EzSEO Newsletter # 111
February 19, 2006 by Andy
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EzSEO Newsletter # 111
Andy Williams ez SEO
ez-search-engine-optimization.com
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This week:
1. Clickbank Stats
2. Building Affiliate Sites – Miniseries Part XXIII
3. Other Stuff
Hi again.
Hope you had a good week. This week we continue with out miniseries by looking at the most exciting phase of site development – “off-page factors”. In addition, I look at a new tool I bought this week, and love. This one is particularly of interest to those who sell their own products via Clickbank.
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1. Clickbank Stats
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One of my biggest complaints about Clickbank (and I do have a few) is that they do not offer us vendors the statistics we need. Let’s face it, if you run an affiliate program through Clickbank, you need to be able to keep on top of your customers and affiliates.
I often get emails from people along the lines of “Hi, I bought your software in January 2004 but have lost the username and password….”
With Clickbank’s current setup, I would not be able to check if that person really was a customer or not. Clickbank only keeps 1 year worth of transactions before they are over-written with the next year. Let’s face it though, if that customer told me they purchased a couple of months ago, I would still have problems verifying the purchase through Clickbank.
Before I get a rush of emails asking for usernames and passwords for your pre Feb 18th 2005 purchases, I do keep track of my customers another way ;o)
For the last couple of years, I have been using a tool called CB Extract to download Clickbank data. I then import my customers into a bulk email program so I can check if they are customers or not. If I need to send a message to all of my customers I can, and if someone asks for a refund, I can remove them from my mailing list. This is all very complicated, not least because I have never gotten CB Extract to work properly. Quite often, I go to download my Clickbank stats, but this tool does not download anything, even though it goes through the motions of downloading with the progress bar creeping up. Its as if I have not made any sales in the proceeding period since my last download. Unfortunately the customer support for this tool has not helped. They said they could not replicate the problem, so I was on my own. In addition to that problem, it played havoc with my firewall. I had to disable my firewall while Clickbank data was being retrieved (or not).
I had thought about writing my own tool for this job many times. However, I have been beaten to it by Rod Beckwith. He has just released a tool called CB Accountant:
This tool does almost everything CB extract should have been able to do, and it works. I say “almost everything”, because there are a few omissions which Rod is working on with his programmer, even as I write this.
CB Accountant will make my life so much easier. Not only did it allow me to import my CB Extract data into it so I could begin working with my existing customer database immediately, but it works in such an intuitive way. I no longer have to keep my customer database in a separate program either since I can do all of my customer mailings from within the software itself. There are also a bunch of graphs and reports for a variety of statistics.
If you are a merchant, selling products using Clickbank, CB Accountant is a must have tool. I love it. If you are just an affiliate, then this tool may not be overly useful unless you sell a lot of Clickbank products, and even then, only if you like analyzing your stats.
CB Accountant – All of your Clickbank sales data at your fingertips- Well done Rod!
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2. Building Affiliate Sites – Miniseries Part XXIII
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If you have been following this course so far, you will have:
a) identified your niche and checked for profitability
b) carried out your keyword research at Wordtracker.
c) sent yourself your keyword research from Wordtracker.
d) selected several phrases to use as main page keywords.
e) selected suitable phrases to be used for article pages.
f) learnt how to theme pages. You should use this information to begin collecting themed keywords for your planned pages.
g) seen how main pages differ from article pages, and understood how these differences dictate how the pages are created.
h) seen how selling differs from pre-selling, and learnt one way to sketch out a blueprint of your pre-selling content.
i) looked at a top selling sales page, and dissected out the various pre-selling techniques highlighted by the “pre-selling blueprint questions”.
j) looked at two models for building main sales pages.
k) looked at how to write articles, and learnt a simple “Value Test” you can use to decide if your article is good enough.
l) Found a suitable web host, domain name and web editor.
m) Looked at links, and understand that some links will server you better than others.
n) Seen how Page Rank can be passed onto other pages, and also that the Google toolbar is not accurate.
o) Seen that links in to a page are a vote for that page, and that the link text used on incoming links, gives your page some reputation for that term. The more incoming links with that term, the higher the reputation.
p) Seen how tracking your visitors can give you a lot of useful information, and chosen a stats script for your own site (if your host does not provide one).
q) Seen how to create a useful links page that can act as a resource for your visitors, and looked at one way to automate this page.
r) Seen that putting Adsense ads on all pages is not usually the best strategy for maximum profits.
s) Seen how owning your own products can be fun, as well as help avoid the thin affiliate label. Most of all, it can be very lucrative.
t) Seen how to use the nofollow tag to block Search engines from certain pages, as well as the importance of getting quality links to your pages (both internal and homepage).
u) Seen how to add content to your site for maximum impact, and looked at a tool that can do this for you.
v) Seen how article distribution can increase backlinks, link reputation and PR of your web pages, thereby increasing rankings.
If you missed any of these newsletters, you can read them online at my blog:
http://ez-search-engine-optimization.com/blog/
This mini course begins in issue #89 and continues to the latest post in the blog.
Last week we talked about article submissions and how that technique can spread your articles around the internet and create backlinks, link reputation and PR for your site.
This week we will continue to look at more ways you can get traffic.
As you know, it is very important that you get quality links into your site, and the more ways you can get them, the better.
One way of getting one-way links to your site is by submitting your site to Directories.
This is often not always as easy as it should be for reasons we will mention in a moment. Firstly, let’s look at why submitting to directories is a good idea:
* If the directory is edited by humans, as is Dmoz.org, the directory tends to be filled with quality sites. A directory setup this way is likely to have more weight given to any backlink (in the eyes of a search engine) than a directory that accepts all submissions.
* Directories link back to your site, giving you a backlink. If you have been able to choose your link text, that is an added bonus.
* Popular directories are likely to send you traffic, purely because they get a lot of visitors who go looking for sites.
OK, the reasons why directory submission are not as easy (or as valuable) as they should be:
* Not all directories pass PR back to your site, in which case link reputation is not going to be a benefit either. These directories can use a variety of techniques for stopping PR, as we saw previously with the nofollow tag.
* Not all directories are fr-ee, and those that are not don’t guarantee inclusion even if when you pay.
* Human-editors of directories can have hidden agendas. Take dmoz.org as an example. Lots of categories do not have an editor, and invite applications. If you could become the editor of a category, you have control over who you let in, and who you don’t. My impression is that a lot of these editors use their powers to help themselves, which is why I have had perfectly good sites ignored when I submitted to dmoz.
* With dmoz.org, you often have to wait months before you hear anything, and even then you may not hear anything. There does not appear to be any system in place for checking up on the progress of the application of a sites once it is submitted.
* A lot of directories do not accept affiliate sites.
Despite the potential problems with directory submissions, they still do offer a great way to get quality backlinks to your site. It is quite possible that the search engines (especially Google) will start to devalue links from some directories (e.g. directories were all sites are accepted, and paid directories that guarantee inclusion), but that should not stop you from submitting to them. One of the great benefits of being in popular directories is the traffic the directory sends you from those browsing the directory (meaning that the search engines are largely taken out of your traffic equation).
So which directories should you submit your sites to?
Well, here is a web page you can use for reference. It shows lots of directories, their PR, and whether or not PR is passed back to your site. Clicking on the info link next to the directory brings up other valuable information about the directory, including the submission URL, Alexa ranking etc:
Important Notes:
* if PR is passed back to your page, the PR you get is based on the PR of the page your link is on, not the PR of the directory homepage. If PR is not passed, still submit to the directory if there is a lot of traffic at that directory (you can see the Alexa stats for each directory in the list by clicking the info link).
* Read the directories submission guidelines before submitting. If you don’t follow guidelines, your application will be rejected.
I suggest you work your way through that directory link page and submit your site to as many as you can.
For those looking for short cuts, there is a pretty cool tool that will speed up your directory submissions. This tool comes preloaded with over 280 directories (and works in much the same way as Article Announcer does for submitting articles to article directories) and keeps track of where you have submitted, and where you still need to submit to. I will be reviewing this tool in the near future, but if you can’t wait:
Today you saw how directory submissions can help increase your backlinks, your PR and link reputation, and therefore your rankings. Next week, we will continue to look at more traffic generation techniques that you can apply to your sites.
WARNING: The miniseries will be coming to an end in the next few weeks and I do have plans to turn the entire series into an eBook. As this is done, the mini-series will be removed from my blog, so if you want to get it before it is removed, do so now. There wont be another warning about this!
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3. Other Stuff
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The Niche Blueprints are nearly ready. Look out for them around the middle of this week. If you want notification of when the Blueprints are released, as well as some details about the niche, sign up for the notification list at:
After trying it out in December, I will be permanently changing the pricing structure so that those who buy both, get a discount. These Blueprints offer great value for money, especially if you have problems coming up with ideas, or just don’t want to spend days doing all the preparation work yourself. Each Blueprint is personally researched by myself, and all of the guess work is taken out of the procedure with the detailed tutorial, organised keyword lists, recommended affiliate programs and more.
Well, that’s it for another issue. If you want to read the recent issues of this newsletter, you can read them online here at my blog.
For older newsletters, you will need to visit the old archives at:
http://ez-search-engine-optimization.com/archives
Have a great week!
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Visit the subscriber Bonus page for free reports and other subscriber-only offers:
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please recommend it to your friends. Also if you have any tips of your own, questions or comments, please send then to me at webmaster[REMOVE]@ez-search-engine-optimization.com. Any tips or questions & answers I print in this newsletter will also be put up on the web version of the newsletter with a link to your site
if you want it. That’s extra free traffic for your site as well as an incoming link to your site.
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