PR_Tom
11-28-2006, 04:18 PM
How many of you can walk around your house in the dark without bumping into anything? If your walls were in a new configuration every night, you'd have to look where you're going, right?
It's fairly common for affiliates to contact me and ask about their conversions and give tips on gallery/page design, so I thought I'd cover a few common issues I encounter. The number one issue I see when checking pages is the same template being used over and over again without updating. It's important to remember especially when using large TGP's and Link Lists that a good portion of their traffic is repeat surfers. People bookmark the sites that they like, and return daily to look at newly submitted listings. If you use the same template in the same niche more than once a week in my opinion, it's far too often and I'll explain why.
We all get conditioned to advertisements and product labels, and before long we just ignore them. Add to that the fact that the surfer is there to see the content and not your ads and you have a situation where you literally only have seconds to catch their eye: every single time! The best approach is to consider every single click to your page to be someone who has 1) seen your content before 2) seen the paysite before 3) seen the banner(s) before and 4) seen your template at least once unless it's your first day using it. Thats quite an uphill battle to convert to a sale.
Working to convert that die-hard surfer to a sale is all a matter of factoring away those things. Buying content is the first and best way to show something new (it's why they clicked after all). Finding new sites or new ways to link to a paysite is another, changing banners is another, writing new and attractive text is great. But the number one thing you've got to do is constantly make new templates! So spend much of your time making a new layout until you have at least seven, and work your way up to thirty. If nothing else it will help you eliminate a stale design as a possible reason for any drop in sales you might experience. It will absolutely make a difference in conversions if you keep at it and keep things fresh and new.
It's fairly common for affiliates to contact me and ask about their conversions and give tips on gallery/page design, so I thought I'd cover a few common issues I encounter. The number one issue I see when checking pages is the same template being used over and over again without updating. It's important to remember especially when using large TGP's and Link Lists that a good portion of their traffic is repeat surfers. People bookmark the sites that they like, and return daily to look at newly submitted listings. If you use the same template in the same niche more than once a week in my opinion, it's far too often and I'll explain why.
We all get conditioned to advertisements and product labels, and before long we just ignore them. Add to that the fact that the surfer is there to see the content and not your ads and you have a situation where you literally only have seconds to catch their eye: every single time! The best approach is to consider every single click to your page to be someone who has 1) seen your content before 2) seen the paysite before 3) seen the banner(s) before and 4) seen your template at least once unless it's your first day using it. Thats quite an uphill battle to convert to a sale.
Working to convert that die-hard surfer to a sale is all a matter of factoring away those things. Buying content is the first and best way to show something new (it's why they clicked after all). Finding new sites or new ways to link to a paysite is another, changing banners is another, writing new and attractive text is great. But the number one thing you've got to do is constantly make new templates! So spend much of your time making a new layout until you have at least seven, and work your way up to thirty. If nothing else it will help you eliminate a stale design as a possible reason for any drop in sales you might experience. It will absolutely make a difference in conversions if you keep at it and keep things fresh and new.