cernus11

I was going to make this post on my blog but I felt it was a little too industry specific. Anyway these are just thoughts, let me know your opinions.

IMO alot of affiliates miss out on a few different things that would improve their conversion rates:

Geo-Targeted Call To Actions:
Its been mentioned in the forum before, geo-targeted calls to actions will set you above 95% of affiliates out there. If you are getting a decent amount of global traffic it is definitely worth looking at this. US rooms might convert best in general but they don't necessary always pay out the best. Not listing a US room on your site means you are burning money however with geo-targeted calls to actions you can separate which rooms you promote to what audience.

Personalised Banners:
I've seen people bring up banner blindness and how banners are worthless. THIS IS NOT TRUE. Yes consumers have become a lot more savvy to banners linking to outside sites but there are a few things we can do to deal with this. Firstly personalised banners work well with a site that has a level of trust and quality content "xxx.com recommends playing at PokerStars" converts a hell of a lot better than the generic "PLAY STARS NOW OMG BONUS DEALS". Secondly we can put on banner rotation, users do get "banner blindness" but rotating 2-5 different banners helps to stop this from occurring. When you are putting up a banner on your site make sure its interesting.

Think Of Your Website As a Funnel:
This is something that a lot of new affiliates are guilty of not doing. I see too many sites with a confusing homepage giving me far too many options to choose from. Though a website must add some value it is ultimately there to convert. Make sure you are funnelling your traffic to you conversion page, whether that be a review or a eBook sign up. The typical internet user is at short an idiot and very lazy. If you give them too many options they will click off, you have to funnel them to where you want to go. Common techniques include making all pages point to your conversion page, then having your conversion page very limited in terms of navigation. For instance I would shut off my interesting articles widget on my review pages because I wouldn’t want my user getting distracted by non converting content that would ultimately be funnelling back to the review page anyway.

- James