Over the last few months I have been trying to gobble up MMA related domains…with about as much success as I would have beating Randy Couture in the cage. In my ten years doing this online marketing thing, I have never found a vertical that is this difficult in terms of picking up solid domain names.

I know this sport is popular, but WTF! Are MMA fighters and promoters closet online marketers or did shoemoney gobble up all of the good domains a year or so ago?

It seems that a spammer, or set of spammers, has figure out a way to scrape existing comments on a post, reformat the wording of the comment, and submit it. Honestly, I can spot spam comments a mile away, but these were so relevant that if it wasn’t for the fact that there was too many of them, I would have easily approved all of them. Had a been a less experienced moderator, the spammer would have gotten away with comment auto-approvals on subsequent comments that they post.

Spammers are getting smarter. This is an awesome technique (for a spammer) that I am quite positive will cause many a moderator problems. It isn’t just the technique that has me intrigued, but the idea that spammers, not search engineers, might be the one who lead the semantic web movement - learning context of posts so that they can leave relevant spam comments.

Don’t tell Google a fucking thing…

Been a long time since I have posted, but that’s because I have been busy with the day-job, a dozen affiliate sites, some new client work, and most of all, spending my hard earn affiliate dollars on remodeling and renovating my bachelor pad. Now, I am not a handyman. I prefer to hire folks to do this sort of work, as I will make way more money doing other things with my time, like making money online.

One of the first things I wanted to take care of this summer was getting some central AC for my house. I hate sweating, and with summer right around the corner, it was starting to get hot, and therefore I was starting to get sweaty. So a few weeks back, I jumped on to Google and type in a search for “My Hometown Air Conditioning.” To my surprise, the results were bleak.

After numerous different keyword searches, and digging on a bunch of crappy sites, I managed to find a half dozen companies (of which only half got back to me…what crappy service). But it certainly was not easy and if it wasn’t for some of the Google Maps results in the One Box area, I probably would have found even less.

Life Hands You Lemon’s Make Lemonade

Frustrated, cranky, and buzzed from one too many Red Bull and Vodka’s, I had an epiphany - I bet companies offering AC would pay a mint to be listed in a directory of “MY Hometown Air conditioning companies”, that was easy to find on search engines like Google (because it ranked #1 for relevant keyword search terms), easy for users to search for hyper-local AC companies, and where they could solicit quotes from users (and where users could receive multiple quotes.).

I went a little further, did some keyword research about not only AC, but other trades, and then proceeded to drop over $1K on associated domains…all of which had to do with just MY Hometown. Domains in hand, I decided to pitch the idea to the AC representatives who were coming over to give me a quote. The result? Six verbals on a $99.99 per year listing on a directory that is yet to be created, with one company willing to pay up $50 per lead.

Here’s How to Profit From Local Search

In one week, I managed to A) find a huge problem for local searchers, B) find a proposed solution to the problem, C) find someone to pay for the solution to the problem to be created, D) find a customer base, E) corner the marketplace, and F) get my damn AC installed so I can quit sweating.

So how can you do the same thing?

• Go to Google and typing Your Hometown something (something being a trade, place, product, service, etc.)
• Check out competing sites (chances are they suck)
• Use a keyword research tool to find the most popular searches related to “Your Hometown Something”
• Go to a domain registar like Godaddy.com and try to buy all of the direct search phrase and generic domains related to “Your Hometown Something.”
• Build the sites
• Market them
• Contact companies who offer the “Something” with advertising or promotion opportunities
• Put the profits into your Thick Wallet.
• Repeat as many times as needed.

While you might not get rich immediately or from just one site, cornering a local market by leveraging local search traffic on the Google, Yahoo!, and MSN, will eventually be extremely profitable, as at some point every business will have invest in doing business online. If you own all of the top spots, most of these service/trade companies will elect to rent your space as it is more time and cost effect than them learning to build their own presence online and try to out perform your site. Cha-ching!

See ya later millionaire.

It has been a while since I last posted something here, but that is because I have been busy working with a new client on their search engine marketing. This client, and their SEO blunders have prompted me to write this post because it brings up an important fact about search engine optimization and keyword research that beginner and intermediate affiliates, e-commerce companies, and anyone else trying to rank well on Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

You Must Optimize Pages For What People Are Searching For

Not what you think they are searching for…

This is why keyword research is so important. You can spend all the time in world creating a perfectly structured and optimized page for the search phrase “brown work boots” which ranks #1 in Google for the search phrase “brown work boots”, but what if no one is using that search phrase within the search engines or what if there is only 500 searches per month for that term, while some other closely related term is getting 1,500 searches per month?

This is the mistake my client was making. Over and over and over again. They assumed they knew which keyword search phrases their potential customers were using to find their products and services. They never did any keyword research in order find out exactly which keyword phrases their potential customers were using to search for the product and services they sold and which keyword search phrases were more popular than another keyword search phrase.

How to Do Keyword Research For SEO

Completing keyword search phrase research for SEO is fairly simple.

1. Pick a Keyword Research Tool - There are numerous keyword research tools out there. My personal favorites are Keyword Discovery and WordTracker. You can also use some of the free keyword research tools like the SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool and those provided by Google and Yahoo!, but I have had better results with paid keyword research tools due to their greater depth.
2. Decide on Which Page Your Want to Optimize - I would NOT start with your home page, but with one of your sub pages. Most of the time, your home page does not sell anything, and most search engine users will land on one of your product of service pages first.
3. Pick a Keyword Phrase That Describes Your Page - If you are selling a pair of brown work boots, I would use “brown work boots” as a start. Note, if you are selling some else’s product or service, I would include the brand name of the product and service. For example, instead of “brown work boots”, you might be selling “Catepillar brown work boots.”
4. Enter Your Starting Keyword Phrase Into Keyword Research Tool - This is will give you the different keyword search phrases that search engine users are using to find things related to the starting keyword phrase as well as the corresponding traffic.
5. Pick 2-3 Keyword Phrases - Pick 2-3 keyword phrases that have the most traffic and relevance to your product/services starting keyword phrase. For example, the starting keyword phrase of “brown work boots” returned similar keyword phrases such as “brown leather boots”, “tall brown boots”, and “construction work boots” among others. Of the three, “brown leather boots” had the highest number of searches, followed by tall brown boots, and construction work boots. Using this data, you might decided to optimize your page for “brown leather construction boots” or optimize the page for “brown leather boots” “brown work boots” and “brow construction boots”.

Now that you have done proper keyword research, you can now proceed with building content and completing SEO best practices for your page.

So your company has finally put the finishing touches on your affiliate program and you are ready to give live. Now what? While there are many way you can promote your affiliate program, below you will find the 10 best ways to promote your affiliate program for free. These best practices, in addition to paid promotional methods will ensure that your affiliate marketing program gets off on the right foot.

1. Place a Prominent Link on Your Home Page. I can’t tell you how many times I have not signed-up for an affiliate program because I could not find a link to the affiliate program registration page. Make sure you have a link on your website in an area that is easy to find like a sidebar.
2. Write a Press Release. Press releases are a great way to build links and mainstream awareness for your program. Submit your press release for free to sites like PRLeap.com.
3. Email Your Online Network. Remember that online network of contacts I talked about building? Send them an email announcing your program and ask them to write a quick post on their site about the program.
4. Email Exisiting Customers. You never know when someone who loves your product or service might want to promote your product or service as an affiliate.
5. Write an Article About Affiliate Marketing. Pick an affiliate marketing topic, any affiliate marketing topic, and write a solid 750 -1,000 word article about it. Make sure to include link backs to your program in the footer.
6. Start a Blog About Your Affiliate Program. Starting a blog for your affiliate program is something I have spoke about before. It is a great way to brand your company as affiliate marketing experts, deliver best practices to existing affiliates, and to attract potential affiliates.
7. Submit Your Site to Free Affiliate Program Directories. A quick Google search will return a ton fo free directories. Submit your program to all of them.
8. Plug Your Site on Affiliate Forums and Message Boards. DO NOT SPAM the forums and boards, in fact sign-up a few weeks prior to launching your site and start adding value through answering questions and providing insights.
9. Start a Michro-niche Site For Your Affiliate Program. Starting a michro-niche site, one that is solely dedicated to your affiliate program is an excellent way to expand the amount of information you can present about the program. If your company has a large site, it might be easy for the affiliate program to get lost. A michro-niche site keeps the program front and center.
10. Pick up the phone. Call me old fashioned, but direct contacting of potential affiliates for a program has always worked best for me. Don’t wait for them to come to you, pick up the phone and go after them!

Have Any Other Best Practices For Promoting an Affiliate Marketing Program?

I want to hear them! Please feel free to leave them in the comment section below!

Forget about generating sales, what percentage of the affiliates that are in your affiliate program, have never sent a single user to your site/offer from theirs? Go ahead and take a look, you might be surprised.

I recently started working with an existing affiliate company that had previsouly commented about how many affiliates they had (as if that is real proof of success). Boy were they surprised when I told them that over 50% of their affiliates had never sent a single person to their site.

The Importance of Recruiting Affiliates

It is tough to grow an affiliate program when more then half of the affiliates in the program have never promoted it, let alone generated a sale. After spending sometime, reviewing some notes (from the previous poor schlemp), and speaking with some of the affiliates (both driving traffic and revenues, and those who had not done anything) it was evident that those affiliates that had been recruited were the ones performing. As I have said before, affiliate marketing is online sales, and affiliate program management is channel sales management. You have to be proactive in recruiting high-quality affiliates. You have to go after the best. The best, whether it is channel sales or affiliate program management very rarely come to you.

Check Back For Part 2: How to Get Inactive or Underperforming Affiliates to Shine tomorrow!

If it is not the most important factor in the success of your blog, it is definitely in the top 3.

But how many of truly know who are readers are? At best, it is an edicated guess based on feedback or conversations in comments or email exchanges. Traditionally, marketers have always striven to build customer demographic data. If you have never had the pleasure of working with (or for) a large company, then trust me, marketers have EVERY stat about their current customers, and their futures ones. They use it to do a better job of delivering the proper goods, services, and messaging.

Outside of analytics programs, many of which are out of the reach (in terms of price, especially for the analytics programs that actually give in-depth data. Sorry Google Analytics) of most affiliates and bloggers, there are not many choices to get in-depth user/visitor demographics.

This is Where MyBlogLog and Similar Communities Come In

I have been using MyBlogLog for about a month now for the sole reason of checking out who is checking me out. I want to know who it is that is visiting my sites. I want to know who they are, so I can do a better job of writing for them. This sort of “manual demographing” is inefficient and time consuming. Too time consuming for me and I am sure others.

So if communities like MyBlogLog can tell me how many clicks can from a member, where that member came from, and where members clicked to from my site, why couldn’t they sell me a report that contained details about those people who came to my site? Now I don’t want their name or their email. I want their age, sex, occupation, income, education. I don’t want it shown in percentages. There is no need to tell me that JoeUser is 32, male, a CEO, making $500K, with a PHD, I just want to see 30% of users are 18-21, 90% male, 54% self-employed, making a median income of $75, 733 a year, with 80% only having a high scholl diploma. It can be done in a way that protects the privacy of users, but helps marketers like me better connect with my users/visitors.

It’s Not Just MyBlogLog

I believe you will see more and more communities, whether it is known or unknown to members/participants, selling data and demographics to marketers for users coming to their site. For communities, many of whom are struggling to generate revenues (or have not yet figured out how), their biggest assest is their user data. Instead of subjecting users to ads, why not create nice, neat, demographic reports that community members/users can purchase to help them better position their site for the traffic they are receiving from the community.

Of course this WILL NOT work for every community, but one like MyBlogLog, that could potentially account for a nice chunk of a site’s traffic, it would. And done right it would be a win for everyone involved.

A complimentary affiliate is an affiliate whose business and or website compliment (think peanut butter and jelly) your company and affiliate program.

Complimentary Affiliate Example

A great example of a complimentary affiliate would be an affiliate who deals with the hardware aspect of your industry and your affiliate program deals with software and or a service that compliments the affiliates offerings. Customers, in many cases need your service or software in order to make your affiliate hardware function. This complimentary relationship can also reversed. When you think about it, it is pretty easy to find potential complimentary affiliates.

Benefits of Complimentary Affiliates

• Exisiting User Base - Complimentary affiliates typically have an exisiting customer base that will find your product or service useful. This translates to instant sales.
• Value Add - There is a great value add for the complimentary affiliate who provides your product or service to their customers inconjunction with their offer. This makes the recruitment process much easier, because they can easily “see” the synergy.
• Bundles - Customers love bundles. Enough said.
• Power of Partnerships - Although they are “affiliates” complimentary affiliates, due to the nature of the relationship, are more like business partnerships who will indirectly boost your intra-industry status due to the increased exposure across these complimentary channels.

Complimentary Affiliate Summary

A complimentary affiliate is an affiliate whose business and or website compliment your company and affiliate program. A hardware affiliate program could find potential complimnetary affiliates in service and software related websites and businesses. The benefits of complimentary affiliates center on the ability to sell into an existing customer base, deliver a value add to the end customer, capitalize on the bundle effect, and leverage the power of the partnership to gain brand equity across intra-industry channels.

Need more information or have a question about complimentary affiliates? Drop me a line below in the comments section!