5 Steps to Better ROI

Written by The Artful Affiliate


“Todd” was keen to compete in one ofrepparttar most notoriously difficult categories – work-at-home. He was smart, earnest, hard-working and keen to make affiliate marketing more than just a part-time endeavor. He had dreams of living onrepparttar 146107 beach in Mexico and surfing between sessions atrepparttar 146108 computer.

He had put together a sweet little landing site. He had 20 keyword groups running about 10,000 unique visitors a month. He was spending $5,000 per month on pay per click on sales of $6,000. He was collecting email addresses at a rate of 100/day through an opt-in form. He had placed his Google tracking data onrepparttar 146109 confirmation page of his subscription form. He had great data he collected daily overrepparttar 146110 past 4 months. He had calculated his visitor value based on commissions divided by clicks and was bidding accordingly. He was a dream client.

Could I help him?

I was drooling over this one. In this case I was 100% sure I could at least double his profits, and likely triple or quadruple. Why was I so sure?

1) He was tracking sign-ups, not conversions 2) He was selling 22 different items off of one landing page 3) He was calculating his visitor value incorrectly

The first thing I did was turn off his keyword groups one at a time. When I got to his top keyword group,repparttar 146111 one withrepparttar 146112 highest conversion rate, we prepared for a massive drop in commissions. There was only a slight dip.

He was stunned. He had made a simple assumption – that there would be a correlation between signups and sales. That is, a keyword that produces twice as many signups would likewise produce twice as many sales. But that wasn’t true. We had seen vividly that there were keywords that produced lots of signups but few sales, and visa versa. He was bidding based on wrong data. His finely-tuned Ferrari of a website was, in fact, a peddler’s cart of clanking pots and pans strapped on with little thought to efficiency.

I had him write letters to each of his advertisers, requesting they place his Google tracking code on their Thank You page. That way he could track sales directly. (Important: Placerepparttar 146113 code in an attachment; email programs can scramblerepparttar 146114 code.) For a sample letter, click here.

Most didn’t answer. Normal. After three failed attempts, I advised him to drop that particular advertiser. Others refused, to which I reply, “Are you nuts?” No one stands to profit more from an efficient affiliate thanrepparttar 146115 advertiser. I recommended that he drop them, too. He did, all but one, which was a big money-maker.

Webmaster Interview : Article site owner

Written by Lee Munson


yfs1 is an experienced webmaster and prolific forum poster who has recently started a new article submission site, http://www.ArticleDepot. Within just a few weeks he is receiving hundreds of new articles and also many hundreds of visitors each day.

Below are his answers to questions we put to him on June 3rd, 2005.

What isrepparttar philosophy of your organisation?

The main goal for Article Depot is to provide a two-pronged resource for webmasters. The first is a place where they can distribute their articles and gainrepparttar 145641 SEO benefit ofrepparttar 145642 links contained within. The second is to provide them with related and useful content to supplement their site and gain greater exposure. We combine these two things with a "Keep It Simple" philosophy. There are no confusing signups or new code to learn. Most article submissions take less than 20 seconds from start to finish.

What arerepparttar 145643 organisation's plans and goals?

Our goal is to become a leading article distribution site by constantly adding new features that benefitrepparttar 145644 people that make Article Depot what it is,repparttar 145645 webmasters.

What do you consider to your site's strengths and weaknesses?

Our strength is our ability to adapt. We always have features in development. Our biggest one right now is to have an RSS feed which webmasters can put on their site and display articles in their chosen category as they are submitted. This would mean they could have fresh content and wouldn't even have to come torepparttar 145646 site. Our weakness may be our passion for this type of site. We are always trying to see things through webmasters eyes which can be difficult when you haverepparttar 145647 level of involvement with a site that we do.

What made you decide to run an article site?

I am a webmaster myself and I saw a need for a certain kind of article site. I struggled to find it so at first decided to build one to meet my own needs. It has now taken off with over 2,000 submissions every two weeks and unique visitors increasing 10% a day. I believe in it and feel it'srepparttar 145648 future of SEO. Content will always be important and can often help protect you from Algo shifts.

Asrepparttar 145649 owner of ArticleDepot, what do you find to be some of your biggest challenges?

By farrepparttar 145650 biggest challenge we face is SPAM. With any distribution site, most times you are judged onrepparttar 145651 value of your site byrepparttar 145652 quality ofrepparttar 145653 articles. This is why each article is viewed by a human reviewer before being added. This ensuresrepparttar 145654 quality of our database and ensures you are gettingrepparttar 145655 quality you expect when you come to Article Depot.

Do you think that content is still king?

I still believe in Content as King in an overall sense. Most SEO's these days have taken torepparttar 145656 phrase “Links are King, Content Is Queen” but I would disagree. I don't disagree for a moment that links are essential and important, especially with Google. What I would argue is that if content is used correctly it can excel in places links can't. The sandbox is a prime example. No matter how many links you manage to get, it is unlikely you will be able to escaperepparttar 145657 sandbox. However, by using content during this time, you can actually rank for 1000's of less competitive keywords that aren't held byrepparttar 145658 sandbox. Many times those 1000's together bring in significantly more traffic thanrepparttar 145659 one competitive keyword.

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