Affiliate programs? Ever wonder what people really think about it?

Affiliate programs? Ever wonder what people really think about it?

Have you ever thought about the public's perception of what you do?

Affiliate programs

As an Affiliate marketer or someone that partners with other sites and services to refer customers, you may offer many products or services. People perhaps come to your site for other reasons; like to read content, articles, news or information. Or perhaps you provide entertainment. Whatever the focus, people will find your affiliate links more appealing the more they are matched to your site's focus. You won't sell cookbooks to people reading articles about car repair and few will click an affiliate link for DVDs, movies or games unless your site content is somehow related.

Do you truly believe that people reading your ads already know this about Affiliate programs?

That's a mystery-factor in any search engine marketing campaign; you might best think through this issue at the outset (as you are preparing your keywords, your ads, and your landing page) what the majority of visitors already 'have perceived' about you and the affiliate products or services you offer. In most cases you are best to assume they've never heard of you. That's always the safe bet.

If you're selling iPODs or something very well known, you can approach things much differently. Less time explain 'what' you've got and more time explain 'why' they should buy from you.

If your selling something that has become a common commodity (vitamins, shoes, cosmetics, telephone services, etc), then you must differentiate your product from the other seemingly similar things consumers might associate you with.

Much of these consumer 'mindset' conflicts should be handled on your landing page, that is, the page where they land after clicking your ad; so before you start any marketing push, stop and think for a moment about what your potential customer might perceive as they arrive at your landing page.

PPC Tips:

Ready or not, here they come. This weeks PPC tips to make you rich and famous (well perhaps that's stretching it a bit):

• If your product or service is something that can be related to a locale, like a city, state or region you may be able to find some ripe tomatoes in phrases like: 'retirement homes in Florida', 'Mississippi flat rate phone service', 'herbal sunscreen for southwestern sun', 'indoor air filters for Los Angeles'.
• Discover more keywords by narrowing down to extreme specifics. People can be VERY specific when they search. Use names of months and years like '2004 tax savings', 'May flowers', 'Christmas of 2005' or 'September back to school supplies'.
  
  Let's say you are marketing a broad line of herbal products... why not get a list of all herbs (there may be thousands) and use that list as a keyword list. Maybe your product doesn't contain every herb on the list, but people searching for any ONE herb specifically may be interested in others. Try specific model numbers, makes and designs if your products are sometimes referred to this way: 'Epson stylus CX6400', 'Apple G5', etc.
• Add adjectives to your keywords like: big, purple, new, cheap, affordable, soft, aromatic, healthy, etc.

In earlier blog posts you'll find several installments of my PPC tips.


Check back next week for the next in this series of PPC tips... Until next week, happy PPC campaigning...


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Affiliate programs | PPC | pay per click | Google | Network Marketing | mlm | Dan Hollings | internet marketing | Contextual Ads | AdWords