Friday, 9 May 2008

Look To The Long Tail For Affiliate Gold

As promised, and I've been meaning to do this for ages. But here's a look at how creating decent, unique posts on an affiliate blog can bring you not only traffic but the wonga that goes with it.

On my Easter Eggs blog I basically started it on 2nd January this year (I think) and was posting away, reviewing Easter eggs, detailing discount codes and profiling the merchants. I didn't pay too much attention to any Keyword Suggestion Tools or keyword lists or anything of the kind. I just wanted to keep it as natural as possible.

When I went back and looked at the data I was shocked at the amount of keyword variation. I know the site went up to 4,000 visits a day. But here's a look at the keyword distribution for the first 3 months of the year:



and that's just the first 5,000 records! Look at the long tail. Now look at it again knowing that the length of the long tail is actually almost 3 times longer!!!

Volume Occurrences

2,000 - 10,000 1
1,000 - 1,999 2
500 - 999 2
250 - 499 5
200 - 249 6
150 - 199 3
100 - 149 24
50 - 99 51
25 - 49 89
20 - 24 60
15 - 19 96
10 - 14 160
5 - 9 557
4 324
3 531
2 1605
1 14,742

(I'll tidy this chart up later)

yes that's right. There were 14,742 key phrases that delivered only one visitor! These search phrases delivered 76.15% of all traffic!

So what can you learn from this?

Well I may not have taken too much time thinking the about the posts but I have got to the situation now from doing SEO for many years that adding what I call "active keywords" into my posts and templates as second nature now.

I call "active keywords" those keywords that people add in with product or brand search terms that indicate an action or that they are actively looking to conduct an action. These keywords often include "buy", "cheap", "cheapest", "purchase", "best", "recommended" etc.

So when you look at developing a site and adding content, view it as a matrix. Your blog posts should form one side of the matrix - i.e. content keywords, whilst your template should look to form the other side of the matrix i.e include the "active keywords".

But don't look at that as a hard-and-fast rule, just a guide. As you'll interchange some of the keyword use to make your content more useful for your visitors. But try and do the matrix approach if you can.

If you do this then the keywords in each area of your page will help each other, they'll compliment each other and allow you to extend your reach way into the long tail.

I hate, however, how some people try and take the easy route and simply paste a range of keywords into their boiler plate in the expectation they'll manage to get the variation. This is just lazy! Add these keywords into your navigation by taking the time to write content about them. The keywords within the links will not only aid the page its on, but contribute to the pages they're refrencing! Stop being lazy and write content!

But also helping you achieve this is the length of your posts, make them 400 words plus at the very least. The more words you have the more opportunity of picking up long tail search phrases. It also helps you break out of any templated / boilerplate duplication issues.

In summary:
  • Think of keyword matrices;
  • Think of blending them into useful content;
  • Try and write with length and uniqueness
I'm going to post about how to choose merchants and pre-qualify them before your site starts to attract visitors. Then I'll be looking at chocolate merchants themselves as to how they performed financially and operationally. I'll also be showing everyone how I'm using these learnings and expanding them to tackle this years Christmas shopping period with my Christmas blog. I started the site in March but next March I'll hopefully be showing if and how it worked.

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Bit Of A Shock - But Thanks

Whilst I was away in Madrid I got an email from Claire at Existem that I'd been shortlisted for the "Marketing Blog of 2008" award which was a complete shock as I hadn't used the blog to request people vote for me - it's a bit crap to do that I think.

But to be honest I don't think anyone should vote for me in the final round. Here's the reasons why:

1) The last month I haven't posted enough. I've been too busy with client work. I've got some great ones and I've also been working my backside off on my Christmas blog and having a quick trip to watch Real Madrid V Barcelona with the lads.

I feel I've got some cracking posts to do this weekend / next week about how writing good quality content, using the Google suggestion tool and thinking "outside the box" can lead you to having 19,000 different keyphrase variations in a four week period. It's a great story of how to monetise the long tail - I'll try and finish it off today. But overall, many of the other nominees blog far more often (and some of them write some good stuff too ;-) )

2) I give my secrets away - I shouldn't be rewarded for letting other's know my secrets! I should be slapped for it! Jimbo - I should have listened!

3) I don't have as many readers as the other blogs in contention. People are voting with their feet!

4) I can't spell! In fact I'm useless at it! I'm sure it takes most of you twice as long to read my posts than others as you're trying to decipher what I'm trying to say.

5) This blog can be boring - there's not enough "light entertainment". I should start posting about non affiliate stuff here just to break it up!

6) I won't be able to make the awards dinner as it's just before my Cuba holiday. I won't fit in with my shorts and sandals when everyone else is wearing Dickie-bows! I just hate those "But he can't be with us tonight" awards. I'm sure Keiron will be steam pressing his suit so give it to him.

7) I'm not as good-looking as the others. I may have "sweet cheeks" (cough) but the others are more toned and handsome and will look better on the publicity photos! I'm already a fat git when looking at the recent photos.

8) I won't enjoy the limelight! In fact I hate it. So give it to someone that will really enjoy getting all your praise!

9) I don't have a mantelpiece - It'll just gather dust next to the TV. And I can't afford to nag the missus into cleaning it as I don't know where the duster is!

10) I don't have a dinner suit! Well I did when I was 18 but I'm sure it doesn't fit! Don't make me go and spend my ill-gotten gains (bugger I don't do brand bidding) on a new suit I'll only ever wear once!!

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Sunday, 27 April 2008

I Can Be A Plonker At Times! Check Your Work Diary Before You Book A Holiday

In an attempt to keep the missus happy I booked a holiday to Cuba. The thing is that I chuffing forgot to check what was going on a the time!

Yes it's the footy tournament that I've been blogging about for just the last two years or so!! Euro 2008 may not be a big earner as it could be as we all know the home-nations are out. But it would make a fair amount more cash if I was actually at my desk blogging about it as it happened! Instead I'll be on a beach on a 'private' island off the coast of cuba trying to work out which cocktail to have next! :-( Does anyone know what the local ale is like?

Last time I went on holiday I racked up £500 of data charges sat on the beach on my n95 replying to emails and getting a rollocking off the missus - this time I'll learn and forget about work! I hope!

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Thursday, 24 April 2008

Joe Bloggs Fashion - Opportunities and Affiliate Programme Ahead

I've just signed up Joe Bloggs Clothing to manage their online marketing. This will include an affiliate programme within the next few months when we've learned enough about the site's useage, basket sizes, user habbits etc.

The first stage is obviously to SEO it. But in due course we'll be launching some compeitions for you to promote them with. They sponsor Chris Panayiotou's car in the British Touring Car Championship so hopefully we'll be able to give away behind-the-scenes access as a prize. We're obviously looking at clothes as prizes, but what else would you want to help you promote a fashion brand?

I've got:
  • exclusive compeitions
  • exclusive discount codes
  • exclusive creatives
  • product feed access via a network that supports feeds
  • bespoke editorial
  • special offers
  • themed offers
is there any thing else I should add?

Also if you think you could do well on either the promotion via competition front or you're a fashion affiliate, then drop me a line here.

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The Google TradeMark Policy Change Could Affect 76% Of Searches

There's so much debate lately about the impact of the relaxation of bidding against trademarked terms. However, most of this debate lacked solid data!

Thanks to Hitwise, there is bucket load of data available. One highlight is that the rate at which users type in brand names, company names, site names etc has increased from 58.2% in 2005 to 76.0% in 2007.

I'd be interested in seeing if these 'navigational searches' include 'brand + generic' terms, but it makes interesting reading when you consider that a maximum of 76% of searches could be impacted by this change in stance from Google.

Obviously it won't be that high, but we can still assume that a large number of searches will be affected.

Hitwise only looked at the top 2000 searches and we know how long the search tail is - but, in terms of volume, we can still say its significant.

Time to get my brand keyword list together .... there's gold in them darn hills!

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