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Archive for September, 2008

If you have been doing affiliate marketing for some time, it’s good news for you because today I’m going to share a cool little trick that you can use to boost your affiliate promotions.

If you have no idea what affiliate marketing is, then to put it simply - affiliate marketing is the activities you undertake to promote products and services of someone or some companies in exchange for their commissions.

So you promote products and services => people buy => you earn commissions.

If you want a more detailed explanation of what affiliate marketing is, go download my FREE Report “Your First 100 Dollars Online” and consume it!

Now let’s get back to the topic at hand.

The normal cycle of affiliate marketing usually goes like this:

1. You choose the market/niche

2. You set up sites that sell your affiliate products

3. You drive traffic to your sites

4. Visitors come to your sites, and a certain small percentage of them will buy your affiliate products, meaning you earn money

Today I’m going to talk about number 3, which is driving traffic to your sites.

And when we are talking about driving traffic to sites, what comes in mind first?

Probably techniques such as SEO (Search Engine Optimization), PPC (Pay Per Click), forum marketing, article marketing, social bookmarking, etc. right?

For now let’s just focus on SEO and PPC and put aside all the other techniques all right?

Now when we talk about SEO what people usually do is this:

They go all out to optimize their sites for a few keyword phrases using awesome SEO techniques they have just learned.

And when it comes to PPC advertising campaigns, the following scenario is not uncommon:

They bid on a few keyword phrases on Google Adwords in the hope that their sites are shown on the first page of Google. (Just a little quick note to beginners - if you have no idea what Google Adwords is, again, go download my FREE Report “Your First 100 Dollars Online” and read it.

If you are promoting products or services that are in very high competitive niches/markets, then you will have a hard time trying to do well in your SEO and PPC efforts if you do exactly what everyone else out there is doing - that is, targeting or bidding keywords that are related to the niche in question.

What exactly what do I mean by that?

Suppose you are an affiliate trying to promote products in the weight loss or fat loss niche. I’m using the this niche as an example because it is a very competitive niche.

Now let’s choose a weight loss product to promote. I’d go to Clickbank, and after some time searching I found a great product to promote, which is called “Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle“.

Now if you were the “usual” affiliates like everybody else out there, then you’d surely go after keywords such as “weight loss”, “fat loss”, “lose your weight”, “lose your fat”, etc. for your SEO and PPC efforts.

Am I correct in saying this?

The trick is to NOT target those keywords that are related to the niche in question, but to target the product name in your SEO or PPC efforts.

Why?

Because by targeting the product name instead of the typical keywords related to the niche:

1. The competition is usually much lower (unless the product name is already very, very, very popular such as iPod, Playstation, Nintendo Wii, etc.), which means it will be easier for your SEO or PPC efforts.

If you go to Google and type in the keywords “fat loss” (in quotes), there are 5.470.000 competing web pages:

If you type in the product name “burn the fat feed the muscle” (in quotes), Google tells us that there are 322.000 competing web pages:

2. Traffic that comes to your site will be much more targeted and qualified, because these people voluntarily typed in the product name in Google and searched for it.

This means that he has probably been exposed to the marketing messages or promotions of this product before, and he is searching in Google by the product name to find out more about the product, and the reason he is finding out more about the product is mostly because he is interested in buying the product!

Contrast this when you target typical keywords related to the niche in question, for example “fat loss”.
People typing in “fat loss” do not necessarily mean that they are ready to buy. In fact, more often than not, they just want to get free information about fat loss.

Now there is one last thing that you need to make sure to make this trick effective - and that is to check whether people searching for the product name you are targeting.

If nobody is searching for the product name, why bother trying to rank for that keyword phrase?

Go to Google Adwords Keyword Tool (it’s Free):

Type in the product name, in this case “burn the fat feed the muscle” (without quotes).

Click “Get keyword ideas”

Select “Exact” from the drop-down list under “Match Type” and you will see the screen below:

It tells us that the keyword phrase “burn the fat feed the muscle” is searched in Google approximately an average of 5.400 times per month in the US.

That is 180 times per day. And this is only for the keyword phrase “burn the fat feed the muscle”, which is the product name.

You can be more creative by targeting other combinations of keyword phrases which have the product name in them. Looking at the above screen, you could probably also target “burn the fat feed the muscle ebook” or “burn the fat feed the muscle pdf”, etc.

And let’s not forget the above numbers are only for people searching in the US. You can also do some research for people searching in other countries?

How do you do that?

Well, if go back to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool you will see the following screen:

Click “edit”.

Just select the country that you want to do research on, type in the keywords, and click “get keyword ideas” and you’ll have a new research!

If you are hitting a bottleneck where you can’t seem to rank well for your targeted keywords in your SEO or PPC efforts, try out this “target the product name” trick now.

Not today or tomorrow, but now.

Remember, procrastination destroys your business!

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If you are like most people out there, then you probably agree with me if I say that you like to receive better than you like to give.

Confused?

Let me explain a little.

If you were to choose between:

A. Taking/receiving something good

Or

B. Giving away something good

I seriously believe that you would choose A over B anytime.

Am I right?

You see, by nature we humans are selfish creatures. That is why almost everyone wants to take rather than to give.

I seriously believe that in today’s world if you want to thrive and move forward in your Internet business, you need to give, give, and give first before you can receive.

If you are just like every marketer or business owner out there who just want to sell, sell, and sell, it is very hard for you to make good impressions in your customers’ or would-be-customers’ eyes.

Well, actually you can still thrive and do very well in your business even if you sell, sell, and sell all the time, provided that:

1. You already have an established brand that people know, or

2. Your products and services are so unique and great that all your competitors can’t compare (let alone compete) with you.

However, if you or your business does not belong to the two categories stated above, yet the only thing you do is sell, sell, and sell, then you seriously need to consider doing things differently starting from now.

You need to create VALUE first for other people before they are willing to buy from you.

You need to start giving and stop selling (or taking)!

I’m not implying that you don’t have to sell. At the end of the day, we are still marketers and we need to sell to be able to make profits.

I’m simply saying that if you want to acquire new customers, you need to give first before you can receive. You need to create value for them first before they will buy from you (unless of course one of the two reasons above applies to you).

So how exactly do you create value?

Well, you can give them some kind of freebie that is related to the niche/field you are in. Do make sure that this freebie can benefit them in one way or another; otherwise your freebie will simply go down the drain.

For example, if you are talking about doing business online, you can always give them a free report, e-course, ebook, audio, or video tutorial. The point is to give them something useful that can benefit them.

If they feel that your freebie has benefited them, they will be more receptive to you and your products. If you continue to provide more value for them, they will slowly but surely trust you.

When you are at this stage, it will be a lot easier to sell your products and services to them.

Having said what I’ve said above, I want to point out that there are a lot of sites out there who simply sell and sell. There is, of course, nothing wrong with having sites who want to sell you something.

Yes, these sites may produce a few sales every day if their sales copy, traffic, and follow up “hard-sell” email messages are great.

But, I seriously believe that if you can build relationships and provide value first without the “hard-sell, pushy” email sales pitches, then you’ll be able to sell much more effectively.

Think about if for a moment.

The last time you went to the mall and some “pushy” salesman tries to hard-sell you on something, do you feel comfortable? Would you buy from him then and in the future?

Of course not!

Nobody wants to buy from a “pushy” salesman.

The whole article today focuses on why you should give and create value first before you can expect to receive anything, because it is very hard nowadays to just be able to make sales on your first encounter with your visitors. You must build beneficial relationships with your visitors first so that they trust you.

Believe me, trust is a very, very effective and vital component in successful selling.

This is also the reason why I highly recommend you build your own lists for your business. Put in some kind of opt-in form and ask for their email addresses in exchange for a freebie that they will get.

You have put in a lot of hard work to bring visitors to your site; don’t just let them go like that. If you don’t get their contact info, you lose them forever! There are millions of sites out there, what makes you think they will remember your site?

Always try to get their contact info so that you can follow up with them and give them more Free benefits such as tips and tricks related to your field. The point is to build good relationships with them on a consistent basis.

When beneficial relationships are built, trust will be formed. At the end of the day, selling your products and services to them become much easier.

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