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.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
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.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
The Search Engine Sandbox - Reality or Fiction?
SEO experts are divided as to whether the so-called 'sandbox' effect is a real or imagined phenomenon. If you subscribe to the sandbox argument, it goes something like this:
Google in particular, but also to a lesser extent Yahoo, do not quickly provide new websites with high search ranks for their important keywords even where valid SEO strategies have been applied. MSN, however, tends not to operate the same delay.
Because of this, it has been assumed that new websites go into a 'sandbox' as they await repeated spidering cycles to ensure that their content and links are 'worthy' and not part of a spammy inter-linked group of websites with SEO as their only function.
Even if you do not subscribe to this sandbox argument, it is well-recognised that older sites that are at least a year old, seem to be 'trusted' by Google (assuming that they are genuine white hat) and are more likely to feature in keyword searches.
The sandbox argument contends that the new website has to become established with (at least some) high quality inbound links over many months to be taken seriously by Google.
It is the case, however, that if you go for particularly aggressive SEO - i.e. you buy 100s of links from high page rankers - that this tidal wave of 'interest' in your site will quickly carry your site out of the sandbox to high ranking prominence. That is if Google does not smell a rat - their algorythm is learning to sniff out non-organic links of this type and they have penalised prominent companies.
So does the sandbox exist? Perhaps, but it's more like a damn that will give if you hurl enough at it. Further, it is possible to understand the factors at play without needing a sandbox hypothesis.
Is it a useful concept then? Yes, but only in as much as it reminds webmasters that they have to be patient.
Google in particular, but also to a lesser extent Yahoo, do not quickly provide new websites with high search ranks for their important keywords even where valid SEO strategies have been applied. MSN, however, tends not to operate the same delay.
Because of this, it has been assumed that new websites go into a 'sandbox' as they await repeated spidering cycles to ensure that their content and links are 'worthy' and not part of a spammy inter-linked group of websites with SEO as their only function.
Even if you do not subscribe to this sandbox argument, it is well-recognised that older sites that are at least a year old, seem to be 'trusted' by Google (assuming that they are genuine white hat) and are more likely to feature in keyword searches.
The sandbox argument contends that the new website has to become established with (at least some) high quality inbound links over many months to be taken seriously by Google.
It is the case, however, that if you go for particularly aggressive SEO - i.e. you buy 100s of links from high page rankers - that this tidal wave of 'interest' in your site will quickly carry your site out of the sandbox to high ranking prominence. That is if Google does not smell a rat - their algorythm is learning to sniff out non-organic links of this type and they have penalised prominent companies.
So does the sandbox exist? Perhaps, but it's more like a damn that will give if you hurl enough at it. Further, it is possible to understand the factors at play without needing a sandbox hypothesis.
Is it a useful concept then? Yes, but only in as much as it reminds webmasters that they have to be patient.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Meta Tags are important for SEO
'Description' Meta Tag
Surprisingly, most websites do not make the best possible use of the description meta tag. They focus too much on offering a non-keyword rich description rather than using the opportunity to present important keywords.
You can repeat some keywords (only once and with a change of word order), but do not repeat them all. Given that search engines often include description meta tag content in search results, it does have an important marketing role; so bear in mind that employing clunky language to maximise your use of keywords could deter visitors.
You have to balance these dual roles - the need to present important keywords to search engines and the need to describe your site in a way that increases the likelihood of it being selected from a search. Of course these two functions are not mutually exclusive. An effective description (for the public) is likely to contain important keywords.
This meta tag should not be longer than 24 words. Longer meta tags may be penanlised by search engines.
Have a look at your competitors' description meta tags from their page sources. Look at several. Form you own view as to what appears to be an optimal balance between keyword inclusion and effective description.
'Keywords' Meta Tag
Keyword Meta Tags are ignored by Google, but remain important for other search engines. You should include all your keywords, the most important being listed first.
Avoid exhaustive lists and present less than 1000 characters (less than 500 is best). The trend nowadays is to limit the length of the keyword list.
Look at what your competitors have listed in their keyword meta tags. Affiliates work in crowded markets, they rarely need to re-invent the wheel.
Find out more about Meta Tags and how to write them.
Surprisingly, most websites do not make the best possible use of the description meta tag. They focus too much on offering a non-keyword rich description rather than using the opportunity to present important keywords.
You can repeat some keywords (only once and with a change of word order), but do not repeat them all. Given that search engines often include description meta tag content in search results, it does have an important marketing role; so bear in mind that employing clunky language to maximise your use of keywords could deter visitors.
You have to balance these dual roles - the need to present important keywords to search engines and the need to describe your site in a way that increases the likelihood of it being selected from a search. Of course these two functions are not mutually exclusive. An effective description (for the public) is likely to contain important keywords.
This meta tag should not be longer than 24 words. Longer meta tags may be penanlised by search engines.
Have a look at your competitors' description meta tags from their page sources. Look at several. Form you own view as to what appears to be an optimal balance between keyword inclusion and effective description.
'Keywords' Meta Tag
Keyword Meta Tags are ignored by Google, but remain important for other search engines. You should include all your keywords, the most important being listed first.
Avoid exhaustive lists and present less than 1000 characters (less than 500 is best). The trend nowadays is to limit the length of the keyword list.
Look at what your competitors have listed in their keyword meta tags. Affiliates work in crowded markets, they rarely need to re-invent the wheel.
Find out more about Meta Tags and how to write them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
