Clicks IN occur when people click on an off-site link and come into your ThemeBased Content Site. Clicks IN cost you time and/or money (explained above). So analyze what works (do more of it) and what fails (drop or improve it).
In order to do Click IN Analysis, you create special tracking links. You create these links specifically to track the success of your off-site promotional campaigns. You place a different link in each of your promotional campaigns, so that it’s easy to track.
When the user clicks on that link, she first goes to a computer program that records the click, and where it came from. Then the program sends the visitor to the page in your site that you had specified.
Click IN analysis yields the following...• “first-time vs. repeat” clicks IN, for all clicks IN, and also on a link-by-link basis. In other words, has the person who is clicking on a link clicked on it before?
You now have a way of measuring the exact traffic-building success of every offsite promotional campaign, whether you’re...
• bidding for keywords on Pay-Per-Click engines
• buying ads in e-zines
• posting an ad on the bulletin board of your local grocery store
• no matter how you promote!
Here are some of the uses and advantages of Click IN Analysis...
i) The Untraceable Link -- Some links have no Referring URL, so it’s impossible to know where they came from through regular traffic analysis. But geez, we need to know this data. For example...
i) links from a free e-book that you are using as a promotional tool.ii) links from e-mail of any kind... sig files, links in mailing lists, autoresponder campaigns, links in the e-zine that you publish, ads that you buy in e-zines.
iii) links from non-Web based newsgroups (ex., anything you read with your newsreader -- but if you read newsgroups via deja.com and your browser, this does not apply since the Traffic Stats section will report on any visitor that arrives via a Web site -- you could, of course, still use a tracking link for this if you wanted to).
iv) links that are simply typed in, often due to offline exposure (especially targeted print media). Tracking links are great for any kind of offline promotion.
By creating a special tracking link for each of these “untraceable links,” you’ll know what has been previously impossible to know.
2) Testing e-zine ads -- set a different tracking URL for each ad that you write. That way you can measure which ad generates a better response. Here’s how...
Run Ad #1 in E-zine #1 and Ad #2 in E-zine #2, then switch a month later. Which ad got more responses overall? Stick with what’s profitable. Drop the rest.
E-zine advertising becomes very cost-effective when you can drop the dogs and increase your budget for the winners.
3) Test Web-based advertising -- Even if your promotion is Web-based, it’s more convenient to run tracking links than to review the Traffic Stats Referrer information, which do tell you which sites links originate from. So use your special tracking links to track the performance of banners, Pay-Per-Click Search Engines, even posts to forums and discussion groups.
So far, we’ve talked about tracking the various possible origins of the tracking links (i.e., the off-site places where potential visitors see and click on your tracking link... e-zines, pay-per-clicks, etc.). And we’ve assumed that the ultimate destination of those links is to your Theme-Based Content Site. But you have several options for the ultimate destination of your off-site tracking links...
1) Your Theme-Based Content Site -- Let’s say that you have a terrific page about a special kind of cactus. That page has several in-context text links... links to books, growers, ClubMom, etc., etc. You take an e-zine ad. Where should the ultimate destination be?
Easy... to your Keyword-Focused Content Page! Since you have worked so many in-context text links into your OVERdelivering copy, you have a whole bunch of chances to make some money. Even if a visitor is not interested in hiring you as a horticulturalist, she buys at least one of your merchant-partners’ products.
2) Straight to a merchant-partner -- On the other hand, suppose you write a wonderful article about this special cactus as content for a prominent e-zine published by a third party. Your payment is that you can include your URLs. Where should these links point?
Easy... work those special tracker links into the content of the article, and point them straight to your merchant partners. One link for each merchant. Since anyone who clicks passes through the tracking script first, you’ll see exactly how many people clicked on each link! No point in directing them to the same info on your site, right?
3) A free trial download -- Even a download URL can be the destination. Offering a free e-book on that special kind of cactus? Take an ad in an e-zine, offering the link straight to the download. Naturally, the e-book will have links to PREselling content about your service, your various merchant-partners and a recommendation to subscribe to your e-zine. Every one of those in-book links should be special tracking links, too!
4) Your online store -- If you have an online store that needs traffic, and if the situation dictates that you’re better off sending visitors directly to your store (after passing through the tracking script, of course), then do that. Same goes if you have a dedicated site that sells your services or a single product. If an ad costs you $100, but you see that it generated 500 visitors, and if you know that 2% of your visitors buy... it’s easy to figure out whether your ad is profitable!
No matter where these visitors originate, and no matter where you send them, Click IN Analysis reports how well each promotional effort is working.
Click IN Analysis is vital for anyone building income through content. Unfortunately, existing services are very expensive. Here are your best two options...
1) If you have some tech skills or if you employ someone who does, use our Ultimate Link Tracker. It’s free when you join our 5 Pillar Program...Don’t worry. There’s no obligation to work the 5P Program unless you want to. Consider the Ultimate Link Tracker as my graduation gift to you!
-OR2) Site Build It! provides all this... the Tracker Library makes it a snap to set up your special tracking links. And you get complete Click IN Analysis reports at the click of your mouse! Cost? Included in Site Build It!, which itself costs less than services that offer only this feature!
