By Allan Gardyne
CEO of AssociatePrograms.com
Volume 1
Traffic tip #61
Add a classified ads section to your site.
It won't make you rich, but you can generate a little extra revenue as well as
attract new visitors by adding a classified advertising section to your site.
Brad Waller's EPage.com makes the whole thing painless.
Traffic tip #62
Social networking.
Some social networking sites, such as MySpace, have many millions of
users and are growing fast. MySpace gets truly massive traffic - 38.4 million
unique visitors in April, 2006, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.
Because these sites have millions of users, you can guarantee that
innovative affiliates are cashing in on this traffic.
Good luck!
Here's an article which will give you some ideas:
Making friends - and money - on MySpace
You can find a list of social networking sites here.
If you figure out how to make the most of this opportunity, I'd love to hear
from you.
Traffic tip #63
Create your own fan club.
Here's something which may work for sites in some industries.
I was visiting a site the other day and saw a link which said "Join My Fan
Club". Curious, I clicked the link and was taken to Frappr where you can
invite people to join your "Group Map" or "Friend Map" to see where they all
live.
Getting on your Friend Map will help your website visitors feel they're part of
a community and help them remember your site.
Try a "See Where We Live" link to spark people's curiosity.
Traffic tip #64
Effective PPC advertising.
Create special landing pages for your paid traffic.
If you're using tips No.1 and No.2 - providing lots of fresh, high quality
content - there's a strong risk that your paid advertising visitors will be
distracted by your free content. Too many of them are likely to click around,
read a lot of stuff and disappear without buying anything.
When you're paying for traffic, you can't afford to let that happen. It's
essential that you have a high conversion rate.
So, for paid traffic, either create simple, uncluttered landing pages with no
distractions, or special mini-sites with no distractions.
You need to focus your visitors' attention on the link to the affiliate product
or on the sign-up form for your newsletter or mini-course.
If your conversion rate is high enough, you can buy advertising on Google's
AdWords, at Yahoo! Search Marketing, at MSN AdCenter and in pay-per-
click search engines.
Among all the options, Google's AdWords is a big favorite.
However, there are pitfalls aplenty.
If you get things right, AdWords works brilliantly. If you get things wrong,
you can lose lots of money fast.
AdWords specialist Perry Marshall has written a quick free email course.
Reading it should stop you from making costly errors.
You can find out more about the free course here:
5 days to success with Google AdWords
Buying pay-per-click advertising is also an excellent way to test your site's
conversion rate. You can buy a little traffic and experiment, changing the
heading on the page, the introduction, the graphic, the preselling, etc, to
see which version gives you the highest visitor-to-sales ratio.
You can find out more about pay-per-click search engines at:
PayPerClickSearchengines.com.
Traffic tip #65
Buy ads in newsletters.
People reading online newsletters are often skimming, not reading carefully,
so you'll need a bold, eye-catching ad.
Instead of merely advertising your website or an affiliate product, send
people to a page where you offer a free report or mini-course in return for
their email address.
You'll get more bang for your buck by doing this. Instead of just building the
affiliate vendor's business, you're building YOUR business.
An expert on this NameSqueeze technique is marketing veteran Jonathan
Mizel, who was marketing on the Internet long before most of us even knew
it existed.
When you subscribe to his newsletter you get access to a vast database of
incredibly useful information and marketing ideas.
Traffic tip #66
Buy text links - carefully!
Consider buying text link ads on other sites, for example from Linkadage or
Text Link Ads. However, be aware that Google engineer Matt Cutts has
made it clear in his blog that Google looks unfavorably on sites that buy text
links.
Matt argues that anyone who is selling text links ought to place
rel="nofollow" attributes in the links.
One option is to arrange link purchases directly with other sites and avoid
making them look like bought links.
Even better, think of innovative ways of getting an article containing a link to
your site published on another site.
Traffic tip #67
Advertise in less obvious places.
Look for other, less obvious places to advertise online. Experiment and see
what happens.
For example, here's an article which describes how CommonTimes.org
experimented with advertising on BlogAds, using eye-catching ads. The
article shows you the ads and reports on the different click-through rates
achieved:
Using BlogAds to Promote Your Web Site
For people in a hurry, here's the main lesson learned:
"Basically, we found that customizing the ad content to the site we
were advertising on wasn't enough. We needed something catchy,
unique and at times - in your face."
In his Online Marketing Letter #88 Jonathan Mizel published a report "Paid
Advertising Resources for 2006" which describes resources his company
and his clients have used successfully.
The document is for paid subscribers only.
Traffic tip #68
Create free web-based software.
Create simple web-based free software, such as a mortgage calculator or a
return on investment (ROI) calculator. Tell other sites, newsletters and
forums about it and ask for a link to it.
This tactic is fairly commonly used by search engine optimization experts.
It may be easier than you think. Your job is merely to produce the IDEA.
You can hire someone from Rentacoder to create the software.
Traffic tip #69
Create downloadable software.
Create free downloadable software which contains links to your site, links to
your newsletter, or affiliate links - or all three.
Traffic tip #70
Get publicity for your downloadable software.
Submit your downloadable software to software directories, such as
Download.com.
Traffic tip #71
Create a funny video - and a keyword-rich transcript.
Create your own video and upload it to Google Video.
This may be a lot easier they you think. One easy way is to use the video
function on your digital camera, edit it using Windows Movie Maker and
save the file in wmv format, which is one of the formats accepted by
Google.
You can submit videos electronically to Google Video, as long as you own
the necessary rights (including copyrights, trademarks, rights of publicity,
and any other relevant rights for your content).
Incorporate your domain name in the video.
Get a few friends to link to your funny video from their blogs. If it's funny
enough, other people will tell their friends, and so on...
Also, you can submit a transcript of your video to Google.
Google says:
"Users will be able to find your video more easily if you add a transcript
to each video file you've uploaded via your Video Status page. We
prefer it if the format of the transcript is time-coded and saved as a .txt
file."
You want to include appropriate keywords in your transcript – so make sure the
keywords are spoken in your video.
· Google Video FAQ
· Policy guidelines
· Video transcripts
At YouTube you can upload a video from your cellphone or PDA. You can
"tag" the video with appropriate keywords.
You can use almost any video format.
Here's how author and musician Bob Baker sees the opportunities:
2006, The Year of Internet Video: Get Ready
The article includes a long list of websites which will host your streaming
video content free.
Traffic tip #72
A signature file IS important - honest!
This tip is VERY basic, yet I'm continually surprised how many apparently
experienced marketers don't use it ALL the time.
Add a signature file to the bottom of EVERY email you send – to anyone.
Here's why:
I receive a lot of email, and I get so frustrated when I receive cryptic emails
from people I half-know saying things like...
"Did you find time to have a look at the ebook?"
John.
I have to stop and think, "Who's John? What was his book about?"
Where did I file his ebook when I downloaded it? Into a file based on his
SURNAME, not "John".
Adding a signature file to every email...
1. Reminds people of the name of your website. It helps make your site
memorable.
2. Gives people a link they can click on, makes it easy for them, and
increases your chances of getting visitors.
3. Can tempt extra visitors, especially if you give them a reason for
visiting, such as a new article or a free report.
I use Eudora and Gmail. In both, you can set up multiple signatures and
choose the one you want with just two clicks. Most of the time, I just use the
default signatures - no extra clicks needed.
Make things easy for the people who receive your messages – and help
make yourself memorable.
Traffic tip #73
Think viral. Where's your backend product?
If you write an ebook or report, add a viral marketing aspect to it.
For example, make your ebook "Volume One". Send readers to a page,
forum or blog discussing Volume Two. Perhaps on that page you could
place a simple survey, asking them what they would like to see in Volume
Two. You could offer them a discount or a bonus special report if they tell a
friend about Volume One.
Traffic tip #74
Email This Page to a Friend.
Add an "Email This Page to a Friend" link on your pages. A good
programmer should be able to do this for you easily.
Traffic tip #75
Add to Favorites.
Place an "Add to Favorites" link on your pages. It may not get you much
extra traffic, but every little bit helps.
Traffic tip #76
Start an affiliate program.
Start your own affiliate program and get hundreds or thousands of affiliates
to spread the word about your product and your site.
The simplest, cheapest way is to use ClickBank.
One disadvantage of using ClickBank is that many vendors who use it don't
know who their affiliates are and have no way of getting in touch with them.
Also, ClickBank doesn't offer sophisticated stats. You can solve these
problems by combining ClickBank with Adrian Ling's software,
EasyClickMate, Lite or Pro.
If you've advanced beyond the ClickBank stage, here are two options for
affiliate managers:
A) Shawn Collins has experience both as an affiliate and an affiliate
manager. His book Pay for Performance is a good, solid introduction to
running your own affiliate program. It was published a few years ago. You
can pick up a second-hand copy from Amazon for a few bucks.
B) In late June, 2006, Anik Singal of Affiliate Classroom launched The
Affiliate Manager - 1st Edition, a comprehensive course for affiliate
managers.
This course contains:
1. Over 4 hours of DVDs
2. Over 200+ pages of interactive workbooks
3. Over 15 hours of expert interviews
4. 8 checklists
5. 6 templates
6. and many more bonuses
Its contributors include Yanik Silver, Mike Filsaime, Jeff Mulligan, Shawn
Collins, super affiliate Rosalind Gardner, spyware authority Ben Edelman,
Deborah Carney (CafePress.com), Linda Woods (PartnerCentric), Chris
Sanderson (AMWSO), Clark Douglas Walton, Brian Littleton (ShareASale),
Rachel Honoway (Kowabunga) and Lisa Riolo (Commission Junction).
Learning from highly successful affiliate managers and super affiliates like
these will enable you to avoid the dreadful, costly mistakes so many affiliate
managers make.
You don't just learn how to build an online sales force, you learn how to
attract, train and retain a team of super affiliates.
Find out more here
Traffic tip #77
Make it easy for reporters to write about you.
Check your "About Us" page. Does it provide all the information a reporter
needs to write about you - and up-to-date contact info so the reporter can
contact you with questions?
Is your "About Us" page bland and boring? If so, dump it and create a new,
lively, fascinating one.
Provide a complete media kit containing some fascinating snippets of info
about your business.
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