They say that for affiliate marketers, the landing page is the magic buffer between your visitors and the merchant’s website.
In the beginning, new affiliate marketers often link directly to an affiliate merchant’s website. It’s a decision that makes some sense in the early stages. There is so much to learn, so many techniques to master, so many web pages to create, so much copy to write, that it just seems like the best thing is to get something, anything, up so the money starts coming in.
The problem is that frequently, the money doesn’t start coming in, because the visitors don’t convert. Even newbie affiliate marketers need a landing page for the product.
The landing page is the website where your article, ad, or email directs the reader to get more information about a product. It’s the place where you’ll collect addresses for your own mailing list. And it’s the place where you presell the item that you’re marketing.
Preselling is preparing a prospective customer to see the benefits of a certain product or service. If you see an ad for a new electronic device, you might say, “Hm, that’s interesting. I might like to get one someday.” But if a friend recommends it and tells you why it’s been a good buy, that’s much more persuasive. It’s the same with your readers or the people on your mailing list. They’ve already found that they have something in common with you, so if you recommend a product with your own knowledge, it means more than a recommendation from somebody they don’t know.
Besides preselling, a landing page can figure in search engine rankings for valuable keywords that you couldn’t get through direct linking.
The best preselling copy points out drawbacks as well as benefits, showing that the writer is there not just to make a commission (though that’s a fine thing), but more important to help the reader decide for himself whether he wants to take advantage of the offer.
A good landing page doesn’t scream, “Buy me!” the way a sales page does. Instead it prepares the reader for the offer ahead and gives them a context to click through to make their own final judgment.
Posted in Affiliate Marketing by .
In my most recent post, I promised to give step-by-step directions for creating a simple redirection script to cloak your affiliate marketer’s code in URLs going to vendors’ sites. For the sake of these instructions, I’m going to assume that you have a domain and webhosting already and that you know how to upload a page to your site.
Posted in Affiliate Marketing by .
The affiliate marketer’s tracking URL scares uninformed web users. If they notice a Clickbank or other tracking code, they think they’re being scammed, or someone is going to take steal from them, invade their privacy, or hijack their computer.
This may be sort of inside-baseball, but I just saw that my article, Writers Beware: The Most Dangerous Grammar Error, is number 2 on the list “Most Viewed EzineArticles in the Writing-and-Speaking:Writing Category (60 Days).”
I thought people would laugh at the title, because so many people make a joke about their lack of grammar knowledge, but now I suspect it really scared them. (I’m dead serious about misplaced modifiers being dangerous for the writer, but I also thought it was kind of funny to put it that way.) Maybe people are more interested in grammar than they like to admit.
Posted in Administrivia Article Marketing by .
The IM Report Card is a sort of Consumers’ Reports for the internet marketing industry.
It has reviews written by people who actually know about the programs, plans, formulas, and people of the internet marketing community. No more having to join something to find out what the deal is and then being so far in that there’s no way out. The reviews and comments help cut through the hype and find what programs are legitimate and what are overinflated balloons.
I’ve made some mistakes in my efforts to get educated, but now that I know about IM Report Card, I’ll make fewer of them.
Posted in Internet Marketing by .
Nov 09
16
The most dangerous grammar error
You can get away with a lot of writing errors: too-informal language, wrong verb forms, and run-on sentences. If you don’t overdo it, readers might overlook an error like that, consider it a minor mistake, and figure out your idea despite your means of expressing it.
When you put a modifier in the wrong place, however, you run the risk of, at best, confusing your reader, at worst creating a line that could end up in someone’s joke forward — and without your affiliate link. Worse, you could make the reader completely misunderstand what you’re saying.
I’ll start with a few basics, since a lot of people write in English as a secondary language. In many languages, you can put a word just about anywhere in a sentence and know how it relates to the others, because word forms and endings tell exactly what words go with what. That’s called an inflected language.
In English, as in many other languages, we know how a word relates to the others by where it falls in the sentence. That’s a syntactic language.
In a syntactic language, “The fish ate the bear” means something entirely different from “The bear ate the fish.” In an inflected language, you could have a series of words meaning “fish,” “ate,” and “bear” in just about any order and it would be perfectly clear who’s the eater and who’s being eaten.
When we use adjectives and adverbs in English, we know what words they’re modifying because they’re sitting right next to each other. But sometimes writers get careless or try to hard to be clever and put the modifier next to the wrong word, causing all kinds of problems.
There are three ways modifiers can go astray and create havoc in a sentence. They can be
- Misplaced
- Dangling
- Squinting
Types of Misplaced Modifiers
The misplaced modifier is simply in the wrong place.
“The new program is being promoted by affiliates, with a gravity of 25 and a payout rate of 75%.”
That sentence suggests that it’s the affiliates with the gravity and payout rate. What the writer meant to say was
“The new program, with a gravity of 25 and a payout rate of 75%, is being promoted by affiliates.”
The dangling modifier relates to something that doesn’t appear in the sentence at all.
“Threatening bad weather, the umpire canceled the ballgame.”
That says it’s the umpire who is threatening bad weather, but notice that the sentence doesn’t say what is actually doing the threatening. A better way to put this sentence would be
“With the sky threatening bad weather, the umpire canceled the ballgame.”
A squinting modifier falls between two words it could possibly modify, and it’s not clear to the reader which is the right one. This problem doesn’t come up very often, but in the right (or wrong) context it could create the most mischief.
“I notified the subcontractor when he didn’t follow the contract he would be fired.”
The reader is not sure if the writer means,
“When the subcontract didn’t follow the contract, I notified him that he would be fired.”
Or
“I notified the subcontractor that he would be fired if he didn’t follow the contract.”
Obviously, in some situations, the difference can be important.
How to Avoid this Dangerous Grammar Mistake
There are several simple ways to keep this error from creeping into your writing.
- Learn to recognize misplaced modifiers when you see them. When you come across a piece of writing that you don’t understand, stop and ask why. If it’s because you don’t understand the words — maybe it’s jargon or some term you haven’t run into before — that’s something you can easily address with the aid of a dictionary or the internet. If you understand all the words, but the sentence doesn’t make sense, then it’s probably a grammatical error at the heart of the problem. If you can see it in someone else’s writing, you’re more likely to find it in your own.
- Don’t try to be too fancy in your writing. Simple, direct sentences are the most effective. As much as possible putting the modifier coming immediately before what it modifies is the safest arrangement in English.
- Keep modifiers to a minimum. Try to use strong nouns and verbs in your sentences. They make your writing clearer and stronger and cut down the risk of errors.
- Hear it out loud. If you can, try reading your words aloud to yourself. Even better, read your work to a buddy or have the buddy read the work to you. You’ll be surprised at how much your writing will improve.
Posted in Writing craft by .
Nov 09
16
Are all internet marketers scammers?
In a great post, titled The 5 BIGGEST LIES About Internet Marketing, on his blog Viral Bliss, John Bates names the first myth that “Most programs are scams.”
In my search for financial freedom, I’ve signed up for a lot of freebies, joined a number of programs promising “satisfaction guaranteed or your money back,” bought a couple of spendy items, and learned a lot.
There’s enough free information out there that someone could conceivably get started for nothing but the internet services like web hosting, domain names, autoresponders and so forth.
The problem is that there’s an information overload, and unless you’ve got a brain better suited to this stuff than I do (which is entirely possible), there’s too much. You get too much advice, too many approaches.
It’s hard to find the the step-by-step basics for creating a website, using an e-mail server and writing sales, and then have enough of a big picture to know how to build a working business model that you can leverage into the next level when you’re ready. If you can collect and filter the information to do all that, then God bless you.
If you’re a Bear of little brain, like me, then you need help. The question is, who? And here’s where my discovery about the non-scammer Internet marketers comes in. (I’ll stipulate that there are some — many aren’t scamming their customers but teaching their customers to scam Google or the article marketing services. I’m not talking about them.)
What I’ve discovered is that they give honest and helpful information, and if you ask for a refund, they give it, no questions asked.
The refunds I’ve asked for didn’t have to do with a lack of quality. They had to do with the fact that the information they were giving didn’t work with the business model I’m building right now. In fact, there’s every likelihood that I could go back to them in a year or so to learn what they have to offer.
The best advice I’ve gotten for where I am now is to stop buying stuff, get something basic going, make it successful, and then expand.
One site I do recommend, starting today, is a membership site of John Bates (yes, the same John Bates whose post triggered this one). The Traffic Plan shares the low-key sales approach that makes me comfortable that I’m making rational decisions.
It offers a free membership level for people who are starting on a shoestring or a reasonably priced one-time fee for people with a little more to invest. Once inside, there is training in marketing and list building and other important basics, as well as affiliate bonuses for people who sign up from your link — and floating up to you from people who sign up from theirs. It doesn’t cost anything to look it over.
Posted in Internet Marketing by .
Nov 09
16
Problem, solution enrich copywriting
You know how it feels. You’ve decided to write an article today, and you sit down at the keyboard, and nothing happens. You had an idea, but it’s gone now, and it seems insanely stupid anyway. Let’s face it. Despite what the experts say about writing an article in 30 minutes, writing can be hard.
The truth is, the right structure makes it easier. That structure, based on a simple principle of problem-solution, is the secret to article writing, marketing, copywriting, in fact, to persuasive writing of all kinds.
In Sean D’Souza’s terrific book on marketing, The Brain Audit, he points out that the human brain spends all its attention on finding problems to solve, since its role is to keep the rest of the body alive by solving problems. If the world is hunky dory except for one small speck, the brain is going to focus on solving that speck.
Then and only then, if someone offers a solution, the brain feels that sense of “Ahh,” that it can relax about that problem and move on to solving the next one.
This small fact is the key to engaging your reader in any kind of writing you want to do. If there’s no problem, thinks your readers’ brain, there’s no need to pay attention here.
If you bring the problem you’re offering to solve front and center to your reader’s mind and then present a solution, the reader will suddenly be very interested in what you have to say. The problem may be something your reader is not aware of or a reminder of a problem he knows all too well. The key is to be colorful and specific in stating the problem. Use concrete words that engage the reader’s senses and emotions.
Perhaps I’m writing an article about dog grooming. Instead of starting with the benefits of a clean dog, I open with a shaggy, smelly, slobbery, beloved St. Bernard waiting at the door for you. Then I follow up with the benefits of a dog grooming service that specializes in large, shaggy dogs. Now the reader, and his brain, can relate (unless dog grooming is truly irrelevant to him, in which case I’m not talking to him anyway).
The solution must be a perfect match for the problem, its benefits exactly lining up with the discomfort that the problem produces.
This dance of the problem and solution ties in with the power of story. There’s story in testimonials and story in examples. It’s story that drags us into the writing and makes us forget everything else we were doing. And what is a story but a series of problems with attempted and complete solutions?
With practice and a system the writing gets easier over time. The problem-solution structure has the benefit of being both an aid to writing and a means of hooking the reader.
Posted in Copywriting by .
No matter what you’re writing, fresh and lively verbs can mean the difference between a reader who reads to the end and a reader who wanders off to check his email.
The verb is the heart of every sentence, and a golden verb makes the whole sentence shine. By contrast, a dull verb can make the sentence colorless and forgettable.
If overused, verbs of being — is, am, are, was, were, be, being, and been — cast everything in a cloud of gray. In some places, they carry the message when no other word can do it. But too often, we fall into a habit of saying, “XYZ is the best,” when we could be saying, “XYZ exceeds expectations in quality, reliability, and price.”
Check if you’re overusing being verbs by asking yourself whether you can find something with a little more color to take its place. If the sentence is, “The dog is brown,” trying eliminating that sentence altogether and saying, “The brown dog” in the next sentence. If the sentence is “This is the best way to make an exciting product,” try, “This makes an exciting product every time.”
Passive voice multiplies the fuzziness of your writing and often hides who’s doing what in the sentence. Someone caught in a criminal act might use passive voice, saying, “Mistakes were made.” If the sentence does tell who made the mistakes, it usually comes out as, “Mistakes were made by some.” By that time, the reader has fallen asleep.
Occasionally, a sentence really needs passive voice, though I can’t think of any reason now. As a quick way to liven up your writing, relentlessly seek out sentences with passive voice. Decide who is doing the action and put it right up front — who is doing what. Your reader will thank you.
Bland verbs just don’t sparkle the way they might. They’re not specific enough. “Move” could be “shamble,” “slide,” “float,” or “climb.” “Read” could be “examine,” “analyze,” or “explore.”
As much as possible, get a clear picture of what you’re saying and use the best word to describe it. (An exception: If you’re writing dialogue, “said” works better than most of the alternatives. You want it to be invisible so that the dialogue stands out more strongly.)
If you’re writing to generate traffic to your website, you want your readers to to expect to find something interesting and entertaining. With a little practice and a little thought, you can deliver your information in a clear and engaging way that will bring readers back to your site and your writing again and again.
Posted in Writing craft by .
A lot of people have trouble with the words “affect” and “effect.” The words have similar but different meanings and spellings, and they usually sound exactly the same when spoken.
But when they’re used wrong in writing, they brand the writer as not very knowledgeable about the language and perhaps — though this may be unfair — about his subject.
There’s a simple rule that covers about 90 percent (a rough estimate that I wouldn’t know how to verify) of their use, and I’ll give you a memory device or two to help you with the rest.
For the vast majority of the time, “affect” is a verb and “effect” is a noun. If you “affect” something, it produces an “effect,” just as “a” comes before “e” in the alphabet. “The recession affected the company’s profits. The effect was a 14 percent decrease in sales.”
When one of them appears as an adjective or adverb, it will almost always be “effect” — “This toothpaste is effective in whitening teeth and preventing cavities.” Or “The coach’s defensive strategy effectively kept the other team from scoring.” Both of these uses refer to an effect — in the one case the effect on the teeth; in the other the effect on the opposing team’s scoring.
So, for the 90 percent, “affect” is the verb and “effect” is the noun (with its team of adjective and adverb). For the other 10 percent (or whatever), they swap.
“Effect” as a verb means to bring a change of some kind to completion. You could say, “This toothpaste effects a whiter, brighter smile,” meaning that it brings the whiter, brighter smile into existence. If the sentence said, “This toothpaste affects a whiter, brighter smile,” it would mean that the whiter, brighter smile already existed, and the toothpaste just changed it somehow.
Here’s another example of how the word choice can change the meaning. “The new administration effected a change in school policy.” That’s much deeper and more sweeping than, “The new administration affected a change in school policy.”
In the first sentence, the administration made the change happen completely. In the second sentence, the change was already in place, and the administration just made it different somehow.
To show how the difference applies, let’s say that the policy had to do with school uniforms. “Effect” could be a new requirement for school uniforms that goes into effect over whatever opposition might have come up. “Affect” would be that the new administration got to say whether the uniforms were blue or green or whether this school or that had to participate.
It might help to think of the verb “effect” as the end (“effect” starts with “e” like “end”) of the verb “affect.”
The noun “affect” — short “a” and accent on the first syllable, so AF/fect — is used mostly in psychology to describe a person’s manner or appearance. A psychiatrist’s evaluation of a new patient might say, “His affect was flat,” which means the patient didn’t show any emotion, or “His affect was excitable.”
Branching out from there, this use of “affect” might appear outside of psychology to describe a person in a way that has a psychological feel to it, mostly literary fiction.
“Affect” and “effect” are hard for a lot of people, even some who consider themselves wordsmiths. The bottom line is that if you use “affect” as a verb and “effect” as a noun, the vast majority of the time you’ll be right. The other uses are much more unusual, and you get extra credit for using them well.
Posted in Writing craft by .
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