EzSEO Newsletter # 96
October 9, 2005 by Andy
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EzSEO Newsletter # 96
Andy Williams ez SEO
ez-search-engine-optimization.com
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This week:
1. Create Video Tutorial – Zero cost!
2. Building Affiliate Sites – Miniseries Part VIII
3. Does your site look professional?
4. Other Stuff
Hi again.
I had a bit of a rude awakening this morning at 07:45. Five distress flares were set off “right outside” my bedroom window. The first one woke me with a jolt, though my eyes stayed firmly glued shut. I could see the light of the next four through both closed eyes and closed curtains, shortly before each loud bang. This was followed by church bells ringing for several minutes.
At first, still half asleep, I thought Mount Teide must be erupting (I really regret watching that documentary on Super Eruptions last week) and they were evacuating Tenerife. As I became a little more aware of my surroundings, I thought that it was probably because Spain had one a football (soccer) game last night keeping their hopes alive of qualifying for the World Cup. It seemed a reasonable explanation for the noise.
However, my wife mentioned that it might be the King of Spain’s birthday today. Why at 07:45 I will probably never know, but then when were things ever logical over here.
OK, I am wide awake now. Let’s get on.
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1. Create Video Tutorial – Zero cost!
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You have all seen the video tutorials that marketers use to sell products or provide support for their software and eBooks. Several months ago I spent time evaluating tools that did this, and ended up spending a few hundred dollars buying Camtasia Studio. It is still the best tool of its kind in my opinion, but there is a f.r.ee alternative for those who don’t want to splash the cash.
The similarly named “Cam Studio” is a tool I had tried a couple of years back, but then, when I wanted to install it on my new computer, I could not find it. The site I had originally downloaded it from had removed the download and were promoting another tool instead. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I came across it again this week. It is 100% f.re.e. If you want to dabble in Video Tutorials yourself (they will help your site avoid the “thin” label), why not get a copy and have a go. Here is the link.
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2. Building Affiliate Sites – Miniseries Part VIII
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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.
If you missed any of these newsletters, you can read them online at my blog.
This mini course begins in issue #89 and continues to the latest post in the blog.
This week is very important. We are going to look at pre-selling. Pre-selling is an art, and often commands extortionate fees if you hire a professional to do it for you.
Firstly, what is pre-selling, and how is it different from selling?
Well, you can think of it as “selling foreplay”. It is a way of warming your visitor to the idea of buying. You don’t directly try to sell an item to them, you just make that item sound irresistible, and something that they cannot do without. Once you have pre-sold your visitor, you can then direct them to a site where they can make the purchase (affiliate site). If you have done your job properly, your visitor will have their credit card at the ready, as they click your affiliate link ;o).
As long as the merchant does his/her job properly (which is to sell), you have a very good chance of making the sale, and earning a commission.
The main pages of your site are the pages where pre-sell is important. It is here that you turn a visitor into an buyer, and send them on their way to a merchant.
Pre-selling is a lot easier if you have used the product yourself, and like it. You have the knowledge to pre-sell based on YOUR experiences with the product.
Now, with a lot of stuff you are going to promote in your affiliate career, you can’t (or don’t want to) buy the item before you try to sell it. In that case, you have to work a lot harder, do some research on the internet, and read what other people are saying about the item you want to sell.
One of my favourite tools for this type of research is called Copernic Agent version 6, and luckily its is fr.e.e.
I don’t have time or space here to show you how to use it, but it does come with a comprehensive online help.
OK, now you know what pre-selling is, let’s look at how to do it. What I am about to describe to you are the exact steps I go through when writing pre-sell for my own sites.
Summary of the Pre-selling
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The following questions are designed to help you build a pre-selling blueprint that you can refer to as you create your page. Go through the questions, and write down your answers.
These questions are based on those I learnt about by Maria Veloso, a professional web copywriter.
1. What are the problems faced by your visitor that this product can solve?
NOTES: Powerful pre-selling stirs emotions in the reader. It makes them realise that they don’t have to put up with the inconveniences, the struggles or the pain they are currently going through. The product you are promoting solves these problems. Make a list of all the problems faced by your visitors, and are solved by the product (but don’t mention your product here, you are simply setting the stage.
2. Why have your visitors still got these problems? Let your visitors know that you understand their problems.
NOTES: Write a sentence or two explaining the reasons why many people still suffer in silence. Is it because there are no solutions to the problem, or is it just that these solutions are hard to find, expensive, or both. Is it the fear of trying something new? e.g. if you are pre-selling a weight loss product, it could be that your target audience have tried many times to lose weight, and failed. They are just unconvinced that there is a solution that will work for them.
3. Describe what life can be like without the problems.
NOTES: Paint a picture of what their life could be like, if only the problems did not exist. Taking the weight loss example, create a picture in your visitors mind, of walking along a beach in a bikini, or fitting into that pair of jeans that have not fitted for over a year. Describe the emotions they will feel when friends or family see them for the first time after that weight loss.
4. Introduce your product.
Describe how the product you are pre-selling solves the problems where other products have failed.
NOTES: Let your visitors know who you are, and why you are convinced that this product works. Use personal success stories if you have them, or success stories of people you know. Tell them how this product is different from others they may have tried. Try to build a personal rapport with your reader, making them know that you are a real person.
5. Feature list.
NOTES: List as many beneficial features of the product that you can think of. Create a series of bullet points.
6. Final reminder of that “picture”.
NOTES: With what you have written so far as a guide, create another, different mental picture for your reader. Use one or more of the benefits to re-emphasize what life could be like after using the product. Describe how they will feel when the problems don’t exist.
7. Call to Action.
NOTES: This is where you tell your visitor what you want them to do. It might be to sign up for your newsletter, or download your fr.ee. report. In most cases, it will probably be to click on one of your affiliate links.
With these questions answered, you should have a fairly comprehensive set of notes that you can use to build your page of pre-sell.
Next week, we will look at a pre-sell blueprint I have written, and turn that into web page that pre-sells effectively.
If you are interested in taking your pre-selling efforts to the next level, there is one book that I highly recommend. It is the book I used to learn pre-selling. It is available via Amazon.
From all the books I have read on the subject, this one is easily the best.
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3. Does your site look professional?
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One of the most difficult parts of building a website is setting up the templates that you are going to use. This often takes many hours, or even days to get just right.
I personally am not a good web designer, and my early sites all looked kind of amateurish (see my “ez search engine” site for proof). Fortunately for me, I met a graphic designer who has become a friend over the last year. Andrea Thomson’s templates have been used by many top internet marketers, probably the most famous of which is James Martell.
If you are starting a new affiliate site (maybe as you follow this miniseries), and you don’t mind paying for a template, I can highly recommend those that Andrea offers. She has created template packs for Frontpage, Dreamweaver (and other HTML editors) and my own SEO Website Builder (SEO WSB).
You can see a demo site (built with SEO WSB using one of Andrea’s templates) here.
The site content does not match the template logo (this is just a test site for when I am testing stuff in SEO WSB, so I just recompiled the site using the first template at hand), but it does show you the quality of Andrea’s work.
If you want or need a template, I highly recommend you visit Andrea’s Golden Pine Cone site.
While there, why not visit Andrea’s blog. It will give you an insight into the life of an affiliate marketer (and you can read all about the recent CJU event and the forthcoming affiliate summit).
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4. Other Stuff
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The first October Niche Blueprint was released this week. I don’t think I need to say any more about these “Website Blueprints”, so I’ll just provide the URL for those interesting in trying one.
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.
Have a great week!
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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@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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