 |  |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Affiliate Masters... an intensive 5-day e-mail
course on becoming a high-earning affiliate champion.
How?By building income through content.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If you have a friend who would benefit from taking this
course, please pass this on.Or tell that person to
receive the 5-day course by sending a blank e-mail to...
tamsalliesunme@sitesell.net
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I guarantee that you'll refer to this course over and over
again as you build (or rebuild) your affiliate business.
Print each e-mail out, pour yourself a beverage of choice,
bring along a pen to jot down some ideas, and take it all to
your favorite sofa.Learning a serious subject is so much
more successful when you're comfortable.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When you print out this e-mail, keep it in a 3-ring binder.
Here's a super little printing utility that will allow you
to print 2 or 4 pages to a single 8.5" x 11" piece of paper.
It saves you paper, space, and money...
http://www.fineprint.com/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
<<TODAY>>
Affiliate Masters 505
"Build it and they will come."
Field of Dreams (1989)
by Ken Evoy, M.D.
President, SiteSell.com
-----
Talk about a "field of dreams!" If you just simply build it,
your site might as well be a corn field in Iowa, visited
only by ghosts!
Yes, it's true.This course *HAS* shown you how to develop
a strong Theme-Based Content site, completely loaded with
HIGH-PROFITABILITY Keyword-Focused Content Pages.These
pages OVERdeliver to your human readers, and at the same
time, satisfy the Search Engines.
So you're way ahead of 99% of e-business people on the Net.
You have created a diamond, shining with terrific content.
Does that guarantee you success?
Sorry to say... nope!Why not?
Because it's just sitting there, buried in the middle of
that huge corn field... that field of dreams.
What's missing in your quest to build income through
content... to turn that field of dreams into reality?
Traffic.Visitors who read your content, click on your
links, and then DO something (buy, complete a form, etc.).
Read on.
-----
In the fourth installment, we focused more on content.In
today's installment (our final session together), we focus
on building traffic to your content.
Here's the secret to building traffic.It's really THE
secret of traffic-building experts...
Do something. See how it works.
Do something else. See how that works. And then...
Yup... try something else. And see how that works.
That means you need TRAFFIC-BUILDING TOOLS to keep "doing
things" to build traffic. And then you need the TRAFFIC-
TRACKING TOOLS to tell you what's working.
A feedback loop from BUILDING to TRACKING is critical.One
of the keys to success, any kind of success, is feedback.
Good results tell you what's going right and give you
something to build upon. Poor outcomes show you what needs
to be fixed.
Without TRACKING (i.e., feedback), you're shooting in the
dark. Without the ability to take TRAFFIC-BUILDING ACTION
and increase or change what you're doing (depending on the
TRAFFIC-TRACKING FEEDBACK), you're not even shooting!
-----
Two more important principles to add... the best
traffic-building techniques are high-yielding AND sustained.
In other words, you must get a BIG traffic-return for your
time-and/or-money, and it must deliver traffic in an ongoing
fashion, not just be a one-shot deal.
Let's give you an example.When you "get it right" at the
Search Engines, they'll deliver you traffic for months, even
years, without you ever having to tweak your pages again...
*IF* you've done EVERYTHING correctly.
-----SIDEBAR-----
Don't worry -- that's not such a big *IF*.After all -- if
you have followed this course properly, you *HAVE* indeed
done everything right.:-)
-----SIDEBAR-----
Compare that with making a post in an e-mail mailing list,
even a high-profile one.It takes some time to prepare a
good post, with great content... great enough to WOW people
into visiting your site.Consider what happens within two
days of that post -- your traffic falls back to where it was.
So... what are the best "sustained-high-yielding" traffic-
building opportunities on the Net?...
#1) The Free Major Search Engines
#2) Pay-Per-Click Search Engines
#3) The Major Directories
#4) Word of Mouth
#5) Your Own Opt-in E-zine
Yes, of course, there are other ways to build traffic...
o buying ads in, and writing articles for, e-zines
o making posts in forums, discussion groups, mailing lists,
newsgroups (depending on your niche and other circumstances,
these can be fairly effective... or totally useless)
o link exchanging
o and, not to be missed, your sig file!:-)
These lesser techniques, however, don't deliver BOTH big AND
sustained results.Sure, using a sig file is something you
should do. And it's sustained. At best, though, you send 40
or so e-mails per day, mostly to people who know you. Not
much super traffic-building potential there.
Buying ads or writing articles in e-zines will bring you a
1-2 day pulse of traffic (that is, if you choose well and
write an effective ad or article).But then traffic falls
right back down.
Same reality goes with posts in forums, etc.Some Web-based
forums remain on the Net and could be spidered, thereby
counting that page as a link to your site.But we're
talking "thin" here.So...
Your best "large and sustained" traffic returns will come
from the BIG 5 above.Since your time is limited, don't try
to "do it all."Begin directly with the BIG 5.
-----SIDEBAR-----
I am not saying that you should not use the lesser
traffic-building techniques.Depending on your situation,
some will work very well for you.But...
Start FIRST with the BIG 5.As you do, three things will
happen...
oyou'll establish a strong, sustained traffic base
oyou'll start to feel comfortable with what you're doing,
and will view the whole concept of building traffic as a
very DO-ABLE project
oyou'll come across "perfect fits" for the above, lesser
traffic-building techniques (ex., a perfect vehicle for a
link exchange, or an excellent e-zine that reaches your
target market, etc.)
It is at this point that you can then start using the
secondary techniques effectively.
-----SIDEBAR-----
OK. Back to the BIG 5. Let's open the discussion with a look
at BIG TECHNIQUES #4 and #5...
---------------------------------
BIG TECHNIQUE #4 Word of Mouth
How do you get word-of-mouth?First piece of advice, don't
bother with those "recommend-a-friend" scripts.Less than
one visitor in a thousand fills them in. There's a far
simpler way to get "word of mouth"... deliver great content.
That's it.
Want an example? Let's say that you have a wonderful
theme-based site about succulent plants (i.e., cactus,
euphorbia, etc.). You have a terrific page about all the
tricks you have developed for propagating them...
Other aficionados find that page at the engines.Do you
think they won't tell friends, or forums, or cactus
associations, about this terrific info?
Sure they will.:-)
Just one more HUGE benefit of OVERdelivering!
--------------------------------------------------------
BIG TECHNIQUE #5 Your Own Opt-in E-zine
Publish your own e-zine... yes, it's extremely important.
But not right now.There's only so much that you can do in
a day, so you have to do things in their proper order.
Remember, at this stage, your site is up, but there's no
traffic yet.So no one is there to sign up for your e-zine.
Here's the correct "TO DO" order after you build your site.
First, get your site up and running.Then work on the first
three of the BIG 5 traffic-building techniques.It will
take a while for traffic to start building.But once you
have some decent numbers, it only takes a day to get an
e-zine up and running.
Not surprisingly, you can go the FREE route, or you can pay
for list hosting (services that take care of all the
technology of e-zine publishing).
As usual, I recommend that you pay for it.Because
nothing's really free. Companies like Topica.com and
eGroups.com do a great, and free, job...
http://www.topica.com/
http://www.egroups.com/
But they only insert a little ad for you in every mailing.
Do you know what people think when they see that?
Small fry.
Your image is worth more than the few dollars per month that
a quality listhost will charge you.You'll never see e-zine
publishers like Ralph Wilson using anything but a top-notch
service like SparkList...
http://www.sparklist.com/
Either way, paid or free... From the time you decide to do
an e-zine, you can be taking subscriptions in less than a
day. So there's no rush to publish your e-zine.Put up your
subscription form during the lag period, when you see the
first fruit of your traffic-building efforts.
-----
Which brings us back to the first 3 of the BIG 5 TRAFFIC-
BUILDING TECHNIQUES.We'll cover these all-important
strategies during DAYS 8 AND 9...
#1) The Free Major Search Engines
#2) Pay-Per-Click Search Engines
#3) The Major Directories
--
But first, there is DAY 7 to complete.Do a quick recall
of the first six DAYS of the course...
DAY 1 -- Intro to Affiliate Business Basics
(PRE-selling and Conversion Rates)
DAY 2 -- Brainstorm Your Site Concept
DAY 3 -- Develop HIGH-PROFITABILITY Topics
DAY 4 -- Grow, Prune and Group Best Affiliate Programs
DAY 5 -- Refine Final Concept and Register Domain Name
DAY 6 -- Build a Site that Gets the CLICK!
Got your bearings? Perfect! Now it's time to build traffic
to that site.We'll cover the last 4 DAYS of the Affiliate
Masters Course in this final installment of the course...
DAY 7 -- Submit, Spider-Watch, List & Rank
DAY 8 -- Build Free Search Engine Traffic
DAY 9 -- Build Other Traffic
DAY 10 -- Know Your Visitors
Let's get to it...
------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------
DAY 7 -- Submit, Spider-Watch, List & Rank
Waiting and watching...
...............<<YAWN>>
------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------
Goal-of-the-DAY... Submit your site to the
major (free) Search Engines (listed below).
Get familiar with tracking...
1) spiders, 2) listing, and 3) ranking.
Ongoing Goal... Track the spiders and re-
submit as necessary.Track to see when
you get listed, and then track how your
pages rank.Do this on a weekly basis.
With these goals in mind...
------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------
Submit, Spider-Watch, List & Rank...
Geez, sounds like a recipe of some kind, doesn't it?
Actually, it is...
First, submit your site to the engines.Then wait.
Second, keep an eye on the spiders.Wait some more.
Third, you get "indexed" (listed).Yup, a bit more thumb
twiddling...
Fourth, you get ranked.Yay!People can find you.Now to
improve your rankings (in DAY 8).
Let's start at the beginning...
--
STEP 1) Submit Your URLs...
Submitting your site to the engines is a tedious affair,
because each engine likes to receive submissions in
different ways...
o they each have their own submission pages.
o some only want to receive your home page.Some let you
submit every page of your site.
osome allow you to submit many pages in a day... others
only one.
And, to make it all nastier... they change policies from
time to time!
Still, it's a necessary task.Yes, there *are* submission
services and software.But, unless I *REALLY* know someone,
I trust important stuff like this only to myself.I'd
suggest the same for you.
Luckily, a mere seven major free Search Engines account,
either directly (through their own search services) or
indirectly (through partner sites), for about 95% of your
traffic.Let's stay on the right side of the 80-20 Rule
(actually 95-5 here!) and only submit to them.
Go to the submit URLs of the following engines and research
their current submission policies.Then start submitting...
AltaVista
http://altavista.com/av/content/addurl.htm
Excite
http://www.excite.com/info/add_url
Google
http://www.google.com/addurl.html
HotBot
http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace/?r=alliesunme&c=marketing&s=1&i=10&t=ClickBank_Marketplace
Go (formerly InfoSeek)
http://www.go.com/AddUrl?pg=SubmitUrl.html
Lycos
http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace/?r=alliesunme&c=marketing&s=1&i=10&t=ClickBank_Marketplace
Northern Light
http://www.northernlight.com/docs/
There is no need to submit to any other engines, not even...
AOL Search -- you are listed automatically in AOL's Search
Engine when you bid on keywords at GoTo.com (which uses
Inktomi for its "backup" search results, so you're covered
when you submit to Inktomi via HotBot).
MSN Search -- you are listed automatically in MSN's Search
Engine when you submit to Inktomi.
Netscape Search -- you are listed automatically in
Netscape's Search Engine when you bid on keywords at
GoTo.com (which uses Inktomi for its "backup" search
results, so you're covered when you submit to Inktomi via
HotBot).Also, Netscape use Google as a secondary search
engine. So you're covered there, too.
WebCrawler -- you are listed automatically in WebCrawler's
Search Engine when you submit to Excite.
--
While I am personally more comfortable with manual
submissions, many people speak well of DumpTRUCK!.This is
shareware (US$15) that batch submits URLs for you...
http://www.google.com
You can set it up to submit to the above engines.You can
also check to make sure that the submissions were made.
The big problem with all submission software?They don't
tell you the policies of each engine (i.e., how many pages
are OK to submit, how often, etc.).And, of course, they
don't tell you whether you've been spidered, etc.So it's
easy to happily batch submit your URLs until you run afoul
of the engines by violating their policies.
--
Is that a hand up over there?
"What would happen if I didn't submit?"
Good question!...
Well, the engines' spiders would get around to visiting your
site sooner or... well, after you-know-what freezes over!
--
STEP 2) Track Engines' Spiders...
Even after you *DO* submit, some of the engines take weeks,
even months, to send their spiders over to your site to
"bring back the goodies."
So the pros don't wait around.They submit.Then they
check their site's log files, looking to see which of the
major engine's spiders have visited, and which pages they
"took back to their mother ships."
If they don't see an engine's spider within a certain amount
of time after submitting (varies for each engine), they'll
resubmit, according to each engine's acceptable limits.
Yes, tracking spiders is rather complicated, and far more
tedious than submitting.Here are several resources to get
you started...
http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters/spiderchart.html
http://fantomaster.com/fasvsspy01.html
http://www.spiderhunter.com/
http://www.searchengineworld.com/spiders/spider_ips.htm
--
STEP 3) Track Your Listings...
OK, you've been spidered!That means you're in, right?
Uhhhh... no.Not really.It just means that THAT engine
knows about you.
Now you have to watch for when each engine lists each of
your pages (that have been spidered).The pros call this
"being indexed."They track each engine to see when their
pages get indexed (i.e., the pages are officially in the
database, but not yet ranked).
For example, at AltaVista, enter "url:YOURDOMAIN.com" into
the search box.It will show you every page from that
domain that it has indexed.Yes, there is a way to check
this at each engine.Unfortunately...
Every engine has a different protocol. For more info on how
to track which pages have been indexed at each engine...
http://searchenginewatch.com/webmasters
--
STEP 4) Track Your Rankings...
Great!You're indexed.That means people are finding you,
right?Geez, I hate to be a party-pooper, but... no.
Once you're indexed, there's a lag before your pages
actually show up in search results.And even then, some of
your pages will score better than others.
So NOW what do the professionals do?They track their
ranking for all their keywords, at each engine.
There are several ways to track how your pages rank.Here's
a nice resource, organized to help you do it manually...
http://www.mike-levin.com/
Even so, tracking your rankings manually takes time... too
much time.To make things worse, as you'll see in DAY 8,
you have to do it over and over again (each time you make a
change to a Web page --> re-submit, spider, index, rank, for
each page, for each engine).
Luckily there are services or software that will do it for
you. But I have not been able to find a service that is both
complete (i.e., ranks all the major engines) and that is
reliable (several seem to be come-ons for expensive
services).Here's the best of a not-so-good bunch (I've
left out several abysmal services)...
1) Position Agent -- At $20 per month, it's pricey...
http://www.positionagent.com/
Take the free trial at the bottom of the page.You'll see
that not all the engines are covered.And, if you check,
the results are not correct for all the engines (at least
not at the time I tested it).
2) Top-10 -- don't be put off by the long form that you must
fill out to get the free report. It's a good report, mostly
accurate (only missed one engine by a few spots), and is
almost complete (only missing Google)...
http://database.top-10.com/cgi-bin/nph-client.pl
Top-10 has my "best of breed" award in this category.
3) AgentWebRanking Suite -- as opposed to the above two,
this is client-side software (i.e., it runs on *YOUR*
computer instead of on the Internet).It's free.And many
people speak well of it.Download and try it for yourself...
http://www.aadsoft.com/agentwebranking/ranks.htm
4) WebPositionGold -- probably the Cadillac for ranking.
Also client-side software.But it's expensive, and very
complicated to use.This kind of tool is best in the hands
of consultants who want to build traffic for businesses.
http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace/?r=alliesunme&s=1&i=10&t=ClickBank_Marketplace
-----
Yes, it's a quagmire.Tracking how all your pages rank is
definitely tedious stuff.
So WHY do all the pros do it?Because it's so important to
know where you stand.Every situation is different.You
have to get the lay of the land (YOUR land) and see where
you stand in it.For example...
You might be writing about succulent plants -- there is a
entire world of related Web sites, directory listings, links
flying around all over the place... and this set of
circumstances is different than the one for "fashion."
Suppose you wrote two near-identical pages.The only
difference is that you replaced the word "fashion" with
"cactus" (you should NEVER create such "search-and-replace"
pages, of course -- this is an example to make a point).
Your fashion page ranks Page 1, #1 for every Search Engine.
Does that mean that your cactus page will also be Page 1, #1?
Nope.Because the "Web world" for fashion is totally
different than that for cactus.The point of tracking how
you rank is to get the lay of YOUR land.
Once you see how your pages fit in your particular "Web
world" (and it likely won't be great at first), you start
tweaking. We're getting a bit ahead of ourselves, but...
As we'll see in the next DAY of this course, the key to
building traffic through the free, major Search Engines, is
to try different things until you "get the feel" for what
ranks highly for your particular theme.
That's why I recommended in Masters 404 to experiment with
different lengths of text, different numbers of Specific
Keywords, as well as General Keywords and common synonyms in
titles, headlines, etc., etc. If you have many differently
constructed pages, you'll notice which pages rank high and
which don't.And that gives you the basis to improve the
ones that don't.
Yes, it takes some time and effort.That's why the major
Search Engines are not really "free." They do cost you
something... Time, after all, *IS* money.
The payoff, however, is terrific... substantial, nearly free
(once you work out what succeeds for you), sustained, and
targeted traffic.
-----SIDEBAR-----
When you're dealing with 50 or 100 pages, tracking all this
really takes time.And imagine when you have four sites up
and running!
Site Build It! however, does all of this automatically.
Yes... submitting, spider-spotting, index-checking, *AND*
rank-tracking.All of it.
Whenever you build or modify a page, Site Build It!
automatically submits it to all the major engines, according
to the way, and the frequency, that they want it, and
exactly the way a human would submit it by hand.
The Status and Ranking Report tells you when each page was
submitted, and soon it will report on...
owhen it was spidered (i.e., when each engine's "scooping
robot" came to your site and brought each page "back to its
database home")
owhen it was indexed (officially available in each
engine's database), and even...
owhere your page ranks, at each major engine, for the
Specific Keyword that the page focuses upon!
What does this mean for you?...
oDon't lose sleep about submitting, or whether you should
re-submit.Site Build It! submits by "e-hand" for you.
oDon't worry about whether the Search Engines "got the
message." Site Build It! can tell when the engines send
their little "robots" to spider through your newly built
pages, and will soon report to you on this. (NOTE: If the
spider does not come, Site Build It! re-submits until those
lazy little critters do come... all according to each
engine's acceptable limits.)
oDon't check constantly at the engines to see when your
pages become available in their listings. Site Build It!
does that for you... and will soon be able to tell you in
this report.
oDon't MANUALLY track how your page ranks for your
keywords. Site Build It! will soon report on this.
If time is money, Site Build It! is time... time saved!
http://buildit.sitesell.com
-----SIDEBAR-----
So here's what you've done so far.In DAY 6, you built a
Theme-Based Content Site, full of Keyword-Focused Content
Pages.As we've discussed, you've OVERdelivered on content
for your HUMAN visitors. And, for the engines, you have also
varied your "formulas" to see what works.
Now, before you proceed to DAY 8, please complete your DAY 7
Goal-of-the-DAY, and take note of your Ongoing Goal...
------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------
Goal-of-the-DAY... Submit your site to the
major (free) Search Engines (listed above).
Get familiar with tracking...
1) spiders, 2) listing, and 3) ranking.
Ongoing Goal... Track the spiders and re-
submit as necessary.Track to see when
you get listed, and then track how your
pages rank.Do this on a weekly basis.
------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------
Earlier today, we talked about how important it is to have a
feedback loop from BUILDING to TRACKING. Now that you have
feedback from tracking, it's time to take TRAFFIC-BUILDING
ACTION, which brings us to...
BIG TECHNIQUE #1 The Free Major Search Engines
This is still the best way to build traffic on the Net... if
you know what you're doing.And you soon WILL!...
------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------
DAY 8 -- Build Free Search Engine Traffic
It's the TWEAKY wheel
that gets the traffic!
------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------
Goal-of-the-DAY... No tweaking to do, since
your pages aren't ranking yet. So start
working on link popularity. When your site
has reached 10 pages, link with Open
Directory (only free directory of the
majors) and with ONE minor directory that is
a "theme hub" related to your Site Concept.
Remember, links go BOTH ways (IN and OUT).
Ongoing Goal... Add other links (both ways)
with major directories and theme-related
ones. Trade links with other sites as you
discover them.
As your pages start to rank at the engines...
Tweak, Link, Re-submit, Track. Then do it
again.When a page hits the Top 10, STOP.
Return to DAY 6, create more HIGH-VALUE
content and then...
Yup... Tweak, Link, Re-submit, Track.
With these goals in mind...
------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------
Web site traffic is NOT like the weather! You can do much
more than just watch and talk about it.
Now that you know how your pages rank for your keywords, and
since you've experimented (in DAY 6) with a variety of
"formulas" while sticking to basic "Search-Engine-sexy"
principles, you can start to tweak your pages.
Add an extra keyword to the title.Or increase the amount
of content.Or decrease it.The key is to note which pages
are doing well and start to reproduce those successes.
So tweak, re-submit, and track.Then repeat.Sooner or
later, you'll start to rank well for more and more pages.
Soon after that, you'll start ranking well for MANY of your
pages at MANY of the engines.
Bottom line... Try to get HALF of your pages in the Top 10
in at least HALF of the engines.At that point... STOP
TWEAKING!Don't try to get into the Top 10 for ALL pages in
ALL engines.You'll only drive yourself crazy, wasting
time.And if you have a spot in the Top 10 for ANY page,
NEVER try to make that page better... you'll go backwards
more often than not.
--
"Why be happy with HALF and HALF?"
Hey, who asked that?Great question!
I don't mean to imply that you should be DELIGHTED.If some
pages are simply off the ranking radar (especially if they
don't score well in any engines at all!), review them to
make sure that you are not making any gross errors (see DAY
6's information about how to write a high-ranking page).If
you've done a good job, and if you've tried a couple of
times to improve it without results, you're better off
creating more NEW content.
--
"Why?"
Another super question!...
Here's what happens when you write 100 good, solid
"one-size-fits-all-engines" pages.The engines shuffle
their ranking formulas every now and then.So 20 pages may
drop down in Excite, for example.But 15 others move up!
And two weeks later, pages that were #100 in AltaVista
suddenly start scoring on Page 1!
--
"Why does this happen?"
Whoever is asking these questions, move to the front!:-)
When engines tweak their ranking algorithms, they can't just
suddenly say, "OK, the Title does not matter any more." The
big picture has to remain the same.It's the details that
they change.So...
Don't sweat it -- it all evens out.From here on in, your
time is best spent creating new pages, rather than tweaking.
You can write a good new page far faster than the repeated
tweaking cycles each page requires.
--
"Why one-size-fits-all?Why not create a different version
of the same page for each engine?"
OK, now I know we have a "ringer" in the audience.;-)
Yes, some people DO go so far as to create a different
version page for every engine.Don't bother.First, it's
not a productive way to spend your time -- much better to
write brand new pages. And second, if you do this, you are
no longer writing for BOTH humans AND engines. You are just
playing a game.And these kinds of tricks simply do not
last for long.This can actually backfire, big-time.
You've heard of K-I-S-S, right?(Keep It Simple, Stupid)
Well.... K-I-S-SE!(Keep It Simple, Search Engines).
-----SIDEBAR-----
Some people develop an excellent "feel" for tweaking.But
if you have STATS to back you up, it's that much better.
Site Build It!'s Search Engine HQ will soon offer a Ranking
Report and a Keyword Usage Report.You'll see how every
page ranks at every major engine for all of your keywords.
And your "formula" will be boiled down into stats like total
words on the page, number of times (and %) of keywords in
your title, headlines, body copy, links, etc.
Perhaps a certain page is not ranking as well as others with
the major Search Engines? Soon, you'll be able to see why
(through the Keyword Usage Report).It becomes a simple
matter to make adjustments to improve your rankings.
Talk about saving time!
http://buildit.sitesell.com
-----SIDEBAR-----
One TRAFFIC-BUILDING ACTION you should consider at this
stage is building your popularity.No, not YOU!Your site!
Let's get back to thinking like an engine.Pretend you're a
Search Engine... what's another way for you to tell whether
a site is relevant for a concept?
Let's say that you have a site that is all about porcupines.
And further, that you have an excellent page in that site
about the mating habits of porcupines (a prickly issue, I
agree!Sorry.)
Let's use that site to see how link popularity works...
How about if you, the engine, could see that lots of sites,
all kinds of sites, link to you?Yes, that's a plus.
What about if many of those sites were from zoos?Better.
What if those sites were about porcupines?Even better!
What if the single most important site in the whole world
about porcupines linked to that site?Wow, that's the best.
What if 100 of the best porcupine sites ALL linked to it?
Whoops!No dispute -- *THAT'S* the best.
And your page about porcupine sex would SCORE (geez, sorry
about that!) especially well if many of those links came
INto this page from other pages about the, uh, reproductive
habits of porcupines, and had "porcupine mating habits" in
the incoming links!
Bottom line?The more sites that link to a site, and the
more important they are, and the closer they are to the
theme of that site, even to the topic of individual pages,
the more "popularity points" for that site (and page).
Popularity, an "off-page" criterion the engines are using
more and more, is still not a dominant weighting factor
presently.
Why?Because most sites don't have many links to them at
all.If all sites had hundreds of incoming links, link
popularity would be a far stronger tool.
Scoring high for link popularity is relatively more useful
if you are trying to win for tough words like "e-commerce."
Why?...
Well, it's kind of like the golf pros on the PGA Tour.They
are all so good, that the difference is razor-blade thin.
Zillions of sites are trying to rank #1 for e-commerce (a
mistake, by the way... the concept is too untargeted --
luckily *YOU* know to work the niches, right?).
All those experts are working so hard for a #1 ranking. And
even for such an in-demand keyword, link popularity is not
the "be all and end all."Try this...
Go to AltaVista and do a search for "e-commerce."As I do
this now, I see that "internet.com" is at #1.Now...
Type this into AltaVista's search box, EXACTLY like this...
link:internet.com - host:internet.com
What does that mean?The search request is asking AltaVista
for all the links that point to internet.com
("link:internet.com") minus those that link to itself
("-host:internet.com"). You can also try it with just...
link:internet.com
Either way, check the link popularity for each of the Top 10
for "e-commerce."
You'll find that most of them have thousands of incoming
links (internet.com had over 200,000!). But when I did this
little experiment, there was one site in the Top 10 that
only had a SINGLE link in... yes, just one!So clearly link
popularity is not heavily weighted or it would have driven
that site out of the Top 10.
Now repeat the linking research, but this time search for
something much less in-demand.Check out the Top 10 for
this search result.You'll see that the number of links to
each of these sites is far less.
Also, if you check out, say, the 100th site in the search
results, these deeper sites tend to have fewer links to
them. But not by a heck of a lot.
Overall conclusion?Yes, link popularity is a factor.And
it is worth building some into your site.But it's not the
be-all-and-end-all, especially not for niche sites, which
is what you are creating.
However, link popularity is expected to grow in importance.
So it *is* worth adding a little popularity to your site.
Here's what to do, and what NOT to do, to get more popular...
1) List with major directories like Yahoo!, Open Directory,
LookSmart -- Since their standards are high, the engines
"figure" that your site must contain valuable content.
2) List with directories that are specific to your area of
interest. These are niche "hub" sites that offer links for
little or no money. For example, take a look at this
wonderful directory for all things related to mining...
http://goldsheet.simplenet.com/
If you had a site about investing in mining stocks, wouldn't
this make a nice listing for you?Text links are free and a
small logo is only $50 per year.
Another question?Fire away...
"How do I find directories like this?"
Answer...
Go to AltaVista.Enter this into the search box...
"+mining +directory" (without the quotes)
Then do it for your own Concept Keyword and Specific
Keywords.
OK? Continue on with the third method...
3) Try a Link Popularity Enhancement Program -- I have not
tried this, so I would appreciate hearing about your
experience with this.The best of this group seem to be...
http://www.linktopics.com/
I have read positive reviews on this, but I tend to think
that anything designed purely to fit into an algorithm, and
that is so free and easy to do, probably won't last long.
But that's just me.;-)
4) One-at-a-time, site-by-site, link exchanging...
Don't waste time surfing endlessly for nice sites with good
traffic (you can check at Alexa) and a similar theme.In my
experience, the response rates to friendly, individualized
e-mails requesting a link exchange is almost zero. On the
other hand, maybe you schmooze better than I do.;-)
-----SIDEBAR-----
This last point is just personal experience.Maybe if you
show them how it could be mutually beneficial with the
engines, and if and if and if... who knows?But somehow, I
think your time is better spent elsewhere.
-----SIDEBAR-----
However... while I would not specifically set aside time to
look for such sites, I WOULD e-mail them as I discovered
them in the course of doing other, more productive work. Not
much to lose that way.:-)
5) If you have several domains on related topics, don't
forget to interlink them all!
6) What's a definite *NOT* to do?Do *NOT* do the FFAs.
If you don't know that FFA stands for Free-For-All linking
sites, then you're better off!
--
One more thing... remember, links go both ways.Create a
links page that sends links OUT to terrific, non-competing,
high-traffic (verify with Alexa) Web sites.The best way is
to reciprocate on your incoming links (above)...
1) theme-specific sections of the major directories,
2) theme-specific minor directories ("theme hubs")
3) theme-related, non-competing, sites (as you happen to
discover them -- don't spend time searching just for this).
4) links to your other domains on related topics.
Why do this?
Linkage COUNTS both ways with the engines, INcoming and
OUTgoing. Remember to code your HTML so that you open a new
window with these links, so you don't lose anyone who links
out (your page will be there, underneath, when the other
window is closed).If your outgoing "linkees" have
affiliate programs, even better!
-----SIDEBAR-----
Yes, Site Build It! even allows you to do this as you create
your pages.No worries about the HTML.It does it for you.
If, for some reason, you don't want to open a new window,
that's OK -- you have the choice.:-)
http://buildit.sitesell.com
-----SIDEBAR-----
So... both linking IN and OUT counts.And, to strengthen
the impact of those links on your ranking results, include
your Specific Keywords both in the links out, *AND* in the
links that come INto you.
--
Time to summarize the process for building traffic through
the Search Engines...
Tweak, Link, Re-submit, Track.Then do it again.When
you've got it right... STOP TWEAKING.Instead...
Create more HIGH-VALUE content and then...
Tweak, Link, Re-submit, Track.Then do it again.When
you've got it right... STOP TWEAKING.Instead...
Yup... back to DAY 6.Create new content!
-----
That wraps up building traffic through Search Engines.I
sincerely hope that you BELIEVE that you can do this.
Because you *CAN*.
It takes REALLY SMART people to TRICK the engines.
But if you follow this honest, high-value, WIN-WIN-WIN-WIN
approach, if you OVERdeliver to your readers, if you simply
write and tweak your HIGH-VALUE content pages fairly, and if
you experiment until you get it right...
You'll do as well as the pros... with far less aggravation.
-----
Before proceeding to DAY 9, please complete your DAY 8
Goal-of-the-DAY, and take note of your Ongoing Goal...
------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------
Goal-of-the-DAY... No tweaking to do, since
your pages aren't ranking yet. So start
working on link popularity. When your site
has reached 10 pages, link with Open
Directory (only free directory of the
majors) and with ONE minor directory that is
a "theme hub" related to your Site Concept.
Remember, links go BOTH ways (IN and OUT).
Ongoing Goal... Add other links (both ways)
with major directories and theme-related
ones. Trade links with other sites as you
discover them.
As your pages start to rank at the engines...
Tweak, Link, Re-submit, Track. Then do it
again.When a page hits the Top 10, STOP.
Return to DAY 6, create more HIGH-VALUE
content and then...
Yup... Tweak, Link, Re-submit, Track.
Consider doing this with Site Build It!It
makes the whole process so simple...
http://buildit.sitesell.com
------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------
Geez... only two DAYS left to go.I'll miss your smiling
face and great questions.
Let's cover the final two BIG TRAFFIC-BUILDING TECHNIQUES,
pay-per-click Search Engines and the major directories...
----------------------------
----------------------------
DAY 9 -- Build Other Traffic
There's more than one way
to skin that TRAFFIC cat!
----------------------------
----------------------------
Goal-of-the-DAY... Open an
account at each of the 8
pay-per-click engines. Bid
on 3 keywords at GoTo.com.
Ongoing Goal... Broaden your
bidding until you have placed
bids for 100 keywords at the
8 biggest pay-per-clicks.
When your site reaches 10-20
pages, submit to directories
and consider PAY FOR
LISTING/PLACEMENT programs.
With these goals in mind...
----------------------------
----------------------------
Today we'll cover the final two of the BIG 5 TECHNIQUES for
building traffic, pay-per-click Search Engines and the major
directories.Let's start with #2 of the BIG 5,
Pay-Per-Click Search Engines...
Pay-per-clicks allow you to bid for keyword placement. For
example, if one of your pages focuses on the topic of
"fashion models," you can bid for the #1 placement (or any
other #) on the first page (or lower, but what's the point
of being on page two?) of search results.
Boy, does that save time!No tweaking, submitting, etc.
But there's a catch, of course. The MOST popular keywords
have become quite expensive at GoTo.com (the first and
biggest engine) and are rising at the others.
So your best strategy is to work the niches. Bid on hundreds
of less popular keywords related to your Theme-Based Content
Site. This can be an extremely cost-effective way to build a
big list of lifetime customers in a hurry.
There's a drawback to bidding on hundreds of words... the
time involved to research and actually bid upon them all.
Luckily, Site Build It! Manager takes care of all that
(more on SBI! Manager below).
----------------------
Let's quickly review the top 8 pay-per-clicks.The
grand-daddy of all the pay-per-clicks is...
GoTo.com http://www.goto.com/
http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace/?r=alliesunme&c=marketing&s=1&i=10&t=ClickBank_Marketplace
See this comprehensive article about GoTo.com in Sales from
the EDGE (an e-zine that only SiteSell product owners
receive). Its principles and strategies apply to all the
pay-per-clicks...
http://www.sitesell.com/edge/backissues-005.html
Register for a bidding account with GoTo.com at...
https://secure.goto.com/s/dtc/center/
While you're there, download their mass-submission Excel
template (Basic or Power form, either one is OK -- they
prefer if you use the Power form). Site Build It! Manager
speeds this whole process up and makes it easier, too. The
Manager works with all of the pay-per-click engines'
mass-submission spreadsheet templates.
Some tips from GoTo.com...
http://www.goto.com/d/about/advertisers
And their relevancy policy...
http://www.goto.com/d/about
Bottom Line on GoTo.com...
GoTo.com will generate more traffic for you than all other
pay-per-clicks, combined.GoTo.com is now "MUST marketing."
Of course, due to its great popularity, each click from
GoTo will cost you more than from the other pay-per-clicks.
Even though the other engines are cheaper, it normally might
NOT be worth your time to prepare bids for them. Why?
Because, even though they deliver cheap traffic, they don't
deliver a lot of it!Factor in the cost of your time and it
might not be worthwhile.
Now, though, thanks to Site Build It! Manager, submitting
bids on the other seven pay-per-clicks only amounts to a few
minutes work per engine!Good, cheap, targeted traffic!
So let's take a quick look at the next tier...
----------------------
In order of approximate importance, here are the next 7
pay-per-clicks.There are MANY others beyond these, but
they do not generate enough traffic to be worth your time...
Bay9.com
http://www.bay9.com/
Register for an account with them at...
http://www.bay9.com/cgi-local/login.cgi
While you're there, download their mass-submission Excel
template.
Bay 9, formerly named RocketLinks, delivers substantially
more traffic than the remaining six.If you only have time
for TWO engines, make it GoTo.com and Bay9.
Naturally, with the Manager, you'll have time for ALL of
them.So here are the remaining 6 "worthwhiles"...
----------------------
FindWhat
http://www.findwhat.com/
Register for an account with them at...
https://secure.findwhat.com/accountmanagement/
They do not have a mass-submission template. Recommendation:
E-mail a GoTo.com spreadsheet (as an attachment), per the
information in Site Build It! Manager.
----------------------
7Search.com
http://www.7Search.com/
Register for an account with them at...
http://7search.com/script
While you're there, download their mass-submission Excel
template.
----------------------
Kanoodle
http://www.kanoodle.com/
Register for an account with them at...
https://safe.kanoodle.com
While you're there, download their mass-submission Excel
template.
----------------------
Ah-ha.com
http://www.ah-ha.com
Register for an account with them at...
https://secure1.ah-ha.com/bid/
No template, but you can submit a spreadsheet that lists
your keywords and their URLs, titles, descriptions, and bid
amounts. Yes, the Site Build It! Manager will do this, too.
----------------------
ePilot
http://www.epilot.com/
Register for an account with them at...
http://www.epilot.com/
While you're there, download their mass-submission Excel
template.
----------------------
Sprinks
http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace/?r=alliesunme&s=1&i=10&t=ClickBank_Marketplace
Register for an account with them at...
https://sprinks.about.com/userforms/login_user.htm
While you're there, download their mass-submission Excel
template. It's a major pain to work with, though.
Recommendation: simply submit the template that Site
Build It! Manager prepares for you for Sprinks.
----------------------
For more info on pay-per-click engines, see...
http://www.PayPerClickSearchEngines.com/
-----
Before you bid on ANYTHING, it's wise to research. And
keywords are no exception.During DAY 2 of the course, you
had an OPTIONAL exercise. If you haven't had time to do this
yet, here it is...
Let's create a GoTo.com BID-FOR-KEYWORD LIST.(Do it for
each engine.But since GoTo.com will drive 80% of your
traffic, we'll start here.)
Label the first column "KEYWORD" (yes, the same KEYWORD as
in your MASTER KEYWORD LIST.Now add 23 more columns to the
right of KEYWORD (yes 23, or better still -- Site Build It!
Manager has already done all this for you). Here's what to
do for each of your HIGH-PROFITABILITY keywords...
Label the first two columns to the right of the KEYWORD
column "Price I Should Bid" and "Buys #" -- leave these two
columns empty for now.
In the next column, enter the number of sites that have bid
AT LEAST A PENNY for each keyword (ex., let's say that you do
a search for "fashion model" and you find that 15 sites bid
at least one penny for "fashion model" -- enter "15").
Now, in the next 20 columns, enter the price for the "Top
20" search results spots (searchers are unlikely to scan any
result past #20 -- so bidding for a spot beyond #20 is a
waste of time). In our example, since only 15 sites have
bid for "fashion model," you enter these bid prices in the
first 15 columns -- leave the last 5 blank or enter 0.00.
-----SIDEBAR-----
Some pay-per-click engines only show you 10 sites on the
first page of search results.In that case, only enter the
bids for these.Enter "0.00" for #11-20, because there's
really no point in bidding for a spot on Page 2.
-----SIDEBAR-----
Now, back to those first two columns to the right of your
KEYWORD.Enter the best price you should bid in "Price I
Should Bid." And in the next column ("Buys #"), enter what
spot in the search results that bid will yield (Site Build
It! Manager calculates this spot automatically).
If this seems like a lot of work, it's really not.And with
Site Build It! Manager, it's quick and easy! Here's why...
Site Build It! Manager features powerful pay-per-click
functionality.The Site Build It! Manager contains a
BID-FOR-KEYWORD LIST for every significant pay-per-click
engine to make your job as fast and profitable as possible.
It automatically researches all the bids at all the engines,
showing you where your best bid should be.And it automates
mass-submissions to the major pay-per-clicks, too.Now it
only takes minutes to do what previously took days.
For more information about Site Build It!, including the
Site Build It! Manager tool...
http://buildit.sitesell.com
-----
If you have not yet done so, please read this solid primer
on GoTo.com.Its principles apply to all pay-per-clicks...
http://www.sitesell.com/edge/backissues-005.html
In general, bid a penny higher than the highest site that
seems to reach YOUR TARGET VISITOR.If the descriptions for
the first three sites are clearly aimed at someone who is
NOT your target, why outbid them?
Stay a penny higher than your COMPETITORS, as long as that
bid makes FINANCIAL SENSE.You do not want to be below your
competition... the click through drops off quickly as you go
down the page.
What makes FINANCIAL SENSE?Whatever makes a profit...
The Sales from the EDGE article (above) discusses how to
figure out what your highest bid should be.Work through
the same process, from a PROFIT-MAKING viewpoint...
Suppose you are paying 2 cents per click for a keyword. That
means 1,000 clicks costs you $20.Suppose you do a decent
PRE-selling job and a total of 20% of your visitors click on
at least one of the five in-context TEXT links on your
Keyword-Focused Content Page.That's 200 people visiting
your merchants.If your merchants average a 1.5% Conversion
Rate, that's 3 sales.So, if the average commission is $15,
your $20 has returned $45.And if you've chosen good
affiliate programs, ones that offer lifetime customer
commissions, you've gained 3 lifetime customers...
... ongoing income with no further expense!
If you are referring visitors to your own online store or
sales site, do similar profitability calculations.
-----
One special bidding strategy for GoTo.com...
GoTo.com does more than just provide its own search results
at its highly popular engine.It supplies listings for many
major search portals (such as AOL Search, Netscape Search,
Lycos, AltaVista, etc.) and large meta search engines.
These search services tend to "cherry-pick" the TOP search
results.So... your very best strategy for MAXIMAL
DISTRIBUTION across all of the GoTo search partners would be
to make a bid that puts you in the Top 2.Next best is in
the Top 3.And then in the Top 10.Of course, anywhere in
the Top 40 puts you on GoTo's first page of results.But
you'll get far less traffic if you appear further down.
You'll have to balance the per-click COST of being in the
Top 2-to-10 against the financial benefit of the extra
clicks. You may even be willing to lose some money, on a
per-FIRST-sale basis, to gain precious LIFETIME CUSTOMERS.
As always, your bids must make FINANCIAL SENSE.
-----
I can't OVERemphasize that the key to success is to bid upon
hundreds of keywords related to your site.Yes, hundreds.
So the mass-submission templates are absolutely essential.
Don't let them scare you... except for one engine, they're
easy to work with when you use the Site Build It! Manager.
Let me tell you a bit more about SBI! Manager, a productive
piece of software that comes with Site Build It!.The
Manager runs off your computer.The rest of Site Build It!
(i.e., the no-HTML SiteBuilder, the link tracker, the
reporting functions, etc.) runs off of ours.Together, it's
a terrific marriage.:-)
Basically, "SBI! Manager" is a marketing tool for developing
highly profitable keywords related to a theme that is in
turn related to products of affiliate programs that you
represent.Basically, it automates much of what you have
studied so far in this course.
Use "SBI! Manager" as follows...
1) MASTER KEYWORD LIST... build a list of KEYWORDS,
including PROFITABILTY (i.e., DEMAND and SUPPLY) data about
each, with SUPPLY SITE INFO research for each.Use the
"PROFITABILITY" info for each KEYWORD to help you pick the
best topics for your site.
Yes, Site Build It! Manager does all this for you... and it
only takes a few minutes.For example, if you enter
"fashion," and then click on the "Brainstorm and Research"
button, it does all the DEMAND and SUPPLY and even BREAKOUT
window-functions (as covered in DAY 3) for you, creating a
comprehensive list of KEYWORDS related to fashion!
Then use the Site Build It! SERVER-side site-building tool
to develop your Theme-Based Content Site, full of Keyword-
Focused Content Pages.Attract traffic to these pages and
then refer visitors to affiliate-merchant sites (or to your
own sales sites that sell products or services).
2) PAGE SUBMISSION INFO Form... prepare for submitting bids
to the pay-per-click engines by entering the info that they
require into the Manager's PAGE SUBMISSION INFO Form...
a) Title -- Same idea as when you made the Title for your
Web page (DAY 6), except your title does not have to be the
actual page title. It should contain the keyword that you
bid for, since the click through will be higher.GoTo.com
cuts the title off after 40 characters... so keep it short.
b) Description -- Get your most important, biggest point up
front.Copy-and-paste your META description that you
prepared in DAY 6. Same basic rules and principles apply.
(Yes, the Manager even reminds you if you forget to include
the KEYWORD in the Title or Description.)
c) URL -- Direct searchers (i.e., your potential visitors)
to the specific page on your site that has the information
they request, not just to your home page.
One important rule of every pay-per-click...
Each KEYWORD that you bid upon must clearly relate to its
Title and Description, and to the contents of your site.
For you, that's natural... already done!
-----SIDEBAR-----
With GoTo.com, you basically want as FEW clicks as possible.
Actually, let me rephrase that... you basically want only
TARGETED clicks... people who UNDERSTAND exactly what your
page is about and who click for that reason.
Why?
Because you PAY for each click!
So, you don't really want as FEW clicks as possible... you
want as FEW OFF-target visitors as possible.Gear
everything you do to maximizing ON-target visitors for the
least amount of money.
Bottom line strategies?...
1) Bid for hundreds of ON-target keywords, especially the
less-obvious ones which will be quite cheap to buy. Obvious,
popular keywords have become too expensive.IÕll tell you
this -- thereÕs no way IÕm paying $5.00 for popular keywords
-- not unless IÕm selling a product that has a profit of
$500 and I have a 10% Conversion Rate!
2) Write your Title and Description so that *ONLY* your
target market clicks (since each click costs you). A GoTo
searcher who reads your Title and Description should clearly
understand what she'll get if she clicks.If it does not
interest her, she'll give you a pass.Which is EXACTLY what
you want when it comes to GoTo.com.Why pay for a click by
someone who hits the BACK button as soon as she arrives?
Write your title and description so that they...
o*REALLY* relate to the keywords that you are bidding
o*REALLY* are relevant to your site -- you definitely do
not want to trick anyone to your site.
ocompete effectively against other listings with similar
subject matter
oshout "Click Me! Click Me!"But only the right customers
hear the shout!
----SIDEBAR-----
Now, where was I?Oh yes... I was explaining that the Site
Build It! Manager...
1) brainstorms & researches your MASTER KEYWORD LIST for you
2) makes it easy for you to prepare your bids through its
PAGE SUBMISSION INFO Form
... and now for my favorite part...
3) BID-FOR-KEYWORD LIST -- The Site Build It! Manager
contains a BID-FOR-KEYWORD LIST for every significant
pay-per-click engine.It researches the "# of bids" and the
Top 20 bids for all of your KEYWORDS (as described above),
at the simple click of a button!Only one difference...
It researches the "# of bids" and the Top 20 bids at *ALL*
of the significant pay-per-clicks, not just GoTo.com's!
Use the Manager's pay-per-click automated research
functionality to quickly get all the info at each engine
about all of your KEYWORDS, showing you where the bid should
be for each KEYWORD.All you have to do is the fun part...
enter your bids!
When that's all done?Just one more click...
Click upon the "Create File" button to create a file for
GoTo.com's mass-submission template.The Manager automates
mass-submissions to ALL the major pay-per-clicks.Now
it only takes minutes to do what previously took days.
E-mail these files to the pay-per-clicks and...
Presto!Instant, cheap traffic!With no hassle. :-)
--
To summarize Site Build It! Manager...
Site Build It! Manager is software that you run on your
computer. To use it effectively, you must have taken the
Affiliate Masters Course. The Site Build It! Manager
automates and greatly accelerates...
o building your LIST of HIGH-PROFITABILITY keywords
o researching those keywords
o preparing content for your Theme-Based Content Site
o researching affiliate programs that fit with your Site
Concept
o preparing pay-per-click Search Engine bids
o researching and bidding optimally at the pay-per-clicks
o making mass-bidding-submissions
Pay-per-clicks are outstanding, cost-effective ways to build
traffic to your site. Site Build It! Manager is currently
compatible with the eight major pay-per-clicks.
For more information about Site Build It!, including the
Site Build It! Manager tool...
http://buildit.sitesell.com
--
The Wrapup on Pay-per-clicks...
As you'll see in DAY 10 of this course, you'll be able to
use Site Build It!'s special server-side tools to create
tracking links.These links enable you to track the
effectiveness of each of your pay-per-click programs.
Site Build It! is the ultimate way to build pay-per-click
traffic.Use the client-side Manager and the server-side
Tracker to create and monitor a powerful, cost-effective,
pay-per-click traffic-building program.
It's totally do-able.Unlike the free Search Engines, all
you have to do is BID.:-)
---------------------
The Major Directories
Let's review the BIG 5 TRAFFIC-BUILDING TECHNIQUES again...
#1) The Free Major Search Engines
#2) Pay-Per-Click Search Engines
#3) The Major Directories
#4) Word of Mouth
#5) E-zines -- market via your own opt-in newsletters
Wow!We've done them all, except for the directories. Let's
complete the list now...
Directories are a different beast from Search Engines. They
do not spider pages. Humans review and decide what gets in
-- think of them as gigantic bookmark lists, organized into
categories and sub-categories, and sub-sub-categories, etc.
Here are the directories, in order of importance...
-----
Yahoo!
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/
Still the grand-daddy of directories.
Want to list in the "Shopping and Services" or "Business to
Business" areas of Yahoo!?You must use Yahoo's US $199
"Business Express" service ($600 for adult sites).
However, if your site "fits" in other areas of the Yahoo.com
site (ex., non-commercial hobby or educational content) or
in regional commercial areas at Yahoo's non-US English-
language editions, you can still submit for free.
At $199, you'll have to decide whether it's worth it.More
info on the paid service...
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/faq.html
For instructions on how to submit...
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/suggest.html
Paying the fee does not guarantee that your site will be
accepted. So download this excerpt from Make Your Site SELL!
for how to get listed in Yahoo!. The concepts hold true for
all directories.
http://www.sitesell.com/extracts/yahoo-extract.exe
(The file is a self-extracting zipped file. Windows users,
double-click on it and then click on "Unzip" button. Mac
users unzip it by using Stuffit Expander 5.5 or greater.)
RECOMMENDATION: Probably worth the $199.If your site looks
sufficiently like a "hobby site," you might be able to get a
free listing.My guess, though, is that the Yahoo! editors
are thorough enough to recognize that your site has a
commercial goal.In any event, the free service is getting
notoriously slow -- so it's probably better to pay.
While you'll build far more traffic through the free and
pay-per-click engines, a Yahoo! listing will bring you some
traffic.And it will help in your link popularity score.
Just make sure your site's in top shape, with at least 20
good pages, before you submit.
--------------
Open Directory
http://www.dmoz.org/add.html
http://dmoz.org/guidelines.html
For Open Directory, specifically, see this article in Sales
from the EDGE, Issue #003...
http://www.sitesell.com/edge/backissues-003.html
RECOMMENDATION: Definitely worth it -- hey, it's free!
Again, the traffic will be decent, but less than what you
drive through the free and paid engines. And the link does
help with a link popularity score. Since it's free, and it
delivers, it's the no-brainer of the three largest (Yahoo!,
Open Directory, and LookSmart).Again, a site must be in
good shape.Since it's free, your risk is lower -- so
consider submitting once you have 10 good pages up.
---------
LookSmart
http://express.looksmart.com/
You must pay to be evaluated, $199 if you want your site to
be reviewed (not necessarily included, though) within 48
hours... $79.95 to be evaluated within 8 weeks. LookSmart is
gaining in popularity, powering more and more portals.
RECOMMENDATION: Probably worth it, for the same reasons as
for Yahoo!.Same recommendation as for Yahoo!.
PAY FOR LISTING/PLACEMENT:Usually, LookSmart will only
list your site in one or two subcategories of their
directory. Their "Subsite" program goes way beyond that.
LookSmart Editors review your site more deeply.They will
list you in other relevant, targeted subcategories.You're
charged on a pay-per-click basis.
Fill in the "Media Kit Form" on the following URL.Mention
that you are interested in their Subsite program...
http://www.looksmart.com/aboutus/media/
----
NBCi (formerly Snap.com)
http://www.nbci.com/LMOID/resource/0,566,-516,00.html
NBCi LiveDirectory section:
http://www.nbci.com/LMOID/resource/0,566,-1109,00.html
RECOMMENDATION:Won't bring much traffic.But do it to
increase your link popularity.
----------
Ask Jeeves
http://www.askjeeves.com/
Good old Jeeves is a bit harder to categorize. But, after
you strip away the "question-asking" interface, it's closest
to being a directory. Ask Jeeves answers questions. Send an
email to url@ask.com, telling them which question that your
Web page answers. (ex., If your Web page explains how to
price a product, then tell the Ask Jeeves editor that your
page answers "How do I price a product?" -- include the URL.)
RECOMMENDATION:Won't bring much traffic.But do it to
increase your link popularity.
PAY FOR LISTING/PLACEMENT:You can pay to be listed as "THE
ANSWER" for a variety of targeted questions.Naturally, you
must, in fact, answer the question.And you must do it well.
See their Editorial Guidelines...
http://www.askjeeves.com/docs/about/policy.html
And see their information about Targeting Solutions...
http://corporate.ask.com/products/targeting.asp
------------
Go Directory
http://www.go.com/Help?pg=InfoDirc.html#submit
Go, formerly known as InfoSeek, used to be one of the Top 3
Search Engines. Not anymore.It barely made our list of
seven major free Search Engines (above, DAY 7).However,
its Directory may be fairly useful.To submit, either see
the URL just above, or become a "Go Guide" and then submit
your site -- be nice and submit other sites that fit in the
same topic, too. Give... then take.:-)
To become a Go Guide...
http://guides.go.com/
RECOMMENDATION:It might bring some decent traffic, since
Go lists its Directory results above its Search Engine
results. Also, getting listed in the Directory may result in
more of your site's pages being indexed by their spider, as
well as higher rankings by the Search Engine part of Go.
And, of course, do it to increase your link popularity.
-----------------------
"Automatic" Directories
You are automatically listed in the following directories
when you submit to another one, as shown here...
o AOL Search -- you are listed automatically in AOL's
directory when you submit to Open Directory.
o MSN Search -- you are listed automatically in MSN's
directory when you submit to LookSmart.
o Netscape Search -- you are listed automatically in
Netscape's directory when you submit to Open Directory.
-----------------------------
PAY FOR LISTING/PLACEMENT At the "Free" Search Engines
Since GoTo.com established paid listings as a successful
business model for engines, others have sought ways to
generate income from their search services.
As we've just seen, you must now pay to be EVALUATED by some
directories. And some offer "PAY FOR LISTING/PLACEMENT."
Now, Inktomi, which powers several Search Engines (see DAY 7
for details), offers a PAY FOR LISTING/PLACEMENT program...
Their free submit service remains available -- do it through
HotBot (as outlined above).Now, though, you may pay to be
included in Inktomi's listings in greater depth and with
greater freshness (i.e., the spider visits you more often).
But it does not guarantee that your pages will be ranked
well -- pages are still subject to ranking algorithms.
The pricing is on a "per URL" basis.Since ranking is not
guaranteed, I would NOT recommend this program.But watch
for it to be adjusted to become more attractive...
For more information...
http://www.inktomi.com
For current pricing and an order form...
http://www.inktomi.com/products
--
Last, AND least, there's RealNames...
RealNames is a cross between PAY FOR LISTING/PLACEMENT and
"pay-per-click."They limit the number of clicks that you
get for your $100 when you buy your RealName.After that
you pay for more clicks. It doesn't really matter, however
-- for a variety of reasons, don't bother with RealNames.
Its benefit is quickly becoming negligible. If you care to
see why, review Sales from the EDGE, Issue #004...
http://www.sitesell.com/edge/backissues-004.html
--
Want a summary of the PAY FOR LISTING/PLACEMENT programs
that are available?Danny Sullivan maintains a great page
of all "PAID" services offered by engines and directories.
See the following URL...
http://searchenginewatch.com/resources/paid-listings.html
--
Bottom line for all PAY FOR LISTING/PLACEMENT services...
Stick to PAY-PER-CLICK offerings that bring you TARGETED
customers. This yields measurable results.Kill programs
with poor results (in the same way as outlined above in the
discussions about what makes FINANCIAL SENSE at GoTo.com).
--
Before we leave DAY 9, remember this important point...
If your site is blatantly set up to deliver traffic to ONE
affiliate merchant (or ONLY to your sales site or online
store), it is unlikely to be accepted by the best services
outlined here, PAID or NOT. This is yet another great reason
to focus upon developing a Theme-Based Content Site that
diversifies its links to a variety of merchants, in a
tasteful, discrete manner by using in-context TEXT links.
-----
Time to wrap up DAY 9...
The best thing about the pay-per-clicks is that they are
guaranteed, targeted and cheap traffic.The free engines
are a better bargain IF you can figure them out -- some
people will do better at it than others.
But the pay-per-clicks are GUARANTEED traffic.Site Build
It! Manager makes the research and mass-submissions a snap.
And the directories are the same.If you build a good site
that delivers HIGH-VALUE content, you'll get into the
directories. After all, that's exactly what they're looking
for... good sites that offer excellent content.
GUARANTEED, cheap traffic... The goal of every marketer. :-)
-----
Before proceeding to DAY 10, please complete your DAY 9
Goal-of-the-DAY, and take note of your Ongoing Goal...
----------------------------
----------------------------
Goal-of-the-DAY... Open an
account at each of the 8
pay-per-click engines. Bid
on 3 keywords at GoTo.com.
Ongoing Goal... Broaden your
bidding until you have placed
bids for 100 keywords at the
8 biggest pay-per-clicks.
When your site reaches 10-20
pages, submit to directories
and consider PAY FOR
LISTING/PLACEMENT programs.
----------------------------
----------------------------
Yippee! We're into the home stretch, the tenth and final
DAY. As always, continue when YOU are ready...
----------------------------
----------------------------
DAY 10 -- Know Your Visitors
Knowledge is power...
Power to boost income.
----------------------------
----------------------------
Goal-of-the-DAY... Familiarize
yourself with a good traffic-
reporting package. Convert your
Theme-Based Content Site's
OUTgoing links into special
tracking links (no need to do
this with Site Build It! -- all
links OUT are automatically
created as tracking links)...
http://buildit.sitesell.com
Ongoing Goal... Create one
OFF-SITE promotion with special
tracking links per week (or
whatever fits for you).
Review traffic stats, and do
both Click IN and Click Through
Analysis regularly. Watch for
trends.Build on your
successes and either drop
or improve what does not work.
With these goals in mind...
----------------------------
----------------------------
Let's see where you're at as we approach the end of the
Affiliate Masters Course...
You have a wonderful Theme-Based Content Site, full of
high-value content that OVERdelivers to your HUMAN readers
and that ranks highly and fairly with your Search Engine
friends.And that means...
You have traffic coming INTO your site (from ALL your
traffic-building efforts) and traffic going OUT of your site
(links to your income-generating sites -- merchant-partners,
your own store, or your own sales site).
It has cost you time and money to generate your INCOMING
traffic. Your OUTGOING traffic generates INCOME for you.
You can measure both EXPENSES and INCOME.And, as explained
way back in Affiliate Masters 101, INCOME minus EXPENSES
equals PROFITS... duh!
If we stopped here, your site would be a black box. A "black
box" is a concept used in physics.You can measure what
goes INTO the black box, and you can measure what comes OUT
OF the black box...but you don't know what the heck is
happening INSIDE of that black box.In other words, you
don't know *WHY* things happen.
And for your long-term success, that's critical. Why?
Because if you know more about the nature of your INCOMING
and OUTGOING traffic, you can maximize your returns for
every dollar and minute that you spend!
Yes, that *IS* kind of important... "critical," even.:-)
And what *DO* you need to know?...
A) Traffic
B) Links in
C) LInks out.
-----
Let's start peeking inside your "black box" by studying your
traffic...
Traffic, of course, is your lifeblood. You need the means to
do some "blood tests" to determine your site's health.
Unfortunately, all the traffic analysis packages out there
are written by techies... for techies.They give you so
much data... just because they *CAN*!But all *YOU* need to
know is... WHAT you NEED to know!You need INFORMATION, not
reams of useless DATA.
The key to traffic analysis is to simplify. Forget the 150
different ways that traffic-analyzing software slices and
dices hits, visits, pages, page views, and visitors. You
simply don't need to know how many left-handed Norwegians
visit your site between 3-4 AM on Sundays.
So let's prune away all the useless DATA, and just keep the
"need to know" INFORMATION...
First, the big picture...
All traffic-reporting software packages cover the basics...
average number of visits, visitors, and pages viewed per
day, as well as the totals on a per-month basis. Here's what
those terms mean...
oVisits -- the number of visits to your site
oVisitors -- the number of different people who visit
your site (ex., a visitor could account for 10 visits)
oPage Views -- the number of pages viewed by all the
visitors during all the visits.A single visitor might
view only one page... or twenty.
You have a question?
-- "What about hits?Everyone talks about hits!"
Great question!Short answer... forget hits.A hit is
simply a line in your site's log file.If a page has 3
graphics on it, that's 4 hits (1 for the html page itself,
plus 3 for the graphics). But if that same page has 100
graphics on it, that's 101 hits!
See why the number of hits is a useless stat?
-- "Yes, but why does everyone quote hits, then?"
Two reasons... either they don't understand the term, or
they understand it and use hits because IT SOUNDS BIGGER! In
any event, "hits" is a useless thing to measure.
--
By comparing your monthly "big picture" data, you should be
able to see steady growth in your site's overall traffic. If
not, the "patient" needs a good dose of traffic-building
medicine (luckily, that medicine is nearby... just above,
actually!).Ongoing traffic-building is a good idea even if
traffic is building nicely -- you can never have too much!
Now that you have the big picture, it's time to delve inside
and pull out some important information...
oDaily statistics -- visits, visitors and page views must
be reported on a day-by-day basis, in both absolute terms
and as a percentage of the total (ex., percent of total
visitors). If you do a special traffic promotion on a
certain day (ex., run an ad in an e-zine), this is an easy
way to gauge the response.
oMost popular pages -- your page view stats must be
delivered on a per-page basis, with the page generating the
most page views reported first. By understanding which pages
are most popular, you understand better the needs of your
visitors. Correlate this with your link-tracking data (more
on this below) to make sure that your most popular pages
"get the click" to your income-generating programs. Also,
use this data to get a better feel for what your market
wants... and, just as important, what it does *NOT* want.
oMost popular entry pages -- same as the previous
section, except that this specifically tells you which pages
are the most popular "ENTRY" pages. A page counts as an
ENTRY page when it STARTS a visit. Correlate this with how
people find you (referrers and keywords, discussed just
below), and you have a wealth of insight into how your site
is being discovered, and what people *WANT.*Use these
conclusions to give you ideas for other related, profitable
areas for content development.
oMost frequent exit pages -- these are the pages from
which people LEAVE your site. Some people look upon high
numbers for a given page as "bad." But you have to correlate
this with other data... If a "high entry" page is also a
"high exit" page, that's not really a surprise. If a "high
exit" page is also generating tons of links OUT to your
income-generating programs for you, that's not so bad
either, is it?
oReferrer URLs -- this tells you where your traffic is
coming from... Search Engines, other Web sites from link
exchanges, etc., etc. Extremely useful info!
oKeyword search -- which keywords are people entering
into engines to find you? That's what this super-valuable
data tells you!
Taken together, referrer page and keyword search data tell
you where and how your visitors find you, which gives you a
base to build even more traffic-building ideas!
As you can see, traffic analysis is actually a pretty simple
task... when you know what you're looking for, and how to
turn DATA into INFORMATION.
-----SIDEBAR-----
Site Build It! provides you with exactly these traffic
stats. No need to install or configure any software.Or to
figure out what's important.It provides everything a good
content site needs to know... with one simple click from
you.Presented cleanly, in an easy-to-understand manner.
http://buildit.sitesell.com
-----SIDEBAR-----
Traffic analysis is the base.It tells you what you need to
know about quantities of visits, visitors, and page views.
It shows you where they come from (if via the Web) and what
words they used to find you at the Search Engines.
-----
But you need more.Now that you understand traffic flow,
you need to be able to see exactly what's working in the two
bottom-line areas that matter most...
ohow you SPEND your traffic-building time and money --
what's working, and what's not.SPEND only on the
techniques that bear fruit.
ohow you MAKE your money -- gear your content more and
more towards what *GETS THE CLICK.*Because that's what
builds your INCOME.
So HOW do we get this information?Through two forms of
analysis that are specialized for content sites like
yours...
oClick IN Analysis
and
oClick Through Analysis
Before we go further, let's talk about two different kinds
of links...
oOFF-SITE links that bring traffic IN to you
oON-SITE links that send traffic OUT.
OFF-SITE links do not appear on your Web site. People will
not actually click upon these links while they are ON your
site. Rather, your potential visitors see these links OFF of
your site... in e-zine ads, or offline print ads, in flyers
that you distribute at trade or hobby conventions, or in
your sig file (at the end of your e-mail).And they'll use
these links to come INTO your site.
Since you spend time and/or money on these traffic-building
activities, you need a way to measure this, to track what
off-site promotions are working, and which are not.Once
you know which of your EXPENSE-generating activities work
and which ones don't... you know where to spend your
promotional time and money! And where to stop!You build
upon your successes and fix your weaknesses.
Let's contrast that with ON-SITE links...
ON-SITE links appear on your site, and send visitors OUT of
that page.These links all go to income-generating sites
(merchant-partners via affiliate programs, your own online
store, or your own sales site for products that you have
developed).In other words, ON-SITE links generate INCOME.
--
So how do we track these two kinds of links?...
It all boils down to this.We track how to best SPEND our
traffic-building time and money via Click IN Analysis. We
track what's generating INCOME by Click Through Analysis.
--
Let's talk about Click IN Analysis first...
Click INs occur when people click on an OFF-SITE link and
come into your Theme-Based Content Site.Click INs cost you
time and/or money (explained above).So analyze what works
(do more of it) and what fails (drop or improve it).
In order to do Click IN Analysis, you create special
tracking links.You create these links specifically to
track the success of your OFF-site promotional campaigns.
You place a different link in each of your promotional
campaigns, so that it's easy to track.
When the user clicks on that link, she first goes to a
computer program that records the click, and where it came
from.Then the program sends the visitor to the page in
your site that you had specified.
Click IN analysis yields the following...
ototal clicks coming in, for ALL your special links, and
also for EACH special tracking link that you create
o"first-time vs. repeat" click INs, for ALL click INs, and
also on a link-by-link basis.In other words, has the
person who is clicking on a link clicked on it before?
You now have a way of measuring the exact traffic-building
success of every off-site promotional campaign, whether
you're...
obidding for keywords on pay-per-click engines
obuying ads in e-zines
oposting an ad on the bulletin board of your local
grocery store
ono matter how you promote!
Here are some of the uses and advantages of Click IN
Analysis...
1) The Untraceable Link -- Some links have no Referring URL,
so it's impossible to know where they came from through
regular traffic analysis. But geez, we need to know this
data.For example...
*links from a free e-book that you are using as a
promotional tool.
*links from e-mail of any kind... sig files, links in
mailing lists, autoresponder campaigns, links in the e-zine
that you publish, ads that you buy in e-zines.
*links from non-Web based newsgroups (ex., anything you
read with your newsreader -- but if you read newsgroups via
deja.com and your browser, this does not apply since the
Traffic Stats section will report on any visitor that
arrives via a Web site -- you could, of course, still use a
tracking link for this if you want to).
*links that are simply typed in, often due to offline
exposure (especially targeted print media).Tracking links
are great for any kind of offline promotion.
By creating a special tracking link for each of these
"untraceable links," you'll KNOW what has been previously
impossible to know.
2) TESTING e-zine ads -- set a different tracking URL for
each ad that you write. That way you can measure which ad
generates a better response. Here's how...
Run Ad #1 in E-zine #1 and Ad #2 in E-zine #2, then switch a
month later. Which ad got more responses overall? Stick with
what's profitable. Drop the rest.
E-zine advertising becomes very cost-effective when you can
drop the dogs and increase your budget for the winners.
3) Test Web-based advertising -- Even if your promotion is
Web-based, it's more convenient to run tracking links than
to review the Traffic Stats Referrer information (which do
tell you which SITES links originate from). So use your
special tracking links to track the performance of banners,
pay-per-click Search Engines, even posts to forums and
discussion groups.
--
So far, we've talked about tracking the various possible
ORIGINS of the tracking links (i.e., the OFF-SITE PLACES
where potential visitors SEE and click on your tracking
link... e-zines, pay-per-clicks, etc.).And we've assumed
that the ultimate DESTINATION of those links is to your
Theme-Based Content Site.But you have SEVERAL options for
the ultimate DESTINATION of your OFF-SITE tracking links...
1) Your Theme-Based Content Site -- Let's say that you have
a terrific page about a special kind of flower. That page
has several in-context TEXT links... links to books,
growers, ClubMom, etc, etc. You take an e-zine ad.Where
should the ultimate DESTINATION be?
Easy... to your Keyword-Focused Content Page! Since you have
worked so many in-context TEXT links into your
OVERdelivering copy, you have a whole bunch of chances that
a sale occurs on at least one of your merchant-partners'
sites.
2) Straight to a merchant-partner -- On the other hand,
suppose you write a wonderful article about this special
flower as content for a prominent e-zine published by a
third party. Your "payment" is that you can include your
URLs. Where should these links point?
Easy... work those special tracker links into the content of
the article, and point them straight to your merchant
partners. One link for each merchant. Since anyone who
clicks passes through the tracking script first, you'll see
exactly how many people clicked on each link!No point in
directing them to the same info on your site, right?
3) A free trial download -- Even a download URL can be the
DESTINATION. Offering a free e-book on that special kind of
flower?Take an ad in an e-zine, offering the link straight
to the download. Naturally, the e-book will have links to
your various merchant-partners, and to your Theme-Based
Content Site. Every one of those in-book links should be
special tracking links, too!
4) Your online store -- same idea. If you have an online
store that needs traffic, and if the situation dictates that
you're better off by sending visitors "directly" to your
store (after passing through the tracking script, of
course), then do that. Same goes if you have a site that
sells single products or your services. If an ad costs you
$100, but you see that it generated 500 visitors, and if you
know that 2% of your visitors buy... it's easy to figure out
whether your ad is profitable!
No matter where these visitors originate from, and no matter
where you send them to, Click IN Analysis reports how well
each promotional effort is working.
-----SIDEBAR-----
Click IN Analysis is vital for anyone building income
through content.Unfortunately, existing services are very
expensive. Here are your best two options...
1) If you have some tech skills or if you employ someone who
does, use our Ultimate Link Tracker.It's free when you
join our 5 Pillar Program...
http://www.sitesell.com
Don't worry. There's no obligation to work the 5P Program
unless you want to.Consider the Ultimate Link Tracker as
my graduation gift to you!:-)
-OR-
2) Site Build It! provides all this... the Tracker Library
makes it a snap to set up your special tracking links. And
you get complete Click IN Analysis reports at the click of
your mouse!
Cost?Included in Site Build It!, which itself costs less
than services that offer ONLY this feature!
http://buildit.sitesell.com
-----SIDEBAR-----
Now let's cover Click Through Analysis...
Click throughs occur when people click on a link on your
Theme-Based Content Site and leave it (they don't actually
leave since you pop open a new window for them!). We should
actually call them "click OUTS" -- but since the industry is
used to "click through," we're stuck with that term!
Click throughs earn you income. Why? Well, it all depends
where those click throughs are going...
oaffiliate programs -- a percentage of those turn into
sales or leads (or whatever action your merchant-partner
pays for)
oyour own online store -- a percentage will buy,
yielding you a profit
oyour "sales site" that sells an e-book or software that
you developed, or even your services.
To maximize click throughs, of course, you know that you
must create high-value content that OVERdelivers what your
visitors were looking for. Blending "in-context" TEXT links
into your copy gets the click through.
Once you've done that, of course, you need a way to know
what's "getting the click"... and what's not!And that's
where Click Through Analysis comes into play.
In order to do Click Through Analysis, you convert your
regular OUTGOING links (i.e., links to your merchant-
partners, your online store, and/or your sales site) into
special tracking links. When your visitor clicks on such a
link, she first goes to a computer program that records the
click, and where it came from.Then the program sends the
visitor to the income-building site that you had specified.
Click Through Analysis yields the following...
ototal click throughs for ALL your ON-SITE links, as well
as for EACH ON-SITE link (i.e., on a link-by-link basis)
o "first-time vs. repeat" click throughs, for the total of
all click throughs on ALL your ON-SITE links, and also on a
link-by-link basis.In other words, has the person who is
clicking on a link clicked on it before?
oand, of course, the clicks divided by the page views,
which gives you your "Click Through Rate" for all your links
as a group, and also on a link-by-link basis.
Excellent Click Through Analysis would even slice and dice
your click through analysis like this...
1) It would present you with link-by-link data, broken down
for every page that each link appears upon (in other words,
if LINK A appears on Pages 1, 2, and 3, it shows you how
LINK A performed on each of those pages)
2) And it would present you page-by-page data, broken down
with the performance of every link on each page (in other
words, if Page 1 contains LINKS A, B, and C, it shows you
how each of those links performed on that page).
And PERFECT Click Through Analysis would give you ALL this
data for any time span that you request!
Bottom Line?With Click Through Analysis, you have an exact
success rate of every single ON-SITE link.And THAT, dear
reader, measures INCOME... YOUR money.
You'll know exactly what people are clicking upon... and
what they are not. From there... it's just a question of
building upon your successes and fixing your weaknesses...
... which maximizes your INCOME.
-----SIDEBAR-----
Click Through Analysis is as critical for your Theme-Based
Content Site as Click IN Analysis.Again, existing services
are very expensive. And none give the degree of information
that I have outlined for the PERFECT Click Through Analysis.
Here are your best two options.They may sound familiar...
1) If you have some tech skills or if you employ someone who
does, use our Ultimate Link Tracker.It's free when you
join our 5 Pillar Program...
http://www.sitesell.com
(Once again, consider it a complimentary graduation gift.)
-OR-
2) Wait!Did I say that there was no PERFECT Click Through
Tracking Analysis available?I was wrong...
Site Build It! provides ALL of it.
Cost?Included in Site Build It!, which itself costs less
than services that offer just the click analysis!And, best
of all, it all happens automatically, behind the scenes, as
you build your site!
The analysis is totally integrated with Site Build It!'s
site-building tools.All YOU have to do is click your mouse
to get the reports.:-)
http://buildit.sitesell.com
-----SIDEBAR-----
-----POWER-USER TIP-----
Want perfect tracking of how effective your e-zine ad is?
Combine Click IN Analysis and Click Through Analysis!
Do this...
1) Place ad in an e-zine, or bid on keywords from a
pay-per-click search engine.The link goes to a page on
your site that ONLY receives clicks from this ad.It can be
a simple duplicate of one of your site's pre-existing pages.
But it should not receive links from anywhere else,
including even from your own site.
2) On that page, create new tracker links to your affiliate
programs, links that are unique for this ad.You should not
use these tracker links anywhere else.
3) Now your Click IN Analysis can track both the INcoming
traffic and your Click Through Analysis can see how many of
those folks coming IN actually go to your income-generating
programs (or your sales site, online store, etc.)
You'll know exactly and you will be able to say...
---------------------------
"This ezine ad on this day (or this pay-per-click
listing) brought in this many visitors of which
this many clicked on to this and that merchant."
----------------------------
Since you know the Conversion Rate for each of your merchant-
partners (or your sales site/store), you know whether it
makes sense to keep advertising, or to find more targeted
e-zines (or more targeted keywords on the pay-per-clicks).
This technique works for e-zine ads, opt-in mailings,
article submissions that direct readers to your Theme-Based
Content Site.And it can be very helpful to test the
cost-effectiveness of the pay-per-click Search Engines
As I said, though, this requires a fair degree of savviness
and some work.Definitely for power users only.
And, if it's more appropriate to send readers DIRECTLY to
your merchants (instead of a page on your site), then this
extra stop would not be a good idea.
Still, something to keep in mind.:-)
-----POWER-USER TIP-----
Bottom line for DAY 10?...
Know your visitors -- they are the heart of your business --
by following traffic stats.And tracking links IN and OUT
is the key to maximizing INCOME while getting the most
return from all your traffic-building EXPENSES.
-----
Please complete your DAY 10 Goal-of-the-DAY, and take note
of your Ongoing Goal...
----------------------------
----------------------------
Goal-of-the-DAY... Familiarize
yourself with a good traffic-
reporting package. Convert your
Theme-Based Content Site's
OUTgoing links into special
tracking links (no need to do
this with Site Build It! -- all
links OUT are automatically
created as tracking links)...
http://buildit.sitesell.com
Ongoing Goal... Create one
OFF-SITE promotion with special
tracking links per week (or
whatever fits for you).
Review traffic stats, and do
both Click IN and Click Through
Analysis regularly. Watch for
trends.Build on your
successes and either drop
or improve what does not work.
----------------------------
----------------------------
On the next DAY... Wait! There is no next one! You are done!
And what a long way you've come.Take a look...
----------------------------
----------------------------
Affiliate Masters 101
oBusiness Basics
oIncome and Expenses
oTraffic, Click Throughs, and Conversion Rates
oPRE-selling... why
oPRE-selling and your visitor's MINDSET
oPRE-selling... how
Affiliate Masters 202
oBrainstorming concepts for your site
oPicking the concept with the most profit potential
oDeveloping HIGH-PROFITABILITY topics for your site
oDEMAND, SUPPLY and BREAKOUT tools, and the
MASTER KEYWORD LIST
oThe CUSTOMER END vs. the KEYWORD END
oHow to pick the HIGHEST-PROFITABILITY topics
oAnalyzing (and using!) the competition
Affiliate Masters 303
oFinding affiliate programs for your concept
oHow to reduce risk by diversifying
oPicking the best, safest programs
oRefining your concept to just the right scope...
oThe "Valuable PRE-selling Proposition"
oCreating and Protecting the PERFECT domain name
oPreparing for your own mini-vertical-portal
Affiliate Masters 404
oBuilding your site... TWO kinds of visitors
oOVERdelivering high-value content to readers
who deliver HIGH-PROFITABILITY to you
oHow to PLEASE the Search Engines
oThe WIN-WIN-WIN-WIN
o"FIND-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-kaCHING"
oThe Structure of Your Site
oThe Content of Your Site
Affiliate Masters 505
oTraffic-building for Content sites
oThe Free Major Search Engines
oPay-Per-Click Search Engines
oThe Major Directories
oWord of Mouth
oE-zines -- market via your own opt-in newsletters
oOther traffic-building techniques
oTraffic Analysis... What's Important
oClick IN Analysis
oClick Through Analysis
oYour Road to Success... ACTION STEPS
-----
See that last item above?ACTION STEPS?Yes, it's time to
boil the course syllabus down into ACTION STEPS.
DO them...
You'll succeed. :-)
---------------------------
The Road to Success is Accomplished Through ACTION STEPS
You are already on the road to becoming a high-earning
affiliate champion by learning and DOING this course.Use
these ACTION STEPS to guide your journey each time you
create a Theme-Based Content Site.
As I said before, personalize your work schedule.Some
steps will take more time to complete than others. If a
certain ACTION STEP doesn't "ring a bell", go back and
review that particular part of the course.Work at a pace
that is comfortable for you.(Site Build It! and the SBI!
Manager Tool can make it "extra" comfortable):-)
The key to success is to build your affiliate business the
right way... the first time.
> STEP 1 -- Understand PRE-selling and its Effect on
> Conversion Rates
oKnow the difference between selling and PRE-selling.
--
> STEP 2 -- Brainstorm Your Site Concept
oDevelop a list of all the subjects that you know and like.
o"Short list" three concepts.Choose a tentative Site
Concept.You'll finalize it shortly.
--
> STEP 3 -- Develop HIGH-PROFITABILITY Topics
oDevelop a MASTER KEYWORD LIST.
oIdentify DEMAND (how often a keyword is searched for) by
using GoTo.com's Suggestion Tool.
oDetermine SUPPLY (how many sites already provide that
content) by using AltaVista or Google.
oKeep research notes (for each keyword) on SUPPLY SITE
INFO, POSSIBLE PARTNERS and IDEAS FOR CONTENT.Gather this
info from the top 20 SE-ranking sites for your KEYWORDS.
oChoose the highest PROFITABLE keywords.They have high
DEMAND and low SUPPLY and offer a good number of POSSIBLE
PARTNERS.
oDiversify your MASTER KEYWORD LIST by BREAKING OUT
(increase the number of related keywords).Use JimTools or
Ixquick or LookSmart.
oAdd keywords that reflect your customers' needs and wants
(how, what, when and where they search.)
--
> STEP 4 -- Grow, Prune and Group Best Affiliate Programs
oGrow your POSSIBLE PARTNERS research results by...
odoing a search for each keyword on your MASTER KEYWORD
LIST ("+keyword +affiliate") to find merchants with
affiliate programs or content sites that are affiliates.
Use AltaVista, GoTo.com, Google and/or Ixquick.
ousing AltaVista Link Tool (enter link:domain of content
site).
ochecking out specialized Affiliate Directories like
AssociatePrograms.com and Refer-It.
ojoining Affiliate Backend Providers such as Commission
Junction and BeFree or Affiliate Intermediaries such as
Vstore or Nexchange.
oDiversify and reduce risk.Don't give too much emphasis
to any single program.
oEliminate high-risk programs by identifying negative
features.
oSelect and categorize excellent merchant-partners (that
you are proud to represent).Use Alexa.com to help.
oFinalize your selection of good affiliate programs that
fit with your proposed Site Concept.
--
> STEP 5 -- Refine Final Concept and Register Domain Name
oUse information in your MASTER KEYWORD LIST to refine
your SITE CONCEPT.The key parameter is ... "As narrow as
possible, yet... still with lots of profit potential."
(See ten factors outlined in DAY 5).
oBegin work on Domain Name. Identify a "Valuable
PRE-selling Proposition."Answer in a very few words what
specific and high-value information your site delivers and
what your unique positioning is for this delivery.
o Include your VPP in your domain name.Get further
ideas from sites such as NameBoy.
Confirm availability with... http://betterwhois.com/ and
trademarks with http://www.marksonline.com/
o Use the service of a registrar to register your domain
name. A comprehensive list is found at...
http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.html
-----SIDEBAR-----
This action is not necessary if you own Site Build It!. The
cost of a domain name is included (as is everything else
outlined in this course)...
http://buildit.sitesell.com
-----SIDEBAR-----
oRegister several domain names to keep future expansion
avenues open.
oChoose a Site Concept that is something you know and
love and that has excellent PROFITABILITY.Take your time
to identify the best concept and domain name.
--
> STEP 6 -- Build a Site that Gets the CLICK!
oStart with the physical layout. Design it like a pyramid
with three Tiers.
The home page (Tier 1) focuses upon the fundamental Concept
Keyword. It links with Tier 2 pages (7 HIGH-PROFITABILITY
PAGES).Each of these pages links with five to ten related
Keyword-Focused Content Pages (Tier 3).
oDeliver VALUABLE content to your readers and TASTY
content to the Search Engine Spiders.
o Establish your VPP.Excite your reader.Describe the
benefits.Write content copy that answers the reader's
question, "What's in it for me?"
o Use your keywords frequently so that the SEs will rank
you highly -- your TITLE tag, META keyword and
description tags, H1 and other header tags, Body copy,
Link tags, file name/domain name, Image ALT tag and name
of image.Experiment with differently constructed pages
to find the most successful "formulas" for your theme.
oCreate Keyword-Focused Content Pages that fit with your
Site Concept and VPP, have a good SUPPLY/DEMAND ratio and
suit your interest/passion. Continue building until you have
50-70 content pages.
(Don't try to do them all in one week.Even if you only do
one per day, you will accomplish your goal in two months.
Just think -- in one year from now, you could have 6
Theme-Based Content Sites, each a source of income!)
--
> STEP 7 -- Build Traffic to Your Content
* This step covers DAYS 7, 8 and 9 of the course.It
demonstrates that building traffic is an ongoing process.
oSubmit your concept site to the major free Search Engines
(AltaVista, Excite, Google, HotBot, Go/InfoSeek, Lycos and
Northern Light).Follow their submission policies.
oWatch the spider activity in your log files to see if
and when they visit.
oTrack each engine to see when your pages are indexed.
oTrack the Search Engines' rankings of your Specific
Keywords.
oTweak until at least HALF of your pages rank in the Top
10 on at least HALF of the Search Engines.
oBuild popularity points with the SEs by increasing the
number of important and related links to your site.List
with major directories and with directories that are
specific to your area of interest.Try exchanging links
with other non-competing sites and perhaps by use a "link
enhancement program." Interlink your domains that have
related topics.
oResearch and submit bids for keyword placement at the
Pay-per-Click Search Engines (GoTo.com, Bay9.com, FindWhat,
etc.)Bid a penny higher than the highest site that seems
to reach your TARGET VISITOR, as long as it makes financial
sense.Work the niches -- bid on hundreds of keywords
related to your site.
oGet listed in the Major Directories (Yahoo!, Open
Directory, LookSmart, and the others).
oUse techniques like word-of-mouth (deliver HIGH-VALUE
content), e-zine publication, ads, link exchanges, sig file,
etc.to build even more traffic.
--
> STEP 8 -- Know Your Visitors
oAnalyse your traffic.Know where your visitors come from
and what words they use to find you at the Search Engines.
Find out, and follow on an ongoing basis, the number of
visits and visitors that your site receives on a daily basis
and which pages are most popular.
oDo a Click In Analysis -- create special tracking links
to measure the success of OFF-SITE promotions.
oDo a Click Through Analysis -- convert your OUTGOING
links to special tracking links to measure the success of
ON-SITE links to know what exactly people are clicking on
and what they are not.
o Build upon what works.Improve or eliminate failures.
--
Then... repeat the process for every new Theme-Based Content
Site that you develop.Build your affiliate business as big
as you want.After all, it's YOUR road to success!
-----
Well, that's it. You now know enough to...
o look deep within yourself and find your passion/knowledge
o create a site based upon that knowledge, full of HIGH-
PROFITABILITY topics
o find affiliate programs that fit with what *YOU* know and
love
o write content that PRE-sells and gets excellent CRs
o write content that ALSO acts like honey to the "Search
Engine Bears."
o build traffic through a variety of strong techniques.
You stand at the start of a trend that will grow
geometrically over the next three years... "building income
through content."The affiliate model of product
distribution is set to explode.
Now it's in your hands.Ultimately it all comes down to
what one of my favorite entrepreneurs once said...
"How to succeed? Try hard enough."
-- Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990)
There's nothing else.Go get 'em.:-)
All the best,
Ken
P.S. This is the final installment of the 5-day Affiliate
Masters course.If I don't see you again, I'd like to wish
you only great success in all of your Web ventures.
But I really would rather see you again...
To stay on the cutting edge of affiliate success, join the 5
Pillar Affiliate Program -- the weekly Five Pillar Affiliate
Report will send you original, ground-breaking information
that you can *USE* to continue to build your affiliate
business.
In addition to the award-winning 5P Reports, you also
receive the 5 Pillar Manual and the Ultimate Ad Tracker.
Yes, we could sell both of these -- Allan Gardyne (yes, the
guru from associateprograms.com) called the Manual "the best
Manual about succeeding as an affiliate on the Net"), better
even than manuals costing over $60.And the Ultimate Ad
Tracker is much better than similar programs that sell on
the Net for $50 and more -- it's ideal for setting the
special tracking links discussed during DAY 10.
But I want you to have them, with my compliments, because
they're so important for your success.And no matter what
your passion or expertise is, our expanding line of products
will be of interest to MERCHANTS who visit your champion
site.So together, we'd make a great team.
I'd love to be a small part of your success.:-)
http://www.sitesell.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
AFFILIATE MASTERS UPDATES...
You are receiving the Affiliate Masters Course only because
you requested it, or someone used your computer to request
it.From time to time, I'll send you an update to the
"Affiliate Masters" course.If you'd like to receive them,
you have nothing to do.
If you'd prefer not to receive the updates, simply
unsubscribe by sending a blank e-mail to...
unsubscribetams@sitesell.net
NOTE: You must send it from the same e-mail address that is
subscribed to this 5-day course.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Allan Gardyne (yes, of associateprograms.com fame) has said
that "if you join only one program, make it the 5 Pillar
Program" and he has called it "the perfect revenue sharing
program." Ralph Wilson (wilsonweb.com) says that "Ken Evoy
has taken affiliate programs to the next level." And the
Five Pillar Program was chosen by AffiliatesDirectory.com as
"The Best Program of 1999."
For more information...
http://www.sitesell.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Contact info: E-mail us at support@sitesell.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Written by Ken Evoy, M.D.
President, SiteSell.com
(c) copyright 2000, 2001 SiteSell.com Inc.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Site Build It!" TM SiteSell.com Inc.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
<<<--- Previous Lesson Return to Success Training HERE! | | |
©Copyright Business Success Experts.com
A Division of The Workplace Moxie Network - All Worldwide Rights Reserved
| | |
