Read these 17 Self Promotion Tips tips to make your life smarter, better, faster and wiser. Each tip is approved by our Editors and created by expert writers so great we call them Gurus. LifeTips is the place to go when you need to know about Affiliate Marketing tips and hundreds of other topics.
*Consider setting up a blog as an affiliate program promotion web tool.
Blogs are easy to update, so you're more likely to keep adding fresh content to your site (which pleases both users and search engines). Your blog entries can be short, initially. When you have time to write an article go back and see which entries get the most comments. Then, turn those entries into full-scale articles and place them on your site.
Make sure you provide a means of people subscribing to your blog. Typically this means providing an RSS, XML, or Atom feed. People can use blog aggregators to keep track of which blogs have been updated. And, you don't have to manage a subscribe/unsubscribe list!
Writing articles for other web sites is a great affiliate program promotion tool if done correctly:
• Make the articles informative and offer real valuable information
• Do not make them a sales pitch for anything
If you are successful in writing web articles, many people will reap the benefits:
• Readers who value the information will are likely to click on the link provided in your bio
• Articles tend to stay on line a long time and will continue to drive traffic to your site long after you've written them
• It's a win-win situation as the publisher gets great content for free and you get targeted traffic and become established as an expert with a built-in level of authority
*When you are planning your website promotion and affiliate program, a business plan can make all the difference.
Many people just jump into affiliate promotion without a plan. They flounder and change directions at the drop of a hat. But, when you write down your goals and give yourself a timeline to achieve them, you're much more likely to be successful. Your business plan should:
• include seasonal issues (if any)
• analyze your competition
• specify your promotion plans
Be sure to identify future opportunities and plan for them. Assign a realistic timeline to your goals--especially if you're holding down a full time job while starting your web site affiliate program and promotion.
*Make sure that pay-per-click advertising is not a waste of your time and money!
You'll need to calculate a few things to determine if pay-per-click advertising is bringing in enough revenue. Set things up so that you can track how many clicks you're getting from each ad and how much revenue each ad generates (you might do this by setting up a separate landing page for each ad campaign so you can compare performance). There is also software available that can help you figure out how much to bid on each phrase based on how much income you generate per click-through. In the long run, however, if pay-per-click advertising is costing you more than you're earning from it, it might not be right for you.
*You want your affiliates to be successful!
If you're paying a lot of commissions to your affiliates, it's because they're out there selling for you. Create a newsletter just for your affiliates and give them useful articles on how to be successful. Profile your super affiliates to inspire others who might just be getting started.
You might consider advertising on some of the sites that are run to support the web sites in affiliate programs. Write articles for those sites as well as other related sites and include a link leading to your affiliate program.
*As an affiliate, you can buy pay-per-click ads based on certain key phrases and drive traffic to your affiliate through them.
Cost per click is the cost an advertiser pays for each click on their ad (this is performance advertising). If the ad doesn't perform, you don't pay anything. You can buy cost-per-click ads as an affiliate program promotion tool on most search engines, as well as individual sites. Generally, bids are placed (what someone is willing to pay per click) and the search engine will feature the top bidder as "sponsored" links on their search results page.
*Link exchanges can be a great boon for your affiliate promotion and should be considered as a tool for your web site promotion.
You should be discriminating in exchanging links. Don't link to sites that are nothing but links and don't link to sites that are poorly designed and laid out. You're basically recommending the site to your visitors so your reputation will be affected by the quality of the sites you recommend to visitors.
When looking for a good link exchange, remember:
• Look for a clean design, good navigation, and relevant content
• Don't link to a site that is in direct competition to you
• Do link to sites that are related and in the same niche market that you are
• Be wary of linking to sites that have too many links (pages and pages of links are not useful and the site will likely be penalized by the very search engines on which you're trying to rank highly)
Search engines currently rank a site based on three major things: good content, good navigation, and link popularity. Link popularity is a combination of the quality and the quantity of inward links to your site. To get the most out of your website promotion affiliate program, conduct a link campaign, trying to get high quality popular sites to point to your site.
Do not sign up for any automated link exchanges. Instead, search around and find sites that are related to, but not competitive with, your site. Contact those sites that have a high page rank and get a lot of traffic and suggest a link exchange. Users will appreciate finding related quality sites and your users will double. In addition, each of you will benefit from the links by increasing your search engine ranking.
*If you have a content-rich web site and you use as an affiliate program promotion tool, consider adding a paid membership section.
There are many ways to set up a paid membership section. You can offer some content for free and add new, unique articles to the paid membership section. You can also take the opposite approach and make the newer articles free for a certain time period then, make the archives available to paid members only.
In your newsletter, publicize the newer articles and say "free for the next two weeks." In each issue of your newsletter, you might also want to highlight a few of the articles that were just put behind the members' only curtain. You'll build up your newsletter list because people will know they need to stay in touch to see your newest content. When people see the quality content you have available, you can charge a modest membership fee for access to the older articles, supplementing your affiliate program income.
*Check your traffic statistics and learn from them.
• Which pages get the most hits on your website? Add some affiliate promotion content there
• Identify the keywords that are bringing you the most traffic
• Make sure that there aren't better keywords that you could be focusing on
• Add a special offer on your thank you page
• Run a special website promotion for your affiliate program with a limited time offer--send out the link to that page in your newsletter and publicize it on the main page of your web site as well
*Using articles as an affiliate program promotion tool is easy, cheap, and effective--even if you're not a great writer.
• Come up with an attention grabbing headline (questions make good titles)
• Think of a question your potential visitors might have and answer it in the article
• Provide relevant information that is somehow related to your target audience
• Make your bio compelling so people will want to click to your site and learn more
• Find some high-traffic, content-related sites or newsletters and offer to let them use the article for free (as long as they provide a link back to your site)
*Working on your affiliate promotion should be a constant task--you want to get your web site name in front of as many people as possible.
Remember that domain names are generally not case-sensitive (although individual file names on your site can be). When you publish anything with your domain name URL listed, capitalize individual words to make it easier to read (for example, try reading thisismydomainname.com compared to ThisIsMyDomainName.com). If you are choosing a domain name, consider separating words with hyphens like This-Is-My-Domain-Name).
Whenever you send an email, put your web site address as part of your signature line. And, if you run any print or radio advertisements, make sure you mention your web site address on those as well.
*Once you've collected a bunch of content that brings people back to your site, consider writing an ebook.
As an affiliate program promotion web tool, ebooks make great giveaways. In fact, it might even be a good idea to find related sites and offer your ebook to them for their visitors or customers (the more copies out there the better, as many readers will come to your site after reading the book. You could even offer to let them "co-brand" the book and add some information and links to it so you both benefit.
When writing an ebook, be sure to make the information genuinely useful--but don't be bashful about putting a plug for your site throughout the book.
*Link exchanges are all the rage right now but beware of who you're joining forces with!
Link exchanges, when done in a correct manner, benefit both parties and are a great affiliate promotion tool. You're providing quality links to your site visitors and you're gaining incoming links for your search engine optimization. However, make sure the site you exchange links with is one you'd honestly recommend—remember that if they turn out to be a bad apple, it will reflect on you as well. And, don't participate in link farms (most search engines specifically forbid that, since the link farm is of no practical use to actual human users and only exists to manipulate search engine rankings).
*It is beneficial to open a new browser window when you are directing people off of your site and leading them to another.
Visitors may not have finished exploring your site in its entirety when a link catches their eye and they click on it—leading them away from your site. If you take them directly to the merchant site without leaving them connected to your site, they may never return (you will get the credit for the click or sale either way but you'll benefit more from keeping the browser on your own site and opening a new window for them on the merchant site). When they're done making their purchase and close the browser, they may click on another affiliate promotion link if they are still on your site.
Reciprocal linking only works where there is a common denominator.
If you join link exchanges where others help you by promoting your website on their site and vice versa, this is a great way to bring in extra traffic to your site. Ensure you are doing this with relevant sites. Many people that practice link exchanges wonder why it doesn't bring results but you need to exchange links with complimentary (but non-competitive) websites.
For example, if you are selling jewelry, you wouldn't exchange links with a gaming website but instead you might look for a clothing or cosmetics site to network with. Capturing the right audience is key in helping you get the kind of visitors you want.
Self promotion is the key to success in affiliate marketing.
Using your e-mail account's signature line or using a signature line in community forums is a great way to add a bit of advertising to every one of your e-mails or posts. A good tip is that if you are using this medium
to attract visitors to either join an affiliate marketing program or to visit your website where they will potentially purchase something that you're trying to sell, it's a good idea to change your signature line occasionally.
You can rotate advertisements which will help you attract visitors. If you continually have the same advertisement people who see your signature line all the time will become numb to it whereas if you change it regularly, the likelihood of someone clicking on it increases. Change prompts curiousity.
Guru Spotlight |
William Pirraglia |