Social Networking May Overcome Keywords In Online Affiliate Marketing
Thousands of blogs, books, e-books, and forums are dedicated to Search Engine Optimication (SEO). Successful online affiliate marketing has required learning how to optimize your webpages for search engines. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) required looking at what keywords you are targeting, how many times they are used, and building pages that agreed with the search engine algorithms. Rumblings indicate that social networking may make keywords irrelevant for successful online affiliate marketing.
Google wants to make keywords irrelevant for all advertisers, including online affiliate marketing. Rebecca Lieb recently reported on a speech given by the head of Google Adwords, Nikki Fox. Lieb reported, “That’s right: Google wants to build your ads for you. Are we looking at a world with no more keyword bidding, no more Excel spreadsheets with keyword and keyword phrase groups, no more bid management? Possibly” (Keywords Out, Networks In, 2009). A very interesting concept. It would take some work to ensure that corporate and online affiliate marketing advertisers would be fairly represented.
Social media guru Charlene Li also spoke at Search Engine Strategies. She also spoke about the potential for keywords to take a much smaller role in search engines. Lieb reports, “Li’s view of the future is one in which social networks are “like air,” and search becomes inextricably coupled with what she calls social-graphic targeting, which is based on your behavior with the other people in your network. (Social network analysis is another not-far-off term for this method of targeting.)” (Keywords Out, Networks In, 2009)
Charlene Li’s statements enforce a statement made by sales guru Zig Ziglar, “people buy from people they trust”. Keyword based online affiliate marketing created sales by generating large amounts of traffic from search engines. Eventually, you would find someone willing to buy. Highly successful online affiliate marketers have long recognized the importance of trust. Many successful bloggers found that large incomes required email lists, offering free products, or giving away ebooks that linked back to their sites. These are all forms of building trust with potential customers of your online affiliate marketing products.
Death of keyword based searches may not spell the end of online affiliate marketing. On the contrary, it may offer individuals an advantage in online affiliate marketing. Social networking is being recognized by corporations. However, corporations are still a faceless entity. Building lasting trusts requires putting a face and a name in front of potential customers. Online affiliate marketing allows individuals to recommend products and focus their branding around themselves. One these individual online affiliate marketers are seen as authorities then people will trust their recommendations and buy from them. Success in online affiliate marketing may require spending less time on Search Engine Optimization and more time building your social networks.
Other articles related to the changing importance of kewords to online affiliate marketing:
The Death of Keywords?
Webmaster Radio published a podcast by Andrew Goldman on the potential death of keyword in online affiliate marketing. Webmaster Radio describes the podcast as, “Andrew Goodman discuss the possible changes of keywords in PPC Campaigns, based on comments made during the keynote of Nicholas Fox at SES San Jose 2009, plus some blog posts written by Goodman stating The keyword long tail is dead.”
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