Present Web Content Different Ways
Author: ©Sharon Housley

Webmasters and marketers spend an inordinate amount of time building quality content that relates to their products or services. Yet the vast majority of these marketers fail to fully capitalize on the content they were so careful to create.

Webmasters can easily reformat their web content and present it to their customers in a variety of different ways. And different formats can be promoted through different channels. The different formats will often appeal to new and different audiences. For example: a video explanation may resonate with a younger technical customer, while an eBook in PDF format may appeal an older customer.

The following are all ways to repackage the same content...

eBooks

String a series of How-To articles together to form an ebook that details from A to Z how to accomplish a specific task. EBooks have become increasingly popular, and can be marketed on "How-To" or tutorial websites.

Podcasts

Turn existing text-based articles into audio podcasts. Either read the articles aloud and create an audio recording using software like RecordForAll ( http://www.recordforall.com ), or use a text-to-speech application like TextAloud to convert existing text to an audio file for a Podcast.

Lists

Create lists of articles for blog posts. Based on web log analysis, include a list of the most popular articles that have generated the highest readership. Also include the most controversial articles, or all related articles that discuss a specific topic.

Blog Posts

Abbreviate or summarize articles in blog posts. Blog posts can also provide a great introduction to educational articles. Bloggers can also editorialize articles by injecting opinions or commenting about the information contained in the article.

Answer Sites

Use "How-To" articles to answer questions on services such as Yahoo Answers, Mahalo, help.com, Yedda, or various other question-n-answer websites. Be sure to point out the article as being the source of the answer, and link to it if possible.

Tutorials

Create educational tutorials from How-To articles that might appeal to customers interested in an alternate medium. Videocasts Videos are moving visuals that detail a process or event. Add a video sequence to better explain how to accomplish a specific task.

PowerPoint

Use tools like PowerPoint as another alternative for people interested in a visual explanation, but not yet comfortable with direct video formats.

Typically, it does not require a lot of effort to re-package existing content and present it differently. Different market segments may be receptive to receiving the content in different formats. Mix it up, and expand your audience in the process.

Click Here for Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware Resources.

Link Cloaking for Affiliate Marketers
Author: ©Gobala Krishnan

If you're into affiliate marketing, you've probably already heard of the term "link cloaking" mentioned on some website or blog. Link cloaking is a tactic that is surrounded by myth.

Wikipedia says that "Cloaking" is a black hat search engine optimization (SEO) technique in which the content presented to the search engine spider is different to that presented to the user's browser.

The myth is that link cloaking can get you banned from search engines, and that only "evil" people do it in the first place.

That's quite true when it's used in the context of search engine optimization. Google hates it when you try to manipulate their search results with cloaked URLs. Therefore, they penalize any site that attempts to manipulate their search results using that tactic.

However, "cloaking" has a very different meaning and in affiliate marketing. An affiliate marketer may want to cloak his affiliate link for a few reasons.

The most common is to hide the actual affiliate link from being displayed in the browser. This helps the affiliate prevent commission theft, among other things. Commission theft happens when other affiliates replace your affiliate link with theirs while buying and deny you the commissions you deserve.

In niche markets where customers are not affiliate marketers themselves, this is a non-issue. However, in competitive markets like online marketing, search engine optimization and in the affiliate marketing niche itself, almost all potential customers are also affiliates. This is especially true for products sold on ClickBank, since ClickBank actually encourages affiliates to buy with their own affiliate link.

The second is related to split testing multiple pages of the same website. Link cloakers can also be use to mask the actual destination URL for the purpose of testing multiple different product or offers. This allows affiliates to maximize their commissions by finding pages or products that convert better.

Plus, link cloaking can also be used to display optin offers or other links on the merchant site, which you usually have no control over. You don't need to be a technical genius to do link cloaking - all you need is the right software.

Cloaking links can also help the affiliate marketer get viral traffic. Just by bookmarking or sharing your cloaked affiliate link on sites like FaceBook or Twitter, they are in fact spreading your affiliate link. By doing this, you get more clicks on your affiliate links, and more sales.

No matter how you choose to use link cloaking, make sure you use it responsibly. The only difference between white hat and black hat cloaking is your intentions. If you make sure your vistors are aware they are viewing a cloaked links and give them a way to remove the cloaking, it's a viable and legal marketing tool.