Authority Website: Do you Prioritize Loyalty or Revenue?

Raymond Luo

Raymond Luo

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Sep 9, 2016
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A web page moves linearly. From top to bottom and it's naturalistic to think that the post important call to actions are reserved from the top- and while the bottom doesn't always mean it's the least important, how would you prioritize your call-to-action blocks in your article/content?

Examples of call-to-action blocks
1. Ad
2. Related Content (Encourages brand loyalty, traffic)
3. Affiliate Programs (I usually have about two related affiliate programs that is a perfect fit for each article)

This matters to me because I don't tailor every article with a call to action. Everything is done via php depending on the category of content which is well defined in scope. A typical article is at least 800 words or more.

So there are three revenue generating modules that are plugged into the body of my articles. At the title is the first Ad block.

HTML: 
<head>
<h1>title</h1>
<ad-unit>
</head>
<post>
<p>...</p>
<ad-unit>
<p>...</p>
<related-content>
<p>...</p>
<ad-unit>
<p>...</p>
<affiliate-program>
<p>...</p>
<script>
if (word-count > x)
insertmore(call-to-action-blocks)
</script>
<post>
<sidebar>
<related-content>
</sidebar>
<footer>
<related-content>
<affiliate-program-2>
</footer>

That makes up to 3 Ad blocks, 3 Related Content blocks and 2 Affiliate Program Blocks. Looking at this structure, I do think that I may have too many related content blocks (1 in the middle of content, 1 at the bottom and 1 on the sidebar), but relative to it's own type, it is spaced out appropriately.

I guess what I'm trying to ask in specific regard is, do you think I have too much around my article? And if you had your way with my site, how would you prioritize your blocks and for loyalty/traffic or revenue? More importantly, why?

P.S. All these blocks within the content are allocated automatically after x number of paragraphs, which I define. If the content is too short, some of the blocks won't be displayed. Which is good.
 
Last edited:
I view each piece of "money" content as a funnel in and of itself. And I build my pages like that.

If it's information content, based on the data people in general don't visit more than 1.5 pages. So I use that to funnel power through interlinking to the money pages, will try to drop a cookie for Amazon here or there, and slap some Adsense around. That's to monetize those while pushing juice to the real winners.

And anyone truly interested will continue on to the info I link them to, which provides more depth and pushes for sales. If they aren't that hot of a visitor, then I don't care if they exit through a CPC ad click.​

On the big earners, I don't show ads except one big boy at the top that is in the main content but doesn't impede the flow in any way. The non-hot traffic may click it for a hefty CPC. The hot will continue through the page. At the start it's like a buyer's guide with "What do I need to know to make an informed decision?" I use words to make them think this is all of their own doing. Micro-copy. Then the 2nd half is all of my personal recommendations, not just curated crap from the net. I build so much trust.

At the top before the buyer's guide and intro, I have an internal anchor that says "If you know all this stuff then click here to skip straight to the recommendations". That's in hopes to not lose anyone ready to fire. Otherwise I grease them up first.

I don't use comparison tables and all of these other tricks. For something like Amazon, sure, it might up my CTR and I'll get some additional incidental sales on crap like tshirts and earswabs and doritos. But it also seems to impact the sales of high-priced items where the user is in the technical, less emotional mind state. The last thing I want to do is hit them with the same cheap 'distrust' signals all the EMD MFA's use.

So I'm effectively filtering traffic through a funnel in one single post. If they make it to the end, they are hot and trust my advice and have been psychologically primed. Otherwise, they can keep their 12-pack variety of lunch bag potato chip commissions. I'm not selling $10 and $15 things. This is all $200-$10,000 stuff.

And I still pick up plenty of little sales just on traffic volume. And I do plan on creating posts for the pure purpose of pushing up sales volume to hit higher commission tiers. But I'm not going to do that in the posts where bigger money is on the line.

That goes for Amazon and any other program. Give them the exit points where you make the most cash and don't provide ones where you make less.
 
Ryuzaki said:
I view each piece of "money" content as a funnel in and of itself. And I build my pages like that.

If it's information content, based on the data people in general don't visit more than 1.5 pages. So I use that to funnel power through interlinking to the money pages, will try to drop a cookie for Amazon here or there, and slap some Adsense around. That's to monetize those while pushing juice to the real winners.

And anyone truly interested will continue on to the info I link them to, which provides more depth and pushes for sales. If they aren't that hot of a visitor, then I don't care if they exit through a CPC ad click.​

On the big earners, I don't show ads except one big boy at the top that is in the main content but doesn't impede the flow in any way. The non-hot traffic may click it for a hefty CPC. The hot will continue through the page. At the start it's like a buyer's guide with "What do I need to know to make an informed decision?" I use words to make them think this is all of their own doing. Micro-copy. Then the 2nd half is all of my personal recommendations, not just curated crap from the net. I build so much trust.

At the top before the buyer's guide and intro, I have an internal anchor that says "If you know all this stuff then click here to skip straight to the recommendations". That's in hopes to not lose anyone ready to fire. Otherwise I grease them up first.

I don't use comparison tables and all of these other tricks. For something like Amazon, sure, it might up my CTR and I'll get some additional incidental sales on crap like tshirts and earswabs and doritos. But it also seems to impact the sales of high-priced items where the user is in the technical, less emotional mind state. The last thing I want to do is hit them with the same cheap 'distrust' signals all the EMD MFA's use.

So I'm effectively filtering traffic through a funnel in one single post. If they make it to the end, they are hot and trust my advice and have been psychologically primed. Otherwise, they can keep their 12-pack variety of lunch bag potato chip commissions. I'm not selling $10 and $15 things. This is all $200-$10,000 stuff.

And I still pick up plenty of little sales just on traffic volume. And I do plan on creating posts for the pure purpose of pushing up sales volume to hit higher commission tiers. But I'm not going to do that in the posts where bigger money is on the line.

That goes for Amazon and any other program. Give them the exit points where you make the most cash and don't provide ones where you make less.
Click to expand...

Great insights! I understood the importance of intent and "affiliate click quality" only after conducting 20-30 split tests trying to improve my CTR to Amazon by multiple comparison tables, all types of click-baity buttons and call-to-actions.

Page CTR went up by 30%, but no big changes in earnings. So, its not only about how many people you can get to click the affiliate link, but how can you get the click from people who are actually interested in buying something, especially high-value item.

Although very often I hear stuff like "get people to amazon anyway you can, their great conversion rate does the rest...", it seems like, especially with 24h cookie, that this may not always be the most effective approach.
 
Revenue, visitors don't give a shit if your business thrives or dies.

Put up a donate button and see much support you receive lol.
 
Hey Ryuzaki,

That is very detailed and I very much appreciate the information. It really gives me insight on what I should be doing for content planning. Something I've been struggling with for a good 2-3 months now. Basically I tried to cover one big problem (with many smaller problems) into more than 7 pages of sub topics. Which looking back now seems ridiculously boring and unnecessarily complex.

Address each small problem in their own isolated money page is less confusing for my reader and easier for me to make the money flow.

My strategy works around the observation that Timely Websites (news) get higher traffic per post but suffer from having a very short lifespan, whereas Evergreen Websites do not enjoy the higher traffic that timely websites get, but have lifespans that span years and benefit from a constant stream of traffic.

So I've built a couple of Timely Websites that cover the news of the related niche, most of these news will be related to a problem.

From a to e, the strategy is to:
a) Get as much traffic as possible; so that
b) the subset of readers who;
c) are my target customers or knows someone who is;
d) can be redirected to my evergreen site; where the big money is at.
e) If not, timely website will still generate small to medium money.​

So I see Timely Website as a loyalty generator first, and money maker second. Repeat readers and sharers and a larger traffic helps increase my subset of big money customers. Both Timely and Evergreen Websites are authority sites that cover the same niche the former being news of the moment and the latter, evergreen information (kind of a knowledge base/wiki).

This is my strategy in brief. What do you think?
 
Sounds good to me. I have a similar approach, with the difference being that I do it all on one domain, with the "News" all crammed into the blog to separate it. But in addition to news, it includes funny posts, clickbait posts, link-bait posts, and whatever else is designed to do just what you said... get views, get links, get shares, and push it all where it matters.

I like doing it all on one domain just for the snowball effect of super-powering a single domain for ranking and branding purposes. But separating it can work just fine. There are tons of examples of companies with multiple sites all ranking thanks to their sitewide footer linking to each other.

We're on the same page. I think what you're doing is effective and better than what I'm doing in some ways and less effective in others. A nice benefit is insulating your main domain from lots of content that may not stand up in quality compared to the evergreen content. Your average quality score, if such a thing exists, will be much higher on the evergreen domain.
 
Ryuzaki said:
That goes for Amazon and any other program. Give them the exit points where you make the most cash and don't provide ones where you make less.
Click to expand...

This is key. Different visitors have different triggers. Some like to click on images, some like text links, some you will convince within the first 3 sentences, some will read to the end, some will skim and only read bold text.

My approach is not to monetize heavily until the page is getting decent traffic. I've been testing out adding text links with our "top" recommendation (think, a "best xyz" post) in the first sentence. Some people just want to get a quick recommendation. This is something I've seen TheWirecutter doing as well.
 
I don't agree with some of this. I think it depends on what stage you are at. If at the beginning of the "Authority Site" I'd prefer to go after loyalty until I've mastered getting my audience to return to my main website, then switch to a revenue priority after I feel like my marketing channels are in place perfectly to where I can generate a significant amount of returning visitor with a push of a button (whether that's newsletter or tweet or FB post or a combination). At that point I'd switch to focusing on revenue as a priority.

I think there is a lot of people underestimating how powerful a mailing list is to a brand and what loyal readers/visitors can do exponentially for your brand's growth. If someone continues coming back to your website they'll then start recommending it to other users and it'll have it's own "snowball effect" of generating traffic without you having to do much pushing on that side.

The problem is a lot of folks don't have the one-click button push marketing in place and therefore have to rely on 3rd party sources like Google to send traffic (forever I guess) and have no real "command" of their audience - so therefore no loyalty and in the longterm the brand's value is diminished if you want to flip it cause you didn't put in place and continue "warming up" a loyal userbase.

That relying on Google or one single source is what got a lot of SEOs in trouble in the past; yet if they had built their mailing list and continued to communicate with their audience a Google hit or some other source would not have blown them into oblivion.

Loyalty > Revenue, because that loyalty will create longer term revenue. Basically do you want the short quick cash or long term wealth?
 
CCarter said:
I think there is a lot of people underestimating how powerful a mailing list is to a brand and what loyal readers/visitors can do exponentially for your brand's growth. If someone continues coming back to your website they'll then start recommending it to other users and it'll have it's own "snowball effect" of generating traffic without you having to do much pushing on that side.
Click to expand...

That's what I've considered with regard to the the brand's growth. I've read a couple of posts from you and your emphasis on the power of a mailing list. I do agree, but I am in the abyss when it comes to anything more than a simple mailing list form at the top of the sidebar of every page.

Which call to action method for mailing lists do you think has the least barrier to entry to grab their subscriptions? I personally absolutely hate the ones that flash in your face when you first enter a website, but what's the success rate of that? Does it hurt branding?
 
This should'nt be too much of a problem if you match your monetization method to the content and niche. A Viral site should use CPC and CPM ads. A site about fixing your credit could use those ads, but they'd do better a thousand times over to use lead generation and push everyone to the forms or phone number.
 
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