It seems like everyone these days has a blog. Once upon a time, every angst filled teenager had a LiveJournal, a GreatestJournal, a DeadJournal, et cetera. Then, little by little, they moved onto MySpace and Facebook. Now, however, whether it is through Wordpress or Blogspot, everyone has moved onto blogs. In some cases, these are still just places to rant and run off at the mouth — or fingers, as it were.
However, a lot of people are realizing that you can make money with your blog. They simply aren’t sure how to do it, let along how to get started. Given the troubled economy, though, this can rake in quite a bit of extra money — if you know how to do it correctly, of course.
That is thus going to be the focus of this next series: how to make money with your blog, easily.
When you are selling a blog, trying to bring attention to it, you have to treat it like any other product – and that means PR. You want people to know about your web site. You have to tell them about it. You can submit posts to social bookmarking sites for starters, not just the popular sites like Delicious, Digg, and StumbleUpon, but also lesser known bookmarking pages.
You also need to address the press. This can mean writing a Press Release – or hiring someone to do so – and having it submitted to sites like Squidoo. It can also mean actually talking to the press, and finding out if they’ve seen your site, directing them to it if they haven’t. It doesn’t necessarily have to be journalists at the New York Times or anything like that, of course – though the online publications for such news outlets is a possibility.
Now we are going to talk about RSS feeds, which are increasingly popular. Providing a good one can drive a whole lot of traffic to your blog.
RSS can mean two things: Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. Whatever you call it, it is basically a light XML format used to distribute news on the internet. For you, the blogger, it means that other sites will be able to distribute your news and the content on your blog easily as well. RSS feeds are also indexed by search engines, so you can ask them to link to your site.
You need to be careful about the sites with whom you share links, though. Google especially has high standards. For instance, if you link to web sites which are no longer listed, then Google could remove your site from their index as well. So, just make sure to keep up with maintenance and check on your links every once in a while.
Always make sure you are sharing links with quality places too. That can lead to a huge Page Rank for your site. Remember, if Google finds out that you’re just trading links with other sites simply because you want a better ranking, your site could get blacklisted.
Now, web directories can only do so much. Advertising your blog falls primarily on your shoulders, and you have to take responsibility for that. So, get your blog’s address out there wherever you possibly can. Any piece of communication you put out there, your blog needs to show up on it somewhere. Write up an About Us page, get a press release done, and most of all, advertise your blog yourself. Make sure the link shows up on your business cards, your letterhead, your fax cover sheets, and in all of your email signatures. In addition to getting a press release, think about having a brochure put together as well. You should also think about creating a monthly newsletter. That way, you can let people know what is new or simply noteworthy. Most of all, it will remind people that your blog is there, and you will be encouraging them to visit.
Unless you are just blogging for your own personal enjoyment, you want to get your blog out there – especially if you are doing it to get paid. That can be hard, especially if you aren’t really sure what to do. So it is definitely worth it to take a look at some strategies to get your blog out there – and to improve your page rank.
First and foremost, you need to concern yourself with the blog itself. You have to have as much useful, relevant, and high quality information as you can possibly create. Furthermore, it needs to be something that users not only want to read themselves, they should want to share it with other people as well. One of the ways you can draw people in is to start submitting your blog to as many web directories and reference sites as you can. This includes Google, naturally, because Google’s PR is as important in the scheme of things as Google itself. You can also submit your blog to places like Open Directory Project, or ODP, Yahoo!, and LookSmart, as well as sites like Wikipedia and other blogs.
There are a number of strategies you need to follow when learning and implementing blog link advertising. The most important of these involve relevancy. So many people are into black hat tactics these days. They prefer to stuff keywords and links into places where they do not fit. They will hide links, or cut corners by placing linked-in comments into forums and other blogs, which does not really advertise effectively at all.
Remember: relevance is key. Your links and your texts need to go together perfectly. Moreover, they need to have some impact on the subject, whatever it may be at the time.
Blogging for fun is one thing. Blogging for money is another. A lot of us are used to blogging as a means of personal expression. For those of us just getting into the whole idea of professional blogging and blog link advertising, the concepts can be seriously out of reach. It sounds like another language — SEO, white hat tactics, black hat tactics, keyword ratio, et cetera. This is not an industry for the faint of heart and if you don’t learn how to do things correctly, you’re not going to see a penny — or get any advertising done.
You need to promote yourself and promote your site. How? Well, stay tuned for that. There are a number of things you can do to get yourself and your site out there, and to pique the interest of your readers. Blog link advertising is without a doubt one of the best ways, but it is by no means the only way.
If you are purchasing sponsored blog posts from various services or directly from the blogger, here’s a tip to maximize those advertising dollars. Once your post has been made, navigate to the entry and Digg it, Stumble it, and post it to del.icio.us.
These simple steps will help get this particular page indexed with Google and thus increase the value of those inbound links to your website.
Some bloggers employ sketchy techniques that nullify the value of your sponsored blog entry once it rotates off their blog homepage. By using the social bookmarks mentioned above (Digg, Stumble Upon, del.icio.us), this will help you retain value from that entry for the life of the blog.
“The Customer Rules.” These three words speak volumes in business. Customer communication, service and loyalty are the goals of every marketing campaign.
And nothing delights a business owner more than a satisfied customer. In fact, they are so satisfied with the product or service they purchased that they want to tell the world about it.
Customer testimonials are extracted from letters, e-mails. They are impressive; displayed on websites as text, audio or video. But can your visitors be certain that the testimonials are true?
Now they can, when you use Authenticated Testimonials it adds more power to the message. How? Because they are evaluated by an established firm who is an unbiased third party.
The “Authenticated Testimonials” seal assures your visitors that what they are reading about your company, product or service has been verified and is truthful. Now, the Customer REALLY Rules.
Imagine this: you are looking for a product, service or a piece of information you need for your million dollar project.
You’re searching online and come across what might be the answer, but you don’t know the company. Hmmm, what to do? Aha-you think, let me ask Joe, he might know them.
You: Ring, ring: Hello? - Hey Joe, have you heard about the TQV company that sells blog widgets?
Joe: Nope, never heard of them, I use HLM Widgets Unlimited and they’re great! Fast service and reasonable price.
You: Wow–are they online? What’s the URL?
Joe: Oh yeah, very cool site too-www.HLMWidgets.com
You: Awesome! Thanks Joe, you’re the best!
That my friends, is the essence of what Bzz Agent is all about: it helps you harness the power of word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing in an organized way. It brings the right brands together with the right consumers to enhance traditional media buys.
Advertising can build awareness about your brand, but when one person recommends it to another person, your brand gains credibility. The results are powerful when traditional and new media work together: trial, purchase, adoption and commitment.
Plus 40% of WOM conversations include a reference to another form of media which means a lot more exposure for everyone. If you are ready to promote your brand, better get some WOM-BA going.
I've been working on my presentation, but it lacked a compelling case study that illustrated how a community organization had used search engine optimization and YouTube video to generate measurable results. I had planned to show examples of videos created by Barack Obama's presidential campaign, Monty Python, and Blendtec, but plans have a way of changing.
NACA is organizing a series of Save the Dream events to help homeowners avoid foreclosure, restructure home loans, and reduce mortgage rates. They have already held events in Columbia, SC, Stamford, CT, and Washington, DC. And NACA plans to hold more Save the Dream events in Cleveland, OH, July 17 - 20 at the Wolstein Center; Chicago, IL, July 24 - 27 at McCormick Place; and St. Louis, MO, July 31 - August 3 at Chaifetz Arena.
Although I don't have my case study wrapped up just yet, I do see one in the making. And it offers lots of lessons to search engine marketers, YouTube directors and entrepreneurs about how to create unique, relevant content that can quickly gain popularity in the Internet community.
But we also embedded a documentary video created by DigiNovations of Concord, MA, in the optimized press release. It provides background on NACA's Save the Dream program, which has helped homeowners across America restructure and renegotiate home mortgages and home loans they can no longer afford.
Now, the press conference hasn't even been held yet -- and the Save the Dream event in Cleveland is still two weeks away. But I was stunned yesterday when one Twitter user near Memphis, TN, said "this is fantastic news" but she couldn't afford to wait, had called NACA and was "on hold" waiting to talk with someone.
I initially tweeted back that NACA will have over 500 staff and volunteers at the Wolstein Center in Cleveland, including over 250 counselors providing counseling from 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. from Friday July 17 through Monday July 20. Then, I realized that this information wasn't helpful today, this minute, now. So, I sent her a direct tweet with the cell phone number of the person I was working with at NACA -- in case she needed it.
I got a direct tweet back saying, "Thanks for the info... my process is well underway - so I'm all set (I hope!)"
So, something extraordinary is happening. And as I prepare for my presentation at SES San Jose 2009, I hope you won't mind if I share the story as it unfolds. That's one of the lessons I've already learned: You can't plan a search campaign and expect the community to wait to respond when you are ready -- especially if you are offering an answer to the huge subprime and predatory lending industry.
This is bigger than a case study. This is people's homes.
Here's why. FriendFeed is a social aggregator. It's a one-stop shop to check and update a bunch of different networks, blogs, etc. Now, you can search all of that in real-time.
The drawback? It only searches what people submit to FriendFeed. Whoever does that can basically say "Check" in the chess match of social real-time search.
Still, this is a tremendous step in that direction. Even better, FriendFeed has released an embeddable real-time search widget you can put on your website.
What do you think of FriendFeed real-time search? Let us know by leaving a comment.
The standards have now been released and are as follows:
The Education Principle calls for participation in efforts to inform individuals and businesses about online behavioral advertising. The industry intends, in a major educational campaign involving over 500 million ad impressions over the next 18 months.
The Transparency Principle calls for clearer and easily accessible disclosures about data collection and use practices. The result will be a new notice on the page where data is collected and will occur via links embedded in or around advertisements, or on the Web page itself.
The Consumer Control Principle expands the consumer's ability to opt-out of data collection. The opt-out will occur via a link on the page where data is collected. This principle also requires service providers such as Internet access providers and desktop application software companies to obtain consent of users before engaging in online behavioral advertising.
The Data Security Principle calls for reasonable security and limited retention of data.
The Material Changes Principle calls for the acquisition of consent for any material change to data collection and use policies as well as practices to data collected prior to any change.
The Sensitive Data Principle requires parental consent for consumers known to be under 13 on child-directed Web sites. This Principle also calls for heightened protections to certain health and financial data when attributable to a specific individual.
The Accountability Principle calls for the development of programs to monitor and report uncorrected non-compliance to appropriate government agencies. The CBBB and DMA will work cooperatively to establish accountability mechanisms under the Principles.
If you can access the mobile internet via your cell phone, then you now have access to newly optimized Google Mobile search. It reaches 38 different languages in over 60 countries.
The optimized Google mobile search experience began last December when it was rolled out to iPhone and Android phones in the US. Then in March, it was rolled out to iPhone and Android phones in over 20 countries.
The optimizes mobile search incorporates universal search when appropriate. There's also a focus on local search due to the nature of searching on the go.
Real estate search sites Zillow and Trulia are seeing big growth in traffic, despite the economy and its housing woes. Zillow saw a 67% increase in unique visitors while Trulia saw a 40% increase in uniques.
Zillow averaged 8.3 million unique visitors per month so far in 2009. They're experiencing 35% more listings with a current total of 3.6 million listings. Customers submitted 265,000 loan requests which returned 3.5 million custom loan quotes during this time. Zillow is also experiencing great success with its iPhone app, which has has seen 535,000 downloads.
Trulia saw 30 million unique visitors across the six month period. Contributions to the Trulia Voices Community grew by 85% and has achieved the 5th spot in both Hitwise and comScore's real estate matrices.
These numbers are coming during an uncertain time in the economy, fueled by crises in the credit and housing markets. Taking all of that into consideration, congratulations are in order for these achievements made by Zillow and Trulia.
If you're a celebrity or some other figure Bing has deemed "prominent," then searches for your name plus the word Twitter will turn up a few of your Tweets above the organic results. You can also search for a person's screen name, preceded by the @ sign.
Prominence is deemed by number of followers and volume of tweets. Bing uses the Twitter API to pull in the Tweets. But the feature is inconsistent.
Of course, I assumed Ashton Kutcher, the King of Twitter, would be included since he has 2.5 million followers. But the first search for his name didn't include Tweets. The second one didn't either. The third one did.
And here's what it looks like when it happens:
What do you think of Bing integrating Twitter into the results? Share your reaction in the comments section below.
Like many of you, I was saddened to learn on Sunday that Billy Mays died at the age of 50. My family has been watching the Discovery Channel series Pitchmen, featuring Mays and fellow pitchman Anthony Sullivan.
I had been planning this post for a few weeks, but there has been so much search news to cover, I haven't had the time. Now, I'm publishing it to honor the tried and true techniques Billy Mays used to sell millions of products. Mays' style may not be your cup of tea, but the foundational concepts behind his pitches are something every search marketer can learn from. His incredible success was proof of that.
So, without further ado, here are 7 marketing lessons from the late, great Billy Mays.
1. Have a solid product. On the show, Billy Mays and Anthony Sullivan saw hundreds of inventors who want their products sold through direct marketing television. Mays and Sullivan only chose the products they believed in. Even then, they tested them to make sure they worked and met safety standards.
2. Listen to consumers. When considering a new product, Mays and Sullivan often took it to the streets. They had people try out the products and give their honest response. This is one of the first indicators of whether or not a product might do well. Paying attention to what is said about your brand or product online can similarly be very informative to your marketing campaigns.
3. Show how your product can make people's lives easier. One of Mays' most popular products was Oxyclean, allows you to wash colors and whites together. Before the ShamWow, Billy Mays hawked the Zorbeez, a shammy towel that absorbed tons of water and could save tons of money on paper towels. Even non-infomercial products are successful when they do this. Think about the Flip video camera. It's simple and easy to use. It makes capturing moments and uploading them to YouTube very easy. This should be a key element of your campaigns.
4. Include a Call-to-Action. Billy Mays knew this well. He was always "doubling the offer," urging people to act now. Give people incentive to buy your product now. A great incentive for online retailers is offering free shipping.
5. Run a small test before launching a broad campaign. When Mays developed a commercial for a new product, it was run in a few markets to see if it was something consumers would buy. The profit margins had to be there in order to expand. Many times, if the product doesn't do well, they had to stop the campaign to prevent further losses. Test a few keywords before running a broad campaign with tons of longtail keywords. You may need to adjust your campaign or product, but you'll want to preserve your marketing budget in the meantime.
6. Conduct A/B Testing on Successful Ad Campaigns. For the Awesome Auger, a product that was doing very well, Mays shot a second commercial. It looked almost exactly like the original one, but the framing of Mays in the camera was slightly different. That slight cosmetic change was a big one. An A/B test showed sales rose even higher!
7. Watch the competition. When Vince Offer began hawking the ShamWow and the SlapChop, Billy Mays was pissed. These were products he had already been advertising in the form of Zorbeez and QuickChop. Offer's products did very well, selling millions. So, Mays shot new commercials in order to gain back his market share. Pay attention to your competition. Watch your rankings and your paid search positions. Never stop optimizing and adjusting your paid search campaigns. Stay on your toes to maintain or even grow your sales.
What did you learn from Billy Mays? Share your lessons in the comments below.
Get out your cameras, it's time for a couple of search-related contests. If you enjoy the large images Bing features everday on its homepage, now you have the chance to see one of your images featured on the brand spankin' new decision engine. Bing is holding a photo contest where the winner's image will be featured on Bing.com for a 24 hour period.
Photos are submitted via Facebook. You have until July 16 to submit your photos. The winner will be determined by public voting, via the Facebook application. The winning image will appear on Bing.com on August 3 and will include "hot spots" created by the Bing team, just like you see with the daily images.
Meanwhile, ChaCha has launched a video contest. The theme of the contest is "Life with ChaCha." The deadline for submissions is August 10. Judges will pick 5 finalists and the winner will be chosen by a public vote.
There are three criteria that the judges will use to choose the 5 finalists. They are:
Showing ChaCha to be a "smart friend" (50 percent)
Originality (25 percent)
Humor (25 percent)
The prizes here are worth moolah. The grand prize winner will receive $5,000 in cash as well as an Apple Final Cut Studio 2 and a Sony HDR-XR500V 120GB High Def Handycam Camcorder. The runner up gets $1,000 and third place gets $500.
Overstock is the next company to drop affiliate programs in states considering or having passed affiliate nexus bills. While North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Hawaii affiliates are already seeing programs dropped by Amazon and Blue Nile, this time California affiliates are also getting the boot.
"It's painful to have to terminate these relationships with affiliates, simply because they live in states where counterproductive (and likely unconstitutional) laws are being passed," said Patrick Byrne, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Overstock.com. "However, politicians have to remember that a tax is a price that government charges for a service, and when they raise their prices, we're going to buy less of their services."
StatCounter made news fast and furious in Bing's first week when they offered up data showing Bing had surpassed Yahoo! in search. And now they're making a splash again by quickly releasing data for the whole month of June.
Overall, things are relatively steady, but there's an ever-so-slight increase in Microsoft search share.
The data shows Bing gaining .5% search share in June compared to May. But Live Search had gained about .5% in May over April.
One percent growth over the last two months may not seem significant, but it could be the beginning of momentum.
"At first sight, a 1% increase in market share does not appear to be a huge return on the investment Microsoft has made in Bing but the underlying trend appears positive," commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. "Steady if not spectacular might be the best way to describe performance to date."
Plus, the 1% growth has come at the expense of Google. The search mammoth saw its search engine share according to StatCounter decline by 79.07% in April to 78.48% in June.
By the way, despite that first week of traffic for Bing, Yahoo! still retained its second place status for the entire month of June. Yahoo!'s traffic has remained fairly steady over the past three months in StatCounter data.
It seems like everyone these days has a blog. Once upon a time, every angst filled teenager had a LiveJournal, a GreatestJournal, a DeadJournal, et cetera. Then, little by little, they moved onto MySpace and Facebook. Now, however, whether it is through Wordpress or Blogspot, everyone has moved onto blogs. In some cases, these are still just places to rant and run off at the mouth — or fingers, as it were.
When you are selling a blog, trying to bring attention to it, you have to treat it like any other product – and that means PR. You want people to know about your web site. You have to tell them about it. You can submit posts to social bookmarking sites for starters, not just the popular sites like Delicious, Digg, and StumbleUpon, but also lesser known bookmarking pages.
Now we are going to talk about RSS feeds, which are increasingly popular. Providing a good one can drive a whole lot of traffic to your blog.
Now, web directories can only do so much. Advertising your blog falls primarily on your shoulders, and you have to take responsibility for that. So, get your blog’s address out there wherever you possibly can. Any piece of communication you put out there, your blog needs to show up on it somewhere. Write up an About Us page, get a press release done, and most of all, advertise your blog yourself. Make sure the link shows up on your business cards, your letterhead, your fax cover sheets, and in all of your email signatures. In addition to getting a press release, think about having a brochure put together as well. You should also think about creating a monthly newsletter. That way, you can let people know what is new or simply noteworthy. Most of all, it will remind people that your blog is there, and you will be encouraging them to visit.
Unless you are just blogging for your own personal enjoyment, you want to get your blog out there – especially if you are doing it to get paid. That can be hard, especially if you aren’t really sure what to do. So it is definitely worth it to take a look at some strategies to get your blog out there – and to improve your page rank.
There are a number of strategies you need to follow when learning and implementing blog link advertising. The most important of these involve relevancy. So many people are into black hat tactics these days. They prefer to stuff keywords and links into places where they do not fit. They will hide links, or cut corners by placing linked-in comments into forums and other blogs, which does not really advertise effectively at all.
Blogging for fun is one thing. Blogging for money is another. A lot of us are used to blogging as a means of personal expression. For those of us just getting into the whole idea of professional blogging and blog link advertising, the concepts can be seriously out of reach. It sounds like another language — SEO, white hat tactics, black hat tactics, keyword ratio, et cetera. This is not an industry for the faint of heart and if you don’t learn how to do things correctly, you’re not going to see a penny — or get any advertising done.
Like many of you, I was saddened to learn on Sunday that Billy Mays died at the age of 50. My family has been watching the Discovery Channel series Pitchmen, featuring Mays and fellow pitchman Anthony Sullivan. 
6. Conduct A/B Testing on Successful Ad Campaigns. For the Awesome Auger, a product that was doing very well, Mays shot a second commercial. It looked almost exactly like the original one, but the framing of Mays in the camera was slightly different. That slight cosmetic change was a big one. An A/B test showed sales rose even higher!