Monetizing Blogs for Affiliate Marketing & SEO

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So I learned that you can not just pop into the Meet Market and get to your next session in half an hour.  Wow, was that one crowded room. And of course I ran into half a dozen people that I had to stop and say hi to.  So I missed the introductions and things are already rolling.  Looks like this session is being led by the moderator and he is asking specific questions to the panel.  This one is a bit tricky as I can’t see all the panelists around the podium so I may not have attributed everything to the right person. Sorry about that in advance. Here we go:

Kristopher B. Jones, President of Pepperjam Network (moderator)
Drew Bennett, Professional Blogger at BenSpark.com
John Carcutt, SEO Manager at MediaWhiz
Tim Jones, Owner of TheRealTimJones.com
Murray Ross Newlands, Founder of Affiliate Heat

Drew Bennett uses shuttercal.com for a picture of the day – shows a real person behind the blog – new picture on the blog every day – connect with people on Facebook, twitter – create a contest – photography related photos – create a newsletter on behind the scenes stuff – guest post on other blogs

Tim Jones – needs to be lot of interaction off blog when you get started – guest post, comment – but there does need to be something for people to come to on your site – have a good foundation of posts& categories to keep people coming back

John Carcutt – mistakes people make – robots no follow, no index is the new default for wordpress install – many try to do too much too soon – either too many categories or too many topics in one post – dilution – don’t try to be everything to everyone

Murray Newlands – people try to optimize title tags for the name of their blog – don’t do this – not focusing title of posts on what people are searching for – do keyword research – they are not interlinking between their posts – have a round up post discussing posts from the last few weeks, there are some plugins that will do this

Drew – when doing keyword research make sure you are using the correct terms i.e. house vs. home

Tim – target towards specific targets with guest posts, comments, and PPC (pay per click)

John – permalink structure – use title of posts as url structure – categories & tag pages should they be indexed? he thinks they should – if showing snippets of post do not have tags & categories the same

Drew – photo with caption links back to post – he posts the same pictures in 5 or 6 places

Link building – target the keywords for linking

Murray – if linking to someone work out what they are trying to optimize for – have a list of terms that you want people to link to you with – find 10 different bloggers and cross post in guest posts – links coming in form a number of sources – a great place to find bloggers is at networking events

Tim – don’t build all links to homepage, deep link to specific pages – use different anchor text

Monetizing & How Do You Balance Content?

Drew – write sponsored conversations through Izea – affiliate marketing for products he uses himself – he picks and chooses what he talks about & stays relevant – he will also write the manufacturer about product and ask for one to blog about – he creates a relationship with company – uses his own voice & is genuine

John – Education is the best lead generator

Tim – how is someone going to search on a post? – you have to treat is as a business, must research, analytics – think in terms of revenue streams & what works best – find out what works for your niche

Murray – about conversations – what are merchants doing, how are they marketing, what is coming out in the future – have good info – buying guide went viral – build content that people will link to

Kristopher mentions pay per post from VigLinks, Skim Links, and Kontera

Murray – brand building, many companies want to be involved in social media – they want coverage on blogs

Tim – bloggers are not integrating product feeds

Drew – created your own product – answer a question – online course – another revenue stream

John – dreamhost not allowing use of All in One SEO plugin

Tim – datafeeds – after conclusion of blog posts with products that are related – he uses a plugin – goldencan, popshops, phpbay – if you want it indexed don’t use javascript

Drew -ask for products – the worst they can say is no – give them numbers to back up your claim

Tim – have a plan – show them how you will promote it and you will get farther if you are just starting out

Murray – as soon as you have dialogue with one, their competitors will get a hold of you – create a conversation

Tim – if you target on a specific brand you must show the lifestyle of it – promote the lifestyle

Keeping people coming back to your site

Tim – you have to do all of it – a list, Alexa ranking & provide value for long term so people feel like they are part of it

Murray – 70% of his traffic comes from Google – if you build a mailing list, you don’t risk loosing all traffic if your rank drops – don’t put eggs all in one basket

Trackur, social tracking – column on tweetdeck for searches on himself – google alerts set up for your url

The Future

Tim – stared with podcasts – he still thinks it is valuable – he sees a movement to video

Murray – uses vidoe

John – use a video with foursquare – integration of it all

Drew – integration of video & podcasts

Murray – video is yours, it is personal and hard to fake

That wraps up that session. Start to hit the Meet Market for a bit and then off to another session.

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