SEO for your Website – Part 2 and it’s all about how you can use the power of your relationships with other business owners. Yes, another reason why you need to build strong relationships with other people.

Here’s how to make this happen:

Get Affiliates to Promote YOU and Improve Your Search Visibility

Yup, this is another arrow in the quiver.  Get others to advertise for you or make more revenue advertising for businesses with similar products.

Let’s talk about becoming an affiliate partner.  There are several affiliate programs on the Internet, but all are not created equal.  Before choosing an affiliate program to enhance your marketing be sure that it is worth your while.

Some criteria to consider are payment schedule, pay rate, the credibility of the product and business philosophy.  If you can’t believe in the product, there is no reason to advertise for it.

Popular affiliate programs are the ones that offer incentives and training to their affiliate partners.  Training can come in the way of newsletters and informative articles that address aspects of Search Engine Marketing to help you increase your business.  Sharing wealth begins with sharing information.  The company gets a loyal affiliate who knows their stuff and you get help streamlining your business marketing strategy.

You may want to try a full service like clickbank.com, cj.com or do it yourself with 1shoppingcart.com or amember.com.

So, SEO for your Website – Part 2  is all about Affiliate Marketing and it has been around forever – well almost!

Some affiliates set up websites just for affiliate marketing.  The website employs unique SEO content that increases sales for both of you. Now, you might wonder what affiliate marketing is, but that’s a topic for another post.

But I’m not going to leave you hanging, so here’s the definition:  it’s a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate’s own marketing efforts. Simple right?

Search Engine Advertising:

Pay per Click (PPC)

Pay per click is an advertising formula that gives free upfront advertising (in most cases) and you only have to pay when your ads are clicked or some action is taken.  The strategy here is to have your ads placed in key areas where they will get seen by a large number of people.  Search engine advertising needs to include this little gem for an all-around approach to growing your business.

Pay per click has several different applications.  It can be used in affiliate marketing campaigns for you and your partners, paid searches and bidding on search engine advertising.  Pay per click is a broad term but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you will get paid on every click.  We’ll explain.

Pay per Click (PPC) programs based on keywords

Search engines like Google and Yahoo have pay per click programs where you can gain exposure on search engine result pages (SERPs).  With these programs, you use relevant keywords for your website products to create short concise ads that gain the attention of searchers.

Pay per click programs is a way to test out your keywords before mounting a major SEO campaign.  Different types of keywords can be used in ads and the response gauged.  Beginning with broad keywords allows you to get an idea of what types of keywords searchers are using.  You will get clicks but because it is such a broad keyword, all of the clicking visitors may not be the right kind of traffic that goes from sales lead to a buying customer.

Pay per click ads are short and there is a word or character limit depending on the program.

Check out these programs:

• • • Google AdWords
    • Yahoo Advertising
    • Bing Ads

Each ad has a line for a title, a description, and a URL link.  You don’t have much space to make a terrific first impression.  One must is to use your targeted keywords in the title and the description.  Be sure to add action verbs like “click, try, and open” to let searchers know an action on their part is required.

The URL link will direct searchers to your landing page.  We alluded to landing pages earlier but here is where you get the explanation.  As an Internet surfer, you know how frustrating it can be to go through several links just to find where you want to go.  Links in ads that lead to a homepage lose potential sales leads and customers because the process becomes laborious.

Landing Pages

A landing page is a website page where the product or service will appear and be explained to visitors.  If you are selling flower bulbs, the landing page for those bulbs will contain pictures of the bulbs you have for sale.  Your landing page can be from your virtual store providing per unit price and a “buy now” button for a hopefully easy sale.  Direct links are best to interest the searcher.

Within these programs, you will choose your keywords, complete your ads, and then bid on those keywords.  The price you quote represents the most you will pay for the ad using those keywords to be shown on the search results page.  Still, you don’t pay for your advertising until the ads are clicked on the page.

Use a mixture of popular keywords and keyword phrases to gain targeted traffic.  Longer phrases narrow the searchers to those who are definitely interested in the product or service you have to offer.  The traffic rate may not increase significantly but your sales can. And that is what having a business is all about right? Making money, having great relationships with people and providing value to the people in your world.

I hope you found this an interesting concept and an additional way to increase your SEO.

Did you remember to pick up your SEO Check List from SEO for your Website – Part 1? If not here it is again, just click on the link, it will open to a new page – SEO List

Until next time – that’s a wrap!