Monday Question: Which Is The Best Affiliate Marketing Platform?

Leave a reply

Here goes:

“I’m a new affiliate and I’m wondering what’s the best website platform I should use?

I’ve heard a lot of people talk about using Microsoft Front Page to create a HTML site. While others have mentioned blogs.

What do you suggest?”

–

My Answer:

There’s no right or wrong answer when it comes to choosing your marketing platform, and there’s no “best” platform.

It’s very situational in nature.

If you’re starting out, creating a HTML site might be easier.

I started out using Microsoft Front Page (which has since been replaced by Microsoft Web Expressions). It is alright for single page affiliate sites.

However, with Google’s stricter implementation of Quality Score and having to insert secondary pages like an about us, privacy policy, contact us page, sitemap, etc, using Front Page can be quite cumbersome.

I’ve been using XSitePro quite a bit recently. It’s a pretty intelligent website builder and lets you create sections and sub-sections pretty easily. Best of all, it Continue reading →

Is Engagement The Key To Busting The Affiliate Money Code?

Leave a reply

The writing’s been on the wall for some time – merchants and affiliates need to up their game if they’re to stay relevant, especially as the market gets more sophisticated.

Just take a look at the signs of the times:

  • Implementation of stricter quality measure (eg Google Quality Score) to clamp down on “thin” sites. Especially hit hard are single page landing sites.
  • The noose tightens. You can get somewhat around the QS issue with an about us, contact, privacy page and sitemap. But you can be sure that the quality control noose will continue to tighten.
  • Expansion of the PPC and Affiliate market: Just like in the dotcom days, you’ll have fools rushing in, especially as PPC and affiliate marketing start to go prime time. Already, the “pseudo gurus” have shifted from pimping “Adsense in a Box” products to “CPA in a Box” products. [I’ve looked at a number of these products and the only person making anything from them, is the guy who sold it to you].

So is some “guru” out there going to exploit this market by issuing a free “Death of Affiliate Marketing” report?

If so, stay as far away as you can, because most expensive advice you will ever get is “free advice”.

I was reading Jim Lillig’s post “Performance Marketing Makes Sense” especially the part where he says:

“I believe engagement is to blame. The final frontier of advertising is to connect a product (and ultimately a brand) with truly interested consumers in a relevant, meaningful andlasting way at a time when they have the propensity to purchase or consider a purchase.“

In my opinion, it’s very much a “chicken and egg” issue.

If you’re promoting $1 or $2 zip or email submit offers, you’d be wondering what level of “engagement” you can work on, especially if you’re running at a 30 – 50% margin at best (or $0.30 to $0.50).

Granted some of us have the priviledge of getting Super Affiliate payouts which are double, triple or even higher than the posted rate, but what about the average affiliate?

You have a couple of options, and both aren’t exactly easy to take action on.

The first is to promote Continue reading →

Friday Podcast: To Be Smart Or Rich?: The Internet Marketing Truth

5 Replies

Would you rather be a smart Internet Marketer? Or a rich one?

You might say you’ve chosen one path, but your behavior might be leading you down the other.

Check out this week’s Friday Podcast for details.


Rich Guy Or Smart Guy: The Internet Marketing Truth

And the audio download:

[display_podcast]

Notes follow after the “more” tab:

Continue reading →

Leaving Las Vegas…And PPC Classroom Live!

7 Replies

It’s been more than a week since I left Las Vegas after attending Anik Singal and Jeremy Palmer’s PPC Classroom Live.

So the question is “Was it worth a 20+ hour plane ride each way?”

Certainly a resounding YES!

I got to meet a bunch of great people and the stellar cast of speakers presented great content. Now it’s a matter of hunkering down and putting some of those ideas into practise.

The turnout was very respectable with the room filled to the gills…

ppc classroom live

It was great to hear how Anik took one of his info product sites, added CPA offers to it and have it generated $42,000+ to date this year.

anik singal and andrew wee

Andrew Wee and Anik Singal

Just as you’re seeing a convergence of search marketing and PPC marketing, I believe the worlds of info marketing and lead generation/affiliate marketing are going to draw closer in the coming year.

andrew wee kirt christensen greg cesar

Andrew Wee, Kirt Christensen, Greg Cesar

I look to Kirt Christensen as one of the pioneers in Internet Marketing, together with his partner, Terry Dean.

It was certainly illuminating to hear about his strategies for positioning yourself as a PPC management agency and it was pretty impressive hearing about some of the biggest Internet marketers he manages PPC campaigns for.

Greg Cesar is someone who’s in my mastermind and this was Continue reading →

Monday Question: The Death of Blogging and Long Term Business Growth

1 Reply

I got a short and sweet question today “Is blogging dead?
I was planning to start a blog, but I heard that I should create and optimize a Facebook profile instead.
What’s your advice?”

–
That’s an interesting question and let me do my best to you an interesting answer.

If you read Stephanie Agresta (AKA Internet Geek Girl’s) post “Blogging is not dead (but I am really busy)“, you’d realize that like a lot of popular bloggers (eg. Sam Harrelson, Wayne Porter, Jim Kukral and Co), Steph has reduced the frequency of her “long form” (eg. WordPress blogging), in favor of micro-blogging (eg. Twitter and it’s companions).

So blogging is not “dying” nor will it “die” anytime soon.

The significant issue at hand is to get a grip on your long term business growth.

Are you being overly tactical – looking at the micro level of your business – whether you should set up a squidoo page, a hubpage, a facebook profile, throw up a social community site…

When really you need to be more strategic in nature!

If you need an analogy – strategic or being long term-focused means looking at the forest, and fashioning a master plan.

Being tactical means you’re looking at an individual tree and trying to optimize it. Taking care of the day-to-day. so to speak.

Don’t get me wrong, you NEED to be tactical in nature when you’re going into a new niche and building up your skills, but you shouldn’t be Continue reading →

Friday Podcast: Breaking Into New Niches

2 Replies

Whether you’re a merchant/product owner or an affiliate, you’ll inevitably break into a new niche at some point.

So one of the questions you’ll need to answer in order to succeed is: “How can niche sites tackle the challenge of content creation, especially if they are in a new area? More importantly, how do they monetize effectively?”
We tackle this quesiton in the Friday Podcast.

[display_podcast]

Here’re the notes:

Tackling fear of the unknown.

Understanding the problems (also known as opportunities) in any new market is key.
-Cost/performance – fees are based on amount of weight lost. program to lose 10lbs might cost a thousand dollars. that’s $100 per lb. lucrative?
-Weight management sites are the one of the best examples of membership sites. friend Rachel Rofe has a great site and has been profiled by magazines.
-Long term effects
-Mood swings, depression – biochemical balance

Visit forums, blogs and content sites in your chosen area and figure out the burning questions people are facing. Compile a list of the top 50 problems/questions and answer them – that will form the basis of your search engine AND human friendly content.
-Document the process
-Buy weight loss for dummies or atkins diet for dummies, visit wiki, head to google news.

As internet marketer, information is your most significant weapon.
Use it to your advantage.