Link Glossary: Off Page Criteria
Off Page Criteria:
- When a search engine ranks pages by using data that is not present on the web page itself. This could be the presences of a directory listing, or the number and quality of inbound links to a page.
This just goes to show that you need to build your link profile with more than just the links on your page. A great way to do this is to get out there and respond to blog comments. But don’t just spam them with your link – join the conversation and really participate. It won’t take that long out of your day and will be worth it in the long run.
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Glossary Definition From The Definitive Guide to Link Buying by Patrick Gavin
Where Online Meets Offline
I should talk about this topic more, but online is just SO fascinating and I’ve been immersed in off line for the last 4 years so it’s routine to me. Since we discontinued our old poorly performing affiliate program at the beginning of February, I’ve been focused on growing our new Reseller Program and much more improved Affiliate Program. We decided, as I’m sure we’re legally bound, to pay out all pending commissions, regardless of whether or not they met our minimum threshold. This meant 400+ checks being processed by accounting, then printed, then signed, then put into envelopes, then posted, then actually put into the mail. This took about a month to get through the internal systems and the checks were sent out a couple weeks ago.
Since many of our affiliates in the old program had long abandoned the program, a lot of checks are coming back unable to be delivered. I’ve been contacting people and resending the checks as I get new addresses, and with every check I’m re-sending I’ve been throwing in one of my business cards. I realize today that this is the epitome of online marketing (affiliate payments) meets off line marketing (business cards).
It just goes to show that you can’t keep exclusively to one medium or another. There’s such a vast audience out there for your product or service – and they’re not all going to be able to be found in one place. It’s important – maybe now more than ever – to integrate your direct mail marketing with landing page testing. Put your produced commercials for television onto the web and get a piece of the viral marketing cookie. Remember the old adage “don’t put all your eggs in once basket” and don’t put all your money into PPC or direct mailing.
Diversify your marketing efforts and remember that just because you’re an internet geek, not all your customers are.
Read MoreLink Glossary: FFA Link Farm
FFA Link Farm:
- A link farm ffa or (Free For All) are farms where anyone can add a link. Many of these ffa/link farms have been banned.
From what I’ve been noticing they seem to have been replaced by directory listings. These are nearly free for all’s, but they do involve some moderation from the webmasters to filter out blatant spam or inappropriate content.
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Glossary Definition From The Definitive Guide to Link Buying by Patrick Gavin
March BAAMC Meeting
Last week I was happy to attend the March lunch meeting of the Bay Area Affiliate Manager Coalition. It was a great meeting and I was super jazzed afterwards. I found, when trying to sit down and write this blog post, that I was way too excited about it. I’ve been looking for a subject to test out a video with, so I decided to bust out my trusted Aiptek HD Camera and throw a little HD action at you.
Please feel free to give me any feedback. And leave comments! Thanks!
Read MoreAlternate Language Creative
I was presented with an interesting dilemma last week. An affiliate contacted me and pointed out that their visitor base consists mostly of non-English speaking users.
Of course we’re willing to accommodate this publisher. He’s excited about the program enough to ask for the creative that his visitors will understand and connect with. Now in this case the language in question was Spanish, which I don’t personally speak. So I gave the publisher the opportunity to give me the copy and we can work from there.
This makes me wonder how other affiliate managers deal with creating custom ads appealing to different demographics, languages, cultures, etc. Do they always create a few different versions of an ad for other demographics or take the requests in as they come? I guess it depends on their program and the types of publishers they have.
For the time being, I’m sticking with a case-by-case basis, although I know eventually it’ll need to be automated lest I go insane trying to appease these requests. I’ve said it many times before that everyone needs printing, in all languages, so eventually I can see the reach of our program extending across demographics. Eventually it would definitely be nice to come out of the gate with multiple versions of same ads. Networks, if you’re reading, you should work in a way to add different versions and not count against our total link count.
Alas, I’m betting that no one from any affiliate networks reads this so my plea will go unseen.
Read MoreLet Sleeping Husbands & Cats Lie
So what does this have to do with marketing or affiliate managing? Other than I am in these fields and wanted to share a cute picture of the cat sleeping on the husband, it’s a good metaphor for inactive affiliates.
Now, the only reason our cat is sleeping on him is because he’s asleep and doesn’t know it. If he were awake, the cat would be hitting the floor in less than a minute. At any moment he can wake up and kick Lunchbox to the curb (yes, my cat is named Lunchbox). So since he’s asleep, the status quo of the cat sleeping with him is maintained.
He could wake up at any time and the cat will be gone. An inactive affiliate could wake up to your program at any time and decide to clean house, drop your program, heavily promote your program, or just leave the cat on their lap – you never know. This is a good argument for why affiliate managers should leave inactive affiliates alone and not deactivate them. Use the “wait and see” tactics as a manager. It’s actually less work for you to leave inactive affiliates in the program (but still keep track of how MANY are inactive and reach out periodically) than to continually try to weed them out. And they could end up being great affiliates in the long run.
Now, this is what I’ve heard EVERYWHERE, but I have to tell you – honestly, inactive affiliates annoy me. I understand their reasons for signing up then not doing anything, I really do. I’ve done it myself. But in my professional life, I’m a neat freak. I like to keep the program tidy and make sure that the performers are being represented and those that are asleep at the wheel are not. Additionally, the more inactive affiliates are in our program the more dragged down our EPC gets.
We’re not the first company of our kind with a strong affiliate program, so trimming the fat is necessary to keep our EPC up and really stand out amongst the competition. Right now I see this as a necessary evil of the rat race. Eventually I hope that our EPCs will be good enough even with the less active affiliates to be a more wide open program.
In the meantime, just answer my email and let me help you :p
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