Advertising

I was having a discussion yesterday with a group of folks about affiliate marketing with blogs. I was surprised to hear the group was split pretty evenly between these categories:

• Done pretty well
• Haven’t ever made a penny
• Never tried

My own experience over the years have varied depending on how much effort I put in, as you would expect, but has been overall positive. It wasn’t always something I enjoyed particularly, and in some cases I felt the gurus and forum contributors were pushing advice that was bordering on black hat.

I do believe though depending on your niche and choice of merchant/offer, aff is potentially far more lucrative than other monetization methods. Only yesterday I was invited to push a seminar where you get hundreds of dollars per sign up (I turned it down). How much do you make with one ad spot for a whole month? Adsense?

As I say, it is certainly not for everyone, and blogging with a side of aff suits me better than pure aff, but it could well be worth a try.

Have you tried affiliate marketing? What are your experiences? Please share in the comments.

The word is out from the horse’s mouth. Kevin Rose, founder of the ultra-popular Digg social media site, just posted that new algorithm changes have been put into place. Without actually coming out and saying it, it seems like he’s saying these changes have been put into place to reduce the chances of being gamed (i.e., by SEOs/SMMs).

Now while it’s probably noble that the intent is so that stories “go popular” if they garner a wide variety of votes, the net result seems to include some of the following problems:

1. Stories could require OVER 100 votes before they’ll get on the home page, according to Rose himself.
2. Sites with already huge readership are less likely to be affected because they already have a more natural “diversity” of early votes.
3. New sites with small readerships have to try extra hard to become popular. The same type of article on an already popular site will always gain more votes. I’ve seen it time and again. Once you’re popular, substandard articles can still do relatively well.
4. Friend networks – the whole essence of social media – are being discounted as a result.

Members have already been saying for over a year that they’re disappointed with Digg, and I can’t see how these algorithm changes are going to help. Top users are still being banned, and with no reasonable explanation, and good stories being buried without the submitter allowed to see by whom. That means competitors can easily bury you if they have a lot of hateful friends. (The level-headed sort might say that I’m being extreme, but sorry, I’m not.)

On the other hand, whichever company is supposedly ready to spend $300M (600M??) on Digg might be making such things a requirement. If that’s the case, I predict a mass exodus of members to more niche voting sites. Er, well, another mass exodus.

Are you worried? Don’t be. Here are some tips:

1. Make a list of “lesser” (than Digg) social media sites that might suit your blog niche(s). If you need a starting point, check out the top blogs in your niche and find out what voting buttons are up on their posts. Go from there.
2. Cull the list down to one set of very niche sites and one set of Digg “replacement” sites.
3. Register at each site in your two shortlists. Try to use the same account name in all places, for simplicity. Doing this makes it easier for your “friends” on one site to find you elsewhere.
4. Start building up each account by spending about 15-20 minutes each day for each account. Submit quality articles from sites other than your own, making sure to use catchy titles, good descriptions, and the best category.
5. If you see that someone has submitted an article you enjoyed, add them as a friend. Hopefully, they’ll do the same.
6. Once you’ve started gaining “karma points” when other members vote on articles you’ve submitted, you can start submitting articles from your site(s). Keep in mind that some social media sites frown on this, some don’t. If the sites you like don’t allow/like this, then pair up with a handful of blogger friends to occasionally submit each other’s articles. But insist on quality; don’t be bullied into voting. And don’t always have the same person submit your articles. As Kevin Rose said, diversity is key.
7. If you work from computers that share IP addresses, I suggest that you don’t have different social media accounts using the same IPs. Not all voting sites care, but some do.

In other words, if Digg suffers because of the seemingly anti-friend-network changes, and if you are fed up with the “haters” out there that get your articles easily buried, despite the quality, then there are other options. Some other site could also appear to take its place. (By the way, I have an excellent domain name with Pligg on it, for just such an alternative. And it won’t cost hundreds of millions. 🙂

[thanks to Thord Hendgren at BloggerTalks]

Darren has written a great post rebutting a guest post about confident writing. One of the key points that stands out is the original article recommended ‘You Don’t Need to Tell the Truth all the Time’. I agree with Darren, this is dangerous talk!

My recommendation is wherever possible, tell the truth, or at least don’t lie. Experience tells me that this is by far the best policy. Don’t incriminate yourself but also do not try to deceive. Lies are usually to cover up or give an inflated impression of success or expertise. Write the truth with confidence.

Well all know habitual fantasists. In my agency days I used to have an insecure boss who would try to bluff every situation. Clients were never convinced and it just damaged the relationship for all of us. Almost always the client would have been happier if he had not tried to impress so much or if they could have the real situation. His approach was almost always to promise the world on a stick. All the lies, cover ups and misdirections were just distractions from the actual work at hand. It was only when one key client pulled the project manager and myself to one side and confided they knew what he was up to that I realized just how bad an actor he had been. They actually requested in future we visit without him.

Lying is often counter productive. Another colleague claimed a project was “almost done” for months until he had to admit he hadn’t even started. If he had explained his difficulty at the start the rest of us could have helped him, the client would have been informed and he would have not needed the embarrassing mea culpa. His pride in wanting to seem on top of his work actually undermined our confidence in him.

People underestimate how hard it is to lie. You have to have a good memory and eye for detail to be a convincing liar. Most of us do not possess these characteristics to the level required. Bad lies are easily detected and the damage done when discovered is just not worth it.

I’m not suggesting that you open your heart on every single post. Not only is that unnecessary, it would soon get dull. Also I wouldn’t ever suggest full disclosure, you could get into more trouble than it is worth. Telling the truth does not mean revealing sources or breaking confidences, just to not mislead.

There is no need to lie when being honest works better. Fact is people are more likely to connect with you and your anecdotes will be more interesting because of the authentic details.

Link buying is a touchy issue. Google doesn’t like it. In fact, they have spent more effort in the last couple of months cracking down on sites that sell and/or buy links.

But link buying works. Not only does it work, but for many webmasters, it works really well. A friend and I bought some links for a site and within a couple of weeks, it was in the top 15 of Google for a very popular two word keyword phrase.

Aaron Wall, a high profile SEO blogger, writes in his post, An Unjust Fear of Link Buying, that if he didn’t buy links 5 years ago, he wouldn’t be where he is right now. Patrick Altoft, a popular internet marketing blogger, says that to compete in some markets, you need to buy links. He helped a client in a very competitive market get number one rankings in one year by only buying links.

So there can be a lot to gain from buying links.

Link Buying Principles

If you are thinking of buying links, here are some principles to consider.

The more trusted your blog is, the more you can get away with low quality links. The current Google algorithm is based on trust. If your blog already has great rankings for highly searched keywords, Google probably has a lot of trust for your blog. So, if you buy some low quality links, those links can help because your site has trust. Just don’t overdo it or you will lose enough trust to hurt your rankings.

If you have a blog with less than stellar rankings (this means Google doesn’t trust your blog very much), buying low quality links is much riskier. Get high quality links first to build your blog’s trust before going after low quality links.

The older your blog, the more effective paid links will be. Google really likes old sites. Jim Boykin runs one of the most well-known link buying firms. He doesn’t usually take on clients unless they have old sites. Jim writes:

…a huge majority of sites will not get into the top 30 of Google for competitive phrases without having been online for at least 2 years.

There’s no substitute for quality links. A blog with 50 quality links will often outrank a blog with 1000 mediocre links. If you can buy quality links, definitely go for it.

Buying links is a time vs. money deal. Sure, you can never spend money on links and still do well on the search engine results pages (SERPs). However, it takes time and effort to create link worthy content and network so that your blog gets links naturally. That’s the advantage of buying links. You don’t need to spend as much time to get links if you’re buying them.

Consider the risk factor. If Google finds out you are buying links, you can be penalized. However, if you only get links that don’t disclose that they are paid, Google will have a very hard time figuring out which links are bought. Plus, they can’t prove that you bought the link.

In a future post, I’ll talk about how I buy links including where to find webmasters willing to sell and how to judge the quality of link.

Feedback

Have you bought links before? If you have, did it work out for you?

Also, feel free to share you own link buying principles.

Many bloggers get worried about posting their thoughts and ideas.

• What if I am wrong?
• What if someone knows more than me?
• What if I get laughed at?
• What if what if what if

Then there are others who go right ahead and post whatever, regardless. We see a lot of people complaining especially about the “Make Money Online” field, where bloggers start blogs on the topic before making any money 🙂

The solution to both I think is to have theories and put them to the test. I believe readers are a lot more receptive to actual results, even if it is “I tried this and it didn’t work” (and yes, I am basing this premise on personal experience!).

What do you think?

Most of the people who contact me don’t treat me like a human being. They treat me like a stupid machine.

These people send me messages as if they think I’m a stupid algorithm, and that some (if->then) switch will go off when I see the words “this is a great deal for you” or “this will be a perfect business partnership for you.”

Fact is, I’m not a machine. The sad thing is that the people sending me these messages act is if they are.

Can you relate? Do you market to human beings or machines?

Following Seth Godin’s lead, Dee Barizo suggests that the most effective promotion is the promotion of others. He then proceeds to suggest three ingredients that will get others to promote you: great content, networking and time.

Personally, I think he nailed the trifecta. But it’s one thing to talk about these three things, it’s a completely different ballgame to execute strategies. So I thought it would be good to brainstorm some ideas in the comment section.

What do you think? What are some of the most effective ways to let others get your name/business/services out there?