In a previous article, the importance of providing an ample range of graphic banner sizes to allow for the different approaches of affiliate marketers was discussed. To be creating banners in the right sizes is not, however, enough in itself to guarantee success.
If one wants to do well in any arena, it makes sense to put in an initial investment of time and effort, or to pay others to do so. Knocking up three or four shoddily-made banners and half a dozen phrases that read as though they had been intoned by the local funeral director or, conversely, thought up by the directors four-year-old in one of his sillier moods and spelled with just about the same level of seriousness, is not really a recipe for results.
One wouldnt approach marketing in that manner offline, so why expect it to work online Having said that, one or two merchants will always get away with it but marketing is not about getting lucky and selling in spite of ones sales campaign!
Producing a dull-looking banner that says Sprang-o-matic.com - Click Here is probably much easier than creating a tasty image of a sprang and making it sound attractive in four words or less, but it isnt likely to be anything like as effective unless, of course, Sprang is a household brand name or object, when, again, the merchant may be able to get away with it, but that is still taking too much for granted.
Serious affiliate marketers are unlikely to rejoice at the sight of a merchants URL (website address) taking precedence over whatever it is that is actually being sold. Visitors having Sprang-o-matic.com imprinted on their brains may be convinced that they will remember it and not bother to click on the link banner, choosing instead to click on someone elses banner that does not impart the URL. It is not desirable to have visitors window-shop the banners instead of the stores behind them!
Later on, those visitors may, indeed, visit the merchants site, by typing sprang-o-matic.com into the address bar in their browsers or into search engines, thus unwittingly robbing the affiliate of the opportunity to receive the commission expected in return for making the introduction. This may suit some greedy merchants, of course, but it is noticeable that many of the most successful merchants do not put their URLs on their banners, preferring to use the name by which they are known on the street, so to speak, or a tantalizing image, and allowing their affiliates to gain their just dues. This encourages an affiliate to work harder at being an efficient marketer.
Less is more, when it comes to banner content. Including a line of text that requires a magnifying glass to decipher it is pointless and looks messy. Lime green may be this years black, or your current passion, but it may also clash horribly with half of the affiliate pages your banners are supposed to appear on, so do try to give a choice of schemes. Imagine bright pink in some of the departments at LWA US Shopping Mall - http://www.linnetwoods.com/us-mall/ - for example! At least one alternative in a neutral tone should be made available in any given sales campaign.
Animation should be used with great care. Your graphics designer may have lightning reactions but most of your visitors, or at least the ones with money to spend, are likely to be slightly less rapid of eye and will resent animated graphics that change too fast to be read - partly out of annoyance at not being able to acquaint themselves with your message and partly because they fear you are trying to use subliminal advertising and they dont like anyone trying to take them for a sap.
If you are selling products that have nothing to do with sex beware of describing them as sexy on your banners or in your text links. They will not knowingly be given space on family-friendly websites and you will be restricting your potential for success needlessly. If, on the other hand, your products have everything to do with sex, beware of cloaking them beneath a veil of respectability. Once caught, you may find yourself in a world of trouble.
Online since 1998 as a webmaster,working mainly with small businesses and freelance tradesmen, Linnet Woods is editor of MarineZine, a free online nautical magazine, is active on several internet-related forums and has more than a dozen sites at .
Linking brings qualified prospects to your website, boosts search engine rankings, establishes value and trust in your brand, gives you a competitive advantage and establishes you in the virtual marketplace.
A couple of years ago Link Exchange was quite new and an excellent place for savvy webmasters to exchange quality links with those who were like-minded. Many Link Exchanges, mostly based on the original few, have sprung up promising an unending stream of reciprocal links with as many sites as you dare dream. Theres no problem with this however, link trades, where you put my link on your site and I put your link on my site may be less valuable than a one-way link these days after the Jagger Update.
For Instance getting Inbound links to your site (IBL) has become more important to achieve high rankings in Google than it originally was. You can build and establish one way links from blogs, news sites, directories, ezines, product reviewers, partner sites and so on.
Some of the popular Link Building Methods are listed below -
Link from non commercial sites - Links from .edu and .org websites are good for increasing your sites rankings and are more important than ever.
Article Links - Links from the author by-line or within the article that point back to your site will positively affect your rankings.
Link from established sites - If your site is referred from big behemoth site like Wikipedia, Yahoo, AOL, Ebay, Amazon, etc., you will rank better than you did before Jagger.
Avoid Link Farms - Link farms are sites that exist solely to link to other web sites. Google in particular has been known to ban sites found using a link farm, stay away from them.
Relevant Links - IBL (inbound links) and OBL (outbound links) relevancy is more important after Jagger. This means that if you point to related sites or you get links from other sites that are related to your website, you may rank better after Jagger.
Use Link Bait - Although the term link bait is fairly new, the entire concept of link bait has been around as long as the internet itself. People have been creating controversial, funny, and informative web sites and web site content that others naturally link to.
Post messages on forums - Post messages on related forums , make sure they are readable by seach engine, while some of them have no-index attribute on their page.
Social Sites - Some free host sites also allow you to create pages on their sites which may help leverage the authority of their domains.
Obtain Links from Media Sites - Media sites have large audiences of people looking for information - get coverage and a link to your site. This would not only get a significant spike in traffic to our site but also get a percentage of that audience linking to us because the media site did. Links attract links.
Publish Press Releases - Publish any new event or newly introduced service/product in press releases directories.
Submit Tips - Post quality tips on other web sites in the area of expertise, at the bottom of each tip, include two lines about your products/services, and a link to your website.
Submit Reviews - Review different products or services and post about our good/bad experience with the product, service or company on other sites. eg. review, price comparison etc. At the bottom of the review, include a few lines of text about you with a link to your website.
Publish whitepapers - Throughout the whitepaper, include references to our products or services with a link to your website. In addition, make sure you let our readers know they may freely distribute the document. Place a link to your whitepaper on our website to enable our visitors to download it. Submit whitepaper on other sites.
Publish Ebooks - Throughout the e-book, include references to your products or services with a link to your website. In addition, make sure you let your readers know they may freely distribute the ebook. Place a link to your ebook on your website to enable your visitors to download it. Submit ebooks on other sites.
Profile Pages - MSNs Small Business Directory allows you to create a company profile page and get listed in other profile pages.
Good inbound links can always move your page up the ranking ladder and act as new entry points to your site.The best way to carry link building is by obtaining natural links pointing to your site from a variety of related websites, some .orgs and .edus, and from other trusted authority sites.
Always remember what the original purpose for linking was and why it was practiced and why incoming links were, and still are, valued by the Search Engines. A link from a related site is a vote of confidence that they feel their visitors will benefit from your content and hence, evidence that your website is considered to be of value in a specific category. Link popularity is important and link building process needs to be given high priority. A little time spent on Link building today will ensure a good search engine ranking for your site in the future.
S Prema is Search Engine Optimisation Executive for UK-based internet marketing company, Star Internet Ltd. Cients of Star Internet benefit from a range of services designed to maximise ROI from internet marketing activities. To find out more, visit