Tuesday 10 June 2008

Adsense Units Best Format

Like me you will have come across tips by 'adsense gurus' claiming this adsense unit format is better than that

And initially I followed their advice without questioning

But I got a course by Perry Marshall [Click here to get the free course] and one thing he says over and over again is Test, Test and Test again.

So i decided to test two formats on one of my high traffic sites

I tested the 300 x 250 format within my content against the 160x600 skyscraper on the left side of my page

And the skyscraper format consistently did better than the 300 x 250 format

hmmm, i hear you say.

Goes to show that although the general guides are useful, different site will get different results

So get testing

More info on adsense at adsense basics

Till next time

Sunday 8 June 2008

Google Pagerank Madness

As an affiliate marketer, you probably obsessively check the PR of your websites every so often. Hoping that you will somehow have miraculously attained a PR of 5 or above?

But what is behind affiliate marketers obsession with pagerank that it has become an all consuming focus

And more important, is it a valid focus

According to Google "PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important".

Oh yes and there are formulas as well

But I won't bore you with that

The problem with PR is it does not predict how well your site will do. You see there are two factors involved in your websites success

One is the search engines for which numbers and link quality and keywords and PRare quite relevant if your site is to get their attention

But the second and more important factor is human visitors. For human visitors, it is your content that matters. You could have a PR 0 page but if you have great content, you are more likely to make sales and loyal customers than a site with a gazillion backlinks and high PR but lack luster content

So what am I saying

By all means pay attention to your backlinks but not at the expense of your content.

It is true, unique content is king

Saturday 7 June 2008

Facebook And Affiliate Marketing

Facebook is a familiar site to most of us and the majority of people reading this will probably already have a facebook profile.

Probably a personal profile where your friends can check you out and leave personal notes on your wall. And that's okay... for personal stuff.

But I come across a large number of facebook profiles where pleasure and business are all mashed together. Not really good.

Imagine going to the Facebook profile for this blog and finding a note written to me personally about how silly we were at last night's party. or some such thing. Just does not reflect the business in good light.

Every website you own needs a facebook profile. It is crucial that you can network with people in the same niche without life issues interrupting.

And with the website or blog having it's own profile, you can quickly build a huge following for your blog.

Because that profile will only be focused on one niche, you can easily and quickly become the authority profile to go to in that niche

A tip is to put your blogs RSS feed on your facebook account.

Or better still have an autoposter from your blog to the blog's facebook profile. So every time you post on your blog, it automatically shows up in your facebook profile.

Great for generating traffic

Till next time

Wednesday 4 June 2008

Top Reasons Why 90% Of Affiliate Marketing Beginners Fail

So the statistics say that over 90% of affiliate marketing beginners fail and quit before making a cent from their business

And you may be one of the affiliate marketers who is seriously considering throwing the towel in.

But why? Why are so many people who are aware of the excellent opportunity that affiliate marketing is, turning away from it after a period of 'failure'

False expectations: The number one reason why affiliate marketing newbies fail and quit is false expectations. You know, all those ebooks that purport to tell you exactly how to make $10,000 or some ridiculous amount in two weeks flat or the one that guarantee's you that using the tips contained in them will deliver 1000 unique visitors to your site every day.

So having spent all your savings on these ebooks that just fail to deliver, of course you are frustrated and want to throw the towel in

Poor Foundations: A business, any business is only as strong as its foundations. Have a poorly planned structure and you are doomed from the start. Planning includes domain name planning, website layout, product creation, article submissions, everything. You need to have a strong foundation if your business is going to grow. A poorly laid out website, or a weak grasp of traffic generation or shoddy keyword and niche research will get you exactly zero dollars

Jack of all trades: There is so much information to study and understand in affiliate marketing. The newbie can easily be swamped by the amount of material they need to learn in a short period of time. Also There are so many new and 'shiny' tips and tricks out there that instead of focusing on one thing, mastering it, implementing it and analyzing results so he can improve on it, the newbie spends his time running after one or the other next big thing and eventually, burn out

So if you are considering throwing the towel in, please don't. Affiliate marketing is such a simple business plan and has so much potential, it's simply amazing

Instead, start again, lay solid foundations, have reasonable expectations i.e expect to put in a few months of work before the profits roll in and master one thing at a time

Give yourself a treat. Get these Free affiliate marketing study material

Till next time,