Are Banners Effective Affiliate Marketing Tools?
One mistake lots of bloggers make all the time is that they promote affiliate products the same way they promote AdSense or other ad programs – by displaying banners in their sidebar. Although this isn’t the best way to make affiliate commissions, some banners do produce great results.
The question is.. which ones work and which are just wasting valuable blog real estate?
Just by looking at a banner, it’s impossible for you to gauge it’s effectiveness. Some banners seem polished and cool, but deliver a poor marketing message. Other banners seem dull but have compelling text or a good call-to-action.
The only way to be sure is to track your banners. Measure every impression and every click. Divide the number of clicks by the number of impressions and you get what the industry calls a “Click Through Rate”.
The screenshot above is from my BlogSell account, and it clearly shows that some banners have a much higher CTR or Click-Through rate than others.
So I don’t waste my time figuring out why a banner doesn’t produce much clicks, especially if it’s an affiliate banner that I have no editorial control over. I just delete the low-performing banners and replace them with new ones.
How much CTR you should aim for is really up to you, your niche market and the layout of your blog. Are you banners in the right places? Or are you hiding them in the footer where they just gather impression, but no one actually looks at them?
At the end of the day, the lesson here is that you need to track your banners, which most bloggers don’t do anyway. I highly recommend that you create a BlogSell account, where you get the tools you need to become a better affiliate blogger. Some affiliate networks – like Commission Junction – actually reveal the performance of each ad. That makes it easy for you to only use banners that work. However, almost all other networks like ClickBank, PayDotCom etc don’t track affiliate banners.
With BlogSell you can easily add, rotate, track and remove banners ads on your blog. You just need to set-up your banner “blocks” once, and all changes you make are real time after that. In fact, you don’t need to install WordPress plugins or other third party scripts that may break and malfunction every time you upgrade your WordPress blog.
Market Your Feeds Better with FeedBurner
You are a blogger and are glad to see traffic on your website. However, do you have any clues of how does your blog feed look like? How many feed readers you have and are they happy with the feed?
Top blogs have a large number feed subscribers and with services like feedburner, one can optimize as well as monetize a blog feed.
Before getting into all that, one needs to visualize how your blog feed appears on popular readers like Google Reader, Feed daemon, etc.
Quick steps to setup your blog feeds;
- Go to Word Press Admin panel -> Settings –> Reading. Select Full text for feeds.
- Log on to feedburner and create an account. Add and verify your blog.
- Head over to Your Feed burner feed management section, click on your feed and select Edit feed details. For Original Feed URL put http://www.yourblog.com/feed
- Go to Optimize -> Summary burner and make sure that Summary burner isn’t active.
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Use Flagrant disregard Feedburner Plugin to allow automatic detection of your feedburner feed when a visitors subscribes to your blog’s feed.
Now that everything is done head over to Google Reader, or any Feed reader and check out your feed. It should display the full feed!
When you’re done, you’ll have better looking feeds that are easier to read and look far more professional.
Further, you may explore feedburner’s possibilities which include features like monetizing your feeds, analyzing your feed readers, etc.
With feedburner, there is always more that you can do. Burn your feed today, if you haven’t already. Happy feed burning!
Wordcamp Indonesia 2010
Wordcampid 2010 is 2nd wordcamp event held on January 30, 2010 at Gunadarma University, depok Indonesia. This event was very well organized by Valent Mustamin and team.
After opening remarks by Rector of Gunadarma university, this event was started with presentation by Risman Adnan, Senior Developer Advisor Microsoft Asia HQ and Ronald Rajagukguk, Developer Advisor titled “develop and run PHP on windows Say (hello); to wordpress on Azure”.
2nd speaker is Beau lebens, from Automattic. Beau brings us a general look at wordpress 2.9 and what is coming in Wordpress 3.0. There are a few new features in wordpress 3.0 like a Post_types, Menu manager, merging with wordpress-mu and introduce new default theme schedule to be release on April 13, 2010. No more default Kubrick theme! Wordpress also introduce three new people for svn committer to make release process faster.
Presentation by Harry sufehmi, Scaling up Wordpress, Easy, Cheap, Faster: Pick Three. Harry shared interesting topic in optimizing wordpress performance using Squid.
Presentation by Hans Zaunere, president and founder of New York php community.
Wordpress as content management system by Setyagus Sucipto. This topic is another interesting topic. Setyagus share with participant how to simplified wordpress for customer. Actually the idea is quite simple, remove all information that customer do not need and highlight those really customer needs. With combination of a few plugin, we can simplify wordpress as a CMS.
The others presenter is Idris Khanafi from MySQL Indonesia community and Made Wiryana,Gunadarma University lecturer with topic “Why Mysql” and “Bandung Bondowoso Project Workflow”. Idris Khanafi highlight why we should choose MySql, from the technical and financial view.
These WordcampId ends with attendees open session and demo of Intense Debate by Beau Leben.In the attendees open session, Simon Lim was share his finding how to use Google apps to minimize server load.
Crafty Cart – Free WordPress Shopping Theme
Do you wish to run an online shop? Have you just finalized your idea of running an e-commerce website and you’re biased with WordPress? We have something slick that might attract you much!
Crafty Cart is amongst the most opted and fun to use WordPress theme that has been designed to provide users with an easy way to create online shops. This theme neatly integrates with the e-commerce plug-in to create a highly practical e-commerce solution. Crafty Cart features a spanking new retro style that is one of the best to sell out various handmade items such as t-shirts, etc. from an online shop. Crafty cart is a two column SEO optimized WordPress theme available in soft pink shades. This theme has 2 widget ready side bars and Gravatar support which makes it completely advertisement ready.
Crafty cart features one bio box that can be easily edited independently on both the side bars and remains completely unaffected if any of the widgets are used. Crafty cart theme holds complete compatibility with WordPress 2.6+. Check out a sleek preview of Craft Cart.
Some salient features of this Free WordPress theme include;
- Crafty cart provides with the facility to keep both the code tidily and clearly organized to go ahead with ones styling preferences.
- With Gravatars and separate Pingbacks, Crafty cart allows freedom from the hassles of updating a theme or redoing the various template hacks.
- Crafty cart requires a WordPress e-commerce plugin to start the shopping cart functionality and work as a completely functional blog on its own.
- The typeface choice for the various headers is a real nice option.
- Theme supports most HTML tags like – <cite>, <abbr>, <del>, <ins> and <dt>.
- The comment area of Crafty cart has been done in a nice way and one has various styling of comments for both odd and even.
- The blog title area is quite big enough and has been has enough space to form two lines.
- The anchor texts that are present on the sidebar provide a bold styling to the text which at the same time gives a jumpy effect to the rest of the sidebar also.
After trying to Crafty Cart for a small initiative, I could convey that it’s a nice theme for wannabe sellers to get the e-commerce rolling.
Just 3 easy steps and you shall set it rolling;
- Download the FREE theme and e-commerce plugin.
- Install the theme and plugin to activate the same.
- Add your PayPal or Google Checkout details in the settings option.
- There is no 4th step!
Stay tuned for more themes and plugins!
Most Affordable Premium WordPress Themes Collection
If you’re looking to get some really awesome Premium WordPress themes for your blog, take a look at Elegant Themes right now.
More than 24 themes available in their gallery (plus all future themes) for just $19.95 / year. All the themes are gorgeous in their own right. Plus, these are not like the basic free themes – they come with their own options page and some advanced features depending on the purpose of the theme.
At less that $1 per theme, this is perhaps the best value for money you’ll get if you’re looking for affordable premium WordPress themes. Take a look at their entire collection here: Elegant Themes
Mass Upgrade Your WordPress Plugins
One of the better changes I noticed in WordPress 2.9.2 is the mass upgrade feature for plugins. You’ll find that right under the Tools > Upgrade link. Also, in WP2.9.2 you can now “Un-Delete” your deleted comments, post and pages. If you haven’t upgraded, I strongly recommend that you do so right now.
Gravity Forms for WordPress – Should You Get It?
A contact form is one of the most basic and most important things you’ll want to have on your new blog. But do you need a contact form badly enough to pay $39 for it – that’s the question!
Gravity Forms is a well-coded, sleek contact forms plugin for WordPress. By looking at the demo site you can clearly see that Gravity Forms will help you create almost any type of form you want. In fact, if you’re in an industry where you need to create lots and lots of forms, this could be a great investment.
But re-examine the fundamental question here – how often do you need to create new forms?
If all you need is a simple contact form on your blog, there are several free WordPress plugins like WP Contact Form and Contact Form 7 that will do the job just fine. And from my experience, once your basic contact form is up and running there is no real need for you to mess around with other solutions.
Here’s how much Gravity Forms will cost you:
- $39 for single site license
- $99 for multi-site license
- $199 for developer license
So, do you really need it? It would be interesting to hear what you have to say..
Testimonial for PLR WordPress Tutorial Videos
If you’re planning to create your own products, coaching program or membership site about WordPress and blogging, then our PLR WordPress Videos offer is probably the best on the Internet. Researching, testing and creating videos for WordPress plugins and themes can be a major headache, and using PLR or Private Label videos can be a perfect alternative.
Here’s what David Cavanagh has to say about our offer:
You have full control over all videos. Sell them and keep 100% of profits. Package them into membership sites, DVDs or live coaching material. We provide full promotional materials, sales pages, website set-up and even assistance in uploading your videos.
More info: PLR WP Videos
Blog Advertising – Understand Your Blog’s Real Estate
Not all space on your blog is created equal. How much you understand about your blog’s real estate will ultimately influence the results you get.
That being said, which parts of your blog are more valuable? Where should you put your main money-making ad, link or Aweber optin form?
I’ve broken down a typical 3-column blog layout (like the one we use here) into a few profitable areas:
- Content Area – No matter which type of layout you use, the content area is by far the more valuable spot. People visit your blog to read content, not to look at your ads or design. Sure, a jaw-dropping design is cool the first time, but it will not get people to stick. Ads, links and optin forms within your content is the most valuable, as it is guaranteed to reach the eyeball of your visitor. It’s even more effective if your ads are tightly related to the content itself.
- Left Navigation – If your blog has a left-column navigation (like ours), then this is the second most valuable spot. People in most countries read from left to right, and on the way to your content their eyeballs have to pay at least some attention to the navigation area.
- Right Navigation – Unlike the left navigation, your visitors don’t have to pay attention to the anything after the actual content area. Since they don’t have to, they rarely will. People are quite accustomed to grid-based website layouts and they know (almost instinctively) where to look for content, and what to ignore.
- Header Area – Although the header area comes before everything else, it’s too detached from the actual content, which makes it the second least valuable spot on your blog. I will almost never pay an advertiser for placing banner ads in the header area. The more frequent someone visits your blog, the most invisible the header area gets.
- Footer Area – It’s almost worthless to even consider the footer area as a possible most maker. Detached from content and navigation, and too far from eyeballs, the footer is best left for things than don’t really require attention.
Yeah i know; your results may be different. However, in most cases this simple grid-based logic works well. The real question though, is what should you do with this information?
If you want to squeeze more money from your blog, you need to reorganize certain elements to work for you, instead of against you. Here are a few ideas:
- In-Content Ads – If you’re selling banner ads on your blog, create a spot in the content area itself. Savvy advertisers are willing to pay much more for an in-content ad, and you can easily increase your advertising dollars overnight.
- Affiliate Links vs Affiliate Banners – If you’re promoting an affiliate product, forget banner ads. It’s much better to use affiliate links weaved into the content. Plus, having less ads frees up important real estate for other purposes.
- Reorganize Your Navigation – Are your navigation links eating up valuable advertising space? Move them away to non-profitable areas like the right sidebar, header of footer so you can make more money from the profitable ones.
- Footer Dump – Anything else that your readers don’t really need, but which is essential for your blog (privacy policy, disclaimers etc), has to be moved to the footer. The footer area is the universal dumping ground for all non-profitable stuff.
The next time you decided to get a new theme for your blog, ask yourself an important question- “What do I want to achieve with my blog?”
Always put function above form. Understand the main objective of your blog.
Is it to communicate your ideas? Then move your content to the left, followed by navigation, and use minimal ads. Is your objective to build a mailing list or get more subscribers? Then put your optin form in the profitable areas instead of hiding it beneath meaningless ads.
No matter how popular your blog is, or how much traffic you get, there is always room for optimization. I hope this guide will help you improve yours, and I’d like to hear your comments.
Is Duplicate Content Really Bad For Our Websites?
Anand Srinivasan is the founder of KnewThis.com – the World’s FIRST Ask&Answer site where affiliate webmasters can build back links and get targeted traffic. Learn more about KnewThis by clicking here
First and foremost, before I begin this article, I would like to clarify that I am not an SEO expert. I am simply yet another webmaster who recently launched his own website and who has learnt a bit of SEO along the way. Also, this article is not a definitive piece in itself, but is just to instigate a bit of discussion from our individual experiences.
A lot many times, we have been told by Google as well as SEO experts that duplicate content hurts our website. And we have indeed taken efforts to minimize the incidence of duplicated content by writing rehashed articles so that Google does not detect it as something copied from elsewhere.
So, the question is does duplicate content actually affect our website rankings? Though I would personally still believe that duplicate content is good neither for our own website nor for the Internet as a whole, I would like to discuss here about two instances where I have observed that duplicate content does not affect rankings to a great extent. Firstly, from my own blog. When I first started blogging, like most of you, I had it hosted on Blogspot. This blogspot blog was my primary site for more than a year before I thought I should move to a .com domain. At this point, I had no idea about duplicate content affecting SERPS. I had no idea how to use 301 redirect to effect a seamless transfer. All that I did was use the Import tool on Wordpress to import the whole content from the blogspot site to my new .com blog. It has been over two years since then. Till date, my blogspot website continues to exist and that has not affected my .com site’s ranking one bit. My site is still growing at 25% month on month (on a lower base though).
The second example is drawing from the success of article directories. Article directories like EzineArticles and GoArticles are among the most heavily trafficked websites in the world. A lot of their content is duplicated elsewhere. And they still they remain the primary source of traffic for a lot of affiliate webmasters amongst us.
So, does that mean duplicate content does not matter at all? Of course, it does. But from what I presume, while duplicate content is accounted for in the search engine rankings, websites are not explicitly penalized. If I copy content from a popular website, I shall not be penalized. Rather, when someone searches Google for a related topic, Google realizes that the site I copied from holds better authority than my own copied content and so decides to display their link.
Do you agree? What has been your experience with duplicate content? Please let us know in the comments.