Does SEO for CPA offers work well?

[Daniel McGonagle]

I've heard an awful lot about PPC to CPA offers, and I was wondering if there's the same amount to money to be made by using SEO to get top SERPs for terms related to the CPA offers.

I really don't see why not, but a client of mine asked me this and I'm about to help her with this idea. However, I wanted to check in with some knowledgeable warriors here to see if anyone has experience with ranking well for terms related to their CPA offers and how that's working for them/you...

Alphabet soup, I know...

The SERPS and SEO isn't a problem, I was just looking for some advice from those who are "in the know" about CPA offers.

Thanks in advance,

Dan

[Sami]

Hi Dan

It works very well. I have tried such things as beauty, fashion and cosmetics traffic to a few of my domains with CPA offers and they worked very well.

The challenge with SERPS/SEO is that they take time but CPA offers come and go fast. Hence most people go with PPC/CPA.

To be successful with SERPS/SEO/CPA you need to build a site around and evergreeen subject such as fashion or cosmetics. Then you can vary the CPA offers that ou display to find the best ones.

ALso when one offer is eneded you simply switch to another. Additonally by haveing a site that caters for that niche, you can build a loyal list and send email approved CPA offers too.

Another advantage of this route is that you can have sevral (not too many) CPA offers on any one page and tect them against each other or have multiple incomes. PLus you will be able to have a great many offers across the site. This is something that the PPC/CPA crowd can't do.

Finally, once you nuild your site's authority you can get serious sponsorship money too. Again the PPC crowd can't really do that.

Good luck
Sami

[Daniel McGonagle]

Sami,

Thanks for the response. I don't know much about CPA offers beyond what it stands for what sites offer these and that PPC seems to be the preferred method here.

The thing I don't like about it is the direct linking leaves the PPC-CPA-er without an asset called a website.

My idea is for her to build a blog and make it like a mini-site devoted to just one CPA offer, and if one sputters out, find a related CPA offer in same niche and keep on building the site/asset up some more.

The idea is to have one blog themed on say, evergreen topic like Fashion, then work the blog as a mini-site for new CPA offers based on the keywords related to the offers/products/niche.

Over time, the blog grows in number of backlinks and traffic for the niche and this (I know) makes it easier to rank quickly for new related terms since she'll be using the power of a well-developed and linked-to blog to get indexed quickly for new posts and dominate the long-tails easily...

Question: Do the CPA people provide the KWs to target/get ranked for,for the offers?

If so, it seems to me that all you have to do is look for a new offer and get ranked well for it. Then again, I don't know much about this but since you said it works well then good, this means I'm not leading someone astray here.

Your point about evergreen products is noted, too.

If a CPA offer dies out, then the "old" posts and pages can be turned into an affiliate style site promoting relevant products to keep it funding itself, yes?

Any of this make sense here?

[debra]

What Sami says is very correct. Seo with long term CPA offers is about as close to the set and forget system you can get.

You can ad and rotate CPA offers by installing an ad management script. You can rotate mutiple CPA offers for testing to see which ones convert better for you. Additionally, you can quickly change offers if one offer expires. Keeps you from having to manage the offers page by page (a big hassle).

If you have fanstasico on your server, you can do a one click install of an ad management script.

[Daniel McGonagle]

Thanks Debra and Sami,

I added you to skype in case you felt like answering some followup questions I have.

Each new bit of information seems to beget more questions.

First, an easy one- what ad management script do you mean? Something that rotates ad creatives or images on a blog? I got a WP plugin called WP125 that does this in an OK fashion...

Second, I don't see why blogs wouldn't do really well here since we're talking SEO, after all. Wordpress blogs do really well with this, yes?

Thirdly, are the long-term evergreen niches/offers highly competitive or is it simply matter of finding the right one? The reason I ask is that if we focus on a niche and the CPA offers run out in this niche, then it'll be time to start over and building up another new blog with new creatives, offers, backlinks etc...

4th- Am I correct in ASSuming that you should go with an evergeen niche that always has new relevant offers, or target evergreen OFFERS, if there's such a thing?

Thanks for the valuable feedback thus far, great information here that I'm hungry for at the moment

[debra]

Originally Posted by Daniel McGonagle

Thanks Debra and Sami,

First, an easy one- what ad management script do you mean? Something that rotates ad creatives or images on a blog? I got a WP plugin called WP125 that does this in an OK fashion...

Well for static pages I believe it's called AdsNew. For blogs...you are correct. At least until a better plug-in becomes available.

Second, I don't see why blogs wouldn't do really well here since we're talking SEO, after all. Wordpress blogs do really well with this, yes?

Blogs do really well. With any luck maybe the IM'ers won't notice that.

Thirdly, are the long-term evergreen niches/offers highly competitive or is it simply matter of finding the right one? The reason I ask is that if we focus on a niche and the CPA offers run out in this niche, then it'll be time to start over and building up another new blog with new creatives, offers, backlinks etc...

More and more long-term evergreen offers are popping up daily. I expect it to grow as the political focus strenghtens and the news media responds.

4th- Am I correct in ASSuming that you should go with an evergeen niche that always has new relevant offers, or target evergreen OFFERS, if there's such a thing?

That's is my belief, too. And...there is such a thing - btw. You got to remember...offline activity(publicity) creates interest and online activity. As long as the political fronts and the news media make an issue of the evergreen attitude, you will have searches and buyers. Remember...The Herd Mentality.

[Tristan Bull]

I really don't know too much about CPA but if you have a good landing page set up I know PPC works very well so I don't see why SEO wouldn't work.

Obviously the only difference would be it takes a bit longer.

[Daniel McGonagle]

Hi Debra, and everyone else, great responses here, Thank You.

Debra, by evergreen I mean consistently popular topics, like weight loss, get
out of debt, make money online etc... not "going green" type of stuff.

Just want to make sure we're on the same page.

I understand SEO and SERPs take a while but not if your site is based on
the theme/topic already, you need need to quickly go after the new terms
and keywords associated with the latest offers, no?

Do the CPA sites offer you a list of KWs to target or is that up to you?

[Sami]

Daniel

A few pointers for you...

Here are some CPA networks and they provide plenty of info BUT LEARN THE LINGO before registering with them or else they won't accept your registration. They mostly want people who know what they're doing so you hit the gorund running. If they think you're a wannabie then they may well reject your application:

hydranetwork.com
filinet.com
revenueloop.com

Yes Ever Green in this case refers to subjects that are close to the human psyche and will always be in damand ... weight loss, sports, food, travel, fashion, cosmetics, etc.

There are some enduring CPA offers relating so say cosmetics etc. Channel No 5 has been around a long time and every so often Chennel will re-promote it. But that doesn't make the campaign or promotion ever green.

I suggest you stick with an ever green "subject". When I mentioned the "CPA offer ending" I mean just one particular campaign by one particular vendor ending. They spend their budget on promoting a new product or revitalizing an existing one and they're done with it until their next cycle which can be next season, next year etc.

But there are ALWAYS other offers by other vendors in the same niche ... though may bot be as good. So you never actually run out of CPA offers and you never have to convert or repurpose the site (as you mentioned above).

Usinga blog is great and you can of course have multiple (but closely related) categories that cover that niche.

The COA offers don't necessarily provide keywords though I have seen some do. BUT then every lazy PPCer (& we are all lazy anyway) uses the same keywords. You want to do your own keyword research and focus on the less competitive ones that are closely related to the main keywords. That way you get your SEO up and running and bearing results much faster.

Most CPA offers do not allow you to use PPC including the brand name even though you're promoting their product. SO yu cannot do PPC on the Channel name ... has to do with liability etc as they don't know what claims you might make on their behalf. Stands to reason.

But as a blogger you can do articles, reviews, interviews including the band name and then have the CPA offer close by - again iwhtout mentioned the brand name in the offer buy I guess (you must take advce on this one and see the fine print of the offer terms) you might be able to subtly refer to the offer in body of your blog not far from the CPA offer thus implying or giving a clue what the offer is about. But you must be careful and test, test, test.

Again as long as yo don't make your content too specifically about one brand, there's nothing wrong with replacing the CPA offers when one ends. SO you might do a review of several competitive products and then display or roatate several offers. If one ends you can replace it or even openly delclare "... Sorry you're ttoo late, that offer has ended. If you don't want to miss out, here's another great offer that might end soon...

... see what I mean, creating scarcity and all that good stuff.

Good luck
Sami

[pwebbiz]

Dan,

My one question for you is are you planning on building VRE like blogs and monetizing them using CPA as opposed to PPC?

OR

Are you looking to build VRE that auctually is pushing people to go to the CPA site. For example, I have a free stuff blog with all post descriptions of freebies then send them to the free offer via CPA link:

Like a post claiming I found a site to get a free stick of lipstick / or a free pack of gum etc etc - then sending them to a CPA offer.

In my opinion - This is a great way to get people to go ahead and look into what you are offering.

Picking another evergreen topic like weight loss: On your weight loss VRE make a post about taking a free trial of TrimSpa - or other CPA offer instead of just posting an ad for it

Dan, I hope this all makes sense

Michael

[Daniel McGonagle]

Hi sorry I haven't replied here.

I've actually been busy trying to prove the concept (Gosh! somebody actually trying to implement a method instead of selling the methods, go figure eh?)


PWEBBIZ- to answer your question. I'm looking to build VRE to push people to the most current active related CPA offers by building a niche site. No PPc will take place here, not for a while anyways.

I started one in the health niche that frequently has good CPA offers and am slowly building up the links and pages on that site...

SAMI- thanks for all those great tips. I'll be doing exactly (some of) what you mentioned. I will be building some niche sites/blogs that focus on pushing people to the
CPA offers, and as more niche sites get built pointing towards the main site, it will be easy to switch gears for a new offer and/or category.

DEBRA- great chats on skype, nice to meet you there....thank you for your input as well.

HERE'S THE GAME PLAN if anyone's reading this....

SEO for CPAs...

1- Pick an evergreen niche that frequently has CPA offers so your time spent on SEO is never wasted by building up the VREs for offers that might disappear.

2- Build up the links and pages for the original site, THEN once it's indexed and has plenty of content, go apply to the CPA networks for their offers.

3- I won't apply for the offers until site is looking good and getting some long tail traffic.

4- Article marketing for backlinks and traffic, linkbuilding services to build up links slowly

5- Add more pages daily to get the spiders going

6- Keep an eye on new offers related to my long tail traffic for quickest conversions

7- As more/new CPA offers come out, replace old ones or just add new pages and content targetting the new offers.

8- build more sites to corral the general traffic for these evergreen niches.

Questions....

Is it possible to have a wordpress popup that directs people right to the CPA offer?

Can you redirect optins to CPA offers after they subscribe?

How strict are the rules for emailing subscribers about CPA offers via email?

On your CPA sites, are you totally devoted to the push towards CPAs or doyou integrate affiliate products there as well?

Naturally I'd want to give people choices, but if you're sending people to a vendor and perhaps forever losing that visitor, is it better to have multiple focus with a CPA designed site?

Is it best to focus on the offers or to do the traditional multiple products multi-monetization approaches?

Thanks,

Dan

[derekwong28]

There is a major issue between SEO and CPA offers. Matt Cutts from Google has repeatedly said that they would prefer to rank merchant sites higher than affiliate sites. I have had a number of sites that did quite well for the first few months and then lost their rankings or got de-indexed altogether.

It has been alluded that Google has a database of known affiliate domains to scan against. For this reason, CJ has been using multipie domains for their affiliate links e.g. qrsgx.com weftg.com etc. But they are still quite worried about it and wants to change to using all javascript altogether.

-Derek

[Daniel McGonagle]

Well, I guess that makes sense, seeing as how the merchant sites are the ones most relevant to the offers since they are kind of hosting those offers...

Make sense?

It's kind of like trying to outrank aweber for the term Aweber, I guess.

Derek, I'd like to hear more form you about this if you don't mind.

IMO, you can't lose here because if you cannot rank well for terms related to CPA offers, then you can have niche sites that get similar traffic and try sending email-approved CPA offers to lists

[derekwong28]

Daniel,

I first heard about this through Kurt here in the WF. But this has also been mentioned many times in other forums such as Webmasterworld and Abestweb. Also, I saw a commment specifically by Matt Cutts which went along like this "would you prefer to be taken to the real thing directly rather than through a third party site"

As for my sites, I am not really certain because there were other factors involved. For a start, they were built from merchant datafeeds and so there is a lot of duplicate content involved. Also, when your site suddenly grows by thousands of pages in the day, it may be regarded by Google as spam. What happened was my sites would peform quite well for 1-3 months with all the new pages indexed, then the pages would be put into the supplemental index or removed altogether.

It may be an idea to cloak the links or build a site that contains a lot of good valuable information. But obviously, if there are many products involved, it may be very difficult to cloak the links.

Derek

[Daniel McGonagle]

OK, I know Kurt knows his stuff...

So, did this happen to you because of paid site growth, or because this is what's going to happen to everyone to attempts to use SEO to push CPA offers?

Also, if you build a simple niche site and send them email approved offers, will that work, or is that next to useless compared to sending offers for other types of products via emial?

I'm dealing with the health niche here, juices, vitamins, pills etc...

[vmfan1]

Hi
I'm new to this forum and I really like this topic and was
wondering if a "news" website with different articles of daily
news would be an ok evergreen niche for cpa offers or do you think that traffic won't work!
What do you guys think ?

[Sami]

Hi Dan

I see that there are multiple conversations running in parallel. This leads to people going off at tangents ... this is a problem with not talking live to clarify the various cross purposes.

So let me shed some light as best as I can...

Firstly the issue with SEO & CPA is NOT related to your plans as I understand your plans.

Imagine PPC ads that drive traffic direct to merchant sites or to a minimalist affiliate site. Now imagine trying to do SEO to achieve the same thing. In 'essence' what you'd be doing is doing SEO on a merchant's product. Of course Google quite rightly prefer to rank the merchant.

Your plan however is to create content site(s) based on long tail keywords in evergreen subjects eg health, vitamins etc, as you mentioned.

If you do a good job with your website optimization (not just SEO), Google, other engines and actual readers will love you for it ... you'll be rewarded with traffic and income.

*** Side Note:
Why do you think some sites do well initially, then drop off into the supplemental index and then disappear completely?

Stop right here, just think for a minute before reading on ...

10, 9, 8, ... , 3, 2, 1 ...

OK, If they did something wrong in the first place, they wouldn't do well in the first place (I know, before anyone shouts at me ... yes there are exceptions and that does happen ie spammy sites do get up the rankings then drop off) ...

But here's the answer spammy site or not ...

Initially you get the benefit of the doubt. Not that a kindly old man sits there and give you that benefit of the doubt. But rather algorithms that see fresh content appear on a site take note and reward the site (forget the duplicate content overblown myth ... I'll explain that another time).

But when the site fails to keep up with its own initial growth rate, it becomes obvious that a bunch of content was thrown in or brought in (as in cookie cutter sites, 'designed for Adsense' and even, yes, merchant feeds, etc) or bought in (as in PLR etc) initially.

In mathematical terms this is really easy to work out for the ranking alogorithms ... anyone remember pre-uni math: "dy/dx"? ...

When dy/dx or the rate of increase of the site content (y) drops over the next time period (x, eg a month or 3 months or whatever) then it is obvious the site is not growing after the initial burst. A sure indication of content being thrown in/brought in/bought in.

You Dan, are not planning this scenario. Right? Right.

I just wanted to clear up the (slightly off topic) issue of Google's treatment of SEO+CPA and site rankings dropping off - coz neither is relevant to your proposal.

*** End of side note

Now, before answering your questions, let me paint a picture of the kind of site or blog that'll be versatile, money making and in time can even become an authority site ...

Lots of fresh, unique and informative content. Regular additions/updates ... in other words lots happening on the site. Backinks being built steadily and naturally. Opt-ins actively encouraged, to build a list and to promote interaction AND to build a relationship with the site's visitors and followers.

On this site you may then have highly relevant CPA offers (that look like any other ad or better still don't look like ads at all ... but that's website optimization and a different subject for another time). You can also have affiliate product reviews, ads and recommendations.

Of course you send valuable info and articles to the mailing list and also invite them to look at some relevant product or service offers, be they CPA or affiliate or CPC (PPC but you get paid, eg Adsense or others).

The choice of what is placed in front of the readers on the site or in the emails is entirely yours. You mix & match and test & tweak until you hit a winning combination and milk it for all you can.

OK with that in mind, lets look ta your questions...

Originally Posted by Daniel McGonagle

Questions....

Is it possible to have a wordpress popup that directs people right to the CPA offer?

Absolutely. I'm sure there are plugins for this purpose. But WP is open source. So you can even insert the pop-up code ("pop-over" actually, so it doesn't get blocked) into the page source.

There are plenty of pop-over generators ... just grab their output and insert in the page source where they tell you to, in one minute flat.

But do test the effectiveness of this against other methods.

Originally Posted by Daniel McGonagle

Can you redirect optins to CPA offers after they subscribe?

Yes. In your auto responder you set the destination page (just insert the URL with your CPA/affiliate link) and you're done in seconds.

Originally Posted by Daniel McGonagle

How strict are the rules for emailing subscribers about CPA offers via email?

Every CPA offer clearly states what traffic is allowed. Some allow email others don't. The traffic method is one of the key criteria that you'll see very clearly in the offer info.

Originally Posted by Daniel McGonagle

On your CPA sites, are you totally devoted to the push towards CPAs or do you integrate affiliate products there as well?

Think about it from your prospects point of view ... they have a need for info about a subject ... if there is a closely matching product or service that solves a problem or gives them other benefit (saves on vitamin costs etc) they'll go for it.

They don't categorise the product by its type of marketing nor should you. Just test and see what offer is best received regardless of the type.

Originally Posted by Daniel McGonagle

Naturally I'd want to give people choices, but if you're sending people to a vendor and perhaps forever losing that visitor, is it better to have multiple focus with a CPA designed site?

If by 'multiple focus' you mean a broader range of subjects within your evergreen niche, then most tests and experiences show that's hardly ever successful. The only examples of success are 'some' portals eg Yahoo and co.

Remember you should place most of your effort in engaging your visitors and getting them to opt-in to your list first and foremost. That way you don't lose them even if they click on a CPA offer.

But you will only keep/get their attention if you build a relationship with them. And that too is the only way your email campaigns will be successful.

And you can't build that relationship truly successfully, if your site is diverse coz you'll be speaking about diverse things to your list. At any one time your discussion will be irrelevant to a whole bunch of your readers.

Keep focused. Make a success of one topic first, then use the income to finance the next and keep going one topic/site/niche at a time.

Originally Posted by Daniel McGonagle

Is it best to focus on the offers or to do the traditional multiple products multi-monetization approaches?

Thanks,

Dan

I think you know my answer to the first part of this last question by now ;-) As for 'multi-monetization' ... I'd try different products and offers but not all at the same time.

Only one offer (affiliate product or CPA) per email. No more than a couple of very closely related product ads per page - stay focused with both the content and the ads too.

Have fun
Sami

[Sami]

Hi vmfan1

with news sites you do get lots of daily fresh content. But your challenge is to keep up with content.

Look, even local news companies (newspapers, TV stations, radio stations) rarely rank all that well and they have plenty of staff and resources.

So broad-based news ... I'd say forget it. You're up against CNN, BBC, etc.

Now if you were to focus on a niche ... "ice hocky news in Toronto" or "global warming technology news" for example, then you might corner that part of the web if you do it right.

Then your income may be via sponsorship and product related ads, affiliate promos, etc.

Good luck
Sami

[vmfan1]

Thanks Sami ,
This is great info and It gives me a better idea how to
use the cpa adds in a better fashion.

Thanks again

[Daniel McGonagle]

Hey Sami, thanks for the thoughtful replies.

It seems like I'm overthinking this because it's "new" to me but its basically the same good stuff we should do for all sites and niches and monetization methods.

Good content, natural link and site growth, focussed writings, test various monetization methods.

Good to know that CPAs can be done via popups and slideins, too, just wasn't sure about that.

Thanks a bunch for your replies,

Dan