Selecting Affiliate Programs To Promote

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Make Money With BlogsThis was to be a later installment in my series of articles to help anyone new to affiliate marketing succeed, as well as reiterate practises old hands know they should be using but maybe forgot. However, I had to write a report for a client, CanLookUp.com, recommending how they should approach setting up an affiliate program of their own. I decided to edit the report to use it as installment three in this series, thus killing two birds with a single stone.

I have a few simple rules I follow faithfully when looking at developing a relationship with a merchant managing an affiliate program…

1. I email a merchant with an interesting affiliate program before signing up.

I will ask a generic question like, “Would your product/service sell well on my website Laughs4Free.com (or one of my more relevant blogs or websites)?” If they don’t respond, I try again. If they still aren’t responding I rethink my signing on as an affiliate. A lack of communication indicates there may be other problems to come, such as issues with my payments.

2. If the company website has what are called “traffic leaches” I’m gone.

Traffic leaches are links and banners to other websites that the merchant is being paid by. I never work with a merchant that has banners or links to other website, even Google Adsense ads.The merchant wants their affiliates to send traffic, but if they can’t sell prospective buyers their own products they send them to another ecommerce site. I know I’ll see none of the revenue from those sales, so I will not be sending my traffic there.

3. If I can’t see the product I want to sell where my affiliate referral link goes, I’m gone.

I probably promote one out of every 20 affiliate programs I sign up for and most I drop because of this single factor. If I am interested in a product and click on a banner or text link I expect to see the product photo, description and a buy button or link. I do not want to read about the company, nor do I want to watch a video. What I want right off the bat is to learn more about the product and the price… then, if I am interested, I want to learn about the company, who the payment processor is, what the return policies are, shipping cost, etc. etc. etc. I’m amazed at how many online merchants don’t get this, which probably means they’re amateurs.

I say amateurs because it’s a fundamentals of web marketing that it’s: 1st click is to reach the product, 2nd click is to learn about the product, 3rd click is to buy the product… and each page should have a trigger to bypass everything and buy now. A trigger is a button or text link that basically say “buy now”, and without seeing one, or worse seeing content that is irrelevant to making a product or service purchase, I know I’m dealing with an amateur merchant that is likely reducing their own conversion ratio by distracting a potential purchaser, so would do the same with my referrals.

Plan and simple, people shopping online want to buy something, but they do not want to be sold anything. A straight up merchant will make their product or service the focus. Then, if the buyer decides he or she wants additional information it’s either provided right there, on the purchase page, or linked to from it.

4. If the merchant’s website has broken links, I am gone.

I’ve visited many ecommerce websites that have broken links, but rarely seen them on the websites of serious, well known ecommerce merchants. Finding broken links is an indication to me that:

a ) The website has been abandoned, or that the online business isn’t taken seriously by the merchant.

b ) If links don’t work, there may be problems with the scripts used to take payments as well, meaning I lose sales.

c ) The merchant has cheaped out on website management, so is probably not to be trusted to pay me.

None of the reasons for there being broken links instills confidence, and with hundreds of alternative sites to shop at I’d be visiting one of them. I have to assume any potential customer I referred would do the same.

5. If I find outdated content on the merchant’s website or blog, I’m gone.

I love checking out merchants’ own blogs, about pages, press releases, etc. I will often learn more about the merchant’s webmarketing abilities from these sources they kindly provided first hand than any other research I do. Some things I have seen and recommend anyone look for are:

a ) websites with the most recent news update being about a past Christmas special, and I’m on their website in the summer. Not a good sign.

b ) content on websites that’s literally years out of dates. Cause for concern because it indicated to me I am looking at an abandoned venture.

c ) product descriptions, articles, posts, etc. that are full of typographical and grammerical errors. No way, I’m gone.



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6. If a merchant’s website uses invasive scripting, I run for the exit.

I’ve visited dozens of ecommerce websites I was considering as possible affiliate programs to work with, only to have my anti-virus program alert me to the possible presence of spyware, trojans, malware, or adware. I have even visited sites my anti-virus program blocked from opening at all, and others Google had blocked. In my mind, even if the merchant is unaware of the existance of the malicious scripts, it being there is reason enough to walk away. I don’t agree with invasive scipting being used, so I will not work with anyone who uses them. Even if the merchant was unaware their site was hacked and someone embedded malicious code, I pass on by. To not know what is going on with their site indicates either disinterest or incompetance, neither of which are going to help me make sales.

7. If a merchant’s website or landing page is outdated, I pass.

If an ecommerce website appears to be an outdated design, is built for a lower browser resolution than is currently popular, or does not display properly no matter what browser I use, I’m gone. The same goes for website using templates the merchant either downloaded for free or paid a few dollars for.

I have a program that checks out a website using all popular browsers, as far back as IE6. I allow for some display issues with IE browsers because I know Google Chrome and Firefox will represent 70% of the browsers in use by the traffic I send. Also, any website built or updated recently will not display properly farther back than IE8, and this is actually a good thing. It indicates the merchant is updating their website. However, if a website does not display properly in Google Chrome or Firefox it means it is outdated or built by an amateur, so I pass. After all, almost 70% of the potential sales I refer will find a disfunctional website because they;re likely to be using Google Chrome or Firefox. A dysfunctional website will have them move on, costing me a potential sale.

If a website is using flash I will probably not promote it. The reason being Apple mobile products to not display flash, so right off the potential market for the particular merchant is reduced. Secondly, it’s common knowledge among website developers flash should not be used for this reason. It is also accepted among web marketers experienced in SEO that flash is a handicap when it comes to earning a decent search engine ranking. So, if I see flash I know…

a ) it is an old website no one is bothering to update, or knows enough about the media they are using to know their website needs to be.

b ) the merchant either doesn’t care that the website is limited or is not well verse enough in web marketing or website development to know any better.

Either way, I know I will lose out on potential sales if I send traffic to such a website, so I don’t.

The problem I have with templates is that they’re like wearing bargain store apparel, everyone is wearing the same thing. I use templates all the time, but never as the basis for an ecommerce websites. I use templates to quickly build we website to discuss a single topic and hopefully earn a good SE placement doing so. Then the traffic I pass on to an affiliate programs I’m promoting on that website is targeted and likely to purchase.

8. Merchants that are hiding I avoid like a plague.

Merchants that hide their location address from shoppers, leaving only the contact information of their payment processor to resolve issues with, I will not consider doing business with. Worse are those that hide their identities on their domain registration as well as their website. Who am I really dealing with? Why are they hiding? These are the questions I ask myself, and I assume any potential purchasers \would do the same, so I pass.

I don’t trust a merchant if the address is a post box either. I appreciate many legitimate businesses use post boxes, but it’s a red flag. If I want to deal with the company, I’ll email and ask the merchant directly to explain why they don’t make their location known. If they have a legitimate reason they’ll say so outright. If they are not on the up and up I’ll be ignored, given the runaround, or be given some evasive answer. Run from the latter, and apologize to the former for having to ask. It’s no problem asking, because the merchant will assume you’re a serious online marketer and that you were probably burned in the past so tread carefully now.

Nor do I trust what is listed as the domain registry contact information either. Information on websites and domain registrations can honestly be outdated, as can the contact information on a company’s own website. Even phone directories can get it wrong. None of the misinformation may be deliberate, but the fact it’s there and potentially costing the merchant sales, is another red flag.

I always try to communicate with a merchant before I commit to promote their product or service too, usually asking them generic things like what conversion ratio I can expect from my website or blog, and give them one of many URLs. I’ll maybe ask if they can suggest banner sizes, textual links, etc. If I get a response, no matter what the suggestions they make, I know I’m in contact with a professional merchant, and probably a successful affiliate program manager. Id I get no response, or evasiveness, it pretty much tells me all I need to know, and I don’t waste any more time.

Summary…

If you follow these few guidelines, you’ll most probably avoid poor performing or non-paying affiliate programs. To this day, I faithfully follow each step when considering a new affiliate program, and I started back in 1995. I don’t worry about missing out, because for every product or service there are dozens, maybe even hundreds of merchants with affiliate programs selling it. Take it from me, someone who’s lost more money dealing with bad affiliate programs than I care to remember, walking away from a question mark will have you sleeping better, and not out any money.

Affiliate Marketing Tips

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Money Money MoneyThis is the second installment in my series of articles about affiliate marketing. The first was Affiliate Marketing Basics, and as I did while writing it I intend to include links to resources of use to budding affiliate marketers and old hands alike.

Many people dream of the day they can pack up our jobs to be our own bosses, and are working towards that end. Others have had the decision to venture out on their own made for them by being laid off during corporate downsizing, or their place of employment close it’s doors completely. No matter which category you fall into, if you’re here you intend to make money with blogs, and if you’re reading this article affiliate marketing is something you are considering as a way to earn income.

The idea of working for one’s self attracts many people for different reasons. However, making it happen deters many. The vast majority cannot get a business off the ground due to three main factors; the first being money, the second being risk, and the third being the fear of failure. With my approach to affiliate marketing none of these are a justified excuse for not going forward.



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The Money…

Starting even a small business takes a fair amount of money. You need to buy or rent premises, purchase your stock and equipment, probably make deposits on utilities, pay for advertising, etc.

I will explain a bit later why none of these costs relate to affiliate marketing, and how, if you are able to access this blog you’re already poised to be an affiliate marketer.

The Risk…

Risk is a concern for anyone venturing into a brick and mortar business and is the main factor that kills most new business ventures. Even if you’re lucky enough to get the capital to start, nearly 90% of all small businesses fail in the first year. If yours is one of the lucky ventures, you have to keep reinvesting your time and money to build up your business, usually for 3 to 5 years. It could be anywhere from 5 to 7 years before any significant profit is seen. Most people cannot wait that long, which is what makes affiliate marketing so attractive. You can be making money immediately, with little or no investment, as an affiliate marketer.

Fear Of Failure…

No one admits to be too afraid of being self employed. In fact, most people don’t even recognize fear as being what is holding them back, but it is. The justification may be that the timing is wrong, or that they need a larger savings cushion, or they lack the training, etc. etc. etc. It’s all nothing more than rationalizing to one’s self that anything other than fear of failure is what’s holding you back.

Well, set your fears aside. With affiliate marketing you need no special training, can start off part-time, need to invest virtually no money, and the amount of time you invest can be as little or as much as you have available.

Affiliate marketing involves you, working as an affiliate for a merchant or company. You sell either their goods, or their services, and you’re paid a percentage of each sale or a flat fee on each sale. There are no costs, and no risk. So there’s no need to be fearful. And if losing face if you fail is your concern, and it is for a lot of people, don’t tell anyone what you are doing until the checks and wire deposits start coming in. With affiliate marketing you put in what you can in the way of money and time, and are rewarded accordingly.

Don’t get me wrong and think I’m suggesting running an affiliate marketing business is a snap to set up and cash in on. Affiliate marketing is challenging. You’ll either have to work very hard to build it up or build up your business over time. However, whether you work on your affiliate marketing business 24/7, or you can only invest an hour or two each day, you’ll be rewarded for your efforts.

Also, no matter what you hear from self appointed affiliate marketing gurus who are trying to sell you “How To” eBooks, tutorial videos, webinar classes, etc., there’s no guranteed success formula in affiliate marketing. Some people will fail because they’re failures by their very nature. For such people, nothing anyone teaches them, no advice they’re given, no instructions, will deter them from following a path to failure. However, if you aren’t a failure by nature and are determine to succeed, or at least willing to try, succeeding at affiliate marketing if more likely to be your fate than failure. By following my series of blog posts, and taking advantage of the resources I recommend, I can pretty much assure you of success if you’re willing to give it an honest effort.

Starting Point…

In this series I don’t want to reiterate what I cover in previous posts. The first step in affiliate marketing I covered in Affiliate Marketing Basics. However, I do need to say that to be an affiliate marketer you’ll need your own website, blog, forum or online newsletter. Do not opt for any of the multitude of free website offerings. Nothing is free! You can bet if someone is giving you free web hosting they’re making money. That’s money that should be going to you, and for sure it’s more than the cost of the inexpensive hosting packages recommended in  Affiliate Marketing Basics.

To get started in affiliate marketing, there are literally thousands of programs for you to choose from. I recommend you choose to focus initially on products and/or services that you’re familiar with, both as the basis for your website or blog, and the companies you promote. You will feel more comfortable and confident on home court, so to speak. Plus, it will be much easier for you to assemble or create quality content for your blog or website when you know the topic well.

I do not recommend starting out with a forum, even though they are great vehicles for affiliate marketers to promote products and services on that are relevant to the forum topic. They simply require a too much technical knowledge for a beginner, so I will discuss using forums in a later post.

I also don’t recommend starting with an online newsletter for the same reasons. Plus establishing an opt-in mailing list takes time that’s better invested in other online publications, such as a website or a blog.

The product or service you are most comfortable with may not be the hottest thing on the web, or make you a buckets of cash overnight. But you will come off more confident and sincere sticking with something you know and believe in.

For example, if you worked as hairdresser or manicurist, or you are interested in cosmetics, your website could be about salon treatments, hair care products, skin care treatments, etc. The number of companies with beauty and cosmetic related affiliate programs for you to promote is mind blowing.

The same goes if you have a knowledge of welding. If you are or were a welder, you could easily create content or acquire content from someone that anyone interested in welding would find helpful. There are same, but far fewer metal fabricators or welding supply companies with affiliate marketing programs than say clothing or health related products or services. However, there are literally thousands of such companies that would pay you to place their banner or a link to their website on your blog or website. Some brick and mortar businesses will pay you a flat fee for a banner spot, while others may be willing to pay you for referrals, or even for each time someone clicks on their banner. This is still affiliate marketing too, but an area I will cover in a later post.

Knowing the topic of you blog or website will help when it comes to creating your site too. Something you’re familiar with will allow you to be personally involved in the creative process, even if you start out with a simple template website or blog. You will know by instinct what is the better layout, images, etc. to use because you will understand your audience well. Trying to create a site around something you know little about will quickly become tedious, and will not be as professional and authoritative as you’ll want your online presence to be to maximize sales potential.

Making Money…

The most common mistake new affiliate marketers and those who’ve been at it a while but are struggling make is to include as many banners as possible on their blogs or websites. First off, no one visiting the website is impressed with what is known as a “banner farm”.

Also, the better affiliate programs you want to work with will not activate an account until they visit the website or blog, and they will not approve anything that is banner cluttered, and content shallow. The people that manage affiliate programs know their business, so if they refuse to allow their banners to be displayed, you have to believe it’s the wrong approach. After all, their jobs are to get affiliates signed up and promoting their products or services, so to decline advertising means they either think the site is a waste of time or, worse, will cast their business in a poor light.

Lastly, Google now has their spider bots programmed with a page layout algorythim that rates pages based on the number of banners diplayed in relation to content. Banner farms do not earn much, if any page rank, and are gradually being deleted from Google’s database. Selecting only products or services that are relevant to the content of your blog will actually enhance your Google page rank. Also, blogs or website with relevant content to the companies being promoted will both enhance the visitor experience and improve the likelihood of banners being clicked on and sales being made.

You also need to put care into the placement of your banners. You’ll notice that within this long article I minimized the number of promotional links and banners, and all are on topic. In fact, my whole blog has fewer banners than most you’ve probably seen. However, I’ve monitored a great many banner placements and numbers of banners displayed, and I can assure you that a few banners on topic convert clicks to sales at a far higher ratio, earning me more money than putting up 2 to 3 times as many.

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Selecting An Affiliate Program…

With affiliate marketing there’s no such thing as the perfect program. Every affiliate program page is stuffed with testimonials, promises of huge earning potentials, earnings graphs, even screen captures of PayPal accounts with eye popping totals.

Remember, the job of anyone managing an affiliate program is to attract affiliate marketers, you, so the hype is always as positive as possible. Chances are, you’ll select the wrong affiliate program, and there is no shame in that. I have been doing this since 1995 and I continuously try new affiliate programs that fizzle out. You are not married to any specific affiliate program. If you do not see money coming in, it may be the best program on earth for a multitude of affiliate marketers, but it is wrong for you or you blog or website, so move on and try another that looks promising.

To get you started, I recommend you focus on affiliate management services because they have many merchants offering thousands of products and services for you to choose from. I consider two of the best to be Google Affiliate Network and LinkShare Referral Program. There are many others, and I will be reviewing them in upcoming articles, but for now sign up for each of these… provided you already have a blog or website.

If you don’t have a blog or website, here are two choices to get you going. With PlutoCrazy Hosting you get both inexpensive hosting and you can choose from a good selection of free blog and website templates that will have you up and running in a matter of minutes. The other is HostGator, which also offers hosting clients thousands of free website templates, or you can set up a blog like this one in 5 minutes, also at no additional cost. If you sign up for either of these, let me know in the comment section because I’ll have something to pass on that will have you making more money then you pay for hosting in a matter of days.

Summary…

Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money while working for yourself. The risk is minimal, there are only minimal start up costs, and the rewards can be huge.

When you first start out, stick to what you know and use it as the subject of your blog posts or website.

There are many great affiliate marketing programs wanting you to promote their products or services. Select the one(s) to promote that complement your blog or website content.

Make your site as attractive and search engine friendly as possible by resisting the urge to fill it with banners.

Finally, there is no perfect affiliate program. Some you will have success with, and those that don’t are wrong for you so need to be replaced. A short tial and error period will have you working as an affiliate marketer for companies you’re able to promote and make money with.

Selling banner ad placements or traffic is one of my favorite types of affiliate programs for online marketing related blogs or websites. Why? Because it converts!!!
And if it pays 40%, all the better. Sign Up Now!

Affiliate Marketing Basics

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I decided to write this post and offer my personal assistance because I’m often asked about monetizing blogs using affiliate programs. Monetizing a blog with earnings from affiliate programs is an important revenue source, as is Google Adsense and a number of other options. My being asked about affiliate marketing means not everyone trying to earn and income online fully appreciates the ins and outs of affiliate marketing, so I’ve decided to write a series of articles and tutorial videos on this important aspect of making money with blogs. I will be including reviews of affiliate programs I use, as well as apps and software I recommend to make the affiliate marketing easier… Notice I said easier.

If you’re getting into affiliate marketing to earn “easy money”, you’re destine for disappointment. Like any business, it takes work to build up an online business, but unlike other businesses, affiliate marketing in not restricted by hours of operation, time zones, holidays, geography, or any sort of demographics. As an affiliate marketer, the entire planet is your market place, everyone on earth is your potential customer, and the internet never sleeps so the potential to generate income is 24/7.



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What Is Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the the most creative ways to make money using the Internet as your market place. Affiliate marketing is selling products and services on a commission basis. You, as an affiliate, earn an income by advertising the products and services of companies for either a percentage or for a flat fee for each sale to a visitor you send the merchant.

The biggest attraction of affiliate marketing for most people is that there is next to no upfront costs to get started. Notice, I said there are “next to no upfront costs”? You do need to spend a little money, but if you follow my instructions you’ll pay the minimum amount for what you need, and earn back the maximum revenue possible. How can I guarantee that? You will see…

The things you must have to become a successful affiliate marketer are:

Your Own Blog Or Website…

Your website is the starting point of all your marketing efforts. In any successful affiliate marketing business you need a professional looking website. You are also going to need a domain name, something like: yourbizname.com.

First, let’s discuss your domain name. There are two ways to select a domain name, the right way and the wrong way… The right way is to find an available keyword domain and register it. What is a keyword domain? For example, if you want to promote a diet plan you’d want your domain to be something like, diet.com, diets.com, etc. But for sure those domains are not available. In fact most single word domains are gone. So you need to be creative and come up with something that describes the product you intend to market, be easy to spell, if at all possible not include a hyphen and be a .com. Most important, you want it to be a prime keyword domain, meaning one comprising words or a phrase people are using as search terms.

I do not recommend taking a guess as to what people are using to search for and finding blogs of websites similar to what you plan on developing. There are great tools to help select a prime keyword domain, but to get you started, Google provides a great tool within Adword Keyword Ideas. It is very simple to use. All you do is input either word or phrases that describe your new website, the URL (web address) of a website targeting the same market, or a category, such as diet plans. I recommend leaving the default country and language setting and hitting the search button. You will receive about 100 search terms. These are what you want to use as the basis of your prime keyword domain.

There are programs you can purchase that will automatically search for available domains. I recommend Noble Samurai, which offers a free trial version. It is easy to use, and will allow you to input the entire list of search results to come up with possible prime keyword domains.

Next, you must have a user-friendly website, which will attract prospective purchasers and motivate them to click on links to the products and services you are promoting. You will also need a pace to have your website or blog hosted. I recommend you sign up with PlutoCrazy Hosting. You not only get hosting for very little each month, but there are excellent website and blog templates you can have for free. Another choice would be HostGator, for the same reason.

Selecting Products & Service To Sell…

You must find products to sell to the people visiting your blog or website. You must also be able to determine whether there is a demand for those products so people will actually buy them. There are a lot of companies offering products and services, and in an upcoming post I will list the better ones for selling online.

Advertising, Marketing & Promotion…

It will be necessary for you to become somewhat adept at advertising, promotion and marketing. In this area I recommend you research by reading articles on my other blog, PlutoCrazy. Also, join Facebook and LinkedIn groups that are related to web marketing, promotion and advertising.

If you plan on buying traffic or paying for advertising, you’ll also need to be able to tell whether the promotion you’re paying for is producing more income than it is costing you. This is called return on investment, or ROI. This I will cover in detail in another article, but I also recommend independent research. I have been marketing online since 1995, and I still do my research and I have to admit, learn something new every day.

Be Organized…

It’s necessary for anyone hoping to become an affiliate marketer to be organized. Having good mathematical skills is a plus too, but there are programs to help you track your sales, calculate conversion ratios, establish traffic patterns, click through ratios and to determine profit. There are also software programs and apps that will help you organize your affiliate marketing business. However, time management, resource management and overall organization of your operation is up to you, and maybe with some help from family and friends.

Being an affiliate marketer with the full and unwavering support of your family and friends is a huge plus, but usually not the case. It would be an asset to be able to devote all of the time and energy necessary to launch your affiliate marketing
business. But the reality will be that you will have to set aside time for family, and to maintain a social life. This is part of organizing your time effectively so that your business doesn’t suffer, but neither do you family obligations and social life.

So, it you reached this point and are still convinced that affiliate marketing is for you, continue to watch for the next of my “almost” daily articles on becoming a successful affiliate marketer.

Your Tweets As Backlinks

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Twitter IconI cover a lot of search engine optimization techniques on PlutoCrazy Blog, as well as a lot of other topics. I should be posting more here since no matter how good your blog is, if you are not getting traffic it won’t make you any money.

I’m sure you know inbound links to a website are a good thing, and generally the more of them you have the better, as long as they are of good quality. I explain backlinks in an earlier article “What Are Backlinks?“. Did you know, a good way to create backlinks while working on social networking is to tweet?

If you’re someone who uses Twitter, then you’ll know you can produce quite a few tweets in a reasonably short time. If you aren’t using Twitter, you should start or get back to it if you stopped. It’s not too well known, but Google may be indexing your tweets and if they contain a link back to your website or blog, there’s a good chance they’ll be counted as valuable backlinks, improving your off-page optimization and SEO ranking.

You can find out how many of your tweets Google has indexed by entering http://twitter.com/YourTwitterUserName into the search box. The search results should show you Google’s indexed list of all sites that mention your Twitter username.

Many sites now run a Twitter widget and Google tends to record links from these back to your website. These can build up a large numbers of indexed backlinks to your website or blog. However, do remember to use the full URL because shortened links are not accurately indexed it would seem.

What Are Backlinks?

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I recently wrote a couple of blog posts that referenced backlinks, or as they are sometimes call inbound or inward links. It did not dawn on me to explain in detail what a backlink was because I assumed everyone was familiar with the term. My apologies to those readers just starting out blogging who haven’t yet gotten a handle on all of the terminology used.

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A backlink is simply a hyperlink coming from another website, blog, news article, forum post, press release, etc. to your blog. A hyperlink, commonly just called a link, is a reference to an online document or web page that, when clicked, on takes the person to another document or web page. Links are often underlined, and usually in a contrasting colour to the text, but not always. Some links only change colour, are highlighted, or become underlined when a cursor passes over them.

When someone puts a link on their website or blog that leads people to yours, they have create a backlink for you, which is very good for you. Obviously someone clicking on the link and visit your blog or website is desirable. However, what is more desirable is if the person clicking on your link is looking for exactly what your blog or website is offering. For example, every morning I start my day reading a few jokes that I then tweet or post to my Facebook page. Notice that the word “jokes” is a link? If you click on it you’ll be taken to a website called Laughs4Free.com. By doing this, I just created two backlinks to my favourite joke site.

The more important reason backlinks are good is because they help with your search engine rankings. The more backlinks you have, the more popular, important or relevant your blog or website appears to be to the search engine bots Google, Yahoo, Bing etc. send out to crawl the web and collect about web pages.

All websites need backlinks if they want to be easy to find in a search. Which was the point of my writing Earn Backlinks With Article Submissions and Off-Page Optimization & SEO Ranking. So now you know what backlinks are all about, please do read my articles relating to inbound links, aka backlinks, aka inward links.

Off-Page Optimization & SEO Ranking

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Off-Page Optimization Defined

Off-Page Optimization refers to elements not within your website or blog, but that effect organic search engine results. Off page optimization includes your site’s link popularity and page rank, and the better off page SEO, the better your site will perform with search engine rankings.

Off-Page Optimization Tools & Techniques

  • Submit you site to search engines
  • Make directory submissions
  • Send out press releases
  • Submit articles to article directories
  • Take advantage of social networking sites
  • Take advantage of bookmarking sites
  • Submit to RSS feed directories
  • Make sitemap submissions
  • Make video submissions
  • Use keywords in anchor text
  • Obtain links from high ranking publisher sites


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Shortly I will have an eBook available detailing each of the above techniques and a list of sites to submit videos, press releases, articles, links, and site maps too. Drop you contact info in the comment section and I will give you a heads up when it is ready (comments are invisible until I approved them so your info is private). You can check back here too, because I will put a link up once it is ready.

Submit you site to search engines…

Some people may not consider search engine submissions off-page SEO. However, if yours is a new website, you have to let the search engines know you exist. Getting listed in Google and the other popular search engines is one of the most effective ways of directing free, targeted traffic to your website.

You do not have to buy software or spend money having someone submit your website URL to hundreds of search engines. All search engines will eventually find your blog or website, but as owner of a new website or blog you want them finding it sooner, rather than later.

To notify search engines of your new website’s existence, I recommend using the free search engine submission option provided by SubmitExpress.com. It submits your URL to the most popular search engines, and quite a few lesser known ones automatically, and this is all you need to get started. Be sure to follow the links to manually submit your URL is instructed to do so. Also, I need to tell you that a free submission to a search engine only assures that search engine know your website exists. It does not guarantee your website will be indexed and appear in the search results, but my experience is that 90% of the time indexing takes place. Lastly, it can take up to 12 weeks for your website to be indexed by a search engine, even with your having submitted it, so be patient.

There are only a handful of search engines that actually generate traffic, first and foremost being Google, followed by Yahoo and Bing. There are other search engines such as AOL, Alta Vista, DogPile, etc., but these all pull their results from Google, Yahoo and/or Bing.

Make directory submissions…

There’s a lot of negative advice among search engine users when it comes to the importance of submitting to directories. It’s true that people don’t use web directories often,  far less than they do search engines. However, the reason I recommend submitting to web directories is because search engines use them like a referral system. This is because the information has been scrutinized by humans.

Once you’ve submitted your website or blog to web directories, a human takes over and visits your website. Now your blog or website is reviewed and scrutinized by a human, as opposed to a search bot algorithm. Once your website has been approved by the reviewer, the search engines consider it as validated and attach more value.

Send out press releases…

Press releases are one of my favorite ways to notify people of a new website, blog, product or service, while at the same time creating a quality back link. Your press release should just highlight the facts and benefits of whatever you are announcing, and include a link to the website, blog or squeeze page. Less is better with press releases because, by their very nature, they’re scanned by readers looking for anything of interest and then following up on or dismissed. A press release is usually sent out to publications, news organizations, forums, etc.

Submit articles to article directories…

To develop valuable off-page SEO, write and article or pay to have one written and submit it to article directories. Submitting your articles to article directory submission sites is a great way to gain inbound links back to your site. You will also be positioning yourself as someone knowledgeable and, therefore, probably having a blog or website containing useful information. Each time you write an article and submit it to your blog, you can also submit it to article directory sites. I do, and strongly recommend anyone does.

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Writing unique articles to submit to article directories is best, but not necessary to submit to article submission sites. I do write my own articles, but you can purchase articles or contract someone to ghostwrite articles.

Submit your article to article directory sites that are classified as ‘Dofollow’ sites whenever possible. Doing so will earn you points towards improving your Google Page rank.

Take advantage of social networking sites…

Social networking sites hold great value for search engine optimization because they’re accepted by Google’s most recent search algorithm, “Panda” for social approval.

Like most people with an online presence, you probably have accounts with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. These are social networking sites, also known as social media site, and are a great way to connect with other like-minded business owners to share ideas, services and product launches. They are also excellent tools for generating off-page optimization because of their acceptance as sites of value by search engines.

Take advantage of bookmarking sites…

Bookmarking sites are slightly different than social networking sites, but no less effective at off-page optimization. Bookmarking sites focus on sharing links with others who have similar interests. The concept of a bookmarking site is that a blogs, websites or articles you find interesting, those sharing your interests will find useful or interesting too.

Being as you are reading this article, I feel safe in assuming you have one or more bookmarking site accounts, such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious, Technorati, etc. To take advantage of these valuable resources use them, and while doing so add links to your own website, blog or articles. Again, this is something I try to do every day so obviously recommend to anyone.

Submit to RSS feed directories

An RSS feed directory is a location to where people can seek out content that they can use for their website or blog, or that they can subscribe to for their personal use. To help people find your blog, you can submit your RSS feed to a directories that will syndicate your blog content and give you more exposure.

Your RSS feed is usually your full URL with the word “feed” or “?feed=rss” directly after the address. Example, mine is http://make-money-with-blogs.com/?feed=rss. When you submit your feed to RSS directory sites, you’ll usually be required to submit the URL of your RSS feed, and select a category that best describes your blog.

Make sitemap submissions…

In 2005, Google introduced the XML sitemap format. In 2006 it was adopted by the Yahoo, Bing, then called MSN at the time, and Ask search-engines. This gave publishers a standard format to follow for creating one sitemap that the top search engines could use.

Many websites, and especially blogs can be very large, containing a few pages, but many posts. So a sitemap is needed to ensure that your blog or website has ”full crawl” capability when visited by the search engine bots.

Creating sitemaps by hand is a tedious task. Fortunately, there is a WordPress plug-in called Google (XML) Sitemaps that will do this automatically for you each time you publish new content.

Make video submissions…

Creating a video nowadays is almost a must for SEO. Video is fast becoming first page domination on the search engines, if done correctly that is. Considering that the search engine cannot read the video, on page optimization is crucial when explaining what the video is all about, and how it should be judged by the search engines.

When creating your video don’t worry about creating a Hollywood masterpiece. It is best to just be yourself, and studies have shown that people relate to videos of others better when people are just being natural. Create your video, then distribute to various video sites like YouTube.

link building

Use keywords in anchor text…

Whenever you are leaving comments on blogs and forums, or leaving your author bio on article directory submissions sites, or even an inbound link back to your site from another person’s blog or site, use keyword rich, linkable texy that describes your blog, website or article. This is known as anchor text.

Obtain links from high ranking publisher sites…

When it comes to off page optimization, building inbound links is a way to put your blog or website in the running as an authority site. This is a crucial off page SEO factor that cannot be overlooked for search engine results page placement..

Summary

Off page SEO is a crucial element and should figure prominently within your overall search engine optimization strategy. Experts state that off page optimization is responsible for approximately 60% of the ranking factors that the search engines look for with your site.

Use Internal Links To Enhance SEO

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Hyperlinks are the way we navigate the web to find what we seek. Hyperlinks are internal links that link your own web pages and files together, and external links which link your pages to other web sites. In this post I want to explain the importance of internal links…

Internal linking is an important, and often overlooked aspect of Search Engine Optimization. Internal linking is accomplished by making a word within the textual content into a hyper link, linking it to relevant information available on the website or blog. Internal links are also site maps, link tables and navigation bars.

Using internal links allows a visitor to use the link to gain access to related information on your blog or website. However, it also assures that when the page is spidered by a search engine bot the link is found and the linked to page is crawled as well.


To improve the internal linking:

1. Maintain a site map
2. Use effective FAQs
3. Provide links to related posts only
4. Do not make links to non related web pages
5. Make a slide bar to highlight some of the more popular posts or pages
6. Write a series of articles or posts, linking each to the pevious and next segment
7. Make a monthly summary on your web site
8. Include links on 404 error pages that direct visitors back to the website or blog
9. Use links in footers
10. Use textual links within the content

Apply these few techniques, and you’ll have created quality internal links for your website or blog that will generate search engine optimization. The best example I can think of as a website that gets internal linking right is Wikipedia. Have a look and see what I mean, then look at your blog or website and see where you are able to add internal links to text or create tables of related links.

Placing Banner Ads

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Placing banner ads can be a highly effective way to market your business on the Internet. Banner ads are essentially advertisements which appear on a website, usually in the form of a combination of graphics and text, to encourage Internet users to click through these advertisements to your website. The most common form of banner ads is an advertisement which appears on the top of a website and spans the width of the webpage. These advertisements derived their name from the similarity to a banner but technically banner ads can come in a variety of shapes and sizes. This article will take a look at the effectiveness of banner as well as methods for placing these banner ads.


Banner ads can be highly effective if used properly. However, placing your banner ad all over the Internet with very little consideration to whether or not the location is likely to be beneficial to your business is not a good idea and can be a tremendous waste of money as well as other resources such as time and effort. Therefore business owners who are considering using banner ads to promote their business should spend some time to learn how to use banner ads effectively and to find ideal location for placing their banner ads.

The most ideal location for a banner ad is prominently displayed on a website which receives a great deal of website traffic and also complements your products and services well without providing direct competition for your products or services. As an example consider a business owner who specializes in selling athletic shoes specifically for runners. Buying banner ad space on a website which offers advice on training for running events and provides information on upcoming races would be an excellent idea. This website attracts visitors who have an interest in running and are likely to purchase athletic shoes but does not sell running shoes directly. This means the website attracts members of your target audience but does not compete for your business.

In addition to purchasing banner ad space, some business owners opt to join banner ad exchange groups. This is an alternative in which the business owner does not pay for their banner ad to be placed on another website but in exchange they agree to post one or more advertisements on their own website. This is a very affordable option for placing banner ads but it is not always the best strategy. This is because the business owner often has little input into where their banner ad appears and has limited input into the banner ads which appear on his website in return. In most cases, business owners have the ability to decline to host advertisements which they deem to be offensive but cannot specifically choose the banner ads they must post.

Finally, when posting banner ads, business owners should be aware of the effectiveness of the ads they place. They may choose to post different designs for their banner ad on different websites but they should monitor the results of their advertising to determine if one style is more effective than another. This information can be very important. If one style is enjoying a great deal of success while the other style is not, the business owner may wish to use the more successful style for all of their banner ads or to redesign the less successful style to make it more appealing to Internet users.

Blogging for Profit

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Blogging is becoming an increasingly popular way for entrepreneurs to earn a living online while doing something they really enjoy. In many cases bloggers can profit with very little effort. There may be quite a bit of work involved in the beginning with designing a method of gaining revenue and promoting the website but once this is established simply maintaining the blog with regular postings may be enough to keep the revenue rolling in. Two of the most popular methods for generating a profit from blogging include advertising methods. This includes advertising with AdSense and securing independent advertisers. This article will discuss these two methods of advertising on a blog.

Using AdSense to Generate Revenue

Using AdSense is one of the most popular ways for bloggers to generate revenue from their blog. This method is so popular because it is also very simple. AdSense is a program offered by Google where bloggers agree to have advertisements on their website and are compensated when users click on these advertisements. Bloggers simply have to create a blog and submit the website address of the blog as well as some other information to apply for participation in AdSense. Once a blog is approved the owner is given code they can simply copy and paste to have advertisements displayed on their blog. Google then serves appropriate advertisements each time the blog is accessed. Whenever possible, the advertisements served on the blog are closely related to the content of the blog because Google crawls the website ahead of time to determine which advertisements are relevant to the content. Blog owners do have some ability to place restrictions on the types of advertisements which may appear on the blog. For example the blog owner can specify adult advertisements are not to appear on the blog and Google will filter these out.

How Advertisements on a Blog Generate Revenue

Many bloggers use advertisements on their blogs to generate a profit. This method of advertising is more difficult than using AdSense but it can be significantly more financially beneficial to the blogger. This method of advertising is similar to the type of targeted advertising often seen in magazines. For example magazines for parents often feature advertisements which will appeal to parents such as advertisements for toys, children’s clothing or foods popular with children. Likewise a magazine for runners may feature advertisements for shoes, athletic clothing, races or training equipment. In these cases the advertisers pay for advertising space in the magazine in the hopes that the magazine’s audience will be enticed to purchase products or services after seeing these advertisements.

Blog owners can use this type of advertising but it can be hard to find willing advertisers. However, there are some factors which may make an advertiser more willing to have an advertisement appear on a blog. One of the most important factors for advertisers is the amount of traffic the blog receives. This is important because advertisers who are paying for ad space are more likely to invest in a blog with high traffic than one with very little traffic.

Another important factor for advertisers is the focus of the blog. Advertisers are more likely to purchase advertising space from a blog with a specific focus of interest to the advertiser’s target audience. Like the examples listed previously of magazines for parents and runners, advertisers want to advertise on a blog which is already reaching the same target audience.

Bloggers who utilize advertising on their website may be compensated in a number of different ways. Some advertisers may pay a set fee for the advertisement to run on the website for either a set amount of time or for a set number of page views. This means the advertiser may purchase space for a set number of days, weeks or months or may purchase space for a set number of times the advertisement is served to website visitors.

Alternately, the advertiser may choose to compensate the blogger according to the number of times specific actions occur. This may include users clicking through the advertisement or users making a purchase after clicking through the advertisement. The type of compensation offered will have to be worked out between the blogger and advertiser beforehand to determine a fair method of payment.

Blog Marketing & Scams

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Blog marketing is something that has really peaked an interest in the online world. Many people across the interent are have blogs and are blogging consistently. A blog is also known as a web log. But you will hear the term blog more often than the term web log. A blog is basically an online journal to write about things that are of personal interest to the blogger or business related, such as promoting products or services. The way you use your blog is totally up to you. However, you should be aware of the scams that are out there, and what to avoid while you are trying to market your blog.


Blog marketing, like any kind of marketing, has it’s share of scams. There is always someone wanting to scam somebody else and take their money because they do not know better. So what can you do to protect yourself? The best way to protect yourself from blog marketing scams is to become familiar with them, and know what they are. While this can also be hard to do because the scams change as much as you change your clothes, just stay on top of them, and know what to be looking out for.

Many times, when a blog marketing scam surfaces, you’ll find someone will write about it. They are going to try and warn others before they can fall for the scam. Do your research when you are marketing your blog. Ask others if they have heard about something that you are interested in doing. Chances are, if you’re wanting to pay for marketing of your blog, you’ll find someone else that has used the company you are considering. Get feedback from your fellow marketers for the best results. Ask them if they have recommendations, or know of places that are legitimate.

If you have been scammed, chances are there’s not much that you can do other than get the word out about it. However, if you have paid someone through a service like paypal or directly using your credit card, you have a limited amount of time to get your money back by filing a complaint. Most of the time however, the scammers are all aware of consumer recourse and they work fast to move money they have cheated people out of. If this happens, you really can’t do much else than alert the proper authorities and count your losses.

While there are many that will scam you with blog marketing, there are also many people who will honestly help you market your blog or teach you how to do so. There are many legitimate resources that you’ll find with a little research that you can use and trust. The best thing to do if you’re new to the blog marketing world is to ask around and find out who is the best source of information and training for the marketing that you are trying to do. Doing so will often keep you from falling for a scam and throwing your hard earned money away.

Unfortunately, you are going to come across those that have no regrets what so ever about scamming others. The only thing that you can do is your research at times to make sure that you are using a service or person that you can trust. Ask for references, and make sure that you will be getting the best that you can afford. You will not regret it in the long run, and it will pay off to check someone or a service out before you go and invest your hard earned cash. Actually contact the services or person’s references to make sure that they are who they say, and that they can deliver what it is that you are looking for. It only takes time.