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-- Do you have a list of products with small pictures on one page and then have each small picture link to a page where the product is listed by itself with a larger picture? Or do you just have the link go to the merchandiser's page? (The former seems like it would increase the SE presence for my site, but the latter seems like it would be easier for the buyer, instead of their having to click an extra time before their point of purchase.)
-- A few of you had referred to "two years" as about the amount of time it takes to get a decent revenue stream coming in from affiliate sites. Are there any trends within that two year period that might give those of us who are new to this a "heads up" that we're on the right track (or not on the right track)? On the first site that I started to transition to content/product sales, for the first 4 months, there was hardly any consistency in purchases. In the past couple of months, I've begun to see some predictability in purchase frequency. Is that typical or does it totally vary from site to site? Are there other patterns?
It is better to keep your visitor on your site as long as possible. So I would go for the former. But you need to make sure of two things here -
1) After the visitor reads the sales page and clicks on BUY NOW, it should take them directly to the credit card sign up page. If your affiliate merchant does not offer this feature, it is better to take the visitor directly to the merchant's page.
What exactly are you selling? Digital products like software/ebooks? If yes, your sales page can include a quarter/half page description of the product and a link to the merchant's page. You can use this trick if the merchant does not offer direct link to the credit card page.
2) You need to make sure that the conversion rate of your sales page is equal to or better than the conversion rate of the default (merchant's) sales page.
Ashwin
My first advice is to listen to your intuition. No matter how attractive the merchant's plan might be, and no matter how well other affiliates say it is paying them, if it doesn't fit into your site it isn't likely to perform well. Save yourself some trouble, particularly if you "have a hard time getting into the marketing frame of mind." Burnout is the #1 killer of affiliates, IMO.
>predictability in purchase frequency. Is that typical
Yes, for a lot of us. A couple of us were commenting on this at the last meeting in Irvine ...we can look at our sales reports and estimate our site stats fairly accurately or vice versa.
Welcome to webmasterworld, as mentioned it really depends on the type of products or services your trying to "sell" and the theme of your site. When I started with my "main" content site I soon started to try to tie in certain products that:
1) I like and use, this makes it easy for me to recommend.
2). "fit" into the theme of the page I am writing... not just the site theme but down to the page level. When I am writing recipes I often will let people know to "cook the salmon for about 8 minutes" or better yet cook it until it reaches an internal tempature of 145 degrees. Then I will let them know they can purchase an inexpensive thermometer from amazon for under $10 bucks. Make sure that the "sales copy" does not really read like sales copy but more as a recommendation. This works well for me with products that fit into my theme.
Another way make a few bucks is to simply create a "store" within your site. Then simply link to the "mini store" from the main site in several key places. This will result in the mini store getting spidered by the larger search engines like google and ink and start pulling in free visitors that are looking for what your mini store has to offer. This method works very well for my site and will work for any site that has a pagerank or 5 or above. The key of course is good seo and proper selection of key words. You can take this a step further and create entire websites that stand on there own and then link to them from the main site (careful with cross-linking).
Chef Brian
>we can look at our sales reports and estimate our site stats fairly accurately or vice versa.
Are there general trends, meaning could you look at someone else's site stats and fairly accurately estimate sales? Or is it a matter of your knowing your site's numbers and knowing how sales correlate to site stats?
One of the most helpful types of posts here have been the ones that laid something out clearly point by point. Taking some of your thoughts, here's a start of a list of "things to do when transitioning from content site to affiliate site":
1.) put products in margins of page, within body of content, and/or add a section that contains pages of products
2.) add privacy statement and/or terms of service?
3.) add "click to buy" under product images (took me a month to realize I needed to do that -- duh)
4.) add text and metatag keywords like: buy, purchase, shop, price comparison (which ones am I missing?)
5.) reduce the "white space," use smaller images and smaller fonts (seems to me that people are used to online stores that they trust having a cluttered look, that sites with a lot of white space look more "non profit" and don't put you in a buying mood)
What else?
I've also reached the point where I need to start making a few bucks on some of my sites. Affiliate sales may not work, but sponsored advertsing should.
I've hired a writer to write proposals to some major companies. She used to be a grant writer. I will report back to this thread as I get feedback.
2.) add privacy statement and/or terms of service?
Yup. That's important - and have your privacy statement include all of the programs you belong to in it so people can refer to those statements.
As far as laying out the content vs. products, a lot of the suggestions are really good. Brian's "Cook to 145, but a thermometer" example is a good one, one that I like to use, but rarely take the time to do enough of.
One thing I've had good luck with that I'm not really seeing mentioned here is to keep "INFO" and "PRODUCT/SALES" somewhat separated. This makes optimizing for spiders a lot easier. Certain people want to learn about something and then maybe buy it, while others want to buy it and don't give two monkey paws whether or not you're an authority on it.
For example, my movie site has a general Movie information page layed out like this...
Movie
Plot, Notes, etc.
Ratings (Number from 1 to 10 of what people think about it)
Cast
Other Credits (If I bothered to put them into the database)
Products (link to specific edition/format details)
These pages are optimized for people looking for "information" about it.
Then, you've got your product detail pages. They are like this.
Item (Edition Details)
Format (DVD/VHS, whatever)
Features
Price
Compare at Price (if it's worth noting)
Link to the movie information.
Related Movies (If you buy enough, you'll save even more!)
Customer Reviews of the specific product.
These pages are optimized with the "buy" buzzwords (more or less, I'm still working on this part of the site, but even at the crude level I'm at now, it is working rather well).
Now, I've got better entry pages for my two types of traffic. The "Buy Movie Name on DVD" searchers are going to come right into the page with the BUY ME button right up at the top. The "Info About Movie Name" people are going to come into the info page and when they scroll down far enough, they'll see they can buy it. On this page, you're working on selling the product and with each scroll they make, you've got to have them one step closer to making the decision. (If they leave without getting that far, they wouldn't have bought it if the product was at the top of the page, anyway).
As far as "sidebars" go, they're starting to become like banners at the top of the page - surfers are training themselves to ignore them. Their eyes hit the page where what they are looking for is sitting, so unless you place your products right there in front of them where their eyes alrady are, they aren't going to see it. And if they do see it, they say, "Ew, Banners," while if it's inline they say, "Oh yeah, that's what I was looking for and there it is..."
Never be afraid to show people that you're trying to sell them something. When you walk into a bar, you don't have a giant dance floor and a bunch of pool tables with a little tiny bar in the corner and a little man there hoping you might come over and buy a drink from him, you've got a big ole bar with stools so you'll sit there for a while and maybe they put in a dance floor and some pool tables just to make it sticky. ;)
G.
