Making Your Wesite Affiliate Friendly

Jerry Lunsford

Ever go to a website and couldn't make heads or tales of it? Possibly it was littered with advertisements in the form of flashing banner ads or pop-ups? What did you end up doing? If you are like me...you left. And without even bothering to look around. Why? Because you either couldn't find what you came to the website for, or you were turned off by all the commercialism of the site. Either way you ended up wasting your time, and the owner of that website failed in his attempts at marketing. Why?

Because a website is virtually worthless regardless of how many hits you are getting if visitors immediately exit your sight. But the better scenario is a website that offers people exactly what they were expecting from your keywords and description. This will result in your visitors, who have become targeted traffic to spend more time at your site which probably means they will do a thorough examination of your business opportunity.

To keep visitors looking over your website it is important to have one predominant theme. For instance. If your website is completely dedicated to your affiliate program, then your keywords and description should emphasize that. If your website offers ways to increase traffic don't list your site as an affiliate program just because you offer a link to one. That's getting people to your site under false pretenses. Their coming to your site looking for an affiliate program and instead they find instructions on increasing website traffic. More likely then not those people will bail out only to look elsewhere.

While it is a good idea to offer links to other sites and services that are similar in nature to your own website I do not suggest creating keywords or including in your description any of these. I am thoroughly convinced that the majority of people will not click past your home page to find what they are looking for. Do You? So If you have a sight that offers marketing articles but would like to offer your affiliate program as well, you can create a whole new site just to promote your program through which you may receive more targeted traffic. This will allow people to click your link from wherever it may be posted and up pops exactly what they read in your description.

But that's not the only problem with websites. Some contain such massive amounts of advertisement in the form of pop-ups, flashing and moving banners, and music, it's like looking at a video game where your objective is to shoot the pop-ups down before another one is created.

No one likes to be bombarded with advertising. And all that advertising takes away from the theme of your website. While a person is reading about your offer they are being distracted by things moving and flashing all over the place. Besides, if you are offering an affiliate program, visitors to your website are not looking for car insurance, vitamins, or long distance phone service. I'll take that back. They may be looking for those things but most people will go directly to the source by use of a particular keyword and their favorite search engine. This also emphasizes the need to have the proper keywords and description to match up with your website.

If you are advertising on your home page may I suggest no more than two banner ads on it. And they should some how be linked to the theme of your website. Now, if you have quite a few products or services to advertise there are a couple of ways of doing it that won't turn your home page into a shooting gallery.

1. Use one line text ads. Corner them off onto a particular section of your site allowing visitors to make the decision as to whether they want to view your advertisements or not.

2. Make a separate site for each product or service. You can create sub-domains for your products or services and promote them just as you would your main site, and do so with a lot more success.

Here is a recap of points to remember.

Present a website that:

Is easy to navigate
Has minimum advertisements
Is what people expect to see at first glance
Matches your description and keywords
Maintains one predominant theme

If you conform your website in the manner stated above you will end up with more targeted traffic to your site which should result in more sign-ups to your program. Build your website to meet the expectations of those who visit it and you will succeed.

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