Affiliate Tips: How to Boost Your Brand Image
14-08-2017
Brand image is not usually the hot topic for lead generators to discuss because it insinuates the notion of optimising your website for consumers, rather than for search engines. It might seem like a no brainer to optimise your site for consumers, since they are the ones who will truly bring in the revenue, but numerous lead generation websites actually aim at pleasing search engines instead. There is nothing wrong with SEO – in fact, we encourage you to do as much SEO work as possible to get your website to where it needs to be, but at the same time, don’t neglect your website image. Google’s algorithm is now set up in a way that favours websites that are optimised for human usage, anyway.
Optimising for Search Engines vs. Optimising for Consumers
These intentions matter because they will determine the course of your design layout and marketing strategies. If you optimise for search engines, like many Affiliates rightly do, then these are the things you would be doing:
- Strive for high quality backlinks
- Establish a consistent structure of internal links
- Sprinkle relevant keywords throughout your pages
These are all standard practices for any web owner who wants to keep their SEO rankings consistent, but there are consequences to going overboard with SEO marketing. If an Affiliate is not being careful, he or she can get too aggressive with SEO and wind up penalised by Google. It’s great to include keywords in your pages, but don’t stuff them in unnatural places. A single paragraph with the same phrase mentioned 20 times is too aggressive and may turn users away. The same goes for having too many unqualified backlinks. You might not be driving qualified traffic to your website; plus, you would be running the risk of getting penalised by Google.
Websites that optimise purely for consumers might take part in the following:
- Write long, detailed articles that fully deliver on what their titles promise
- Create aesthetically pleasing layouts
- Create exceptional copy for each page
Similar to search engine optimisation, making these consumer-focused optimisations to your website is a fantastic thing – as long as do don’t go overboard. That’s right, there is a way to overdo these great strategies. For example, if you’re so bent on creating exceptional copy that you forget to inject relevant keywords into your text, you might be hurting your findability. Another example is if you create layouts that are pleasing to the eye but slow down the entire website, you will be harming the overall user experience. The solutions, therefore, are to 1) practice both SEO and consumer-focused optimisations without going to the extreme and 2) find the perfect middle ground that pleases both the search engines and consumers alike.
The Middle Ground
Striking this perfect balance isn’t easy, but definitely possible. The middle ground is where you will make optimisations that will truly boost your brand image and, in turn, your conversion rates. If you want to take your website to the next level, employ the following strategies:
Increase Your Site Speed: Google measures your website speed to determine whether or not it’s worthy to be displayed on the front page of SERPs. This is because your website speed directly affects your user experience, and to get more people using Google, they need to display the most relevant and seamless websites for each search. Even if the websites are beautifully designed and contain a ton of information, it needs to load faster than 3 seconds in order to deliver great user experience.
Make Your Layout Mobile-Friendly: Mobile is the way to go. Search Engine Land reports that more people are browsing the web on their mobile devices than they are on desktop. This means that if your layout is not mobile-friendly, your SEO rankings will be rather poor and your mobile visitors won’t return after their first experience. The mobile-friendliness of your website depends highly on the layout that you use. T DOT UK offers highly optimised, mobile-friendly templates for all of our Affiliates. Click here to find out more.
Create Evergreen Content Often: It’s not enough to just create evergreen content; you’ve got to create and promote it often. Evergreen content includes long-form articles that fully breaks down a broad topic in extreme detail. They usually market themselves because of how useful and informational they are, but even evergreen content gets buried after a while. If you simply don’t have the time to create it, you can also recycle old content by promoting it in new ways.
To get more tips on how to effectively drive more traffic to your website, sign up to become an Affiliate with T DOT UK today. Our Account Managers are eager to help you succeed in this space, so sign up to speak with one of our industry experts today.
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