Think of some of the most powerful advertising messages ever: “Just Do It,” “We Try Harder,” or even “I Like Ike.” Call-to-action lines often use the power of 3, as in “Buy It Now” and “One Day Left.”

If you can distill your tagline or call to action down to three words, so much the better. But, don’t just use a three-word phrase because it is a three-word phrase. It must fit your offer, product, or circumstance. You’ll know when you’ve got a winner.

Be specific
The more specific a landing talks about a certain offer, the more chance there is people will make use of that particular offer. Don’t direct people to a homepage of a website where they have to start looking for the offer themselves. Bring the people as close to an offer as you can.

Make a good first impression
Take a look around at other landing pages and you’ll notice some look better than others. Some look cheap, but on the other hand: something can be too slick as well.  Every offer needs a different approach, but your landing should ooze quality, and an attractive graphical presentation is an important part of that. If you’re not capable of creating something yourself you’re not completely satisfied with, find someone who can do it for you.

Make a page scenario
Some landing pages look like they are trying to attract attention on ten different spots at the same time. Try to create a natural and logical flow into your lay-out, so people simply start at the top and end at the bottom of the page.  Like this they won’t miss any information you’re trying to get across because something at the bottom made them skip ahead.

Test different designs
One of the ground rules of landing pages is that except for using the word ‘FREE’, nothing is certain when it comes to conversions. So don’t just make one landing. Make several, trying outing different images, texts and lay-outs, and trying all of them out consecutively. Keep track of which ones work best. After a while you’ll learn which type of landings work better for which type of offers.

Add testimonials
Try to find positive feedback on the offer from a legitimate source. Ideally your offer has been featured on TV, or on a well known website. If so, include this in your landing page so people will trust the offer more easily. If you find independent websites recommending your offer, copy their content on your landing page and mention the source, but don’t  place links to the recommending sites. A good landing page is a one way street. Don’t give people the chance to get distracted from your offer.

Call To Action
Your landings should make very clear what exactly is expected of your visitors. And don’t try to make something look better than it really is. Honesty about a product or service works better than cheap marketing talk. If you tell people exactly what they’ll get and what they have to do for it, the chance people will recommend your offer to other people will also increase.

Create Trust
The more anonymous an offer is, the less people will be inclined to make use of it. Try to include as much contact information as possible in your landing pages. If you’re marketing for a well-known brand, don’t hesitate to mention this brand. If you add information that will allow people afterwards to comment on the transaction to a real person or company, they will feel more confident to take action.

DO’S

• Offer a competitive percentage back to your users.
• Use reliable tracking to properly credit your users.
• Make sure to remind users to click on your link before purchase is made to make sure it tracks properly.
• Use offers when available (such as free shipping or coupons).
• If a special offer is available, make the start and end dates known.
• Watch for specific communication from your advertisers concerning your offer and upcoming promotions.
• Offer well converting advertisers on your homepage for maximum commissions.
• Notify advertisers of missed transactions for proper commissions to be paid.
• Notify your specific users that they MUST click on your link before their purchase takes place, to avoid the above issue.
• Work on strategies; E-mail, link, compensation and site layout.
• Most loyalty publishers either do a 50/50 split or a 60/40 split. This means that depending on the commission offer from the advertiser, you will keep 50% of the commission and offer 50% back as a rebate to your member. Or, as in the case of 60/40, you’d keep 60% and offer 40% back as a rebate.

DON’TS

• Do not use incorrect or expired coupon codes or offers such as free shipping.
• Do not state incorrect start and end dates on offers and coupons.

So now it makes sense to ask: can you effectively monetize one of the Web’s last vestiges of traditionally marketing-free content to reach these tantalizing audiences? Should you? We think blog advertising maybe a line worth crossing assuming that we can find ways to include contextually relevant ads that provide value to blog readers. After all, hosting and ISPs don’t pay for themselves.

Lawrence Lee, president of Zoundry.com, developer of a blog monetizing tool, shares his perspective below:
“We’re seeing two types of bloggers.

1. The first are bloggers who are writing for their friends and family. Given that they already have a trusted relationship, credibility around product recommendations is a non-issue. In a sense, friends and family can reward publishers for learning about new, often niche, products they wouldn’t have learned about otherwise.
2. The second [group] are people who don’t necessarily call themselves bloggers, or view themselves as journalists. They are just using the simple tools of blogging to publisher Web sites without having to learn HTML, so they don’t have credibility issues around monetizing their blogs either.”

So let’s assume you fall into the categories above or that you’re on board with blogging. Now it’s Advertising 101: know your audience and target your ads accordingly. Beth Kirsch, senior marketing manager at Audible.com and affiliate marketing veteran, says “You have to be extremely strategic - matching the context of the blog to the product is the key. It’s tricky, but can be a wonderfully effective channel when done well.”

In other words, one can’t simply throw up an apparel advertiser’s banner in the middle of a blog about the experiences of tuning up your car’s engine and expect to generate commissions. However, placing a “Pickup this year’s hottest toy” ad when blogging about buying birthday gifts is both contextually relevant and valuable to readers.

If you’re already blogging, chances are there are plenty of you who match your content and audience. Take the lead of your competitors and implement your unique, lucrative take on blogs today!

• Fix any broken links. Broken links cause the site’s relevancy to decrease.
• It is vital to contain a site map on a large site. Links from every page need to link back to the site map in order for search engine spiders to locate the pages.
• Write unique content on your website as often as possible. The more relevant the content, the more a search engine will consider the site valid.
• Ensure that an H1 tag is not below an H2 or H3 tag on your page(s). H1 tags are the most important tags- if they are lower on the page, a search engine will consider not as relevant.
• A helpful tool to fix meta and title tags: http://www.seoworkers.com/tools/analyzer.html These show up as the description in a search engine. For usability purposes, if they do not pertain to a user’s needs, they will not click.
• ALWAYS, always, always track your work using an analytics program to ensure traffic control and conversion rates.