Affiliate Income Optimization
By Sean Burns
In my time researching the search engines, I`ve noticed
something rather strange. Literally millions of searches are
made each month for "brand names" and actual site names. For
example, on Overture alone, last month, there were millions of
queries made for the term "internet explorer". Having been on
the internet for around seven years (running sites for over
five), I`ve naturally assumed that people use it the same way
I do. So, I know that internet explorer is a Microsoft product
so I just type http://www.microsoft.com (http://www.microsoft.
com) into my browser.
Apparently, that`s not what everyone does. Here are some other
examples from Overture: eBay - over 7 million searches, Google
- over 9 million searches, Amazon - Over 800 thousand searches
(OK, lots will be for the river or the forest but still ...),
PayPal over 340 thousand searches and so on. Considering that
Overture has only about 5% of the search engine market, you
can see that there are millions and millions of people who
actually use search engines to find sites when they could just
type the name in their browser and slap a .com on the end.
Now, on to the good stuff. Of those companies that I mentioned,
all but Google have an affiliate program. For example, PayPal
pays $5.00 for every person who signs up. 340 000 x $5.00= $1
700 000. Interesting!
So, what can we do to make the most of this opportunity? Well,
it`s easier than you would think. Obviously, trying to get
traffic from people searching for eBay or PayPal would be very
difficult but there are literally thousands of other companies
that people search for. For example, I just checked the three
best known British sports betting companies - about 20 000
searches are made each month on Overture for these companies.
I have noticed that without any effort whatsoever, I am
actually getting a lot of traffic from people searching for
company names and script names. This is because they are
listed in my Affiliate and Script directories. An example of
the process is - people search for a particular merchant, come
to my affiliate directory and click on the link to get to the
merchant. Therefore, even though they have no interest in the
affiliate program, I`m making money just by linking to
merchants who`s content is completely unrelated to mine.
Remember, this is without even trying. When I do try, I`m
getting even more traffic. For example, I have a review of the
FastClick ad network on my site. I get 10+ visitors each day
from people searching for phrases that include the word
fastclick. That`s 300+ visitors per month, 15 000 per year. As
you could imagine, due to the fact that FastClick pay a
lifetime 5% commission on referred earnings, this is quite
lucrative.
So, what do you need to do? Well, you probably already use
affiliate programs in some form on your site - either as a
major source of revenue or to make "backend" sales. I went for
years just linking to them with banners, buttons and text
links. The odd short recommendation here and there proved to
be the best way to get the most out of them.
The problem, from a search engine perspective, is that just
linking to them from your site will generally not get your
page up high in the search engine rankings. A link to merchant
"Acme Corp." just blends in to the text on your page and is
assigned no real relevance. Therefore, you should put up an
individual page on your site for each merchant that you are an
affiliate of. This page could just be a review of the products
or services that they offer.
Just the fact that you have a content rich page about a
specific merchant will almost automatically get you traffic
from the search engines (once you are listed). The main point
is "content rich". Also, write it yourself, do not copy
content from the merchants site. Why? Well, even if they let
you copy their content (lots do), Google has ways of finding
duplicate content. In fact, they will usually ban the page
that they believe is less important if two have the same
information on them. So, write it yourself.
Remember that if the merchant sells products that have gained
recognition from the public, make sure you list their products.
If you already have a successful site, the search engines will
actually view your "review" of a merchant as being important
and it is no harder to get that page in to the top 10 listings
than it is for any other page on your site.
Often, the difference between doing well and being truly
successful online is just the ability to grab opportunities
when they appear. You could find that spending just 10 minutes
to set up a couple of new pages on your site could actually
result in thousands of dollars in extra income each year.
Remember, there are close to 600 million queries made on search
engines each day - this is an opportunity! Don`t let it pass
you by.
Written by Gian Luigi Ruggeri © 2001 - All rights reserved
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