InText

This is exactly what comes to my mind when I visit a website/blog which is filled with many “call to action!” – Are You Trying To Puzzle ?

For example, there are many News websites and entertainment websites which are so confusing that, we bloggers can observe them and take advantage of it, by not doing such things on our blog.

Some of the puzzling things
1. Display half a page or so – ads!, and some dozens of sponsored links above the fold.
Displaying a lot of coupon codes/discount coupons of various products(which may be invalid), to gain search engine visitors to those keywords.

what-to-do

2. Some 15 to 20 social media widgets – for you, to inform your friends, family and their dog about the website.
And some more widgets to join their fan clubs – 1 fan club is a good idea. 2 is ok. Anything above 3 or 4 is a bad idea.

3. Some flash ads and animated .gif banners.

4. Few pop ups and pop under and not to forget text link ads(like kontera – which you may see on our blog too! , Infolinks etc).

5. And its quite common that, they will be having many CPM ads on their site, and so they need us to refresh the pages and visit various pages on their site – and its easy, break the single article into two(or even more) and link to it at the bottom of the first article, and link back to the 1st page from the 2nd page, so on.

6. Having a pop up, asking you to signup for a news letter – and the popup having no exit option!

7. Some audio/video(some time, sponsored audio/video), auto-playing! and the visitor searching all the open tabs for the possible culprit(to shut-it-down).

8. One or the other contest going on, and you participating in it with half a mind, because the prize is so valuable but you haven’t seen them announcing a winner. When announced, there will be no clue about the winners existence.

9. And a funny thing – I saw a Twitter widget integrated on one of the famous entertainment site, which shows the recent tweets of some one at their office. I thought, they want to give some real time entertainment news to their visitors. But when I observed it closely, all the previous tweets from almost months were tweeted by some bot(automatic tweets!), and most tweets were out of topic. Ex:- I increased my Twitter followers by using this service, check them out. bla bla bla.

10. And what else or what not ? ha…they also have some syndicated contents!

Innocent mistake:
Even though they have all these puzzling things around, not all News/Entertainment sites are useless. There are sites, which have good quality content. But the thing is, they forget their main product. The basic element that they wanted to sell you. That is their content or any of their own product, say a DVD or CD or their magazine.

But when the ad revenue or the other benefits get bigger then their main product they may get distracted and may start puzzling their readers with more of what makes them profitable, for the time being.

Smart Planning and Execution:
I have seen some people not displaying any ads or banners on their site for many years, and finally they release their own product – they take time to bring up a exclusive, quality product, while building a group of target audience. Once the product is launched, some people will surly talk about it on their websites, forums etc.
Similarly when a already messy site adds one more mess to its sidebar, who cares about it? And so the site owner will continue with the puzzling act of make money, instead of concentrating on their product.

Are You A Big Brand or a Celebrity?
It was completely different, if you were already a big brand or a celebrity. People will be mentally connected to you and will bare the inconvenience and do the things which you want them to do! But if you are like most of us, then you will have to think from users perspective.

But then, Some Facts..
Also know the fact that, many of these news/entertainment sites have got premium publisher accounts. That means they earn a major share in the total earnings they generate, unlike the usual 50 – 50 or 30 – 50 or 60 – 50 ratios. Some ad networks even pay 80% to their premium publishers. Because if they can retain some key players, they are sure to retain their loyal followers too. But such sites will have multiple posters and many many many posts in their archive.
Blogs with single author or 2 or 3 authors will have a hard time building such a site. Instead, you can concentrate on building a community around the blog, who can stick around longer. So, you may have to stop puzzling your readers and build the community, authority, trust around your blog/brand.

The final take from this post is:
1. If you have any widgets/banner on your sidebar, then take some time now itself and remove them.
2. I believe, you have some call to action to your visitors. Like news letter signup, buy this button for your product etc. Focus on the main thing(s), rather than wanting your visitors to do all the things which you expect them to do.
3. Avoid forcing your visitors to take certain actions. Let them choose what they want to do and what they don’t.
4. Teach your visitors whats on your blog. Ex:- Twitter had a video explaining what Twitter is all about. Similarly, some people write and educate their readers about things like – What is RSS. What are the bubble links that they are seeing when they hover over certain words – intext ads etc.
5. Label the things properly: Label the things like, subscription form, Search form, News letter form, recent links, popular links, Sponsored link, advertisements etc.
6. choose a good niche and try to be on topic as far as possible. Think, what if your favorite politics blog suddenly started writing only about entertainment and traveling!
7. Let the design of your blog be simple and well structured. And load before your visitor forgets, what he was looking for!
8. Do some testing and know which widgets your visitors use frequently to share the content on your blog. Retain such things and remove the rest.
9.
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You may earn a dollar more today by puzzling/confusing/misleading your visitor, but remember, with that intention, you might have already missed a big opportunity. Better late then not, you can take action now and never miss an opportunity in the future.

What do you think of sites which try to puzzle visitors/readers. I have left point, 9, 10 empty. Would love to know your experience, in the comment section.

Infolinks, Inc. established in 2007, is a leading provider of In-Text Advertising services, working with online content publishers worldwide.

Infolinks mission and vision as mentioned on their website:

Mission
Infolinks enables website owners and publishers to benefit from In-Text advertising directly while earning the highest revenue share.

Vision
Infolinks will integrate In-Text advertisements into a growing number of websites, bridging the gap between online publishers and advertisers and bringing premium, relevant content to Internet visitors worldwide.

There is a long going debate in the internet about the usage of InText advertising. Today we have the industries leading Company in our interview and it has provided very good results to many publishers who we know personally. So here is the interview..if you have any questions regarding InfoLinks, you can ask in the comment section.

Interview with Infolinks

1. Please introduce yourself and about InfoLinks to our readers.

A: Infolinks presents the next generation of In-Text Advertising. In-Text advertising inserts text link advertisements within the content of your website, usually in the form of double-underline hyperlinks. Upon a hover of the mouse, a floating informational bubble opens with content from an advertiser. If clicked, the visitor is directed to the advertiser’s landing page and you earn advertising revenue; otherwise, when the mouse is moved away from the hyperlink, the bubble disappears. Each time your website visitors click on an Infolinks In-Text ad, you get paid!

2. How are you different from your competitors? And what do you do to standout of the crowd?

A: Infolinks leads the industry with the most relevant in-text advertising links, record high conversion rates, and the highest revenues. We are so confident that Infolinks will generate high revenues, that we actually guarantee the industry’s highest revenue share in your contract.
In addition, we welcome all legitimate websites – big and small – to experience the next generation of In-Text advertising. Unlike other in-text providers, joining Infolinks involves no sign up fees, hidden commitments or qualification minimums.
Finally, rather than paying only for clicks that are based in a limited number of countries, Infolinks will monetize all of your website’s traffic, including international.

3. Is InfoLinks affected by the “First mover advantage theory”. As I see that there were some other In-Text advertising networks already existing before InfoLink?

A: The “first mover advantage theory” has been disproved many times in several different IT fields . Since Infolinks joined the In-Text advertising market, we have proven again and again that our In-Text ads are superior and yield higher revenues than our competitors. If you look it up on any major search engine you will find that there are many articles and testimonials to support it. Infolinks provides the next generation of In-Text ads – our vast community of publishers and advertisers that is expanding everyday is the ultimate proof for that.

4. Did you ever got any complaint about “principles of web usability” due to Intext advertising? How do you defend it?

A: In-Text ads will enhance your published content with user triggered, less intrusive advertising that won’t distract from your site’s content. Every day, new publishers are discovering the benefits of generating an additional stream of revenues without taking up any real estate on their website. In fact, our in-text ads contribute to the experience of the viewer by linking the content to ads related to the text they are reading.

5. “I want to show InfoLinks ads only to my search engine traffic and not to my regular visitors”. How can I do this ?

A: Yes, of course you can, the Infolinks 1-minute integration is very easy, and then you can present it to search engine traffic only, just as you would do so to any other type of content.

6. What measures do you take to make the ads relevant to the content?

A: The Infolinks proprietary algorithm scans your pages and highlights words that will generate the highest possible revenues for you. The algorithm gives priority to words with ads that are related to your site’s category. You can set a general category for your account or even define specific categories for every page. If the algorithm can find valuable words in the text that are related to the category you chose – these words will be highlighted as In-text ads.

7. You claim to be the Industry’s best revenue sharing company. How much percentage do you actually share with your publishers? Do you pay for clicks from all around the world or are you targeting and paying for only specific country traffic clicks?

A: Infolinks leads the industry with the highest revenue share in the market. We are so confident that Infolinks will generate high revenues, that we actually guarantee the industry’s highest revenue share in your contract. The exact revenue share is set according to the sites characteristics and traffic data. Infolinks monetizes all of your traffic – Rather than paying only for clicks that are based in a limited number of countries, Infolinks will monetize all of your website’s traffic, including international.

9. We are very much curious about all the guys behind InfoLinks.com, and we want to have a look at your office. If you have any video and photographs(of your employees and office) then please share it with our readers.

InfoLinks-employees

10. How do you define success?

We aim to build a long and lasting successful partnership with each and every one of our publishers; A partnership that is based on trust and mutual benefits from In-text ads.
Our success is providing our publishers with high revenues along side with a great service, turning their success into our success.

11. What are the mistakes you see your publishers and advertisers are making, in using InfoLinks service properly?

A: The best advice we can give to our publishers is to take advantage of their customization options. Publishers can maximize their revenues by customizing Infolinks especially for their websites. Inside the publisher center, each publisher can control the look and feel of the links, including colors, number of links per page, and form of underlining.
Publishers should also be sure to integrate Infolinks onto the most content rich pages of their websites. The more text a page contains, the more opportunities there are for linking text to revenue.

12. Your advice for all those who are not yet using InfoLinks on their blog and are looking for a good Intext adnetwork.

A: We welcome any legitimate website with textual content to monetize text with Infolinks In-Text ads. With have no sign up fees or hidden commitments, come take advantage of the industry’s highest revenues for in-text ads. Just fill out our short online application and complete an effortless integration process to start linking your text to revenues now!

13. Please tell something, that you would like all your advertisers/publishers/ and others to know about InfoLinks.com

A: Infolinks is the highest paying in-text provider and can be a good source of revenues to every website. If you have a blog or website, it takes 1 minute and no commitments to start getting paid – so why not give it a try?

If you want to use InText advertising on your website, then why to use something then the industries leading InText advertisement provider. No minimum requirement needed. It just requires your website to be legitimate. You can fill the application to start using InfoLinks. Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

Tag: InText

Interview with InfoLinks — InText Advertising Service