Affiliate Marketing Website - How to Direct Target Traffic.

by David Cooper


The World Wide Web is an incredibly large market place, and a very tough one for any business to survive in unless you find ways to direct target traffic to your affiliate marketing website. We're going to show how to target your main audience and bring them into your affiliate marketing website with a few cyber techniques that should translate into increased sales for your business.

First, let's define the term 'target traffic'. Much like shooting an arrow into the center of a target, your target traffic is the core of your customer base, the people who are truly looking to purchase your product if only they can find your website. While many visitors may stumble upon your affiliate marketing website and pass through it, not all of them are interested in purchasing your product. Weed them out, and what you are left with is your target audience, otherwise known as your target traffic. These are your true sales prospects, so you've got to find a way to let them know you're here.

Now let's talk about search engines. Search engines such as Google and Yahoo afford internet users a way to find what they are looking for. All a potential customer has to do is type in a few key words about the topic or item they are looking for and a search engine will provide them with pages of websites that contain at least some of that search content. Once they open up a particular site, they become part of that site's target traffic.

Upon these search pages, websites will be listed from top to bottom according to how closely they match the key words typed in, and how much related content is found at their site. Since online users typically only check out the first five websites listed, you want your website up in that top five. That's basically search engine 101. Now let's examine the two main types of search engines and how they operate in order to put your company in the top five listings and increase target traffic flow into your website.

Organic Search Engines

Organic search engines operate mainly on the keyword system. The key words a potential customer types into the search bar determines what sites will be brought up for their perusal. Simple right? This type of promotion for your website is basically free, so how can you use it to your advantage and direct more target traffic to your affiliate marketing website? Enter keyword articles.

Keyword articles are written about various subjects that pertain to a common topic, with a selected target keyword or keyword phrase strategically repeated throughout a certain percentage of the article. For example, if your affiliate marketing business sells ATV's, then articles about ATV's, ATV clubs, ATV trails, and ATV accessories would provide relevant information while at the same time using the keyword 'ATV' repeatedly. Post these articles on your ATV website, and search engines will automatically bring more ATV target traffic to your door.

You can further expand your target traffic by posting your keyword articles to E-zines that focus on your field of interest, in this example the ATV sport. Readers of these online magazines are already interested in ATV's, so getting them to your website should be a breeze once they know it's there.

Further keyword article exposure can be gained by linking agreements with other websites in your field of interest. For example, you might want to agree to a little sponsorship of an ATV club's website in order to have a direct link to your own articles and sales pages. This is just one more way to reach potential customers and drive target traffic back to your website.

It really doesn't matter what you're selling, just design your articles around your product, post them on your website, and submit them to E-zines that share your target traffic in order to increase your sales.

Pay Per Click (PPC) Search Engines

Think of this type of search engine as paid advertising. You and other online companies in the same line of business will bid against each other for temporary ownership of the best keywords and keyword phrases. The highest bidder will then have target traffic sent directly to their website when the keywords are used in that search engine, but you will pay your bid price to the search engine company each time the keyword is used. This will certainly increase your target traffic, and hopefully boost your sales as well, but it also eats into your profit margin.

Which type of search engine participation is best for bringing target traffic to your website? The quick answer is either one, but it really depends on how large your operation is, how much work you really want to put into increasing your target traffic, and how much you feel you can afford to pay for it. For large online businesses, PPC search engines are quite convenient, and a large budget may more easily absorb pay per click fees.

However, organic search engines are basically free. All you need do is come up with your keyword articles and you're sure to increase your target traffic. And if you aren't sure you can write your own keyword articles, there are companies with the expertise to provide well written, inexpensive keyword articles in the proper percentages to get you ranked high in the listings without getting you thrown out for keyword over-saturation.

Either way, knowing how to use and manipulate both types of search engines is a sure way to bring target traffic to your affiliate marketing website. The rest is up to you.


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David Cooper is the editor of the Affiliate Marketing Articles Newsletter. David specializes in helping people achieve affiliate marketing website success by offering real world tips and strategies. Subscribe to his FREE newsletter at: http://www.affiliatemarketingarticles.com

5 Powerful Preselling Tips for Affiliate Marketers

by Tim Bossie


Affiliate marketing is the undeniable first step to launching an incredibly successful online business. It's versatile and allows great creativity on the part of the affiliate.

But, one of the "laws" of affiliate marketing that can't be broken is PREselling. Basically, PREselling is "warming up" your website visitor to be more apt to click to the merchant site and buy their product, thus earning you the commission. When taken into context with other affiliate marketing "laws", this one is the most important.

Here's why. When a person lands at your site and all you have is a "hard sell" approach (banners, sales pitch, a bunch of links to click on), the visitor is immediately thrown into defensive mode. They are looking for information but are in turn pressured to buy something.

But, when you PREsell your visitor you are cultivating a relationship with words, in the form of web content, that will disarm the visitor, make them feel all warm and fuzzy, and increase the likelihood of them clicking your link to make a purchase at the merchant's site. (Of course this process also works with your own product also).

So, the question that begs to be asked is how do you PREsell? It's not as hard as you think, and anyone can do it.

Ken Evoy explains in "Make Your Content Pre-sell" that it doesn't take a PhD. or rocket scientist to create high quality PREsell web content. Anybody can do it.

In my experience, there are five very powerful PREselling techniques that will multiply your current affiliate earnings exponentially.

Write your web content like you're talking to someone

If there was one "BIG DOG" of PREselling it's to be real. Don't try to use super big words to show how smart you are. You're just making someone else feel dumb. Talk like you would with your friends. After all, that's the goal. Be the readers friend.

Share the problems you've had, how you got over it, what process you took, what product helped you... etc.

This is what people want. Real, relevant and relational information.

One of the reasons that anybody can PREsell is that everyone talks to their friends. Since PREselling is "talking", in essence, reflect your uniqueness and personality in your web content.

Don't Start Out With Unbelievable Statements or Promises

Over the top promises and statements are what the merchant's sales page is for. Not a relationship building, PREselling type web page.

For instance, if you are writing web content for baseball bats, you wouldn't start out with "Amazing New Technology Creates SUPER BATS that hit HomeRuns Everytime!"

But, you might write up a little report on how, when you used a new bat, you were able to connect with the ball much harder, resulting in more base hits. Something like..."New baseball bat helped me raise by batting average by increasing the number of strong base hits."

See the difference. One is FLASH, the other is personal. One that people can relate to that want to raise their batting average.

Stick with one main topic, or keyword

People are trying so hard to optimize their sites for keyword after keyword in order to ensure the highest rankings possible. Thus, they create web content that sound mechanical and unpersonable. Stick with one keyword, and write about it.

Again, using the baseball bat example, I would design my content around increasing batting average. Because while I'm concentrating on that keyword, other are naturally written into the content. I just sound like a regular guy talking about hitting and not a machine.

Sprinkle affiliate recommendations over your content

But don't go overboard. Three, four, five links max on your website will keep the reader much more focused on what you want them to do. Being relationship minded doesn't mean you're a pacifist.

You still want a response from the person visiting your site. But, if you have too many options for a response, the chances are you won't get any. I struggled with this one early in my affiliate marketing career. "The more the better!" was my motto. But, it just didn't work.

When I did a little test on an affiliate site of mine, removing all but four links... three for the merchant and one for a comparable one... the results (conversion rates of visitors to sales) shot through the roof.

A very light sprinkling of affiliate links in your content will help you PREsell your visitor much more effectively than loading it down.

Write your content like you are the person reading it

One of the major downfalls to writing web content is that the people writing it only see it through their eyes. Effective PREselling is looking at your content through the eyes of the person reading it.

Did you answer a question people are asking?

Are you writing on their level? Did you go over their head?

Is it relevant to people's needs and situations?

Do you sound unapproachable and mechanical?

Is the content applicable?

Look at the situation from other people's perspective before being satisfied with the final results.

PREselling is the affiliate marketing Super Tool

In our day and age of people scrambling for the ONE Big Secret, PREselling, while not a secret, is the most important part of your affiliate business. And anybody can do it.



About the Author


Tim Bossie is the owner of Guaranteed-Ads.com and uses PREselling techniques to provide his clients with top quality web content, higher search engine rankings, niche marketing success, and much higher profits. Tim highly recommends "Make Your Content PREsell" for more in-depth information on how to effectively PREsell.