Have You Ever Asked Yourself “Is That Relevant?”
If no… maybe you better start.
Relevancy is a HUGE issue in a couple different ways. It’s something that can make or break a web page and it’s something that can seriously block the flow as people are careening down your waterslide toward a sale.
Everything needs to be Relevant.
When I say everything I mean everything ~ your product needs to be relevant to your keywords., your content needs to be relevant to your keywords, your links need to be relevant to your keywords ~ it all has to fit together, make sense and be relevant.
Let’s dig into relevancy here for a bit.
Product relevancy
You must must must choose a product that is completely relevant to your keywords. This is a make or break issue. It’s pretty easy when you’re doing product based lenses/sites, but when you get into more murky waters, this is a must.
Let’s say my keywords are how to “protect yourself in a bike crash” ~ just made that up, my bike gloves are sitting here on the desk and I just got a racey new bike yesterday ~ there’s some concerns of crashing this sweet machine. 
So a relevant product might be something that teaches me how to fall off my bike ~ or protect myself during a crash.
A not so relevant product would be something like selling me great wheels ~ because if you have good wheels you won’t crash.
I’m not looking for ways not to crash ~ I’m looking for information on how to survive if/when I do.
See the difference? It’s huge. You may have killer content and people may be clicking through but if your product does not give them what you said it was going to teach them ~ then you get NO sales. period. People want what they want, that’s why they’re out there looking for it!!
Another example: How to cure dry skin (again, just an example, there’s lotion sitting her on my desk too lol)
You get people to click through to a product that teaches them to cure dry skin. GREAT.
You get people to click through to a product that says “drink more water so you don’t get dry skin”. NOT GREAT.
Obviously the people looking to cure dry skin already have it, they don’t want to know how to prevent it, they want to know how to fix it!!
So it is crucial that your product is relevant to your content and your keywords. If you lead them to exactly what they’re looking for they will buy much more often!
What if I can’t find a product to fit my keywords?
Great keywords don’t mean anything if you can’t convert them. If you seriously can’t find anything that is completely relevant to your keywords ~ then I’d be finding different keyowrds. It doesn’t matter how much search volume or how easy to rank keywords are if you can’t make a sale with them then they aren’t worth a penny.
Content Relevancy
This is a big one. Your content is what is going to get people to click through to buy your product. It has GOT to be relevant to what you’re trying to sell them.
Ex. You’re selling diamond earrings.
On your lens you’re talking about diamond earrings. Good. Then you get to your video and choose a Marilyn Monroe video of “Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend”. YIKES. Not so much.
The total point of your content is to help walk people through the process of saying ok ~ this is a good decision, I’m ok, I’m smart in this decision. You want to give them information that will keep them saying, yes, this is smart, yes, this is smart. Good decision, good decision. The second they start to think, hmmm… I don’t know. BAM you’ve lost them.
Everything you put on your lens should feed into them realizing it’s a great decision to get those diamond earrings.
So for you video you might choose something instead that outlines the basics of how to buy diamonds. That will help them feel even more confident in buying those earrings. Especially if you can show how your diamonds fit all the requirements shown in the video!! It will be an easy sell from there.
Selling other stuff on your site:
This is a personal decision, but I’ll tell you from my experience I have found that it is best to feature one product, only “sell” one product on each lens. Your lenses are optimized for 1 keyword. That’s probably how the person came to be on your lens ~ or something very close to it. That’s what they’re looking for. Sell them what they came for, nothing more nothing less.
If you have to sell something additional on your lens ~ make sure it’s completely relevant to the original product. If you’re selling a toy that needs batteries ~ you might use a sticky note module and remind them to get the batteries. You can link that to your amazon account on a battery page. But really it needs to be VERY relevant to your product.
You don’t want to be selling diamond earrings and then by the end of your lens be selling Marilyn Monroe Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend albums or mp3s. That’s not what people came looking for ~ they wanted diamond earrings ~ SELL THEM DIAMOND EARRINGS.
There are a lot of little nuances and pieces that when put together correctly will lead to you getting sales. If some of the pieces are a little out of whack it’s possible to recover and still make sales ~ Relevancy is NOT one of those things. You need to be spot on when choosing your product and your content. It has to be completely relevant or the sales just won’t be there.
If you have questions about relevancy ask in the comments section below. If you think you’re lenses are having a problem with relevancy it might be a good time for a lens review ~ that’s definitely something I look at when I do them. 
Also tomorrow I’ve got something very exciting coming up ~ if you are having trouble creating your lenses ~ stay tuned!!
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Jackie –
I have read a ton of “crap” about Relevancy in the last year – this EXPLAINS it better than any of the rest.
Point by point – issue by issue – I GOT it!
Thanks,
Frank
Follow me @FrankDickinson on Twitter!
This isn’t a big problem with the Christmas BluePrint lenses, but I can see how I could do better on some of my Ezine articles.
Thanks for more great info.
Follow me @fnnkybutt on Twitter!
Thanks to you I finally create my first lens and I followed your 6 thinks blog to the letter. I got a 5 star rating by the first Giant Angel to review it. I cannot thank you enough. Sure hope you can get a chance to view it and make a comment. This old dog (73) is learning new trick, thanks to you.
I will order a lens review ($25) and because I only have 1 I will let you owe me one.
Thanks
Hi Jackie, I like the relevancy part. I will agree with you that without relevancy you cannot sell anything. Any marketer who knows basis of marketing will tell you about brand focus. A brand must focus into something, a brand is a brand because it is consistent, the message is consistent with the brand offer. Lets look at Caterpillar for example, can you imagine Caterpillar brand selling diapers, well Caterpiller is known to build tanks, earth moving machines, macho machines, diapers are kiddish with nothing macho about them. But if it were to sell diapers then it would need to tie the relevance to what it has been all the years. That is brand relevancy and consistency. As you talk and write about a specific brand, tie it all together, otherwise there is no marketing without relevancy and consistency. Thanks Jackie for this.
Thanks for a great blog post – I do have a question though. So, with your “how to cure dry skin” example – you want to have a product on that lens that’s about curing dry skin such as an ebook that’s about natural skin cures but what about your content? How do you answer their question in the article without giving away too much cookie so that they still want to go ahead and buy your product – especially in the case of an ebook? What I’ve been doing providing a solution directly in the lens and then I write, for more tips like this on curing dry skin…visit this link – which is of course the anchor text. Is that the right way or wrong way?
Thanks in advance.
Laura
Wouldn’t have to be an ebook ~ that’s probably not something I would choose for that keyword. I’d probably find a great lotion or something that cures dry skin.
As far as content goes you could talk about 2 other ways that work but then discuss the product you’re selling as the BEST option to cure dry skin.
I would just change for more tips ~ to something like these options I provided are great, but for my favorite, the best, most effective etc ~ make the last option the BEST option ~ it will create enough curiosity to get them to click through.
Follow me @momtohanna on Twitter!
It is amazing how there are so many fine details that you don’t realize when you ae new. You do such a great job at breaking everything down into simple terms for a new marketer.
I just checked my Amazon account. I started doing the Christmas Cash about three weeks ago. I have about 25 lenses. I have had 43 click thrus to Amazon and have sold three items. Only added to $10.17, not that this doesn’t excite me, it does let me know that you can make money doing this.
I guess my question is, do I keep building more lenses and promote (like my daily plan I posted on Entreprenial Mindset) or do I focus on just promoting what I have already built?
I am getting discouraged because I want my kids to have a good Christmas! This is what has kept me going this long. I know it takes time and I will keep moving forward, but I need money by December. I have been doing internet marketing for a couple of years and you have made more sense to me than anyone else. Thanks for your great information. I guess I just need some guidance, I can’t afford coaching right now, but I am planning on taking my earnings and investing in my business. I can’t wait to actually talk to you! Hopefully in a few more months.
I’d probably spend time doing both. Keep building new lenses, but also take time to continue to promote the ones you have finished. Keep building links to the ones that are already working, and keep building more.
Keep at it, you’re well on your way. The shopping hasn’t even started in earnest yet.
Follow me @momtohanna on Twitter!
Thanks for the great info, cheers!
Thanks Jackie,
Makes perfect sense.
It all helps.
Fabulous post! It’s amazingly clear now what I’ve been doing wrong. Thank you!