That’s right -you will get $10 if you read this post. No joke. So start reading!
$10 to Read This Post
November 7, 2009 – 5:15 pm
How To Twitter
November 7, 2009 – 1:20 pm
I was going to write a post about how to Twitter but instead I found a great video from YouTube that will get you up to speed if you don’t already ‘tweet’. So don’t be a twit, start tweeting! It’s a great way to increase traffic to your site.
If you want to follow me on twitter – Click Here.
Give The World Something To Click On!
November 6, 2009 – 1:48 pm
Affiliate marketers are constantly struggling with what products and offers to support. That is because many of us find it hard to narrow down the hundreds, if not thousands, of markets and niches that are available to affiliate marketers. After working in affiliate marketing promoting different products and systems for numerous markets and niches, I have come up with three simple rules for choosing a market/niche.
Three Rules for Choosing a Market/Niche to Promote In
1. Make sure the offer is already successful. You can find numbers and different metrics through your affiliate network that you deal with or from the program itself if it isn’t involved in working with a network. There is always the draw to try to promote a program or product that is new because you may think that you will have that first to market advantage. This maybe true, but remember that this may cost you a lot of money if you can’t get your traffic to convert. In my opinion, it is much better to go with a program with a proven track record because it gives you a benchmark of what to expect. This is especially important if you are just starting out in affiliate marketing.
2. Look at EPC. Earnings per click or EPC is the gold standard for comparing offers to promote. EPC is simply calculated as total revenue ($) divided by total (#) of clicks. Example: if a campaign for an article submission software program paid a total of $500 and there were 1000 clicks your EPC would equal $0.50. If you belong to an affiliate network the EPC results are visible for comparison to other offers.
3. Look for markets that you are personally attracted to. Leading affiliate networks report that there most successful affiliates promote offers that they are interested in. It makes sense doesn’t it? If the topic that you are trying to promote is something close to your heart and you are passionate about it, that passion is going to come through in your promotion and also keep you going when you need a little kick in the pants.
Those are my three rules for choosing a niche market to promote to. If you incorporate those three rules the next time you are struggling to choose a market to promote in you will easily narrow down your choices. Ultimately, this will lead to more success making money online.
Google Adwords Mistake
November 6, 2009 – 11:14 am
I tried to run an adwords campaign for an affiliate program that I’m promoting. I wanted to have the person viewing the ad click on it and take them directly to the landing page of the product I was promoting. That’s where the trouble began!
For those of you who don’t know, Google AdWords has two URL fields that you need to fill out when creating an adwords ad – the Display URL and the Destination URL. I built an example of an ad below:
What I wanted to happen is to have my website address in the Display URL and my affiliate link as the Destination URL. This created a problem as every ad I created was rejected by Google. Bastards. I thought that this was what CPC marketing was all about! LOL. I checked their policy and it states:
Display URL
“This is the URL displayed on your ad to identify your site to users. This URL displayed is limited to 35 characters; it need not be the same as the URL your ad links to, but it should be an actual URL that is part of your site”.
Ok, that made sense to me? So what Google is saying is that the Display URL can be different than the URL your ad links to. But I still got rejected. I searched (using Bing) for some guidance on this. I found that it was all over the map – some people had the same problem while others could have their affiliate link in the Destination URL.
Totally confused I did some more digging around the Google AdWords site and found this:
So as not to mislead users, the display URL should give users a clear idea of the website or landing page to which they will be taken when they click on an ad. Display URLs must:
- Indicate who owns the destination URL, but does not need to match the actual destination URL of the landing page exactly.
- Appear to be a viable website address. It must include the appropriate extension such as ‘.com,’ ‘.net,’ and ‘co.uk,’ but ‘www’ and ‘http://’ are not required.
- Represent a website. The display URL also cannot be an email address. For example, ‘flowers@flowers.com’ would not be allowed.
- Comply with editorial policy, which will be discussed in later topics.
Here is an example of a correct and an incorrect display URL:
Correct:
Destination URL: bigbookstore.com/new/a-c.htm
Display URL: bigbookstore.comClicking on the ad takes users to a page within the bigbookstore.com website. Even though the display URL is different from the destination URL, it accurately represents where the user will be taken when he or she clicks on the ad.
Incorrect:
Destination URL: http://www.amazon.com/home.html/104-7002842-259
Display URL: bigbookstore.comThe display URL bigbookstore.com does not accurately represent the site to which the user will be taken, which is a page within the amazon.com domain. This is improper use of the display URL. An ad with this display URL would not be approved.
Nice! In one place, Google is telling us we can use different URLs and in the other they say that it isn’t allowed. In the end, I created a landing page on my site in order to use Google AdWords. I’ll let you know how it goes!
Until next time…Bing!
Geoff
Promoting Unique Article Wizard
November 6, 2009 – 9:06 am
So what did I end up doing with all that traffic from my article directory disaster?
I decided to forward my traffic to a landing page of an article directory submission software company. Through ClickBank I found a program called Unique Article Wizard. The software is amazing – it takes an article that you have wrote and then submits it automatically to a large number of article directories, blogs, etc. The cool thing about Article Wizard is that it also automatically re-writes your article before submitting it to each directory, blog, etc. The program eliminates duplicate content issues.
Basically, I forwarded the domain name to my affiliate link so that if someone clicked on the domain name (and all configurations of it – I believe they call that wildcatting your domain) to the product promotion page of Article Wizard. I thought this was a good idea – same traffic looking to submit their articles manually to my site.
Results
Well, once again, not good! The lesson learned from this: you must presell your traffic before sending them on to the landing page of the product you are promoting.
If you want to check out the Unique Article Wizard site (the software is really good and will save you hours and hours of work) Click Here.
For other Click Bank opportunities Click Here.
On to the next disaster,
Geoff
