Merry Christmas everyone. Since it is Christmas day, I thought I post something special for everyone today and I'll be talking about Blog commenting today. If you're a blogger, you may have already realized that there has been an increase in the number of spam in your blogs. Mostly it's really just other people trying to post links of their website into yours. Why is that? And what for?
This whole buzz recently on the internet is really all due to the buzz that some of the webmasters started passing the words to others that "blog commenting" really helps optimize your search engine listings. Well, whoever started this saying really is not very knowledgeable about how SEO works. Most blogs, like blogger that I'm using and Wordpress uses a tag called the "no follow" tag embedded within its source code by default. What this does is no matter how many links that you have posted in your comment toward another blogger's comment box, the search engine will not pick it up! In another words, link it all you want it will not help your site in optimization a single bit.
Unless the blog that you comment do have that particular code & line changed or modified to make it where it is now a "do follow" tag, search engines will never pick up those comments ever! The next question that follows is, "how do I know if the blog has a no comment or a do comment tag to their blog?" The answer to that is, you simply don't know! Unless you dig through the blog where they actually have a post that states it or others that passes you the word that it has a "do follow" tag, it really is a hassle to just dig through a single blog just for the purpose of one link. Mean while, let's say that people have compiled a list of "do follow" blogs what do you think about it? Yes, everyone will comment on those blogs thus making it a link farm site. Google hates those type of sites and once they blacklist it not only will it not help your site but hurt your site because it is linked there.
Trust me guys, it's a lot more risk involved then positive impact toward your site or blog. Do your link building with other proven methods, it's probably the best way to achieve success for your sites!
For those of you that have been following my blog, you will notice that I've talked quite a bit about affiliate marketing recently. I do however want to provide a disclaimer beforehand and apologize about the video quality today due to the mic problems that I have been having. Without further due, let's jump right into the topic.
Now affiliate marketing has been the hot topic that I hear a lot of people talking about recently. Some have really made a real fortune out of it and some may get skeptical but I have personally witnessed a trusted guy I know making $12000 from it. Before you get too excited about it I want to say that it is a very lucrative field! Meaning that it will take some initial investment in it and I'm not talking about $50 or even $100. You'll probably be testing out with at least $200 or more to really see some results. I have to first say that it's not for everyone, after all there are only a few that's willing to invest $200 upfront without a guarantee return. However if you are willing to invest your time to test different campaigns out, the reward is handsome.
Let me just briefly explain how this process works. The chart below is something I've made really quickly to sum everything up in a nutshell.
Guy or company wanting to sell their product or service -> Affiliate companies -> Affiliate marketers
Each of the guys will get a split of the profit. So let's say that I'm a guy who wants to sell remote controls over the internet for $30 and however I don't have time to promote my product, I can go to a promotional companies such as an affiliate company. These companies are pretty much guys who claim that they can sell products for people for a living, in term they take a cut in the profit in every sale. So for example if I want $30 per remote control and the fee per sale was $15, then it's likely that I would like the sales price for these guys to sell them at $45.
So, in theory I will get $30 per sale on remote control and these affiliate companies will make $15 per sale at a sales price of $45 per remote control. How do these affiliate companies really make that $15 per sale? Obviously they in term hunt for potential affiliate marketers or current affiliate marketers like you and I to sale these products for them and in term split their $15 in profit with us. Now, how this split really varies between various affiliate companies. Some may split their profit with you more while others less, and there are some that just doesn't pay.
If you think you have the knowledge or is capable of selling on the internet for a product that you know really well about or the fact that you're just a good salesman, being an affiliate marketer is not a bad place to be. Having pushed sales as an affiliate marketer, below are a couple sites that I would recommend joining if you're thinking of jumping into this industry.
1. Azoogleads - These guys are probably one of the best affiliate marketing companies around in my opinion. Beside that they are one of the bigger affiliate companies around, they always pay on time! Now that may sound silly to some of you but some of these affiliate companies will actually delay payments to their affiliates. From my experience not only do Azoogle pay on time they are usually the ones offering one of the industries highest pay rate per product sales. The account rep they assign to you is usually very helpful and that's always a plus in this industry. Because if you have questions you can always call them personally or e-mail them for help. If you would like to try, here's the link to go to them
2. Clickbank - Similar to Azoogleads, Clickbank is a decent sized affiliate companies around. A lot of their products which they provide affiliate marketers to sale are usually niched toward web content based products such as Ebooks. Personally I'm not a big fan of Ebooks so I haven't given these guys a try for too long but I've heard great things about this company and their support so if you are interested in joining them, CLICK HERE!
3. Neverblueads - The guys from Neverblueads provide decent payouts similar to the top two that I've mentioned but one of the things that they specializes on is in incentivized offers. What it means is that the affiliate marketers can actually pay people to sign up for certain products. In another words affiliate marketers are able to pay users to sign up certain products to make money. Neverblueads has actually quite a bit of these products and if you are interested on incentivized offers, they're not a bad choice to go into. You can join them here!
4. Commission Junction - They are the biggest affiliate marketing companies around that I know of as to date. They promote for a lot of well known companies including Yahoo and Best Buy. They are one of the most stable companies around with a large selection of database in products that you can promote. The problem with them is that they often delay their payments due to product verification purposes. Although by nature, there's nothing wrong with this process I have talked to some folks who have had problems with them in the past on payments. I wouldn't personally recommend them because of my lack of experiences with their products. However if you prefer joining this industry with one of the biggest guys around, they will be your go to guy. You can join them here!
We'll talk about simple promotional ideas some other time, but why don't you guys check these affiliate companies out? By joining a good affiliate company makes it a good start in your journey onto affiliate marketing. With smart promotion, that's how you make money smart. -Swapw
I don't understand why, I have noticed that a lot of reputable bloggers are all jumping into promoting Widgetbucks before actually reviewing the product in its entirety including Problogger Darren Rowse. I am a bit sick and tired of these reputable bloggers that are just trying to suck money out of their visitors by giving false or untested reviews of products so visitors are signing up under their affiliate link for them to earn a few bucks.
Bad take on their end to sacrifice reputation for a quick buck or two. What I personally like to do is actually use the product first before promoting them, so here's my honest review of Widgetbucks.
In short, I don't feel that they are a legitimate company and they do seem to fall under the categories of what I called a scam. At its first looks, I have noticed that there are claims by Widgetbucks that they are actually comparable to Google Adsense. Now, if anyone were to tell you that they are at par with Google Adsense this is definitely a red flag!! It's like a small fish saying that I eat sharks along with us humans.
With my pre-judgments aside, I have went ahead and test them out by implementing their widget onto my website. After a few days later I have realized that not one, not two, "ALL" of their ads are the same. Technical knowledge aside, are you interested in the same advertisements over and over? Even if you were interested at it the first time, are you interested in it at a second time? Chances are the answer is no. It is clearly reflective on the click rates of my experiment as well. The original advertisement that I was getting a 1-2% click rate now drops down to less then 1%.
Now waiting for a few additional weeks, I have noticed that Widgetbucks practice what is known as backdating. Something that is prohibited by Wallstreet which has gotten a lot of stock brokers locked up in jail and Widgetbucks is doing the exact same thing. Not only did they reduce my rate per click to 30% of the original pay rate, they have backdated all of my earnings from the first day that I have signed up with them. This is fraud!!!
To test out their customer service, I have went ahead and called the customer service line which promises to return all requests within 24 hours. Not only did I not get a response, after 48 hours there's no call no e-mail from them. What this has demonstrated to me is that this is another program which will turn out to be something scam oriented with red flags signaled everywhere. So if you are hyped to join Widgetbucks because of bloggers or webmasters wanting to join their affiliate links, be careful out there. Making money smart sometimes doesn't mean jumping on the bandwagon first but to jump in at the right timing! -Swapw
A lot of times I see SEO or Online Money Making Bloggers keep telling people to focus in advertisement of some sort as an effective way to increase traffic, this is great and all but a lot of times they fail to point out way to retain your traffic which is really the heart of the problem.
Advertisements get you the traffic but to keep the traffic that has came to your site is how well you retain and understand your visitors. For example, when you purchase a computer such as Dell obviously the functionality and how well Dell present its computers to you is very important in making your final decision. However, it is how Dell service you afterwards that retain you as a customer of a lifetime not more advertisements. Let's just say that their customer service is horrible, do you think anyone would go back to Dell although new and fancier advertisements are being presented? Most likely not.
If you consistently get new traffic from different venues of promoting your site, imagine the magnitude of loyal visitors if you keep them all happy? I can tell you as an experienced webmaster that the growth is exponential. Now the next question that you may have in your mind is how do you keep your current visitors happy? The answer to that is simply survey or ask your visitors! You might think, why should I ask my visitors or why would your visitors help you right? Surprisingly enough, from my personal experience visitors are quite informative in telling you exactly what they want and how they want it if you just take the time to ask. An example of a simple survey would be, "what would you prefer to see on my website?" then you offer them different choices that you have in mind and leave the last option up to them to provide a feedback to. Put the survey out for let's say a month, it's probably a good amount of time and most of your loyal readers have probably seen or given you inputs then. Just by looking at the result you can see exactly what's needed to be done in terms of your focus or the needs your visitors coming to your website.
Believe me guys, this advise is golden. A survey takes you only 5 minutes to make, but the impact can fair well steer your site's future as well as improvements based on suggestions directly from your visitors. Making money online a lot of times it is similar to your real life businesses, if you understand your visitors better then your competitors you would then leap out as the leader of the pack instead of a follower or a copy cat. -Swapw
I am a 28 years old entrepreneur on the internet and a partner of an international consulting company. I currently resides in CA, US and I enjoy bloggging in my spare time about money making online. As I continue to learn continuously, I try my very best to share with my readers everything that I have learned.
