Guest post by David Merry a Director at online live casino CastleCasino.com and manages the affiliate program marketing. You can find out more about promoting CastleCasino.com at www.castleaffiliates.com.

Reliable tracking software holds the affiliate industry together, without it we wouldn’t be able to put any faith in the programs which we promote and rely on. Regardless of the confidence which you have in your affiliate software operator it is always best to get another third party perspective, something which Google Analytics allows you to do in spectacular fashion.
Even if you have 100% faith in the tracking capability of your affiliate software, the greatest benefits come from the mountain of extra data analysis opportunities it provides you with. As a quick example to entice you to read further, you may naturally assume that the 100 clicks you send per day to your merchant come predominantly from a particular keyword you get 2000 visits for; however you may discover that actually they come from a keyword which only sends 500 visitors – therefore enabling you to shift your focus and allocate your budget better based on accurate statistics. In short, you could spend less money and make a lot more. What have you got to lose?

How to implement:

In order to allow Google Analytics to start tracking your outbound affiliate clicks as goals you need to complete the following:

Step 1: Assign a tracker to each link.

You will need to input an artificial tracker to each link that you want to track, which is created by tagging the page with the _trackPageview() JavaScript function. As an example, if you wanted to log every click on a particular link to www.keithbond.co.uk as a page view for /G1/keithbond.co.uk, you would add the following attribute to the link’s tag:

Although adding a tracker to every link is long winded initially it can be speeded up using a find and replace source code tool. From that point it becomes simple and second nature to include the JavaScript tracker when building a link. Please note, the G1 included in the link stands for ‘goal 1’ and just helps me categorise, you can add whatever you like.

Step 2: Use the JavaScript generated tracker as a goal

The task is now simple, simply add the tracking link to your Google Analytics goals section (Website Profile > Edit). Using the code above as an example you would add the following:
/G1/keithbond_co.uk

This should be added as a URL destination with head match selected in Google Analytics.

Simple!

How to use the tracking

Once the process that I have outlined has been implemented you should start to receive data reported as goals within hours.

The most basic report you will find is an overview of the goals which have been completed and the conversion rate. This doesn’t help analyse anything in particular however may give you insights into trended data, for example which date of the month are your conversion rates generally the highest.

Next browse the traffic sources section in your Analytics and break it down further to the traffic sources list. Then click on the ‘Goal Set’ tab and you will be greeted with exact click through percentages that every single source has given you. This should help you identify which sources are actually earning you the money and sending traffic to your merchant. Remember that traffic levels is just a worthless number, it is the traffic which converts which pays the mortgage.

You can also use this same method with the keywords which you rank in search engines for, allowing you to identify the consumer intent of those visiting your site through them. Remember, you can now filter out all of the keywords which are sending you non-converting traffic and allocate budget into what earns you money.

As my last example (from the millions I have!) you can even break this down into territories. The example below shoes me that people from Spain seem a lot more inclined to click on this particular brand – all I have to do to improve conversions for this is to include this brand on the Spanish versions of our sites. Simple, yet effective.

I think you are starting to get the point, try it out for yourself and see what is and isn’t working for you!

Tracking affiliate clicks as goals with Google Analytics

Guest Post by Mitch O’Connor

Building a niche site can be an effective way to build your business and generate profit. A niche site helps to develop your professional profile and may eventually become a popular source of authoritative content. Unfortunately, developing such a site cannot generally be done overnight. Instead, you might think of the project as a long-term mission, much like one featured in a James Bond film. In order for this mission to be successful, you must first complete several “objectives.” Think of the task in this methodical way can make it easier to build an attractive, successful niche site.

Gathering Intel

Whether you’re a webmaster or James Bond, collecting intel helps you prepare for opportunities in the future. One way to do this is to see which keywords and phrases associated with your niche are searched for the most. For instance, the owner of a site specializing in Halloween costume masks and props might consult Google Insights for Search to see various information regarding that topic, including top search terms, rising searches over time and regional interest. Likewise, you can use the Google AdWords keyword tool to view various suggested keywords for a given phrase related to your niche, as well as details regarding competition and monthly searches for your selected phrase. Making use of valuable data such as this can mean the difference between success and failure for your mission.

Another way to gather intel is to collect and catalog email addresses. While these addresses may not be used immediately, it is a good idea to keep them for use on future marketing opportunities. It is important to remember that each email address you collect represents a potential customer

Spying

Just like 007 keeps tabs on his many enemies, it is important to regularly research your competition and determine what appears to be working for them. Rather than copying the successful strategies of your rivals, however, you should focus on developing your site in such a way that you manage to outdo them. Of course, you should be careful not to get completely caught up in beating your competition; doing so can easily cause you to over-strategize without actually getting your site off the ground. Just like 007, sometimes you just need to pull the trigger.

Occasionally your rivals may not be all that successful. If you notice that your competition all suffer from low PageRank and poorly optimized content, think about ways in which your site might be able to avoid this. Some niches are less commonly searched than others, and if you are not confident that your site can easily jump to the top of the rankings, you may wish to consider a new niche. Even if you think your site will be able to easily demonstrate superiority over its competitors, you should spend just as much time and effort developing it. Even when 007 knows he has his opponent beat, he does not leave much to chance.

Testing

James Bond is constantly making use of new and interesting gadgets that allow him to better deal with obstacles, complete various objectives and finish his mission. Likewise, niche site builders should regularly test new tools and experiment with different approaches. Most likely, the first attempt you make at creating your site will not be successful. It is difficult to predict whether the design, content and other features of your site will be optimal for your market, so it is important to test new ideas. If your site is doing worse than you had hoped, try experimenting with new buttons, headlines, copy and other such elements. Just as 007 and his arsenal of gadgets occasionally reinvented to fit modern times when new instalments in the James Bond series are released, so too should you be able to adapt your site with the latest technology and techniques to meet market demands and attract visitors.

The 007 Guide to Creating a Niche Site

Guest post by Christian Arno of Lingo24

It might be surprising to learn that English is not quite the top dog many people think it is when it comes to online search. Other languages, like Chinese, are catching up, and naturally most people will always search in their native language.

Research shows that consumers are much more likely to buy from sites written in their native language, which have a local top-level domain and which display their currency. That’s why you need your website to be translated into the native languages of your target markets, if you’re serious about attracting customers abroad.

But once you’ve had your web content translated for your target countries – preferably by a professional translator rather than a machine – then what? In order to attract customers from abroad you also need an effective SEO strategy, including correctly localised and researched keywords.

Brainstorming

A good place to start, when it comes to finding those important keywords that drive traffic and attract customers, is the keyword research that you did for your English site. If you haven’t done that yet, time to start! Translate your English keywords into the language of your target market. Next, come up with related terms and synonyms in English, if you haven’t already, and translate those too.

This is a good time to bring in a native speaker to make sure there are no embarrassing or incorrect translations. Using literal dictionary translations is risky due to the fact that keywords often involve idiom, colloquialisms and other language quirks. You could get a direct keyword translation from a dictionary, but a native speaker may inform you that no one actually says that in real life, and in fact they’re more likely to say (or search for) something entirely different – this is invaluable information.

Subtle differences are important to bear in mind – don’t forget that the language spoken in Spain is not exactly the same as that spoken in Mexico and Argentina, despite the fact they are all Spanish-speaking countries. This is why it’s always better to create country-specific sites for all your target markets, rather than language-based sites.

A native speaker will also be able to tell you whether the correct keyword to use is an adoption from English, as is often the case with technical terms – German in particular makes use of many adopted English terms.

Analyse

Now it’s time to apply some statistics to this keyword list and find out whether anyone is actually searching for these terms. Google’s free keyword tool is good for this. The golden combination for keywords is those keywords that lots of people search for, but which not many people are using. It’s quite a hard combination to find, especially in English, but the good news is that there is less keyword competition in languages other than English.

Using Google’s keyword tool, choose a combination of short-tail keywords and more specific long-tail ones. These will be used in your web content and any Pay Per Click advertising.

You can’t rely on Google alone, though, especially in markets abroad. Whilst it’s the main go-to search engine for most English speakers, in some countries other search engines are dominant, so you’ll need to repeat the keyword process using tools in engines like Baidu (China) and Yandex (Russia).

It’s best not to guess about search marketing strategies for foreign search engines. If you’re not from the country you’re researching, and are not familiar with search marketing for that country, why not ask someone who is? It’s the fastest and most reliable way to find out.

Search engine tools won’t do everything for you, though. There is still a strong element of trial and error and refinement required to target the most effective keywords.

Reflect and refine

Choosing your keywords is not the end of the story. Once your list is ready, it’s time to let your keywords loose online and see how they perform. Use analytics tools to see which keywords are driving traffic and attracting conversions, and which ones are simply not working. This will tell you which ones to get rid of and which to keep. Check what your competitors are up to keyword-wise as well. Keyword research is an ongoing process that needs to be constantly monitored, revised and refined. You need to be checking the performance of your keywords on at least a monthly basis.

Overall strategy

Of course, keywords are not the be-all and end-all, and they work in tandem with other strands of overall SEO strategy. When you’re localising your website for markets abroad you’ll also need to think about issues such as design, images, colour, hosting and accessibility, as well as link-building and Pay Per Click – but those are topics for another article.

About the author

Christian Arno is the founder of professional translation agency Lingo24, experts in the foreign language internet. Launched in 2001, Lingo24 now has over 150 employees spanning three continents and clients in over sixty countries. In the past twelve months, they have translated over sixty million words for businesses in every industry sector. Follow Lingo24 on Twitter: @Lingo24.

Tips for Multilingual Keyword Research

404

Page not found

The page you requested cannot be found on the server

Basically its an invite to the user to hit the back button and disappear from the website, also its a potential sale lost.

On the high street if a product is sold out its place on the shelf is soon filled by something else, so why not on the web.

Simply revamp the 404 page to say something like:

We are sorry but the product you are looking for is currently not available,

however here are some similar items.

Then list a few items from the same category, this will make your site more sticky and improve the chances of converting the visitor to being a customer.

The potential of 404 pages is limitless, you could add a search box, a full list of departments, brands, ranges etc etc.

Take a look at your site statistics how many 404′s are you generating?

What if just 1% of them was converted to a sale?

Merchant 404 Pages – Get Creative and Increase sales

Its been a while since I posted anything here so I thought it high time I got my finger out, so here is a piece I have plagiarised.

No seriously the following article by coaching expert Annabel Sutton landed in my inbox this morning and I immediately was struck by how much of it applied to affiliate marketing so much so that I contacted Annabel and asked permission to reproduce it in full here, enjoy.

The Art of Getting it Wrong by Annabel Sutton

Mistakes are the portals of discovery. (James Joyce)

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. (Albert Einstein)

When was the last time you watched a small child learning to walk?  They’ll walk a couple of steps, fall over, pick themselves up and try again.  Heaven knows how many times they fall over before they master the art of walking.  They might cry the first time they fall down — they might be a bit surprised and perplexed — they might have a bit of a chuckle — but do they give up?  No.  There isn’t the tiniest question of giving up and they get back on their feet and try again.

Just imagine, if a child stopped and thought too much about walking, he or she would probably never start.  They could spend days, weeks, months thinking about it and preparing for it, take umpteen courses, read books on how to walk but never actually do it.  Perfectionists can learn a lot from toddlers.  Not only do they put off doing things, but sometimes they’re so paralysed by the fear of not getting it right that they shelve an idea completely.  We procrastinators are exactly the same: we over-think things and over-prepare, worried that we’ll never know enough or be good enough.

Entrepreneurs and toddlers have a lot in common.  They’re both risk takers and refuse to give up.  Successful entrepreneurs often don’t become successful overnight.  In fact, they often suffer several disastrous forays into business (and lose horrible amounts of money) before they make it big.

So what can we learn from this?  Maybe to overcome the curse of perfectionism – and procrastination – we have to return to child-like thinking.  Don’t prepare. Don’t think or analyse.  Just do it.  Be prepared to fall over, pick yourself up, fall over again.  Enjoy the process, rather than worrying about the outcome.  You may not get it right the first time, or even the second – but with persistence you’ll make it in the end.

Several years ago I was struggling with trying to write the text for my first website.  I kept putting the job off because of the fear of not ‘getting it right’.  I was on the verge of giving up completely when I read a newsletter by US marketing guru, Robert Middleton, on exactly this topic.  He recalled how, many years before, he had been writing the text for his first website.  It wasn’t perfect — in fact, the look and feel of the site had changed several times since that first effort.  He had, effectively, fallen over many times before eventually fashioning the product he wanted.  The point was that he had made a start and done something.

This was a revolution in thinking for me and has helped me a lot over the years.  Accepting the idea that what you do actually doesn’t have to be perfect first time.  It can be changed. It probably WILL be changed!  Sometimes you just have to recognise that what you undertake probably won’t be perfect.  But you can always strive for 80%.  We’ll do the very best we can, at the time, and with the resources available to us.  The important thing is to get started.

Question:  Have you made enough mistakes recently?

 

© Annabel Sutton, Coaching Tips – 2010

Annabel Sutton, BA (Hons), PCC
ICF Professional Certified Coach
Author of 52 Ways to Change Your Life
Coach University Graduate
Member International Coach Federation
Tel:     44 (0)1747 871196
Email: annabel@annabelsutton.com
Web: www.annabelsutton.com

To receive Annabel’s Coaching Tips: email annabel@annabelsutton.com and type ‘subscribe tips’ in the subject line.

The Art of Getting it Wrong

When thinking of branching out into a new niche one first questions that pops up is who sells relevent products? the task of finding out recently got easier thanks to a new feature that Easy Content Units (ecu) have added to their already fantastic product.

To do your research simply log into your ECU account and click on the Product Search link in the menu, type in a key word, click search and bobs your uncle…

…and it doesn’t stop there you can filter your results by Merchant, Brand and Network.

And theres more, now you can either select and store the products you want, this allows you to make a content unit later, or if you click on the link icon a box pops up with a deep link url, a HTML link, an image link and the Html for an image with product link embedded, all nicely configured with your affiliate tracking code.

This is just scratching the surface of what you can do with the product search from Easy Content Units, give it a whirl.

Researching a Niche using Easy Content Units Product Search

Online marketing is evolving at an astronomical pace and one of the major influences in this change is Twitter, if you have any type of retail business selling absolutely anything and you don’t use Twitter to get the message out there you are seriously missing a significant audience.  One of my websites is currently getting 7% of its traffic via twitter thats over 200 targeted visitors a day extra.

The most recent innovation by Twitter is Twitter Lists, and believe me Twitter Lists are awesome. Once people have added your twitter to a list your  tweets may potentially appear all over the internet. They will turn up on websites and blogs and there is a great likelihood that they will send you a lot of targeted traffic.

Oh and a little tip (for anyone who could be arsed to read this far down) Twitter Lists make an outstanding addition to your research armoury whether you are a merchant or an affiliate make lists of tweeters in niches you are interested in and bingo instant ideas.

For example I’ve just started a list of UK fashion merchants and fashion bloggers http://twitter.com/#/list/KeithBond/uk-fashion and I expect it to prove to be a useful resource of ideas and another way of getting through bloggers block.

Twitter Lists yet another reason why your company should be on Twitter

Continuing on from my post of September 14th I move on to the second search engine secret from that document of 1999, the year when Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace was the highest grossing film.

Secret #2 The little known secret to getting better positioning than your competition even they have the same identical keyword.

List your important keywords more than once on your site!!

Some of the major search engines will rank your website based on the relevancy of the key words used in the search engine. For example if your site sells Ray Ban sunglasses and the words “Ray Ban” are keywords listed on your page, your site will come up when a user searches on “Ray Ban”. And the same for a competitor site with the same sequence of keywords. However if you list Ray Ban not once but several times throughout the page, your site will usually get better positioning than the site who has it listed less times than you.

Many savvy web professionals list their relevant keywords as many times as they possibly can throughout their site because of this. You can also achieve this by listing your keywords several times at the bottom of your webpage, away from your main page, hidden and out of site. Maybe you have seen this for yourself on other websites. It may take a little longer for your page to load, but the extra attention your site receives because of the higher search engine positioning should outweigh the couple of seconds of extra downloading this causes.

So how can we use Search Engine Secret #2 in 2009?

First of all totally disregard the paragraph in italics, this today is considered keyword stuffing, when the article was written Alta Vista was the main search engine and that sort of thing worked pretty well, today if you are discovered using the technique you are probably looking at a Google ban.

As for the first part, still very wise advise in my opinion, but make sure you include relevant content too, include the keywords in key phrases in your title tags and heading tags, and mention them a couple of times in the body text too, keep the surrounding text relevant and contextual and as unique as you can possibly make it.

Hopefully that will help you move up a few places in the serps, but the Google algorithm is an enigma and there is more to getting good ranking than a few well positioned key words (and I’m certainly no SEO guru), but this is a better tactic than simply listing Ray Ban a few dozen times in your footer.

Search Engine Secret #2 – Ten Years On

Tidying the garage recently I came across a document I had printed off on 6th June 1999 entitled:

“11 Power Packed Secrets For Using Search Engines To Build A Consistent, Steady Flow Of Traffic To Your Site”

Naturally intrigued I took a look through to see if any of it was still relevant, and was mildly surprised that amongst the dubious tactics which are likely to get you penalties these days were a few gems which can be adopted, adapted and utilised, over the next few weeks (months) I will revisit some of these gems of 10 years ago … * note I have edited out some of the waffle usually by putting …

Secret #1 What to “name” your site to draw traffic like a magnet.

The name of your site has a dramatic effect on the number of visitors your site receives. Let’s do a brief exercise to see how this works. Let’s say you are surfing and would like to find out more about accounting tax laws, and ways to save money on your taxes …

… take a look at the following website “titles” and determine which site you would click on first.

1. Waterman, Jewel, Rathburn Accountants Home Page Statewide Financial Management
2. Frank’s Accounting Practice. Accounting Office Reception.
3. Jealously Guarded Accounting Secrets The IRS Prays You Never Find Out!

Which one did you choose? Did you want to know more about the Waterman, Jewel, Rathburn Accountants Home Page or Frank’s Accounting Practice? I suspect like most people you probably wanted to know what the Jealously Guarded Accounting Secrets were. Of Course!!

The article continued in the same vein for a couple of pages giving several more examples.

So how can we use Search Engine Secret #1 in 2009?

At this point its worth mentioning that when the article mentioned to the “name of your site” it was referring to the <title></title> and not the url, this was originally published on www.hotyellow98.com/secrets.html (surprisingly the domain still exists although the content is long gone).

Basically the piece is telling us to be keyword rich in our page titles, today we can take that a step further and grab a keyword rich domain to suit, make sure the homepage has a good title and do the same with internal pages and posts.

Say you have a website about men’s flip flops you don’t want to choose an obscure name like Andy’s  Flip Flop Emporium andysflipflopemporium.com pick a name more fitting to what you are selling like Mens Flip Flops (obvious eh) incidentally mensflipflops.org.uk is available and there is nothing of worth on the .co.uk or .com “Mens Flip Flops” gets 9,900 exact searches according to the Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

Give your site a good title such as:

“Mens Flip Flops – Where To Buy Mens Flip Flops online”

and finally make sure your internal pages and articles have good titles too:

“Men’s Havaianas Flip Flops World’s Best Rubber Sandals”

Thats it for now hopefully I can get around to revisiting another ten year old search engine secret before too long.

If you want read more about buying domain names that are relevant to your niche take a look at the marathon thread on affiliates4u.com help and advice for newbies and people who need a kick up the backside in 2009 where Smingle (Frank Paul) gives a lots of sage advice, I suspect all his domain suggestions will be long gone but its not difficult to research your own.

PS: if you use mensflipflops.org.uk please link to my main Fashion Website.

Search Engine Secret #1 – Ten Years On

For some time I have been pulling in the rss feeds from some of the very best UK affiliate marketing blogs and publishing them in an aggregated form on Internet Marketing Blogs, I set this site up simply for myself to use in January 2007 although I suspect one or two others do find it useful.

Last Saturday I decided to set up IMB with its own twitter @affiliateblogs, I mentioned it to my good friend Purple and he suggested automating the tweets by putting the rss feed through HootSuite, somewhat skeptical I took a look to see what was involved. It couldn’t have been easier to set up the account and plugin in the rss from IMB, maximum setting is 5 automated tweets / hour, so I put it on that, can always throttle it back if it seems too intusive or spammy.

Thats all there is to it, and so far it has gone pretty well, @affiliateblogs has picked up 300 followers in the week and at time of writing there have been 400 clicks through the twitter links.

The stats that Hootsuite provide are pretty good too here is the full week by click and location;

It also lets me know which blog articles have been most popular;

All in all a satisfactory first week, the jury is out whether I use similar automation on other projects but there is a fantastic potential, just hope Hootsuite keep an eye on their users to prevent it getting too spammy.

Automating Internet Marketing Blogs Twitter using HootSuite