My Goodness, Erica, Where Have You Been? |
It's been a couple of months since I've written you and where did the time go? I don't send tons of emails anyway but two months is like an eternity in our field! A couple of people even reached out to see if I was okay (I am).
I simply promised myself that in 2015 I'd build more free time into my
schedule. Anyone have the same goal for this year?
Still lots of projects on my plate - including one-on-one coaching - but I've also managed to declutter two rooms of my house, crochet two rugs, clean most of my tile grout, and have spent more time with my husband and kids. It's been wonderful.
I
didn't forget you, though, and have lots to share!
Some have asked if I'll be doing the coaching program again - I have not planned a next session but feel free to email me if you're interested. |
Pinterest Changes the Rules for Affiliates |
Thanks to one astute customer, it was brought to my attention that Pinterest very recently made a change and plans to strip affiliate links from pins. An article about that change can be found here: http://www.wired.com/2015/02/pinterest-erases-affiliate-links-social-network/.
If you've been enjoying using
affiliate links inside Pinterest, it's okay to take a minute to vent, cry, and get frustrated. I'll understand.
While the articles all seem to mention "power pinners" as specifically being targeted, they do imply that ALL affiliate links will be stripped. Since most affiliate links are a redirect from your affiliate link to a page on the retailer's site, it would be easy for
Pinterest to find these by just looking for redirect links on pins.
Bummer, huh?
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Pinterest Strategies that STILL WORK
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Don't despair, though! Pinterest is still an awesome tool for affiliates and can drive free, targeted traffic to your affiliate sites.
The recipe is FOLLOWERS and IMAGES.
Followers are easy to get if you use my PinPlosion strategy. It's completely whitehat and complies with Pinterest's TOS.
Combine that method with PinFabulous Affiliate (or any of my other
strategies) and you'll grow followers and traffic to your website each day.
Now, for images!
The example above was created in just a couple of minutes. There are a few tricks to making these images work
for you, though: - Make them bright, colorful, and attractive (not messy, glaring or annoying)
- Use big, easy to read font
- Make them longer than they are wide
- Don't just put your keyword in the text - Google can't read the text on the image so the text has NO SEO value. Instead, the text needs to get
someone on Pinterest to want to click on the pin and follow it to your site. Pinterest says that you can succeed by helping Pinterest members accomplish their goals. Use your text to explain what someone will learn or find if they go to your site. In this example, the viewer knows they'll find bookshelves that will hold a ton of books (the problem being too many books to store).
- Make your text exciting and
upbeat
- You don't have to use products of the image (you don't own those anyway, unless you've taken your own) - just use related images that are visually interesting
To make images like this: - Register for a free account at Canva.com
- Choose the option to Use Custom
Dimensions
- Choose 300px wide by 468px tall (that gives you a taller image for Pinterest which gets more attention then square images)
- Click on the Template tab and click the single image template
- Click on the Uploads tab and upload an image of your own or a free image from morguefile.com
- Drag the uploaded image onto
the template
- Click the Text tab and use any of the free text templates (or customize your own) to add text
- You can change the size and color of the text layouts, combine text layouts, change the font, and change the font size – takes a bit of practice but they make it very easy!
- Download the image
Rename the
file using your targeted keyword (THIS is for SEO purposes), insert into your post, and pin to a related board on your Pinterest profile. |
Promoting a Start-Up Company |
A member of my list created his own physical product to sell and has done things that I've only heard about on TV shows like Shark Tank. He's visited China to choose manufacturers, applied for patents, been featured in online magazine articles, and is about to be listed on the As Seen on TV site. It's fascinating to watch how this works!
His product is a unique design for gardening gloves. These gloves are available on Amazon and he also has an affiliate program in ShareASale.
I've been focusing on his Pinterest strategy and we've gained over 400 followers in the past 10 days.
If you like case studies and examples, follow him on Pinterest to see how we do or maybe explore promoting his product as an affiliate with Amazon. Thanks!
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Are You Interested in FBA? |
Fulfillment by Amazon is the tool used to sell products on Amazon. I spent about an hour speaking with Elon Bomani yesterday who has grown her income to a solid six figures a year selling things on Amazon. She's put together a new program that will launch later this month and has offered to do a joint webinar for you.
Her knowledge, her energy and passion, and the speed with which she's gone from $0 to a full time income are impressive so I'm really looking forward to this opportunity.
I'll share more as the details of the webinar unfold. |
How to Find my Current Products |
I've been selling ebooks through WarriorPlus for years now and yet only discovered that I have a page that shows my current products on that site. Makes it very easy to see what products are still live as I do close sales pages once a strategy no longer works.
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And, should you ever get bored and haven't been on my list for long you can always read my previous emails to my list in my archives here: ERICA'S EMAIL ARCHIVES
As always, I hope
you're all doing well, staying busy, and have great plans for this year! (If not, then we need to do something about that!)
Sincerely,
Erica Stone
erica@extremereviewer.com
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