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"Small Business Conversations by Network Solutions" - 3 new articles
Step-by-Step Guide to Test Your Affiliate Website and Improve ConversionsI came from direct response background, and not a day passed without testing something! I thought I’d pass on some tips on testing websites that you can apply to your affiliate website or blog. Before going through these steps, let’s talk about the importance of testing. The end goal of your affiliate website test is to improve conversion rates and of course, your commissions. It may seem like common sense to apply what other websites have done to your own website, but it may not work for you for various reasons. Your audience may be different, your marketing tactics may be different, or your goals may be different. It is also common sense to follow your advertisers’ metrics, with EPC (earnings per 100 clicks) as the most obvious one. Use EPC as a guide, but see if that EPC holds true for you. The larger advertisers have thousands of affiliates and that EPC is based on all of their affiliates. Within those affiliates, how many are similar to you? A handful, most, none? You probably don’t have the answer. So again, use EPC as a guide to initially select ads or offers for your website, but test those ads and offers. So put your lab coat on and let’s go through these steps. Step 1: Decide on What to Test Offers – If your advertiser has multiple offers, you can see from your affiliate dashboard which offer has higher EPC. Again, use that as a guide, but always test the various offers yourself to see which one works best for your website or blog. Is it 10% off? Is it free shipping? Placements – A standard blog will have a banner at the top and several banners on the side. It’s fine to start with those typical banner placements, but play around to see which specific placement (top, left, right, bottom of the post, within the post) works best for you. Banners vs. Text – Just because a banner ad is pretty, it doesn’t mean that it’ll have a high conversion rate. In many cases, text links work well for affiliates. Don't just slap on the text links all over your website or blog. Instead, build content around it and make that text link a part of your content. Don’t forget to disclose that those are affiliate links per FTC’s rules. Creatives – Think of creatives as both banner creatives and text link copy. If the advertiser provides multiple banner creatives, see which one works better for you. With text link, you have more opportunities to test the copy yourself; just don’t go crazy and write copy that conflict with your advertiser's offers or brand. Before changing your advertisers’ copy, see how other text links have been written and follow the same style. For example, do they include terms in the copy? Do they use the same call-to-action for all of their text links? You should also review their website copy and follow the same style. Advertisers – The four tests that I have listed above apply to one advertiser only. Don’t stop there! Apply to multiple affiliate programs in the same category and see which advertiser will produce better conversion rates for you. It's possible that your website visitors may prefer one brand over another, or that one advertiser's conversion rate is better than others. Step 2: Outline How to Test Another example is testing two banner ads on your email newsletters. Split your subscribers into two; serve banner ad #1 to 50% of your subscribers and banner ad #2 to the other 50% of your subscribers. To get a clear result of your test, test just one element, keeping all other elements the same. You can also implement a multi-variate test if you want to test multiple elements at once. Just make sure that you can track them separately. So if you test two banner ads on your email newsletters, keep the subject line, email content and banner placements the same on both emails. You can use free tools such as Google Website Optimiser or ShrimpTest, an A/B test plugin for WordPress, to implement your tests. Step 3: Test Before You Implement Step 4: Track Your Results Finally, remember that testing requires patience. It may take you several tries to find your sweet spot, but your patience will result in a big payoff! PS: If you are interested in learning more about Network Solutions program, learn more here, email NS@PaulsonManagementGroup.com or tweet us @NetSolAffiliate. Thanks For Your #growsmartbiz Conference Support! (Can't Make It? Watch the Live Stream!)Thanks to everyone for your amazing support as the momentum has built for this year's 2nd Grow Smart Business Conference! We are really looking forward to seeing you there tomorrow. If you can't make it, follow us on Twitter at #growsmartbiz. Or, watch it live via a video stream. The Washington Business Journal and YaYastream, a women-owned, Washington, DC-based video streaming business, have teamed up to bring you the live feed. Link to live stream at http://yayastream.com/online-video/growsmartbiz-livevideostream.html. Last, but definitely not least, a huge thank you to everyone (including me–see #21!) who has supported the Grow Smart Business Conference by blogging about it. Quite a list!
Join us Tomorrow at GrowSmartBiz Conference 2010
To kick off the conference, we are excited to welcome our keynote speakers, Marie C. Johns, Deputy Administrator of the US Small Business Administration, and Raul Fernandez, chairman of ObjectVideo. Become an MBA student for the day by registering for one of the four tracks offered: Marketing & Innovation Small Business, Government and Nonprofits Technology as a Tool for Your Business Entrepreneur Bootcamp The day will conclude with a final session that touches each of the four tracks and will be attended by everyone at the conference. This session will look to the future of small businesses, covering marketing, technology, trends and public relations. Featuring six expert panelists, the session will commence with a marketing keynote from small business advocate, writer, blogger, personality proponent and renowned public relations professional, Rohit Bhargava. There is still time to spend your Friday sharing ideas, successes and challenges with other entrepreneurs. Click here to register. We look forward to seeing you there! |
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