The Case for Short and Tiny URLs
Conducting surveys is one of the instruments in any marketer’s arsenal. The Internet Marketer is no different. The methods and measurements are similar but the different mediums sometimes need a little getting used to.
Don’t get me wrong - I love online survey services like SurveyMonkey.
But marketers trying out such online services will realise that the URLS are terribly long. No one will do the survey if they need to key in the whole convoluted URL. Read more
Amazon Associates Drops Paid Search Referrals
Amazon is changing the way affiliates do business.
As of 1st May 2009, the affiliate program, Amazon Associates, will no longer pay referral fees for Paid Search sales. This means that if you have been driving PPC traffic to Amazon via product keywords on Google, Yahoo and MSN, you’re out of luck.
And Amazon’s not dumb. They know about interstitial pages; they won’t pay referral fees for these either. In other words, paid search advertisements to page redirections are also not allowed.
Your only option now is content. You have to build some value about the product that you are selling. You are still allowed to use PPC to drive traffic to your website, but you’ve got to win your customers by selling value. You can also use your SEO skills to drive organic traffic to your website.
Might as well start checking out Info Product Killer. This is a good blueprint to build your content around a range of Amazon products that you are targeting. It targets the Christmas season, mainly because of the buying volume during that period. But that knowledge is evergreen - it will also work when you build product content around themes.
Google’s Personalization of Search
Google has pushed the Personalisation of Search functionality a little further now.
It used to be that when you are logged in to your google account (e.g. gmail), Google would be passively tuning your search results to what it thinks would be more relevant to you.
Now you can have a more active role in what you wish to see. You can now promote a search result, or even remove it completely. And you can add comments and notes too, with the option of making the comment public. These are available as 3 new icons visible against each search result line.
Users are now able to tailor their search results to a high degree. You can also see how other users tailor their results, with their google accounts also available there.
It will be interesting to see if these new additions will have an impact on SEO efforts vis-a-vis SERP positions in the non-personalized environment. That is, when a user searches via Google, but isn’t logged into a Google Account.
About Social Networking
What is Social Networking all about? And how do you tap into this potential Internet Marketing medium?
Check out this fab video by CommonCraft.com
Bottom line: As an Internet Marketer, this can be one of the ways that you develop a niche/product that you have an interest in, and have a natural community of like-minded people getting connected to you.
About RSS
Don’t know what RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is? Or why you need it?
Check out this quick video by CommonCraft.
Bottom line: This is a great personal time-saver during your Internet Marketing journey. You will have to read up on what the gurus out there are doing, or new tips and tricks being found, or new tools and products are coming up. So start getting a feed from their blogs or news pages today.
