Thursday

Recommended Free Landing Page Templates

A blank landing page template can go a long way to helping an affiliate get on their feet. A landing page template can also save time, money, and help keep you motivated to taking the next step. Generally that next step is an Adwords campaign or the beginning of SEO, an already daunting task.

Below is a list of Free Landing Page Templates that I prefer using:

Free Landing Page 1 - No pictures, just a blank copy, with traditional bolds and header type text.
Free Landing Page 2 - Call to action, above the fold, type landing page with holding spaces for you to insert your own images.
Free Landing Page 3 - This landing page is designed to host a number of offers, where you can compare products with dividers, images, and separate fields.
Free Landing Page 4 - Not my favorite free landing page template, but it gets the job done, and offers some flexibility as far as branding is concerned.
Free Landing Page 5 - Mixture of a few landing page templates that already have areas for fields to be added and submitted.
Free Landing Page 6 - Great collection of graphically intensive landing pages. This site specializes in free cellular ringtone landing pages and seem to convert really well.

Have a free landing page template you want added or like to recommend? Please just leave a comment so I can have a look, if I like it, I'll be happy to add it to the list.

Affiliate Marketing Plugins I Use

I don't use a whole lot of affiliate tool plugins, but the ones I do use, I'd hate to ever be without. This will be my first installment on tools that I recommend any affiliate marketer use, not matter how experienced you are.

These tools are not magic and will not just produce sales for you. However, they will help automate a lot of the manual labor involved with keyword and niche research.

Affiliate Espionage - I just picked this beauty up a few days ago and it's making my heart sing. Please check out an honest review of the Affiliate Espionage plugin. Basic uses are it helps research which keywords are converting best for Adwords advertisers. Sure has saved me money already that would have been wasted on poor keyword choices.

(Affiliate Espionage is the only paid tool I've ever used.)

Rank Checker - This is a tool from SEOBook.com and allows you to build keyword lists. It then automatically runs scans on the top 3 search engines to find your rankings based on which domain you want the keywords linked to. This plugin is free!

Good Keywords - This is another free tool that allows you to generate misspellings of keywords and help flesh out some other keyword ideas you may not have thought of. The tool itself is software that you run and store it's database locally, you can get it at SEO Labs.

So these are a few tools that I'm currently using and no doubt mileage varies from user to user. While I wouldn't say you NEED these tools to be a successful affiliate marketer, they certianly help with time management, automating much of the research process.

If you have a tool to recommend let me know, I'm always on the look out of the next helpful plugin or script.

Monday

Online Advertising In A Down Economy

"I know I waste half the money I spend on advertising, I just don't know which half."


This old statement about not knowing how effective advertising is becomes especially true in a down economy. The good news is that when advertising online you have a much broader audience than typical brick 'n mortar businesses, so reach becomes a large factor. But most importantly, don't shy away from using advertising as a way to grab market share in a down economy. When advertising for affiliate websites especially, it's important to get while the gettings good.

"He who stops advertising to try to save money, could just as easily stop his clock to try to save time."


Going back in time and looking at other down turns in the economy sheds some light on how to maximize your advertising. Tweaks are necessary to maximize that advertising dollar, mainly because buyer mentality changes greatly. Focus shifts from wants to needs and convincing a potential customer that they need your product becomes another trial and error game, like when you first started.

Online advertising can get a lot less expensive during a down economy. History proves that in such economic crunch times that the marginal players, those smaller competitors, etc will be more likely to cut back on their advertising dollars. After all, it's expected that they would be more willing to make cuts there than to consider cutting elsewhere, like employees, or development costs. That's why being affiliate, where you have no actual inventory, can put you in the drivers seat when advertising when an economy is bad.

Buying Patterns Shifting To Alternatives

Another benefit to advertising in a down economy is the fact that buyers will be looking to alternatives to the traditional loyal brand names. Generally this could mean a savings for a buyer who stuck with tried and true, opening up another niche for the affiliate.

As an example, say during a booming economy you are struggling to advertise for an off brand computer. Obviously competing with Dell, HP, and Gateway online can be very difficult because of brand recognition. However, during a bad economy consumers will be looking for alternatives and allows your advertising dollars to push that offbrand and accumulate more sales, not just window shoppers. Consumers will be more likely to purchase that cheaper alternative, thus increasing your conversions.

Focus On The Customer

Retention of buyers will also become more important in a down economy. There will be fewer customers out looking to actually buy, since more will be content with doing with what they have. Make sure that after getting visitors to your site, through online advertising, they know how much you appreciate their business. Even in an affiliate driven website its possible to increase customer retention through memorable advertising methods, so they automatically look for your site next time they need a product.

If the economy gets worse focusing on the customer will become even more important. Repeat business and word of mouth will further add to the value of your advertising dollars. Those with larger budgets could also use advertising as a way to define your companies core values, further increasing the focus on your customer.

Conclusion

Lastly, always remember, no matter how bad it gets there is always room for opportunity. Be aggressive within your means and strive for growth, looking at every angle and ways to move in on your competitors. Don't be content with the status quo, fortunes are made in bad economies.

Tuesday

Amazon Commission Tiers And How To Improve



Amazon.com offers a great affiliate program, if you know how to market it properly and optimize your commission tiers. There are 2 basic complaints that come about in the popular webmaster forums when it comes to the Amazon affiliate program, which is it's short cookie duration and it's low commission payout. While there is not a whole lot we can do about the cookie duration, there are actions affiliates can take to help reach the highest levels of tiered commissions and maximize their commissions once they get there.

The Amazon affiliate program commission tier is unique, because it does not focus on dollar sales, rather on the number of units sold. The Amazon commission tier has 8 different levels within the General Products category. However, there are fixed commissions for items being sold in the CE Products, Kindle, and Endless.com categories. Please review the Amazon commission tier below.



As you can see from the chart, it gets real easy to increase your commission tier at the lower levels, mainly because it only takes 7 items to hit 6% which can be on par with other similar affiliate programs. CE Products are a little bit more tricky, typically eletronics, these items are at a fixed 4% commission rate, no matter how many you sell. But I've found a way around this and it works on popular electronic items where many companies are thrown into the mix.

It's possible to get a higher than 4% commission rate from Amazon on electronics, if you focus on selling items from other 'stores' within Amazon and not just Amazon.com products. When a CE Product is out of stock at Amazon.com it other companies products will be shown and on popular items this can happen a lot. What happens is that Amazon applies the General Product tier to those purchases, instead of the CE Products category.

Back before Wii's were removed from being eligible for commissions I was selling Wii's on Amazon for 7.5% commission...every month. My strategy was to focus other websites on lower priced items, which would typically sell better, to drive my commission tier up. Then I would focus selling Wii's that were out of stock on Amazon, and sold at 3rd party merchants within Amazon, for a higher General Products commission. Because of the attention to detail I was making a full 3.5% more commission per sale on items over $200. Up until removed my commissions were going even higher because people were selling a used Wii bundled with games and other accessories.

Now the above example is no longer applicable because the Wii was added to the 'No Commission' list. However, there are plenty of products and niches still available on must have items that quickly go out of stock and rely on other vendors. The double payback comes when these in demand items are priced above retail value. Obviously the higher cost means more commissions in the pockets of affiliates. So in closing, experiment, find work arounds, and good luck maximizing your Amazon commission tier.