Yahoo! Search Marketing Now Allows Direct Linking
Here’s a real policy change for YSM (Yahoo! Search Marketing) according to the lastest CJ Wire newsletter from Commission Junction:
After more than six months in the making and much customer feedback and testing, we are pleased to announce that Yahoo! Search Marketing (YSM) has recently updated its editorial policies and will now allow U.S. publishers to direct link to their advertisers. In the past, YSM’s editorial policy prevented publishers from linking directly to their advertiser partners and required that traffic be sent first to the publisher’s Web site. The new policy eliminates this restriction and opens a much broader search marketing opportunity for publishers.
This YSM policy change is the result of a strong relationship between Commission Junction and YSM. We have spent more than six months working with YSM to enact the new editorial policy and are very pleased that this effort has resulted in changes that are sure to create opportunities for our publishers and advertisers.
We find this policy change exciting on several levels. First, this is a significant shift for YSM and could be a great opportunity for your search marketing campaigns. Second, you heard it here first – YSM has asked us to communicate this change to the affiliate community. Third, the work we’ve done with YSM on this policy change is just another example of our commitment to listening to and speaking up for our publishers.
Although I’m sure there will be lots of blog buzz heralding this change over the next few days - I won’t be dancing in the streets as competition and click prices over at YSM increase and worse, as more affiliates choose a linking method that does nothing to build either their lists or their business in the long-term.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Aweber Feedburner Integration
Aweber announced yesterday that their RSS-to-email tool now integrates with Feedburner’s tracking and publishing service.
By result, bloggers who use both services and convert their feeds to email newsletters using Aweber’s Blog Broadcast will now see their subscriber statistics within the Feedburner interface. They will also see a spike in subscriber numbers displayed on the Feedburner ‘chicklet’.
Justin Premick, Education Marketing Manager at AWeber also predicted that “The more subscribers you can boast, the more likely new visitors are to subscribe to your blog, and the more likely companies are to want to advertise on your blog.”
This is excellent news for those of us who have wanted to connect with our Feedburner subscribers on a more personal level by customizing the email that we send out to them… and now with the help of my all-time favorite autoresponder service provider, Aweber, we can! 
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Is Twitter Just Twaddle?
For example, who the heck really wants to know that I was “up way too early… again” or that I was “force-feeding the cat with a medical milkshake…“?
Mine haven’t been quite as inane however as Chris Pirillo’s “I farted” twit last night — which is silly enough to be funny… almost.
But I guess I’m missing the point.
Fortunately, Maki over at Dosh Dosh has written a blog post titled “17 Ways You Can Use Twitter: A Guide for Beginners, Marketers and Business Owners” that confirms my problem with Twitter and spells things out about how to use it wisely.
In her preamble, she talks about the problem with Twitter, and says “What really matters is how it impacts your online habits and daily life. For many, Twitter is a distraction…” and “It saps your attention and pulls your focus away from other tasks.“.
No kidding. You get in there and start reading Twit after Twit and next thing you know, you’ve twittered away an hour of your time. It boggles my mind to see some who are supposedly following 2, 3 and 4 THOUSAND other Twitter–ers? How the heck is that even possible?
Presuming you can avoid falling into the pit of distraction, Maki lists 17 good ways to use Twitter for getting feedback, personal branding, setting up meetings and more.
OK, so maybe I’ll give it another try. In the meantime, let me know what you think…
Are you using Twitter? Has it been an effective marketing tool for you, or like me, do you find it more of a distraction?
Popularity: 3% [?]
SMARTS Coaching Program Opens Today
Many of you are really excited about using social marketing in your businesses after seeing the excellent video that I posted here. The associated Strategy Guide is jam-packed with good tips on how to use social networks to strategically drive traffic to your sites. Read more
Popularity: 10% [?]
IMC to Release Turnkey Solution for 2008
Anyone and everyone who participated in the “What’s Your Biggest Marketing Challenge?” poll and indicated that they either haven’t yet started a website / blog yet or that they are not making money online should read this.
On January 24th at 10am, Derek Gehl and the folks at The Internet Marketing Center will be unveiling a turnkey online business solution that will finally level the playing field for regular people who want to make money online.
That solution will include ALL the components that you need to build an Internet business including a website, products, free traffic and more.
As a big fan of IMC’s products for their exceptional quality and value for money, you can be assured that this package will be up to their usual excellent standards.
The only downside is that only 250 people will be able to participate.
I can’t tell you more than that right now, but do watch this short video and be one of the first to get a sneak peak.
Popularity: 9% [?]
Reconsidering the Value of Social Marketing
I was sick of responding to the seemingly endless ‘friend requests’, mostly from internet marketers whose idea of friendship was to spam the heck out of my account with sales messages. I wasn’t particularly keen to waste my time reading the ‘let’s get together, baby’ messages or viewing scantily clad women. Duh.
Overall, I just wasn’t seeing the value of these social networking sites — but to be fair, I wasn’t really actively participating to make them work to my advantage, either.
The video I watched this morning has me reconsidering the value of using social media sites as a marketing tool, however.
The 50 minute video “Social Marketing - There Are No Secrets” video by Don Crowther is the latest one in StomperNet’s “Going Natural” series, which are some of the best quality production videos I’ve seen in the Internet marketing arena — not to mention entertaining and informative.
Don got my attention right from the start of the video by saying, “Forget SEO!“, a statement about search engine optimization that echoes the opinion I’ve always held and shared with my readers.
He also explains how you can still get ‘first mover advantage‘ if you start using social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace and social bookmarking sites such as Digg and StumbleUpon now — and estimates that the window of opportunity on this marketing channel will start to close within the next 12 to 18 months.
The video shows how the Stompernet boys managed to claim the first 8 PAGES on Google (yes, pages, not listings) through social media marketing.
OK, that opened my eyes to the possibilities of using Web 2.0 (a.k.a. social networking, social marketing, social media) sites to build traffic and sales for your online business.
Don also shows results from research studies that demonstrates how traffic from social networking sites is actually more valuable than traffic we might get from ppc and other marketing techniques. Nice…
I think it’s a worthwhile view and have posted the video below for you to view. Access to the other StomperNet videos is available through the playlist on video player. The Stompernet boys are also giving away a free 33-page social marketing strategy guide called “SMARTS”.
Watch it… you might find yourself reconsidering or adopting the social media marketing strategy it you do.
Popularity: 23% [?]
I Got a First Page Google Listing in Only 9 Seconds
Despite continuing problems with getting my blog posts to show up or stay listed in Technorati and Google Blogs, it appears that at least one of Google’s spiders still loves me.
Although I’ve seen posts get listed that quickly before, many also seem to disappear from Google’s results almost as fast, so I searched for the keyphrase again this morning, and much to my amazement, it is still there.
Granted, Rohde boots isn’t a particularly popular search term. According to Wordtracker, the phrase has a predicted count of only 12 for today. Furthermore, I haven’t found an affiliate program that sells Rohdes.
So, why would I bother to target the phrase ‘Rohde boots’ if so few people are looking for them and I don’t make any money promoting them to people who find the post?
Well, my primary motivation for writing such a post is to share information about a truly great product that will benefit walkers like myself. In return, I hope to earn new feed subscribers with the invitation “If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!” that appears at the end of every post.
Furthermore, the site is monetized in many ways. Those who appreciate the information may browse around and find other products of interest to them that are sold through an affiliate program. Or, they may leave the site through a Google Adsense ad for which I get paid.
Assuming I get only 1 click per day from that listing over the period of a year, that would be 365 visitors to my site — for free — from a post that took me only 10 minutes to write. If only 10% of those visitors sign up for my feed / newsletter, that would be 36 new subscribers to whom I can promote products on a continuing basis. Now, if you write a post like that once a week, you can multiply those results by 52, and estimate nearly 19,000 visitors and 1900 new feed subscribers — for free.
But, those traffic estimates are probably low, especially considering the personal nature of the blog post title and content description that appears on Google, which is in striking contrast to the ’salesy’ nature of the other listings that appear on the first page of Google results.
For example, inthe last 23 hours, my most recent first page listing has generated 4 site visits, or 33% of the estimated traffic for the term ‘Rhode boots’.
So, imagine how much free traffic and revenue you can generate by targeting those ‘less popular’ phrases if you post to your blog 3 or 4 days a week, or better yet, every day!
Popularity: 100% [?]
Holiday Greetings: Justin Makes a Great Point
Sure… we all appreciate our clients and customers and want to send them our very best wishes for a happy holiday season.
But SHOULD we send those greetings as a separate email? Or, are our SinterKlaas, Christmas, Hanukkah and New Years greetings better received as an inclusion within a regular newsletter?
Justin Premick posted a great article on this topic at Aweber, titled “Holiday Marketing Tip: Don’t Send Pointless Greetings!”
Although the title reveals Justin’s slant and the article justifies his reasoning, I want to add a few thoughts of my own on the matter.
One of the commenters on the Aweber blog made a good point against sending denominational greetings because not everyone on your list will celebrate Christmas. That should be SO obvious, yet how many “Merry Christmas” emails did you get last year?
In a similar vein, email marketers should also make themselves aware of when certain holidays are celebrated in countries.
Case in point.
I received an Inbox full of “Happy Thanksgiving” emails on or about the 4th Thursday of November. That would have been nice except for the fact that I live in Canada and we celebrate Thanksgiving on the 2nd Monday in October… so those greetings came about 6 weeks late.
Those marketers need to figure out how to parse their lists geographically and send their messages accordingly.
For more reasons not to send pointless holiday greetings, read Justin’s article here and check out the comments.
Popularity: 23% [?]
Bloggers: Having Problems with Technorati Indexing and Display?
Technorati has been acting very strange of late.
Last week, all my sites were indexed and the posts were displaying correctly. Then a post that I made on Roamsters (about Baggallini bags and tagged ‘baggallini’) showed up almost immediately and now can’t be found for love nor money (literally).
Weirder still, the Roamsters blog no longer seems to be indexed - while this one shows up sporadically.
I noticed on that a lot of folks are complaining of similar problems on the Technorati forum, but was wondering if any NPT folks had noticed the same strange happenings… and if so, were you able to correct it?
Now, let’s see if this post shows up….
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Carl Ocab: 14-Year Old Ranks #1 in Google for “Make Money Online”
It’s hard to believe that a 14 year old kid who started his blog just this past summer, would rank #1 on Google for a highly competetive keyword phrase like “make money online”, isn’t it?
Well, it’s true.
After attempts to make money online with a tech blog and then a gossip blog failed, Carl Ocab says he was “Heavily Inspired by my Dad, I tried my best to find a broad topic that I can blog about for ages”, so he started blogging about how to “Make Money Online with a 13-year old”.
What a great hook!
And although you might be skeptical that the genius behind this effort is really only 14, reporters Annalyn Jusay and Abe Olandres from Manila who have interviewed Carl, both verify his age (with pictures) and also comment on his outward shyness.
Online, he doesn’t seem so shy - with a big ad plastered in his top navigation that reads “I’m on the frontpage of the bloody competetive keyword “make money online” which goes on to an advertisement for placing your advertising on his site. Smart!
Here are a few posts to check out:
- My #1 Advice In Handling Negative Comments
- Why MOST People Don’t Make Money Online
- Making High Profile Bloggers Reply To Your Emails - With Example Inside!
Carl’s site is highly worth a look if you want inspiration or linking opportunities from his blog via reviews, advertising, guest blogging and comments.
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