Conduit Method and Article Marketing Integration - Interception Taken Beyond

[Daniel Molano]

I have just thought about a method that could work VERY well on affiliate marketing and even on promoting your own products. I call it the "Interception Mechanism".

Chris Rempel's Conduit Method is a very effective marketing idea (I have implemented it myself and I have done wonders with it). But so is article marketing and after a debate I orchestrated in another thread, I came up with a wonderful integration insight.

The Conduit Method is mainly about intercepting a potential buyer when they look for a product's name or product review in the search engines via SEO.

Artile Marketing is mainly about sending direct traffic to a landing page (among other things), also via SEO if you keyword optimized your articles.

So let's integrate both. Allow me to elaborate.

Work your article marketing campaign as usual and design a high converting landing page, whatever has been working out for you in that area (Reviews, Stories, Information etc...) However, we do have to take into account that there is a bounce rate and it will never be zero.

So in those landing pages make some sort of comments pointing the reader who will bounce to look OUTSIDE your landing page.

Anyway, this is where the Conduit Method kicks in, the visitor will go to Google, do the search term and the first 3 search results will be YOUR sites, they can be a hubpage, squidoo, website, whatever. Point is, the bounced visitor will go to yet another of YOUR affiliate landing pages and most likely click through the affiliate link there. If they don't, they will probably go for the second search result or third, which are also YOURS.

This might take a lot of hard work, time and backlinks if you are in a competitive niche or competitive product promotion, but it could be remarkably easy if you are not. Either way it would pay off.

You would not only be making sales from your article marketing campaign landing page(s), but you would also dominate the bouncers or as I like to call them, undecided potential buyers.

I'm in the process of testing this right now. What do you guys think?

Chris, I would love to hear your insights on this.

Best of luck,

Daniel Molano

P.S: If you don't believe me, go check out all the amazing reviews my new method has in Google (Just Kidding, this is the first place where it has been mentioned )

[Takuya Hikichi]

I think it's a great idea that you're coming up with your own system like this. I like how you named it too. Let us know how your project develops.

[Caroline Connor]

That's great!

Would love to hear how it goes

Caroline

[donnaabreu]

Souns interesting, but what are the chances they would find you again? Even if you hold three of the top ten search results for that product name, you are likely to lose that customer to someone else.

Hard to say without testing it. Would love to hear the results!

Donna

[Daniel Molano]

Originally Posted by donnaabreu

Souns interesting, but what are the chances they would find you again? Even if you hold three of the top ten search results for that product name, you are likely to lose that customer to someone else.

Hard to say without testing it. Would love to hear the results!

Donna

The traffic generated by the articles doesn't lead to a landing page optimized for the product search term, that one is not even SEOd (the articles are though).

It's when the potential buyer leaves that landing page undecided that the conduit kicks in.

They will go look for the product in Google with something like "product name reviews", that is when you close the sale if you didn't do it in your article campaign landing page. Because as soon as the undecided potential buyer does the search, the top 3 results in Google are your other landing pages.

We are talking about 4 completely different landing pages here, each with its purpose. The chances of the visitor going to one of them after leaving the one your articles lead to are almost 100% (If they do the search engine query) unless for some unknown reason they decide to choose position 4+ in the search results.

Not to mention you will also get all the traffic from people who start doing research on a product to see if it's worth it. Interception at its best.

[Terry Hatfield]

Hi Daniel,

Having multiple pages to take up more spots on google is a good idea.

But, each landing page should be independent and try to get the reader to the sales page.

Advertising for people to click out of your page and go click into someone elses is a really, really, bad idea.

Your landing page should do only one thing , that is get them to click into your sales page.

It's good your thinking about new strategies, but always keep your goal in mind. Don't try to make your communications with your prospects do more than one thing or you will lose them.

Terry


Terry

[Nick Brighton]

Originally Posted by Daniel Molano

The traffic generated by the articles doesn't lead to a landing page optimized for the product search term, that one is not even SEOd (the articles are though).

It's when the potential buyer leaves that landing page undecided that the conduit kicks in.

They will go look for the product in Google with something like "product name reviews", that is when you close the sale if you didn't do it in your article campaign landing page. Because as soon as the undecided potential buyer does the search, the top 3 results in Google are your other landing pages.

We are talking about 4 completely different landing pages here, each with its purpose. The chances of the visitor going to one of them after leaving the one your articles lead to are almost 100% (If they do the search engine query) unless for some unknown reason they decide to choose position 4+ in the search results.

Not to mention you will also get all the traffic from people who start doing research on a product to see if it's worth it. Interception at its best.

Hi Dan,

This is a good idea and is basically just saying take the SEO approach along with article marketing, but the advantage is your getting the coverage from both angles.

It's a great idea if you can get the top 5 or so listings in Google for the terms the researcher decides to put in to google, but therein lies your isssue: Getting the rankings.

If you can rank then you're home dry anyway. Articles then become a secondary source of targeted traffic.

[Daniel Molano]

Originally Posted by Terry Hatfield

Hi Daniel,

Having multiple pages to take up more spots on google is a good idea.

But, each landing page should be independent and try to get the reader to the sales page.

Advertising for people to click out of your page and go click into someone elses is a really, really, bad idea.

Your landing page should do only one thing , that is get them to click into your sales page.

It's good your thinking about new strategies, but always keep your goal in mind. Don't try to make your communications with your prospects do more than one thing or you will lose them.

Terry


Terry

Yes Terry, the landing pages are completely independent. And I am not advertising anyone to go click in someone elses page, I'm advertising for them to go to yet another page of mine, they just won't know it.

The whole point of this is due to the BOUNCE RATE, there will always be bounce rate, it will never be zero. Some potential buyers, no matter how good your landing pages are will still be undecided and leave your site, that is where you intercept them with your other landing pages.

Originally Posted by Nick Brighton

Hi Dan,

This is a good idea and is basically just saying take the SEO approach along with article marketing, but the advantage is your getting the coverage from both angles.

It's a great idea if you can get the top 5 or so listings in Google for the terms the researcher decides to put in to google, but therein lies your isssue: Getting the rankings.

If you can rank then you're home dry anyway. Articles then become a secondary source of targeted traffic.

I'm not taking a specific SEO approach, I'm using the Conduit Method's SEO approach which is to rank for the product's name (or related). A normal SEO approach would be to rank for high searched keywords (The product's name isn't).

And actually, ranking for a product's name is pretty easy unless it is one of those 'everyone promoting it' products.

But yes, ranking in a competitive one could be quite hard but it should be worth it.

The idea of this is to get as much sales from the first landing page and then intercept the bouncers (undecided potential buyers), which like you said, covers both angles.

It is extra work, but it should pay off.

[naonline]

Hi Dan,

I was thinking about a similar tactic so your post was very interesting. Once I test it i will post my results as it's a bit difficult to explain but basically the article would tell the reader how to research a product properly by using the full product name and not just 'widget reviews'. This would capture traffic for high search terms like 'widget reviews', then traffic for my conduit site from readers of my article searching for 'widget version 1.5'.

Hope this makes some sense.

Nick

[Ian Jackson]

This sounds quite good although a bit confusing to me! I have been developing a landing page (Bio in EZA article marketing) and email series follow-up for most of this year, and then the Conduit found me (or did I find Conduit?!). Anyway, I have just uploaded my first conduit site and need to set about promoting it now. Promo is always the challenge for me; the part I find most difficult.

It will be interesting to see how I can develop the two facets.

Ian
(formerly iciejay)

[Daniel Molano]

Originally Posted by naonline

Hi Dan,

I was thinking about a similar tactic so your post was very interesting. Once I test it i will post my results as it's a bit difficult to explain but basically the article would tell the reader how to research a product properly by using the full product name and not just 'widget reviews'. This would capture traffic for high search terms like 'widget reviews', then traffic for my conduit site from readers of my article searching for 'widget version 1.5'.

Hope this makes some sense.

Nick

Yes it does make sense, a fine example of interception, try it out, it should work.

Originally Posted by Ian Jackson

This sounds quite good although a bit confusing to me! I have been developing a landing page (Bio in EZA article marketing) and email series follow-up for most of this year, and then the Conduit found me (or did I find Conduit?!). Anyway, I have just uploaded my first conduit site and need to set about promoting it now. Promo is always the challenge for me; the part I find most difficult.

It will be interesting to see how I can develop the two facets.

Ian
(formerly iciejay)

Just read the post I made carefully, I'm trying to tell you how to develop both facets and integrate them. Yes, it can be a bit confusing because I think I'm using some relatively 'advanced' terms.

[Aaron Moser]

By adding the P.S. and urging them to leave your page you are committing affiliate suicide! Never make visitors want to leave your page unless it's to buy. Even if you "hope" they'll find you again. Your basically doubling your work! Sure have the Squidoo and Hubpages too but your website needs to be good enough to convince them to buy through your link right then and there.

As in Chris' conduit method one of the methods is to bring the reviews from other sites to your own site. That way they have no reason to leave.

I'm sure Chris would agree.

[Kay King]

I'm not trying to convince you to get anything here

I've seen that phrase on pages that were clearly sales pages - and don't believe a word of it

Creating a sales page that contains a link to "unbiased reviews" on your site might be an idea - but I can't see pulling visitors to a page and then telling them to "go search". That would mean you have to attract the same visitor twice instead of just selling him while you've got him there.

You also have the challenge of making sure your own reviews stay in top rankings - and that your visitor doesn't move down to the 5th ranked site on the page before being interested enough to click.

Test it - and let us know how it works.

kay

[Allen Graves]

Another thing about the articles...dontcha think that articles which are written in this theme just scream the words "TRAFFIC BUILDING?"

If you're planning on using EZA you may want to rethink the way you write the articles. They want credibility building.

Just a thought.
AL

[naonline]

Originally Posted by Allen Graves

Another thing about the articles...dontcha think that articles which are written in this theme just scream the words "TRAFFIC BUILDING?"

If you're planning on using EZA you may want to rethink the way you write the articles. They want credibility building.

Just a thought.
AL

Hi Al,

Can you explain what you mean by 'credibility building' and whether you think this can be done using Dan's method.

Just finished your article handook BTW - awesome stuff!

Cheers
Nick

[Daniel Molano]

Originally Posted by Aaron Moser

By adding the P.S. and urging them to leave your page you are committing affiliate suicide! Never make visitors want to leave your page unless it's to buy. Even if you "hope" they'll find you again. Your basically doubling your work! Sure have the Squidoo and Hubpages too but your website needs to be good enough to convince them to buy through your link right then and there.

As in Chris' conduit method one of the methods is to bring the reviews from other sites to your own site. That way they have no reason to leave.

I'm sure Chris would agree.

Originally Posted by Kay King

I've seen that phrase on pages that were clearly sales pages - and don't believe a word of it

Creating a sales page that contains a link to "unbiased reviews" on your site might be an idea - but I can't see pulling visitors to a page and then telling them to "go search". That would mean you have to attract the same visitor twice instead of just selling him while you've got him there.

You also have the challenge of making sure your own reviews stay in top rankings - and that your visitor doesn't move down to the 5th ranked site on the page before being interested enough to click.

Test it - and let us know how it works.

kay

I have removed the part where you should insinuate that they go search. The point of this is intercepting the bouncers via conduit method.

It could also work with PPC or any type of traffic method, as long as you intercept the bouncers.

[getsmartt]

Just a thought... How about if you carefully craft a Google link to ensure that your pages are at the top maybe even the whole page. Make sure you add enough search terms in to fill the search box then add the "magic" term at the end (this term will only appear on your pages). copy the link, paste it in your page, add something to the effect of "click here to see what Google has to say about this".

[Allen Graves]

Why is everyone so on edge lately!

Daniel, I wasn't responding to you I was responding to Nick.

So yes, that is good advice, you should read the thread thoroughly before you reply.

Sheesh!

[Allen Graves]

Nick,

As far as credibility building goes, there is a common change going around at most of the "top" article directories.

EZA - Pen names considered second rate
Buzzle - Links can now only be posted in the link feature
Base - Nofollow links

Each of these is a great example of how the "big boys" are trying to push away the people who use article marketing for traffic building only. I suppose they believe that these things are going to increase the author base they have who are using article marketing for name branding and pulling people to well-established authority sites as opposed to the drive-by internet marketers out there.

AL

[Daniel Molano]

Originally Posted by Allen Graves

Why is everyone so on edge lately!

Daniel, I wasn't responding to you I was responding to Nick.

So yes, that is good advice, you should read the thread thoroughly before you reply.

Sheesh!

Oh sorry, I thought you meant me, you didn't refer to Nick in your post.

[Nick Brighton]

Originally Posted by Daniel Molano

Yes Terry, the landing pages are completely independent. And I am not advertising anyone to go click in someone elses page, I'm advertising for them to go to yet another page of mine, they just won't know it.

The whole point of this is due to the BOUNCE RATE, there will always be bounce rate, it will never be zero. Some potential buyers, no matter how good your landing pages are will still be undecided and leave your site, that is where you intercept them with your other landing pages.



I'm not taking a specific SEO approach, I'm using the Conduit Method's SEO approach which is to rank for the product's name (or related). A normal SEO approach would be to rank for high searched keywords (The product's name isn't).

And actually, ranking for a product's name is pretty easy unless it is one of those 'everyone promoting it' products.

But yes, ranking in a competitive one could be quite hard but it should be worth it.

The idea of this is to get as much sales from the first landing page and then intercept the bouncers (undecided potential buyers), which like you said, covers both angles.

It is extra work, but it should pay off.

Yep, cool. Want to add another catchnet? Stick an exit popup or popunder on your site. In the pop up ask the reader why they are leaving and offer something of such value that they even if they want to do research at a later stage, at least you've got their email.

Then send them an email immediately after they've subscribed. They'll probably get the email as they are searching for other reviews or info. The likelihood is that they will buy from you as you were the original, plus you helped them the most, plus they might just be ready to buy the product itself.

And you'll also find out what's wrong with your landing page, and why they REALLY objected to even considering the offer.

[naonline]

Originally Posted by Nick Brighton

Yep, cool. Want to add another catchnet? Stick an exit popup or popunder on your site. In the pop up ask the reader why they are leaving and offer something of such value that they even if they want to do research at a later stage, at least you've got their email.

Then send them an email immediately after they've subscribed. They'll probably get the email as they are searching for other reviews or info. The likelihood is that they will buy from you as you were the original, plus you helped them the most, plus they might just be ready to buy the product itself.

And you'll also find out what's wrong with your landing page, and why they REALLY objected to even considering the offer.

I'm sure this would work for traditional review sites Nick, but this is drifting further away from what the conduit method is all about. You are meant to be an impartial authority site that collates customer feedback on a particular product, not a sales site that digs it's teeth in and won't let go.

I personally think a pop-up of any kind would kill your credibility instantly. There's no harm in having an opt-in for a newsletter or a 'free buyers guide' but a pop up is too in your face for this method.

Just my humble opinion.

Nick

[Daniel Molano]

Originally Posted by Nick Brighton

Yep, cool. Want to add another catchnet? Stick an exit popup or popunder on your site. In the pop up ask the reader why they are leaving and offer something of such value that they even if they want to do research at a later stage, at least you've got their email.

Then send them an email immediately after they've subscribed. They'll probably get the email as they are searching for other reviews or info. The likelihood is that they will buy from you as you were the original, plus you helped them the most, plus they might just be ready to buy the product itself.

And you'll also find out what's wrong with your landing page, and why they REALLY objected to even considering the offer.

Originally Posted by naonline

I'm sure this would work for traditional review sites Nick, but this is drifting further away from what the conduit method is all about. You are meant to be an impartial authority site that collates customer feedback on a particular product, not a sales site that digs it's teeth in and won't let go.

I personally think a pop-up of any kind would kill your credibility instantly. There's no harm in having an opt-in for a newsletter or a 'free buyers guide' but a pop up is too in your face for this method.

Just my humble opinion.

Nick

I think you both make excellent points. But yes that is drifting away from conduit quite a bit. However, an exit pop or something like that for an opt-in won't kill credibility, it's a good idea.

[James Schramko]

It is not how I would do it. You should be doing the complete opposite. You should be lacing content network ads RIGHT NEXT TO YOUR ARTICLE so that you win them right there at the point where they have decided not to click your article link.

I detailed this highly leverage method of article / ppc (and more) marketing on my blog called 'Bum Marketing Stupid?'

I've been doing it for ages.

[Ian Jackson]

Thanks for the heads-up Daniel. Which would you (or anyone) say are the 3 best free ways to generate traffic? - for someone with limited time - no full time IM for me just yet! Thanks.

ij

[Kelly Verge]

You can have two links in your bio on EZA. Perhaps you could link to two different pages - one which is a pre-sell and one which is a conduit site. That way you could build link juice to both and funnel traffic to either depending on where they might be in the decision process.

Personally, I like the simplicity of the conduit method, and don't want to complicate it, but it might be worth testing...

[lennelljones]

Daniel, this is an excellent idea. I also read James Schramko's post 'Bum Marketing Stupid', which is excellent - if you have not read it yet, I highly suggest it.

Daniel's method is a great option for those getting started who have limited funds, but once you are profiting, James' tips will really boost your income.

Thanks again for the ideas...

[Daniel Molano]

Originally Posted by James Schramko

It is not how I would do it. You should be doing the complete opposite. You should be lacing content network ads RIGHT NEXT TO YOUR ARTICLE so that you win them right there at the point where they have decided not to click your article link.

I detailed this highly leverage method of article / ppc (and more) marketing on my blog called 'Bum Marketing Stupid?'

I've been doing it for ages.

Hey James, yes that is a great idea. But I am talking about when they leave your landing page (Not the article, they already clicked through that link) undecided and don't click on your affiliate link.

A lot of people do this, they leave your landing page to do some "research" on the product in the search engines, to see if it's worth it, that's where you intercept them.

[James Schramko]

Ok, got it,

Well firstly you should have many sites - there is no rule you can only have one. In most markets I promote I have several websites catering for buyers and not ready yet buyers. I also recommend in my blog post that you have two lanes running out of your article.

One for Buy right now types, and the other for "I'm not ready yet" people. This is where you send them down the path that meets their buying context.

[garyv]

Originally Posted by getsmartt

Just a thought... How about if you carefully craft a Google link to ensure that your pages are at the top maybe even the whole page. Make sure you add enough search terms in to fill the search box then add the "magic" term at the end (this term will only appear on your pages). copy the link, paste it in your page, add something to the effect of "click here to see what Google has to say about this".

Wow - I just re-read this entire thread, and realized I just skipped right over this golden nugget. Maybe this has been done before, but I've never thought of doing this. I'm going to implement this one and see what happens. Thanks for that tip!

[chris_surfrider]

I think there's a danger in assuming that a visitor will do "this or that", or think certain things.

Really, the only way to find out is to try it and see how it works.

In general, just as James said above, when you own multiple sites in the niche you'll have this effect anyway - where some people will be stumbling into you to some capacity several times.

Owning more of the niche, so to speak.

Also, regarding exit-popups.

I use them, and they work awesome.

Highly recommended, since they were leaving anyway and being "nonchalant" at that point takes a back seat to visitor value.

Besides, it's not unethical OR unusual. Think about all the interstitial ads and live media that all the "big" sites subject us to all the time (gamespot.com, ign.com, etc)

It's the same thing.

In the end, it's just about content and conversion.

Most times, when I've tried to "be clever" or engineer abstract results, I've been shown time and time again that SIMPLE is what works best.

People do not do what you "think".

They do what THEY do.

And normally, their actions are very, very simple.

Cheers,

-Chris

[James Schramko]

Chris is right about that,

Simple works - that is why I love single product specific review pages.

Throw some different versions up there and let the market show you what works. The answers will be revealed to you.

[Daniel Molano]

Originally Posted by chris_surfrider

I think there's a danger in assuming that a visitor will do "this or that", or think certain things.

Really, the only way to find out is to try it and see how it works.

In general, just as James said above, when you own multiple sites in the niche you'll have this effect anyway - where some people will be stumbling into you to some capacity several times.

Owning more of the niche, so to speak.

Also, regarding exit-popups.

I use them, and they work awesome.

Highly recommended, since they were leaving anyway and being "nonchalant" at that point takes a back seat to visitor value.

Besides, it's not unethical OR unusual. Think about all the interstitial ads and live media that all the "big" sites subject us to all the time (gamespot.com, ign.com, etc)

It's the same thing.

In the end, it's just about content and conversion.

Most times, when I've tried to "be clever" or engineer abstract results, I've been shown time and time again that SIMPLE is what works best.

People do not do what you "think".

They do what THEY do.

And normally, their actions are very, very simple.

Cheers,

-Chris

Chris, I don't think I'm assuming anything. Isn't it a fact that a lot of people do 'research' on a product before buying it? And this research is generally done in the search engines with stuff like "product name" or "product name review"? And isn't that the very same principle your Conduit Method is based around?

I'm just pointing out that if your traffic generation method IS NOT SEO, then you might as well add it to the equation by ranking for and dominating the product name search terms. This would allow to 'intercept' the undecided potential buyers (bouncers) AFTER they have left the landing page they landed on by other means other than the search engines.

Other than that, I agree, yes simple works (this is actually quite simple).

[Daniel Molano]

Originally Posted by garyv

Wow - I just re-read this entire thread, and realized I just skipped right over this golden nugget. Maybe this has been done before, but I've never thought of doing this. I'm going to implement this one and see what happens. Thanks for that tip!

Yes that is a very interesting tip, I can't believe I missed it as well until you pointed it out.

[hommi_16]

Originally Posted by Daniel Molano

I have just thought about a method that could work VERY well on affiliate marketing and even on promoting your own products. I call it the "Interception Mechanism".

Chris Rempel's Conduit Method is a very effective marketing idea (I have implemented it myself and I have done wonders with it). But so is article marketing and after a debate I orchestrated in another thread, I came up with a wonderful integration insight.

The Conduit Method is mainly about intercepting a potential buyer when they look for a product's name or product review in the search engines via SEO.

Artile Marketing is mainly about sending direct traffic to a landing page (among other things), also via SEO if you keyword optimized your articles.

So let's integrate both. Allow me to elaborate.

Work your article marketing campaign as usual and design a high converting landing page, whatever has been working out for you in that area (Reviews, Stories, Information etc...) However, we do have to take into account that there is a bounce rate and it will never be zero.

So in those landing pages make some sort of comments pointing the reader who will bounce to look OUTSIDE your landing page.

Anyway, this is where the Conduit Method kicks in, the visitor will go to Google, do the search term and the first 3 search results will be YOUR sites, they can be a hubpage, squidoo, website, whatever. Point is, the bounced visitor will go to yet another of YOUR affiliate landing pages and most likely click through the affiliate link there. If they don't, they will probably go for the second search result or third, which are also YOURS.

This might take a lot of hard work, time and backlinks if you are in a competitive niche or competitive product promotion, but it could be remarkably easy if you are not. Either way it would pay off.

You would not only be making sales from your article marketing campaign landing page(s), but you would also dominate the bouncers or as I like to call them, undecided potential buyers.

I'm in the process of testing this right now. What do you guys think?

Chris, I would love to hear your insights on this.

Best of luck,

Daniel Molano

P.S: If you don't believe me, go check out all the amazing reviews my new method has in Google (Just Kidding, this is the first place where it has been mentioned )

Well the idea is good in theory but to be honest, it will take lots of time to dominate the first page of google.

[Daniel Molano]

Originally Posted by hommi_16

Well the idea is good in theory but to be honest, it will take lots of time to dominate the first page of google.

Not for low competition keywords, I can do that in a day. It's not hard neither, one of my affiliates for one of my products signed up and after 24 hours he showed me how he got domination of the 5 first positions for my product's name.