In my last article, “Discover The Easy Way of Building Link Directories” I told you about how search engine optimized directory pages can attract more traffic to your website, when people search for those related products or services that you have listed on those directory pages. I also told you that by maintaining well laid-out and organized directory pages, you could get reciprocal links from those websites. Or, in other words, you can get more inbound links to your website.

Link Popularity Means High Page Ranks!

Let’s face it - the greater the number of links pointing to your website, the higher is your page rank with most search engines! Google, AltaVista, HotBot - they all use the number of inbound links parameter as a very important factor in determining your page rank. As such, link popularity still plays a vital role in getting those top ranks and search engine positions for your websites.

Moreover, if those links are coming from high quality, related websites, then there’s nothing better than that! Search engines will love your site if all your links - both inbound and outbound - are completely relevant to the content of your web pages! And if your inbound links come from pages having a high ranking, then that automatically increases your page rank too! If such high-ranking pages consider your site worthwhile enough for linking to it, then your site must be offering some really good content!

The Catch

The only catch here is that acquiring a decent number of legitimate inbound links, from good-quality, related websites, requires a considerable amount of ingenuity and expertise. You don’t want to irritate the search engines by accumulating generic links, so that they throw you off their grid completely! Neither do you want to end up linking to a banned website!

As we discussed in the previous email, accomplishing this task can consume a lot of energy and leave you tired, even more so when you have to maintain more than one website! Besides, there is always the time factor that is essential for gaining the upper hand over your competition.

Use Of SEO Software For Link Maintenance

Using a reputable SEO software program, for establishing and maintaining your link partnerships, can greatly ease the burden off your shoulders! It can accomplish within days what would manually take months to achieve! A good link maintenance program -

• keeps track of the locations you’ve already submitted your site to
• prevents being linked to banned websites and thus, keeps you out of trouble
• allows you to manage information about all the sites connected from your website
• generates highly targeted directory pages automatically, based on the information specified for your outgoing links
• automatically uploads the link files to your web server
• customizes the structure of your link pages through automatic category creation and management
• has an internal link check feature, that easily and conveniently ascertains whether your link partners still have reciprocal links to your site or if they have been dropped
• effectively manages all your link email campaigns - handles all email tasks of contacting and managing prospective link partners, and also keeps them notified of any updates

Popularity: 92% [?]

In my last two articles, “Is Click Bank A Scam?” and “Do You Know The Adwords Secret?“, I covered the basics of how ClickBank works, some of the strategies affiliate marketers use to drive traffic and why some of those methods don’t always work. Today, I’m going to get right down to the nitty-gritty of bringing in that ClickBank cash - choosing the right kind of product. If you were to assess the biggest losers in the ClickBank game, you’ll find that they all have one thing in common. They are promoting the wrong kind of products.

Yes, it’s true that with some products, the market is simply too competitive to even hope to get noticed. Other products are just things that very few people even think about buying. The secret is to find that spot between these two extremes- ideally, the products you promote should fill two important criteria. There should be a demand that exceeds existing supply. Secondly, the market shouldn’t be saturated yet.

Right now, you’re probably thinking, well all I have to do is promote new products then, right? Not necessarily- the first thing to do is check out the ClickBank Marketplace. Choose a category that you like and then select New Products. Now sort these results in order of gravity or popularity- right now, this is your most important factor. But the most popular product doesn’t necessarily mean it will bring you the most money.

The Whole Equation

There are a series of figures that you need to consider when selecting a product. When you select one, you’ll notice that it comes with a list of symbols.

• $/sale is the amount you can earn per sale.
• %/sale is the percentage that the affiliate will receive.
• %/refd is the sales generated by that vendor solely from its ClickBank affiliates
• grav is the gravity or popularity of the product

A promising product should pay you more than $20 and have a minimum percentage of 50%. The ideal gravity threshold is 10- 60. Over 60 means the product is already doing well and the market might be saturated already. However, there have been instances of products ranking higher than 60 while having low market saturation. Less than 10 is a risk, because it says that the product hasn’t been able to prove itself as a seller yet.

Apart from these figures, it’s also important to take a good look at the product and the vendor’s selling page. Deciphering sales letters does take a little practice but soon you’ll be able to spot the winners and the ones you can ignore. Testimonials, benefits and time sensitive offers are all positive aspects you should look out for. Make sure the page is designed well- this doesn’t mean it has to be fancy, just clean and pleasing to the eye. A good, attractive headline is also a good sign.

Popularity: 92% [?]

Testimonials are a great strategy to pull traffic to your website and in list building. What makes them special? Testimonials come from the actual users, which gives them their authentic feel.

Buyers write testimonials when they are happy about using your product or service. They like to highly precisely what they liked about your product and how it benefited them specifically.

Testimonials from your customer help you increase sales. On the other hand, when you write a testimonial for another site and let them publish it, it becomes a good linking strategy as well. When you write a testimonial and have it published by a website that receives tremendous amounts of traffic consistently, your link is going to be exposed to all that traffic. You also gain link popularity.

Testimonials need not be confined to merchant sites. You can also write testimonials and have them published in ezines with your link.

By their sheer simplicity, testimonials make an effective marketing strategy and a list builder when used in the right manner. How do you go about it?

You can let your existing customers know you care about how they perceive your product or service by asking for feedback in the form of testimonials. Have a separate testimonial page linking to your products pages.

Every affiliate marketer can greatly benefit from unbiased testimonials. Here’s how you do it:

• The testimonials you use must produce measurable results. Its not enough to publish a testimonial that just rambles on about feelings. The testimonial must be specific about the benefits and results. This could be in the form of saving money (how much in what time); testimonials could also highlight your responsiveness to your customer, good presentation of product, promise of quality kept, etc. The exact info would be based on what your product is.
• Testimonials must be short and well worded. Long lengths of text are usually quickly browsed through without actually reading them.
• Ensure that you include information about the writer of the testimonial instead of a couple of initials. This will establish credibility. So, first and last name, city/state, website url if there is one, occupation, plus any other info that the customer feels comfortable about disclosing in public.

The thing about testimonials is that most people wont volunteer one. You’ve got to ask for them. And watch your list grow as you feature them on your website and elsewhere.

Popularity: 90% [?]

Link building takes time and effort but the long-term benefits are worth it. So how will you build link popularity for your site? That’s our focus for today.

In a previous article, “Why Should You Build Links?“, I talked about how important it is to build your site’s link value since it will increase your chances of getting linking requests and gradually get other sites to link to you, increasing your link popularity at the same time. There are certain things that you must bear in mind when you build link popularity:

• Go only for the relevant links. Quality scores over quantity any day and you need to ensure that the links pointing to your site are from web sites relevant to yours.
• List your website in all the major directories.
• Submit your website to the about.com site if it is relevant to a particular topic.
• Which sites link to your competitors? Find those and try getting them to link to yours.
• Make a list of links when you get in touch with related sites for linking.
• You can also try to get websites complementary to yours to link to you. if you sell dog food, then you might want to a website dealing in kennels to link to you.
• While visiting websites related to yours, if you comment on their guest books or participate in their forums, include your website URL in your signature.
• Write a testimonial for the website you want to link to you so that they can link to it on your website.
• Affiliate programs are a great way to build link popularity

Search engines prefer to see links that come naturally to your site and there are several ways to achieve link popularity, increase your search engine rankings and generate huge traffic to your site.

How Great Content Can Help With Link Popularity:

Just as search engines love natural inbound links, they also love quality content. This is a major factor that brings in natural back links. You can write keyword rich articles, publish them in high-ranking websites, and also submit them in article directories. By adding a resource box where there’s a link to your website, you can see a lot of traffic and inbound links.

Consider Blog Publishing

By starting a blog, you can post the kind of content you want your niche market to see. Unlike in article directories, you can also freely add links to your products or services where appropriate. Blogs can be submitted to blog and web directories enabling you build link popularity. In addition, RSS syndication will also make you more visible.

Posting In Forums:

These are search engine friendly places where you can sign up for free and provide useful content. Apart from the advantages of establishing yourself as an expert, you can also generate a lot of natural inbound links to your site through your signature file on the forum.

Obviously, there are plenty of other ways to build links to your site. High page ranking by the search engines equals traffic equals better conversion rates and profits.

Popularity: 33% [?]

A well designed link building campaign can rank your site high with the search engines, and also increase traffic to your website. When you link to quality sites, you will build your brand and receive a lot of exposure, with webmasters wanting to link to your site.

Back links or incoming links are links at other sites that lead to your site. They are one of the most vital components in the search engine optimization process. This is because search engines assess the importance of your website based on the quality of back links coming into your site. Link popularity tells you how many websites are linking to yours and you can check this with a free tool.

If there are a large number of links from related or complementary sites that already have a high search engine ranking, coming in to your website, then your website will also automatically rank high with the search engines.

To develop an effective linking strategy, the following will play an important role:

• The quality of your links
• The anchor text in these links
• The total number of links
• The quality of content on the page that has these links
• The number of outbound links on the page
• The page rank of the page your link is on

Search engines smile upon natural incoming links to your website. But how do you build incoming links naturally? How to make webmasters want to link to your site? There are sites that will offer to link to yours if you link to theirs, but this does not always work. Instead you need to focus on getting productive one-way links, since the idea here is to make the search engines happy. Here’s how you can add ‘link value’ to your site:

• Get related sites to link to you because your site offers value to their traffic. This is hard work but when you accomplish it, you can enjoy unprecedented traffic, better conversion rates and therefore, profits.
• Offer value to the website that can link to you by offering complementary products or services or useful information that the site can link to.
• Add special reports or guides to your website so that you can address a specific need.
• Publish articles, hints and tips based on what customers want. This material must be link worthy to your target market so that they want to link to you.

Popularity: 23% [?]

One of the most effective ways to generate online traffic is through FORUMS or online communities. Every online business identifies a niche to plan its marketing strategies and chances are that it has signed up with a forum or two. Let’s see how you can maximize your benefits from a forum!

Forums are not just a place to share your knowledge and views. Forums are goldmines, literally. You can effectively use these forums to generate focused traffic and establish your web presence. And you know the best thing about this? It is free!

People love to express their views on various subjects and head over to the relevant forums and sign up there to do so. This is why online communities exist - so that like-minded people can communicate freely. These forums or communities experience massive traffic and you too can tap into this traffic to grow your business.

The critical thing to remember here is - you just don’t go and advertise in a forum! You become a part of the community. Advertising on a forum is a total no-no because you’ll not only be banned, but also labeled a spammer. Nobody needs a bad reputation, now, do they?

Instead, you sign up with these forums and become a relevant contributor. This is what will bring you traffic. Forums are basically like message boards where members help each other with information. They are highly interactive places. As a feasible list-building strategy, forums are up there with the best. They are great places to build credibility and trust through good content.

Okay, so here’s how you can use forums to get that focused traffic rushing to your site:

• The first thing to do is identify a forum (or two), which gets massive traffic that is relevant to your site. A Google search can help you do this. See the number of members and posts to get an idea of its popularity.
• Become a member of the forum(s) you shortlist. Make a profile. Introduce yourself briefly, but NO hardsell promotional messages. It is quite likely that you will receive several welcome messages from existing members - so don’t forget to thank each one of them.
• Read previously posted messages to post useful content. This could be in the way of answering questions, asking relevant questions, and so on. Never advertise your website. However, you can include your website in your signature, but make sure this is allowed when you join.
• Spend at least a few minutes each day on the forum to be active. Forum members like someone who posts regularly and the best part is - they will recommend you to others who will not hesitate to click your link!

These steps can be followed with more than one forum. You will benefit by building your list, getting affiliates for your affiliate programs, subscribers to your newsletters, and a lot of new customers. Just make sure you diligently follow the forum rules.

Why not go out, find a couple of forums right now, and try what I’ve described above?

Popularity: 15% [?]