Hi everyone,
I'd like to thank you all for the positive feedback you've given me regarding my story, How Jason Increased His Affiliate Site Traffic by 500%, and I'm extremely pleased I was able to “stir” up some ideas.
I want to follow up with one tip that I think should be addressed.
I've noticed in so many of the comments that many of you plan to add videos to your site. While I obviously am a big fan of videos, it's important to note the reason “why” the particular videos increased my site's traffic and revenue so much.
If you do a quick search on Google for Greatest Love Songs of All Time or even just Greatest Love Songs, you'll notice that there are over 1.2 million+ sites for greatest love songs and over 650,000 sites for greatest love songs of all time.
In my original post, I described how I came up with the idea that adding a greatest love songs section made sense since the visitors to my site (Alternative-Dating-Sites.com) probably would be interested in them. After I came up with the idea, I did some research to determine if my hunch was right, i.e. “Was there enough traffic on the search engines searching for this type of content.”
After I did the research, I realized that yes, there was an abundance of traffic, and the one thing I didn't see among all the results were videos. That is how and why I decided upon the greatest loves songs of all-time section containing videos.
I wanted to clarify this point because I didn't want everyone getting the wrong idea and thinking that just by adding videos to your site, your traffic will increase. Your traffic will increase, if the videos contain “content” that people are searching for.
So, the strategy should always be:
- You come up with an idea, i.e. love song videos on a dating site.
- Research the traffic (Are people searching for your “idea”? (My answer was a resounding yes)
- Competition – Are there a million other sites doing the same thing? If so, then think of a variation of your idea. (My solution – They're are tons of sites featuring love song lyrics, cd's for sale, etc. but none were featuring videos)
- Build, build and keep building. (The only thing that will hurt a successful site/blog is when you stop building. Therefore, a good idea can constantly be tweaked, added upon and updated.)
I wish you all the best of success and thanks again for all the comments. I truly appreciate it.
Jason Anthony
About the Author: Jason Anthony has successfully been promoting dating services as an affiliate marketer since 2003 at Alternative-Dating-Sites.com. He also is the publisher of numerous special interest blogs including PositivePelham.com.
I agree with you Rosalind.
Videos are the next big thing in internet marketing and advertising in general. We must always watch what big tycoons are doing and if Google bought YouTube it was sure that the videos are going to be the next big thing on the internet.
The greatest lesson I’ve learned about internet marketing is always keep an eye on what big guns are doing, not on what they are saying.
Cheers,
Codrut Turcanu – “Succeeding Against All Odds!”
I do not think most people know about being “greedy” when video sites are popping up everywhere. It made me think I was not up to date without video, and it is so easy with plugins and upload sites.
Is using good file compression acceptable to people like David – and how to tell? How does the average person know when they are potentially causing problems?
It seems people love video because of the connectivity they feel…
David,
I agree with you for the most part and would only hope that like any other service or commodity, that use will be charged by volume.
The majority share of the Internet slowing to a crawl problem stems from those who are downloading music and videos — and by result ISP’s are ‘traffic shaping’ or slowing down everyone’s service for the sake of a few.
So, I wouldn’t put all the blame on the Internet marketing community for a problem that primarily originates elsewhere. And while it’s not likely that Internet marketing will become ‘infeasible’ if charges are applied, it may in fact stem some of that ‘lame’ video as you suggest.
Ros
A great tool for adding video to your web site, emails or even having your own international TV show is http://www.helloworld.com.
And the best part – you can do all that and MORE for only $9.95 a month! Check it out!
Unless more folks use the best video compression techniques out there, we all may be paying more to use the internet. I am tired of marketers using lame video that takes forever to load and keeps stopping. I just read articles about how those who started the internet for defense and research purposes are finding it is slowing to become almost unusable for their uses due to video bandwidth hogging. They say it is only a matter of time before stiff price tags will be put on every internet activity that uses bandwidth. That will make internet marketing as we know it today unfeasible due to costs. Greedy boys…don’t screw us all over because you think video is wanted by all. So many times you use it in unnessesary ways. Self-serving…beat your chest ways. You know who you are!