Are you overwhelmed by how much competition is out on the internet?  When I first started looking into website building I would look at Google’s results number of 4.5 million or more and my heart would stop.  Don’t let a results number keep you from playing the game!  You can win (especially with NTB!)

A little hard work, quality time spent training yourself and proper and strategic moves are normally all it takes to not only rock in the website world, but monetize in the internet world!  Don’t you want it know what it feels like to beat Oprah.com in search ranking?   It’s sweet!

Now, I wouldn’t plan to beat Lance Armstrong on a bike without learning how to ride a bike, read his training log, and trains myself; would you?  Internet Marketing is similar; however, in this world you can beat Armstrong!  Your training will be a little different, your strategies will have different motives and most importantly you will work smarter- not harder.

I will not convince or promote an idea of; you will get this right away.  You will get this, you will win at this and you will have to put effort forth to accomplish success.

The first part of the equation is training.  Now, NTB’s training is amazing; four years in computer sciences and you might understand the internet; but you will not understand internet marketing, niche marketing and the traffic accumulation model at all.  Training is key, and I have wrote before on my favorite internet marketing blogs.  These are amazing resources that will keep you up to date.

Becoming active in the internet marketing company is a fabulous step in the right direction.  Learning about Social media, and how it can help your SEO efforts and bring in free traffic is another area to become very familiar with.

Starting out, just building a website can be overwhelming.  This is why it is so important to find a safe and reliable and trusting company that will help you with all of this.  Welcome!

I can’t tell you exactly when some of my sites basically died from Panda, and I can’t tell you for sure that is why my traffic sizzled up and burnt into a crisp life-less chip on the ground of Google’s “Crappy Sites Cell.”  I am really ticked off that a small, beautifully designed formerly well preforming site is now dead!  I could use four letter adjectives all day long; however, I don’t think that will get me back in the rankings.  So I am going to roll up my sleeves and take a look at what might have been the reason for my demise.

Panda explained

To put it simply, Panda is an algorithm that studies the ratings that humans give to website.  Panda watches and learns their dislikes and then employs its own formula to knock out sites that have the same characteristics that the humans ranked low.  Because Panda enforces a site wide penalty, if a percentage of your pages fall below “acceptable” your entire site will suffer.  So what are some obvious characteristics that are human-disliked?

Huge Template Footprint

We all know the sites; I see a lot of them by clicking on articles from Yahoo, the sites that have 10-15% original content above the fold.  Dodge that Adsense ad, manage to figure out which “X” to choose to close that pop-up ad that made it through, get all the way over to the scroll bar without touching anything- and bam! You get to see some words written by someone!  NTB is setup so that this does not happen with your site, unless you spend extra time repositioning the templates, so I am good on this.

Empty Page

Have you ever chosen a website, with a very impressive “authority site” name only to discover that all of the thousands of pages are basically empty except for a few links?  Frustrating, but this isn’t my issue either.

Overlapping and Repetitive Pages

Okay, this one might have me.  I am not the most pro-active about my content.  I focus mainly on just getting some up and making sure it is related.  Some writers believe that this is the issue.  Panda makes this mistake; having several articles or pages covering the same topic means: Content Farm.  I am going to readjust my pages to include some more not so highly related pages.  I will always believe that they more quality content I have, the better so this will be a win-win.

High Ad Ratio

I am going to included Adsense and Affiliate ads in this category.  No one really likes ads, I suppose they are just as annoying on the internet as they are on the TV or radio.  This is where we get to the conundrum; we want conversions, we want traffic.  Panda hates ads, Adsense wants ads everywhere.  How are we going to find a happy medium?

I am going to take a look and see which of my ad boxes are lowest preforming.  These will then be easy to take out and hopefully my users experience will grow (along with my ranking.)

These reasons and possibly a high bounce rate will affect a lot of websites, if not now, then soon.  I will be working tirelessly to get my bounce rate down on ALL of my pages and to fix some of the above issues that I think burnt my little site like the sun hitting an ant on Mercury in July.

I was reading up on one of my favorite Internet Marketing blogs, Shoemoney and noticed a post about the new Click Bank requirements.  I have been seeing emails come through my account recently from Click Bank but haven’t paid much attention.  As always, Shoe did a great job at breaking down their new requirements in non-legal English.

I expect that all vendors have are already aware of these new requirements- and if they are not, well their product has been pulled as of midnight last night with the possibility that their account has been terminated.  As for us- Affiliates- we might have overlooked all of the emails assuming it didn’t apply to us.  So first thing first; sign onto your Click Bank account and make sure all of your vendors are still up and running!  Secondly, make sure your sites meet the new standards required for affiliates.  Here are their new guidelines.

The most noticeable stipulation, False Scarcity has become pretty popular in the I.M. world.  It is one of the basic motivational marketing maneuvers that we, as a society are well aware of and also fall prey to.  Why must they feel the need to make this a requirement for affiliates to follow?  I agree; it is fairly obnoxious to see “ONLY 3 LEFT, NO MORE BEING MADE!”  However, are the FTC and legal eagles really going to force us to dumb down everything?  I will reference the movie, Idiocracy.  I am afraid this movie has a point… There are several readers on Shoe’s blog that left comments describing how disgusted they are about Click Bank having to force people to be ethical.  My bleeding heart agrees; but not entirely…

I give myself quite the grin when I see the “Box Tops for Schools” being promoted with middle aged, average looking mother talking about how much she loves her children, wants to make sure they perform well in school and help support that school; which she does by giving them Betty Crocker Brownies?!?  I mean come on, huge corporations can use so much psychological play to convince parents that brownies will help their children- by showing love AND helping out the school?  Why aren’t their programs like, “Bring in an apple core…”  I just think it is a little annoying that we can’t use “Almost out of Stock” but it is fine to shove sugared preservatives down an un-knowing child by pulling on a stressed out parent’s heart.

Perhaps this is a complicated example; however, it is quite clear through my eyes.  I’m glad Click Bank is establishing some new rules of conduct for it’s vendors, it can get pretty sticky with the tricks that some companies (especially online) pull.   I am definitely not an impressive and established vendor or affiliate in the Click Bank world so I appreciate their concern for consumers.  I just hope that this doesn’t make it even more difficult for newer internet marketers.

Writing an Excellent Headline can be the first and most important way to reducing your bounce rate.  I have read that sales copy writers have said, ‘If you spend 80% of your time on your headline and the other 20% on your sales page content- you are already in a good position.’  An attention grabbing headline is no new idea to us.  Have you ever opened up the newspaper to see a headline like, “Undeniable Proof- Elvis is Alive!”  While, this might not be the most interesting concern of your news needs, you are very likely to read at least a sentence or two.  If you can get your visitors to read just 2 sentences, you will be able to keep them around and increase your conversions.

Visitors are fairly educated in where they should look for their information.  Most can tell within 5 seconds where they need to read to find the information they want and need.  If they are wanting to learn about you- trust is what they want first- they will look for a picture or telling words like “my”, “I”, “name”, “welcome.”  If your visitors want key points or the pitch of your product they will scroll to the middle of the page or look for quotes in bold from testimonials and important key factors.  Since today’s visitors know where to look, and what information they want, your title is the best way to get the visitors to your page.

What is the best way to write a great headline?  In the example above using Elvis, we understand that this is attention getting put very unclear.  Clever is great for getting a visitors attention; however, let’s work on getting clear and interesting title.   You should take into account what your product is going to solve for your visitors.  If you are offering a product that will lesson anxiety a fabulous title would be, “Permanent Solution for Anxiety.”

I learned in a marketing class in college that comedy does work well for consumers, there are 2 downfalls to using comedy; The consumer will get tired of the joke- this isn’t a relevant problem for internet marketers because the users will not become oversaturated with the humor, and the consumer will not understand the humor- with this you will have to use your own judgment.  I get a little giggle out of the headline for an anxiety product, “Stop Stressing over Finding a Cure for Anxiety.”  The beautiful aspect of titles is that they can be changed quickly, easily and tested for conversions.

Do you know the basic steps to a sale?  I have outlined the basic steps you should lead your customer through to get the sale: introduction, explanation, credibility, action.  Let me know what you think of these steps and if you have found any other ways that have worked for you.

Sales Steps 1- Introduction

Since we have done all of the keyword research and we understand that there is a need for our product or solution, we have already understood the needs of our consumers.  Now we need to take the time to write a little bit about ourselves.  Repeat what the customer needs are and how you understand or have had this same need.  I suggest really showing some emotion and writing some concise yet fully sympathetic emotions about the “symptoms” associate with the consumer’s problem.

Sales Steps 2- Explain the Importance of Finding a Solution

Once you have introduced yourself and have empathized with your visitor it is now time to show them a life without this difficulty and struggles.  Show them with words how much better their life will be once they find a solution.  This will be easy, because your visitor has probably already day-dreamed and imagined their life without this problem.

Sales Step 3- Show Credibility

This can be done in a variety of ways, you can flat out state that you are trustworthy.  I have been told by several people that they don’t believe anyone that states that they are honest.  I think it is fine to do this; however, make sure that you can provide some proof and backup your credibility.  Most affiliate offers will have testimonies from customers that you can use.  Also, being able to offer a guarantee is a great way to show that you have faith in your product and your visitors have are at “no risk” if they purchase your product.

Sales Steps 4- How much will this Solution Cost?

Now it is time to explain to your visitors what the solution you are offering will cost them.  If they are still on your page, you have got their attention- do not make them search around for a price that will shock the hell out of them at the checkout.  Be upfront, tell them the price and tell them to take action so they can enjoy their life without the pain and un-comfort that they are currently experiencing.    After you show them the price and get them imagining a blissful life reiterate the action they need to take to achieve this.  It is time for action, it is time for you to tell your visitor what to do.

Mark Hunter who has his own site, The Sales Hunter wrote an article for Marketingnewz.com where he explains this delicate dance that we as internet marketers must do with our visitors.

We have an interesting situation, we cannot talk our way around a disgruntled customer; If they don’t like what we have to say, they leave- with our profits!  So I want to explain his PTR (Price Tolerance Ratio)  and how we must include this mandatory (part) of the buying and selling process all within our one and only chance with customers.

A Customer’s PTR is the price point when the customer will make a purchase without thinking about the decision and contemplating their money loss.  Of course it is easiest to make sales when your visitor wants a solution to their problem and is “desperate” enough to raise their PTR for a solution.

Most of the time as affiliate marketers we do not get to charge what we want for a product.  This puts us in an interesting position and forces us to come up with more and more ideas and ways to convert our visitors.

So here is some of the obsticals we will face:

You can convert visitors; however, throughout this process of convincing the visitor how great their life will be with this product, the visitor is resisting the entire process.

Here is my answer:

Explain to the visitor that you understand their issue.  You can tell a personal story that you have with this issue, explaining the common feelings that a person experiences when dealing with this issue.

Tell the user you have a product that you have this product that will fix their issue.  If someone has been searching the Internet, they usually have a problem, issue- something that needs resolve.  You have an answer, present it well.

Tell the user that you have this product and you are not going to rip them off.  I think this is best done by saying “I have had this issue, I have tried every product that works.  None of them did, I got hassled along the way.  This product works for me.”