Martin Lee Affiliate Marketing

I just arrived at Singapore Expo for the second day of the Asia Internet Congress. The first speaker of the day is Simon Leung, who used to work for Google but has since become a full-time internet marketer. I was late for about an hour from the start of the event, but luckily I didn’t miss much.

Simon was still giving an introduction about his background when I settled down into the room. Then, he spoke about the various steps for making money on the internet:

Internet Marketing Money Making Steps

• Create a product
• Build a list
• Drive traffic to website
  • Blogs, articles, videos - Problem: Takes too long
  • Search engine optimization - Problem: expensive and long
  • Forums, communities - Problem: Little traffic and can take a while
  • Safe lists, traffic exchanges, banner ads - Problem: Not targeted
  • JV partners - Problem: Not reliable, stable or feasible to most

The method that Simon uses and recommends for driving traffic is Google Adwords.

Here are some of the benefits of Google Adwords:

• Send traffic to your website for pennies on the dollar.
• Minimum cost-per-click can be as low as $0.01.
• Get charged only when a user clicks on your ad.
• Normally billed in 30 day intervals
• Lowest cost per lead compared to other direct marketing methods

Next, he talked about the Google Slap, which I have previously wrote on.

As Simon was previously on Google’s team, he is very familiar with the process of setting up a landing page that has a high quality score.

1. Creating Google friendly landing pages
2. Building quality keywords lists
3. Writing highly converting ad text
4. Setting up effective account structures
5. Understanding your budget and ad ranking
6. Testing and tweaking for maximum conversions

MYTH: Google is anti-squeeze page and lead capture pages and all such pages will get slapped by Google.

Landing Page Optimization

• High Quality Content
  • Information needs to be relevant to the product, service and ad (include keywords in your copy)
  • Substantial amount of useful and valuable information
  • Content must be unique (no more than 30% of the same content can be duplicated)
  • Clearly distinguish any sponsored links from your main content
• Start the Relationship Building Process
  • Make your advertised offer easy to find on your website (ideally right on your landing page)
  • Honor any special deals promoted on your ad or website
  • Deliver your product/service as promised after purchase
  • Set appropriate user expectations (pre-qualify your visitors)
  • Share information about your business to increase your credibility (About Me/Us page)
  • Be accessible to visitors (Contact Me/Us, Helpdesk, etc)
• Lead Capture and List Building
  • Reasons for collecting personal information (security on fulfillment, newsletter, freebies, etc)
  • How information will be used (privacy, content delivery, follow-ups, updates, etc)
  • Allow users to limit the use of their information
  • Preview of membership benefits (bullet points, contributes to content)
  • Treat information responsibly and respect privacy
• Legal Disclaimers
  • Include standard legal disclaimers and disclosures to protect yourself and your business
  • Have specific privacy policies so Google and users know that you will respect their privacy (especially a live link right by your opt-in box)

Truth: The overall website should have a corporate look and feel rather than a salesletter format.

Landing Page Optimization

• Website Layout
  • Include navigation links or buttons (make website easy to navigate around)
  • Have natural, relevant outgoing links throughout website
  • Make it easy to identify and locate product
  • Make it easy to complete conversions ( “Click here to buy” button)
• Website Graphics
  • Design should look corporate and unique
  • Graphics should be high quality
  • Professional photograph of yourself will instantly boost your website’s quality!
• Website Browser Behaviors
  • Avoid excessive pop-up windows (NOT on landing page)
  • Back and forward buttons on browser should work
  • Ability to exit website by closing window or browser

MYTH: The best way to get traffic is by adding as many keywords into your adwords account as possible.

Keyword Optimization

• Keyword relevancy
• Build out variations
  • Synonyms
  • Singular and plurals
  • Misspellings
• Multiply your keywords
  • Brainstorm similar terms
  • Action oriented terms (buy, order, subscribe, register)
  • Geographical terms

MYTH: Maximize the effectiveness of your ads by mentioning all your products/services in the text space.

Writing Highly Converting Ad Text

• Ad Text Relevancy
• Identify the product/service
  • Describe the product/service
  • Use information from website
• Clean Ad Text
  • More attractive to users
  • Grammatically correct
  • Contains clear statement
  • No excessive punctuation

MYTH: The primary goal of your ad text is to sell prospects on your product before they visit your website.

• Attention grabbing ad title
• Distinguish your product/service
  • Special offers
  • Unique qualities
• Set user expectations
  • State your price
  • What is required from users
  • Pre-qualify them
• Product location
• Call to action phrases
  • Reflect on your goals
  • Spells out required user actions (Sign up, try free trial, download free trial, buy product online)

Due to time contraint, Simon Leung did not elaborate on the other three elements of setting up a landing page with a high quality score in his presentation.

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