I have chosen my first niche to promote (yay go newbie go) and I'm very excited to finally put the past 5 or 6 weeks of my training into action. Time to light this candle and get started.
Here's my question (or questions)- I am unsure what type of landing page to set up. The niche is one I am very familiar with, so I have a definite leg up in "speaking the language". Most affiliate sites in this niche, which I look at as a young but booming industry, are poorly designed blogs. There are no well designed sales pages with killer copy, so I am feeling like this is the path I should go down. Before everyone says test, test, test, which I agree with- I am totally confused as to what Google likes/doesn't like. I keep hearing review sites are dead and Google frowns on them. In all my reading, and please correct me if I'm wrong, what Google wants is a website that adds value for the user. Unique content. A reason for someone to be on the website even if you removed your affiliate product(s). That being said, is there even a reason for a straight sales page (when you are selling someone else's product) to exist? If I have a great landing page, awesome copy, but I am just selling someone else's product, is this a workable business model (providing keywords/traffic metrics make sense of course)?
I have some feedback re your Qs but 1st I want to be sure I understand what you are asking. When you refer to "Google" my answers would be somewhat different based on whether you are talking Adwords PPC or organic search.
I ask because I know you are in PPC Classroom, so assumed at 1st you were asking about PPC, but part of your Qs sound like they could be more geared toward organic. So tell me which way you want to go and I'll take a stab at it.
__________________ Linda Buquet :: Affiliate Recruiting, Promotion & PR
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"I am unsure what type of landing page to set up. The niche is one I am very familiar with, so I have a definite leg up in "speaking the language". Most affiliate sites in this niche, which I look at as a young but booming industry, are poorly designed blogs. There are no well designed sales pages with killer copy, so I am feeling like this is the path I should go down."
The style of landing page could vary quite a bit depending on the type of niche and type of product. When you talk about "sales pages with killer copy" I picture those long hype filled eBook sales pages. While those can work for eBooks and Internet marketing products I don't think they work well for retail type products.
"I am totally confused as to what Google likes/doesn't like. I keep hearing review sites are dead and Google frowns on them."
Quite a few affiliates reported getting slapped for having review sites, but I'm still not positive that was the problem. It could have been the type of products they were reviewing or lack of unique content or other things.
"In all my reading, and please correct me if I'm wrong, what Google wants is a website that adds value for the user. Unique content. A reason for someone to be on the website even if you removed your affiliate product(s)."
This is correct. See my next answer below too.
"That being said, is there even a reason for a straight sales page (when you are selling someone else's product) to exist? If I have a great landing page, awesome copy, but I am just selling someone else's product, is this a workable business model?"
Amit has said several times on his blog that landing pages alone aren't enough any more to get decent quality score. You need a landing SITE with at least 10 pages of unique content, a privacy policy page and a contact us page - at the very least. I think he's even said to get inbound links too.
__________________ Linda Buquet :: Affiliate Recruiting, Promotion & PR
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Thanks Linda. That kind of reaffirms what I was thinking but i wanted to be sure. The product(s) I will be promoting for this merchant are eBooks, & Audio downloads mostly. I think "Landing Site" as you mentioned, with an eye on turning it into an authority site as it grows is the way to attack this.
I am totally confused as to what Google likes/doesn't like. I keep hearing review sites are dead and Google frowns on them.
Google doesn't really "frown" on anything...that's all "conspiracy" hokey-pokey in my estimation. Instead, Google has one objective in mind, to make money by selling advertising. That's it.
Sooo... if people were to be complaining about the sites they are seeing when they search for stuff, or if certain trends develop with search results that would result in big G losing advertising revenue because less searches are being performed etc... then Google will change things so it can make more profits.
But all of these changes happen because of the people searching...not because Google decides to pick out one kind of site and "slap" it.
Bottom line is...if you make Google's customer happy, you win...if you try to "game" the advertising platform that Big G is running, you lose.
Quote:
In all my reading, and please correct me if I'm wrong, what Google wants is a website that adds value for the user. Unique content.
You're partially right here.
What Google wants is for people to find what they are really looking for when they search, because that attracts more people into their advertising system to click on the ads that Google shows.
Websites that contain valuable, updated content are one way Google meets that objective.
Choosing Landing Page Type
Linear Mode
