Webmaster and SEO forums are full of testimonials and complaints about the impact and implications for future SEO of the most recent Google algorithm update, the so-called Penguin update. Google's Matt Cutts did warn us in advance that he would be penalising websites with keyword stuffing and excessive internal links. There has also been much talk of the potential effectiveness of negative SEO.
It is certainly apparent that Penguin has some glitches which need to be fixed with many reported cases of websites that do not deserve a high-ranking achieving one despite spammy inbound links and unimpressive content.
Obviously tweaks to the algorithm will continue to be rolled out with many of the unfairly penalised websites recovering rankings. Of more concern is the apparent negative SEO finding with this writer having already noticed an increase in inbound links to non-existent pages which are clearly automatically created.
Matt Cutts has long argued that the best type of SEO is no specific SEO other than the writing of excellent original content to which others will link. Some SEO professionals feel that their greatest strength, backlink building, is too easily labelled as black hat by Google leaving them confused as to what value the can bring to their clients.
It has also been noted that EMDs may have been hit too although there is some disagreement about this. Those EMDs that have been hit on my main website are those of greatest commercial value to me, consistent with the theory often paraded that affiliate-type sites are vulnerable to Google algorithm updates.
Clearly the greatest pressing need is to eliminate the opportunities for negative SEO as this could quickly destroy the quality search results that Google is trying to achieve.
For anyone starting up a brand-new website that plans to trade in a competitive market and compete on competitive keywords, a lot can be learned from current developments of which the most important is that probably their most useful SEO tool, if they are experts in their field, and genuinely have some useful content to write, is to use voice recognition software to create good content with the greatest ease while, possibly, doing away with any SEOs that could potentially do you more harm than good as Google becomes more and more effective at reducing the gaming of its algorithm.
We could all be in big trouble, though, if disgruntled SEOs begin to practice negative SEO on their clients' rivals if this appears to be the most effective way for them to further their clients interests. On this we need some urgent help from Google.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Google's Panda Update SEO
The main aim of the recent Google Panda update to its algorithm was to penalize content farms - websites that had numerous keyword stuffed pages but were of limited utility to human visitors.
Some thin affiliate sites, that are in competition with Google Adwords, have seen a drop in SERPs as a result. However, overall, the more successful affiliate sites, with enough content to avoid falling foul of Google Panda, have, if anything, seen improved SERPs including one of this writer's car insurance sites that has seen a climb in all of the more competitive keywords according to Google Webmaster Tools stats; so the argument that Google is bad for the competition is not the case where that competition offers good original content - a position that Google's Matt Cutts has always maintained.
Perhaps there's nothing terribly new about this - that 'content is king' is a well known central component of SEO. Panda just underlined it, though, with the effect that (human) content generators will need to work harder for Google to index new pages.
This writer has already found that Google has raised the bar on indexing content added to his websites. News items (because they have original content) appear to remain of greatest interest to Google on the sites he manages.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Free Affiliate Marketing Guide
The Successful Affiliates Guide is the seminal and definitive guide for any new or beginner affiliate who is serious about making his affiliate programs successful. They also provide a free introductory affiliate marketing ebook that can be used in 2 ways.
It can be used 'as is' to learn about affiliate marketing. I can recommend it for anyone new to affiliate marketing. It can also be easily rebranded using free software supplied by the Successful Affiliates Guide so that the free ebook then contains its owner's (your) personal affiliate links. This allows you to make money from distributing it yourself. The 'personalised' links mean that anyone who buys the Successful Affiliates Guide via a link in the free ebook earns you 50% of the sale.
This free Affiliate Marketing Guide ebook with rebrand option is available from the Successful Affiliates Guide Affiliates page. In fact, this is one of the best affiliates' pages you will find for an affiliate marketing guide of this type. It provides free banners and text links to assist you in your affiliate marketing promotions. It explains how to sign up as an affiliate for free via Clickbank. It also provides the best keywords and advertisement text for use with pay per click campagins by affiliates, for example with the Google Adwords system.
Brand bidding is allowed if you decide to market the Successful Affiliates Guide directly without use of the free ebook. That means that affiliates can market the Successful Affiliates Guide using the words 'Successful Affiliates Guide'. This makes use of Google Adwords a more commercially viable option as it reduces keyword bidding costs in pay per click with Google Adwords or any other ppc services.
Google Adwords combined with Clickbank products can be an effective way to earn money online without your own website as the free guide explains in brief, a fuller explanation being available from the Successful Affiliates Guide itself.
Take a look. It's all free. Affiliate Marketing is an excellent part-time home-working option.
It can be used 'as is' to learn about affiliate marketing. I can recommend it for anyone new to affiliate marketing. It can also be easily rebranded using free software supplied by the Successful Affiliates Guide so that the free ebook then contains its owner's (your) personal affiliate links. This allows you to make money from distributing it yourself. The 'personalised' links mean that anyone who buys the Successful Affiliates Guide via a link in the free ebook earns you 50% of the sale.
This free Affiliate Marketing Guide ebook with rebrand option is available from the Successful Affiliates Guide Affiliates page. In fact, this is one of the best affiliates' pages you will find for an affiliate marketing guide of this type. It provides free banners and text links to assist you in your affiliate marketing promotions. It explains how to sign up as an affiliate for free via Clickbank. It also provides the best keywords and advertisement text for use with pay per click campagins by affiliates, for example with the Google Adwords system.
Brand bidding is allowed if you decide to market the Successful Affiliates Guide directly without use of the free ebook. That means that affiliates can market the Successful Affiliates Guide using the words 'Successful Affiliates Guide'. This makes use of Google Adwords a more commercially viable option as it reduces keyword bidding costs in pay per click with Google Adwords or any other ppc services.
Google Adwords combined with Clickbank products can be an effective way to earn money online without your own website as the free guide explains in brief, a fuller explanation being available from the Successful Affiliates Guide itself.
Take a look. It's all free. Affiliate Marketing is an excellent part-time home-working option.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Google Adwords + Clickbank = $$ for Affiliates?
Much is said about the potentially powerful moneymaking combination of Google Adwords and Clickbank. Unfortunately most of it is hype.
In my experience, it is difficult to make a fortune this way even when applying the correct techniques and sufficient effort.
It can make you a few hundred dollars each month, however, and it is a good training ground for any affiliate who wants to learn about the processes involved in affiliate marketing; so I do encourage people to get involved.
The principle is straight forward. You select a Clickbank product to sell with a 'gravity' score between 75 and 150. You advertise it with Google Adwords for less than you make via commissions from completed sales and potentially you make a tidy profit.
The trouble is, to identify good campaigns takes time and effort. Exactly how to achieve the best results from this is the subject of many over-priced ebooks.
A better approach is to learn about affiliate marketing in general not just Google Adwords and Clickbank.
While you can and should find out how to combine Google Adwords and Clickbank for profit using a good guide such as the Successful Affiliates Guide, you also need a full grounding in all that is needed to succeed as an affiliate (available from the Successful Affiliates Guide). Google Adwords and Clickbank is just a small part of that.
Most affiliate networks require you to own your own website before you can do business with them. Your own website is a powerful marketing tool and opens up much more opportunities for affiliate marketing than simply non-website based pay per click (ppc) campaigns.
In my experience, it is difficult to make a fortune this way even when applying the correct techniques and sufficient effort.
It can make you a few hundred dollars each month, however, and it is a good training ground for any affiliate who wants to learn about the processes involved in affiliate marketing; so I do encourage people to get involved.
The principle is straight forward. You select a Clickbank product to sell with a 'gravity' score between 75 and 150. You advertise it with Google Adwords for less than you make via commissions from completed sales and potentially you make a tidy profit.
The trouble is, to identify good campaigns takes time and effort. Exactly how to achieve the best results from this is the subject of many over-priced ebooks.
A better approach is to learn about affiliate marketing in general not just Google Adwords and Clickbank.
While you can and should find out how to combine Google Adwords and Clickbank for profit using a good guide such as the Successful Affiliates Guide, you also need a full grounding in all that is needed to succeed as an affiliate (available from the Successful Affiliates Guide). Google Adwords and Clickbank is just a small part of that.
Most affiliate networks require you to own your own website before you can do business with them. Your own website is a powerful marketing tool and opens up much more opportunities for affiliate marketing than simply non-website based pay per click (ppc) campaigns.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
The Successful Affiliates Guide - A Review
The Successful Affiliates Guide is written by Affiliate Marketing Academic, Dr D M MacKenzie, who has worked hard to include all the necessary building blocks that Affiliates need to suceed.
The Successful Affiliates Guide website promotes the guide as honest and ethical, pointing out that it is more detailed than other similar guides and does not mislead through hype and extravagent promises. This assertion, which is accurate, renders the Successful Affiliates Guide refreshingly different to many of its competitors. At its current price, it is also good value.
For any affiliate starting out or who is struggling to make money, it provides helpful practical guidance through every step of the way from initial products selection through to driving trafffic to your online business on an ongoing basis. In particular, it provides a lot of information on Search Engine Optimization, including some strategies uniquely available in the guide.
Is it worth buying? Yes, largely because it covers all the important areas, unlike other similar guides that tend to be much more expensive.
For more, check out the Successful Affiliates Guide website, where the guide is available for download.
They also provide a free ebook that introduces you to Affiliate Marketing for those not wishing to invest in the guide straight away and who want an overview of Affiliate Marketing first.
The Successful Affiliates Guide website promotes the guide as honest and ethical, pointing out that it is more detailed than other similar guides and does not mislead through hype and extravagent promises. This assertion, which is accurate, renders the Successful Affiliates Guide refreshingly different to many of its competitors. At its current price, it is also good value.
For any affiliate starting out or who is struggling to make money, it provides helpful practical guidance through every step of the way from initial products selection through to driving trafffic to your online business on an ongoing basis. In particular, it provides a lot of information on Search Engine Optimization, including some strategies uniquely available in the guide.
Is it worth buying? Yes, largely because it covers all the important areas, unlike other similar guides that tend to be much more expensive.
For more, check out the Successful Affiliates Guide website, where the guide is available for download.
They also provide a free ebook that introduces you to Affiliate Marketing for those not wishing to invest in the guide straight away and who want an overview of Affiliate Marketing first.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Google Adwords and Affiliates
You've probably seen the small advertisements displayed to the right hand side of Google search results. Many of these adverts are placed by Affiliates. When someone clicks on one of them, the advertiser (the Affiliate) is charged a fee. The maximum fee per click is determined in advance by the affiliate. The affiliate also controls the maximum daily advertising budget.
For non-competitive keywords, the cost per click is only a few cents - twenty or more clicks can cost less than $1. For competitive keywords, to display on the first page is expensive. The cost per single click can be several dollars. For the keywords 'auto insurance', for example, it can cost over $7.
When we consider the following scenario, simplified for illustrative purposes, it can be seen that this cost is not sustainable for an affiliate. If we pursue our auto insurance example, let us imagine that we have just one affiliate link on our website. And we know that a typical conversion rate for this link is 1 in 40. That means that on average, for every 40 clicks on that link, we will receive one commission for a completed sale. If that commission is $40, on average, we will make $1 per click on our affiliate link.
If the proportion of site visitors that click onto the affiliate link is around 50% (a fairly typical figure) then the maximum we can spend on a single click for pay per click advertising to avoid a loss is 50 cents. Of course, if we want to make a profit and cover our business costs, a figure closer to half this cost is more realistic.
What this means in practice is that when using pay per click (ppc) advertising, less competitive keywords need to be selected to keep costs down. This means that you need to apply a niche marketing model. The Google Adwords service will suggest potential keywords for you which you can select from a list.
Google provides the advertiser with full statistics of each ad campaign which you can access at any time online. It is also possible to determine which links have led to completed sales. You can have 25 ad campaign groups running at once. Each campaign group can include several products.
From the above, it can be seen that it is important for affiliates to always do their sums before embarking on an advertising campaign as the best keywords, for affiliates, are always too expensive. This remains the case for other search engine paid advertising, indeed MSN's live search is often more expensive than Google.
Is it worth using ppc at all then? Yes, but you need to limit your campaigns to the less popular keywords which limits the amount of traffic you can generate for your site from paid advertising. Unfortunately, this means that in practice, for a successful affiliate, typically ppc referred traffic to their site is responsible for only a limited percentage of their overall income. One of the reasons why the affiliate is not able to harnass ppc to great effect is that, as part of their affiliate terms and conditions, they are not allowed to bid on their affiliated brands. They cannot use ppc keywords that include the brand name or related marketing terms as this would put them in direct competiton with that brand. A few affiliate networks (a noteable example is Clickbank) do allow brand bidding and this renders ppc a much more potent income generator.
KEYPOINT:
Pay per click (ppc) is most effective where brand bidding is allowed.
You can find out more about combining Google Adwords and Clickbank.
Good luck with your campaigns.
For non-competitive keywords, the cost per click is only a few cents - twenty or more clicks can cost less than $1. For competitive keywords, to display on the first page is expensive. The cost per single click can be several dollars. For the keywords 'auto insurance', for example, it can cost over $7.
When we consider the following scenario, simplified for illustrative purposes, it can be seen that this cost is not sustainable for an affiliate. If we pursue our auto insurance example, let us imagine that we have just one affiliate link on our website. And we know that a typical conversion rate for this link is 1 in 40. That means that on average, for every 40 clicks on that link, we will receive one commission for a completed sale. If that commission is $40, on average, we will make $1 per click on our affiliate link.
If the proportion of site visitors that click onto the affiliate link is around 50% (a fairly typical figure) then the maximum we can spend on a single click for pay per click advertising to avoid a loss is 50 cents. Of course, if we want to make a profit and cover our business costs, a figure closer to half this cost is more realistic.
What this means in practice is that when using pay per click (ppc) advertising, less competitive keywords need to be selected to keep costs down. This means that you need to apply a niche marketing model. The Google Adwords service will suggest potential keywords for you which you can select from a list.
Google provides the advertiser with full statistics of each ad campaign which you can access at any time online. It is also possible to determine which links have led to completed sales. You can have 25 ad campaign groups running at once. Each campaign group can include several products.
From the above, it can be seen that it is important for affiliates to always do their sums before embarking on an advertising campaign as the best keywords, for affiliates, are always too expensive. This remains the case for other search engine paid advertising, indeed MSN's live search is often more expensive than Google.
Is it worth using ppc at all then? Yes, but you need to limit your campaigns to the less popular keywords which limits the amount of traffic you can generate for your site from paid advertising. Unfortunately, this means that in practice, for a successful affiliate, typically ppc referred traffic to their site is responsible for only a limited percentage of their overall income. One of the reasons why the affiliate is not able to harnass ppc to great effect is that, as part of their affiliate terms and conditions, they are not allowed to bid on their affiliated brands. They cannot use ppc keywords that include the brand name or related marketing terms as this would put them in direct competiton with that brand. A few affiliate networks (a noteable example is Clickbank) do allow brand bidding and this renders ppc a much more potent income generator.
KEYPOINT:
Pay per click (ppc) is most effective where brand bidding is allowed.
You can find out more about combining Google Adwords and Clickbank.
Good luck with your campaigns.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Top Title Tags Take Time
The page title tag plays a vital role. It is the most important determinant of whether or not someone will click through to your site from a search engine listing.
It also has an important function in informing search engines about the content of your page and how it should be listed and retrieved for specific keyword searches. It therefore has a significant effect on search rank too.
The page title must include the most important keywords for that page which can be repeated but best not in the same order and which should only be repeated once.
Make sure that every page has a unique title. Use of the separation bar can be useful. Look at the title choices in your competitors' pages. Which ones would you choose to click on in a search? Why? As the internet is about gathering information, your answer will relate to the fact that the title in question tells you that clicking through to that site or page is likely to provide the information that you need.
Quirky or humourous titles are best avoided unless they are truly in keeping with the market sector with which they are associated.
Use language that is not too clunky or full of long words. It must be easy to read. A length of no more than 80 characters ensures it will display on all search engines. This increases to 120 characters for Yahoo. Try to avoid any lengthier page titles than this.
The page title is written within the title tags which are found in the head of webpages. Remember to include RSS title tags for any RSS feed you use in the head, along with the RSS URL.
To find out more about the essential ingredients of webpage building and to learn about affiliate marketing, you can consult the ebook, Successful Affiliates Guide.
Good luck with getting your own page titles right.
It also has an important function in informing search engines about the content of your page and how it should be listed and retrieved for specific keyword searches. It therefore has a significant effect on search rank too.
The page title must include the most important keywords for that page which can be repeated but best not in the same order and which should only be repeated once.
Make sure that every page has a unique title. Use of the separation bar can be useful. Look at the title choices in your competitors' pages. Which ones would you choose to click on in a search? Why? As the internet is about gathering information, your answer will relate to the fact that the title in question tells you that clicking through to that site or page is likely to provide the information that you need.
Quirky or humourous titles are best avoided unless they are truly in keeping with the market sector with which they are associated.
Use language that is not too clunky or full of long words. It must be easy to read. A length of no more than 80 characters ensures it will display on all search engines. This increases to 120 characters for Yahoo. Try to avoid any lengthier page titles than this.
The page title is written within the title tags which are found in the head of webpages. Remember to include RSS title tags for any RSS feed you use in the head, along with the RSS URL.
To find out more about the essential ingredients of webpage building and to learn about affiliate marketing, you can consult the ebook, Successful Affiliates Guide.
Good luck with getting your own page titles right.
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