Strategic Ways to Exploit the Internet

Affiliates: bitch of the industry P.2

Posted by admin || Posted in Monetizing Affiliate Programs || No Comments >

Before we get into specific marketing techniques, I wanted to do another post to re-clarify the notion that affiliates really are handicapped from the beginning. Let’s take a moment to discuss the dynamics of the advertiser - network - affiliate relationship in greater detail.

Let me preface this by saying that, despite how this post sounds, I’m not anti-affiliate network by any means. By and large I think affiliate networks, and most affiliate managers, play by the ‘rules’ - not that there are any rules, really; we’re all in it to make money, and there definitely is a LOT of money to be made. More on that later.

Part one discussed how affiliates start at the bottom of the food chain. Many people agreed, some disagreed. Apparently NickyCakes (whom I met at ASW, and despite his online personality of being a know-it-all asshole is actually really nice and a cool guy) only works for two hours a day and plays video games, the rest of us that have realized any sort of success work our asses off probably work 10-12 hour days or more. I know I do.

So back on the the networks. Both the advertisers and the networks, like yourself and every other business in the world, are in it to make money and maximize their profits. Here’s how it works. First, the advertisers/merchants decide how little they can pay the networks for promoting their offer. Second, the networks decide whether it’s more profitable to run the offers themselves or open it up to their affiliates. If they open it up to affiliates, they pay them as little as possible to maximize their own profits. Simple concept. Read the rest of this entry »

Affiliates: bitch of the industry P.1

Posted by admin || Posted in Monetizing Affiliate Programs || No Comments >

The first thing you need to know is that as an affiliate, you are the bitch of the industry. You need to forget everything you’ve read about how easy the affiliate game is, or how easy it is to make money etc and know this: payouts and pricing structures in the affiliate marketing industry are actually structured to make it extremely difficult to be profitable; as an affiliate the chips are stacked against you from the get-go. Diorex had written about this on his (now defunct) blog some time ago.

Why, little affiliate, are you the bitch? Because you are promoting advertisers offers; the key here is that an advertiser only reaches out to an affiliate network when they have either a.) saturated the market themselves or b.) can no longer scale their marketing campaigns effectively themselves. Taking that even a step further, networks generally only open an offer to the public if they don’t feel it makes sense financially to run it internally or exclusive to their top affiliates.

Look at it this way; When you are looking for offers to run, as you page through various offers on your network of choice, you need to remind yourself that there is a reason that you even have the opportunity to run these offers in a first place (see points A. and B. above). You are not special. They are using you.

In other words, they are letting you run these offers because everyone else is all out of ideas on how to market them; simple as that. You also need to remember that at this point, as an affiliate, you’re the one with capital at risk here. The Network gets paid either way, and the advertiser (depending on if it’s a CPA or CPL offer) most likely also gets paid, either way.

That’s why you’re the bitch. You have money at risk, a lot to lose, and a little to gain. Both the affiliate network and the advertiser have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

With that mindset in place it’s now time to think about how we can get one-up on everyone, including the networks, the advertisers, and your competition.

This post has been provided by Derrick Shields SEO & affiliate marketer.

ROI Calculator

Posted by admin || Posted in Making Money Online, Monetizing Affiliate Programs, SEM, Strategic SEO || No Comments >

Here’s a return on investment calculator I’ve organized for my clients @ Bluebonic so I thought I’d share it.

Download:
http://rs267.rapidshare.com/files/79683097/Website_Metrics.xls

Tested & working with Microsoft Excel & OpenOffice.org

Check out the SEO Services Marketplace

[LIST] Build Your Own Backlinks

Posted by admin || Posted in Strategic SEO || 4 Comments>

Alright, here’s a huge list of free web hosts. Ideally, you can create your own backlinks. Enjoy!

Read the rest of this entry »

Facebook is Mean.

Posted by admin || Posted in Making Money Online || No Comments >

Facebook to me:

Hello,

You posted a Marketplace listing that violated our Terms of Use, and this listing has been removed. We do not allow spam, nudity,drug use, attacks on an individual or group, or other obscene content. Continued misuse of Facebook’s features could result in your account being disabled.

If you have any questions or concerns, you can contact us at warning@facebook.com from your login email address.

The Facebook Team

Okay, so we all know Facebook is picky but c’mon warning to ban someone for advertising to buy .edu webspace is a little too far, especially when FB approved the ad in the first place. This hasn’t been a loss however 5 responses after 11,169 impressions & 18 clicks — $4.61 isn’t too shabby.

Exploiting Local Search

Posted by admin || Posted in 101, Localized SEO || No Comments >

So you plan to optimize for local search traffic? Follow these steps to have a highly optimized local listing:

1. Go to and create or use your existing Google account at https://www.google.com/accounts/ManageAccount
2. The G will give you a list of it’s services (see image on left) click on Local Business Center
3. For the company/organization field enter a highly optimized title, something like:
   “* Pet Store Supplies | Pets | Fairfax | Arlington | VA DC MD” (notice the “*”)

   This title is highly optimized for Google Local “Find Businesses” feature:
   what:“pet store” where: “VA”,”DC”,”MD”
   what:“pet supplies” where: “VA”,”DC”,”MD”
   what:“pets” where: “Fairfax” “Fairfax, VA”

4. Follow the step by step instructions and pay specific attention to “category” and make sure you maximize all 5 categories out. Carefully plan your categories, if you are a used car dealership you should enter “used cars” “used car dealership” “used vehicles” “cars for sale” or a specialty category such as “Toyota dealer”.
5. Enter all the info you can on the following page… (business hours, payment types accepted, etc.) click next.
6. It’s imperative that you select your image wisely, if your company is targeting “document scanning” you should pick a emotional stock photo showing someone frustrated & unorganized with documents scattered everywhere. Also if you have any video here’s where you add it.
7. Next you’ll have the option for custom fields, this would be a good place for “additional services” and make sure you work in your keywords… I haven’t confirmed that this will improve your listing but who cares, give it a try.
8. After you submit, confirm by telephone & then take advantage of the coupon feature on the listing activation page.