How To Really Make Money With Datafeed Merchants.

How To Really Make Money With Datafeed Merchants.

by: Konstantin Goudkov

I am not going to describe what a product feed (or a datafeed) is. There is a lot of information out there about how to use one to build sites. Instead, I want to talk about how you can actually make more sales with datafeed sites.
The program that I manage offers a product feed, and I get a chance to see a sad picture of many good affiliates wasting their potential.
Here is my advice from the affiliate managerกs perspective.
Whenever you join (or think bout joining) a program, you need to look for two things:

Temporary or permanent opportunities
Flaws of a merchant

Here is an example of an opportunity that was created by an outside factor.
Recently, we got removed from the Yahoo index because of a penalty. I have no idea when (or if) we will get included back in, but I do know that it makes one decision much easier for our affiliates.
Judging by the numerous posts on various SEOrelated message boards, it looks like Google and Yahoo use very different algorithms to rank pages. So for any given site, you have a choice to make. You can optimize for Yahoo, for Google, or for both.
Since Yahoo and Google use different algorithms, it is going to be hard to optimize the same set of pages for both of those engines at the same time, unless you employ heavy cloaking. And the way I see it, for an affiliate, it is better to appear high on one search engine than to appear low on both of them in an attempt to optimize for different algorithms at the same time.
Imagine that you are one of our affiliates. Given the information I just told you, shouldn’t you concentrate on Yahoo for that datafeed site that is being used to promote our products?
Why spend (at least) half of your time and resources on optimizing for Google when you know that we are nowhere to be found in Yahoo?
You have to have an extremely well linked and optimized site to get ahead of the merchant for the exact productname search terms. The merchant is your biggest obstacle when it comes to the search engine traffic. So if there is a route that lets you get around that obstacle take it!
Most of our wellperforming affiliates did just that. Either intentionally or unintentionally, they ended up making much more money by appearing high in Yahoo results, while not being ranked high in Google.
So on a practical side of things, here is what you should do.
For your existing merchants, check if they are removed from the index in any of the major search engines, and if they are, then start reading and implementing SEO tips for that particular engine.
And if you are thinking about joining a program and can’t decide between several merchants, then check if any of them is not in the index of either Yahoo or Google. If you find a merchant like that drop everything else you are doing and jump on that program.
As far as theory goes, this was just a simple, but specific example of what you should look for to make your efforts pay off. There are many different opportunities to get ahead in existing programs with datafeed sites; you just have to look for them.
Now, letกs talk about flaws of merchants and how you can exploit them to make more money and help consumers at the same time.
I will give another specific example, but you should be able to apply this concept to many different programs.
Our site has one huge structural flaw: we only list products by productoriented categories.
In other words, there is no way to navigate our site by a specific occasion or by the purchasing intent of a visitor.
You can follow a path like:
widgets > wooden widgets > red wooden widgets
This setup works fine for some type of shoppers, but is a complete turnoff for others.
And the problem is that most affiliates simply mirror the catalog structure of a merchant according to their feed.
But if you structured your site to list widgets as:

widgets for birthdays
widgets for girlfriends
widgets for those who are over 50
the Independence Day widgets
etc.

then you would attract different type of shoppers. You would no longer compete with the merchant, but instead you would complement them.
A visitor who is looking for a gift for his 50something friend and has no idea that a red wooden widget would be perfect, will not travel down the path laid out by our catalog. So if he gets to our home page, we simply lose a sale. And if your datafeedbased site follows the same structure you lose as sale as well.
Also, since the visitor does not know that he really wants a red wooden widget, he we not use those keywords while searching for a present on the search engines.
But if you attracted that visitor to your site, presented him with ideas for older friendsก birthday gifts and guided him to that specific widgetกs page then we would make a sale, you would make a commission, and the visitor (turned customer) would get his present with much less searching around. Everyone wins.
Such approach takes more work than simply cloning the merchantกs site with a feed, but affiliates who actually do something to complement merchant instead competing with them make a lot more money. After all, if you create a copy of a merchantกs site you are not only competing with the merchant, you are also competing with all of their affiliates that use the same feed in the same way.
Copyright 2004 Konstantin Goudkov
Konstantin Goudkov,

[email protected]

http://www.GenericGifts.com

2500+ products in a data feed. 20% commission.

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About The Author

Konstantin Goudkov is an affiliate manager with www.GenericGifts.com. He specializes on visitor tracking, splitrun testing, and discovering ways to increase conversion rates for different presentation / action scenarios.

This article was posted on May 13, 2004

by Konstantin Goudkov

Google Tests Expanded Search To Include Printed Wo

Google Tests Expanded Search To Include Printed Works

by: Jakob Jelling

Google Labs is currently testing Google Print, which returns results from within scanned printed books along with Googleกs standard web search results. The searcher doesn’t have to do anything special the printed work results are already included in the Google database. Searchers have the option of narrowing their search by including, for example, the word กbookก in their search terms. For example, a search on กhome repairก might return a variety of web sites, online merchants, etc., while changing the search to กhome repair bookก will help filter the results to include more material scanned directly from books.

Publishers don’t want their entire books read online of course, so Google limits the number of pages a single user may read at any one time. A user can see the page where their search was found, plus they can go two pages forward and two pages backward from their original result page. Google provides links to merchants where the book can be purchased. Google earns no revenue from book purchases, but they do display their contextual advertising within the Google Print results, and they share this with participating publishers.

Once youกve found your search terms in a book, you can then enter additional search terms that will be limited to the book itself, rather than the entire web. Googleกs selection includes both fiction and nonfiction, technical reference and professional books, textbooks, and more.

Since Google Print is currently in testing, a searcher won’t necessarily find results from every book they expect to see. As the program grows, Google has indicated they will continue to add books to their searchable database. Publishers who want to participate can do so for free.

By Jakob Jelling

http://www.sitetube.com

About The Author

Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.sitetube.com. Visit his website for the latest on planning, building, promoting and maintaining websites.

This article was posted on November 08, 2004

by Jakob Jelling

Search Engine Benefits to Article Marketing

Search Engine Benefits to Article Marketing

by: Tinu AbayomiPaul

Youกve probably heard by now that article marketing can help you build links back to your site.

But thereกs a lot more to it than that. Articles aren’t only good for leveraging yourself stronger positions in Google, Yahoo, MSN and the other big search engines, though thatกs what weกll be focusing on today. Keep in mind that learning a more balanced view of promotion and marketing with articles can help you reap all the perks with essentially the same amount of work.

For now, letกs start with four of the top five search engine benefits.

1 The OneWay Link of a Resource Box backlink is More Powerful.

A link from a site that you’re not linked back to has more value than one where you may be required to link back to, simply because changes in the way search engines rank sites now include an adjustment for exchanged links.

The logic is that this would make the voting power of a link that points in one direction weigh more heavily than one that is traded. In theory, this makes it easier for sites that have earned link popularity to get more credit than those who have bought or traded for it.

Of course, over time, this effect may be adjusted and partially dampened so that articles that are just being submitted to resources with no editorial process will count less than those that don’t undergo this process. So make sure you’re not submitting junk content for the purpose of linking alone.

2 Article Resource Box Links Back to You Are Relevant

If you write articles that stay on the topic of your site, the page where your article appears is more effective as a page that links back because it is more relevant. Again, depending on the search engine, the more topical the environment where you are linked, the more credit your site gets for the link itself, particularly if you’re submitting to an online directory which allows you to make better use of linking.

There are a few little changes you can make that will make your links and articles more topically relevant than 90% of other articles, merely because other authors don’t think to balance the search engine benefits of article promotion with its value as content, rather than favoring one or the other.

3 Many of Your Articles Appear on Pages with High Google PR

If you take a look at your Google Site Information page, youกll probably notice that Google seems to pick up only sites that have high page rank under the listing for sites that link to you.

Then, of course all the sites that use the text of your site URL, hyperlinked or not, can be found under the last setting for sites that contain your link.

Google Page Rank is typically not something to get in a frenzy over, but it does have an importance that can affect your bottom line for two main reasons.

First, on the occasions that Google Page Rank can help you get better search engine positioning, the process of being linked from these sites can help bring you more targeted traffic, which can lead to more sales. Again, this has to be part of an overall strategy, not your sole reason for submitting articles.

Second, if links from sites with higher page rank get are being spidered more frequently than your site, your link on these sites can also get crawled faster. If you have unique content on your site, this can give you a competitive edge when your content gets included more rapidly.

4 These links back to your site are permanent.

That means that instead of buying a link on a site that appears there for three months and disappears, you are getting a free, topically relevant link pointing back to your site that may be archived, but not dropped.

Over time, if you submit articles on a regular schedule, each effort towards publication is building on previous exposure, helping you brand yourself and your company, as well as build a strong link campaign pointing back towards your site that is free.

As the quality of your articles improve, you can also get qualified leads from the process, an increase in traffic and sales, and publication in resources who have stronger brands than you do, which you may then leverage for additional exposure.

Just remember, the search engine benefits of promoting your site with articles represent only the tip of the iceberg. With articles you can also brand yourself, use your knowledge to establish yourself as an expert, network, develop relationships and increase your leads, sales and traffic.

About The Author

Tinu AbayomiPaul

What is the Fifth Search Engine Benefit to Article Marketing and Promotion? Find out in the free ecourse on Article Promotion at: http://www.freetraffictip.com/2articlemarketing/tipsam2.php.

This article was posted on September 05

by Tinu AbayomiPaul