Internet Marketing Hints And Tips » more visitors

Here’s Why You Need To Use Landing Pages

Gary Knox — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 11:42:20 +0000

All the products that you want to sell online are ready. You have already signed up with the Google Adsense program or with other affiliate marketing programs and you have already prepared the ad you want to post on your affiliate’s site. Your mind is now set to being the next most successful online businessman. But is there anything else that you might have forgotten to prepare? Maybe or maybe not. How about your landing pages? Are they all set for your business?

Landing pages are simply web pages where visitors are directed to whenever they click a result in a web search or whenever they click a web ad. For affiliate marketing, landing pages would refer to the web page where you, as a merchant, would want your potential customer to be directed after clicking your ad on your affiliate’s website. Landing pages are, at most times, not really different from other web pages in a particular website, especially if the said website is an e-commerce site. Some online businessmen would even use the homepage of their websites as the landing page for their ads. Are these businessmen making a big mistake? Or should you follow their method in creating landing pages for their ads?

Well, you can always follow what most online retailers do, directing their potential customers to the homepages of their websites. But if you want to achieve something more from your online business, and if you want to earn a lot of profits, you had better create a special landing page for your web ads. Why? Here are two reasons why you need to use landing pages for your web ads. And take note, it would be better to create a great landing page than a so-so one.

Reason no. 1: It is the only way you earn conversions in an affiliate marketing program.

There are a variety of affiliate marketing programs today, but most of these programs let the merchant pay the affiliate on a pay per click basis. Basically, all you have to do is sign up with the program and submit your ad. The program owner would then distribute your ad to various affiliates who would then place your ad on their websites. Whenever your ad is clicked, a visitor would be directed to your landing page and you would have to pay the affiliate for his service.

As a merchant, you earn in an affiliate program through conversions – that is whenever a visitor that is directed to your site actually buys a product on your site. Without these conversions, you actually earn nothing from the program. Also, the more visitors that your affiliates have directed to your site, the larger would your expense be. And the only way that you can recover from these expenses is through conversions.

Now, you sure won’t get any conversions if you have posted an ad on your affiliate’s site without an actual landing page for the potential customer to be redirected to. It’s just like advertising a product without actually having a store to sell your product. Your advertisement may be enticing enough to encourage people to purchase a product, but without the landing page, how will they know how to purchase the product.

It is therefore important to have landing pages for your ads because it is the only way for you to earn something from an affiliate program. Without landing pages, all you do is spend money paying your affiliates without actually getting anything in return.

Reason no. 2: Other web pages may just not be enough.

Many people make the mistake of making their website’s homepage as the landing page for their ads. The same is true for those who make use of other pages like a “contact us” page or a product page. Homepages are often designed to serve multiple users and contain a lot of links to other pages or to other websites. The same can be said about the other two pages mentioned. If you want to be successful in an affiliate program, I’m sure that you don’t want your landing page to cater to the needs of various people, most of which may not be really interested with your product.

When choosing a landing page, you must always have the customer directed to the page in mind. Therefore, your landing page must be relevant to the keywords and the contents you placed on your ad. It is also important that the landing page can induce your visitor to take action that is to purchase your product or at least provide leads for potential customers.

Final Word

You probably entered into an affiliate marketing program with these things in mind: to save on advertising expenses and to gain more profit. But if you get into an affiliate marketing program without actually having a landing page, you’ll end up paying too much without getting anything in return. So if you still don’t have a landing page for your ads, you better start creating one now. And don’t get me wrong; it isn’t enough for you to have just a landing page it should be a great landing page!

Creating a Popular Blog

Gary Knox — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 12:48:30 +0000

If you want to make money through blogging, creating a popular blog is the key to success. If your blog receives very little traffic, you will not have much success monetising it. No matter which method you use to make money from your blog, you will find the most success if you have a large readership. Because of this, making your blog popular and growing readership should be one of your primary concerns.

There are many ways to make your blog more popular. The first thing you should consider is who your audience is and who you are writing for. You should always write about something that interests you, and that will interest others. You may think that your new kitten is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but there are probably not very many other people who want to read a blog about it. It is best to find a niche audience that is large enough to support a wide readership but not to vague.

One of the great things about blogging is that you do not have to be a professional writer to have a popular blog. You do have to obey common grammatical rules and at least be able to put together coherent sentences, but you do not have to be a highly skilled writer.

Blog readers are looking for interesting, relevant topics to read, not the next work of Shakespeare. Make sure what you write is interesting, edgy, or even controversial. Popular blogs are never boring and add value to reader’s lives either through information or entertainment. Make sure your blog adds something of value to your reader’s life otherwise you will not develop a large fan base.

Making your blog popular is a lot like driving traffic to a website. You can use many of the same techniques to drive traffic to your blog. Finding places to link back to your blog is a good way to drive traffic. Social sites such as Myspace, Facebook, and Youtube provide lots of opportunities for this. You can also use social book marking sites such as Reddit, StumbleUpon, and Digg to promote your blog. Blogging on a popular blog site such as WordPress and Blogger are also good ways to make your blog more popular as these blogging sites help to bring in traffic for your blog.

Whether you blog on a blogging network or you have an independently hosted blog, you need to make sure your blog is designed well. It is true that content is king and if a blog has great content is may receive lots of traffic even though it is ugly, having a well designed blog that is not ugly or annoying will help to drive repeat traffic. You want your blog to look unique, but not too unique. Keep with internet formalities such as blue links and use large font for headings.

You should break your post up into small paragraphs each with a headline if possible as internet readers tend to scan the screen looking for relevant information rather than reading everything word for word. Make sure your colors do not contrast too harshly and that the text is easy to read. Using good design will make your blog aesthetically pleasing and make readers more likely to come back and remain on your page.

No matter where your blog is hosted, you should try to get it indexed by all the major search engines. Some forms of blog monetisation require that your blog be indexed by search engines before they will allow you to participate in your program. The higher ranked your blog is, the more visitors you will receive and the more popular your blog will become.

All forms of monetisation for your blog require readers to work successfully. Before you try to implement your monetisation strategies, make sure your blog has enough readers to make your efforts work. If there is no one to click your ads, visit your affiliate sites, or read your reviews, you do not stand much of a chance of making money.

Ways To Improve Sales Through Your Website

Gary Knox — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:29:16 +0000

Anybody who is marketing online acknowledges that the lifeblood of a business is the traffic a site achieves. More visitors equate to more sales. However, here are a few ways that you are able to fine-tune your sites in order to improve sales without the need to get more visitors.

The first method is to weave your personal touch in to your sales message. Nobody wants to be sold to by a total stranger, but numerous people will purchase what their close friends recommend to them. If you are able to convince your audience that you are a personal friend who has their best interest at heart, they will be convinced to buy your products. Remember to speak to an individual in your salesletter, not just your whole audience.

The second method is to publish testimonials and comments from your customers. A good idea would be to publish both good and bad comments; that way prospects will be truly convinced that these testimonials are genuine. When prospects see testimonials on your website, they will have the confidence to buy from you because human beings generally tend to follow the herd mentality; when others have bought and proven it authentic, they will jump on the bandwagon and buy too.

Employ visual representations for the problems and solutions that your product offers. Not everybody will read your text copy from top to bottom, but most people will devote attention to images on your website.

Offer quality bonuses to accompany the product. When you offer bonuses that complement your product, your prospects will feel it is a very good deal and it would be stupid to miss it. Make certain to state the monetary value of your bonuses so that people will be even more compelled to grab your good bargain.

Lastly, ask for the sale! Several people entice their prospects with the benefits of their product, sell to them with accounts of how it has resolved many problems, even offered up killer bonuses but forget to ask for the sale. Give a clear instruction on how to buy your product (e.g. “click the button to buy now!”).

If the above article or any other articles on the site are useful to you please feel free to comment.