Build a Team of Experts to Succeed

November 23, 2005

Author: Shanon Lewis

There are lots of links in a chain, each is responsible for the other and they are all held down by the weakest link. The same can be said of any business. You may be strong in sales, but weak in development. As a one person show you are often expected to be a jack of all trades, but are you truly a master of any? Well, maybe one or two. What about the rest? What we see from this trend is an enormous amount of datafeed websites, terrible content not worth reading, over-selling, websites that aren’t browser compliant and the list goes on..

Why does this happen? It’s really very simple. So many affiliates section themselves off from the world. They live in this bubble where survival is about using the skills you have and making due with the ones you don’t. The sad part is that they often rarely ask for help or have a network of people to turn to complete projects that are outside of their skill set. This is not a service to the customer, nor is it to the affiliate. Wouldn’t you partner with an awesome web designer if it meant your sales would most likely double? Unfortunately we do not stop long enough to realize the bevy of great resources at our disposal, if only we took the steps to find them.

The #1 thing that most affiliates lack skills in is website design. Now anyone can pick up FrontPage or modify blog software to post a website. Weather or not that website is seen as useful, professional or worth a return visit is another story. I subscribe to the old adage, “There are experts for a reason.” If it really was that simple, then why would awesome designers or developers get paid big money to create websites? The funny thing is that many web designers aren’t great marketers, but would like to find a way to monetize their skills and make regular income. You could simply post a free ad on Craigslist.com looking for a partner who knows web design and split the proceeds from your hard work as the checks roll in. A surprising amount of superior web designers would happily take you up on the offer and in the end; you’ll make the extra cash to support the partnership.

We all have a grasp of the English language and some people are incredible writers. Unfortunately writing solid web copy can elude affiliates. When writing for the web it is important to realize that people are visual surfers – rarely, unless they came specifically for content, do visitors thoroughly read copy. They are often drawn to graphics or bullets. Still this does not stop us from making web pages of endless useless content. We do this under the guise that it is “spider food.” Unfortunately spiders calculate density as the words you target divided by the number of words on a page. In the end you may be diluting your density by overloading your pages with content. So why make this mistake in the first place? Copywriters are not only inexpensive, but easy to find. You can also find some that specialize in web copy and can help guide you through the process. Try elance.com or post in writing forums.

There 3 kinds of people in the web world – those who chase the sale, those who make things looks pretty/function for the sale and those who build the stuff that it all sits on. Yes, the IT people. For most affiliates their one and only lifeline is technical support for hosting. Aside from what they say, most affiliates are unaware of how technology can make their jobs easier or how it is impacting their current business. This can be especially true when we get into the importance of different c-classes for website of similar nature, using rewrite to make dynamic urls useful or loading more effective stats software onto your server. Unfortunately most hosting providers will not make the effort to suggest these and why would they? Find someone who understands server software and hardware and let them help you get the right set-up for your business goals. Even if you just have this person give you tips, it will be valuable information.

Make your chain strong and surround yourself with experts and people who are looking out for your best interest. There is no rule that we all must go it alone to succeed.

About the Author

Shanon Lewis is a web marketing specialist with over 7 years of search engine placement, e-mail marketing and affiliate management experience. She is part of the expert team at affiliateprograms.com,
the premiere affiliate programs directory online.