Deep Linking in Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Marketing is a great activity to engage in for most websites and companies. It is oftentimes based on a classic win-win situation. The reason for this is that if you own a website and have spare inventory, you can start up affiliate partnerships for example and make the most out of the inventory you have. You might think you would gain more if you signed up on some banner network for a lower CPM or CPC, but this might not always be the case. If you managed to set up a good affiliate partnership with a relevant company, this might generate a much higher eCPM than traditional networks offer.

Banners are however not the only tools you can use in affiliate marketing. For the advertiser, banners might be a good way to get exposure, but in affiliate marketing you shouldn’t really be interested in the exposure but the conversion or final goal of your whole affiliate campaign. One of the best ways to get good conversion and reach the set target is by using deep linking.

The method of deep linking is very simple. Let’s say you have a blog or a website where you can post news or articles. The idea is to link directly to the product or service you’re talking about. So instead of linking to www.somerandomwebsite.com you link to www.somerandomwebsite.com/fantasticproducts/themostfantasticproduct/. This way the readers will be able to reach the product directly, and are literally just one click away from a potential purchase. The advantage of deep linking over a regular homepage link is pretty obvious. You save the visitors time and effort by saving them from having to look around for the product you’re talking about.

This might seem as a really obvious method; still you would be surprised to see how many people ignore this strategy. My suggestion is that if you’re running an affiliate campaign as an advertiser, then make sure you enable your affiliates to use this method. You should actively push them toward methods that stand the best chance to work instead of just supplying them with some random banners.  The same goes if you’re an affiliate and a publisher. Try to figure out what ways you can use deep linking and if there’s any good posts you can write about specific products. Please note that I’m not encouraging you to hype products and services you have no experience of. Instead, you should try to write reviews of products you actually have used yourself, and maybe you can get the advertiser to send you test samples etc. Or you can simply say that you’re thinking about buying a certain product, and explain why. This might make others interested as well.

As you can see, there are numerous ways of using deep linking, and it’s a really simple method that virtually anyone can implement. All it takes is a copy-paste and some imagination, more or less.

Soheil Amorpour, CEO @ CPerspective Online Marketing Agency

“So you’ll manipulate my website so that I’ll get higher rankings?”

The heading of this post is one of the most frequent statement/questions I come across when discussing search engine optimization with people that do not have any experience of SEO. Many people still view SEO as something shady and unclear. There are probably many reasons for this; mainly that SEO companies and consultants do not properly inform their clients and their prospects about what they will actually try to accomplish in detail. Of course, anyone can say “we will increase your traffic and generate more business”. And they might also keep that promise. But if the website owners never understand what’s been done, they might start thinking of SEO as something almost magical. This will in the long run create a mystified aura around SEO.

I’m sorry to disappoint all the people who would like to view search engine optimization as a magical art that comes with a black hat and a wand. In fact, there’s nothing magical about SEO at all. It’s all about strategic thinking in accordance with what you’re market requires and what you’re offering. Hence, a good search engine optimization is not about manipulating a website or read out a couple of spells – it’s about creating a website that is based on what is actually going on in the search engines.

Let’s first of all make one thing clear. I’m in no way trying to claim that there’s no manipulation going on at all in the industry. There’s probably tons of different websites that are manipulated in one way or another, but these are most likely not websites of serious businesses. A manipulated website usually has short term interests; SEO however is about the long term commitment.  Let me give some examples to illustrate this to you.

Manipulation: If you would want to manipulate a website there are many things you could do. For example you could optimize it for keywords that are irrelevant to what your website is actually about, and this way generate lots of traffic. This might fulfill a purpose for a short term website, but since the website would be irrelevant to most of its keywords the visitors would exit quickly. This is something that the search engines notice; some search engines also see this as a sign of irrelevance and bumps down the website.

For most businesses and websites however, it’s not the amount of traffic that is important, but how relevant that traffic is. It’s always better to rank on 1 very relevant keyword than to rank on 10 irrelevant. The reason is simple: if you’re offering something that fits what 1 person is looking for, and that person finds you, you’re more likely to see a conversion.

I would personally not even want to call this method SEO as I think it confuses things. I’d much rather call it SEM (Search Engine Manipulation) but then of course it would still confuse things; for those that don’t know, SEM actually stands for Search Engine Marketing.

Optimization: If you have a serious website that you want to have a solid and long term marketing plan for, then there should be no manipulation what so ever. This is where SEO comes in; Your website needs to be relevant. You do not want to get huge volumes of irrelevant traffic that will hit the back button in less than a second. You want to focus on searches that fits perfectly with what you do and offer, therefore you optimize.

An optimization always strives to make your website relevant to the visitors that are actively looking for your services or products. There is no manipulation involved what so ever. Let’s say you sell supplements and general health care products. To optimize your website we would need to find which of your products people are actually searching for, and match those searches with the content on your website for example. Again, there would be no manipulation involved, just adjustments to fit your audience.

Let’s face it; if you rank on a bunch of irrelevant keywords that are irrelevant to your business, then you won’t see any great results, if any at all. And if this is the case, then you have wasted time and money (in one way or another) for nothing. This is why you as a client need to make sure you’re not buying general traffic when you’re hiring an SEO consultant or company. You shouldn’t be interested in increasing you’re traffic; in fact you can decrease in traffic but still increase in sales. The reason is simple; by doing an SEO you might cut away a bunch of irrelevant traffic and only focus on a small volume of keywords that convert very well. This might lead to a traffic drop, but a sale increase. And no, there’s no magic behind it, just some good keywords.

SEO is not about making shady changes to a website, manipulating keywords and content or casting spells. It’s a sound way of matching what you actually have with who is actually looking for you. Nothing more or less than that.

Soheil Amorpour, CEO @ CPerspective Online Marketing Agency

Are You Really Testing Your Test Campaigns?

As a CEO I know one thing first hand – Every cent not spent correctly is a mistreat of the company budget. Every time a company spends it should be with the aim to generate ROI in some aspect. No matter how little or much you spend, this should be your goal if you are genuinely interested in growing your business.  Of course there will be times when you won’t be able to generate ROI, but that needs to be your aim, and to get there you need to put in some hard work.

Over the years I’ve been involved in numerous banner campaigns that have only been small tests from the advertiser’s side. The budgets involved have usually been rather small due to the risk involved in trying out a brand new site; roughly around 1 000 – 2 000 Euros in average. These tests are something that most companies are and should be familiar with. It is also something that I’ve seen all types companies engage in, no matter size. I think test campaigns are very wise, but only if done correctly. In most cases however, these test campaigns end up being nothing more than a waste of the budget. In this article I will go through some common mistakes that damage test campaigns, and also give my ideas on how a text campaign should be planned and executed.

One of the most common mistakes is when the advertiser fully ignores the website owner’s advice or the agencies advice (if there is an agency handling the website). Let me give you an example. Some years ago I was working for a company that did a campaign with a client that was active in the poker industry. This client created a promotion where all new players who signed up through that specific banner were rewarded with a small amount of money to play with, with no obligation to deposit their own money. This was a success and the campaign got renewed and lasted for over a year without getting exhausted. The website in question wasn’t at all related to gambling or poker, but a general website that had a good age range for that specific advertiser.

That poker campaign showed us that there was great potential for poker companies on that website, so we asked some of our other poker clients if they wanted to try it out. Many were eager to give it a go and do test campaigns. So we launched the first test campaign, but with a different promotion. This poker company instead chose to offer a depositing bonus of 100% up to $300 USD. The campaign did not work out at all. This was a bit strange since we were running the other campaign simultaneously with great results. So we launched another campaign, and this poker company also had another type of banner where they promoted a specific tournament that they were arranging. This campaign did not work out either.

So now we had one campaign that was doing really well, and two that didn’t work out at all. They all offered same type of products (poker) and were equally well known in the industry. We started therefore suspecting that the two latter promotions did not fit the target at all, so when yet another poker client wanted to test the website we were fast to give our advice. We specifically told this poker company to use a promotion similar to the campaign that was doing well, and they listened. Right away, we saw good results again. This made us confident that this website was all about having the correct promotion, so every time we had one of our clients asking us to run campaigns there, we suggested what promotion to use.

The problem came pretty quick though. Many of the clients coming to us for advertising space did not listen at all to what we had to say. They kept giving us banners with 100% bonuses, special tournaments, rake back offers and other promotions we knew just wouldn’t work out. We launched their campaigns, and tada: no results what so ever.

I saw countless 1000-2000 Euro campaigns being burnt off like it was nothing. For example, one of the clients launched their test campaign with a promotion we had told them would not work, and then came back several weeks after the campaign was finished asking us whether the campaign was still live or not. They hadn’t tracked the campaign, they hadn’t listened to our advice, and most importantly, they didn’t get any kickback at all from that campaign. You’re not running a test campaign if you do not do any testing while running the campaign. Instead of choosing the correct promotion, monitoring the campaign and trying different tweaks, they did nothing. That is also what they got out from the campaign – Nothing.

So how should you then treat your test campaign? Well to start with, listen to site owner or agency that you’re doing the campaign with. All website owners or agencies that deal with publishers will know the websites audience very well if they’re serious about what they’re doing. And we will assume that they are serious, because if not then why would you be in business with them in first place? Second of all, monitor your campaign. Keep track of the impressions, clicks and conversions as close to real time as possible. Only then will you be able to do the necessary tweaks that can provide you with the information you need to evaluate the test campaign. By tracking the results while the campaign is live you can do changes such as time-targeting the campaign and only show your ads during specific hours. You can also switch banners to try out different promotions and types of ads. In other words, you can do what you set out to do: Testing!

So if you do decide to go with a test campaign, then make sure you have the resources to take advantage of the opportunity. Otherwise you will waste your own valuable time and money, and also miss out on a potential great partnership for your marketing.

Soheil Amorpour, CEO @ CPerspective Online Marketing Agency

How to Use Forums to Promote Your Website

I personally think of Internet forums as one of the best and most effective ways to promote new websites, products etc. The problem is that very few people use the forums correctly. In this article I will give a quick guide on how to use forums to promote your website, but also point out common mistakes people make when trying to promote their sites on various forums.

Let’s start by looking at what you shouldn’t do when using forums as a promotion tool. There are some recurring mistakes that I keep seeing over and over again. For example, many website owners think it’s a good idea to act as if they’re not affiliated with the website they’re trying to promote. They will start a forum thread asking if other people know about the site, and then give their own comment on how great they think the site is. This is most often very obvious, and it almost seems as the promoter thinks of his fellow forum users as complete idiots. If there ever would be a book on cheap online promotion tricks, then this would be one of the oldest tricks in that very book. What usually happens when someone tries to promote their site like that is that other users report him to a moderator who removes his thread. The result of this is that the website loses the chance to be promoted on that specific forum since the promoter no longer is trustworthy. It might also damage the reputation of a website, depending on what type of industry the site operates in.

Think about it, usually when you come across a great website you don’t start a thread about it in some random forum. You might tip of a friend or two about it, but that’s about it. Just because you’re online it doesn’t mean that people will not detect strange behaviour. It’s a riddle to me why people chose the few bad ways of promoting their site on forums when there are so many good ways.

What are then the good uses of a forum when it comes to promoting your website? I think the problem is that many website owners are afraid of losing trust if they reveal that they are the persons behind the site they’re promoting. Trust me, you will not lose any trust at all if you’re honest about what you’re doing. Let me show you some easy and good ways of using forums to promote your site.

First of all, you need to analyze your own site and the forum. Do they match at all? If not, then you’ll be better off finding a forum that actually makes sense in regards of what you’re promoting. Your website needs to match some aspect of the forum. So let’s say you’re running a website that reviews technical gadgets such as cameras, mobile phones, laptops etc. Instead of just posting a thread where you ask if people know about your great website, you could post your actual articles every now and then in relevant sections of the forum. Introduce the article and at the end of each article you can tell the readers that if they liked that specific article they might like the rest of the content on your website. However, do not spam the forum with each article you write – chose carefully and wisely what you post. This way you will promote your website in an open and honest fashion and it will be relevant to the forum and its readers.

But what if you’re running an online shop, or a website that is less content based? No worries, you can still use forums, you just need to switch tactics a bit. Instead of directly promoting what you have on the website, you can ask for input. Let’s say your e-shop sells designer clothing. A good idea would in that case be to find forums related to fashion and instigate a direct dialogue with potential customers. For example you could start a thread where you introduce your e-shop, and ask for feedback on the functionality, usability as well as the various brands you’re offering. Ask what they think is missing, what they think you’re doing well and so on. This will give you feedback from the very same crowd you’re targeting. It will also make you look serious and sincere about what you’re doing.

I think it all comes down to how much creativity you allow yourself to have. Don’t be lazy and don’t be afraid of communicating directly with your prospects, they will most likely give you the best and most accurate feedback. Just remember that its people you’re talking with, and just because its online it doesn’t mean you can run around pitching everyone; act online like you would act in real life situations. Be honest, sincere and focus your energy on the right forums instead of trying to cover as many as possible with lazy posts.

Soheil Amorpour, CEO @ CPerspective Online Marketing Agency

Cut the Crap – Check your Bounce Rate!

If you haven’t installed Google Analytics on your website yet, then I would recommend you to do so right away. Google Analytics will give you great insight to what type of traffic your getting, from where, the behaviour of your visitors and much more.

So what is bounce rate? I would say bounce rate is rather straight forward; think of it as how fast a visitors bounces off your website after their entry rather than continue exploring different sections of it. Some examples of a bounce can be when a visitor hits the “back”-button to leave your site, clicks on a link to a different website or close down the browser window. If you have a high bounce rate it could mean several things. For example, you might be ranking on the “wrong” keywords, meaning you are getting traffic from keywords that are not relevant to what your site is offering. It can also mean that – if you’re running active campaigns – you’re advertising on the wrong places and that you’re getting a lot of low quality traffic. Essentially, that is what bounce rate boils down to – the quality of your site and your visitors. If there is a good match between who is visiting you and what your site is about, you would most often find a rather low bounce rate that is around 25-40%. However, if you’re getting very poor quality traffic you could see bounce rates that are up to 70-80%.

Although low quality traffic can result in a high bounce rate, a high bounce rate does not necessarily indicate low quality traffic. It is important to understand that the bounce rate also depends on what type of website you have. For example it is normal to see high bounce rate levels on websites that focus much of the content and activity on their first page. This can be blogs, rss-feeds, livescore services etc. that do not require visitors to click around on the site. A high bounce rate is therefore not necessarily an indication that something is very wrong on your site.

Why is it then important to know your bounce rate? As you might have figured out, bounce rate helps you to ask the right questions about your website, and can give hints about improvements that can be made. If you have a low rate then you’re most likely doing a lot of things right such as advertising in the right places, matching your content with your target etc. If your bounce rate is rather high, then it will give you indications of what changes need to be made. For example, if your bounce rate increases during a campaign your running, then you might suspect that this campaign is sending you very low quality visitors (unless you’re sending them to a plain campaign section/site). This goes for online media campaigns such as banner adverts as well as SEM and SEO campaigns. If you’re engaging in some sort of activity, and see an increase in bounce rate, then you need to analyze and evaluate your campaign thoroughly.

Once you know where the crappy traffic is coming from, it might be a good idea to just cut it off. Why you might ask, isn’t all traffic good to some extent? Well, not really. First of all there have been some indications that bounce rate might affect your search engine rankings (although this is still being debated). However, search rankings aside, what is more important is that you will save money that you’re wasting on poor quality users. If your campaigns are generating high bounce rates, then you’re not optimizing your ROI. You’d most likely be much better off reallocating those marketing budgets to other sources.

So again, if you already haven’t done it, install Google Analytics and keep an eye on your bounce rate. It might save you a big chunk of your marketing budget.

Soheil Amorpour, CEO @ CPerspective Online Marketing Agency

Top 5 Misconceptions about SEO

Out of all online marketing strategies that are out there at the moment, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) must be the one with most misconceptions and question marks around it. I think there are many reasons behind all the confusion. First of all there are many dubious SEO companies out there that spread out misleading information, and give away promises that are more than unrealistic. However, I think the main reason is that the industry in large has failed in communicating the idea of SEO to the potential clients. I wouldn’t say that a few rotten SEO apples have misled and confused all prospects (although this has happened too often). I think one major problem is that when SEO companies hire staff for their sales squad, they hire salespeople with the philosophy that anyone can learn and communicate the ideas behind search engine optimization.

I remember when I worked for a large SEO company and they were hiring sales staff. All that mattered was previous sales experience and numbers. In fact they did not control for whether the prospect employees had any experience at all in online marketing and/or SEO. The idea was simply to hire the best possible salespeople and educate them into becoming SEO experts. I was hardly surprised when more than 80% of all new salespeople were fired within 3-6 months of starting, and most of the companies SEO clients were utterly unhappy with the service and solution. I simply don’t believe you can take anyone and turn them into a search engine optimization specialist over night. You need to have a good understanding for the dynamics of the search engines, but also for online marketing as a whole. It doesn’t take a salesperson to sell SEO, it sells itself once explained correctly.

So the lengthy intro aside, what are then the most misconceptions of SEO? I would say that the following misled quotes are the ones I run into most often:

1. “Let us fix your meta tags and you’ll outrank all your competition!”

You might read this and think “come on, no one really gives a lousy SEO pitch like that anymore”. Well you’d be surprised. Again, let me take one of my old workplaces as an example. Let me remind you that this is one of the largest SEO and online marketing companies in the world. My colleague was on phone with one of his prospects and he was going on and on about the meta tags and what difference it would make. I was sitting there not knowing if I should cut off his phone line accidently to save him or take a mind note for a future blog post. Yes, I went with the the mind note, and my ex-colleague isn’t even in the online marketing industry today. Let it be said, once and for all: On most search engines meta tags will generate next to nothing when it comes to improving your rankings.

2. “We’ll optimize your website and then you’re good to go!”

Have you ever gone to a barber that have told you he can cut your hair one time only and then you’re good to go for all future? Most likely both you and your barber would realize that the hair is under constant change and that maintenance will be needed regularly to maintain a good look. The same goes for SEO. As your competition, industry and the search engines changes, your optimization will need to adapt as well.

3. “We need to cut away all the fancy flash from your site to optimize it.”

Let me explain one key thing in all onsite optimization. If your website consists of 5 different pages, you will most likely not have to optimize each single page. For example, pages such as “clients” or “about us” will hardly convert into new clients for you, so you would not suffer from designing those sections with some flash elements. Remember that the website is made for people in the first hand, not for search robots. Put the onsite optimization focus on the sections you want to convert, for example your “services” section. An optimized website is not an ugly website!

4. “SEO is a lengthy process and you’ll need to allow 12 months or so for results.“

This might be true in some cases, for example when you’re competing in a very saturated market and have top notch competition. However, for many companies that doesn’t have to be true at all. It all depends on what keywords you choose to focus on, and how well you suit your website after your clients needs. A website that is popular in it’s segment due to good usability and/or products will outrank its competition even if the competition have a better optimization. The reasons for this are many, but one of the main reasons is that a popular website gain links more easily, and as most people know today back-links are vital for search engine rankings.

5. “There are no guarantees in SEO!”

This is a pretty strange saying that still dominates large parts of the SEO industry. If you’re serious about your services and trust in your SEO strategies then guarantees should not be a problem to give. But there is a difference between realistic and unrealistic guarantees. I can only see two reasons for why a SEO company do not want to give guarantees: 1.) They know their client is in a way too competitive market for them to handle but still want to get the deal in, and/or 2.) They know their SEO service is very poor and won’t make a difference to the client’s rankings. I would like to make a seemingly bold claim: all SEO – if done correctly and ethically – will make a difference in the rankings of a website. There should therefore not be a problem to offer some sort of guarantee on the work done. I think a fair guarantee is to offer refund of the cost for the onsite optimization. If you’re onsite changes has made no difference to the clients rankings, then what are you charging them for?

I personally think that SEO is one of the best ways for many companies in the online market to reach their audience and grow their business. I’m pretty sure that most companies will realize the huge potential of the search engines once the question marks around SEO has been straightened out. Remember that true SEO is not about manipulating, it’s about adapting and creating real quality.

Soheil Amorpour, CEO @ CPerspective Online Marketing Agency