Affiliate Marketing - Take Advantage of Your 404 Error Page

One aspect of affiliate marketing that some affiliate marketers forget to take advantage of is the 404 error page. If you have your own website, you could be losing money not having a customized 404 error page.

How many times have you gone to a website only to find a generic "404 - Page Not Found" page? What do you do when you come across this generic 404 error page? Me, I simply close my browser, hit the back button, or go right back to the search engine to look for another site that might have what I am looking for. If you are an affiliate marketer, you could be losing sales. However, by creating a custom 404 page, you could take advantage by creating a custom 404 page.
The advantage of a custom 404 page is two-fold depending on how you create it. The first advantage is that is you can offer alternatives for the browser such as links to different pages, different topics and so on. The other advantage is that you can use the 404 page as a sales letter.
Creating a 404 error page is easy. Simply create a simple html or php page as you would any other page on your website. The next step is to use the .htaccess file and add this line of code:

ErrorDocument 404 http://websitename.com/404.html

When you create your custom 404 error page, you want to give the page the flavor of your site. Just by adding a bunch of links might not be affective because people don't want to see a bunch of links. I know I don't and will leave the site without a second glance. Make sure you have your logo and think about what you would do as a potential customer. Always think from the customer's perspective. Additionally, if you want to put ads on your 404 error page, remember to look at the terms of agreement for the ads. Some advertisers do not allow you to put ads on 404 error pages.

While a custom 404 error page may not be the bread and butter of your affiliate marketing campaign, it will help decrease the amount of lost potential income due to the generic 404 error page if done right.

3 Reasons Why Viral Marketing Works

Webmasters and sellers who use viral marketing usually have their different reasons for using it. Some swear by its effectiveness and some like it because it gets them straight to their target market. If you're still unsure about the benefits of viral marketing, keep reading.

--- Getting Infected

Viral. The word alone has a negative connotation, bringing to mind images of disease and harmful microbes. Do not be fooled by the word for even though it carries a negative connotation in the physical world, it means exactly the opposite in cyberspace! Having this misconception could be disadvantageous to you because it could spell the difference between being a webpage lost in online obscurity to being the next new hot site that everyone's Googling.

Viral marketing is called such because it's 'infectious.' Viral marketing has several advantages for you, and for good reasons, too. It uses one of the most effective and inexpensive marketing tools in history – the word of mouth. I bet you would think twice about thinking badly of viral marketing if you realize that the success of things like GoogleMail or GMail and multilevel marketing – MLM or sometimes called 'pyramiding' – were brought about mostly by viral marketing. This example shows any webmaster that the success can be duplicated on the online market.

--- Ditch That Vaccine: Three Reasons why it Works:

It's free. It's like magic to anyone's ears. It's great especially for startup businesses because it can quickly generate interest for your product while minimizing marketing capital at the same time. All it takes is a little hype here and a good word there to get the chit chat ball rolling.

It works. It does so even on a massive scale. If you know your history, some major religions and a lot of minor ones were proliferated through word of mouth. This technique was especially useful then because any written evidence of the new religion meant death to whoever was holding it. This technique is useful now because any written advertisement for a new product means more costs for whoever's selling it.

The internet is perfect for it. With the advent of email, messenger clients and online community forums, contacting even your long-lost ex to request the return of your music CD is rarely more than several clicks away. This new age of fast and convenient communication is the best possible environment for a marketing technique as dependent on human interaction as viral marketing. Heck, people can talk to their friends even when they're not online.

--- Precautions on Going Viral:

Viral marketing is a great technique because it's very effective and extremely inexpensive. However, anyone attempting to do it has to proceed with caution. From the very word itself, going viral can easily make your company succumb to illness. Going viral is a double edged sword, they say. In the same way that positive words from peers could positively affect your market's perception of you and your product, a bad rep could bring everything toppling down. All it takes is one bad interaction or a single bad deal with a customer to spell an impending disaster for your company's reputation. In order to fully optimize viral marketing, you have to be sure that your customers really like your product and that they're happy with the way you or your company deals with them.

Making Your Site Search Engine Friendly - Spiderability

One of the keys to obtaining top rankings, or ANY rankings for that matter is making sure that the search engines can properly spider and index your site. This means doing whatever you can to make sure the search engines are able to reach each page of your site as easily as possible.

When I talk to my clients about spiderability, I'm generally referring to two things...

1) Are all the links in the site true hyperlinks that can be picked up properly by the search engines.

2) Are all the pages within the site reachable within 2-3 clicks from the homepage.

So let's go over the above two areas of concern.

1) Hyperlinks. This may seem almost silly, but you would be amazed at the number of sites I run into when doing consultations and website analyses that have non-standard hyperlinks. By "non-standard", I'm referring to javascript generated hyperlinks or hyperlinks embedded within flash files.

There is nothing inherently wrong with javascript or flash when used properly, but that simple fact is that javascript and flash are NOT search engine friendly. Google is pretty much the only engine that is able to pick up links within javascript or flash code. At this time, I have seen no evidence that either Yahoo or MSN have this ability.

While Google may be able to pick up links, it is unclear as to whether or not Google places any VALUE on the links it finds in this manner. Remember, much of a pages ranking in Google is determined by links so you want to be absolutely sure that each and every link is valued.

So, be absolutely sure that your links are true hyperlinks (by "true" hyperlinks, I'm talking about hyperlinks coded with the normal href tags) if you want to make sure they are found, followed, and counted by all the engines.

2) Distance from Homepage. Ideally, you want your visitors and the search engines to be able to reach any page within your site
within a maximum of three (3) clicks and preferably two clicks. The more clicks it takes to reach a page, the less chance there is that the search engines will index that page.

It is for this reason, that site maps have become so popular. By utilizing a sitemap, you are able to link from your homepage to a page that lists all or most of the links to the various pages of your site. The search engines (and visitors) are then able to get to virtually any page of your site within just a couple of clicks.

You'll notice I've mentioned not only the search engines but the visitors as well in the above paragraphs. By reducing the number of clicks it takes to get from your homepage to any page on your site, you will find that you also increase the overall usability of your site.

While site maps can definitely help to increase the spiderability of a site, it is important to remember that they are not a total fix for bad navigational structure within a site. As mentioned, all of the search engines utilize a pages link popularity in one way or another in their algorithms.

In general, the homepage of a site will have the highest link popularity of any page within the site. This is because most inbound links to a site are pointing to the homepage. It's from the homepage that all the internal pages derive their link popularity from a sort of "trickle down" affect.

A site map will only derive a certain amount of link popularity that it can pass on to the pages it links to. To understand this best, think of the homepage as a large river with each link on the homepage a smaller river branching off from the main river. Each river will be fed a similar amount of water by the main river. Alone one branch of the river will never be able to deliver as much water to the various areas as all the branches of the river can combined.

The site map is one branch of your sites link popularity river and it has value, but it will never have the same impact as a well throughout and implemented links structure that makes use of all the rivers of link popularity within your site.

To make the most use of the link popularity of your site, you should try and setup your sites navigational structure so that even without a site map, the search engines and visitors are STILL able to reach any page within your site within 2-3 clicks.

So...to make a long story short...Always be sure to utilize true, standard hyperlinks throughout your site and be sure that your sites navigational structure allows any page of your site to be reached within no more than 3 clicks.

See you at the top!

Autoresponders – Make Sure You Respond

Autoresponders can be a great way to interact with customers in a hands-free way. It is ideally suited to providing visitors with a specialized ecourse or newsletter. In fact, online businesses are finding autoresponders a wonderful marketing tool.

Many businesses use an autoresponder on email inquiries. However, there is a problem that can develop when using standard email autoresponders. The premise is that the customer can receive an immediate response letting them know the email has been received.

Often that email looks something like this…

"Thank you for contacting the XYZ Company. This is an automated response, but be assured we will respond to your email.

"We appreciate your contact and will be contacting you shortly."

This sounds pretty good, doesn't it? However, the problem comes when follow through on email inquiries are lax or a response is delayed.

If a customer (or potential customer) took the time to contact you they are looking for answers – now. If you don't respond in a timely manner they will look elsewhere.

We've all received those autoresponder-generated emails. In some cases that original generic email is the only one the company ever sends. This gives a strongly negative impression of the company.

If you have use autoresponders for email please consider evaluating how effective you are at making sure those emails are responded to once the automated email is sent.

Customers often become customers based on their belief that you view them as something more than simply a means to derive an income. Does your email response allow those customers to envision you as the caring business owner you are or as someone unresponsive to their questions and concerns?

Follow through is a difficult proposition for any company, but it is vital when it affects the ongoing partnership you have with your customers.

Real estate businesses thrive on providing meaningful follow up with their customers. These customers can work with numerous real estate firms, so if they choose one to work with they want to be sure that their best interests are being fairly and completely represented.

This is the same idea for any business. Customers who have a positive experience with your company are more likely to come back again. So, if you use an email autoresponder make sure responses to those emails remains a high priority.

If you feel you are receiving too many emails spend some time improving your FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section and providing an email link to the answer in your FAQ section. You should also encourage visitors to visit your FAQ section first and then contact you if their question is still not answered.

Search Engine Optimization Services for Real Estate Brokers

If you only spend some time in a real estate marketing forum online, you will actually discover that search engines are the hottest topics on the list. I would say, every real estate brokers want their websites to be rank on the top of the search engines results. Yes, you want to be on the top rank, but with all the information and misinformation, having successful business at some point being hard to get the right path. But this article will help you find the way, so read on.

As real estate brokers, the first thing you have to do in search engine optimization campaign is by choosing your key phrase or phrases. If you are asking what key phrase or phrases are, I will tell you. Key phrases are the words or phrases that you wish your business website to be found for in the search engines. Like for instance, if you are a real estate broker in Florida, one of your key phrases will be 'Florida Real Estate Broker'.

Hunch or guess is not the right basis on choosing the right key phrases. You have to take time and research them. You have to find out how many internet users are searching for some phrases. There are some tools you can use for key phrases research, one of which is Overture; you can use it for free. Another tool is WordTracker, but this one is not for free like Overture. But WordTracker includes all the major search engines when researching for key phrases.

The next thing you could do is hire a web designer. You may be wondering why you have to hire web designer, you see, you need to have a clean website, with well-structured HTML, because this could help you to have better search engine visibility.

You see, search engines rank your real estate broker website on its content. So if you have complex and complicated website's HTML code, the more difficult it is for search engines to find your contents. So having clean coding on every pages of your website is very important.

If you want to have SEO success, you have to hire web designer and tell the designer that you want a well-built website for SEO.

The very important you must look out are the quality of your contents. You see, even if you do everything else properly, your business website will still not rank on the top if you do not have good quality content.

In order to achieve proper ranking is by adding article pages to your business website. Having article of about 500 words will allow you to put together your key phrases in an accepted way. In doing so, it will be good for the readers and for the search engines as well.

Another way of search engines' evaluating your website is based on the quality and number of inbound links. These are other websites that link with your website. If you are having inbound links, you must look at the quality of links and not the quantity. It is wiser to make inbound links that already rank on the top with search engines rather to those with low ranking.

Search engine optimization takes time, so do not believe someone who would tell you that they can make you be on the top rank of Google search engine overnight. They maybe lying or using methods that can be harmful to your website on the long run.

A SEO program takes time and determination, so you have to take time to do it right in order to be successful. This article mentions some ways you can do in order that your real estate broker business website will be on the right path.