When you get down to the core of affiliate marketing, you will come to realize that its all about your ad copy and your landing page. Sure you can try your luck at direct linking, but for the most part your conversions will suffer and you will lose money and time again and again.
A quality landing page can be the difference to a profitable campaign and a big loser. There are several things you can do to help make your landing pages better, and to convince the surfer to follow through with your offer.
- Split Test – When you first start running an offer, its always a good idea to have several mock up landing pages to use to drive traffic to. Use these as a base from which to test your conversion rates and find out what is and isnt working. A lot of the times a simple lander is better, while other times the longer review ad copy landers prove more effective. You need to find out if the niche your targeting falls into either of these categories and stick with the one that works. Affiliate marketing is all about going out and seeing what works, dont get lazy, testing is KEY.
- Avoid Distractions – When your targeted visitor comes to your page, you want to make sure that there is a bold call to action. Giving them multiple options and outward links is distracting and can cause your surfer to not follow through on the offer. Make sure there is a clear, concise directive and if you have multiple objectives (ie. acai & colon cleanse), try using a seperate landing page for each of them.
- Above the Fold – While a spanning page with multiple reviews and reasons why the user should sign up for your offer may be a good thing, more often that not it is better to keep the sign up/order now button above the fold in plain sight so that the user knows that you are selling something and makes a painless decsion. Often times the surfer can be burdened by an encompassing sales page that is drawn out and confusing, stick to the K.I.S.S. philosophy and you will notice the difference in your bank account.
- Avoid Extra Elements – Having too much graphics or too much text on your lander can make or break your sales. Avoid over-using graphical elements such as animations and images that simply do not contribute to your objective of the page. This can take away your visitors attention and eventually lead to a failed conversion. Try and keep the visitors attention by using a blend of text and imagery that flows naturally.
- Navigation/Outbound Links – Your best bet is to keep the navigation either off page or in the footer area so that the user doesnt become distracted and navigate away from your offer. If you have more information or in-depth reviews to offer the surfer, give it to them in an AJAX pop-up or CSS based slide down content so that it keeps them on the page and only helps to upsell the offer you are targeting. While you can go the route of having no external links whatsoever, this is frowned upon by Google and will usually end up getting your page penalized.
So that it, hopefully these tips will prove effective in making your landing pages even more profitable, and increase your conversion. The main thing to remember is to keep trying different things, and that no matter how simple the offer may be, it is always better to sell the surfer before they follow through to the signup page.
The main reason why personal review blogs like Becky’s weight loss worked so well is because they utilized all these elements, with an effective ad copy telling a personal story to play upon the visitors emotions. Mix and match different ad copy with an easy and direct call to action, and you will see much more profitable landing pages for your all your campaigns.
If I missed anything feel free to comment and let me know what other methods you utilize to increase conversions on your landers.
