ASW10 Session: Monetizing Blogs for Affiliate Marketing and SEO
Monday
Jan 25, 2010
Session Description: Learn to maximize affiliate commissions using blogging, increasing your community, and utilizing SEO. The panel consisted of:
- Kristopher B. Jones, President, Pepperjam Network, A GSI Commerce Company (Moderator)
- Drew Bennett, Professional Blogger, BenSpark.com
- John Carcutt, SEO Manager, MediaWhiz
- Tim Jones, Owner, TheRealTimJones.com
- Murray Ross Newlands, Founder, Affiliate Heat
Overall the individual panelists did great jobs answering the questions lobbed at them, but I think as a moderator, perhaps Kris should have come up with some questions more centralized on monetization and less about getting started as a blogger. Overall I did pick up a LOT of tips that WILL help me improve this blog, something I’ve been wanting to do for awhile now!
Bullet Point Review!
- Wordpress is the leader in blogging platforms – so customizable and is clean for SEO out of the box. Few tweaks are necessary.
- Murray noted that he built his brand by doing interviews – those people shared with him & then shared his content and blog with their audiences. That traffic is, by nature, viral & drives more traffic.
- The more you can promote others, the more they’ll promote you.
- The daily interesting content brings people back.
- Engage you visitors! They know there’s a real person there. Connect with people.
- There needs to also be a lot of interaction off your blog in social media and networks.
- Plan categories as you get started and have a good foundation. It will be cleaner than added a ton as you go.
- Most common mistake is messing with little options in WordPress. Make sure to check the box that allows search engines to find you!
- Keep your categories simple.
- Use the free Google Keyword Tool to optimize your blog titles.
- Target keywords in posts.
- Interlink between your posts (there are related link plugins you can use).
- Round up posts every couple weeks that interlink.
- Set up your permalink to be optimized for SEO.
- Great Plugins to Use!
- Do not have tags & categories that are the same – Google will only index one, so you might as well keep things cleaner & simple.
- Lots of guest posts (title & link back with terms).
- Deep link – don’t just link to your home page.
- If someone is linking to a page, make sure their page is related. It matters in calculating link popularity.
- Places to help monetize your blog:
- Traditional affiliate networks
- Contextual (AdSense)
- Inline text (Skimlinks)
- Widgets
- Paid links that pass link juice like Text-Link-Ads
- Paid per Post
- CPA
- CPM
- Maintain your credibility
- Build your brand.
- Generate your own products to sell
- Integrate product feeds
- Remember offline avenues.
Points brought up during the Q&A
What’s a good host to recommend?
- Dreamhost
- How do you use feeds?
- End of the blog post.
- Using plugins like GoldenCan, PhPBay, Popshops
- Good for targeted match
- How do you get stuff from a company to blog about?
- Just ask. The worst answer you can get is ‘no’.
- Have a plan & be able to show traffic & data to help convince them of the merit.
- How do you feel about building a blog around a brand?
- You’re going to run out of content.
- The more specific you are, the better.
- You do have to compete with the actual brand’s official social media or blogging efforts.
- Attempt to connect with the brand to get their involvement.
- Show the product in action via video and photos.
- Is it more important to build a double opt-in list?
- Your ultimate goal is to build a community, however you can do it.
- You kind of need to do all of it; long term you need to just provide great, consistent value.
- What are good tools to track more relevant mentions?
- Social Oomph.com
- Trackur
- StartPR.com
- Google alert for your URL (add the Http://)
- Where do you see the future?
- Podcasting is still valuable
- Video
- Integration with social networking
Overall I wish they would have gotten past the intro to blogging stuff and right to the nitty gritty of monetization, but still great speakers.
California Association of Realtors Expo THIS WEEK!
Monday
Oct 8, 2007
Realtors® in California, come on down! You’re the next contestant on Name That Expo! Yes, it’s finally here.. the California Association of Realtors® Expo starts tomorrow at the Anaheim City Convention Center in lovely Anaheim, CA. Weather.com predicts highs between 75°F and 78°F for the three day convention, two of which I’ll be in attendance.
From the CAR.org website: CALIFORNIA REALTOR® EXP0 2007, the state’s largest real estate trade show, draws thousands of California’s key franchise execs, top producers, and movers and shakers every year for educational, networking and professional development opportunities.In addition, hundreds of top industry vendors
(like PsPrint) and service providers showcase their latest products and information in the Exhibit Hall. And, a special pre-EXPO event, Tech Tuesday, features a full day of comprehensive training geared toward assisting today’s REALTOR® to stay on the cutting edge of real estate technology.
This should be a good event. I’ll be up here in Oakland staffing our virtual booth for eComXpo tomorrow, then jetting down tomorrow night to relieve our senior marketing director of booth duties and taking over Wednesday and Thursday. Not a lot of seminars this time around that I’m overly interested in, but I will be attending a seminar called Brand Yourself: Podcasting, Vodcasting and Vidmail and another later that same day called Feng Shui: Top Secrets (okay… admittedly that one is just for my own personal enlightenment). Most of my time will be spent schmoozing in our booth. I’d tell you the booth number so you could stop by and say Hi, but then I’d have to kill you.
Okay, I really can’t remember it and there’s nothing on CAR’s website that has a map of exhibitors or anything. That being said, seek us out! A little birdie told me that prizes in the genre of gift cards, booze, and the Apple (and not the fruit) variety may grace our booth so we’ll make it worth your time.
Pulling double duty on trade shows this week, I’ll be taking the laptop with me and blogging with a recap of the show as well. Wish me luck!
