Do you let your Affiliates Deep Link?

It's nothing new and has been around since the dawn of the Internet but deep linking is ever more critical, and if you don't let your marketing and affiliates partners deep link then you' re likely missing the mark, and losing customers, according to a new Nielsen report.

In 2004, about 40 percent of people visited a homepage and then drilled down to where they wanted to go and 60 percent used a deep link that took them directly to a page or destination inside a site. In 2008, said Dr Nielsen, only 25 percent of people travel via a homepage. The rest search and get straight there.

The report goes on to discuss how web users are becoming less patient and less distracted by sticky functions and want to get right to what they have come to do and then go elsewhere.

On the upside a greater percentage of users now actually complete what they set out to do, so if a merchant has a good site design and easy check out then the ability to drive a good conversion rate is now higher than ever, good news for merchants and affiliates!

Deep linking is very easy for the makority merchants to set up on their sites and for their affiliate programs, and is critical for sites that offer a wide range of products. That said there are still a number of affiliate programs than insist on forcing users to travel via the home page, either due to a poor eCommerce platform or a very misguided belief in what their site visitos should be forced into doing.

The Domain Game

A new book by David Kesmodel of the "Wall Street Journal" will delve into the business of domain investment (no I've not read it yet but it's going to be on on my "must read list" once it's published) . I must admit that I'd not given the whole domain investment business much thought until I sat down and chatted with the guys from Moniker at the 2007 CAC event in Macau . It was eye opening (to say the least..jaw dropping more like) to see how buying and selling the right domains can be way more profitable than buying real estate or stocks, and while not risk free, it's certainly far less risky than buying the later. It's also a relatively cheaper to get into domain investment, though a reasonable .com domain is likely to cost you $5000 and up at present time (no more basement bargains to be had) . That is unless you're lucky enough to keep up with how new words constantly spring into existance and can grab them up before anyone else...or better yet predict, or even influence what new words will come into existance.

One thing I learnt from talking to Moniker is that after spending your $5000 on a domain, you'll very likely need to sit on it for a year or more until it becomes something that someone else needs or wants, and is willing to pay for. It's not a rapid turn over business.

Also, while .com English language domain names are in the highest demand, don't miss out on potential opportunities in none English .com as well as other domain areas such as .de , .co.uk and the opportunity to invest into the rapidly expanding Asian domains.

That said, my recent endeavour to buy .asia domains left me with a very sour taste in my mouth as the way these domains were set up for sale and then auction was nothing more than a way for the .asia registrar to fleece people of money and give them no domains, nor return their money. The option of "bid on the domain you wanted" was where most domain purchases went. And that was after paying for the domain... Supply and demand I understand, but if a firm can't supply what a person buys, then the money should be returned, not held.

Anyway, aside from that slight bump , the business is certainly there to be explored. Moniker hold frequent domain auctions at Internet events and online, and there's a .TV domain auction coming up very shortly (May 20th) too. Even if you don't bid, it's worth attending these events just to see what is being paid for domains now a days.

Deposit Checks over the Net

Maybe I'm just slow to catch on to this, (Apparently this process has been legal since 2004) but I came across a rather interesting, time saving system today that allows you to deposit checks over the Internet. So if you're one of those lucky affiliates that gets lots of checks from lots of different networks and inhouse programs then this could be a nice time (and paper saver) from having to fill out multiple deposit slips and spending time standing in bank queues. The software is designer to handle 50 checks a day on "online mode" and can handle more in an offline system which uses a batch process to scan and send the checks.

And if you're really wracking up the checks, Then the Panini MyVisionX is available in models
that scan 30, 60 or 90 checks per minute!!

The DepositNow system works with any U.S. bank account, (sadly no International support, else I'd be totally raving about it) so no need to set up new accounts. The scanners (you need a special scanner for electronic deposits) also doubles as a normal scanner for docs and photos so it' doesn't need to just sit on the shelf doing nothing between checks. The scanners run for around $225+ each. There's a guide to scanners you can use.

One thing that's not shown is the price of using the DepositNow system, "we cannot tell the price for certain until you begin to input your business data" , the FAQ says. Anyway check out the online demo to see if it's for you.

Affiliate (....Blog) Revenue

One of the longest ongoing debates in the affiliate industry is "how much can a person make", and there are lots of sites made by people claiming to have made millions, presenting fake checks while they attempt to suck money and life blood from unfortunate web marketeers who are looking for ways to kick start their revenue. Ask any serious affiliate how much money they make and you'll likely get one of two answers "Not Enough" and "Could be more", no dollar figures. Yes we're all capitalists and looking for ways to get beyond earning "enough". There are also many many ways for people to earn money on line now a days, the advent of blogs making it even easier for more people to try to make money too.

Being as we see a lot of the checks we issue to affiliates we have a good idea of what affiliates of all sizes can and do earn, but no I'm not going to be publishing those numbers. What I did come across and found interesting and something I'm going to follow, was the revenue post by the folks who own General Marketing Blog where they are posting their on going monthly revenue for everyone to see and follow, along with related traffic and ranking reports. Here's a slice of the revenue info :

Blog Income

• Pepperjam: $123.00 (Up $26.00)
• Adsense: $26.51 (Down $10.81)
• Bannermall: $0.00 (Down $20.00)
• Banner ads: $172.00 (Up $40.00)
• Paid Posts: $245.00 (Up $115.00)

The blog has been live 6 months and the owners made just over $550 in April. I don't believe that's a bad number for just 6 months live. They also list their site data, rankings and traffic reports. What I found interesting though is that the revenue has not come from any traditional affiliate networks, other than PJN, or even PPC, but more from the growing business of paid posts.

For people looking to launch a new site and earn some money, this certainly shows, that with effort and focus you can start to get a reasonable income within a few months, and that Pay Per Post Marketing is becoming a large factor in making that possible.