Search Engine Optimization will evolve yet again, as it always has, because of the introduction of the Google+ network. Accounts linked on Google+ already show a significant difference in search results which means your previous work with SEO could be in jeopardy amongst the tech-savvy individuals that are a part of the network (that may also be your customers).

In this article, I’ll be sharing the in’s and out’s of creating an effective Google+ SEO strategy, why you need to get on board with this and a few other speculations that may be worth exploring, for your brand, in the coming year.

Why Google+ SEO will be a BIG Deal

New results via Google+

Sheesh, another social network I need to be active on?

You should be because Google has begun to integrate Google+ (and Google accounts) into search results for members that are logged in; considering that there are millions of Google accounts – this is a major game changer when it comes to search engine optimization.

There are three obvious changes at this time that we can see:

• Personalized Search. Google now uses your search history AND your friends suggestions as part of your search results. Before, your frequency with visiting websites would change what’s displayed in Google results but G+ has added a new social layer where you can view other websites your friends and associates enjoy along with suggestions; this jumbles around the results which means that it does the same for other people signed into the network.
• Google+ Profiles in Sidebar. Up in the top-right corner, where you’d expect to find ads, you’ll now begin to see members of Google+ that rank well for their specific terms. Go ahead, type in ‘Affiliate Marketing’, while logged into Google+, and you’ll notice at least two profiles that are displayed up at the top. Imagine how effective this could be if you too claimed your search term; people would notice you as the authority and your following would grow like crazy.
• Profile Prominence. When logged into your Google account, your G+ profile has major prominence over any other location you have around the web. I, personally, have a website I’ve been working on for nearly three years which is bumped down by my Google+ profile. Your profile, in essence, is becoming more powerful than your actual website; makes you aware that you need to keep your profile updated and focused to pull in new followers.

Game changer? Certainly. Your network and influence are going to have a major impact whether you’re active on the Google+ social network. Results will obviously vary for many people but the whole idea is to become an authority in a niche anyway; Google+ is now filtering those results which means what you see – someone else does too.

A Practical, Effective Google+ SEO Strategy

Now let’s get into the moment you’ve been waiting for – actually using Google+ as an SEO strategy.

To begin, I’d like to open up why each strategy matters and then explain some of the basics of how to achieve the desired results; it’s always best to understand why you’re doing it than blindly following.

1. A Complete, Optimized Google+ Profile

A basic Google+ Profile.

The very first item you should focus on, in Google+, is to complete your profile because this is where everything stems from and how people find you.

Like every SEO best practice, it’s still relatively unknown into what factors really matter to get the best ranking (Google keeps this a secret, obviously) but we can do a process of elimination to figure out the items that seem to matter most.

So far, these elements of your Google+ profile seem to have an impact on your SEO:

• The About Me. This is where you’ll want to fill in an organic description of yourself without being too overly promotional and spammy.
• Your Circles. The amount of Circles you’re in seems to have a major impact on your Google+ SEO because it alerts Google that you’re someone worthwhile and authoritative (it’s a spider indexing you so take no offense).

Other little factors that have come into play are the images you share on Google+ and your profile. My own pictures I’ve uploaded to my G+ profile now show as top results when I Google my name (while logged into my account).

2. Unique, Discussion-Worthy Information

Some truly amazing Google+ content right here

Back to the old “content is king” line; Google+ is taking what you post in Google+ as part of their search results if the content is unique and discussion-worthy.

Note the later part specifically; you can blast all the posts you want on the network but the ones that rise to the top are topics that have many people actively engaged in discussion and +1’ing them from other authority-types.

Here are a few things to focus on with your Google+ content:

• Share content that’s only available on Google+; treat it like a new blog
• Upload a ton of new pictures and videos
• Link to people within the network to generate interesting discussions (@name)
• Try to be active in using the +1 feature ( and get others to do the same)
• Add people to circles and share information to them
• Respond when people engage you

In Google search results (while logged in), you’ll begin to notice that there are far more emphasis on articles and content shared on the Google+ network. These results are beginning to spill over onto other’s results if the content is worthwhile – just like Google has been doing for years.

3. Google+ Pages? Maybe.

An example of Google+ Pages

Google+ also has begun to offer pages for local businesses, brands, companies, entertainers and other types just like Facebook pages.

It’s not entirely clear how much these pages will be implemented and rank for SEO at this time but knowing how quickly Google adopted Google+ in their results – it’s worthwhile to go ahead and setup your page (it doesn’t take all that long anyway).

These pages may not necessarily need to be specifically about you; they can be used for your business, website or any other item you wish to focus on – you can bounce between your main profile so it’s, in many ways, a secondary account within your profile.

Some of the major factors on pages seem to be:

• Page Name
• Authorized (using the ‘publisher’ link)
• Organization connected to the Google+ page
• 1,000 people added your G+ page

Once you’re done with that, you can verify your page; this gets the ball rolling with your SEO.

Other Factors worth Noting about Google+

Before I let you go, I want to share a few other items that are having effects on Google+ SEO. At this time, it’s not entirely known how much of an impact each has but they add to the overall strategy so they’re worth integrating.

For example …

• Use the +1 button frequently when you’re browsing the web; also, add a +1 button to your own website for people to easily share on Google+.
• Create content, within Google+, using the same type of formatting you would on your blog; don’t just throw around a quick link – actively take time to add to the discussion as if you’re writing a news snippet about what you’re sharing first.
• Actively use Google+ every day; treat it like an extension of your brand. Yes, it means more work but it’s not going away so integrate it now and reap the rewards down the line.

All in all, Google+ is well worth divulging time to improve your overall SEO but it does have a few best practices of its own. Use the tactics and strategies detailed in this post to improve your rankings with Google+; it’s the next big thing, get on the wave and ride it out.

Enter Mass Income Multiplier. This web-based affiliate marketing application is the “total package” meant to address many of the issues that today’s internet marketing professionals face.

Just like every program, if you truly want to see what Mass Income Multiplier has to offer you need to purchase the software and get down to business. However, there are some details to be aware of as you make your decision on whether or not to move forward.

In short, Mass Income Multiplier does everything for you. There are three tasks in particular with which you will receive assistance.

Sign up for Mass Income Multiplier.

Site Creation

As an affiliate marketer, if you want to earn big bucks you need your own website(s). With Mass Income Multiplier, you can create pages with affiliate links within a matter of minutes. And not just any pages. In addition to content, each one can include video, RSS feeds, images, and much more.

Once you become familiar with the system, it only takes 30 to 60 seconds to build a new page/website. All the tasks that previously took a long time are now automated.

Traffic Generation

Let’s face it: a website only does you good if people actually visit. This is where Mass Income Multiplier really gets interesting. In short, the software will make you part of a content sharing system.

With Mass Income Multiplier, every bit of content that you create is shared among a network of other users. In addition to traffic generated by sharing your sites with other members of Mass Income Multiplier, these members will pass your sites along to their social networks (Facebook, Twitter, etc). In turn, viral traffic begins to increase.

This is a unique traffic generation system that does not rely on organic rankings or paid search.

Sign up for Mass Income Multiplier.

Build a List

If you plan on being a successful, long term affiliate marketer you need to start building a list as soon as possible. Once you get started with Mass Income Multiplier, you will have access to built-in opt-in forms and autoresponders. In other words, you don’t need to purchase additional software (such as aweber) for these tasks.

Each and every lead that you generate from your websites will be collected and stored for future use.

Other Features

Although the above points discuss the three biggest features of Mass Income Multiplier, let’s take a closer look at some other advantages:

• Web based – you don’t have to install software to get started
• Free domain, free hosting
• No technical knowledge required
• Built in tools for tracking traffic, comments, and more

Potential Drawbacks

Now that you know more about the benefits of Mass Income Multiplier, let’s focus on two potential drawbacks:

1. Thin affiliate sites. When you rely on Mass Income Multiplier you should not expect your sites to be full of the best information. Instead, you are doing nothing more than creating simple websites that are full of affiliate links.

With this in mind, don’t expect your new websites to rank high in the Google search results. In fact, you should not expect them to rank at all.

2. One traffic source. While the traffic generation system associated with Mass Income Multiplier is definitely unique, the question remains: how much traffic will it really send to your websites?

Final Word

On the surface, you may agree that the benefits of Mass Income Multiplier far outweigh the potential drawbacks. For this reason, you have to ask yourself one final question: is the $49 price tag associated with this product worth the risk? If your answer is yes, pick up a copy of Mass Income Multiplier today and give it a try.

Sign up for Mass Income Multiplier.

There are a lot of companies in and outside North America that make a business out of providing content. Elance.com, for example, facilitates the purchase of content between provider and user. India and other markets are major competitors in the content supply area, as fees are less expensive and turn-around time is much faster. This makes the industry much more competitive for freelancers and agencies alike.

That being said, some affiliates who we work with are revealing more and more about the bad experiences they’ve had with purchasing content. Often times, they discover (or perhaps even their affiliate managers find out) that they have copied content on their website. If you are thinking about buying articles and blogs to be used as content for your website, here are three reasons why you should consider coming up with your own original content, or at least getting to know the source you’re buying articles from much more closely.

Google Panda Will Punish You

Ever since Google Panda came on the scene, affiliates have had to up the ante, so to speak, on publishing unique content. So, if you are playing the game accordingly, you will be publishing original content and not suffering the ramifications of Google Panda’s new algorithm for ranking pages. If you really feel uncomfortable writing content, but don’t want to feel the wrath of Google, try writing what you know, then hiring an editor to polish the content for you. Additionally, you can find freelancers or larger companies to write your content, but make sure you do a few test runs; for instance, ask them to supply you with a handful of articles instead of paying thousands of dollars in content that may be plagiarized. AffiliatePrograms.com has said it before in a previous post called SEO: What Google Panda means to your affiliate site, and I’m saying it again: Don’t use duplicate content.

Affiliates Are Getting Scammed Out Of Thousands

If you check out various affiliate marketing forums, you’ll come across stories of affiliates, who at one time or another, lost money due to content-buying scams. While some plagiarism detecting platforms, such as Copyscape and Copygator may exist to help protect affiliates and other users/buyers identify duplicated content, the only sure way of knowing is to create original and quality content yourself. Again, you can try to write pieces on your own then seek the help of an editor, or, get to know freelance writers and content agencies more closely before giving them your business. Also, ask to see samples of the person’s work, and make them accountable by issuing contracts that should be signed by both parties.

You Risk Ruining The Relationship With Your Affiliate Manager

Personally, I get very disappointed when one of our clients discovers that an affiliate with no original content has been referring sales. Merchants that make affiliates’ with original content a must-have for their program do so to screen and attract quality partners who can be trusted. That being said, if an affiliate is caught ripping off the content of another valid site (we’ve seen this happen sometimes within the same affiliate program or affiliate network) affiliates will be putting themselves in a dangerous position.

What are your thoughts on buying articles and other content? Leave us a comment and let us know what you think.

About the Author

Nicole Young is an affiliate manager at the company Share Results. She entered the world of affiliate marketing after moving to Montreal in 2009. Aside from building strong relationships with her affiliates, Nicole spends her days overseeing the growth of the programs she is managing, negotiating deals, blogging, assisting affiliates with the development of their marketing campaigns, and staying up-to-date with industry news and trends!

In this post, I’d like to share how you can begin to integrate Google Adsense into your Affiliate Business.

But, Adsense Shows my Competitors?!

Don't let this chump get in your way.

In reality, yes, Adsense will show your competition and even drive away visitors from your website to a third party website and not your affiliate product.

However, let’s remember that the smart approach to affiliate marketing is to focus on a few products or programs that have the greatest potential rather than slapping a new promotion with each new page you publish on your website or blog.

Adsense, on your business site, can pick up the slack with crafty ad placement on pages and areas of the website that doesn’t promote affiliate products.

As you could imagine, there’s no benefit of adding Adsense to a review page on your blog because you’re trying to convince the visitor into buying the product; an ad, at this point, would send people away. Instead, use your Google Ads strategically on lower performing pages that still pull in ample amounts of traffic but don’t necessarily add to the greater value of the website.

For example: A website focused around laptops would have reviews that could earn great commissions through the proper affiliate programs but this site would also host a wide variety of content that could just be simple tips and tricks for laptop usage; these “lower quality” pages (in terms of revenue potential) are the prime spot to integrate Google Adsense into your affiliate business.

The ease of joining the Adsense platform removes the resistance for finding products worthy of promotion on the lower quality information-based web pages. The automatic nature of delivering ads also frees up your time from needing to constantly monitor and update older pages for specific affiliate programs that may have dried up.

Competition? Yes. Driving away visitors? Potentially. However, Adsense has many other opportunities in your affiliate business; take a look …

Revive Dying Websites with Adsense

The dead shall walk again!

Affiliate marketers love the idea of niche websites that are specifically focused around a single product, niche or industry. The problem with niching down too far is that the main product promotion can begin to lose interest for the visitors and no longer convert because of outdated information.

On niche websites, much of your information is concrete and evergreen (if done right); your website doesn’t have to fail with the affiliate program which is where Adsense comes in.

You can morph an older niche website into a new profit stream by adding Adsense to your list of revenue sources when adding ad blocks to your websites. These niche websites already have traffic and small communities so go ahead and gain extra money after the affiliate earnings dry up.

If anything, you can use Adsense to help pay for web hosting and domain costs throughout the year while you patiently wait for a bigger and better affiliate program or product to come along to add to your niche websites.

Turn the Tables: Competitor Research

A trick that I don’t see too many webmasters talk about all too often is leveraging Google Adsense as a way to research industries.

Businesses that are dropping money on Adsense ads (especially banners) are telling you that there is money to be made. The other benefit is that we don’t have to spend hours of our lives doing research into all of the companies out there; Adsense will reveal them to you.

With your affiliate business, combined with Adsense, you can begin to pull together a swipe file on advertising copy and images that are effective. You can then take your swipe file and begin to integrate it into your own affiliate business.

One trick that I personally enjoy doing is to “train” visitors to look in certain areas of the website where they could expect ads but replace the Adsense code with my own, linking to an affiliate program or product that has similar features, benefits and even ad copy.

Running Adsense on your website for a month can reveal years of research from the larger companies; all of which can be integrated into your own campaigns.

Expose Advertising Opportunities

Reveal the opportunities.

Google Adsense, as they say, is a great way to make pennies a day (for the most of us, that is). Unless your content is about topics that have high paying ads – you’re not getting much for the clicks. However, the ads showing on your website can be used to directly contact individual companies with opportunities to advertise on your website.

Fire up an email and send one out to the owner or marketing department of the businesses that are showing up on your Google Adsense. Offer these businesses prime real estate on your website in the form of a banner ad.

The fact that you know businesses pay for Adsense (often, a lot), lets you know that they want to advertise on the web but haven’t necessarily done their homework to find niche communities that will give them a greater return. With this tactic, you’re doing the research for them so both parties win.

You gain a recurring advertisement on your website and the company gets in front of the community they’re seeking. In the future, you could even approach this company to be included in their affiliate program to which you then switch out the Adsense and banner ads for your own affiliate links.

The Sandbox Approach

No, not sandbox as in getting your website dumped but the real thing – were you played with your toys and tried out new things.

Adsense, as mentioned, is extremely easy to setup and integrate into an existing website which makes it all the more attractive for testing purposes. A month of split testing affiliate advertising vs. Google Adsense could actually reveal that some of your projects are either under performing or simply do better with Adsense.

With enough websites out there, you can develop multiple streams of income when you integrate Adsense into your affiliate business; you’re not “giving up” but just simply trying new things.

It’s worth giving it a run for its money (literally), tracking everything and making an intelligent decision after the numbers are in. Who knows, maybe it’s a perfect fit?

iContact describes their service as “powerful, easy to use, and fully integrated.” For an affiliate, this should be music to your ears. To go along with all the necessary features of email marketing, the service is simple to follow and will integrate seamlessly with your websites.

Why iContact for Email Marketing?

When getting started with email marketing it is important to rely on the biggest and best names in the industry – and iContact definitely fits into this group.

With email marketing, you can get top of the line results from each and every visitor that comes to your website. In short, iContact offers all the features you need to send messages to your list. As you continue to refine your approach, you will build stronger relationships with your audience.

Sign up for iContact.

iContact Features for Affiliates

There are four features of iContact that allow you to achieve great email marketing success as an affiliate.

• MessageBuilder. With the help of the MessageBuilder toolbar, you can write and edit your messages from one dedicated location. Along with this, you can customize your email with unique images, colors, and much more.
• MessageCoder. The MessageCoder feature gives you the ability to control every element of your message, thanks to both HTML and design views.
• Email templates. Are you looking for a way to spice up your next email? If so, and you don’t have the time to create your own layout, you can turn to one of the 100+ email templates offered by iContact.
• Email delivery. When you spend a lot of time constructing a message to your audience, you want to make sure it reaches everybody on your list. For this reason, iContact has many tools to ensure that messages don’t fall prey to spam filters or find their way to junk mail folders. iContact leads the industry in delivery rate success.

Affiliate marketers can increase conversions and improve customer relations through the use of a solid email marketing campaign. With the help of iContact, getting started is simple.

Sign up for iContact now.

Ricky Ahuja and his wife, Navleen

We caught up with online marketing industry veteran, Ricky Ahuja to learn how he’s made it in the industry, what drives him nuts about the industry and what advice he has for new affiliate marketers.

Tell us about how you landed in affiliate marketing. What led you to this business?

I actually got into this industry by accident. I used to own an internet café in Chicago (Go Cubbies) and some of the patrons who frequented the café needed a website and search engine optimization done. I happened to have some contacts in the space, which truly enabled me to find out the benefits and rewards of Internet marketing and haven’t looked back since.

As far as hitting it “big time” – I think that is still to come. I think completing the buyout of Affiliate Venture Group was definitely a step in the right direction. We all measure success differently and to me it is more about the relationships you make and the experiences you have and knowing that you have made a positive impression on people.

What was your biggest mistake along the way?

I do not consider anything I have done a “failure” per se (unless you count that one semester in college) but rather a stepping stone from which to learn and advance. As it pertains to Affiliate Marketing – the frustrations are many: fraudulent affiliates, compliance issues, AMs who will say anything to make a buck, people asking the wrong questions, etc. But you know what, that is what makes our industry so unique and dynamic, keeps things in check.

And when you got to a good level, what did you do to break through?

I was always building other peoples’ companies and brands. My breakthrough came when I purchased AVG from the previous investors and started to build it as a standalone brand. My business partner Chris Kautz and I have worked tirelessly and have some exciting news we will be sharing in the coming weeks.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever tested that’s worked?

Generating a significant portion of our traffic internally, we are always testing different campaigns, technologies and traffic types and often times sources we expect to back out – bomb and sources I have absolutely no faith in, turn out beautiful. Take my publisher base, many of these publishers had been rejected or not given the time of day from the “larger” networks – but we take the time to educate them, train them and help them become a successful affiliate. A lot of these noobs are now our leading super affiliates.

What do you like best about being an affiliate? What drives you crazy about the industry?

I am in somewhat of an enviable position in that not only am I an affiliate but also have my own network. Majority of the campaigns we bring on are tested internally before I place them on the network so as to make sure we have high converting products for our publishers to promote. There is nothing more frustrating than having AMs giving you bogus metrics and numbers just so they can generate some traffic. We know what converts, we know what works and that is what I present to my publishers.

There are so many things about the industry that drive me crazy and it would take a whole afternoon to go over those things – perhaps a follow-up interview may be in order. However, some of the top items would be fraudulent traffic, miss-informed affiliate managers and finally advertisers who don’t know squat on how to assess the success or failure of a campaign.

What are 1 or 2 tools that you use every single day to help make your affiliate business better?

A lot of the tools we utilize are in-house and proprietary, however as far as what affiliates should be looking at are tools to help them optimize their campaigns, their bids, their conversion funnels and totally understand their analytics so that they can see where they need to make a change to make their business successful. There are a lot of industry blogs that provide these tools so if your readers want to get any additional information – they are more than welcome to contact me via my blog or email/twitter or FB.

What do you feel sets your sites apart from your competitors?

There are many networks out there but only one Ricky Ahuja. I am not so concerned with what others are doing or not doing as I am with what I am able to provide. We do not hide behind a privately registered website from some off shore country but at the forefront of affiliate marketing industry, compliance and transparency. I am probably one of the most easily accessible person there is and call it like it is. You can get more insight into who I am at my blog (cheap plug) at www.rickyahuja.com.

In all seriousness – we pride ourselves on AWESOME customer service and many exclusive campaigns that we have had for the last 3-4 years running. We are also now expanding into India on a large scale so look for big things to come.

What can affiliates do to build a strong brand in the industry?

This is simple – have a set of core values and goals and do whatever it takes to adhere to them. It takes a long time to establish a credible brand and a single instance can destroy it so guard and monitor it very closely.

What resources have you used to learn and expand your skills as a professional Internet marketer?

I read a lot of the industry blogs, journals and newsletters. Staying abreast of the emerging trends enables one to position themselves properly to take full advantage of the opportunity that may arise. Some of these are Perform Insider, Digital Moses and of course my blog, www.rickyahuja.com.

What advice could you offer someone who is considering becoming an affiliate in today’s market?

The best advice I have been given has been from my father and it is to not be afraid to take risks. Even if it doesn’t work out, you can always learn from the experience and apply it towards your next venture. There is quote from T.S. Elliot that I like: “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

Guys – thanks for giving me the floor to talk a bit about myself, it is most certainly an honor.

You can reach Ricky at:

Email: gsahuja@gmail.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/rickyahuja
Facebook: www.facebook.com/rickyahuja

What makes landing pages so special is the “landing” part. A good landing page is designed to be congruent with the main source of its visitors. A simplest example: if an ad promises a free e-book then the landing page for this ad should present a visible link where visitors can download that e-book.

A landing page is never something that exists by itself, it’s always highly influenced by the source of traffic sending people to it. That is why selecting the best theme for your landing pages is not as easy as it initially seems.

For us, traits of a landing page friendly theme are:

• Nice looks… For obvious reasons.
• Highly configurable structure. So you can adjust your landing pages to whatever offer you want to promote.
• Simplicity. There’s no place for clutter on a landing page, only the most important elements should find their place on it.

Of course, there are many more factors to landing pages, but having these three in mind is a good starting point, and something that will surely make your life easier when it comes to playing with your site (and improve your conversions at the same time).

The following list presents 10 great WordPress themes for landing pages. There’s no best one on this list. They’re all available at ThemeForest, which you can check out here.

1. Lista Landing Page

Lista Landing Page is a nice design for a newsletter signup landing page, a software download, or something similar. You can use the center block to show a video or a slideshow of product images or screenshots. Also, there are five basic color versions available.

Regular license is $8.

2. PixelApp – Landing Page for Applications

The name PixelApp – Landing Page for Applications says it all. This landing page theme has been designed with apps in mind. You can choose from 10 background textures, and you get full mobile support (to make sure that your landing page looks great on every device).

Regular license is $10.

3. Ambiento Premium Landing Page

This is a highly customizable theme with four different layouts and four color skins to start with. Depending on what type of offer you’re promoting you can easily tune the theme to fit your requirements.

Regular license is $8.

4. Social Media Agency – Landing Page

This theme lets you create a great landing page for a social media product or service. The theme includes things like: two working contact forms, slider, image hovers, scrolling background items, which add a bit of a dynamic touch to the whole thing.

Regular license is $8.

5. Interactive – The Landing Page

Interactive is a clean, simple landing page theme, perfect for a digital product download page or an email newsletter opt-in form. It features a nice box for social media buttons and product features that can be adjusted to your requirements.

Regular license is $8.

6. Landisimo – Landing Page with Facebook Template

Landisimo is a highly customizable theme providing 10 different color variations and  patterns for your background. You also get two predefined layouts for the main template and two more for the Facebook template.

Regular license is $9.

7. Stato Landing Page

Stato is a classic landing page example featuring a video box and another box for your call to action, or opt-in form. Along with the theme you also get a fully layered PSD file.

Regular license is $8.

8. Nice app – Responsive Landing Page

Nice app is a simple and clear landing page theme. It uses a lot of whitespace, which is always an indicator of a designer knowing their craft. If you’re promoting any kind of application on your landing page this theme might be the choice for you.

Regular license is $8.

9. Insure Landing Page

Insure is a diverse landing page theme that can be applied to many different offers. The default layout is two column, but there are three variations of it and three color styles. You also get PSD files if you want to customize the design even further.

Regular license is $12.

10. Kozuka Landing Page

Kozuka is the cheapest theme on this list (only $6), but it provides a truly great value for the money. You get 20 color styles, PSD files, four different layout variations, video support, shortcodes, Google fonts support, and more. Not to mention the slick and clean design.

Are you using a custom landing page theme currently? Let us know in the comments.

In essence, geotargeting is the practice of determining the geolocation of the visitor that you – as an affiliate and a website owner – are interested in. The idea is that sometimes it’s not worth to provide your offer to the whole world if, say, your customers are all based in Ohio (which isn’t an exaggerated example when you’re dealing with a purely local offer).

Most of the time, geotargeting is believed to be relevant only to pay-per-click or other forms of advertising. This isn’t the case, however. But let’s discuss this matter starting at the most basic stuff.

Geotargeting is Offer Dependent

If you’re offering your own (and hopefully digital) products then geotargeting is not usually that important. As a product owner you can decide to ship it to every part of the world. For affiliates, however, these things can get a little complicated.

Depending on the affiliate network you’re a part of you might have to geotarget your offers accordingly.

Clickbank is one of those networks that doesn’t require you to geotarget anything. Their digital products can be bought by anyone possessing a credit card, with no limitations regarding the part of the world the customer’s from.

However, other affiliate networks have their offers targeted to people living in a certain country, and often even in a certain part of that country.

Many affiliate programs are paid on a cost-per-lead basis and other similar models. Such offers are created by companies who then get the leads you’ve generated and do business with them. The fact that those companies are not interested in leads from a completely different geographical location is not surprising. This is why if you want to make money you have to geotarget.

Geotargeting on a Trend Basis

Even when a certain offer does not require you to geotarget it still might be worth to do it anyway.

This is a case when certain topics are more popular in given regions of the world than in others. And it’s not uncommon. Even a fairly general topic of weight loss is most popular in states like Tennessee and Georgia in relation to all the other states in the US.

You can find out such things by going to Google’s tool called Google Insights for Search.

You can use it to input any keyword or keyphrase of interest to you, and find out where it’s most popular. Then you can use this data to geotarget your offers, by providing some location-specific content, for example. This should convince people living in a given part of the country to pay more attention to you and your custom affiliate site.

Geotargeting in AdWords and Other PPC Ad Networks

Geotargeting is most popular in AdWords and other PPC ad networks that provide this feature.

Basically, as an advertiser you can choose from a variety of different methods of geotargeting. Some of the most popular are:

• Country. Select countries where the most of your customer base lives.
• State. For US visitors you can select the states you want to target. This is also available for other countries, where you can select certain regions or provinces.
• Metropolitan areas. This gives you the possibility to select Los Angeles and its near cities as your target area, for example.
• City. Select just a single city. Really handy if you’re promoting a truly local offer, like a sale by a local brand, for example.
• Distance/radius. Select a given location and set a radius (in miles) you want to target.
• Language. This doesn’t seem like a geotargeting feature, but actually it’s the most obvious one. If you choose that you only want to target English speaking people, for example, this will reduce (quite significantly) the number of countries you’re ads will be shown in.

The user interface provided in AdWords is quite easy to use and it shouldn’t take you long to get a hang of it. If you stumble upon any problems, however, you can always take a look at the available tutorials and help center.

Other ad networks provide similar possibilities of geotargeting, but they’re not always that developed. That’s why we’re using AdWords as our example.

Geotargeting in Organic Search Results

This is a topic that’s not that popular in the geotargeting space, but it should be.

The thing is, whenever someone inputs a query into Google, different results will pop up depending on the location from where the query is done.

When it comes to AdWords the thing is clear – only the ads that are targeted to that area will be shown. But when it comes to the organic results Google has to come up with them on its own.

If you want to help Google out you can use the Geographic target feature in Google Webmaster Tools (GWT). If you haven’t signed up for GWT yet then you really should.

Google uses their GWT data quite often. And whenever they need to decide for whom a site is targeted this data becomes really significant. By selecting the desired audience’s location for your affiliate site you’re making things easier for Google and improving the chances of reaching your audience.

Now, another part of appearing in the organic results is of course SEO. It doesn’t matter if you’re doing any geotargeting or not you still need to take care of basic SEO tasks, like: on-page optimization, off-page optimization, link building (you can try SEO Link Monster – new product by Brad and Matt Callen), etc.

In the end, geotargeting is only a tool for you to help you reach your audience in the most effective and cost-efficient way possible. A situation in which your prospective customers are evenly spaced around the world is highly unlikely.

What’s your approach for geotargeting? Are you using it as part of your affiliate marketing campaigns?

Short Message Service (SMS) communications are an ideal way to reach/engage an audience.  There’s a big BUT and an even bigger IF that needs to be attached to that statement.

To really understand how to engineer a relevant and profitable SMS campaign you have to understand the relationship between the end user and their phone.  Specifically how they see their phone being used by you to contact them.

98% of text messages get read, and some additional astronomical number of those that get read, get responded to.  Compared to direct mail or even email, SMS messaging is the holy grail of marketing communication.

So the BUT I mentioned earlier attached to SMS being able to reach/engage and audience is this: BUT they have to actually tell you they want to hear from you.  In the online space most users (99%) never read the Privacy Policy or Terms & Conditions when signing up for a newsletter or some other communications.  They never read how the information they share on a website will be shared with every 3^rd party they can solicit to send you email, track your movements online, send you junk mail and call your home at all hours of the day.

But in the SMS world, the end user is asking you to send them something, and if they don’t like it, every message comes with its own permanent unsubscribe message attached to the end of it.  Because a phone is a much more personal device than say a PC or a laptop, users tend to feel very selective about which messages they WANT to receive.  Thus, if you are thinking you will buy a list of SMS numbers from a broker and start blasting, expect that you probably will have some large number of legal and financial troubles for the next several years.

And you don’t even have to buy the list.  If you think collecting mobile numbers on your site and then sending anyone you collect an SMS message to their phone is ok, then you probably will join the list buyers in financial and legal woes for a few years.

The lesson to learn in SMS, is to attract your audience with something short term that they want.  This means you have to further understand circumstances that an SMS campaign is being brought into service for.  In some cases it is branding (not often) but it most cases it is a time sensitive contest or poll that the user is then able to gain financially from or receive feedback on participation.  This is the engagement factor.  The key to a successful SMS campaign is then taking that engagement and turning it into action.

The IF I mentioned is this: IF you have the right content your audience will respond the way you want them to.  This involves getting them to raise their hand and tell you what they want.  Using short codes achieves this nicely.  A short code is simply when you ask your audience to text back a series of letters or numbers to a specific number.  For example, the recent voting for the NBA All Star Game was conducted via an SMS campaign.  All you had to do was text back the last name of the player (the short code) to a specific SMS number.  Such as Rose to 97999.  This automatically entered your vote for Derek Rose.

A short code is how you establish relevance.  From an affiliate’s perspective, this is where you now have the ability to send very relevant messages to your audience who opts in to receive SMS text messages from you.

For instance, an affiliate can give their audience several short code choices which indicate their preference for certain communications.  Someone who owns a site dedicated to gardening, can then use short codes to “bucket” the audience and send out relevant SMS messages.  For instance, the affiliate could use the following short codes:

• Hydro (short for hydroponics)
• Veggie
• Flowers
• Deals

Each short code then has an associated message theme that runs through the text messages sent.  For example, the Veggies messages all center around growing your own organic food, so the test messages would send tips and links to relevant information on growing vegetables.  A best practice is to not send out too many messages that have any type of offer in them.

By sending out content-based messages and watching the number of opt out requests, a marketer can gauge if the content is hitting home with their audience.  By sending out SMS messages once in awhile that have a great deal or a discount on seeds or other gardening items, then users will appreciate that you have built up a level of trust that they will not opt out the minute they think all their subscription is doing is helping pay your bills.

Here is a list of five simple changes you can make to your landing pages to see how your conversions swing in the process. Remember to only make one or two changes at a time, so you can tell what it actually swinging your conversions and in what directions.

• Remove Navigation Bar: The navigation bar is always nice to have, but if you are sending people to a web site to complete an action, it can also be a big distraction. Try removing the top navigation bar all together, and moving it’s contents to the bottom of the page.
• Auto Fill in Form Fields: If you are passing information through your landing page from another site, it always helps to pre-populate information. Giving the user one less thing they have to fill out is always a great help.
• Request Less Information: Less is more. How many times have you had to fill out all of your information when registering on web sites. Ask for less information and you will likely see more sign ups. Even split testing email and name vs. just email, can bring in a big increase in conversions.
• Branded Design: Do you have a smooth landing page to advertiser page process? Don’t confuse the user by giving them one landing page look and feel, then sending them to an advertiser page that looks completely different.
• Multiple Headlines: Headlines and call to action texts mean everything. This is the first thing your users are probably going to see, and will result in whether they stick around to complete an action, or close out the browser. Make sure your headline grabs attention and makes them want to take immediate action or interest.

There are plenty of ways to change around a landing page, and it’s not just about using completely different landing pages. Find what works best, then continue to improve on your best designs.

This Guest Post was written by Zac Johnson

To learn more about how to maximize revenue potential and build a successful blog, please visit my affiliate marketing blog at ZacJohnson.com or follow me on Twitter @moneyreign.