Affiliate Classroom Blog Archives

December Affiliate Classroom Hits the Stands!

Friday, December 15th, 2006 at 9:22 pm by Jeffrey Perren, AC Magazine

December 2006 Affiliate Classroom MagazineOur latest issue is now available for download and, imho, it is one of the best we’ve ever done.

You’ll find Debra Rabin’s excellent essay on what makes for the perfect affiliate. You’ll not only find a lot of great insights into a merchant’s point of view, you’ll get seven tips on how to make more money by striving to be that perfect affiliate.

You’ll get Helen Montgomery’s first-rate review of our past two years, compiled with the help of our outstanding regular columnist Evelyn Grazini.

You can read Mark Thompson’s reviews of three products introduced in 2006 that changed Affiliate Marketing forever.

And, last but far from least, you can study Katalin Torok’s excellent tips for how to incorporate Web 2.0 techniques into your affiliate marketing efforts.

In my opinion, even if you don’t have time to read the whole issue before Christmas, the full page Christmas card in the middle alone makes it worth a download.

Best to all our readers, and our sincere thanks for continuing to pursue your dreams. Your success helps us all!

Happy Holidays, Jeff Perren, Associate Editor

What Color Is Your (SEO) Hat?

Friday, August 25th, 2006 at 1:12 pm by Jeffrey Perren, AC Magazine

Get ready to pull off the saddle and take a break from your busy schedule. When you head out to the lake you’re going to want to take the August issue of Affiliate Classroom magazine with you.

Whether you favor Black Hat or White Hat, or something in between, find out how to keep your site safe and ranking high. We’ve got a full review of the latest techniques and show you how to keep your website from getting penalized and keeping it up on the SERPs.

We tell you the difference between White Hat and Black Hat, weighing the pros and cons of each.

Evelyn Grazini explains what Black Hat SEO is all about, and shows you how to keep from getting banned.

Brad Callen, a master of the subject, gives 5 Tips for SEO success. (And five from Brad is worth fifty from just about anyone else!)

And, as a special treat, read the highlights of the Affiliate Summit East, 2006. If you didn’t go, you’ll want to next time after finding out who was there and what they said. (Lots of links to video of the conference!)

So, hang up your spurs. You’ve got some readin’ ahead.

Use Your List To Increase Traffic

Thursday, August 24th, 2006 at 3:03 pm by Evelyn Grazini, AC Student and Staff Writer

Even if you’ve only been in Internet Marketing for a short time, you’ve heard that it’s important to build an email list. It’s so important, that the Affiliate Classroom Step Program teaches you all about list building in Step 9.

However, with ISPs/ESPs now doing more spam blocking, some people have given up on list building. They are fearful or frustrated that their message is not going out, and that they are wasting their valuable time.

If you’re one of these people, stop being afraid and keep building! Email technology is getting better, and this problem is gradually being addressed. If you are building a list the reputable way, using a double opt-in system, you have a lot less to worry about.

In the meantime, here are some things you can do to up the odds of getting your messages delivered. At the same time, you can increase the traffic to your site.

Make sure to send your list a message at least once every two weeks so they remember who you are. They’ll be more likely to open your email. And, make it a short message. People tend to scan emails for material they are interested in, so give them very little to scan.

Write a short line of teaser copy or give a sentence or two of your content, and then make the reader click to your site to read the rest. At your site you will provide the full Monty: contextual advertising, affiliate links, etc.

When I go through my email, I quickly scan the messages. If it is a sales pitch, and I’m not in the buying mood, I will go on to the next message and look for something more interesting.

However, if there is a small bit of copy that intrigues me, I will click on the link and read the article. Also, if I’m just quickly scanning my emails for cleanup, I am more likely to flag these emails and go back to them when I have more time.

I’m not sure why, but I feel more comfortable and less hurried when I get to a web site. Maybe because it’s easier to read, or more colorful, or whatever.

Whatever the reason, I’m more likely to stay there longer, which means the person who sent the email has been successful in his or her mission.

I went to their web site – which means their traffic count just went up. I visited with the intention of reading the content, which means their “stickiness” rate went up.

If all goes well, I’ll buy something while I’m there, or click on an AdSense ad on my way out.

Either way, the list owner will get what they want, by giving me what I want. That’s called a win-win situation.

Banned By Google?

Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006 at 3:06 pm by Evelyn Grazini, AC Student and Staff Writer

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the Google “slap” at affiliates. I receive several Internet Marketing newsletters and all they can talk about are the new Google rules.

It’s all very scary to me because, even though I’ve been doing Internet Marketing for over five years, I still feel like a newbie when it comes to the search engines and how they rank pages.

I search for my URL and my name every now and then to see how many times I’m listed in the results. I mostly do this to see where my articles are ending up, and to make sure no one is stealing my web pages. (And, yes, I still get a kick out of seeing my name in print!)

I recently discovered a few easy ways to tell if a site has been penalized or banned by Google that I want to share with you.

(Note: YouTypedThis.com refers to the URL you typed in to do your search)

  1. Do a search for your exact URL on Google. If you get the following response: “Sorry, no information is available for the URL YouTypedThis.com.”, then you’ve been penalized. This is Google’s kiss of death – it means you’ve been banned!
  2. Another message you might see is “Find web pages that contain the term YouTypedThis.com.” This is a little better, you haven’t been dropped from the index, but your rank has probably been lowered.
  3. This one: “If the URL is valid, try visiting that web page by clicking the following link: YouTypedThis.com” means that your site is not in the index, but it hasn’t been dropped or banned.

There is also a way to find out if you have suffered a duplicate content penalty. You will get an “omitted results” message when you search. To find out if this happened do the following:

Copy an exact and unique phrase from your page, without punctuation. Place quotes around it, and then insert it into a Google search box.

After you do the search, if your page doesn’t show in the results, check the bottom for a phrase similar to this “Repeat the search with the omitted results included.”

If your page shows up somewhere in the “omitted results,” then you’ve received a duplicate content penalty (which is still better than getting banned).

Hopefully you will not see any of the above, but at least now you are armed with the knowledge to fight back if you do.

Blogging for Fun and Profit

Saturday, August 19th, 2006 at 8:09 pm by Evelyn Grazini, AC Student and Staff Writer

Many people (including me) believe that blogging is one of the best ways to make money these days. And it may be true.

Blogging is often much more personal than other kinds of information on a website. You write a blog post like you are actually talking to a person; giving people real advice and information. These people become your “friends” and return to your blog over and over.

However, you can’t just stop at blogging. If you want to make money at it, you still need to treat it like a business. Here are a few things you might want to consider adding to your arsenal of blogging tools.

You should already know the basics, even if you’re just blogging for fun. Put Google AdSense ads on your sidebar. Also, include affiliate links inside your content, and randomly include an affiliate banner or two at the end of your posts.

The most important thing, and the one that is most overlooked, is to find other blogs that are similar to yours and leave comments. Most bloggers love it when people comment on their blog. It shows them that somebody is reading what they write and is interested in the subject.

When you make an informative comment, the blog owner, as well as the readers, may click through to your site and begin reading your blog. Don’t just post a sentence and then add your link. No one will click on it, and if the blog is moderated, it might just be deleted. By adding comments, your post also gets you an incoming link to your blog that helps you get search engine traffic.

This method may take some time to become profitable. People will continue reading your blog, they will send their friends, and you will get more people linking to you. Ultimately, that helps lead to good rankings.

The best case scenario is that the other blog owner will write articles that trackback to your blog, or reference you in one of his or her blog posts. That will help make a GREAT day of traffic for you, and — sooner or later — a profitable one too!

Creative Ideas for Niche Marketing

Wednesday, August 16th, 2006 at 9:30 am by Evelyn Grazini, AC Student and Staff Writer

There seems to be an increase in the number of people selling “niche” information: How to find niches, how to profit from them, etc. They would have you believe that a niche is a secret thing that only they know about, but they will let you in on their little secret… for a small fee.

So, what really is a niche? In biology, it’s the separate ecological position of an organism within a community. Distinguishing itself and occupying the niche helps it survive better. In marketing, it’s pretty much the same thing.

Simply stated, a niche is a high-demand, low competition market. Once you’ve found one, you try to occupy it more or less alone. Otherwise “low competition” would quickly become “much competition.

But did you know that you could create a niche for just about any product or service? Here are a couple of tips on how to do that:

Offer a product or service with mass appeal to a micro market – The idea here is to dig for keywords and concepts that match a large potential population with a product they will badly want. Then, build your website like it was created just for them. Make it personal and intimate.

For example, you might offer a product for balding golfers. By doing this you narrow down the niche to a selected group, and your customer feels like he or she is getting the personal attention they deserve. Customers will think they have run across a site that was created especially for them, by someone who understands their exact problems.

Another way to attract a niche market is to create a buzz for your product using some sort of viral marketing report or a free giveaway. You may have seen the free giveaway type of marketing in jewelry promotions. All you have to do is give up your name, email and address and they will send you a beautiful diamond ring (worth at least $150!).

Along this same line, you could offer consumers a chance to enter a drawing for a $50 gift certificate, if they buy a certain amount of your product.

All you need for this type of promotion are some great headlines and a few catchy PPC ads. In your ad, make sure to tell people that they can pass this offer onto their friends and family.

You’ll soon have a buzz going that will spread itself around, and in a very short time, you will have a large subscriber list of people interested in a specific niche. Then you can sell other related items to the list.

It just doesn’t get any better than that!

Article Writing - How To Pick Your Topic

Saturday, August 12th, 2006 at 4:18 pm by Evelyn Grazini, AC Student and Staff Writer

You put a lot of thought into deciding what niche to cover. Which you choose will help you pick an article topic. Choose a subject that has a lot of interest, and a targeted niche audience. It helps if it’s a subject you have some knowledge of and are passionate about.

Take a look at what you know and what you do for hobbies. Do you fix pinball machines or garden? Pinpoint at least three areas that you know something about and just start writing. Don’t worry too much at first if the articles aren’t great. You’ll improve.

Check out article distribution sites, such as ezine @rticles and see what others are writing about. You’ll find dozens of topics with hundreds of examples to follow.

Blog sites are also an excellent way to get new ideas.

Search Technorati or use Google’s blogsearch site for some interesting blogs. You’ll find an endless stream of ideas for things that you can elaborate on in your own articles.

Once you have decided on a niche, do a little more research to make sure there is competition in that market. If there is no one else marketing or writing about the same thing, chances are it is a proven loser. (But, hey maybe you have the next big thing!)

Search Google, Yahoo!, and MSN to find web sites that could be your competition before settling on your niche. Make a note of these sites for future reference. You may want to ask the owners if they would like to use your article in their ezine site.

Here’s a helpful free keyword tool from Good Keywords to find out how many searches are being performed on your keywords. WordTracker is also a good tool for researching. It costs a little bit, but if you’re doing research on a lot of keywords, it might be worth the price to get extra keyword ideas.

As you can see, it’s not that hard to find a subject to write about. Bookmark all the sites you find where you can get good ideas, and start writing!

Baby Boomer Social Network: eons.com

Monday, July 31st, 2006 at 6:44 pm by Jeffrey Perren, AC Magazine

There’s a new social networking site — eons.com — oriented toward the 50+ crowd. Despite the poor choice of name, the site has a good look and could do very well.

One sometimes gets the impression reading marketing surveys that only the under 30 market is important. That’s just nonsense.

Certainly, individuals under 30 are an important market. Techno-savvy, energetic, and eager to socialize, they represent an opportunity for marketers. That market has money to burn and they are ready to spend. Their interests are broad, as is the demographic itself.

But far from being the only important market, they are still only one out of many.

So, along come the wise folks at eons.com who recognize that there is a lot more money being left on the table. According to Enid Burns in a ClickZ article discussing the new site, the three major areas of focus are finance, wellness, and love. There are several others shown prominently on the home page, but perhaps Mr. Burns knows something we don’t.

But no matter what eons.com foci may be, the site — as with social networks in general — will certainly evolve in directions its founders haven’t dreamed of. Nothing is so creative as an individual with a keyboard, thinking of something he or she wants to say to another.

Advertisers will do well to look into this early and often. The possibilities for marketing to the online audience just doubled and then some. People are living longer, staying healthy later in life, and have more disposable income than at anytime in history.

But they’re also looking for new ways to invest and save for retirement, new places to see, and things to experience. They’re reconnecting with long lost friends at ever increasing rates and have at their fingertips a wider array of choices.

They’re also coming online in ever larger numbers. The portion of the population over 50 not online is decreasing every year.

All that means dozens of areas for affiliate marketers to increase visits and sales. Don’t wait until you’re older to pick up a part of that market. You’re not getting any younger, either.

Social Network Marketing: Buzz = Income

Thursday, July 27th, 2006 at 2:47 pm by Jeffrey Perren, AC Magazine

Rupert Murdoch is not sorry his News Corp bought Intermix, the owner of MySpace, a year ago. Forget for a moment the phenomenal growth in the user base. According to Wendy Davis’ article on Online Media Daily, referencing eMarketer data,

MySpace “last month garnered 17 percent of online display impressions — up more than two points from May’s 14.6 percent, according to new data by Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance.”

That’s half Yahoo! Mail, but double MSN Hotmail.

In a more recent article, again using eMarketer data, she reported that MySpace is set to pull in $180 million in revenue this year, on it’s way to getting a piece of the $1.86 billion pie predicted to exist by 2010.

Ad dollars represent a cost to affiliate marketers, not revenue, it’s true. But those dollars are being spent there for good reason: to generate buzz. Buzz gets you noticed. Buzz gets you visitors. Visitors bring money. And that, my friends, is the name of the game.

Is it a fad? Is it just another among a number of bubbles that grew and popped? No one can say for sure. But somehow, teens and others gathering together to express themselves, share experiences and photos, arrange dates, recommend movies, etc… somehow, that doesn’t sound like something that is going away anytime soon.

And MySpace is clearly experiencing the kind of positive spiral that led Amazon not too many years ago to become what it is today.

Yeah, I would think Rupert Murdoch is not unhappy about that particular investment. And, neither should affiliate marketers be.

Social Network Marketing: Old Idea, New Form

Tuesday, July 25th, 2006 at 8:34 pm by Jeffrey Perren, AC Magazine

In college I had a friend who, as a high school teen, attended rock concerts. He didn’t go for the music. He sold T-shirts, though ’sold’ is something of a misnomer. All he had to do was show up and they were practically ripped out of his hands. (Come to think of it that happened literally, sometimes.) He made a serious chunk of change, ten bucks at a pop.

He understood social network marketing.

He didn’t have to do a lot of advertising. He didn’t spend a lot of money on marketing. But he knew where to find customers… where they congregate.

That’s the not-so-secret lesson of social network marketing. Many sites try to get customers to come where they live. Not a bad thing, as it works pretty well much of the time.

But social network marketing is going where the customers already are. While there you hope to sell them something you have good reason to believe they already want.

The team in charge of marketing the recent X-Men 3 movie did just that. They developed a portion of the MySpace site devoted to talking about the movie. They attracted a lot of people they already had good reason to believe would be interested. Those people told others. X-Men 3 garnered $122 million on opening weekend. ($400 million worldwide from May 26th to June 21st. Don’t you wish.)

No doubt that money wasn’t solely, or even primarily, the result of exposure and buzz on MySpace. But, as we all know, in marketing every little bit helps. And with the growth of MySpace and social networks in general, that little bit is getting a lot bigger very fast.

Something to think about while laundering that old Pat Benatar T-shirt.

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