Hadi dropped me a wee line with a question that’s asked frequently on lots of forums.

Hi Kirsty

Thanks for a great blog btw.

Hey Hadi, You’ve heard of the first past the post system? In affiliate marketing the system is a little different! The affiliate who was the last referrer actually gets the sale.

i.e. Customer goes to Affiliate Site A, clicks on link to merchant site and affiliate site A’s cookie is set on their computer. They then leave without a purchase.

7 days go past, and the same customer then returns to the merchants site, but via another affiliates link on Affiliate Site B and makes a purchase.

This sale and its commission would be attributed to Affiliate Site B and the cookie from Affiliate Site A would be overwritten. Now there has been a lot of debate about this over the years. Some people feel that this is not fair to the original affiliate. However, the reasoning is that the second site may have gotten a visitor to return who might not have otherwise returned and made a purchase at all.

Hence, the second referrer wins!

I’ve been thinking about this one for a few days. Affiliate marketing these days is a seemingly endlessly complex corridor full of confusing information and allegedly killer schemes to make you a millionaire and hand you the affiliate holy grail within 3 microseconds.

Apart from all the outright lies and half-truths you have to wade through, you now need a thorough understanding of the Google Adwords Landing Page Algo and need to work out exactly how to build those killer Landing Pages Google won’t assign to Google-Slap oblivion as soon as your local friendly Adwords Robot pays your page a courtesy call.

Even more confusing… exactly what the hell is a robot? What in the name of all that’s holy is a spider doing on my web page? Why does someone try to sell me something every fizzing time I look for a plain and simple answer about any of these things?

Affiliate marketing these days seems to be a potentially wide and gaping chasm into which your valuable time and money, if you’re too quick to believe all those promises, will vanish without a trace as you struggle to understand what the bloody hell all these experts are talking about.

So let’s make like Margaret Thatcher and say LETS GET BACK TO BASICS

OK. For the sake of argument, lets say you’ve spent 12 months desperately trying to work out how to build a landing page that Google will think is A1 perfect. What now? Do you even know what to do with your landing page? Have you even built a landing page that you know contains something that will convert? The point I am trying to make is that there seems to be a preoccupation with getting a landing page sorted before moving on to promotion. That’s the way to do things though, right?

Wrong. You’ve heard of not being able to see the wood for the trees? I think too many would-be affiliates these days can’t see the sales for the landing pages. Too many people are worrying about the landing page first, and the actual commercial value of the work they have put in is an afterthought. They see the vast hurdle of landing page creation, and completely miss the glistening gold of the revenue stream that should be put in front of it.

So What Should We Be Doing Then, Oh Sarcastic PPC Lady?

“Good words are worth much and cost little.”
George Herbert

Everything else aside, Mr Herbert’s quote neatly encapsulates the very heart of what I perceive to be the secret of my affiliate marketing success. Your 12 month slog to create a killer landing page is totally useless if you can’t find the right words to throw at it.

I am, of course, talking about finding the right search terms for your campaign and even more importantly finding the merchant who will truly pay you the value of your words. You’ve got a landing page, OK. But your landing page is so much internet piss in the wind if you don’t use it to send the right traffic to the right merchant.

It is vital to make sure of this before you even put finger to keyboard to start creating the landing page that will see you on a beach in Barbados this time next year.

Well, That’s All Very Easy For You To Say Kirsty. How The Blazes Will We Do That?

Well. Another wee secret actually. One that many merchants (and even affiliate managers) seem to be unaware of. Certainly a lot of newbie affiliates don’t know it.

You ready? Lean in Now….

It’s still OK to send traffic direct to merchant.

Yes, Google has this single ad per display URL… but that doesn’t mean that Google has banned affiliates from doing this. Nor does it mean networks have outlawed it. Some merchants don’t want you to do it these days, but there are still a lot who are happy for affiliates to do send the traffic right up to the door.

No, you won’t get as much traffic as a landing page… but with direct to merchant all you need are those words the clever Mr Herbert saw as so valuable. By using your words cleverly, ferreting out things others have missed, and really placing yourself in your would-be customer’s shoes you can create a small traffic stream. What this will let you do is test your words, test a niche you are interested in, find your revenue stream.

THEN you can worry about creating a landing page. Your effort will be more productive. After all, you will already know where the money is. You will probably even have a better idea of what your prospective consumer expects to see in a landing page for your chosen niche.

The short version of this very long story?

Get the words right first.

I got a line the other day from Craig… who feels he’s done enough research to take his first exciting leap into an affiliate project. He’s wondering what tools he should use for this first project. Here’s his question : –

Hello Kirsty,

A fan of AffiliateStuff,

Well Craig, first off and software aside… for your first attempt I would
actually suggest that you find a niche area which you are interested in
and perhaps even go so far as to create a site purely focusing on one or
two products.

I’ve answered a question relating to this on the blog. Honestly, it is so
much better to hone your skills on a small project. That way, when you do
a big site and put a lot of work into it, you can be sure that it is
genuinely going to work for you. So many would-be affiliates jump in feet
first with a gargantuan project only to discover the concept / their
techniques are duff and they have wasted a disheartening amount of their
valuable time and effort.

http://www.affiliatestuff.co.uk/getting-started-as-an-affiliate/what-size-of-affiliate-site-effective-content-ask-kirsty/

http://www.affiliatestuff.co.uk/getting-started-as-an-affiliate/ask-kirsty-how-do-i-find-my-first-affiliate-niche/

In terms of what software to use.. well, I can only tell you what I use
personally! I create site templates in dreamweaver (although friends have
said great things about Joomla being easier), and for sites featuring lots
of products I get my dear old other half Duncan to do me a nice SQL
database.

I’ve not ventured into sites with price comparison functionality, but I
have heard a few good comments about Price Tapestry. I believe it could
be used quite adequately to make a small first site (although as I say,
not a forte of mine). Perhaps you could nip onto the A4U Forums and ask
about that as there are a whole lot of people on there deeply into price
comparison who could point you in the right direction if you told them
roughly what you were trying to do. If you’re not already on there (Not
sure if you are a UK bod or not), give it a go… they’re a friendly
bunch. Just tell them I sent ya!

A WordPress blog might be a really easy way to set up your first site. There’s a huge number of free templates available, and many can be easily altered to create a good basis for a site. Then you have the added benefit of the many powerful and easy to install widgets that plug right into the back end, and a really easy to use content management system. I find this makes it really easy to add lots of valuable content and new pages at the touch of a button. This would be a really easy way to create a first site centred around a very small number of products. This blog is based on a free WordPress template… it took me around 1 day to work out the system (I’d never used WordPress before) and alter it to my requirements.

Hope this helps a bit. I know that finding your way in affiliate land can be an uphill struggle at times!

Craig also asked a follow-up question based on my response: –

Firstly thankyou for the reply and of course you can use it in your ask
kirsty series.

This is what im getting from your reply i think it’s helped me greatly, then
keep these websites small and targetted. Like i used halloween masks above,
then do halloween kids costumes ect..

You’re definately on the right lines there Craig. Pick a small niche area and work on that first then expand your activity to build your expertise.

In terms of datafeeds, the data you download from the affiliate network and then use to create your SQL feed will contain prices, images, and product names and descriptions. As you suggest, it’s really essential that you add your own unique content to this in order to create a decent chance for yourself to rank for some of your niche terms. It’s also a good idea to identify the terms you think you should be ranking for prior to creating this content so you can angle your carefully devised prose towards them.

Good luck!!

Here’s the first of the questions I got in from blog readers about those burning issues newbies need to get to grips with!

“Hey Kirsty, thank you for taking the time to answer my question.

Great down- to-earth blog!”

Some affiliates do create one ad per key term using the Google Adword editor. However, you don’t necessarily have to do this when you are first starting out. It would be perfectly acceptable for you to create an adgroup bringing together similar keywords / product areas that would be covered by your ad text. This is the strategy I tend to follow.

Also, you could use dynamic keyword insertion to make sure that the ad title was always reflective of your target search term. If you haven’t heard of this handy dandy Adwords tool, you can basically place a command in your ad which will dynamically place any of the search terms in your adgroup in the title of your advert in response to a search made by a potential customer in Google or one of Google’s search partners.

Clear as mud? Don’t worry. Kirsty shall explain!!

Below is a screen shot of the dynamic keyword syntax in action within a fictitious adgroup yours truly created for illustrative purposes: –

Basically, by inserting the {Keyword:Search Term} operator in place of the title you are asking Adwords to show the search terms listed in your adgroup as the title of your ad. The alternative text will be shown as the ad title in the event of a search term falling outwith Adwords 25 character title limit, so it is important to make it as relevant as possible to maximise click through rates.

For further reading on adwords dynamic keyword insertion see Google’s own guide here.

I hope this helps a little, and good luck with all your new PPC campaigns with swish dynamic titling!

This is the first part of an as yet to be determined series on absolute SEO basics. It’s the absolute bare bones of SEO knowledge and is not comprehensive… but it should give a beginner a point of reference to begin their efforts. It’s the first part of about 3 or 4… I don’t know how many there will be yet, I seem to keep on thinking up more and more to write about as I go along!

What is Search Engine Optimisation?

Search engine optimisation (or SEO) is named according to the fine traditions of this industry. We make everything sound a lot harder than it actually is!

At a very basic level, SEO is simply the process of changing aspects of your site to make it more relevant to search engine queries made by people looking for the product or subject matter of your site.

There are many things which a search engine looks at to determine which sites are most appropriate to be displayed in response to queries. When you engage in SEO you are merely trying to respond to these criteria.

Further Reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/SEO.html

How Search Engines Rank Web Pages

Each search engine has a subtly different way of ranking pages in response to search queries. They all apply a formula known as an “algorithm” or “algo” to analyse the content of a web page and determine its relevance. Search engine algos are top secret and the details of exactly how they work are not made public. This is for a very good reason. Obviously if we all knew exactly how Google & other search engines ranked their pages, the search results would lose relevancy because every man and his dog would know how to create a site with killer rankings (as opposed to a site with the user in mind). In the past, this kind of knowledge has led to spammy search engine results, which is why search engines brought out their cloaks and daggers to create ranking algos which were difficult to exploit. So your current endeavours to learn the mystic art of SEO have been made that much more complex by all us pre 2003 affiliates who could create 10,000 ranking pages in about 5 minutes flat!

Learning about SEO by reading online information is rendered extremely difficult by the fact that nobody knows for sure exactly what goes on inside the algos. This means people develop their own methodologies and articles can be contradictory as a result of this. The best advice I can give on this is to not get bogged down in this by accepting everything you read as gospel and then getting confused by blatant contradictions. You, like everyone else, will eventually formulate your own working methods based on the results you see from your efforts.

If I tried to analyse even just a part of a search engine algo, I’d probably have enough for a PHD thesis. So this article is intended to be very basic to give you some pointers to the areas you should spend time on when trying to build site visitors.

So what makes search engines love your site?

This is not a definitive list… it’s the basics. You’ll no doubt hear of other things to do to make your page hyper-relevant from loads of different sources. When researching SEO further bear this in mind – if a method sounds too good to be true / like an overly easy shortcut you may be straying into search engine ban territory. Broadly speaking, SEO is hard work these days, but the rewards are wonderful!

Content: Now, before I even start the list properly I want to give some sage advice on what your site pages should contain. The phrase “content is king” is well worn for a good reason. Sites with thin content, and with no original content tend not to perform (particularly in Google). You should be writing original content you think will be genuinely useful to your target audience to include on your site. It’s not enough to adopt a copy and paste attitude towards your new search engine hobby… it’s just not going to wash in the search engines. Google in particular has something called the “Duplicate Content Filter”. If your site has content copied from somewhere else, the great Google will know and will penalise rankings accordingly. You have been warned!

OK, there are two aspects about your site which will be looked at: On site Factors and Off Site Factors. See, optimisation is not only about how your site looks, but also about how other sites are talking about it. Still interested? Yes? OK. Let us proceed!

On Site Factors

Keyword Rich URL’s – Search terms in domains are deemed to be relevant to the sites content. Think about it from the search engine’s point of view. If the domain name carries certain search terms this is likely to be a strong indicator of the sites subject matter.

Don’t worry if your site doesn’t have this, many millions of sites rank without this benefit. However, if you can get a popular search term as your domain name, it is most definitely of assistance. It can also help your site achieve a better click through rate, as most search engines will highlight matching search terms within a site in bold, including your URL.

Below is an example of Google search results for the term “Cookware”:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rlz=1B2GGGL_enGB176GB176&q=cookware&btnG=Search&meta=

As with many search results, particularly Google, there is a strong presence of keyword-bearing url’s in the search results. This does suggest that it can help significantly with your rankings. Depending on the competitiveness of the search term, this will not always be a factor that will tip the search engine scales in your favour without other work. It is possible to rank highly for lower volume search terms quickly using this tactic, which can be lucrative if you’ve found an unexploited niche area with low competition and good conversion rates.

Keyword Distribution

When a search robot visits a web page it analyses the position and frequency of search terms throughout the page. Search engines look for some key markers to determine what terms contained in the page are most relevant to the subject matter. On a very simple level, a search engine robot reads your page in the same way you or I might scan a newspaper to determine what was going on with the days news.
Search terms contained within certain page elements such as titles, italicised and bold text, and link anchor text are considered to be likely to contain terms relating to the main subject matter of the page and therefore carry a greater weighting.

Search engines also look for which terms are sprinkled evenly thoroughout your page, the logic behind this is that if a term is mentioned frequently in all areas of the page it is again likely to relate to the subject matter of the page. I always describe this analysis as “Top, Middle, and Bottom” to SEO newbies. If you look at your page and see terms of relevance in all these areas, your text content is going to be pretty close to being right.

Pseudonyms
Don’t just repeat your main search term. Think of different ways to describe it in your page content, and use lots of related keywords. For example, a page about “designer lingerie” should also mention related terms like “underwear” “bras” “thongs” etc. This will reassure the robot that your page really is relevant!

A proviso for all you would-be search marketers: – Don’t try to manipulate this by engaging in “Keyword Stuffing”. By this I mean creating pages with artificially high amounts of your search term. That search ship sailed long ago, and Google will actually penalise a site it considers to be engaging in this practise. You have been warned (again!).

The optimum keyword density (i.e. the % of keywords from all your text that cover your desired search term or terms) ranges between 5% and 20% for Google. The optimum level changes with subject matter, and apparently anything above the threshold will trigger Google’s keyword spamming alarm. How true this is I am unsure. The best advice I can give on keyword density is to keep it natural when writing your page content. Simply talk about your desired subject using as many relevant words as possible without putting in superfluous pap (yep, that’s a technical term) and you should be fine.

Page elements search engines give special weighting to: -