Online dating is a huge market online.  We straddle the fence between Match.com and BlackSingles.com.

For us, BlackSingles has a better reception as far as media conducive to our demographic and better yet, they take the time to keep their banners fresh and up to date.  Our experience shows that Match.com has a seemingly larger database of potential dates…. But what good is that if no one is getting to those landing pages?

Here is an example of the testing that you should clearly do to effectively monetize traffic via all of your affiliate programs.

Goal: To get as many site visitors into a conversion funnel to become a dating customer.

Traffic Sources: Mostly organic traffic on one of our test sites:  www.blackatlanta.com

Our ClickThrough Stats:

Dating Impressions and Click Throughs for Multiple Banners

Please note that Revenue can still be generated on this clickthroughs!   As with most affiliate programs, we are most concerned with:

• setting that all important cookie
• getting them to sign up for an email list for the affiliates to market and convert
• a direct conversion, (which did not happen yet on these clicks)
  

Banners:

Banner 2401

Banner 2408

Banner 2413

Results

So out of 253 banner impressions, the 3 different banners got varying degrees of rotation.

Per the results, Banner 2413 was the winner with 80 impressions and 4 clickthroughs (5% ).  This banner also received ALL clickthroughs!

Some Reflections

Now, some may say that should clearly promote a winner only after a solid test number of impressions given.  Sure, we could have waited for 100 impressions a piece for ALL banners, but sometimes, a HUNCH can help you in making money.  Just ask Warren Buffet.

So clearly, the last piece of this is that we immediately go into our ad server and deactivate the two losers!

Now, these results were click through summaries for that the Affiliate program has provided to us.  You can use your analytics program or vendor programs… JUST GET STARTED!!!!

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Update:  as of 2/10/09, Our study still stands… The Click through rate has decreased…. but with over 300 shows a piece, still has a better click through than the other two.

Click Through Is Still The Winner

DEFINITELY turning all traffic towards Banner 2413.

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SEO Traffic Sources

Analytics and determining all facets of what they mean are an integral part of improving web site experience and action conversions!  For non-commercial statistical packages, AWSTATS and Google Analytics are a regular and daily recipient of visits from me. 

I like AWSTATS, because it compiles its report based on server logs.  Google Analytics is a great swag also, even though it is estimated that 5-10% of site visits are not recorded accurately if site visitors have Javascript disabled.  Well, here or there, stats and analytics can vary across packages… even commercial!

At any rate, without getting too granular, the purpose of this post is to mention that you can do BASIC things such as Search Engine Optimization to increase organic positioning in Search Engines and thus, increase traffic! 

As you can see in the image above, the Blue Section Represents Search Engine Traffic to this blog.  I always try to optimize:

• Meta Keywords & Descriptions
• Title Tags
• Keyword Density

as any extra hits to the site, represents a possible new supporter or eventually customer…

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Some gurus for blogs, debate whether or not one should monetize before getting lots of anchor articles and content.  However, along the way, one must consider the fact that they still have a few bills to pay to break even.  With that consideration, we look to help people monetize their blogs and websites and show the following experiment. 

As can be seen in the following image, we customized our blog postings to show Google Adsense before and after blog posts. 

Pre and Post Blog Post Monetization

Adsense Click-Through Rate

• the Pre-article placement was important as we got no-click throughs for the Post-article placement.
• The high click through rate should still be compared to BOUNCE RATE… meaning that we want to monetize the click through, but also want our number of page views per visitor to be high. 

We will continue to look at this monetization.  We also believe that the second slot, after the article is an important placement, as blog readers, once they find a good article, read it to the end. 

What do you think about this strategy?  Have you used it and does it work for you?  Comment below

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Hair and Fashion have a huge market place online.  Do a web search for Hair Braids or Hair Braiding or Braids By Breslin to see how…

A couple of years ago, I advertised on BlackAtlanta.com for a company called “Braids By Breslin”.  The banners did not really have a very high click through rate for the general population of site visitors.  However, I quickly noticed in the stats that the term “Hair Braiding” was quickly becoming very popular as far as natural organic traffic for the site.

This was because of some ancillary content that I had added as a landing page for the terms.

So I contacted Braids By Breslin by email, and coincidentally, they were starting an Affiliate program.  I was their first affiliate.

For months, I enjoyed easy affiliate commissions from natural search engine traffic for “Hair Braiding”, and was even able to tweak search engine optimization for other keywords like “hair weaving” or “Kinky Twists”.   And then the GOOGLE flip out occurred.  Google flopped on me and my stream of revenue went down the drain.

Some Key Learnings

• Search engine optimization is a GREAT way for free traffic opportunities.  It is also VERY direct, in that the end user is definitely looking for your product or service.
• However, when Organic traffic is the ONLY source, if SEO efforts flop, then one should be prepared to supplement traffic in other ways.

A Solid Hair Braiding Product

Another key learning opportunity was basically that, you should promote strong products.  In this case, promoting an affiliate program, with strong products.  Here are some high quality Hair Braiding Examples!

With The Complete Training Package, You Get…

The Braids By Breslin “Four Hairstyles In One ” DVD

The Braids By Breslin “Cornrow Compilation” DVD

The Braids By Breslin “Weave Compilation: Volume 1 DVD”

The Braids By Breslin “Weave Compilation: Volume 2 DVD”

The Braids By Breslin “Master Wig Maker DVD”

The Braids By Breslin “Fusion DVD”

And The Braids By Breslin “Extensions” DVD

So,

1. Look for a niche in your traffic (Check your Stats!)
2. Then look for a product in which you could put in front of that demographic to buy!

Good Luck!

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SlimChews.net… A Start for Conversions.  A Great Implementation of Zac’s Landing Page Template

As we discussed in our article “SlimChews.net: A Look at a Weight Loss Review Landing Page“, we discussed SlimChews.net.  In that article, we discuss the creation of landing pages in niche industries and subsequent matching with affiliate programs to take advantage of the market.

We are proud to report a 4.3% conversion rate. This means:

1. Once they click from my page to the landing page, a cookie is set.
2. Once a visitor is on that page, they 4.3% of the visitors to that page are signing up for the product.  That is a Great conversion rate!

We used Zac Johnson’s Freely available Comparison Shopping Landing Page template . . . Go to the site and download your own.

PS… here is a screen print of conversions.

4.3% Conversion

UPDATE: Since launching this post, you may find this article useful:  http://blackinternetmarketing.com/hair-braiding-revenue-generation-meets-zac-johnson-landing-page/-/Black-Internet-Marketing/2009/01/17/

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In our article Wu-Yi Tea Experiment Post 3, we aimed to get our experimental site WuYi.TV included in Google.  Seemingly, inclusion was slower than normal until we pulled out the big guns.  We linked to it from a few of our “secret” high PR sites yesterday.  Like clockwork, WuYi.TV has life in Google’s search engine.

WuYi.TV Indexed In Google.com

So, these sites that we linked from, are not really super secret.  They just happened to be well-respected web sites that we own, with high Google PR value.  We pick the one with the most relevant content to this landing page and strategically link to Wuyi.tv.

We suggest:

• One way Link: Meaning that reciprocal linking for SEO benefit may have little value in creating WUYI.tv as an Authority site.
• Linking in Context: Writing an article, and placing links within the content, is an effective way to link.  This prevents Google from pinging you as if you were buying links in Bad directories or link farms.

Our next phases of the experiment include optimizing our copy and Meta Tags.  Now we have to try to get ranked for coveted keywords.  WhiteNewJersey states that Dot TV domains don’t rank well.  We will see soon.

Stay tuned!

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