If you understand all the elements of setting up an affiliate program, a natural question will arise:

How do I get enough traffic to my Web Site to generate sales?

The key to getting traffic is to put your energies in what will bring you back the most value. It's like deciding where to put your efforts so you'll get the most return.

Choosing how to generate traffic means understanding that you have to adapt your efforts to see which is working best. Think of it like the choices you make for your house; if you had to choose between putting in a bathroom, which returns most of the value of your investment, versus putting in a pool, which is more fun but returns nothing on your investment, what would you do?

Most affiliates, unfortunately, choose to put in the equivalent of a pool at their Web Site. They focus on short term marketing that brings them little return and demands enormous expenditures.

Make your marketing time and money go further by focusing on the following 5 techniques. These will cut your time, costs, and headaches down, and help to boost your sales.

1. Ezines

2. Search Engines

3. . Banner Ads

4. . Press Releases

5. Internetworking: Strategic Linking Strategies

E-Zines

The e-zine is just a fancy way of saying an article or collection of articles published online. Most of these come in the form of "newsletters" and consist of various information that will hopefully be of value to those subscribers and visitors. The focus and purpose of the Ezine is to attract attention to other sites and services or products that will be available to purchase at a profit for the company offering it. Information is always of value and is the best way to get the interest of the person. You must offer some idea or concept that they cannot find anywhere else, or at least give that impression. Then, after giving a taste, build the desire to form that mental need for more.

To properly measure the success of an ezine is to record the responses from the replies of the customers. If you are promoting the website of a friend by sponsoring his information in your newsletter, perhaps an open dialogue with that friend will enable you to track your success through his response, and this may up the value of your newsletter to him and others, opening other opportunities.

1. Always offer something for free to spark interest in the Ezine.

2. Publish or Swap Articles in other Ezines if possible.

3. Focus on Ezines that are related to your product or service.

4. Build Business to Business relationships with publishers

5. . Gain access to ezine recipient list and offer yours.

6. Use ideas from others in tailoring your offer.

7. Search out for different and new Ezines and evaluate them. Did they have important information, are they sponsored by a company or and individual, what is their method of delivery, their topics, is it worth pursuing and contact owner to see how we can be published as well.
   You can use search engines to find access to ezines or you can go directly to related subjects columns and find a wealth of publishers, companies and individuals who are eager to provide this information. There is email, fax, and mail access available from most publishers.

8. Sites to go to include:

   http://www.dominis.com

   http://www.bestezines.com

9. Most of all, be sure to develop your ezine list. If you send out messages regularly to your list, you forge loyalty with them. The next time you make an offer, they may remember you. Without an ezine, you will be sending out messages to people who don't know you. Even worst, you may spend all your time marketing to strangers, a less than 5% game of sales...more like 1%. More on that later...

Search Engines

Search engines are the simplest solution. Sometimes too simple. People just believe in these things, and I don't know why. It's not like you find anything half the time you are looking in. I've never been through so many dead ends to get where I'm going.

Search engines perform a function of cataloging the Internet, but I use them for finding niche markets. Once I go there, there is no point in searching any more. Here's the criteria I developed:

1. If you can name your product or service in four words or less, search engines are something to consider.

2. If you can afford to always focus on them and stay on top, they can be a powerful tool. Be prepared to fight this battle every week though; if your keyword is one lots of people want, beware!

3. It is better to pay someone on a monthly basis, or a per click through (per lead) basis to test these out. Services run from $100 to $1,000, with clickthroughs costing anywhere from 5 cents to a dollar. Twenty five cents seems to be a norm.

4. Places to visit are a good reason to use search engines as a form of advertising.

Here's some good ideas for getting to the top of the search engines. Please understand that every search engine has its own unique way of looking at things. It is worth it to invest in one of the many excellent subscriptions for search engine positioning, such as Planet Ocean Communication's book at http://www.searchenginehelp.com

Some tips for getting one top:

1. Do not waste your time posting to hundreds of search engines; post only to the top 7 including Yahoo, Lycos, Infoseek, AltaVista, WebCrawler, Excite, and Hotbot. This is where 90% of your traffic will come from, and it is best to focus your energies getting on top of those.

2. Create doorway, or portal, pages to your site for each individual product you sell. Search engines used to frown on this, but as long as you don't play too many games, this is a great way to get on top. The logic is simple; create one page featuring one product and word it well enough that it passes rank at the top search engines. Use this for all your affiliate programs and even when you market, drive people to that single page.

3. Understand how the search engines look at what the keywords you are submitting:

   • Many look for how early on a page you put a keyword, especially after the first tag.

   • How many times a word appears on a page; don't take this to mean you should just repeat words. The search engines have improved their technology and incorporate standard English rules. Repeating words is not an effective way for getting on top any more.

   • How many other Web Sites link to yours. Infoseek is well known for using this as a criteria, and like all things with search engines, it may change. But it isn't a bad idea to get many links.

   • The ratio of keywords to total words is also judged. If they read too many keywords to total words, meaning that you are simply repeating again, it can work against you, so be careful.

   • How close keywords appear together on a page; this is again to target those simply repeating key words and phrases.

   • Where the keywords are located; some search engines rank highly if they are in the title. Only a few now look in what are called "META" tags, which appear at the top of the page. Some also look for words as links, in headers and rank this as important. Again this varies from search engine to search engine.

   • Grammar; believe it or not, some try to check your grammar to see if you are cheating.

   • There are specific places search engines look for keywords, including::

     Title

     Meta Tags (Description and Keywords)

     Headline tags like H1, H2, and H3

     Within links

     In the actual copy on your page

     In "ALT" tags, which are used to describe graphics and sometimes a good

     place to hide keywords

     In comments tags like this: <!-- my comments here -->

     Some even look at words in your domain name to judge you.

Maximize Your Banner Ad Results

Banner ads are a common tool for generating leads, but one that is often used ineffectively. Instead of relying on random impulses, banner ads should lead to a contact point, a specific offer, and a way to follow up with a customer. After all, impulse buys are just one small part of the entire game; if they come to your Web Site, your online storefront, you want to capture email information so you can quickly and effectively invite them back to consider buying again. Here's ten tips on improving results online with banner ads:

1. Don't use Fancy Graphics

   Banner ads work when they immediately deliver a message and load quickly. Keep them as small as possible, 5-10K tops (that is file size). Forget using photographs or actual pictures. Focus on text, your headline, and keep the colors as simple as possible.

   Use four colors: Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow. Use black type and have your main headline, or main words, stand out in a different color. These four colors will allow you to save your images in the smallest format possible.

2. Make it familiar

   Make it familiar and keep it small. Many banner ads are limited to small sizes -- 400X50, 480X60 (that's width versus height, measured in pixels...your average computer screen is 640 X 480 pixels). Your banner ad should be the size it is allowed to be, and the sizes listed here are fairly standard. Don't stray too far from these; the most successful banner ads follow these standards.

3. Use the Windows Interface

   The most successful banner ads emulate a familiar computer behavior. If you visit the link at Smart Clicks, you'll notice that the top banner ads look like the Windows interface. Pull down menus, OK/Cancel buttons, scrollable text, and check boxes dominate.

   Please understand that none of these actually work in the window, you are just supposed to click on them. What they do is make people take an action they are familiar with. Since over 90% of your visitors use Windows PC's, they are used to clicking on these.

4. Use underlined words that look like links.

   If you want to really increase response, under your headline words in blue. This makes them appear to be links. Links appear on your Web Pages, and people know to click on them.

5. Have a person staring out at you, make it personal

   It is an old advertising trick to have a person, usually a woman, staring out from the banner ad (or print ad). Ever notice how a computer companies who want you to order via phone have an operator staring out at you?

   The goal is to make it live, as if a living human being with a real identity is on the other end.

6. Use Click Here, OK buttons, and action words

   The goal of a banner ad is to get them to act. Always include some action for them to do, like "Click Here". OK buttons work well, as do action words; Act Now, If you Want to Win, Click Here...you have to ask them to act.

7. Use "You" in your headline

   The headline trick works in banner ads as well. For example, a Yahoo white paper measured banner ad results. The most successful ones used headlines with the word You or Your. Address your surfer directly to get them to click.

8. Use small animation

   A small mouse moving over a banner ad, a blinking cursor, a blinking "Click here" button, and many small animations have proven to elicit clicks. Remember that the human eyes notices movement on a screen. Just make sure the movement is repeated a limited number of times, and let it stop. Don't let your animations keep going, it will get people queasy.

9. Send them to a Portal Page

   Your banner ad should send the person who clicked to a specific page that has to do with that banner. Keep it limited to one product, and one offer. Remember that banner ads just create click throughs; it's a good idea to try and grab email addresses instead of selling people from banner ads.

10. Keep it Simple!

    Create a banner ad that delivers an immediate result. If you are giving them something for free, or a discount or coupon, get them to fill in some basic information and reward them. Follow up to turn your banner ads into lead generators.

Banner Ad Resources

http://www.wilsonweb.com/articles/bannerad.htm

Excellent resource for banner advertising information for the newbie

http://www.markwelch.com/bannerad/]

Banner advertising consulting

http://www.wprc.com/wwpc/consulting_banners.shtml

Banner Ad Placement Study

http://www.webreference.com/dev/banners/research.html

http://www.whitepalm.com/fourcorners/bannerdesign.shtml

Conclusion: Based on 2.1% average click-through move to Active Banners

www.activebanner.com

Sites to advertise on and why

Good explanation of the "big boys" services and what you get

http://iaswww.com/iashome/promotion/bannerplace.html

Directory of banner ad placement services

http://advertising.utexas.edu/world/WebMedia.html

Design Firms to use

www.adnetintl.com

www.animation.com

Press Releases

Press releases are one of the most effective ways to get your name in print. There is a whole unique approach to using press releases. Remember that an editor or "decision maker" is basically sitting at a fax or email, looking for good stories.

There goal is to get readers interested and sell more advertising. So don't just send out a glorified press release bragging about your product or service. Focus your efforts on promoting the newspapers and magazines to interview you as an expert about a subject.

Here's how to get a press release going, followed by a sample:

1. Put all your efforts into writing a good headline. Your headline and first sentence are what drives the whole process.

2. Be sure to put your contact name and phone on the upper right hand corner of the page, and for immediate release in the upper left hand corner.

3. Lead with short sentences and prepare a quotation from whomever is the expert to be interviewed, likely you. Make it newsworthy so you can help the editor do the job they get paid for. Your job is to get interviewed.

4. Don't expect consumers to read this until you get in press.

5. Email is not always the best way to submit press releases; fax still works well for most print publications.

6. Target specific publications within your industry; don't just send out your message to anyone you think might be interested. Save yourself some money and don't waste the editor's time; they will not like it if you come back after doing this.

7. Visit these sites for some more information on how to create and distribute press releases:

   Paul Hartunian is a master of press releases and has great information online at:

   http://www.netrageousresults.com/pr/

   NewsBureau is an excellent service (with an affiliate program itself) at: http://www.newsbureau.com

Let's look at a sample press release for a company; notice the formula, the way it is written, and how it drives the editor to interview the expert. This one press release resulted in over 150 visits to a Web Page, not bad for a very limited run of an extremely exclusive, niche product.

For Immediate Release

Contact: Scott Cathcart
(415) 292-5390

Date: Thursday, November 12, 1998

SAN FRANCISCO, CA.

For Immediate Release

What was once a secret tool of the elite has just been released for the first time to the public.

First Security Capital (FSC) announced today the release of a financial tool that previously has only been available to select high-net-worth individuals -- the 90% Stock LoanSM. Their Web site, http://www.firstsecuritycapital.com, allows investors to manage their portfolios like the elite. This innovative strategy empowers them to avoid taxes and protect their liquidity with little risk exposure.

"This loan product gives investors 90% of the value of their stocks in cash without taxes and allows them to remain invested -- and sleep at night -- even if the market drops 1000 points like it did earlier this year," says Dr. Charles Cathcart, President of FSC and a nationally recognized financial authority.

Dr.Cathcart was one of the early contributors to the financial tools now know as "derivatives." In 1987, he led a team at Citibanks's New York Headquarters that introduced a new form of "commodity derivatives" -- now a multi-billion dollar business in the financial world.

This new stock loan has previously received critical acclaim from Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Barron's and Investor's Business Daily. Today's open release of the 90% Stock LoanSM is an exciting development for investors, giving alternatives to high risk portfolios and capital gains taxes.

Dr. Cathcart is an excellent interview who gives a fascinating outlook on the future of investments, based on his success as senior executive and consultant to many large multi-national firms including Citibank, Chase Manhattan Bank, W.R. Grace, and Sumitomo Bank.

To schedule an interview with Dr. Cathcart, call 415-292-5390 or email info@firstsecuritycapital.com.

Internetworking: Getting Other Sites to Link With You, As Well As Targeting Sites To Generate Traffic in Your Direction

While this is the subject of our final chapter, the term "Internetworking" means running out a strategic linking strategy. You target the Web Sites that are related, as well as drawing your target customer base. Here's some criteria to use as you surf the search engines and directories for sites.

Why is a website worth looking at, what to look for when selecting a site for research and marketing possibilities:

1. Search for related topics and words that deal directly with the item or subject you want.

2. See that a site is professionally created and look for links that go to other credible sites. You are looking for the few players, the circles of influence, that have developed for a specific subject.

3. Look at the main pages by shortening the URL to the minimum, review it and add to favorites if it looks good enough to save and is related.

4. Does the site offer banners and deal with the same general subject.

5. Look to see if they have an active directory and if it is one that would be viewed by your potential customers, then see what it takes to be listed on that site e.g., free, barter, or fee/commission.

6. Review site and directory and see if noted people have been listed; this would be a good tip that the directory is worth being listed in.

7. See if discussion boards are listed on site and review them if possible.

8. Notice if there are offers to promote your business in the site.

9. See if sites ask for exchanges of information and bartering.

10. . Notice if the format is similar to the one you have, the same ideas etc.

Next Page --> How to Set Up Your Web Site

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