Effective Copywriting for Affiliate Marketers

By: Social on 00:23

Writing is a skilled job, and an art form. Anyone can string a few words together and get their point across, but what sets skilled writers apart from hobbyists is the way that they structure their copy to suit the task at hand. Some writers specialize in feature writing or real life stories, others in corporate copy or affiliate marketing. The style and approach that works for one audience will not necessarily work for another.

The Recipe For Great Affiliate Marketing Content

Affiliate marketers tend to rely on a few basic formats:

Short ads (e.g. paid search/display ads)

Sales letters

Landing Pages

Up-selling on the Thank You page

If you take a look at a few sales pages for different products, you'll notice that they all follow a similar format. Why? Because that format works. The content differs depending on the product, but there are some things that every sales letter and landing page should include.

A Strong Hook

You have only a few seconds to grab the customer's attention, so use them wisely. Start by including a major benefit or selling point in your headline, and building on that in the first few paragraphs of your sales page. The product name is not a good headline, a description of what the product does is a much better choice.

A Good Story

Most web users hate feeling like they're being sold to, so don't make your sales pitch read like a one-sided conversation with a used car salesman. Tell a story, and build engagement with the customer. If you're selling a bodybuilding supplement, talk about how all the other supplements don't mix very well, but this one tastes great. Or explain how you have tried dozens of other supplements, but after starting this one you found you had more energy in the gym. Be human, and your customers will be more receptive to your message.

Genuine Endorsements and Reviews

Of course, your customers won't take your word for it. Get endorsements from respected figures, and reviews from past customers, and include them in your affiliate marketing copy. Try to include a picture of the reviewer with the review if possible, because this makes the reviews more believable, and helps the reader identify with the reviewer. Publish reviews even if they aren't completely positive - a review with one or two negatives in it could actually net you a sale because it will help the reader feel like they've done their due diligence. If all your reviews are glowing "This is AWESOME!" statements, the reader will be suspicious and convinced that there must be a catch. 

Calls To Action

You should always include multiple calls to action in your copy. Your emails should have a call to action at the end, and your sales page should include a few calls littered throughout the page so that people who skim-read still see them. Ask your visitors to bookmark your page, subscribe to your RSS feed, join your mailing list or buy your product. The more ways you engage with your visitors, the better. If you don't nudge people to follow/subscribe/buy, they'll leave your site without doing anything, even if they are impressed with what you have to say.

Writing good affiliate copy takes practice. Don't be afraid to innovate with your copy, but do test each change you make and track your results. Keep trying new layouts and new messages until you find what works for your niche.

Read More

200 RANKING FACTORS INFOGRAPHIC! NICE!

By: Anonymous on 02:20

Note: Its 8mb so you may need to give it a min or two... well worth the wait! print it out and put it on your wall. 




Direct Download link: Click

Read More

How SEO Can Benefit Your Business

By: Social on 22:24

Everyday millions of people use the internet to search for products and services that they are interested in. They use search engines like Google and Bing where they can type what they are looking for and instantly get a page with the results related to their keywords.

Therefore, it’s no secret that online visibility has become the blueprint to success for businesses in today’s technological environment. Pretty much every brand and business out there is trying their hardest to improve their online presence, increasing online competition dramatically.

Statistics show that over 70% of people only click on the top three results of the search engine so if your business is not in the top three it is likely you will not get a lot of traffic to your website. What’s more, if your business is not on the first page of search engine results, it is as if you don’t even have a website, and that’s where SEO comes in.

You might have heard of the words search engine optimization (SEO), but you’re not entirely sure what it is or how it can really benefit your business? SEO is a way to improve your website to help increase the amount of visitors your website gets from search engines. SEO involves an extensive range of different factors to improve your online visibility from aspects such as the Meta data to the URL to unique content. Optimizing your website with these elements will help to improve your rankings on search engines, which will ultimately improve traffic to your website resulting in a higher ROI.

Now you have a better understanding about SEO, here’ a bit more detail about the benefits it can bring to your business and why it is a worthwhile investment:

Improved search rankings – investing in SEO will improve your positioning in the search engine results, which will mean that you will be more visible to potential customers increasing the amount of traffic to your website.

Credibility – Google is highly trusted by consumers searching for products and services. The higher your website appears on Google, the more at ease people are going to feel when clicking on your website.

Improved brand awareness – The more potential consumers see your brand at the top of google results, the more they will become familiar with your brand, improving your brands recognition.

Above the competition – As you already know, competition for any business is high on the internet. Investing in SEO can benefit your company by putting you above a long list of companies that offer similar products or services.

High ROI –An SEO campaign has the highest return on investment of all internet marketing. A professional SEO company can guarantee results in just a few short weeks, improving your investment in sales significantly.

Low costs – In comparison to other online marketing an advertising techniques, SEO is lower in price. A professional SEO company can build lots of quality internet marketing sources that won’t disappear, even once you have stopped paying for them.  Therefore SEO is a long term strategy.

SEO has proven to be tremendously effective, a great way to boost sales and generate a great return on investment. So if you’re looking to improve your online presence, SEO is a great way to go about it.  SEO can be done by anyone, however it requires education and specialized skills with an excellent understanding of SEO for it to be done effectively. It’s well worth doing your research and selecting a professional SEO agency that can prove to you, with case studies, how their services have helped businesses in the past and how they can help your business.

Read More

SEO: What Gives?

By: Social on 22:50

The advent of SEO has truly revolutionized the world of search engines. Your favorite search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo had been made more user-friendly. This is to say that you get the most relevant results to your queries because of a technique known as Search Engine Optimization.

But what gives? If only to suffice that question, search engines keep getting better via the introduction of SEO or search engine optimization.  As the name implies, the operative word is to optimize, which puts efficiency as a priority in order to serve customers better and make the online portal a viable means of business transactions.

The Power of Words

This is a perfect explanation as to why keywords are ruling over search engines – and why search engines recognize them in an instant.  When website owners fill their pages with content, keywords are of prime consideration.  These are words or phrases specifically designed to act as links themselves that would point customers to the right direction.  Grammar or syntax is not as important as finding the link that will lead you to a particular item you are searching for.

What These Keywords Mean

Visibility.  These words make your online presence known.  It puts you on the top ranks, making you visible to consumers the world over.  It keeps you on top of your game when you are highly visible as people will see most of you on a constant basis.  Through relevant content in your sites, you are able to attract visitors that can become potential clients in the ensuing days.

Access.  Accessibility is like opening the door of a physical store or establishment.  You are opening the portals through your use of keywords.  People gain access to your service or item of trade when they are visible and updated.  You are virtually giving customers a virtual key that would open doors for business relations.

Traffic.  When your site is gaining score, traffic becomes constant, and that is a critical part of your online business.  With SEO smartly interspersed within your content, you are a virtual ticket waiting for the right customer.  The chances of eventually translating this into sales and profit become higher.

When Complacency Becomes Detrimental

Just because you have an online presence does not mean you can sit comfortably on your desk and wait for the next transaction to pop up.  While this is the goal of SEO, it also important to keep in mind that continuity is key.  You need to keep your sites updated in order to maintain a following.  You cannot expect to make money while you are not doing anything. This is like waiting for profit to fall from the skies without making an investment. Lose out on that aspect and you'll eventually lose customers.

Hitting it Right on Target

New articles that are refreshed on an almost daily basis, most especially those that contain trivial but interesting information about your products, will be a magnetic factor for customers.  It doesn't need to be lengthy and detailed content.  What's more relevant to readers is quality content that is brief and clear.

For instance, if you're marketing an acne solution product, go direct to the point by telling your customers what needs to be done, what products you offer, and testimonials with visible results if at all possible. Readers will not be interested on the chemical makeup of acne or what part of the body is responsible for its progression.  What they want is to get rid of them fast and effectively.  So leave out the unnecessary or perhaps just offer minute details and focus on the necessary.

Read More

SEO In Five Easy Steps

By: Social on 00:52

One of the best ways to attract visitors is your website is SEO or Search Engine Optimization. Every minute, thousands of people use search engines, such as Bing or Google. Most of them don't bother to spend a lot of time on checking all the searching possible results and if your site is not search optimized, you can miss out a lot of potential customers. In the 21st century, SEO in is an essential part of the Internet marketing. So here are some very important steps.

The content of your website has to be really great and unique

Spend some time on writing a really good content. It has to be neither too short, nor too long and you must find a way to grab the attention of a possible visitor right from the title. If you manage to succeed, your customers will share links from your site on the social networks and you can get even more visitors. You can try to accelerate the spread of your content by making an account in Twitter of Facebook, where millions of people share information every single second. Once in a while, go back and refresh some of your old content. Update image attributes,  add links to your home page and other relevant content on your site.

Keyword Research

When people search for a certain product or information on the Internet, they use different words. Some of these word you may not have anticipated. That's exactly when keyword research comes in. This is the easiest way to understand how different customers tend to search. For instance, if you sell clothes you probably assume that people use this particular word to search for your product. And indeed, it makes sense  - the word is a collective one and it is also very commonly used. But the truth is that most of the people tend to be a bit more specific. Instead of 'clothes', they would probably write 'little, black dress'; 'cool jeans' or 'the sexiest top ever'. (We know it's ridiculous, but unfortunately we all do that).  So, you can use the so-called Google AdWords Keyword Tool. You can enter a certain word and see how often people use it. Because, as we mentioned above, it would be a great shame if you are talking about 'all types of clothes' and you miss all those people interested in 'dresses', 't-shirts', 'suits' and 'jackets'.


Build Links:

One of the most important ways, which search engines use, in order to decide which pages should rank well, is by looking at links to those pages. The point is not to go about building a lot of links, but to make them important ones, with high-quality. Content that gain 'hard links' is the one that will get a boost.

Word count

In this case, the classic rule 'online readers do not read' does not apply, since the point is not to make your visitors read the entire information written in your site, but to include more words which a potential visitor may use to get to your product. Try to stick to at least 250 words a page


Google Authorship

Today, Google has a system, which is called 'Authorship', which helps you to link a certain page to your Google+ account. Using it allows you to have your image next to the links of your pages. In the future, this system can turn into a good way for Google to understand which of the pages should rank better.

Read More

9 Sure-Shot Social Media Marketing Practices That Hardly Ever Work

By: Anonymous on 22:12

The social media marketing world has so much information floating around that it can get confusing, and even make you to believe in some of the tried-tested-and-failed strategies. It’s time you learned to separate the hype from the reality when it comes to channelizing your social media marketing efforts.

As a child, we fall for fairy tales and fascinating stories where everything ends on a happy note. These fascinations for happy-endings continue as we mature. We tend to do everything to avoid unpleasant experiences and fall for things that give us a sense of guaranteed successful conclusions. Yes, you guessed it right. I’m pointing out at sure-shot practices that are proclaimed to never fail…. But the reality is just the opposite.

Going social is the latest buzz in the online marketing world. People give all sorts of advice to win over the social world. However, an entrepreneur should be able to separate over-the-top claims from the honest reality when going for social media marketing. 

Hype #1. You need to be on all social networks.

The reality: You need to be on social networks that your customers care about the most. 

Take time to research where your customers are more actively involved in availing services or buying products that you offer. Say, yours is an online store selling women apparels. Your presence on Facebook and Google+ matters more than being on Twitter because; most people tend to look for apparels on these two social sites. 

On the other hand, if you are a provider of merger and acquisition services, you are more likely to connect better with your potential clients on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Hype #2. You need to post X number of posts daily.

The reality: Numbers hardly matter, sharable content counts.

People are being overwhelmed with a deluge of posts and notifications for just about anything and everything on social media sites. While you need to keep the content flowing on your social networks, over publishing will lead to only one person talking, and that’s you.

This brings me to the point that some online marketers automate their updates in order to reach out to a larger audience in almost no time. However, people are smart enough to make out whether it is a real person or a robot on the other side.

Hype #3. Include as many popular hashtags as you can.  

The reality: Include only those popular #tags that are relevant to your business.

Marketers use hashtags to reach out to people interested in, say, particular services, city whereabouts, artist, or TV shows. Topic-related hashtags are a great way to get your message across to a large audience, but using them in excess won’t land you anywhere special.

Hype #4. Steer the conversation around your company on social networks.

The reality: Conversations should be interesting.

Social media marketing is not sheer marketing, it’s sharing. Posts should be shareable -- give advice, urge caution, amuse, inspire or leave readers in awe. To sum it up, your posts should not be dull and boring. Talking about your company on your Facebook page is not a crime, but be sure you say it interestingly enough that it encourages readers to share.  

Hype #5. Catchy content will get people to read.

The reality:  The image and call to action that goes along with the post matters more.  

Often it’s not just the content that gets people to click through the posts shared on your Google+ or Facebook page. Striking image coupled with a compelling call to action is what gets you likes and shares. On the social web, people don’t read the posts, they scan through the content.

Hype #6. Sending e-mailers were just so yesterday.

The reality: Many people still prefer email notifications for social posts.

Social media didn't make email marketing extinct. While social media marketing might not entirely include sending out emails, but in case your fans and followers decide to leave your social network, you can still stay connected with them by reaching out through good old emailers. Who knows, some of them might decide to hop in your bandwagon again!

Hype #7. Social media marketing is just a branding practice. 

The reality: If done right, it can help you generate leads and surge online sales.

I’m not sure where people are getting this idea from. Social media marketing isn’t just to create brand awareness or concretize your social presence. If leveraged appropriately, it can prove to be an effective sales tool. Remember - Online chats do get transported into offline actions.

Hype #8. Steer clear of any controversies.

The reality: Controversies will crop up; it’s how you deal with them.  

I had to share it because this is one of the most disturbing misconceptions about what's going social is really all about. Humans have an innate desire to share and to have a sense of audience to hear their stories. This craving to share is what makes the social web oh-so desirable and massively successful.

When you remove or delete harsh comments, you are depleting your social network of being genuine and making it more plastic. While you should not add gasoline to a heated discussion, manage it rather than weeding it out. 

Controversies will always remain. Try to manage the situation. This brings me to dispel yet hype, which is….

Hype #9. You don’t need a pro to handle your social presence, you can do it yourself. 

The reality: You need an expert to help you manage your social presence and reputation. 

Most entrepreneurs think that it’s all about posting comments and sharing stuff, just as you do it on your personal Facebook or Google+ account. Actually, it’s not so. You need a professional who has a clear sense to curate what would interest readers, post current content, be responsive to your fans and followers, and tactfully handle awkward situations that come up during casual conversations.

Over to you

Have you ever come across a social media marketing advice that’s touted to be fail-proof? How did it work for you? Share your experiences that would serve as a fair guideline to others about what to avoid when going social.

Read More

Executing B2B Campaign for 2013 on Facebook

By: Anonymous on 01:34

Everyone is on Facebook and obviously, marketers tend to market heavily. For B2C marketing, Facebook has proved indispensable. However, for B2B marketing, it is more than struggle.

Causative factor for Facebook’s unpopularity with B2B is that marketers consider B2B and B2C same. Enticing average user is simple while luring businesses is difficult. Therefore, within a B2B campaign (on Facebook), some change in etiquette and beaten strategies should be implied. 

Forget numbers:

A common statement boasted by most marketers is the number of fans. B2C campaigns tend to have higher fans due to wide range of customers. B2B campaigns, on the other hand, have limited interested candidates. Therefore, B2C campaigns have larger fan base in comparison with B2B. On average B2B campaigns, generally have fans within the range of thousands. Hence, forget focusing on numbers. 

Display ‘Like/follow us’:

Gaining fans for B2B is another struggle. It is possible for a whole year to reach 100 fans. However, the process can be boosted. The trick is focusing on Facebook alone. With several social networks, building reader base has turned into challenge. 

Emails, video marketing, Author Bio are some common places to market Facebook page. Use footer of your blog to place Facebook like or follow buttons.

Interesting fact: Footers have more conversions than sidebars. 

Design and customization:

Facebook allows uploading of cover image. Design covers that depict rightly your business. The cover should not just represent brand but should also sell. A cool example is the brand page of Mari Smith. Below is a screenshot:

The page as you can see is simple and yet depicts the uniqueness, which helps in better conversion. 

Don’t just Share:

Sharing is just the beginning of conversation. You need to converse ask questions and understand the needs of fellow business people. Every post or information shared should either solve a problem or induce fans to spill their problems, which later can be used to solve. B2B campaigns work solely by solving problems. You will be looked upon as a solution provider and eventually leading to more sales/order.

 

Create a Support page:

The idea of marketing on Facebook is ease customers’ effort irrespective of whether it is a purchase or support request. Most successful brands have succeeded in B2B marketing by creating separate page for everything. They have a different landing page, followed by support, sales, and testimonials page. If need arises you can always come up with other pages. 

Special offers:

Nothing beats special offers. It can be contest, discounts, free trials or any other offer. However, for B2B campaigns trial offers work the best. Trial offers are loved by business people because they get to test the product or service. 

Build Trust:

Though it is your page, at times it is necessary to share informative post by other businesses within the industry. This increases trust within the fans eventually increasing brand trust. 

I am not implying that B2B marketing over Facebook is easy. However, by following the above-mentioned methods and with a little creativity one can execute a successful B2B marketing over Facebook.

Read More