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So... you thought Google is the "be all" and "end all" search engine?
You love Google's simple interface and think there's not much to be done on the user interface level?
Think again!
Meet SearchMe. The second generation of visual search, that actually works.
We've all seen how Ask.com and MSN Live have been incorporating built-in images/video search as part of search results...
SearchMe takes it up a notch. All search results are displayed as screenshots, with a Mac like sexy panning interface.
It's kind of like snap.com, only much better :-)
One of the cool features of SearchMe, is the ability to create custom stacks (collection of browser pages, images, videos) and embed them on your blog -
-
Thank you Steven for the heads up
You love Google's simple interface and think there's not much to be done on the user interface level?
Think again!
Meet SearchMe. The second generation of visual search, that actually works.
We've all seen how Ask.com and MSN Live have been incorporating built-in images/video search as part of search results...
SearchMe takes it up a notch. All search results are displayed as screenshots, with a Mac like sexy panning interface.
It's kind of like snap.com, only much better :-)
One of the cool features of SearchMe, is the ability to create custom stacks (collection of browser pages, images, videos) and embed them on your blog -
-
Thank you Steven for the heads up
If you're looking to do Affiliate Marketing with commodity items, you need merchant product feeds.
Product feeds are spreadsheets provided by a merchant (Amazon.com, Overstock.com, Zappos.com etc) listing every single product available for you to promote and earn a commission for.
While you only need a single link when you're building a NetFlix landing page, a lot more comes into play when you're setting up a niche shoes store, virtual shopping mall or comparison shopping site, displaying hundreds of products from multiple vendors.
CommissionJunction, LinkShare and ShareASale are the top affiliate networks offering merchant product feeds. Signup for an account with all three so that you cover all merchants in your target verticals.
Once you have an account, apply for the merchants you are looking to promote. You are also going to have to apply for FTP product-feed access (One-time $200 fee with CommissionJunction, $250 with LinkShare and free with ShareASale).
A typical merchant product-feed includes:
Product ID (merchant specific)
Product Name
Product Description
Product Image (small)
Price
Affiliate URL
Category (merchant specific)
Some feeds also include information about the Product Manufacturer and the Manufacturer SKU.
Once you start handling product feeds, you'll find just like anything else in life, product feeds are not perfect.
Merchants try to keep all information in the product-feed accurate and up to date, but there are often price mismatches, broken urls, missing images, bad descriptions and proprietary categories.
As an example, here's a record from today's Buy.com product-feed for the "Desktop Computers" category of products -
Yes, you're looking at a phone, incorrectly categorized as a Desktop Computer.
Another thing to note is that Buy.com, much like all other merchants, doesn't provide all information they have about a product as part of the product data-feed.
Here is how the exact same product is represented on the Buy.com website:
Notice the brand-level categorization, detailed product summary, tech spec, warranty information and reviews, all of which missing from the product feed.
So before you integrate a merchant's product feed with your website, you have to scrub it. And since you'll be dealing with thousands of records, automation is key.
6 Steps to Scrubbing Product Data Feeds:
In general, Product ID, name, price and url are the only four fields you can rely on in a merchant's product feed.
Images are going to be too small, descriptions too short and categories - merchant specific.
The steps to effectively downloading and processing data feeds:
1. Download merchant product data feed from FTP site
2. Write a script that will iterate through all data feed listings and identify the unique product each listing is describing.
Hint: If you operate in an industry that has universal product SKUs (books, laptops etc) it's easy. However if you're dealing with shoes, magazines or jewelry - you'll have to employ some "fuzzy logic" to identify two listings referring to the same product, each using a different name.
3. Identify a website that offers the best (largest size) images for products in your target industry. Check copyright regulations and if all is well, write a script that will harvest the larger than life images and match them to products.
4. Identify a website that offers the best (longest) descriptions for products in your target industry. Check copyright regulations and if al is well, write a script that will harvest the descriptions and match them to products.
Important note about descriptions - Having unique descriptions is a lot better than scrapping the same description all of your competitors use. If you have the budget, invest in paying a writer to write new descriptions for your website, at least for the most popoular products. You'll score points with the search engines as well as with your website visitors.
5. Decide on a category structure for your website (get ideas for competing sites in your industry) and then write a script that will match merchant categories to yours.
Every merchant is going to have different names to their categories and in order to have products from different merchants show up under the proper categories on your website, you'll have to develop a matching table.
6. Write a basic script that will iterate through all destination urls looking for a specific phrase to indicate the page loaded successfully. Automate this. If you're sending PPC traffic to your website, you're going to want to know when a destination URL stops working - so you can stop promoting that individual product.
-
That's it.
Affiliate Marketing with Product Feeds offers huge benefits, but requires a lot of planning, testing and ongoing monitoring.
Are you using product feeds as part of your affiliate marketing strategy?
Please comment and let me know if you are following a similar system or if you've simplified things.
View 2 Comment(s)
Product feeds are spreadsheets provided by a merchant (Amazon.com, Overstock.com, Zappos.com etc) listing every single product available for you to promote and earn a commission for.
While you only need a single link when you're building a NetFlix landing page, a lot more comes into play when you're setting up a niche shoes store, virtual shopping mall or comparison shopping site, displaying hundreds of products from multiple vendors.
CommissionJunction, LinkShare and ShareASale are the top affiliate networks offering merchant product feeds. Signup for an account with all three so that you cover all merchants in your target verticals.
Once you have an account, apply for the merchants you are looking to promote. You are also going to have to apply for FTP product-feed access (One-time $200 fee with CommissionJunction, $250 with LinkShare and free with ShareASale).
A typical merchant product-feed includes:
Product ID (merchant specific)
Product Name
Product Description
Product Image (small)
Price
Affiliate URL
Category (merchant specific)
Some feeds also include information about the Product Manufacturer and the Manufacturer SKU.
Once you start handling product feeds, you'll find just like anything else in life, product feeds are not perfect.
Merchants try to keep all information in the product-feed accurate and up to date, but there are often price mismatches, broken urls, missing images, bad descriptions and proprietary categories.
As an example, here's a record from today's Buy.com product-feed for the "Desktop Computers" category of products -
Yes, you're looking at a phone, incorrectly categorized as a Desktop Computer.
Another thing to note is that Buy.com, much like all other merchants, doesn't provide all information they have about a product as part of the product data-feed.
Here is how the exact same product is represented on the Buy.com website:
Notice the brand-level categorization, detailed product summary, tech spec, warranty information and reviews, all of which missing from the product feed.
So before you integrate a merchant's product feed with your website, you have to scrub it. And since you'll be dealing with thousands of records, automation is key.
6 Steps to Scrubbing Product Data Feeds:
In general, Product ID, name, price and url are the only four fields you can rely on in a merchant's product feed.
Images are going to be too small, descriptions too short and categories - merchant specific.
The steps to effectively downloading and processing data feeds:
1. Download merchant product data feed from FTP site
2. Write a script that will iterate through all data feed listings and identify the unique product each listing is describing.
Hint: If you operate in an industry that has universal product SKUs (books, laptops etc) it's easy. However if you're dealing with shoes, magazines or jewelry - you'll have to employ some "fuzzy logic" to identify two listings referring to the same product, each using a different name.
3. Identify a website that offers the best (largest size) images for products in your target industry. Check copyright regulations and if all is well, write a script that will harvest the larger than life images and match them to products.
4. Identify a website that offers the best (longest) descriptions for products in your target industry. Check copyright regulations and if al is well, write a script that will harvest the descriptions and match them to products.
Important note about descriptions - Having unique descriptions is a lot better than scrapping the same description all of your competitors use. If you have the budget, invest in paying a writer to write new descriptions for your website, at least for the most popoular products. You'll score points with the search engines as well as with your website visitors.
5. Decide on a category structure for your website (get ideas for competing sites in your industry) and then write a script that will match merchant categories to yours.
Every merchant is going to have different names to their categories and in order to have products from different merchants show up under the proper categories on your website, you'll have to develop a matching table.
6. Write a basic script that will iterate through all destination urls looking for a specific phrase to indicate the page loaded successfully. Automate this. If you're sending PPC traffic to your website, you're going to want to know when a destination URL stops working - so you can stop promoting that individual product.
-
That's it.
Affiliate Marketing with Product Feeds offers huge benefits, but requires a lot of planning, testing and ongoing monitoring.
Are you using product feeds as part of your affiliate marketing strategy?
Please comment and let me know if you are following a similar system or if you've simplified things.
View 2 Comment(s)
Setting up a new website or landing page?
For the sake of your (search engine) Quality Score, (human) Credibility and (financial) bottom line, there are exactly six pages your site must include.
#1. Home Page: Purpose of page = Get user to take action.
In today's short attention span, Web 2.0 world, there's no time for fluff.
Your Home Page is the gravity point of your site and your shot at convincing the end-user to stay on board for more than a few seconds.
Keep it clean, clear and to the point.
* If you're building a web service, let users "use", "test drive", or at least "watch a demo video" on your site's home page. Forget about requiring registration first. It rarely works.
* If your website is promoting a product/service, include information about (a) What you are selling, (b) Why it is the best product/service for your prospect, (c) Answers to common questions + Credibility boosters, and (d) Call to action.
#2. About us Page: Purpose of page = Build credibility.
The "About us" page is the second most important page of your website.
Our experience taught us first time users always click on the "About us" page, to learn more about the company, BEFORE they complete an order, BEFORE they signup and BEFORE they decide to trust your company.
Don't even think about using a template for this page. Be honest, include personal information about the founders, how and why the website was launched and what is the vision behind the site.
Include information about your company's geographic location, years in business, business model and best way to get in touch with you (Yes, you want all this information on the 'About us' page, even if you have a 'Contact us' page).
#3. FAQ Page: Purpose of page = Close the sale.
The user checked out your "home page" and they read the "about us" page. They're still not sure this is the right product/service for them, so they turn to your FAQ page.
Don't have an FAQ page? You just lost them.
The single purpose of your FAQ page is to answer any questions your prospect might have, further re-iterating why your product/service is a great fit.
#4. Privacy Policy Page: Purpose of page = Reassurance.
Straightforward, but definitely a must have.
You can grab a template here
Users are going to skim through this page to ensure there are no gotchas,
associated with using your product/service.
#5. Terms and Conditions Page: Purpose of page = Protect yourself.
Don't underestimate this one. Make your T&C page as detailed as possible, so that you protect your interests. It's a good idea to have your legal team write this page for you.
If you're on a tight budget and can't afford a legal team, search for a site that is similar to yours, study their T&C and write yours accordingly.
#6. Contact us Page: Purpose of page = Reinforce Credibility.
The "Contact us" page is only on this list because not having a "contact us" page is a major red flag.
No need to go crazy with your contact page. Include more than one form of contact (i.e. Phone and Email, or Email and Snail mail) and make it very clear that your company is always available to answer any questions, comments or concerns.
--
Every single one of the web sites and landing pages we create, include these six must-have pages.
If your sites are missing one or more of the 6 must-have pages, go ahead and add them now. You'll thank me later.
View 16 Comment(s)
For the sake of your (search engine) Quality Score, (human) Credibility and (financial) bottom line, there are exactly six pages your site must include.
#1. Home Page: Purpose of page = Get user to take action.
In today's short attention span, Web 2.0 world, there's no time for fluff.
Your Home Page is the gravity point of your site and your shot at convincing the end-user to stay on board for more than a few seconds.
Keep it clean, clear and to the point.
* If you're building a web service, let users "use", "test drive", or at least "watch a demo video" on your site's home page. Forget about requiring registration first. It rarely works.
* If your website is promoting a product/service, include information about (a) What you are selling, (b) Why it is the best product/service for your prospect, (c) Answers to common questions + Credibility boosters, and (d) Call to action.
#2. About us Page: Purpose of page = Build credibility.
The "About us" page is the second most important page of your website.
Our experience taught us first time users always click on the "About us" page, to learn more about the company, BEFORE they complete an order, BEFORE they signup and BEFORE they decide to trust your company.
Don't even think about using a template for this page. Be honest, include personal information about the founders, how and why the website was launched and what is the vision behind the site.
Include information about your company's geographic location, years in business, business model and best way to get in touch with you (Yes, you want all this information on the 'About us' page, even if you have a 'Contact us' page).
#3. FAQ Page: Purpose of page = Close the sale.
The user checked out your "home page" and they read the "about us" page. They're still not sure this is the right product/service for them, so they turn to your FAQ page.
Don't have an FAQ page? You just lost them.
The single purpose of your FAQ page is to answer any questions your prospect might have, further re-iterating why your product/service is a great fit.
#4. Privacy Policy Page: Purpose of page = Reassurance.
Straightforward, but definitely a must have.
You can grab a template here
Users are going to skim through this page to ensure there are no gotchas,
associated with using your product/service.
#5. Terms and Conditions Page: Purpose of page = Protect yourself.
Don't underestimate this one. Make your T&C page as detailed as possible, so that you protect your interests. It's a good idea to have your legal team write this page for you.
If you're on a tight budget and can't afford a legal team, search for a site that is similar to yours, study their T&C and write yours accordingly.
#6. Contact us Page: Purpose of page = Reinforce Credibility.
The "Contact us" page is only on this list because not having a "contact us" page is a major red flag.
No need to go crazy with your contact page. Include more than one form of contact (i.e. Phone and Email, or Email and Snail mail) and make it very clear that your company is always available to answer any questions, comments or concerns.
--
Every single one of the web sites and landing pages we create, include these six must-have pages.
If your sites are missing one or more of the 6 must-have pages, go ahead and add them now. You'll thank me later.
View 16 Comment(s)
Generally speaking there are two types of content -
Static Content: Your blog posts, "about us" page, articles etc.
Dynamic Content: Your blog post comments, Stats, Search results etc.
By static content I am referring to content that is NOT frequently updated while dynamic content stands for content that is frequently refreshed (daily, hourly, in real-time etc)
Static content is typically stored as raw .html files, whereas dynamic content requires some form of php/asp/jsp computation coupled with database access, before the page can be served back to the end-user.
To improve the performance of your website, you should do everything you can to minimize database access and cache all dynamic content as static.
Most CMS Systems employ built-in caching so that frequently accessed articles/pages are automatically cached to disk, eliminating the need to access the database everytime a page is served back to the user. But please -- don't rely on your CMS system and call it a day.
We just did a site review for a client and found every single page was accessing the database 6 (!) times. And that includes pages like "about us", "privacy policy", as well as the home page and "contact us" page.
So, when you're done combining all .js to a single file, optimizing your images for fast loading, combining all .css to a single file and moving scripts to the bottom of your html files, analyze how many times you're hitting the database per every page load and work on reducing this number to the bare minimum.
Static Content: Your blog posts, "about us" page, articles etc.
Dynamic Content: Your blog post comments, Stats, Search results etc.
By static content I am referring to content that is NOT frequently updated while dynamic content stands for content that is frequently refreshed (daily, hourly, in real-time etc)
Static content is typically stored as raw .html files, whereas dynamic content requires some form of php/asp/jsp computation coupled with database access, before the page can be served back to the end-user.
To improve the performance of your website, you should do everything you can to minimize database access and cache all dynamic content as static.
Most CMS Systems employ built-in caching so that frequently accessed articles/pages are automatically cached to disk, eliminating the need to access the database everytime a page is served back to the user. But please -- don't rely on your CMS system and call it a day.
We just did a site review for a client and found every single page was accessing the database 6 (!) times. And that includes pages like "about us", "privacy policy", as well as the home page and "contact us" page.
So, when you're done combining all .js to a single file, optimizing your images for fast loading, combining all .css to a single file and moving scripts to the bottom of your html files, analyze how many times you're hitting the database per every page load and work on reducing this number to the bare minimum.
I've talked to more than a few web site owners that are convinced the topic of their web site is so boring that it would be impossible to create any type of linkbait or viral content. Although some topics are much easier than others for generating linkbait, the truth is that no matter what topic your web site covers, you can still create at least one great piece of linkbait. The key to accomplishing this is thinking outside the box and figuring out a new and creative way to present some of the information your topic covers. If you still don't believe me, let's take a look at an amazing piece of linkbait from one of the least exciting industries around: dairy.
CheddarVision.tv is the creation of Westcountry Farmhouse Cheesemakers. The beauty of this linkbait is that the web site itself is extremely simple: a single webcam which allows people to watch a lump of cheddar (which has been nicknamed Wedginald) age in real-time.
So, how successful has this web site been? According to a quick check of Yahoo, the web site has gathered over 16,000 links over the last nine months (which has pushed it to the number three position in Google for the term cheddar cheese). Additionally, according to a BBC article, over one and half million people had viewed the web site during the same time period.
In addition to taking an extremely creative approach to a normally boring subject, CheddarVision is a great example of linkbait for two other reasons:
1) Socially Optimized: As you can see from the screenshot, CheddarVision is designed in a way that makes it easy to promote via all of the major social media outlets. From the homepage alone, people can easily share CheddarVision with their friends through the following social media web sites: Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Digg, Reddit, Newvine, Del.icio.us and Google Reader. Additionally, the top right corner let's people spread the word by email or sign-up to be informed about updates via email.
2) Drives Traffic to the Desired Homepage: The other thing that I really like about this web site is that it is setup in a manner that it allows it to drive a lot of traffic to the web site it was designed to promote. Because it's on a separate domain, visitors would not necessarily find the web site that it was designed to promote. However, thanks to some clever links (not only do the links at the top of the page lead to the Cheesemakers homepage, but also a red button appears under the television that eventually leads to the homepage), this page is able to send a majority of its visitors to a desired target (where they can be converted into customers).
View 1 Comment(s)
CheddarVision.tv is the creation of Westcountry Farmhouse Cheesemakers. The beauty of this linkbait is that the web site itself is extremely simple: a single webcam which allows people to watch a lump of cheddar (which has been nicknamed Wedginald) age in real-time.
So, how successful has this web site been? According to a quick check of Yahoo, the web site has gathered over 16,000 links over the last nine months (which has pushed it to the number three position in Google for the term cheddar cheese). Additionally, according to a BBC article, over one and half million people had viewed the web site during the same time period.
In addition to taking an extremely creative approach to a normally boring subject, CheddarVision is a great example of linkbait for two other reasons:
1) Socially Optimized: As you can see from the screenshot, CheddarVision is designed in a way that makes it easy to promote via all of the major social media outlets. From the homepage alone, people can easily share CheddarVision with their friends through the following social media web sites: Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Digg, Reddit, Newvine, Del.icio.us and Google Reader. Additionally, the top right corner let's people spread the word by email or sign-up to be informed about updates via email.
2) Drives Traffic to the Desired Homepage: The other thing that I really like about this web site is that it is setup in a manner that it allows it to drive a lot of traffic to the web site it was designed to promote. Because it's on a separate domain, visitors would not necessarily find the web site that it was designed to promote. However, thanks to some clever links (not only do the links at the top of the page lead to the Cheesemakers homepage, but also a red button appears under the television that eventually leads to the homepage), this page is able to send a majority of its visitors to a desired target (where they can be converted into customers).
View 1 Comment(s)
If you are looking for sources of inspiration for your next piece of linkbait, check out the free to use data repositories below. As long as you can do a little outside of the box thinking (obviously, just copying the data available will get you nowhere), you should have no problem coming up with a great piece of linkbait:
JSC Digital Image Collection: This collection of more than 9000 NASA press release photos spans the American manned space program, from the Mercury program to the STS-79 Shuttle mission. In case you didn't know, Digg and Reddit users love photos of space.
Footnote: "At Footnote.com you will find millions of images of original source documents, many of which have never been available online before." Thanks to their partnership with Archive.gov, they offer over 17 million documents. With that amount of information at your fingertips, how could you not generate some great linkbait?
Prints & Photographs Online Catalog: Thanks to the sheer amount of public domain photographs available, it would be possible to make some type of historical or other linkbait for virtually any subject.
For many more sources like the ones listed above, be sure to add ResourceShelf to your RSS reader!
JSC Digital Image Collection: This collection of more than 9000 NASA press release photos spans the American manned space program, from the Mercury program to the STS-79 Shuttle mission. In case you didn't know, Digg and Reddit users love photos of space.
Footnote: "At Footnote.com you will find millions of images of original source documents, many of which have never been available online before." Thanks to their partnership with Archive.gov, they offer over 17 million documents. With that amount of information at your fingertips, how could you not generate some great linkbait?
Prints & Photographs Online Catalog: Thanks to the sheer amount of public domain photographs available, it would be possible to make some type of historical or other linkbait for virtually any subject.
For many more sources like the ones listed above, be sure to add ResourceShelf to your RSS reader!
As I've discussed before, one of the best ways to grow as an internet marketing is to study what is working for other internet marketers and then apply the knowledge you've gained to your own internet marketing efforts. Although directly copying someone else's work is unethical and ineffective, studying what they do and applying it in your own way is a powerful technique.
A great case study for internet marketers is the 45n5 Top 100 Make Money Online Blogs list. The list combines a blog's PageRank, Technorati Ranking and Alexa Ranking (known as 45n5 Rank) and then displays the blogs in order (as shown below):
So, why is this a great piece of linkbait? To begin with, it's useful. Mark (the creator of the list) even explains how it can be useful to bloggers and advertisers at the bottom of the list:
In addition to creating a useful piece of content that makes bloggers want to link to it (in many cases, to show off their ranking), Mark also went the extra mile and promoted his list via email. Judging by the number of links that Mark has received, this extra effort really paid off. Here is a video of Mark explaining how he ran his email promotion campaign:
Mark also expands on the results of his promotion campaign in this follow-up post (my only suggestion would be to automate the response process for people requesting to be added to the list).
View 1 Comment(s)
A great case study for internet marketers is the 45n5 Top 100 Make Money Online Blogs list. The list combines a blog's PageRank, Technorati Ranking and Alexa Ranking (known as 45n5 Rank) and then displays the blogs in order (as shown below):
So, why is this a great piece of linkbait? To begin with, it's useful. Mark (the creator of the list) even explains how it can be useful to bloggers and advertisers at the bottom of the list:
In addition to creating a useful piece of content that makes bloggers want to link to it (in many cases, to show off their ranking), Mark also went the extra mile and promoted his list via email. Judging by the number of links that Mark has received, this extra effort really paid off. Here is a video of Mark explaining how he ran his email promotion campaign:
Mark also expands on the results of his promotion campaign in this follow-up post (my only suggestion would be to automate the response process for people requesting to be added to the list).
View 1 Comment(s)
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