We can tell you that some powerful new information has come to light regarding how to avoid the Google Slap. Just how fresh is it? Enough that you’ll want to jot it down in your favorite spiral-bound notebook for later use.

But before we get down to the latest fight-back-against-the-slap-science, make sure to prep your head by downloading RW’s awesome one-page takeaway from last semester re: Avoiding The Google Slap. Just click the download link at the top of the page in The Source to get this meaty PDF anti-slap juggernaut.

Your one-pager includes, but is not limited to, the following tips:

*Niche site building
*Avoiding being flagged as a ‘bridge page’
*Linking to external websites
*Using dynamic keyword insertion effectively
*Self hosting .exe files and cloaking your affiliate links

These power-tweaks will provide you with a list of natural slap-proofing techniques to instantly raise the shields on your landing pages and protect your AdWords account from Google’s hard knocks.

For real-world examples on how to put these techniques into practice, watch our very own Avoiding The Google Slap video, already viewed by over 500 avid affiliate marketers.

Guaranteed kids, you’re going to want to have this wisdom in your arsenal when it comes to dodging the Google Slap bullet.

Now. Let’s move on to the new information.

Q. What’s today’s revelation, Mr. Teach?
A. Today we’re gonna talk about arbitrage.
Q. Never heard of it – What’s it all about?

Glad you asked. For those readers who don’t know, here’s how the Adwords AdSense Arbitrage system works:

Chalkboard Economics 101

An individual (or a company) buys cheap Google AdWords ads to drive search visitors to their own site where they write about topics that are likely to attract high-paying ads (e.g., health, medicine, loans, legal cases, etc.).

If a reader or search visitor clicks on this cheap Google ad to come to their site, and then leaves the site by clicking on an expensive ad, the website owner makes money on the difference, minus Google’s commission.

The minimum bid for buying a Google AdWords ad is 1 cent so anyone can experiment without spending a whole lot of money but, it doesn’t matter, because its against the rules.

Google’s Tough Stance On Arbitrage

Google’s position is and always has been that high ad quality and landing page quality are important for providing a positive user experience. It follows that Google AdWords doesn’t permit ads directing to landing pages that were specifically made to show additional ads (the nefarious practice known as “arbitrage” described above).

Furthermore, Google is extending the definition of arbitrage to include websites that are primarily occupied by display ads. In these cases, the ratio of ads to unique, non-ad content is measured to determine if a landing page violates the Google arbitrage policy. Google measures this ratio by looking at content above the fold (i.e. without scrolling).

Check Your Head For Excellence

A landing page is not considered arbitrage if all of the following conditions
are met:

1. The browser display area consists of a healthy ratio of unique and relevant content. Our guess is at least one-third. This excludes search boxes, headers, navigation links, logos, etc. Specific, well organized commercial offers (such as those found on retail sites) may count as unique and relevant content as long as they provide significant user value.

2. The browser display area used for ads cannot exceed the browser display
area used for unique and relevant content.

3. The site has user value other than just providing ads. For example,
Google provides web search, news sites provide regularly updated original
content, and other services.

The Arbitrage Litmus Test

To check that your website complies with Google’s arbitrage policy, take the following steps:

1. Open the site in a new browser.
2. Make sure you have minimal browser menus and your font is set to medium or normal.
3. Scroll to the very top of the page, as evaluation is based on what appears above the fold.
4. The site is considered compliant if the area of ads is less than or equal to the area of content.

The Consequences Of Non-Compliance

If you’re not in arbitrage compliance, you could receive a low landing page quality score, which will negatively affect your Quality Scores, cost-per-clicks, and ad positions. Lesson: It’s best to stay on top of the curve!

Learn more about landing page quality at:

http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=113575&hl=en_AU.

You can review Google’s Landing Page and Site Policies here:
http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=46675.

Improving. It’s not always easy, but it’s necessary if you want to compete. You’ve got to think and rethink. Change up your links, banners and marketing strategy. Never stop developing your ideas. Review and renew. Do everything you can to perfect your campaigns and don’t let the raspy noise of customary detractors discourage you.

Do you have what it takes? Of course you do. Here are a few key tools you can use to keep your edges sharp and your pockets money keen.

Only The Hottest, Most Slammin’ Banners Please

Straight up, when it comes to banners, you’ve got to test. For some reason there’s a deep-rooted stubborn reluctance on the part of many affiliates to test their creative. Maybe they’re afraid of finding out some ugly truth… That it’s going take some serious elbow grease and a dash of mad science to catch that big bad money fish. Who knows. But what’s clear and real is that to be a success in affiliate marketing, the testing must be done. All top performing affiliates test the tar out of their sales materials and reap the results in green. Guess what? So will you if you’re willing to take that extra step.

When you grab a banner from your affiliate network dashboard, don’t let it die all alone out there in the wild. Keep your eye on it. See how its getting on in those early days of the campaign. Be ready to jump in and save it from the rabid pack of wolves.

After a meaningful test period (1-2 weeks), if your chosen banner manages to ring up a click through rate of around 2% plus, it’s doing true yeomen’s work for you. Go ahead and run with it. If it’s leagues under that number, wait a bit more then drop it like a bag of flaming pretzels and put your paws on something mightier. You don’t have all kinds of time to mess around with anything less than your best. After all, you’re a budding super affiliate with bigger shows to rip!

Beautiful Design! Against Common Sense?

You would think that banners radiating beauty, style and visual grace would convert ultra well. Think again, again. This is one of those times when Mother Intuition misses the bus. Generally speaking, graphically-sensational banners DO NOT perform as well as their simpler more “Ockham’s Razor-like” kin.

Why? The primary culprit is download time. If your banner is the last thing to load on the page and it’s covered in tons of “butter”, by the time it’s finished drizzling onto your visitor’s system, they’ll have already scrolled to the bottom of the page, missing the banner altogether. Dare we say it? We do.

FAIL!

Nobody wants to crash and burn. You can avoid it by knowing your trade. Hefty graphic banners slow down the load-time of the page itself, frustrating the visitor into fits of derision, causing them to abandon their desired path. Overly chunky banners rich with motion and effects can also dilute your call-to-action and sales message. That’s why for affiliate marketing we recommend you use banners that are no more than 15KB whenever possible.

Banners with animation, such as rapid-flashing buttons, can be a great idea if used wisely. These little beasts can generate high click-through rates with their graphical hoots and shouts, but they’re also highly annoying to the simian mind. When you play this breed of banner you’re walking a thin line between love and hate.

The Lesson? If you do decide to choose banner mayhem, serve it up mild to medium.

Tie Your Campaign Together With a Brain-Sizzling Theme

Always use a theme or concept as the bedrock of your sales materials. This is where you’ll have to think like a mini ad agency. Come up with a conceptual thread that runs from your product, through your site, to your landing pages, all the way into any upsells in the cart, through to customer support.

When you create your site and sales pages, hold that theme in your mind like a blood diamond. The conceptual integrity of your campaign will set you apart from competitors with loosely glued, ill-conceived marketing Frankensteins to move product.

**TODAY’S BLITZ TIP!**: Make sure all your banner ads use a link that opens in a new window. That way, if a visitor decides to visit one of your advertisers, it’s easy for them to return to your page and review what they actually came to your site for!

STOP THAT! Pulling The Plug On Pop-Up Rock’

A lot of networks and agencies representing different advertisers provide their affiliates the option of using pop-up and pop-under ads. As far as RevenueWire is concerned, any ad that has POP-UP in the name is better left for dead.

Anyone with a functioning brainstem and solid sense of self will tell you pop-ups are 110% annoying. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes for a minute. When did a pop-up ad ever make you feel anything but twisted? You know, there’s actually a human genome that suppresses pop-ups. It has evolved over many millennia to make damn sure that when anything in nature suddenly ambushes us something deep within us tells our mind to tell our finger to tell our mouse to SHUT THAT FREAKIN’ POPUP DOWN. And that’s a fact.

Get Super Fly With Your Text Link Style

One of the most successful types of advertising is text link ads. They team up like a dream with your battalions of bandwidth, won’t take up a lot of cubits of cyberspace, and can be woven into the seams of just about any page layout.

Know this, however. The best text link ads don’t yodel. They croon. That means you need to put some craft into them, and not just lock them up with strong-arm sentences like “BUY ME NOW!” Take some of the jackhammer out of it. Get out your quill and write some poetry, for heavens sake. Make your Mom proud. Create text link ads that offer a linguistic hook to get your customer interested. Maybe its a simple but catchy turn of phrase or a direct reference to a hot topic, issue, or event that means something to your target audience.

Research and find keywords aimed at your consumer’s state of mind and their needs, then string them together eloquently and succinctly. Also, don’t be shy to ask your network or the merchant themself to provide you with some short text links that contain the product or company name. That way you can implement the links directly into your site content.

Where’s The Meat? Time To Cook Up More Content!

Ok. So the tips to this point have been quick fix tricks. Effective, but easy. The real meat (and the heavier-sledding) is in creating and acquiring original content for your site. Remember this: Whatever it is you’re selling, you need original content to surround it with. That’s the law of the jungle nowadays.

When you provide original content, your site visitors all of a sudden see that you’re an authority in your niche. And why shouldn’t you be? You’re making a living off this gig. Go coo-coo for your Coco Pops. Go the extra eight miles. Take a rainy Sunday to write a review on a product or service you’re advertising. On top of adding beef to the bone, fresh content will prove an irresistible meal for the search engine sharks to grapple onto.

Research the product, company, and niche you’re promoting throughly and accurately. Get in contact with your affiliate manager and ask for any product info, white papers, market studies and reviews they might have on tap. Leverage every angle you can in your content creation. Contact the manufacturer directly and ask for any documentation they can give you to enrich your sales pages. Of course they’re going to help you out. You’re an ambitious, innovative affiliate. You’re rare and in demand.

Create content that is legitimate, accurate, full of facts and overwhelmingly persuasive. It will benefit all interested parties in the end – you, the merchant, and the consumer. Once you’ve created (or bought) your original reviews and articles, you can send the merchant and your affiliate manager the link – you may be surprised at the response you get and the new insights you learn!

Email Marketing Is Not Even a Centimeter Dead

Despite and Everest of spam, email marketing is not a dead marketing method yet. You just have to be a bit more skilled to use it well. Once again, it’s a matter of quality and trust. Stand behind the products you’re promoting and make yourself available to answer any questions regarding them. The closer you are to the product in the consumer’s mind, the better the chance that your marketing strategies will get traction.

One highly effective promotional technique that more and more affiliates are starting to use is combining email offers anchored with original content. By providing regular content-driven emails, you’re much more likely to convert to sales than if you send just a barebones “Buy This Or Else” type communication.

The offer in the email itself doesn’t even have to up in the reader’s grill either. You can jolt the reader’s curiosity with a teaser call-to-action that contains a link to a unique article you’ve posted on your site. This way you have a good opportunity to promote the product or service, while providing valuable knowledge free-of-charge. Visitors to your site will be engaged by the substance of your pitch and ultimately be more inclined to make a purchase.

Remember – You Can’t Rush Greatness

Almost all most forms of advertising take some time to kick in. Posting a link up for a couple of days and then yanking it down right away isn’t very smart. Give it some time. Just not too much.

When you’re having trouble getting momentum, don’t be afraid to contact your affiliate manager and ask for advice. They will more than likely manage thousands of affiliates and will know what strategies are working best for what products.

Now go forth and get yours!

Questions or comments? We’d love to hear your voice. Post a comment and let’s keep the tide rolling.

Is there a silver lining in these slap-happy times? Of course. Affiliates who learn to roll with the punches and make the necessary changes to their campaigns stand to make more money in the long run.

Watch Our New Google Slap Video For Awesome Pointers!

To help you adapt to the changing landscape, we’ve created a short video covering the basics of what the Google Slap is, the criteria that govern it, and the different strategies you can use to avoid it.

This short video is tailored for affiliates in the digital product niche, with real-world examples of what to do and what not to do with your campaigns. The main goal is to communicate that providing quality, unique content on your sites is the most effective way to stay out of Google’s doghouse and build your business for the long haul.

You can watch the full video here and now right on this page, or scroll down to read the individual segment descriptions and watch the video in 4 parts.

Sign Up Now with RevenueWire to get your one-page summary of The Google Slap video and other great marketing support materials from our Tutorial Center.

Part 1. What Is The Google Slap?
Ever wondered what exactly constitutes a Google Slap? You’ll find out in the first segment of our new Google Slap video, anchored by RevenueWire Affiliate Manager Seth Hornby. Watch It Now >>

Part 2. Tips For Your AdWords
This segment covers 3 tips for how you can meet and exceed Google AdWord Guidelines, including Relevant and Original Content, Transparency and Navigability. Watch It Now >>

Part 3. Real-World Examples
Seth takes 2 real life examples of a Driver Product Landing Page and a Driver Mini-Site that have been blacklisted on Google. You’ll learn in detail the different page elements that can result in a Google Slap. At the end, Seth shows an example of a well-designed landing page to provide you with a clear idea of how your landing pages should look. Watch It Now >>

Part 4. Brief Summary
The Google Slap is not all doom and gloom. Seth shares a few positive changes that have come out of the recent rise in number of Google Slaps, including its beneficial effect on competitive keyword bid price. Seth concludes the presentation by explaining the long term advantages of building content rich web sites as promotional tools. Watch It Now >>

You can also watch the video in 4 segments in the Playlist.

WE HOPE YOU ENJOY THE VIDEO. IT WAS DEFINITELY FUN TO MAKE. MAKE SURE TO USE THESE TIPS AND STRATEGIES IN YOUR CAMPAIGNS!

Google is also operating under the assertion that if their search engine does not return the most relevant results, they could possibly lose both users and revenue.

They believe they could see a drop in their market share and in this competitive climate, that situation would be unacceptable. Both Bing and Yahoo! are positioning themselves with new offerings and partnerships, so the competition is now stronger than ever. Google’s solution to this competition is what is driving the new directive that we have all come to know as the “May Day Update.”

Defining The May Day Update

In the first installment we covered what the Google May Day Update is, and how it may affect you and your web sites. We provided warning signs that you can use to determine if your site has been affected and explained what Google is trying to accomplish by changing their algorithm in this way.

Overcoming The Algorithm Change

In the second installment of the May Day update articles, we explained what factors would cause your web site to lose ranking and relevance under the new Google rules. We provided some ways to help overcome the initial ill-effects and explained how effective back linking could help your web site. The provided examples illustrated what could possibly be done to get the ranking and traffic returned.

Improving Website Quality and Relevance

In the next installment, we demonstrated how to improve our web sites to catch the desired attention and ranking from Google.  We focused on website quality and relevance; two factors that are important to you in the post-Mayday update world. We applied effective strategies and provided some examples to illustrate how they are implemented to our benefit. Our clients not only saw traffic return but they even have seen traffic gains by following this advice.

Internal and External Link Building

Finally, we displayed some effective methods to improve our web site’s relevance through targeted and carefully executed internal and external linking strategies. We showed you how to reduce the link jumps, move products closer to the home page, and even encourage organic visitors. Changes of this nature will render your web site “algorithm proof” and even improve your end user’s experience. This will strengthen the relationship with customers and separate your legitimate web site from the fraudulent ones.

Cultivating Top-Notch Content

To overcome and even thrive under the new algorithm, we have shown how to develop content that is of value to your web site visitors, and explained how to focus particularly on deeper pages within your web site and specifically your product pages.

The content on these pages should always appear to be “fresh” and updated on a regular basis, so we explained how to keep your web site update labor minimized by making the best use of user generated content.  Keep in mind that good quality pages will be rewarded by better rankings in Google in addition to increased rankings for many “long tail” phrases. We described how this strategy will naturally develop some of the back linking we are all striving to create.

Fortunately, Metamend’s clients have seen no real negative affects as they have been following our recommendations for developing and improving their site for the search engine algorithm change.

In some of the more properly executed strategies, some clients have actually seen an increase in traffic compared to their competition, which have lost rankings during the May Day update. Google has given these unprepared competitors a low ranking for not accommodating the new requirements; many are still using the old systems like content farms and blog scrapers, to no avail. While these methods have had a good run, they are less effective now, especially since the May Day update.

Google’s attempt at improving the quality of their search results requires webmasters to also improve the quality of their websites. This requires webmasters to put in time and effort to improve their websites in order to position themselves for relevant keywords and to drive traffic. Many web site owners will now find difficulty in devoting these resources to achieve their goals and as a result, the top ranking positions will be held by those who are seen as providing fresh content on a regular basis. This does not have to be as labor intensive as sounds, as we demonstrated.

By following Google’s guidelines and developing a web site that provides value to the web site visitors, we will ensure that our own web sites consistently rank for keywords and develop the desired authority over time. Then by applying our strategies consistently, we can insure that these valuable sites are never negatively affected by any sort of search engine algorithm update.

To briefly summarize, we have demonstrated what the Google May Day update is, how to determine if your web site has been affected, and what you can do about it specifically with examples and strategies.

You are not alone in this issue, and we hope this article series has been helpful and informative. Remember that you have the ability to not only overcome the effects of Google’s algorithm change, but to actually improve your site’s rank and positioning with a little effort and some dedicated strategy.

The basic elements around this strategy to overcome the ill effects of the algorithm change are quality of data, freshness of your content, and the amount of “related” content that appears on your web site or web sites.

Build For Quality, Not Mediocrity

First, the quality of the data and content is a high priority on Google’s radar now, so you need to make sure you keep our content relevant. Be sure to consider in advance what you’re putting on your site and what the potential value to web site visitors will be.

The most effective technique here will be to use unique, original, and valuable content designed with the targeted visitors in mind. This will be of particular benefit to you, on your product or your affiliate pages, as these are currently the pages most scrutinized by Google.

Make sure that the content is properly formed, both grammatically and in context, and be sure to make use of a spellchecker as a final step. This one simple step could mean the difference between being a victim of the May Day update or benefiting from it.

The spellchecker tool is part of most software packages, OEM operating systems and even most e-mail clients and it’s almost always free.  Consider that a web site full of errors and incoherent content can give the user the sense that your site is fraudulent, and even possibly illegitimate.  This is what Google is trying to prevent with the algorithm change, and you could become an accidental victim simply by not proofreading your own content before publishing.

Also, keep in mind that any content on your web site that is not present on other competitor’s sites will give you an edge both in the search engines and for visitors to your site. Try to add content such as regular product reviews to your product pages, and other user generated content, which will bring the user further into the experience and keep them coming back for more.

Keeping fresh content of this nature on your web site will also entice the search engines to visit much more often. Content like this is most valuable to your visitors and ensures your site will remain relevant in the future.

Here are some tips to keep your site relevant:

1. Know Your Market And Your Competition
If you’re the “small fish” or even the “same-size fish” in the pond that’s “your niche”, then you need to do something to increase your search engine presence. If your site has relatively few pages and you’re a competitor in a somewhat competitive niche, then the obvious solution will be to increase the number of pages for your targeted phrases.  For example, if you’re selling engine parts and you have a page for Chevrolet parts and a page for Ford parts, and that is all for now, then you’ll have a fairly small footprint online.

To deepen your search footprint, if you could add extra site pages for Chevrolet v8 parts, Chevrolet v6 parts, Ford v8 parts and Ford v6 parts, you would see the resulting change in ranking and volume of traffic. You have the same parts as before, but you’ve made the searching experience more relevant and easier for visitors and the search engines to find.

By using the same keywords and properly forming the pages, you have essentially doubled the size of your online footprint. This change will get Google’s algorithm’s attention, and get you the traffic you’re looking for, and enhance the user experience all at the same time.

2. Develop Content That Is Focused On a Specific Subject
Make sure to write this content with a higher level of granular detail. Develop your “long tail” subjects a bit more, and this modification will contribute to increasing your page depth as well. Changes like these will make a much bigger target out of your site for the search engine to hit.

3. Differentiate Yourself From MFA and / or “Thin Affiliate” Sites
You can easily accomplish this feat by providing contact information for your visitors to use, and making sure you have a privacy policy in place.

Having these “Privacy” and “Contact Us” pages as separate and unique entities will also greatly assist your search engine efforts and increase your searchable online presence.  Any addition that demonstrates to Google and to visitors to your site that you’re here to stay, and not fraudulent, will increase your impact on the search engine ranking as well.

The overall goal is to show both visitors and search engines that your web site is truly legitimate and is “in it for the long haul.” Keeping live email contacts, working phone numbers, actual physical addresses and any permanent items will prove that your site is not a scam.

We need to keep in mind that Google has stated that the May Day changes were made in an effort to keep content fresh and relevant. If you follow the suggestions made here, you should be able to keep your relevance and improve the overall user experience in your favor.

Next week we will talk about linking and how with some strategy and careful implementation, we can recover or boost our page relevance. Also, by taking a few proactive steps, we can make it possible to enjoy some traffic increases and even encourage return visitors.

Everyday Google indexes hundreds of thousands of images. Over the years it has probably earmarked billions of images for search purposes. Every time someone searches for an image, it’s an opportunity to put your product or service front and center. If your images can be found easily based on targeted keywords, you’ll probably see a jump in traffic to your site as well as an increase in your conversion rates.

An Image Is Worth a Thousand Clicks
Depending on the search query a person enters, Google will display a number of indexed images that show up in thumbnail format above the regular “text only” search results. These images are linked to corresponding web pages. If the prospect clicks on the image they get directed to the web page that houses the image. It’s easy math. With the added traffic from a properly search-optimized image, you can expect to see more people clicking-through to your page and your conversions should rise.

Making Sure Your Images Are Searchable
For example if you have a website or landing page promoting ParetoLogic’s RegCure, it’s extra good business to have an image from your website that’s listed directly above the regular SERPS. It provides added traction and a boost in traffic and sales. It’s also pretty easy to do. So how do you go about doing it? A little HTML fidgeting, a keen eye, and your set.

Let’s take a closer look…

Choose a File Name that Contains Your Top Keywords
The file name “RegCure-registry-cleaner.jpg” would be a logical start for your RegCure product. Make sure to separate the words out with hyphens to get better traction from the spiders.

Use a Descriptive Image Alt Attribute Text
For your alt attribute text, drop in the same keywords you’ve used for the file name. Just like that. For RegCure, your Image Alt Attribute could be “RegCure registry cleaner.” Here’s how it would look in your HTML coding:

<img src=”RegCure-registry-cleaner.jpg” alt=”RegCure registry cleaner”>

Use The Same Keywords For Your Image Title Attribute
Just like with your Image Alt Attribute, use the same descriptive keyword text for your Image Title Attribute as well. Here’s the HTML:

<img src=”RegCure-registry-cleaner.jpg” alt=”RegCure registry cleaner” title=”RegCure registry cleaner”>

Add Keywords to The Textual Content Around Your Image
Any written content on the page that appears before and after your image gets spidered and analyzed for keyword relevance. That means this text effects the position that your image appears in on the search page. Use the same words “RegCure registry cleaner” again in any text above or below the image for maximum search engine pickup.

Provide Large Image Sizes
Google seems to love big images. So much so that you can bet the bigger the image, the easier it will be to get it atop the regular results page. Include the Width and Height attributes in your image tag HTML to indicate to the  search engines the size of your image. Here’s how it will look in your code:

<img src=”Regcure-registry-cleaner.jpg” alt=”RegCure registry cleaner” title=”RegCure registry cleaner” width=”600″ height=”400″>

Pick Images That Arrest The Eye
If you display ugly or awkward images that no one wants to click on, the previous steps will all be nullified. So use images that grab the eye and make people want to click on them. Magnetic images, bright colors, sleek design, attractive faces, stylish fonts, and graphical elements that speak to the person’s search query will all inspire more clicks.

Try these steps our and see what results you get!

]]> http://blog.revenuewire.com/index.php/2010/02/the-art-of-affiliate-marketing-an-image-is-worth-a-thousand-clicks/feed/ 1 http://blog.revenuewire.com/index.php/2010/02/viral-affiliate-marketing-is-tha-bomb/ http://blog.revenuewire.com/index.php/2010/02/viral-affiliate-marketing-is-tha-bomb/#comments Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:43:16 +0000 admin http://blog.revenuewire.com/?p=1003 Read more →]]> Viral marketing is based on the age-old principle of “word of mouth.” In the marketing and advertising world “word of mouth” is spelled G-O-L-D. That’s because if you can get people talking about you and your product in a flavorlicious way, you can juice up your popularity and increase your sales through a dramatic wildfire effect.

The key to viral marketing is infectiousness. Whether it’s something shocking, humorous, or emotionally compelling, viral marketing techniques reach out and grab the attention of the audience with a raw human appeal that instantly makes them to want to share it with others. Good viral has such tremendous emotional power of attraction or WOW FACTOR it becomes a phenomenon in and of itself; one that replicates itself over and over in peoples’ minds, much like the meme theorized by evolutionary theorist Richard Dawkins.

As a larger and larger audience gets drawn into the excitement, enthusiasm and pure entertainment value of your viral piece, your message subliminally gains momentum and sweeps more and more people up into the eye of the storm, all the while hooking them into whatever product or service you’re selling.

Video Is The Heart & Soul of Viral Marketing

Video is hands down the most engaging, effective, and undeniably infectious form of viral marketing on the planet. It’s no secret that if you want to make a major splash, video is the way to go. In fact these days it might be the ONLY way to go. Hello, YouTube anyone?

If you’re an affiliate, YouTube is a great place to make, post and market a viral video. You can set up your own page, list your affiliate marketing site’s URL, and stealthily plant other key information.

Things start to really get fun when you actually get down to creating your viral video. The common misperception among businessmen and women is that you need to spend millions to make a wicked vid. Truth is that most of the best viral, totally awesome and original videos are done by amateurs. Hello “Chocolate Rain” anyone? Check it out, that bizarre and beautiful homespun croon has banked over 47 million hits!

Consider the possibilities. Since your videos will ultimately be embedded on social media sites and linked to in emails, tons of people will get funneled to your YouTube channel. When they get there, they’ll be prepped for the message and ready to visit your landing page for whatever it is you’ve got to pitch.

Ebooks: A Distant Second To Video, But Still Cooler Than Going To School

There are a slew of free programs out there that allow you to build your own ebooks. The key point again, as with viral video, is to have a magnetic topic to cover in your book. Please. Save the world from yet more boring content. Pick a subject with some flash, an original point-of-view, or some never-explored insight that will enrich the reader’s mind. Do some research on your target audience and write about a dense nugget of opinion that could spark a healthy controversy, enliven the discussion, enlighten and entertain, or delve into some cutting-edge area in the lives of the people who buy your product or service.

Word of mouth about a hot new ebook can catch fire just as fast and gloriously as a viral video, it just doesn’t happen as often. However if you strike oil on a topic that’s on point, you could be in for a groundswell of traffic to your landing pages and websites, and an ample spike in conversions.

There’s one caveat here. Make sure to refer readers to your landing page in your ebook! Put the link where they can see it. The more people that download your ebook and associate you with its stellar content, the more people will buy your affiliate wares.

Silly Rabbit, Widgets Are For Affiliates…

What the smack is a widget? Someone help me out. “Well Bob, they’re these wonderful little marvels of modern technology called mini-applications. They’re totally self-contained and can easily be dragged and dropped onto your websites, blogs and other online spaces.” Why thank you Reginald. And by the way. You better remember that definition of widget folks, because widgets are insane. In terms of affiliate marketing of course. They’re indeed blowing up as I write this.

Why? You can create widgets that highlight the products you sell. When you’re done creating them you can put those widgets on your social networking profiles. Members who see your widget and like it can then easily pass it along to others.

Lesson learned. Support your local widget makers!

Now Bust Your Creative Gut

For some final tips on viral content, we suggest taking a few minutes to descramble your brain onto the page. Come up with some fresh ways to go viral with your campaigns. Go ahead, be an internet maverick. It pays!

Here a few starters to get the fires of inspiration up and burning:
A. Make custom electronic post cards or gift cards and promote them on your website, social networking profile or other cyber real estate.  Embed a link to your landing page URL on the cards so that the consumer can click through.

B. You gotta spend money to make money. So hire a freelancer to design a simple digital game for your exclusive use. Think Brickbreaker, Sudoku or Word Mole for the Crackberry. Super easy and very catchy. Have the designer sew marketing elements into the fabric of the app. That way when users play the game they’ll be getting super-targeted ads directly to their face!

That’s it for this article. Over and out affiliates – keep your neckties loose and your campaigns rolling!

Consistency: Setting Yourself Up For Conversion Success

The key here is to be consistent. You want to lead the consumer along a trail where their eyes see what they need to see in order to take the next step. When you’re not consistent with your keywords and messaging, you’ll lose the prospect quickly. Take Registry Cleaners as an example. An inexperienced affiliate may advertise a product, for example ParetoLogic’s RegCure, on the term “Registry Cleaners” with the following ad text:

Easy Registry Cleaners
Clean your registry 100%
Increase Your PC’s Speed
www.cheapPCcleaners.com

While the ad itself isn’t too bad, when the prospect clicks on it they’re then taken to a page with the headline “Inexpensive Software For Increasing PC Speed“, and a list of names of different registry cleaner products. The consumer’s specific search query for “Registry Cleaner” hasn’t been re-enforced on the landing page, and they’re required to take additional steps to find the product they want to buy.

A much better way to design this page would be to make it product specific page, in this case Paretologic RegCure, with the words “ParetoLogic RegCure” clearly written in large type at the top of the page in a bold header, with testimonials and awards, all immediately in plain view and directly supporting the ad from which the visitor arrived. This shows the consumer they’ve landed in the right place, and tells them that they’ve found the product they’re looking for.

Usability: Streamlining Your Visitor’s Experience

Usability is something a lot of affiliates tend to forget about. The fact is that if you do it right, you can boost your conversions for both your paid and organic traffic. The key to strong site usability is making sure there aren’t any obstacles to consumers purchasing your product once they’ve reached the landing page. Obstacles include a lack of a clear call-to-action, missing trust elements, unclear messaging, and so on.

A visitor who has just arrived at your site makes instant value judgements about all aspects of your business. At this stage in the buying process their behavior is volatile, making them likely to bolt at the slightest inconsistency or point of confusion. Ask the following questions to help prevent scaring your visitors off or losing their attention.

*Is there a clear headline stating your landing page’s main purpose?

*Is the product title and image above the fold, prominently placed and immediately visible?

*Is the buy button and price prominent and visible immediately?

*Are there complicated options, buttons or links that could confuse or distract your visitor?

*Will your visitor know immediately how to use your site and what they need to do to achieve their goal?

Pursuit of Perfection: Testing Your Landing Pages

Start with the most basic kind: A/B testing. Split your visitors into two equal and random groups, showing one group version A of your LP design and another group version B. If A performs better use it as your primary LP, and if B performs better use that one. This is the easiest way to see what elements on your page are working and which aren’t.

Remember to only test one element at a time, such as the header, body copy, button size and button color, etc. That way if you see a difference in conversion rates on each page, you know which element of design it is that’s making the difference. Small differences are very significant. A spike in conversion rate from 1.5% to 1.65% increases your sales by 1/10th with no extra advertising expenditure.

Multivariate testing works on the same principle, only you split the traffic into more groups with more variations of the original landing page. This type of testing is generally used for larger sites with high-volume traffic.

Make sure you test long enough to see statistically valid results or what experts call Level of Statistical Confidence. For more on the subject of valid stats check out this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance. Be patient. It can take up to a month to meet your standard for statistical confidence.