SiteSell Blog

Article Spinning, Good or Bad?

Ken's Blog

If you are not adding value to the Web by creating your own original article content, you're on the wrong track.

If you are doing something purely for the Search Engines, you're on the wrong track.

If you are duplicating content, making small changes here and there so Google won't realize it, and submitting it to a variety of locations, you're taking the wrong track off the wrong track.

As matter of fact, if you read any guru or service giving advice or selling software to implement a strategy and they use the phrase "to avoid detection by Google not that this is wrong or anything"...

How To Find Affiliate Marketing Programs Quickly

Affiliate Marketing

You've found a great merchant. They have tons of information on their home page, and so many links. But where the heck is the link to their affiliate marketing program?

Do not dispair... we've put together some tips how to easily find the affiliate sign-up on your favorite sites, and how to find new affiliate programs.

• First, scan the top, left and bottom navbars (graphic or text links) for a reference to their affiliate program. If there is none...
• Do a quick find on the home page. Press the control + f keys on your keyboard (command + f if you are using a Mac). Then enter "affil" (typing only the first few letters is fine and reduces chances of a typo) into the search box that pops up. Try also for "assoc" (short for "associate") and "refer" (short for "referral" or "referrer" program).

More tips...

Affiliate Marketing - Understand Your Visitors' Mindset

Affiliate Marketing

Your strategies and actions as an affiliate marketer directly affect your Conversion Rate (CR). In this entry, we'll talk about how to PREsell effectively.

Let's look at examples of how "low-CR affiliates" create negative mindsets by making how-you-reach, what-you-say, or how-you-refer boo-boos. We'll begin at the top...

How to Reach Your Visitor

Free-For-All Sites (FFAs) are a great example of how not to reach people. For the most part, FFAs have become so seamy and useless that no matter what you say, you're doomed from the start.

Compare this with how smart and open-minded your visitor feels when he/she finds you via a Search Engine!

What to Say to Your Visitor

Don't write a site purely devoted to "hard-selling" your merchants' products. Imagine a visitor who hits your site and reads an immediate sales pitch. That person will resist because she does not know you. Then, if she clicks through to your merchant, she gets another sales pitch on the merchant's site -- Negative x 2!

8 Warning Signs When Evaluating Affiliate Marketing Programs

Affiliate Marketing

When evaluating affiliate marketing programs, there are clear plus factors and clear no-go pointers. However, there is also a grey zone. With some research and awareness, it's easy to guard yourself against joining the wrong affiliate marketing program.

Watch for these warning signs...

*"Pay-per-click" method of payment -- This means that you get paid whenever a visitor clicks on your link. No purchase or lead-generation necessary.

Unfortunately, it's wide open for abuse. Very sophisticated folks create incentives to get thousands of people to click on their links. However, the visitors could care less about the products being promoted. It's virtually unstoppable. And merchants end up paying for nothing, so merchants cancel or change the program.

In theory, pay-per-click affiliate programs are a good idea. Unfortunately, they attract "scam artist affiliates." Sooner or later, merchants seem to throw in the towel against the onslaught. So be wary -- these kind of affiliate programs tend to dissolve or mutate into a different model.

The Importance of Humor In Business, In Life

Ken's Blog

As an intern, I learned two really important lessons (aside from actual medicine, of course)...

1) KISS -- "Common things are common.  When you hear the sound of hoof beats, don't think zebra... unless you're in Africa."

Yes, do entertain rarer possibilities, but only after ruling out the common stuff. It's a much simpler way to practice.

2) Humor -- I was quite overwhelmed in my early months as an intern. Not by the subject matter, but by the seriousness of the whole thing. No one laughed. And then a Senior Resident changed my life in medicine...

Rounds became a rock and roll show, it was "Laugh-In" on wheels as he joked with patients, nurses, interns, everyone. Not all the time, of course, there are serious moments. But at the right times.

And that's when it hit me... "Medicine does not have to be so serious. Have fun. Everyone will respond better to it. I will. Nurses will. And most importantly, patients will."

Adapt that philosophy to your life and you'll be amazed. Last year, for example, our pharmacist said to Janice when she entered the store, "Where's Ken? I laugh every time he comes in. The things he says."

That's not to say you have to be Jerry Lewis. Just have fun with people. For me, that was a skill to learn.

Don't lose your professionalism, of course. Act with integrity, care about the quality of your work, care about others, overdeliver, be customer-focused in your business, etc. And...

If you're having fun with people at the same time, you feel better, people like you and good things happen.

All the best,

How To Recognize a Poor Affiliate Marketing Program

Affiliate Marketing

We discussed the 12 criteria that define a good affiliate marketing program. Now let's take a look at the opposite. What signs are there that shout, "Stop, joining this affiliate program puts your e-business at serious risk"?

- Slow and/or poor support.

- Unethical conduct of any kind.

- Reports of late (or lack of) payments.

- Allow spam, or seem to spam themselves.

Keep digging...

12 Factors Define a Good Affiliate Marketing Program

Affiliate Marketing

You've found a potential affiliate marketing program to join. How do you know if they are a quality merchant-partner, a so-so company or even a scam-artist? Watch for the following 12 positive criteria when you evaluate the program...

+ High quality product or service -- remember, it's your reputation that is on the line (and online!). Don't recommend products that UNDERdeliver.

+ Merchant has a good site that sells effectively.

+ Ability for affiliate to link straight to individual products, rather than just to the home page. (If the visitor has to find the product that you recommend, your Conversion Rate plummets.)

+ Type of payment model -- Pay-per-sale and pay-per-lead are good. This is true "performance marketing." If your referred visitor delivers the desired response, you get paid.

Affiliate Marketing - The Art of PREselling

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing requires a solid understanding of the merchant's products you plan to promote... and how to do so without "selling". That's where PREselling comes in. If you can grasp this concept and execute it with your business, you'll be light years ahead of most affiliates.

Your job as an affiliate marketer is to provide useful, relevant content that relates to the products you are promoting, yet leaves the reader wanting to know more. Within your excellent PREselling content, you'll include a strategically placed link to the sales page. The job of the sales page is to close the sale with the ready-to-buy visitor you've sent there.

Think about how you are going to reach, talk to, and refer visitors with your affiliate link. In other words, how you are going to convert a visitor into a customer?

Effective PREselling is all about attracting your target group, delivering valuable, relevant content, and gently leading visitors to your link after they have come to respect and like you.

Is Ken Really Anti-Blogging?

Ken's Blog

I made a post recently in the SBI! Forums about how you can add a WordPress blog into your SBI! site, including how and when to do it.  It got me thinking about something I'd like to dispel.  Something I've always thought was a little goofy, but I keep seeing it out there in the blogosphere.  So please bear with me while I address it...

Ken is not anti-blogging.

That would be like being anti-information.  Clearly...

In certain circumstances, blogging is very much the right choice.

Many bloggers think that I am anti-blogging, probably because of our "Blog Or Build" web page.  But it makes no sense to be so fiercely for or against a format, which in the end is all that blogging is...

The Value Of Passionate Case Studies Versus Vague Testimonials

Business Tips

Review the Case Studies site. A wide variety of businesses tell their stories in their own words. And they update regularly. These people are real, credible, detailed, and passionate. And their updates reinforce that SBI! success is no short-term fluke.

Every company features "Success Stories." Yawn. Or vague, sensational "testimonials." What a waste of time in the competitive small business B2B space...

What are you doing (honestly, of course) to make yours stand out? And oh yes... if customers are not e-mailing you with great and passionate stories, improve your product instead of "baffling them with BS," as the old saying goes.