The Importance of SEO
The essence of any
website is to get people to read it and take action on whatever you want them to
do. If you have a website then you already know the significance of web
traffic. Web traffic is to Internet marketing as prime location is to real
estate. It’s the only thing that really matters. If you cannot generate
targeted visitors to your site, you will not make any sales and that means no
commission.
There are two ways to
get traffic to a website – Free or Paid ways. Website traffic is driven by
pay-per-click ads, social media, search engines, links on other websites and
other traffic methods.
The best way to get
free natural traffic to your website is to get your website on the first pages
of the search engines. Millions of websites are competing to get attention on
the same topic and the only way to outrank the competition is to optimize your
website to get ranked.
As an affiliate, you
know the current challenges of promoting your site on search engines. The focus
of SEO typically revolves around creating unique content. It used to be a lot
easier to generate higher rankings – even by repeating the same keywords.
However, Google
algorithms are now a lot more sophisticated and are looking for content that
adds value. To get good SEO results, you need to have interesting, consistently
updated content.
Search engines look
for different variables in order to rank websites. Search engines look at
content, performance, authority, user experience amidst other variables. Top
internet marketers use something called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to
make sure their websites have what the search engines are looking for.
So search engine
optimization or SEO is a process of telling the search engines that your
website or blog is relevant enough to be ranked at the top in their search. So
the objective of SEO is to get natural traffic from the search engines.
Nobody knows exactly
the full variables the search engines are looking for. Only the search engine
staffs do. This is kept a secret or else everyone will be playing dirty tricks
just to outrank one another.
Doing some SEO tricks
help get your site listed in the search engines for your chosen keyword. Lets
say you have a page about “how to lose weight with diet pills” and your keyword
is “diet pill”. Then it is important to build links to that page using the
keyword. It is also important to find long tail keywords from your seed
keyword.
Long tail keywords can
be ranked more quickly and can make up the bulk of your website traffic when
used properly. Finding long tail keywords can be done using a very simple tool,
Google related searches or the Google planner tool.
It is also important
that you link to your site via different sources. There are many places to get
links from. Forums, web 2.0 sites, article directories, YouTube etc.
Although i don’t focus
too much on SEO these days because its just too complicated. But its important
to do basic SEO like adding unique content and getting links to your affiliate
pages. Nowadays i just focus on getting traffic via other means and then hope i
get listed for one of my chosen keywords on the search engines especially
Google.
Some of my pages have
been lucky in the past.
How to Where to Promote Your Affiliate Links
Apart from doing SEO
for your website, you need to get direct traffic to your website. This is what
I focus on these days apart from some new techniques (later on that). The best
part of getting traffic from these sites is that you can also build links to
your affiliate website at the same time.
Its like doing SEO and
getting direct traffic at the same time. Below are some places to add or post
your affiliate links:
Forums
This is a really
simple way of getting a your affiliate links out there. All you have to do is
join forums and comment on threads or open your own thread. Add your affiliate
links in your signature and when people click on it and buy they make you
money.
Here I need to tell
you that, to get visitors who will buy, you need to join niche forums that is
all about what you are promoting. If you are promoting weight loss pills, then
its no use posting your affiliate links on internet marketing forums. There are
many weight loss forums to join and post links to.
But the most important
thing here is that you should be helpful. Its not about just adding links and
hoping people will click. If you can answer people’s questions the best you can
and provide solutions, they will be encouraged to click on your signature just
to see what you have to offer.
You can also add the
link to your money website. If the forum has dofollow links, then it helps your
SEO efforts.
Web 2.0 Sites
One of my favorite Web
2.0 sites to build up powerful residual traffic, social presence, and links is
Hubpages.
Although Hubpages has
changed since the Google algorithm changes started. Some years back, you could
almost instantly get 1st page rankings on Google, and then promote Clickbank
products directly in your hub. Now everything has changed but it is still very
effective for getting traffic.
Start by trying to get
a Hub title/domain that matches your keyword. Choose a domain that has your
keyword in it. If HubPages won’t allow you to link to a page on your money site
(because it contains Clickbank links, is too promotional, or is on a topic they
don’t allow) then link through to a different Web 2.0 property.
For example, if you
have a Squidoo lens, you could link to that instead – and then link to your
affiliate website from there. Squidoo allows affiliate links.
A site like Squidoo’s
even has built-in affiliate modules such as Amazon, eBay and Cafepress. Its
also a good web 2.0 to get traffic and a good place for gaining incoming links
to your own money website.
Major web 2.0 sites to
get traffic and build links from include Hubpages, Squidoo, InfoBarrel and
Bukisa. Web 2.0 site like Ukritic actually allows you to directly place
Clickbank links into your articles.
Article Marketing
Sites
Article sites are good
places to also get traffic from. You can write a 300-400 articles and post it
on these sites with a link to your money site.
There are tons
of article sites out there but its important to choose sites that have high
volume of traffic and they rank well in the search engines. That means
that when you write a optimized article for one of these sites, you generally
have a better chance of getting traffic from the search engines than if you had
submitted the similar article at a lesser known site.
Top article
directories include Ezinearticles.com, Goarticles.com and Articlesbase.com
Please keep in mind as
you visit the sites, that each one has its own set of rules and limitations.
Some permit you to post multiple links, while others allow just single in your
bio. Be sure to read each site’s rules before posting, or you risk them
banning your account.
Social Media
Another good way to
make affiliate sales is by posting to social media sites like Facebook,
LinkedIn and Twitter. You can create fan pages around your products or money
sites. Most times its just good to link to your money sites and not directly to
the offer page.
Although affiliate
marketing is one of the simpler ways to get started. if you just get an
affiliate link and start push it around social media, you will be lost out on
plenty of sales, traffic, and good will with your viewers that you could gain
by taking a unusual approach and creating value first.
You can get great
results by delivering compelling content and then promoting your affiliate link
at the end of your content. You can link to your money site with URL shortening
services. Certain link shortening services do not allow you to use affiliate
links so just link to your money site.
For example Bit.ly
does not allow clickbank hop links, and several other URL shorteners do not
allow this either, but the service tinyurl.com does for now. In time they might
also start disallowing this.
YouTube
Another great way to
get traffic to your review site is to post your links on video sites. The best
video sharing site is YouTube.
You can create videos
series about your niche That way you can add affiliate links into your
description, or over your video, and convert some of that fan base into
affiliate profits.
Success with YouTube
videos comes down to keyword selection and knowing how to rank in YouTube
search (long description, keywords, tags, playlists) to get the traffic to the
video. Of course a good video that is engaging is better. It really makes the
viewer want to click on the link when or after watching the video.
You can outsource a
review of a product on Fiverr for just $5. Yes that’s what i do for my
affiliate products. I promote software and money making programs, so i just buy
the software and give it to a video creator to do a review for me. That’s all
you got to do with YouTube videos.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is one
of the best ways to make recurring commission from people on your email list or
subscribers. If you have a list, then you can continue to market products to
them and get recurring affiliate commissions.
The more subscribers
you have, the more commissions you are likely to make from time to time.
There are many ways to
build a list. You can add a web form on your review site sidebar or buy solo
ads or give out a viral eBook.
The best part of email
marketing now is that you can build a list for free with a service like
mailchimp. You only start paying once you have more than 2,000 subscribers.
You can also use
Aweber which cost just $1 the first month. The first month gives you
opportunity to build a reasonable amount of subscribers before you start paying
$19 a month.
Write and Give Out a
Free eBook
You can write a free
eBook and insert affiliate links in it or link to your review site. If your eBook
is well written and promoted, it will go viral. A “viral” product is one that
is designed to spread (often quickly) to a great many people. This can be a
great way of getting your affiliate links out there without ever having to
create a website of your own.
For example, you can
produce a short 20-page eBook or a special report on a particular subject,
insert your affiliate products into it, then distribute your book through
whatever means you like.
This is the best way
to become an authority in your niche. You can build email list this way too.
Pay Per Click Ads
You can also Promote
affiliate products directly through pay-per-click advertisements. You can buy
Google Adwords and get traffic via Google partners. If the product is good with
a good landing page, you can indeed make a profit at the end of your campaign.
Lets say you buy 100
clicks at the rate of $1 and you are promoting a product worth $30 commission.
If you get like only 5 sales out of the 100 clicks, you would have made a
profit of $50.
There are other ad
networks like Bing ad networks etc.
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