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!
  • Find the Plugins at BenSpark.com
• 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.

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While at Affiliate Convention, I took the opportunity to bust out my Flip camera and take some brief footage of the party Paulson Management Group threw at alto in Denver.  I also got some snipits of Heather speaking on various panels during the show.  I have to say, this was actually the first time I used the FlipShare software to compile multiple short videos into one “movie” and upload straight to YouTube from the software.  I wish I’d have been able to add a few more titles in between, but for really simple compilations it works great!

So without further ado, PMG at Affiliate Convention.

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Date: Monday, January 12th, 2009.  Session 5d, 2:00pm.
Session Description: How are videos being used by affiliates and merchants?  A detailed look into how and where they are performing best with suggested hints and tips to drive better click through and conversions. The panel consisted of:

• Marty M. Fahncke, President, FawnKey & Associates (Moderator)
• Michael Jenkins, CEO/Founder, MarketLeverage
• Melissa Salas, Director of Marketing, Buy.com
• Jonathan Stefansky, EVP Sales and Marketing, Qoof

This wasn’t the panel I had planned on going to, but I’m glad I went and checked it out.  There was some interesting factoids dropped and I enjoyed the Twitter going in the background with the anonymous admirer of Melissa asking if she was in the videos.

Bullet Point Review!

• There’s tremendous potential.
• Consider your site when trying to figure out what will work.
• Besides person to person, video is the second highest sales driver.
• ML looked at 2008 as the year of infrastructure.
• Big marketers have taken note of online video.
• In 2007, 59% of internet users watched video online.  In 2008 that skyrocketed to 77%.
• With banner blindness there’s a need for a new type of creative.
• Banners are the lowest performing; video overcomes even the success of text links.
• Give the affiliate a better way to convert.
• Low cost for affiliates – no streaming costs, no hosting costs, widgets are interactive.
• Attention spans are around 3 minutes.
• Content must be engaging and capture the user within 15 seconds.
• Networks and merchants wouldn’t invest in video if it didn’t work.
• Affiliates are very eager to receive the best content for the least work.
• People who are in video now are in it for it’s potential, not the actual of today.
• 77 million unique visitors on YouTube (my notes might be wrong on that, and I didn’t write down if that was per day or per month, but I think it was per day.)
• MLTV raises brand awareness, bloggers talk about it.
• Companies are very sensitive to UCG (User Generated Content).
• DO: think about the shelf life of a video.  Videos about how to do something instead of a hot trend or product will be relevant longer.
• DON’T: set your videos to auto play with sound.  It’s incredibly intrusive, especially if someone’s at work, which is where most people view videos due to faster broadband connections.
• DON’T: go over 3 minutes.
• DO: grab attention within the first 15 seconds.

Points brought up during the Q&A

• Where are things with .tv domains?  They’re increasing in popularity, but they still don’t get near the traffic a .com domain does.
• How do you track this?  Qoof embeds links with the AID and PID for tracking.  Others use view time, page views, how long people stay on the page, etc. to track success.

Once again, Michael Buechele of 11|15 Media blogged about this session for the official Affiliate Summit Blog.  Check out his recap for anything I may have missed while tweeting : Affiliate Summit West 2009 Session Recap – Affiliate Videos: Where Do They Work Best?

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