A discussion of earning with Affiliate Programs, SEO, Wordpress Blogging and General Motivational Ideas for Internet Publishers

Today’s blog post came to mind after reading about a new social networking site that is similar to Digg. I went to the site thinkng I might find something fresh and new but all I found was a copycat and clone site that exhibited my #1 most hated thing on the internet. Immediately I was stricken with the urge to blog about my experience but lately I’ve been following a tip from ProBlogger Darren Rowse, Planning Your Posting Schedule. In particular, I’ve been resisting the tempation for impulse blogging, instead choosing to spend a little more time crafting a readable, original post with a carefully chosen title that will draw more readers. Generally speaking, I’ve noticed an increase in readership as well as conversions on my affiliate programs since I’ve been following the technique of writing blog posts as if I were writing articles for publication in a newspaper or magazine. Considering the fact I spent several years as the Editor of a Travel magazine, it should be second nature to me. However, more often than not, bloggers are known for "quantity over quality". Whenever I ponder the concept of quality vs. quantity, I remember reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert M. Pirsig in which he explores the "Metaphysics of quality".

Now that I’ve given a grandiose introduction into todays meditations, without further ado, here the Top 10 Things I Hate at the Moment.

10. Inline text ads such as the ones from AdBrite, Vibrant Media or Kontera that place advertising links on your content. Link navigation is one of the most important ascpect of internet use and disguising ads as hyperlinks is just lame. I personally blacklist and never return to sites that use them.

09. Blogs with “nofollow” settings on the comments. This is a sure way to stop me from subscribing to a blog because if the blogger is more concerned with milking their PageRank by using “nofollow” on their comments, then I don’t want to conribute. Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger site comes to mind as one such blog that exists only to milk even though Google Guru Matt Cutts has taken the oposite approach. (note: I used “nofollow” on the link to Darren’s blog above, just like I do to Wikipedia links)

08. Blogs that offer a link for scratching their backs. If you read my John Chow article, you’ll know about his offer to remove the “nofollow” on comments for anybody who paid him $10 per month. Once again, ProBlogger comes to mind with his encouraging readers to comment with the offer of giving a backlink to the most active commentors on his blog. Talk about encouraging spam comments.

07. Blogs that offer to “review” your website or blog for a fee. This is just plain stupid crass commercialism. Google already cracked the whip on selling text links to pass PageRank, unfortunately they stated “natural links shoud come from editorial reviews”, which only opened another can of worms for sleazy marketers to fish for newbies wallets.

06. ClickBank and PayDotCom E-Book sales pages. One wouldu think these “savvy” internet marketers would finally come up with new designs and implementations for selling their crummy E-Book products. Most of these troglodytes crawled out of MLM world where evolution means writing a new sales pitch using reworded copy.

05. Viral Marketing gurus who think you want to receive email from them every day. The Death of Adsense comes to mind on this one. I’m still recieveing spam email from the scummy marketer behind DoA, Scott Boulch, who still has yet to reveal any secrets to increasing income although in every spam email email is full of great sounding “lead in” hype.

04. Moneymaker blogs hosted on free blog hosting services. If you can’t afford $10 for a domain name ($2.99 got a .info domainthrough goDaddy) and a few dollars per month for hosting your blog, obviosuly there’s nothing there’s nothing worth reading on your blog. When I search Technorati for topics and I click into a Blogger hosted blog, I almost always immediately click the back button on my browser.

03. Twitter.com and other “social retard” sites that claim they are “social networking” but in reality it’s just a bunch of losers with nothing better to do with their spare time when they’re not watching YouTube videos or playing on MySpace. I’m sorry, but Twitter is just a stupid time-wasting concept.

02. Comment spammers. I will never understand why some idiots think that spamming your blog comments with ads for pharmecuticals or pornography sites will actually ever get posted. Not only are these morons wasting their own time, they’re wasting your time with their stupidity.

01. The DriveCleaner popup that resizes your browser window and pops up a windows that says your computer is infected. This one is the top thing I hate and the reason for todays post. I visited the digg-esque site shoutwire.com and was greeted by a drivecleaner popup. Needless to say I will not be visiting shoutwire or using their services any time soon.

Well, there you it. Just a short list of my peeves with the internet and blogging community. If anybody would care to add some more annoyances and nuisances to this list, feel free to use the comment form. This blog doesn’t use the “nofollow” tag on comments, instead I moderate which comments are useful or helpful in the same manner as Matt Cutts.

Oh, and if you’re wondering about the clever little graphic that’s accompanying this post, it’s a combo from two movies I particularly like. The first is a movie called 10 Things I Hate About You which is a loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew set in a modern American high school. The second image is from one of my all time favorite movies Hedwig and the Angry Inch which is about a fictional rock and roll band fronted by an East German transgendertransgender singer. It’s classic stuff !!!

Footnotes and External Links:
Official Hedwig and the Angry Inch site http://www.get-hed.com/
Wiki on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

         

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Many bloggers are aware of the self-proclaimed online marketing guru John Chow and his "stop at nothing" blogging tactics. The tagline on his blog : Dot Com Mogul John Chow teaches blogger how to make money online by turning their blog into a money making machine. Although John Chow’s blog rates amongst the highest trafficed websites and has an Alexa Ranking in the top 3000, suprisingly, a search of Google for his name does not yield a single result for his site JohnChow.com which, incedentally, is the first listing in every other major search engine if you search for his name. Does this mean the folks at Google are blacklisting Chow by removing his site entirely from their index because he did something that angered the Google Gods? What is it that caused his fall from top rankings in Google while he has still been maintaining presence in the other major search engines?

Go back in time to December 2006 when John Chow started a very aggressive linking campaign in which he offered fellow bloggers a backlink from his blog in exchange for a review of his blog that included a link to Chow’s blog with the anchor text "make money online". While this in itself doesn’t seem to be anything more than a clever strategy to build backlinks, evidently Google did not think it was so creative. Other well known bloggers such as Darren Rowse of ProBlogger fame and Jeremy Schoemaker of ShoeMoney are well known for their "linkbaiting" techniques and their similar approach as John Chow. Each one has shown pictures of paychecks they have earned from blogging which is essentially an old MLM trick (show the people the checks and they’ll follow you down any dark alley) which I personally find to be a shady business practice and just tacky. All three bloggers have been known for encouraging readers to add them to their Technorati favorites which boosts their Technorati ranking and adds to their blog’s valuation for on-site advertising. See the Advertise on ProBlogger page where they openly state "ProBlogger.net has become synonymous with making money through blogging and has grown a loyal and influential readership." and openly cites the blog being in the Top 10 on Technorati’s Favorites page and being in the Top 50 of Technorati’s Most Popular page. Does this really matter to potential advertisers? Do claims such as 25000+ daily RSS readers, a Google PageRank of 6 or an Alexa Ranking in the top 3000 really increase the value of an advertisment on a blog or website? Sure they do and anybody who thinks otherwise is in the dark. Does that mean the advertising dollar will be worthwhile? Probably not. Anybody with a background in advertising knows that high priced advertising slots are merely for "Brand Recognition" which is the reason the big corporate firms compete for slots on television during the Superbowl. It doesn’t mean they will necessarily sell more product, but it does implant a seed in the subconscious of the general public that the company is a leader in the field. On the internet, high visibility doesn’t translate into sales, conversions or guarantee desirable clicks.While the approaches of the three bloggers mentioned may differ at various junctures, the end result is the same, increase PageRank, visibility and viability to pump up advertising revenue.

Recently, Google announced a crackdown on buying and selling text links to pass PageRank, which essentially put a dent into the services provided by sites such as Text-Link-Ads. The impact was also felt by John Chow. While John’s own site doesn’t show up in the first several pages of Google search numerous others have been quick to profit from his misfortune. Here’s a snapshot of Google results for the search term "John chow"

The blogging community is divided on the subject of the battle between Google and John Chow. Some claiming what John Chow is/was doing to be wrong, while others claiming Google’s behaviour to be unethical. I personally find it humourous that paid sponsor links are appearing in AdWords targeting a blogger who has been already rebuked for using questionable marketing tactics. Seems like an oxymoron to me especially when Google themselves are the biggest purveyors of text link ads on the internet. Google’s Matt Cutts is quick to defend Google’s text link sales through AdWords as exclusively for advertising value and not to pass the coveted PageRank but who needs PageRank if your site is coming up first in Google’s listings because you paid for it to be there? It seems like pretzel logic to me or possibly a hint that Google would rather keep webmasters from making any profit that doesn’t involve them. I am a big fan of Google as a company, all the services they offer and I happily run AdSense ads on my sites. The only complaint I have is with Adsense, often times I’ve seen questionable AdSense ads displayed on my sites such as ones from pyramid or ponzi scheme programs who targeted keywords such as affiliate, marketing, etc. For example, the following ad has been running in the AdSense on this site for the last few days…

This is obviously for a pyramid scheme… I feel if Google is to hold bloggers or webmasters such as John Chow accountable for the content (or links) on their websites, they should also be a little more responsible for KYC (Know your Customer) and TIA (Truth in Advertising). As a publisher, I have no control over what is displayed through AdSense. However, if Google is going to take the time to single out and make an example of a blogger such as John Chow for agressive linkbuilding and sleazy marketing practices, they should also take the time to check out their advertisers. This applies especially when they are placing and profiting from questionable advertisments on third-party websites that may or may not lead to consumers becoming the victims of fraudulent internet schemes.

While the whole John Chow affair is probably meant to be an example to other publishers regarding integrity and compliance with guidelines set by Google, my personal opinion is that two wrongs don’t make a right. John Chow is well known for openly stating "Dont put your eggs in one basket" and it is very clear that regardless of his annoying and obnoxious approach to business, he is right about that one particular business ethic. Any entity that has such a large share of a public commodity (such as internet searches), who takes matters to a personal level and purposely sabotages another entity becomes potetentially hazardous to do business with for everyone. Especially when they take advertising dollars from other, even sleazier entities who are seeking to exploit the situation for their own personal gain.

Let this be a lesson well learned by the blogging community. God is Dead. Your lives are insignificant. Only Google’s guidelines matter. Throw away your Bible, boot up your internet browser (preferrably Firefox) and whisper a prayer on bended knee in hope that one day you don’t come under the microscopic eye of the almighty.

…and in the meantime, while you’re waiting for the second coming, just remember the eleventh commandment : Don’t be a John Chow.

         

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Do you ever feel like you’re living in an Episode of Lost when trying to find an audience for your blog or website? Don’t worry, you’re not the only one who feels or has felt this way at some point in their publishing career. All webmasters experience a sense of their efforts leading to futility, generally within the first 6 months to year of developing a website. The truth is, great websites are not built overnight and to achieve success in this competitive marketplace you must have patience and perseverence and never give up. Here are a few tips and motivational ideas I’d like to share with those of you who might be feeling the old webmaster blues.

1. Don’t be afraid to experiment with new methods of attracting an audience to your website. If you’re results are not meeting up to your expectations, you are obviously not making the right efforts to attract your audience. Don’t waste time spinning your wheels with the engine in neutral, put it into gear and take a drive down a new unexplored road. Whenever you feel you’ve exhausted all possibilities, try something new and keep trying and then try some more.

2. If you are “niche marketing“, read other blogs and visit websites that are outside of your “niche market” to gain ideas and inspiration. Don’t just focus on blogs or websites that you consider competition, look outside the window and think outside of the box. If you are targeting keywords in the search engines, try targeting phrases and search patterns rather than targeting the obvious.

3. Remember that your audience is a worldwide audience. Unless your publishing efforts are focused to a specific demographic, the chances are your readers will be from all over the world. The beauty of the internet is that it allows people who would normally never have an opportunity to meet in real life to meet interesting people from all over the planet and exchange ideas. Devote some time to exploring other cultures as part of your marketing research and use the experience to foster a global audience to your blog or website.

4. Be helpful and courteous to your fellow bloggers and webmasters. If you have a particular strength, freely share it with other bloggers and webmasters. This could include helping somebody on a forum who has a question about Wordpress themes, or just leaving helpful comments on another blogger’s blog. This may seem obvious, however many webmasters make the mistake of not taking the time to do the simplest things, such as leaving a nice comment for somebody who has taken the time to write an article that has inspired or enlightened you.

5. If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Most of us learned this lesson from the movie Bambi, however on the internet people seem to more often than not take advantage of the anonymous nature and use it as a soapbox to dish out negativity. Unless it is absulutely necessary, negativity is best to be avoided because not only is it counter-productive, it is also infectous and can spread not unlike a virus. If you wish to be successful, keeping a positive mental attitude is essential and negativity is to be avoided.

6. Be yourself and get personal with your audience. Many of the most popular bloggers take the time to get personal with their audiences, and if you’re authoring your site as if you were posting robot your efforts will seem mechanical and people will not bother to bookmark your site or add it to their favorites. We all have different experiences in life and sharing bits and pieces of your personality with readers will allow them to get to know you and will keep them coming back to see what you have to say.

7. Never give up. This is my most important tip for you. The old adage “It’s always darkest before the dawn” certainly rings true in the blogosphere and webmaster world. Many times when I’ve felt like throwing in the towel and giving up on my dreams, something positive happens to rekindle my spirits and reawaken my sense of creativity and spontaneity. Think where this world would be if Dr. Jonas Salk had given up on developing a polio vaccine or if Bill Gates or Steve Jobs had given up on the dream that everyone would have a computer some day. You don’t have to be a guru or a visionary to achieve success, you just have to keep plugging away and never give up your dreams.

Well, I hope if you’ve read this article, you might have taken away something inspirational from it and if you were feeling the webmaster blues, hopefully this has cheered you up a bit.

Happy Memorial Day to everbody !!

         

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