Directory owners — any suggestions for affiliate programs that convert well in the context of a directory. Does anybody recommend staying away from them? Or wholeheartedly recommend them? I've been thinking of deploying something on my directory. Any feedback is, of course, appreciated!
I don't do it, but it depends on the nature of your directory - general or niche? A niche directory should be easy to monetise but for a general directory I would recommend CPA networks. Many more possibilities though. If you have good traffic, and find the perfect affiliate program your onto a winner. But it's not always that simple heh
Depends on your traffic. If its vastly submitters and webmasters then hosting/template/affiliate programs themselves may work well. If you have category targeted traffic then target certain banners at certain categories. Perhaps weight loss ebooks in the health category etc?
Ive tried it with 0 results, a webmaster or seo person will probably already be sorted for hosting, domains and things like that i feel.
You can become an affiliate of directory submission services and show up an ad for the service in the submit page, it would target the manual submitters. And for category related traffic, clickbank products related to that category could do well.
Perhaps you're not one of them but many webmasters are expanding their domain portfolio every week. I buy new domains all the time. Nobody said affiliate marketing was easy. Its all about getting the recipe right, and targeted traffic is a vital ingredient. If you don't have it you'll struggle.
Domain wise im not buying all the time. But regarding affiliate marketing i misunderstood, or didn't read enough in the past regarding the importance of PPC. This has now resulted in me spending around the last 15 days reading huge amounts about affiliate marketing, ppc and preparing myself for it. A bit nervous but can see the potential for profit, also understand its easy to blow a small fortune too. If you have any tips let me know, i dont mean niches or anything, but more about landing pages, the use of wordpress for landing pages, things like that.
I think the best affiliate scheme to use on a directory is another directory's affiliate scheme. These affiliate links can be added to the confirmation email your directory sends out when a site is submitted and when a site is approved. Did I mention that LoboLinks Web Directory gives new affiliates a 20$ signup bonus plus pays out 50% commission on all sales
Cool. I was looking at the Aviva affiliate program, as well. I was checking out the Lobo site the other day. It looks nice and I see that you are promoting it quite a bit — which is an important consideration when it comes to affiliates, I think.
www.Myhpf.co.uk has a great affiliate program! its very general it pays users to search and has a 3 deep referral scheme many DP members have reported payouts, its a great way to earn some extra money plus easy to promote as you are giving away free money to search
It can be difficult for directories when it comes to affiliate programs. If you are targeting webmasters then you could try selling ad space on your link submission pages to other directories. If you have a niche directory you can target your non-webmaster traffic and apply whatever affiliate program is relevant to your niche. If you have a general niche I think it would be very difficult.
PPC? Steady chief. I'd go with article marketing, its cheap (if you outsource the writing) or free if you write yourself. Beginning with PPC is a nightmare. $20 can be spent in minutes, and if you target the wrong keywords or have a bad landing page you won't make sales. I'd advise you to join nichechoppers.com forum. I'm an admin there and have learnt far more than blogs/DP can teach (not that they're bad). Use my username as referrer if you do decide to register As for the importance of PPC - its because PPC traffic is targetted. It targets searches (people that want something and may be willing to pay) and is very accurate as you well know.
Yeah im actually genuinely nervous about PPC. I may go for some article writing myself, ive not done any for 2 - 3 years. Thats exactly what ive been reading while researching PPC, the potential to lose money fast. Thanks il join nichechoppers today.
Thanks all for the information. As an aside, I've been checking out the followng affiliate programs, which I've linked to below. Aviva Directory Best of the Web LoboLinks Going to put them up on my after-sale confirmation pages as well as confirmation emails and see how they convert. I'm really just at the beginning stages of promoting my directory so don't yet have the traffic to make this truly lucrative, I just want to see what my conversion rate might be. That being said, my traffic is up 175% this month, so I'm quite pleased! I am exploring other options as well — so if you have any further suggestions like the programs cited above, let me know!
I Don't normally post stuff up but being the spirit of the festive season, this is some of my work with an affiliate / directory, very left field but enjoy the challenge A TESTING The page itself is a little complicated to build in a sense but in a short form the first thing we do is run (around 50 or so) separate optimised banners / text objects through our optimiser system (a seperate installed affiliate app), this looks at the CTR on those items and shows the more popular items on a visitors view, then secondly these optimised banners plus additional banners text and views are run through another 100 or so dynamic banners to form the final picture. What this does is changes the page view with each visit so that a fresh look is seen with each page view (press the refresh option in the top right to simulate this) This combined with optimised banners / text is designed to deliver the visitor to the site, by in a way split testing live for the best view / banner options. The 9optimised) banners also run through out our directory portal in all relevant categories and will drop down into our geo targeted USA section shortly. In addition it is our first venture into using business names as a category (mentioned moons ago), but these will offer all sorts of options not just affiliate use.
I still offer the affiliate program and if anyone is interested they can pm me for a link. I just don't don't promote it much anymore because there is not that much interest in it. I could go on and on about the reasons for this but it would make this post a whole lot longer. It is more effective to offer coupons -> savings directly to submitters than to offer commissions to affiliates who typically are not submitters. Current coupon code at AD is -> adword
Someone should setup a site or a blog or something where directories can list their current Discount Coupons. With expiry dates and anything relevant.