Bill McRea

When it comes down to it, SEO is all about finding ways to make your website as appealing as possible to the search engines (mainly Google) so that they will send you as much free, organic, search engine traffic as possible. So, if you have an affiliate marketing blog, SEO is something that is always on your mind. In this article we’ll look at five tips that you can use to help your affiliate blog get found so that you can attract targeted traffic and make more sales.

1. Quality content is job one

With all of the upheaval caused with the Google updates you can no longer get away with poorly written, low quality content on your sites. Now affiliate marketers must find ways to create better quality content that falls within Google’s new content guidelines.

The freshness of your content also matters as does the relevance. You’ll want to mix it up and provide your visitors with a variety of content formats such as audio, and video in addition to text. Interact with your visitors and encourage lots of user generated content. In the end it is quality, fresh, relevant keyword-optimized content that will attract the human visitors and the search engines to your site.

2. Make your site mobile friendly

Mobileis sizzling hot at the moment. We are coming into a time when smart phones are taking over and more people are accessing the Internet on mobile devices—that is cell phones, tablets and other Internet ready devices—than with their desktop or laptop computers. You can even take a peek at your analytics and see how many of your current visitors are accessing your site using mobile browsers. If you want mobile users to stick around and access what your affiliate marketing blog has to offer, then make sure that there is a version of your site that provides a satisfying experience for your mobile visitors who are viewing your content on a tiny screen or a touch screen.

3. Be active in social media

Since the Google plus your world update, the importance of having an active presence on Google+ was underscored. With this new update, when the people in your network do a search using any of the keywords associated with your niche, your Google+ profile results will appear on the first page of the search results they get.

You also want to be active daily and in some cases several times a day on Facebook because of the SEO benefits of the inbound links. Create a business page, and use the Networked Blogs app to gain more exposure and links to your blog.

Twitter is as important as ever to help boost your SEO because of the inbound links from a high page rank site. With Twitter you want to be on the lists of influential people in your sphere, and create lists that people want to be on and subscribe to.

5. A new link building strategy

Since traffic is the life’s blood of your affiliate marketing blog, you’ve got to stay up on all of the changes that are happening in the search engine world. You’ve got to develop a new link building strategy that focuses on quality over quantity. One of the best ways to get high quality, targeted inbound links is to do guest posting gigs. Make a list of the top five blogs in your niche and make contact with the authors. Offer to do a guest post for them and in return you’ll get exposure to a new audience and a high page rank link back to your blog. Do this often enough and you’ll begin to see the benefits accumulating.

To successfully attract as much organic search engine traffic as possible become a student of SEO. Take action on these tips with your affiliate marketing blog and test and track your results.

If you found these SEO tips useful there’s more where these came from. Visit http://mcreasite.com/blog for more information about growing your affiliate marketing blog today.

Affiliate marketing is a fast moving industry, and if you want to get ahead you’ve got to stay on top of the trends and predictions. 2011 was a year of lots of changes in this industry, and 2012 will bring new changes as well.

Here are five of the top affiliate marketing trends that will have an impact on the industry in the year to come:

1. Mobile

You might have been hearing that mobile is coming, but guess what?Mobileis here. This long-ish, but worth watching video tells a compelling story of the future of digital marketing. Pay close attention at around 3:30 it goes into predictions and projections for the mobile industry.

The Future of Online Digital Marketing 2012 -2015

youtu.be/CwTAARorGbk

With more people accessing the Internet on their mobile devices than with PCs, you will begin to get the picture that if you want to reach people, you must get involved with mobile marketing to grow your business.

2. Research

While research has always been an important component of affiliate marketing, it’s becoming increasingly crucial as competition increases. Forrester has predicted that retailers will be spending upwards of $4 billion on affiliate marketing programs by 2014. This means increasing competition as more and more affiliates jump in for their piece of the exponentially bigger pie.

You’ll want to invest time in market research and keyword research. If you lack knowledge in this area you will want to invest in the tools and training required to build your skills. Invest in cutting edge keyword research tools and learn how to use them. Invest in coaching or training offered by those who have demonstrated real-world, tangible results.

3. Keep your eye on the Panda

Last year the Google Panda updates rocked the world of many affiliate marketers. This was a subtle reminder of the need to keep your eye on Google. It also points out what has been true all along—the demand for high quality content. If you focus on raising the quality, freshness and variety of content on your affiliate sites you really can’t go wrong when it comes to the search engines.

4. Get smart with conversion optimization

Sarah Bundy of Revenews.com, says this about the growing importance of conversion optimization, “By combining both the affiliate’s conversion optimization efforts in AB-tested creative (e.g., landing pages, content, and calls to action) with the merchant’s efforts to convert the final sale, consumers are more likely to complete the desired action at a lower overall cost. Mutual conversion optimization this year will lead to higher profits for both affiliates and merchants alike.” Take the time to learn how to do A/B testing. There are a ton of free tools that make it fast and easy. Alternatively, hire someone to do the testing for you, or you will be leaving money on the table.

5. Adaptability to change wins the day

OK, so this one might not technically be a trend, but it’s a skill you’ll want to hone in the months and years ahead as big changes come quickly and without warning. Being adaptable means that you can change your game plan on a dime to keep up with what’s happening in the industry.

Affiliate marketing is an exciting business model, but to be successful at it you should never stop learning and increasing your skills. To learn more about how to build and grow your online business, visit http://mcreasite.com/blog today.

Are you a blogger who has lost their blogging mojo? If you blog has been gathering more cobwebs than traffic lately, it might be time for a blog makeover. There are dozens of things that you can do to breathe new life into a stagnant blog, but we’ve pulled together five specific tasks that you can do to get you blog back on track and producing results again quickly.

If you take action on these five tips you will certainly see improvements. But first you’ve got to take stock of where you are and what your goals are before you can measure the changes that will take place. Let’s take a look at the tips:

1. Define your ideal visitor

This is really going back to basics. When you started your blog you most likely had a topic in mind that you were passionate about, so you started writing a few posts a week on your topic, but did you ever take the time to really think about who you are writing to? It’s just like finding your ideal customer when you are in sales. Having an image of the age, sex, likes and dislikes of your ideal visitor will make it so much easier to write for them, and then will really enjoy how perfectly your content fits their sensibilities.

2. Stand for something

People don’t visit your blog to hear bland, vanilla content. You are the one who sets your blog apart from the millions of other blogs out there. So, don’t be shy. Have an opinion and share your unique perspective with the world, and you will establish a loyal following of those who agree with you, and maybe create a bit of controversy with those who disagree with you.

3. Post consistently

Here’s where you’ll have to get creative because often time we begin a project like a blog with the best of intentions, but when it’s no longer new and the excitement has worn off you’ve got to come up with ways to stick with it if you want to reap the rewards that a popular blog can provide for you.

Try getting guest bloggers to fill in for you when you can’t publish a new post. Whenever you sit down to work on a new post, try to crank out a few extra posts on evergreen topics that you can post when you are stuck for time.

4. Use compelling headlines

A good headline draws the reader into the post, so take the time to study good headlines. Create a swipe file of headlines that move you to action and use these to inspire your own titles. Come up with a few different headlines for the same post and pick the best one.

5. Work your blog stats

Keep tabs on your blog’s analytics. Watch your traffic stats to see what kinds of keywords your visitors are typing in to find your blog. check your bounce rate, and the most popular landing pages. Figure out what’s working and what needs improving.

Your blog is your platform and your money maker. Try these tips to breathe new life into your neglected blog.

Looking for more blogging tips? Visit http://mcreasite.com/blog where you’ll find lots of ideas for growing your business using internet marketing today.

Instagram is a wildly popular iPhone app, with over 14 million users is one of the most popular mobile social media apps right now. Instagram represents a happy mashup that combines mobile, the power of pictures, and the popularity of social media to create an app that allows users to snap photos with their smartphone’s camera, apply a filter to it, and then share it with those who are following them.

While snapping and sharing pics on your mobile phone sounds like a lot of fun, brands have been taking advantage of Instagram’s popularity and gaining lots of exposure by way of the user-generated content that their fans create and share. Instagram can add a whole new dimension to your social media marketing campaigns.

iPhone users can download the app for free, set up their profile and start snapping pictures within minutes. After you take a picture and apply one of the many filters to it, you’ll want to apply the appropriate hashtags that will help categorize your pictures. You’ll find the hot, trending hashtags at, web.stagram.com/hot. You can then share it on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

Lately there have been a lot written about how brands can leverage the power of Instagram to build their brand. Here’s a few of them:

Jeff Bullas of jeffbullas.com, shares 3 Instagram success stories in his post, How Instagram Harnesses the Awesome Power of Mobile, Social Media and Photos: 3 Success Stories, about TV chef Jamie Oliver uses the app to market himself, his cooking show and his publications. He writes about how Starbucks has amassed over 200,000 Instagram followers who connect with the already famous brand through photographs, and fashion brand, Burberry, which uses Instagram to share behind-the-scenes looks at their photo shoots and fashion shows.

John Jantsch of the Duct Tape Marketing blog, writes about, How to Use Instagram to Tell and Sell Your Marketing Story. He shares several tools that work with Instagram to help people network and promote their business.

We found a really cool infographic from Followgram that chronicles Instagram’s short but amazing journey since it came on the scene in October of 2010: digitalbuzzblog.com/infographic-instagram-facts/

The ClickZ marketing news blog shares, 5 Instagram Tactics for Brands, which include:

1. Sneak peeks

2. Popular hashtags

3. Increase visibility

4. Campaign extension

5. Geotag photos

Source: clickz.com

John Paul Titlow shares6 Effective Waysto Get More Instagram Followers in his readwriteweb blog post. He offers tips for what to do on Instagram to attract a bigger following.

The best advice is to get in there and start taking and sharing photos that are relevant to your brand without blatantly advertising your company and its products. Brands that are successful in building a following on Instagram have created a community and users who are loyal to that brand willingly share photos using their favorite brand’s hashtags.

If your product or service relies heavily on images such as hairdressers, makeup artists, fashion designers, decorators, etc., try adding Instagram to your social media marketing campaigns and see what kind of results you get.

For more tips and strategies for using social media marketing to grow your online business visit http://mcreasite.com/blog today.

Testimonials written by satisfied customers about your products or services show prospective customers that other people like them have tried what you have to offer and were pleased with it. Having a good selection of the right kind of testimonials on your website can make the difference in your conversion rate.

Most of the people who visit your site for the first time are not going to buy a thing from you. In fact, most marketers don’t realize that it takes about seven or more encounters with your brand before customers will feel comfortable enough to buy from you. People are becoming increasingly comfortable buying goods and services online, but they still want to make sure that you, your products and services are a perfect fit for them before they pull out the plastic and place an order.

What is social proof?

Aileen Lee, in an article on TechCrunch, says, “Social proof is the new marketing,” and she defines it as, “the positive influence created when someone finds out that others are doing something.  It’s also known as informational social influence.” What we do and what we say has an influence on those around us. Social proof provides evidence that others consider us to be legit and worth buying from or working with. Testimonials are the best way to demonstrate the social proof that will help new visitors feel more at ease and willing to stick around and learn more about what you have to offer.

How do you get good testimonials?

The best testimonials come unsolicited, but there’s no reason you can’t ask for them. If you’ve got a few favorite clients that have already expressed their pleasure from having worked with you, or their satisfaction from a purchase they made from you, ask them if they would give you a testimonial that you can post on your website. Rather than just generic, glowing praise, the best testimonials are results-based. You want them to describe the tangible results they received from working with you or using your products.

Offer a testimonial for a favorite product or service

Sometimes if you go first, and offer a testimonial, then others may reciprocate and write one about you. Be genuine and accurate when you give a testimonial.

Get testimonials in several formats

Video testimonials can be the most powerful because you get to see their face, hear their voice and really get a feel for their reaction to your products. Written testimonials are also great when they are accompanied by a photo, a name and either a business name, or where the person lives.

When people are reading testimonials about a product or service that they are considering using, they are looking to hear from people who are more or less similar to themselves, so the closer the testimonials are to your target audience, the more effective they will be.

Ask for testimonials, create a place on your website where people can leave a testimonial, and post them throughout your site so that visitors can see them from whatever page they happen to land on.

For more information about online marketing, visit http://mcreasite.com/blog where you will discover lots of tips and strategies fro growing your business with Internet marketing today.