In a recent article on How to reach your customers in the longtail, Anand Subramanian explores how both advertisers and publishers have to adapt to an online landscape where content is not only increasing exponentially, but becoming more and more niche oriented. Essentially, content portals (i.e. MSN.com) are losing their traffic to niche content sites (i.e. blogs), so advertisers need to adjust their media buying strategies accordingly.

The trends that that Anand observes in the online advertising industry, however, also apply to the worlds of ecommerce and affiliate marketing industries. After all, while conventional businesses and niche-site webmasters need a way to align their ads and content respectively, ecommerce business and affiliates require a similar resource. For ecomms and affiliates, that resource is, well, a niche affiliate network such as Share Results (retail) or Income Access (online gaming). As Anand illustrates:

Over the past four years, the internet has seen a decline in users on large websites and portals and an increase in traffic to niche content sites and blogs. […]

User fragmentation isn’t going to go away. In fact, it may get worse […] Advertisers need to become more interested in the technology that can help them find their customers and prospects no matter where they are online and so that the advertiser’s message adds value

For ecomms, part of that added value comes in the form of content that attract users who are actually interested in consuming their products and services, and part of it is in in depth reporting so that they can focus on the kinds of affiliate that actually convert. An affiliate network that features a vertical to complement the merchants, then, is integral to continued ecommerce success.

As for the added value affiliates need to prosper, it comes not only in the form of a network that has merchants to complement their content, but affiliate managers who know how to align the affiliates with those merchants. For affiliates, a network that can align their niche content with appropriate promotions will mean the difference between a profitable hobby and actual affiliate marketing prosperity.

While conventional businesses can benefit from conventional online advertising (CPM), more ecommerce-oriented business require more of an affiliate marketing model (CPA and CPC) to remain competitive. After all, ecommerce is about generating sales online. If the web is becoming more and more verticalized, then, a truly successful affiliate/merchant relationship will be brokered by an affiliate networks that specializes in a relevant vertical.

You may recall that Share Results just launched an innovative, niche merchant called Watch N Catch last month. Affiliates are already finding them to be a fabulous addition to the home security, surveillance and mobile affiliate program verticals in the network. Brands like Watch N Catch (and CrushMeter) are grabbing everyone’s attention, because they appeal to mobile phone users. According to an article in eMarketer, mobile phone service, particularly in the US, is set to be in high demand, especially as an added service to bundled bills for “Internet, TV and VoIP phone service by a single provider.” This means that services other than voice and text messaging will be generating greater interest, as customers are demanding more innovative features. There’s no doubt that home and office security via mobile phone will also be in BIG demand. That’s where Watch N Catch comes in.

Software like WNC has grown in popularity among home security and office surveillance users for a variety of reasons. This includes the fact that people want to protect their families (from home invasions and other forms of theft and violence). Consumers also want to have the ability to make sure they can survey a work location to ensure there are no complications on site. As a result, affiliates are inquiring more and more about Watch N Catch’s software and what kind of features it has. Well, here are a few cool details you can pass on to your potential users:

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Anyone who has ever dabbled in site design, especially with CSS, knows how frustrating it can to make sure your pages work in both Firefox and Internet Explorer (IE). While Firefox conforms to all W3C standards, Internet Explorer does not. However, IE is still, by far, the most widely used browser on the market — if only because it comes bundled with every PC.

Well, it seems that the increase in Mac users has created yet another valid design concern for webmasters: whether their site is optimized for the Safari browser. After all, Yahoo! has recently seen it fit to invest in the base of Mac/Safari users. As Arnold Zafra of SEJ reports:

Yahoo is extending its search clout towards Mac users, as it acquired Safari browser plug-in, Inquisitor. This plug-in works similarly to Yahoo’s Search Assist which help users with their search by suggesting possible queries and related concepts in real-time.
[…]
Whether this will be a welcome development for Safari users who have installed the Inquisitor plug-in in their browser is yet to be seen. Honestly, I don’t see a good reason why Yahoo would invest in such a plug-in that doesn’t seem to have a great impact with its search product? Do you have any idea on the reason behind this? I really like to know.

The reason, I think, that Yahoo! “invest in such a plugin,” has to do with it retaining market share. Even though it’s the second most popular search engine in the English speaking world, at 20.59% of all US searches, it trails miles behind Google’s share of 66.44% (Hitwise - February 2008).

What Yahoo! is probably hoping to accomplish is to ride the rising tide of Mac users. By potentially bundling their search results in with Safari, it could mean that every PC user that converts to Mac might also convert from Google to Yahoo!.

Personally, I think that the search market is pretty well crystallized — meaning that the majority of users already have their search engine of choice and are unlikely to convert.

The important underlying message for webmasters, however, is that if the second largest search engine sees Safari as an important part of the future of web browsing, then it probably is. What affiliate webmasters should be making sure of, then, is that their sites and landing pages are optimized for the Safari browser, as well as Firefox and IE.

For what it’s worth, it’s been my personal experience that once I get a page looking good in Firefox, it also looks good in Safari. In fact, IE is the only browser that’s ever posed a challenge for me when trying to both optimize a user-interface and conform to W3C CSS standards.

Nevertheless, being a Mac user myself, I must admit that I have encountered sites that worked fine in Firefox and IE, but not in Safari. So it’s probably worth downloading Safari and verifying that your pages look good there too.

As the web gets increasingly more social, it seems that Google is turning its back on its roots (or at least evolving as it grows up). The implications for webmasters, moreover, will be that they’ll have to completely reconsider their online marketing strategy. In a nutshell, search engines are evolving and so must SEO (search engine optimization).

Essentially, the leviathan of search engines got its start as a PhD thesis project when Larry Page and Sergey Brin started looking for a more objective way to gage the importance of a website than the arbitrary, submission-based, directory-style search engines available in the late 90s. Their answer was backlinks — simply put, the more sites that link to you, the more important you are, the higher you rank in Google’s search results.

Now, the algorithm has obviously evolved a lot over the last decade, but link building is still widely held to be a major component of SEO. It seems, however, that this about to change.

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eMarketer recently published an article about the popularity of coupons over the course of 2007 and the fact that they will become even more favoured in the years to come. This is obviously good news for Share Results considering we just released our May 2008 edition of our Hot Deals Affiliate Newsletter.

It’s not a surprise that coupons and promotions have been a big hit with consumers and affiliates alike. This month, and for the summer months ahead, merchants are bringing their best offers to make their partners happy!

Among the hot offers are Hatley’s Mother’s Day contest (only 3 days left) and increased payout, Stylefly.ca and Paper.com’s summer coupon codes, Watch N Catch’s $10 monthly bonus, CopierSupplyStore and DentalPlan.com’s tiered bonuses, and increased commissions from Med-11.

To get first dibs on these offers, you need to be an affiliate. You can do so by clicking here. You also see all the offers we’ve got via http://www.shareresults.com/pressrelease_detail.php?prid=122. Good luck promoting and we hope you benefit from these offers. Get’em while they last!!!