possible with a targeted audience via social media address this head on. Your consumers will TELL you what they are looking for. And what they are not looking for as well.

7. Money!
Simply stated, given the above factors an effective SMO strategy should drive highly targeted traffic to your site on a real time basis which should in turn result in increased conversions and commissions.

SMO Strategies
Specific strategies and tactics will be determined by your sector and target audience. Different social media sites have different target audiences and demographics and it is vital that you invest time in identifying the right venues - we will explore this in other posts here at Lammo. In general terms there are a number of effective strategies that can be put in place.

On-Page SMO
This includes on-page tactics through which a site owner can add content and links to services such as Digg, Reddit and Del.icio.us so that their pages can be easily ’saved and submitted’ to and for these services. These services use a rating and interactive system, so its very easy to know what consumers are saying about your site, products and services. You will now also see “follow us on Twitter links” on an ever increasing number of sites.

Off-Page SMO
This involves selecting the most targeted social media venues and creating a presence and opening dialogues with your target audience. It may include writing content that is unique, and newsworthy. This content can then be marketed by popularising it via other sites and getting involved in blogs, forums, and niche communities.

Social Media Venues
Social media real estate grows by the day. The following is a (very) generalised classification of social media venues:-

1. Internet forums
2. Weblogs (blogs)
3. Wikis
4. Podcasts/Pictures Video
5. Social Networks - LinkedIn, Facebook, Blogger, mySpace, Second Life, Flickr, YouTube, Digg, Del.icio.us, BeBo etc.
6. Twitter - as covered elsewhere here at Lammo - this micro blogging site is almost in a class of its own!

Social Media tactics:
Plan bespoke content-based campaigns to introduce your site and brand to each relevant social media venue. The difference here is that the content is aimed and targeted directly to the consumer/user and not for search engines. It is therefore critical to create relevant, unique and useful content for the consumer. As with most things, first impressions count so ensure that you think through the approach in detail: word spreads fast - good or bad! Make sure that you have the resources lined up to respond to the dialogues that you open: obvious as this may sound, many fail at this early stage.

Planning a Social Media campaign
Again we will explore the key elements of SMO in greater detail here at Lammo. In essence, you need to:-

1. Ensure you have as much information as possible more information on your target audience - who are they, what are they looking for and where are they hanging out on the web.
2. Identify and prioritise the most relevant Social Media venues on this basis
3. Plan and create the initial content, focus and keyword strategy
4. Allocate resource to handle the dialogues
5. Create the necessary profiles
6. Post content and start the dialogue
7. Manage responses
8. Use responses as input to further SMO (and indeed SEO) strategy
9. Constantly measure the results including the reaction of your audience together with visitor and click-through / commission stats and add this as input to further strategy

Social Media takes time
Despite the immediacy of SMO in many ways, it is vital that you recognise that although cycles are far shorter than with most SEO activities, SMO also takes time to show positive results. Plan strategies and techniques that will raise awareness, engagement and satisfaction amongst your users. Utilise the information and feed back to your advantage to reap benefits in the longer term. Many of the Social Media venues are also continuing to grow in stature as audiences recognise their benefits and, as such, the overall SMO target audience continues to grow by the day.

Is SMO for Me?
Social media gives you an option to listen to your consumer and offer them exactly what they want. This facilitates lead generation and increased conversions. It also raises the feeling of community, sharing and connecting. Social media if used correctly can almost certainly work to your advantage. If you are willing to put (or pay for) the time and effort into identifying the right venues; creating the right content; managing responses and using the results to fine tune your SMO strategy then the rewards are there for the taking.

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

Social Media for Newbies

When the news of the recent attacks on Mumbai was not broken on a 24 hour news network but on Twitter, many sceptics started to sit up and take note of the power of this superficially simple social networking site. It has become such an internet institution in such a short space of time that a whole new dictionary of terms relating to its use could be and indeed has been written - essentially prefixing everything with “tw”. Twitter has even been used by media outlets to harvest information from the public when they want to get opinions on worldly happenings. This has made journalists jobs even easier, but on the flip side allows more unfiltered public opinion to clog the airwaves. But that’s a topic for another day.

Explosive Growth
Between February 2008 and the same month this year, Twitter’s user base grew from under half a million to over seven million, and that’s just within the USA. Whilst this doesn’t quite match the initial growth of other online leviathans such as Google or facebook, when you consider that Twitter’s micro blogging environment could be considered essentially a big online blackboard and little else it’s impressive. So as growth continues, how can enterprising affiliate marketers take advantage of this new platform?

Leveraging Twitter as an Affiliate
Whilst Twitter may originally have been conceived as a way for average Joes to let friends and family know what we’re up to on a minute-by-minute scale, more and more people are now searching for and following relevant posts. Of course for some people this simply means checking out what their favourite celebrity had for lunch, but there are already many people out there who’ve taken Twitter and put an affiliate spin on it. The driving force behind Twitter’s growth so far has been seen by experts to be this constant stream of news and information that is accessible to anyone, with access online as well as on mobile devices proving integral to this growth. With the largest demographic aged between 35-49 it is far less a kid’s social environment than many other social media sites.

So Twitter allows you to follow and converse with a diverse audience around the world which some see as a perfect opportunity to promote affiliate product links by embedding links in their Tweets in order to get conversions. However, because Twitter almost begs you to type and reply there can be the urge to spam affiliate links as frequently and liberally as you can all over the Twittersphere. This, as you might imagine, is not the best tactic. At best you’ll just annoy other users and you won’t make any money, and at worst you’ll get kicked off Twitter altogether.

Targeted Constraint
Like all good affiliate marketing, exploiting Twitter to your own benefit can be handled effectively if you are interesting, subtle and relevant in all of your Tweets. If you’ve built up a few followers, make sure that you’re linking to things that you would normally talk about in your Tweets and don’t just whack an affiliate link at the end of an irrelevant post. This means that you can be informative and get people interested in your feed without angering them with blatant affiliate tactics. Another tip for affiliate marketing in Twitter is not to link straight to a merchant via an affiliate link but rather embed a link in a Tweet that takes users to your own affiliate website or blog which is of course designed to leverage and monetise traffic whilst being seen to be of value. That way you are far more likely to monetise your Twitter presence. This also means that you can easily promote your own affiliate site, and Twitter is becoming a growing consideration in social media optimisation (SMO).

Short Attention Spans
Needless to say, a micro blogging site inherently attracts people with short attention spans. It is also important to realise that though Twitter offers you a huge global audience, they are perhaps the most fragile and fickle online audience out there because it’s so easy for people to stop listening to what you’ve got to say and start listening to others. This is why subtlety is the key, and as every good affiliate blogger knows you can’t just assault the reader with marketing at every turn as people will quickly switch off and you’ll lose your audience of potential customers. Twitter allows a lot of interaction between you and other users, so it’s important that you don’t just cast out your thoughts and your links and then ignore any responses from your audience. Twitter can be used not just as a marketing tool but as a way of researching and gathering information and opinion that will prove useful to your cause. As we all know, the greater your understanding of your target audience, the bigger the monthly commission payments!

Twitter is still a growing online universe, the limits of which have yet to be tested, and for an affiliate marketer it will no doubt develop into a new tool of the trade, although to what extent remains to be seen. Twitter is unique in the degree of personal interaction it affords users, so if you want to make the most of its astronomic growth you’ll have to be a people person and be genuine and informative to get conversions.

Originally written by Lammo.net, a blog all about Affiliate Marketing

How Tweet it is…