Free Toolsday for June 10th
OK it’s TECHNICALLY still the 10th here in California, so here’s this week’s free tool.
SEO Quake
is an extension for both Internet Explorer and Firefox. It’s a great tool for webmasters to improve their websites, but also a terrific tool for an affiliate manager doing due diligence on the websites their affiliates list.
My favorite feature is the Whois tool. I use this to check the registrant information on websites on affiliate applications before I approve them. I use the whois data to try to weed out the shadier side of affiliates registering with websites that do not belong to them.
As with most toolbars or extensions, which features you include are completely customizable. Another great feature for the SEM/SEO minded is the page rank button and the other Alexa rankings and Google index numbers.
Of course, there are tons of features of the toolbar that I haven’t even explored! So go check it out at www.SEOquake.com and tell me what your most useful feature of the toolbar is!
Read MoreEarly Bird Price for Affiliate Summit ENDS TODAY
Boston, MA
Want to meet me?! Of course you do! Remember that today is the last day to sign up for Affiliate Summit East 2008 and still get the cheaper Early Bird Pricing. The full conference pass – today only – is just $949 while an Expo Hall Only pass is a very affordable $99. If you’ve been waffling about going, pull the trigger and do it now while it’s still cheap!
After tomorrow, the prices go up to $199 for the expo hall only pass and a whopping $1449 for the full pass. And of course, if you sit on your lazy duff until the last minute, you have to shell out $299 for an expo hall only pass or $1949 for the full conference pass.
There are a lot of great sessions already scheduled and on the agenda for the summit. A full agenda is online already. I’ve already added several to my TripIt account so I can plan out my time, including Sam Harrelson’s Leveraging Social Media, Andy Rodriguez’s Affiliate Marketing Basics for Merchants, and Lisa Picarille’s Content that Kills sessions.
There’s no reason not to save money and really, this is a great event for affiliate marketing professionals – both publishers and advertisers – to network and learn from. So go today and register for Affiliate Summit East 2008 in Boston while you can still get in with the best price!
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In Consideration of Guest Blogging
I’ve had the opportunity to blog as a guest for a few blogs now, and I’ve been approached by other bloggers interested in guest posting on this here blog. It’s a weird subject for me. While it might be nice to put the reigns down every once in awhile and get a fresh take on some content, I also feel like people come here for my opinion. Perhaps that’s self centered of me. But allowing a rival gang member onto my turf makes me uncomfortable.
Perhaps it’s not about rivalry. Perhaps it’s about cooperation towards a shared goal.
When thinking about what to write for a blog that I could guest post on, for some reason I get nervous about that too. My education in writing started out from a very journalistic place, so I feel the need to really write a professional, newspaper quality article when writing for someone else. I don’t feel nearly that amount of pressure when writing for my own blog since this is my publication – I’m solely responsible for it and have no one else but myself to blame for it’s success or failures. So while the exposure of guest blogging for someone else would be a definite pro, the pressure I’d put on myself in crafting the “perfect” article might overwhelm that.
To return to cooperation, it’s always a shared goal when guest blogging. The blog owner gets the benefit of a fresh outlook and a lighter work load while the guest gets the benefit of more exposure of their name and style which might drive some readers to check out their blog as well. There’s always more room for another feed in your feed reader of choice. And as the blog owner, you have complete discretion over what gets posted on your blog – very much like the managing editor of a newspaper or magazine. If the article isn’t up to your own standards, you have the freedom to ask for changes or just reject it outright.
As someone who works full time and then blogs, it’s a bit difficult to consider guest blogging just from a work load standpoint. Working all day, then coming home to develop content for my own blogs AND guest articles is a lot of work. I guess my biggest question is, is it worth the amount of work put in?
So speak up… have you written guest posts for blogs? Do you accept guest articles for your own blog? What have your results been?
Read MoreMerchants to NY Affiliates: Hit the Road!
June is here, which means the “Amazon Tax” law, as it’s been dubbed, is now in effect. Merchants with affiliates residing in New York state will now have to charge tax on orders of customers in New York. In short, the state of NY has decided that affiliates constitute nexus, i.e. a term used to describe whether a business has sufficient presence or activity in a state or other taxing jurisdiction to become subject to the tax(es) of the state or jurisdiction. So now in NY state online retailers with affiliates residing in that state have to charge tax, regardless of where their corporate headquarters actually are. Some good links that explain this better than I ever could are to TechCrunch’s May 14th post and Scott Jangro’s May 22nd podcast.
So many of the larger online merchants with a large number of affiliates in NY have made the decision to drop their affiliates who reside in NY. The great folks over at ABestWeb.com Affiliate Forums have kept a running list of the merchants who’ve dissed their NY affiliates. So if you’re from NY, be aware that these merchants may not approve your application if you apply in the near future.
Sponsor My Wardrobe!
That’s right – I’m whoring myself out for sponsors! As I mentioned awhile ago, I’ll be attending Affiliate Summit East 2008 in Boston this August. This is entirely on my own dime. So I’m looking to soften the costs a bit.
So, space is now available on the back of my shirt! I will be making a custom t-shirt with my logo on the front and YOURS on the back. I will be selling the 5″x2″ logo areas, 10 total. Each area will cost a SUPER CHEAP $15. The shirt will be worn on the first day of Affiliate Summit, guaranteed. The t-shirt itself it simply white. And I will wear my hair up so all logos can be seen!
I am also selling button sponsorship. For $5 you can have a 2.5″ round button of your logo pinned to my messenger bag that I’ll be carrying during the entire conference. Of course, I will also feature your logo here in a blog post as a thanks.
If you’re interested, please contact me at blog@trishalyn.com with “Affiliate Summit Sponsorship” in the subject line.
Read MoreBoston Tips
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
As this is not a travel blog, I have little business posting any travel tips for Boston. However, as many of us are returning to Boston in August for Affiliate Summit East 08, it will be good to know these things for any first-time traveler to the Boston area.
- Boston Cab Co. is the most reliable and easiest to get ahold of when you need a taxi. Keep their number handy – (617) 536-5010. Rates are reasonable for a big city, too.
- Faneuil Hall is pronounced “fan-you-ill” and is home to (among cool historic things) the Hollywood Replica Cheers Bar (complete with gift shop). If you want the original Cheers, it’s in the Beacon Hill district on Beacon St. Faneuil Hall is right in front of Quincy Market, South Market, & North Market. It’ll take probably an afternoon to see everything if you want to just wander around. Very picturesque.
- The Cheers Beer is nothing special, but you do get to keep the glass. I guess that makes it worth $15. The Irish Stew is really good on an overcast Boston day. The Boston Cream Pie was “meh”.
- Delivery.com has HUNDREDS of local places to choose from if you’re too lazy to leave your hotel. A lot have late delivery hours too. Thank you, college town!
- Charlie’s Pizza & Cafe has good burgers (they’re on Delivery.com!)
- There are like a million colleges there – it’s almost ridiculous.
- Duck Boats truly caught my imagination – I wanted to take a Duck Boat tour, but it’s too expensive for my blood (~$32).
- New England Style Clam Chowder eaten IN New England isn’t any better than what we have here in San Francisco. At least not at the Boston Chowda Co. (I tried it at the Prudential Center Food Court).
Boston really is a beautiful coastal city.
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