EzSEO Newsletter # 24
Andy Williams ez SEO
ezseonews.com
Hi, and we're back! Hopefully ;-)
This is the first issue since February (when all hell was let loose in my life (and that of my wife) making it impossible to concentrate on anything other than trying to get through the challenges before us). I would like to thank everyone who sent us e-mails of thoughts, prayers & help. They were very much appreciated. Things are still not back to a comfortable level, but we are now coping and I felt it was time to get back to the ezSEO Newsletter. For those of you who joined since the last issue, I perhaps should explain that this newsletter is a little different to most. I pick topics that are relevant to me as a webmaster (and affiliate marketer), and therefore relevant to most readers, and write my own thoughts, ideas and theories about these topics. The ideas presented are always mine, but not always correct because they need battle testing to turn them from theories into something more substantial. However, I hope that they are thought provoking enough to make you think about your own online business and give you some ideas.
Today I have a couple of topics I want to cover, but as you know I usually get carried away and run out of time. Let's see how we go with this.
This week:
1. More changes at Google?
2. Choosing profitable affiliate programs
3. Beta testers wanted
---------------------------------------------------
1. More changes at Google?
---------------------------------------------------
In March (I cannot check the exact date, but the second half of March) I noticed a huge change in the amount of traffic my affiliate sites were getting from Google. Some of my best sites (in terms of income) were getting only about 10% of the traffic they use to from Google. On checking my sites in Google, I found that all the pages were still there, they just lost their rankings.
Note: You can check which pages of yours are indexed in Google by typing allinurl:mydomain.com
The fact that my pages were still in Google and had not been dropped or banned, suggested to me that Google had implemented a new filter. Now, I know my sites very well, and I also know that I have been skating on thin ice with some of them. These "cheeky" sites have little in the way of content other than that which is provided by the affiliate program I represent. The sites that seemed to do well in the new Google, were those that had unique content - i.e. written by me, and also did not have hundreds of affiliate links all over the place.
This last point may well be very important. If Google wants to remove affiliate sites from its index because of the spammy nature of many of them, it can do this easily by looking for high numbers of affiliate links on the pages or in the site. Many affiliate links can be easily identified. Take a look at Commission Junction links as an example. They all contain reference to : http://www.qksrv.net
Google can easily spot this CJ domain in the links on web pages. If you were Google and you were trying to remove pages from the index that were nothing more than lists of affiliate links with relatively little content, how would you do it?
Me? I would look for and penalise (or filter out) any sites where the majority of web pages had a high number of outgoing links to the domain http://www.qksrv.net or http://click.linksynergy.com (Linkshare) or http://service.bfast.com (Befree) or any other network that uses a similar identifiable domain that will shout to Google "Hey, Over here!").
Filtering out such sites should get rid of many sites that are built in cookie cutter fashion using datafeeds (lists of products, images, affiliate links etc provided by many merchants) with little or no extra content.
What can you do to safe guard your affiliate income? Well, I would suggest that there are a few strategies that you can use, but all of them are geared towards building sites with decent content - in other words, sites that add value to the Internet. Now this idea is against the "get-rich-quick" mind set. Many people wanting to start an affiliate business want to make money fast and this is the wrong attitude. If you want to build a business online, do it slowly, and do it right.
Obviously we don't have time to go through the building of affiliate sites "with content" here, but there is a guide I can recommend 100% to you if you want to get started. It is written by James Martell and is still the best tutorial I have ever read on creating an online business from affiliate programs. Martell uses content to get visitors and these translate into huge profits. However, be aware that Martell built up his business over a time span of years. He has 70+ sites out there making him money. When he builds a new site, he aims for each new site to make him $500 a month income. Imagine that - if you could build a site a month, you would have 12 sites after one year and be making $6000 a month income. While these figures are feasible, they do take commitment and work. Do not buy Martell's guide unless you have the time and energy to make this business work for you. If you are interested, you can read my review of Martell's Affiliate Marketers Handbook.
Martell sites do work. Those of you who have been reading for a while will know that I created a product called SEO Website Builder (http://seo-website-builder.com). Recent additions to this software have been the ability to easily create Martell style sites using content (and articles). I created a test site in the style of Martell using this software to promote an affiliate product by Jim Edwards. You can look at my site over at:
Jim Edwards Turn Words Into Traffic
By the way, the book I am promoting there is one of the very best if you are interested in learning how to get traffic by writing your own articles. OK, back to the demo site. This site has built using SEO Website Builder to re-create a James Martell style site. The keywords I targeted and the rankings in Google when I last checked (24th March) were as follows:
turn words into traffic 0
turn words into traffic review 1
how to write a feature article 3
how to write a news article 4
how to write an article review 1
how to write an article 0
increase targeted traffic to your website 2
internet product marketing 1
write newsletter article 1
sell ebooks online 8
OK, enough of the Google changes. Lets look at another important topic.
---------------------------------------------------
2. Choosing profitable affiliate programs
---------------------------------------------------
I get asked constantly how to choose affiliate programs that will make you money. There are a couple of things that you should look for when deciding which merchants to represent. You should definitely go to their web site and explore.
1. Would you buy from this web site? If not, then neither will the people you refer.
2. Have a look at shipping information. Do they ship to the part of the world you are targeting? What are their shipping charges like? Some companies seem to have great prices on the products, but shipping charges negate any low price because they are too high.
3. What is the site navigation like? Can you find what you want easily, or do you get lost and having the feeling that you should go back to Google and find another supplier?
4. Look for leaks on the merchant's website. Leaks are ways in which you could lose commission once the visitor leaves your site. These include large Toll Free numbers on the merchants web site. Do they offer phone tracking of affiliate orders? If not, you lose. Also, some merchants have affiliate banners to OTHER MERCHANTS on their site. You send the merchant traffic and they send it to affiliate programs they represent. Ethical? Surely not.
Does the merchant have visible links to their own affiliate program? This is quite common for Clickbank merchants. They put up a link on their sales page to their affiliate program. The visitors you send them see this, sign up as an affiliate and then buy through their own affiliate link, effectively stealing your commission. How much of a concern is this? I would say massive. I have some affiliate links to very popular software and eBooks and send decent traffic, yet make one sale a year. When I check the merchants site, I see a new link to their affiliate program and realise why I am not making any money from that program. Go and have a look at some sales pages from Clickbank merchants and you will see what I mean.
If you want to be sure that you get the commission, choose reputable merchants who have their affiliates interests at heart. I know one merchant you can trust 100% and he offers great commission too - 50%. Go and have a look at these sales pages and you will see that their is no affiliate sign-up link.
SEO Website Builder
Sitemap Creator
In fact you have to buy one of his products to be eligible for the affiliate program.
5. Finally, a thing to be aware of is parasites. These are affiliates that can steal your commission by effectively swapping your affiliate ID for their own. Famous alleged parasites include eBates and Kazza. In the past, any visitor to your site that had either of these applications installed on their computer (and it ran to millions), probably would not make you any commission. While the major networks have introduced a code of conduct which fights against these practices, many affiliates feel that it is still going on - and on a massive scale. For more information, please go and sign up at abestweb.com. It is free, and perhaps the very best source of information for anyone working online.
---------------------------------------------------
3. Beta Testers Wanted
---------------------------------------------------
I am working on a couple of new products at the moment. I am working on one with Sean Burns (Rankings Revealed) which should help all sites get better rankings in the search engines. This one had been put on the back burner while I researched some tools I needed, but is now back in development. It wont be ready for testing for a while yet, but my second product will be. It is a utility that I hope users of Wordtracker will find useful. This is the product I need beta testers for. To qualify you need to have a full subscription to Wordtracker and use it regularly. I will only be accepting the first few who e-mail me back, so if you do not hear anything, presume that you were too late. As always, beta testers who contribute to the final version (i.e. with feedback) will get a free copy of the final product. Can't say more right now ;-)
OK, that is it for today. I will be trying to produce a newsletter every week now, but cannot promise it. If there is any topic you want discussed, please e-mail me at the e-mail address below (be sure to take the space out of the e-mail address first though).
##########
Visit the subscriber Bonus page for free reports and other subscriber-only offers:
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please recommend it to your friends. Also if you have any tips of your own, questions or comments, please send then to me at [REMOVED - USE CONTACT US LINK]. Any tips or questions & answers I print in this newsletter will also be put up on the web version of the newsletter with a link to your site
if you want it. That's extra free traffic for your site as well as an incoming link to your site.
Join our search engine optimization newsletter
Join our internet marketing newsletter |
 |
Whenever possible, set up a new e-mail address when subscribing to a newsletter. e.g. ezSEOnewsletter@yahoo.com. This prevents your main e-mail address being used for spamming by unscrupulous companies who may sell their mailing list addresses to spammers. It also makes it quick and pain free to unsubscribe, should your attempts to unsubscribe fail. Just delete the e-mail address. |