Adult Affiliate Guide

It’s ironic that with so much written about duplicate content, we are beginning to see these articles running into the exact issue they discuss! Obviously, we don’t want to contribute to that. But what we do want to do is provide a simple overview of exactly what duplicate content is and how you can prevent it from reducing your chances of ranking well in your chosen niche.

Why is duplicate content an issue?

The duplicate content issue began as a rumor a few years ago when Google search results would state that certain results were omitted because they were very similar to results already shown. Some webmasters deducted from this that Google was applying a ‘duplicate content penalty’ to these results, and started to spread fear and panic amongst site owners everywhere, fearful that their site might become the next to get hit with this ‘penalty’.

Google, in their wisdom, decided to address these concerns with the following statement:

* The duplicate content penalty does not exist.
* Google attempts to offer users diverse search results, so removing duplicate content is more about providing the user with a quality experience rather than penalizing the site owner.
* Sites that intentionally try to manipulate their rankings by scraping (copying) content from other sites are generally viewed as spam and removed from the results.
* Duplicate content in many cases conflicts with Google’s Webmaster Guidelines that recommend site owners provide content that is unique and gives value to visitors.
* Duplicate content is often a result of content management systems that can create multiple URLs to the same content.
* Duplicate content can dilute backlinks to these pages.
* Duplicate content can result in new pages on your site taking longer to be indexed.

This makes it pretty clear why it’s important for you to not only be aware of duplicate content but also understand exactly what it is.

What it is: Top content is normally determined by pages with the highest number of views. In addition to number of views, look for a low bounce rate and high number of referrals from other sites. Monetizing these pages involves thinking about ways to get the highest dollar return from visitors.

Far too often, high-traffic web pages go un-monetized. It might be a viral video on YouTube or some exclusive Miley Cyrus snaps, and all of a sudden it’s getting a huge number of hits. But there’s no advertising or sales messages on the page and you realize the webmaster either doesn’t know how to monetize a page or wasn’t expecting a sudden rush of traffic.

Monetizing your top pages will require some forethought. What sort of visitors are you getting to this page? What are their interests? What product or service are they best suited to? By considering these questions you'll be in a better position to match the right sales message to your audience and improve your conversion ratio.

What sort of sales messages might you display? An easy option is AdSense. It can be added to a page in two minutes flat, but it might not be the best way to monetize the page. Think of suitable ClickBank products you could advertise, or even products or review pages, which often have a higher return.

Action point: Identify your top content pages by page views and consider how you could convert visitors into dollars, or monetize using advertising or affiliate links.

What it is: Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits, or in other words, visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. Use this metric to measure visit quality. A high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren't relevant to your visitors.

Bounce rate might be compared to someone walking into a shop and walking straight out again. Obviously this isn't ideal if you're in the business of selling stuff.

While a high bounce rate is traditionally not good, if the page your visitor lands on is a product page, and the next link they click is one that takes them to the merchant's site, then there's no problem with that. In these situations, however, it's preferable you create a redirect page for your affiliate links to avoid this situation skewing your data. A bounce rate of less than 60% is really good. Any higher than 80% and you may want to check that you have enough quality content on the page and that it is visually interesting and informative.

Another thing you can do to reduce your bounce rate is provide readers with a clear path to more content. One way to do this would be by adding links to other, related pages at the bottom of the article.

Action point: List all pages with a bounce rate higher 80% and check the pages have compelling content that is relevant to visitors and the keywords they used to get to that page (Google Analytics also gives you entrance keyword information).

1. You get to be your own boss.
   You create your own opportunities. You choose how much you wish to earn and work accordingly. You choose to do things that interest you. Take holidays when you need them. Spend more time with your family. If you're in a job that isn't going anywhere, let me say that you can go as far as you like with affiliate marketing if you're willing to work. With this freedom comes responsibility, but for most affiliates the benefits far outweigh the negatives.

2. No risk: It costs very little to get started as an affiliate.
   In all seriousness, you can become an affiliate and start earning commissions without spending a dime. Most affiliates, however, will make an initial investment for some web hosting and a domain name for their first website. Hosting will set you back between $3 and $10 per month, and a domain name is about $10 per year. Joining affiliate programs is free. There are lots of free ways to promote your website. Being listed in the natural search listings of the search engines is free.
   Generally you will end up spending money when you want to save time. You'll keep your spending to a minimum if you're the patient type and you're happy to do the tedious tasks yourself. (This can even be a good thing to do with your first website, so that you learn how it works!)

3. Anyone can become an affiliate.
   Affiliate marketing is extremely democratic. You'll find affiliates of all ages, from all different countries, with all sorts of backgrounds. All you need to get started is internet access and you can operate from any country. (Although some countries are restricted from certain networks and payment providers, but there are usually ways around this.) You don't need to be an expert web designer, writer or marketing guru: These things will give you a slight head start, but for the most part affiliates all start at the same level and just learn by doing.

One term thrown around a lot in internet marketing circles is "duplicate content" or "duplicate content penalty". This is the idea that having content on your site that has significant similarity to existing content on the internet will cause your site to perform badly in the search engines -- most notably, Google.
Is there actually a penalty?

Firstly, the word "penalty" is something of a misnomer. You're not going to drop one hundred places in the search listings just because it displays duplicate content. However it will not be rewarded for posting duplicate content. In other words, it will not do well in the search engines. Typically content that is deemed to be duplicate will appear in the supplemental results of a web search (the bit where it says "pages similar to the ones shown have been omitted") and will therefore not drive any traffic to your site. That's the "penalty".
Avoiding duplicate content penalties

If you're submitting an article to another website and using it on your own site, you obviously want to have your own site appearing in the search engines for that content. The best thing to do is reword the article (either the one on your site or the one you're submitting) so that it's significantly different. This completely removes the need for the search engines to send one of the articles to the supplemental results and gives both articles the chance to rank well in the search engines. Win win!

Your other option is to try to predict which of the identical versions the search engines will smile upon and give the listing to. Will it be the first one they index? Will it be the site with the highest pagerank? Will it be the most relevant site? Theories abound, and everyone has one.
How different is "different"?