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Current Article Analysis Blog #3

           The chosen article for this week’s blog analysis is “Study: 97% Of Business Owners Say Online Reputation Management Is Important--Here's How to Keep Up” published on July 30, 2018 by Mr. Ryan Erskine on the Forbes Business website. Mr. Erskine beings his article by describing the results of a 2018 TripAdvisor Study which asked national (U.S) and international travel business owners about the key industry trends that they are most concerned with. The results of the study showed that 97% of these travel business owners were most concerned about their online reputation management, 98% were concerned about their online reviews and 92% were concerned about the state of their social media presence (Erskine, 2018). Mr. Erskine is however very quick to also state that the results of this study is not solely attributed to only travel business owners but can also be extrapolated to legitimate businesses in all industries (Erskine, 2018). The most important part of the article is not the study but rather six ways business owners can maximize their online reputation management. According to Mr. Erskine in his article, these are conducting a deep audit of the company’s online reputation (through positive articles, etc.), making the most of online review platforms (such as Indeed and Glassdoor), publishing content that customers will find valuable (to keep them fully engaged online), positively engaging current and prospective consumers on social media platforms, making the CEO and other employees searchable (through positive articles on company employees in their own words), and finally having the ability to accept some negative criticisms as opportunities to improve (Erskine, 2018).

           Mr. Erskine’s article was very well-written and while I agree with all the elements of his article, I felt he failed to adequately discuss the importance of online reputation management to any business. He did discuss ways to maximize a company’s online reputation management (ORM) efforts but readers that are new to the topic would likely want to know to what end these efforts help a business. For example, online reputation management helps business boost sales. A 2016 study showed that 25% of digital marketers expressed that the main result of allocating resources to ORM was to promote growth in sales (Seter, 2018). The boost in sales is a result of the consumer engagement on social media and online review platforms by generating positive rapport with potential clients or customers which helps build trust and eventually leads to a boost in sales.

           On a broader perspective, ORM is very important for a business in helping maintain its corporate social responsibility (CSR). CSR is a self-regulating business model that helps a company be socially accountable to itself, its stakeholders, and the public by being conscious of its economic, social and environmental operational impacts (Investopedia, 2018). One of the main benefits of CSR is environmentally responsible product innovation. This is evident, for example, in Unilever’s new line of hair and personal care products which are designed to use less water in a bid to drastically reduce unnecessary world-wide water consumption (Epstein-Reeves, 2012). Another benefit of CSR is cost-savings. Companies involved in in-house CSR programs often create energy reduction systems that make their operational management systems more efficient while reducing energy expenditure. For example, General Mills, in 2011, installed energy monitoring meters on several pieces of equipment at one of its Georgia plants which has since saved them an average of $600,000 in annual energy costs alone (Epstein-Reeves, 2012). By leveraging the power of online reputation management, companies that have instituted their own corporate social responsibility programs can positively engage consumers in how their awesome products or services positively impact the environment as well as the country’s economic standing. With the dangers of global warming and other negative environmental impacts being aggressively discussed in today’s media, it would be a refreshingly welcome perspective for a consumer to know that a company they thought about doing business with was actively involved in preserving the ecosystem for future generations.

                                                      References

Erskine, Ryan. (2018, July 30). Study: 97% Of Business Owners Say Online Reputation Management Is Important--Here's How to Keep Up. Forbes. Retrieved December 3, 2018 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanerskine/2018/07/30/study-97-of-business-owners-say-online-reputation-management-is-important-heres-how-to-keep-up/#50a18dc6c029

Epstein-Reeves, James. (2012, February 21). Six Reasons Companies Should Embrace CSR. Forbes. Retrieved December 3, 2018 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/csr/2012/02/21/six-reasons-companies-should-embrace-csr/#301adaee3495

Seter, Jenna. (2018, March 27). The Importance of Online Reputation Management for Businesses. Clutch. Retrieved December 3, 2018 from https://clutch.co/pr-firms/resources/importance-online-reputation-management-businesses

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Current Article Analysis #2

        The chosen article is titled ‘11 Website Design and Development Best Practices For 2018’ by Mr. Denis Pinsky and published by Forbes on February 12, 2018. In this article, Mr. Pinsky discusses eleven actionable plan features every modern website should have. These features are based on his theory that current clients (website owners) and developers have consistently perpetuated a trend of low-quality websites thus missing the technical and content marks for how a well-designed website should look and run (Pinsky, 2018). In his article, Mr. Pinsky states that clients perpetuate poorly designed websites because they have very limited knowledge of what a website should truly be beyond its aesthetic features and rather create their websites with the assumption that the beauty of the website will always attract a huge consumer base (Pinsky, 2018). Developers also share the blame in this article. According to Mr. Pinsky, developers often treat must-have digital marketing features as “extras” when offering packages to clients and because these “extras” significantly increase the package price, many clients opt to not include them, and this leads to a very poorly designed website (Pinsky. 2018). To this effect, the highlight of his article is the discussion of eleven non-negotiable standards of web design every client (website owner) must include in their sites to captivate real, live human readers.

           Some of these standards include features of fast loading times, being mobile ready, enabling website tracking and analytics, including search engine optimization (SEO), the inclusion of a content management system (CMS) and implementing tools for conversion optimization (Pinsky, 2018). Additionally, other features discussed are email marketing, social media platforms on the website, an ever present on-site strong security, inclusion of progressive web apps and the possible inclusion of artificial intelligence especially for the mobile version of the website (Pinsky, 2018). In my opinion, while Mr. Pinsky admirably does a wonderful job discussing all the ways to include different functionalities on a website, I believe his ideas are more generally geared toward attracting customers from different niches and not actively doing much to maintain their presence on the website or make them repeat customers. For example, he fails to adequately discuss the importance of custom illustrations and videos in his web design principles.  Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text and people remember 10% of what they hear, 2-% of what they read and 80% of what they see or do (Kumar, 2018). This is the reason why whatever product or service is being offered through the website, no matter how boring, at least requires a custom video illustration preferably with background music or commentary to positively engage any and all customers that visit their site. Micro-interactions are also very important visual animations that every client should try to include on their website that Mr. Pinsky failed to cover. They are contained product moments that revolve around a single use case and are used to create highly dynamic user interfaces (Kumar, 2018). One of their main benefits is that they allow the user to be actively engaged with the website in a much effortless manner. An example is Facebook’s Like button which allows the comment viewer to simply click the button to show their appreciation over having to type multiple reassuring congratulatory sentences. The final point on an improvement on this article is the concept of navigation which wasn’t properly addressed. Navigation is the cornerstone of usability and even with the best visual illustrations on the website, if the user feels as if they must work very hard to navigate the website they will simply leave (Babich, 2017). Every web design should follow the three main principles of website navigation and that is simplicity, clarity and consistency (Babich, 2017). By following these three rules, users can get to multiple pages in only a few clicks, do not have to guess what each navigation option means and should be essentially the same for all pages on the website to maintain the user’s presence and possibly attract more potential customers.

           In conclusion, even with a few issues not discussed, Mr. Pinsky’s article is highly recommended as it performs a wonderful job in teaching the very basics of how an optimized, functional and interactive website should be designed to stand out from the poorly designed ones.

References

Babich, Nick. (2017, November 21). A Comprehensive Guide to Web Design. Smashing Magazine. Retrieved November 15, 2018 from https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2017/11/comprehensive-guide-web-design/#comments-comprehensive-guide-web-design

Kumar, Rohit. (2018, January 19). 15 Web Design Trends in 2018 (+1 Bonus). Medium. Retrieved November 15, 2018 from https://medium.muz.li/web-design-trends-2018-a9bfabc99d46

Pinsky, Denis. (2018, February 12). 11 Website Design and Development Best Practices For 2018. Forbes. Retrieved November 15, 2018 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/denispinsky/2018/02/12/website-design-standards/#63645a28f54f

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Hello Sophia,

I truly enjoyed reading your post on using search intent to improve a website’s SEO. In my personal research of search intent, I came across four main categories of search intent that broadly improve the SEO of a company’s website. These are navigational intent, informational intent, investigational intent and transactional intent (Roggio, 2017).

Navigational intent is when a user uses selected keywords including a company’s brand name or specific description to navigate to a particular website (Roggio, 2017). Often, the purpose of this type of intent is to specifically narrow the search parameters to find a company or result that they have forgotten about.

Informational intent, as the name implies, if when the user is seeking information in the form of an answer to a question, seeking to learn or just satisfying their personal curiosity (Roggio, 2017). Individuals searching with informational intent are frequently found on websites such as Google, Bing, Yahoo Search or YouTube.

Investigational intent is frequently found in users looking to compare products or services, multiple retailers or new business owners searching for ways to improve their businesses. For example, if someone sees a new commercial for Netflix on tv and wishes to then compare Netflix with its competitors (Sling TV, YouTube TV, etc.) to see which is most affordable and has higher ratings then he is doing so with investigational intent.

Unlike the first three types of intent, transactional intent is very different. This is because is signifies that the user with such an intent is ready to make a specific purchase and may associate keywords such as “buy”, “coupon” or “discount” with the particular product or service (Roggio, 2017). For a company or blog, this is perhaps the most important type of search intent to foster among its consumers since it directly leads to sales and profit.

In summary, with the right targeted keywords and SEO strategy, a company should be able to foster all four types of search intent to attract a good number of daily consumers. It is simply not enough to foster the first three types described because those will likely represent non-paying customers so with great content, these types of customers can transform their intent into transactional ones when their curiosities are satisfied.

                                                     Reference

Roggio, Armando. (2017, April 3). 4 Types of Keyword Intent That Impact Search Marketing. Practical Ecommerce. Retrieved November 9, 2018 from https://www.practicalecommerce.com/4-Types-of-Keyword-Intent-That-Impact-Search-Marketing

Expert Session Blog#2

After watching how to use search intent to get results from SEO, one can deduct that there are different factors that affect SEO and search intent is one of them. SEO increases your site’s search ranking for content using the business related keywords you want to target. When potential customers search for certain keywords of a company, if they find content in the search results, and may follow those links back to that company’s site, creating organic traffic. SEO serves as a map or funnel bringing a stream of leads to a company’s website, making the website one of the best lead generation tools. To make the most of the opportunity, the company needs to create and optimize quality content so that search engines and searchers see the value in what you offer, and want to sign up or buy (Hall, 2018).

There are several factors that play a key role in optimization for lead generation SEO. First, optimize titles and Meta descriptions, as these are what people see in search engines when they decide to click. Title length display varies according to the device, making it more difficult to come up with an optimal title length. Make sure you put your target keyword phrase early in the title, so it will show on any device searchers use.

It is important to include target keywords in your content. To optimize for current search behavior it’s a good idea to include semantic keywords, which are terms related to the main search term. You’ll often see these at the bottom of a search results page on the web (Hall, 2018).

There is a fuzzy distinction between making your Web site more “findable” and actively marketing your site to people. Both are necessary as the Internet becomes more congested, but with today’s Internet users frequently coming online looking for something specific, being findable is a crucial part of any Intent marketing strategy. Search engine optimization involves coding the site in such a way that it rises to the top of the list of search results. As a result, companies continually tweak their sites so that they come up higher on those searches. The idea sounds easy enough, but every search engine has different criteria for what makes a good search result and what doesn’t (Briones, 1999).

What determines where a website turns up in natural search results depends on relevance. Google determines relevance by what the industry calls “link love”, how many other sites are linking to your content and the quality of those sites usually as determined by their own “link love”. In search engines, links are like votes. Increasingly, social-media tools, such as blogs, social bookmarks and social networks, are helping drive search results, which is why it is important to make the content easily linked (Klaassen & McIlroy, 2008).

 Google’s algorithm change means the search engine now has a better understanding of the intent and meaning of searches, which improves its ability to deliver relevant content in search results. This means search engine optimization is increasingly a holistic discipline. It’s not enough to optimize and rank for one relevant keyword but rather content must now be relevant to the topic and include several related terms (How does google judge content quality, 2014).

References:

Briones, M. G. (1999). Found on the information superhighway. Marketing News, 33(13), 1-1,7. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.proxy.davenport.edu/docview/216406016?accountid=40195

Hall, S. H. (2018, August 29). SEO For Lead Generation: How To Attract More Organic Leads. Retrieved from https://optinmonster.com/improving-your-seo-to-generate-more-leads/

How does google judge content quality* new study provides insights; brands rank higher without fulfilling many criteria required of other websites according to searchmetrics US google ranking factors 2014 study. (2014, Sep 08). M2 Presswire Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.proxy.davenport.edu/docview/1560604317?accountid=40195

Klaassen, A., & McIlroy, M. (2008). SEARCH. Advertising Age, 79(11), 43. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.proxy.davenport.edu/docview/208369949?accountid=40195

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Expert Session Blog # 2

         The expert video analysis on the basics of international search engine optimization (SEO) by Kate Morris of Outspoken Media was very insightful. In the analysis, Ms. Morris discussed the main importance of international SEO which is getting brands in front of customers both locally and globally. She also stated that while there are many tools to expand a business internationally, international marketing and business through SEOs is actually a very difficult task (Stukent, 2015). This is because it requires the understanding and knowledge of so many multiple processes which may seem simple at first. For example, Ms. Morris was very adamant in stating that business owners looking to expand internationally through SEOs understand that the user’s browser settings and search terms determine the language someone prefers to browse the web in (Stukent, 2015). Thus, a user living in Denmark may opt to prefer browsing the web in French. Essentially, a language is not a country and a country is not a language, as Ms. Morris put it (Stukent, 2015). In expanding internationally through search engine optimization, it is also important to consider some other important facts. Firstly, search engines operate by specific countries and not by regions, so they would geotarget for example, ‘Saudi Arabia’, instead of simply the ‘Middle East’(Stukent, 2015). Secondly after geotargeting specific countries, cultural differences, different rules and laws as well as different currencies are all important in expanding the website through international SEO (Stukent, 2015). Thus, according to Ms. Morris, it is not enough to simply geotarget the website to Britain and leave it as it is, it is important to realize that the city of Birmingham has different cultural attributes from the city Tottenham, both of which are districts within London, the capital city of Great Britain. Lastly, in the build-up of the international marketing strategy, Ms. Morris cautioned against starting with URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) because as multiple sub-directories were being added, this could force the company to completely change the URLs later (Stukent, 2015).

           From the expert video analysis provided by Ms. Morris, the benefits of international SEO expansion are many. One clear benefit is that it helps improve the visibility of the website by increasing the number of visitors (Fathy, 2015). By not only geo-targeting specific countries but also targeting users through differences in culture and language certainly helps the company in reaching more potential organic customers who will hopefully start a chain reaction of attracting even more visitors to the website. The second benefit is a result of the first benefit and it the increase in sales of the products or services being offered (Fathy, 2015). By attracting more visitors from all walks of life, more money will be spent on the product or service and ultimately sales and profits will rise as well. Thirdly, international SEO expansion also helps to boost the website’s global profile (Fathy, 2015). By tailoring the website to the needs of every individual consumer through language and cultural differences, consumer trust for the company is greatly improved because it shows that the company is willing to embrace the different consumer tastes for their product or service. Another important often overlooked benefit of international SEO expansion is that by measuring the efficiency of the content in attracting and progressing users, the company can greatly improve the website’s speed and download time while optimizing the website for all browsers (Fathy, 2015). Optimizing the website for all browsers is extremely important in retaining trusted consumers because allows the greatest number of visitors to the website by ensuring that the users are free to maintain their strict use of Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer or any other browser as a matter of convenience.

           Many errors are made by companies that are new to international SEO expansion. One of the most common errors is automatically redirecting the user to an international web version without giving the option to select it (Solis, 2018).  This is particularly frustrating for users that specifically visited the website to see content in another language of specific country version who will then be disappointed in having been redirected automatically without being given an option. Another very common error which is very costly is not localizing the content of different web country versions of the company’s website (Solis, 2018). This error is very common because many companies assume that multiple countries that speak the same language have the same preferences. Ignoring these differences can be very frustrating for users who feel as though the company has purposely ignored their language or cultural differences. For example, in the U.S version of the Adidas website, there is a “Soccer cleats” category that is called “Football Boots” in their UK version to localize the content accordingly (Solis, 2018).

           Even with many errors that can be made in international SEO expansion, the benefits clearly outweigh the risks and as such is highly recommended for companies seeking international exposure.

                                                References

Fathy, Farah. How Global SEO Techniques Benefit Your Business. GPI.  Retrieved November 5, 2018 from http://blog.globalizationpartners.com/how-global-seo-techniques-benefit-your-business.aspx

Solis, Aleyda. 7 Ways to Fail at International SEO. Semrush. Retrieved November 5, 2018 from https://www.semrush.com/blog/7-ways-to-fail-at-international-seo/

Stukent, Inc. (2015, August 18). The Basics of International SEO with Kate Morris | Stukent Expert Session. Retrieved November 6, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUWNaoSUxEQ

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Current Article Analysis Blog #1

           The selected article to be analyzed is titled ‘Mid-Year Review: The Five SEO Trends Taking Shape In 2018’ and it was published by Matthew Goulart of the Forbes Agency Council on July 23, 2018. As the name of the article suggests, it was meant to review the SEO trends that have strengthened in 2018 to optimize individual rankings for websites when a consumer searches online using keywords. The article is very relevant to concepts of onsite and offsite search engine optimization such as creating high quality web pages and content marketing.

           The first trend discussed is the page rank based on the mobile version of a website. Essentially, Mr. Goulart discussed Google’s launch of its mobile-first index and how this affects the current era of search engine optimization (SEO) because websites will now be ranked based on the mobile version of their page (Goulart, 2018). The article further discusses how website traits such as user-friendly navigation, creative design and fast page load times are essential to earning a higher rank based on a mobile website (Goulart, 2018). Additional website traits to boost the quality of a mobile webpage also include availability of original content, fresh content, high quantity content and a low user bounce rate from the landing page (Larson & Draper, 2018).

           The second trend discussed was optimizing SEO strategies for voice searches. With the prevalence of voice activated devices from Google Home to Amazon Echo and most smart phones, more consumers prefer to search the internet with their voice as opposed to typing it in. Due to this trend, the article discusses how important it is for mobile websites to have long-tail keywords and accurate syntax used in everyday language to enable their websites to rank higher in consumer searches (Goulart, 2018).

           The third trend is the ability of websites to provide instant answers to searches in featured website content (Goulart, 2018). Essentially, because voice-activated search has become more prevalent in the last few years, it is essential that websites have very relevant, short, precise and searchable content or answers that match the voice inquiries (Goulart, 2018). Some websites with great featured content are still not searchable due to dirty sitemaps. When a website has a dirty sitemap, it often contains broken links, or other errors which communicates to the search engine that the website is improperly managed or not trustworthy (Larson & Draper, 2018).

            The fourth trend is the optimization of intention. According to the article, in the latter part of 2018, Google will be modifying its algorithm such that one of the biggest driving factors for website rankings will depend on the intention of the keyword (Goulart, 2018). What this means is that for websites that clearly communicate their featured content, Google will make sure that the search user’s keywords avoid websites with similar but unmatched content and rather match the keywords with websites that offer the exact answers the user is searching for. For example, if a user searches for “cheap laptops for sale”, Google will ensure that immediate results show deals on affordable laptops rather than articles on “ranking the cheapest laptops”.

             The fifth and final SEO trend taking shape in 2018 as described in the article is user experience. This trend encompasses the previous four trends discussed above because all the search engine optimization tools available to website owners are to ultimately create a very convenient, user-friendly experience for all consumers to convert them from first time visitors to repeat website visitors who not only become paying customers but attract more website visitors through word of mouth and positive reviews. The article states that website owners must maintain their website’s top speed, its context, relevancy and quality of content while also being aware of the user’s browsing habits (Goulart, 2018).

              One main point that this article failed to explore is that the user experience also includes website security. Many internet users have frequently complained about viruses, malware and ransomware after visiting a website and usually must spend a lot of money remedying this problem which includes a factory reset thus losing vital stored information or paying professionals to remedy this problem at a huge cost. To this effect, Google recently re-iterated their renewed purposeful flagging of websites without secured website certificates (SSL); essentially websites that don’t begin with HTTPS (Forbes Agency Council, 2018). By flagging these websites, these sites can be either removed or essentially listed as a potentially harmful website which certainly drives away any visitors. At an average of only $39 a year, securing an SSL for a website is one of the least expensive and easiest fixes to boost SEO (Forbes Agency Council, 2018).

References

Forbes Agency Council. (2018, March 13). 12 SEO Trends Heating Up 2018. Forbes. Retrieved November 5, 2018 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/03/13/12-seo-trends-heating-up-2018/#69024de12f41

Goulart, Matthew. (2018, July 23). Mid-Year Review: The Five SEO Trends Taking Shape In 2018. Forbes. Retrieved November 5, 2018 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/07/23/mid-year-review-the-five-seo-trends-taking-shape-in-2018/#5a858faf1080

Larson, J., & Draper, S. (2018). Internet Marketing Essentials: A Comprehensive Digital Marketing Textbook. Idaho Falls, United States: Edify Publishing.

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Expert Session Blog #1

       The expert session provided a very good overview of the concept of affiliate marketing. From the session video, affiliates are individuals or companies that have been contracted to refer to refer potential buyers to the product website through their own platform. The most popular commission models include cost per acquisition (CPA), cost per scale (CPS), cost per click (CPC) and fixed cost. However, the least popular commission models include cost per mile (CPM), cost per install (CPI), pay per call (PPCall) and cost per video. While there are many common types of affiliates opinion leaders and content managers are the most sought-after types. The video also provided great insight into factors to consider when setting up an affiliate program. Some of these factors discussed were provision of an affiliate agreement, consideration of the what type of affiliate model to employ, actively engaging members of the company’s affiliate team through open lines of communication and setting up a viable payout structure with very common payment methods such as PayPal, wire transfers, credit cards and debit cards.

           Affiliate marketing is the process by which an affiliate earns a commission for marketing another person’s or company’s products (Enfroy, 2018). Affiliate marketing is an interplay between three main parties. These parties are the advertiser, publisher and the consumer (Enfroy, 2018). The advertiser and publisher can be the same or different companies depending on the situation. However, typically, the advertiser is the individual or company that owns the product or service seeking to attract multiple consumers to its own website or store to increase sales. The publisher can be defined as the affiliate marketer who promotes the product or service through an affiliate agreement with the advertiser using one of the popular commission models discussed above. The consumer, as expected, is the customer who is attracted by the product or service offering made available by the publisher or advertiser and clicks a link to learn more about it and possibly make an engaging purchase.

           No matter which type of commission model is implemented within the affiliate agreement, affiliate marketing has many benefits. Firstly, it attracts a larger volume of web traffic to the company’s brick and mortar store or online store (Carabini, 2015). This is due to the chain reaction effect of great commissions earned by affiliates who then recommend the company’s affiliate program to other affiliates within their network to promote the product or service even more. By engaging an increasing number of affiliates for the company’s product or service, more consumers can be driven to the store to increase sales. The second benefit is that affiliate marketing helps the company reach new customer bases at the international level (Carabini, 2015. This is partly due to the snowball chain reaction reason provided above as well as the concept of localization discussed in the expert session. Through localization within an affiliate program, affiliates can reach out to multiple consumers within different countries by creating promotional and communicational offers in different languages or appeal to multiple cultures across the board.

           While there certainly are some benefits to affiliate marketing, there are some disadvantages as well. Firstly, due to its almost strictly online nature, there is a very high rate of fraudulent activity such as hacking of payment systems, etc. (Carabini, 2015). Secondly affiliate marketing programs are very expensive to set up especially for small businesses. For example, affiliate software vendors typically have high set up fees and most importantly, while commissions are being paid to affiliates for their hard work, many times generating customers does not necessarily translate into sales if many of them are not buying anything (Carabini, 2015). Thirdly, the world of affiliate marketing has become extremely competitive and without an equally competitive commission structure, the company will surely lose its affiliates to its competitors. This is the reason why affiliate marketing has become very expensive for especially small business as they strive to keep their affiliates happy with competitive pay for their hard work.

           In my personal opinion, with companies like Amazon, Walmart and Alibaba generating most of the consumer traffic for most worldwide online sales, small businesses can look to the future of affiliate marketing as their means to staying competitive and acquiring consumers. While these Fortune 500 companies such as Amazon certainly provide platforms for businesses to sell their goods to Amazon’s world-wide consumer base, they also charge moderately high product fees which further takes away from profits gained by the business owner. However, after the fees required to pay affiliates and set up an affiliate program, affiliate marketing allows the company to retain most of their profits and build long-term trust with their customers.

References

Carabini, Amy. (2015, October 12). The Benefits and Risks of Affiliate Marketing. Cleverbridge. Retrieved October 29, 2018 from https://www.cleverbridge.com/corporate/affiliate-marketing-benefits-risks/

Enfroy, Adam. (2018). Affiliate Marketing in 2018: What It Is and How You Can Get Started. Big Commerce. Retrieved October 29, 2018 from https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/affiliate-marketing/