Monthly Archives: September 2007

Will Google AdWords Quality Score Guidelines Set Trash Affiliate Earnings?

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There’s been quite a bit of debate about how pay-per-click market leader Google AdWords’ Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines is going to hit PPC affiliates.

Here’re some of the more hotly debated items from the the AdWords blog post “Websites that may merit low landing page  quality score“:

 Types of websites that will be penalized with low landing page quality scores:

  • Data collection sites that offer free gifts, subscription services etc., in order to collect private information
  • Arbitrage sites that are designed for the sole purpose of showing ads
  • Malware sites that knowingly or unknowingly install software on a visitor’s computer

If we receive user complaints about ads for the types of websites listed above, the advertisers of those websites may not be allowed to continue running AdWords ads for those websites.
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“Data collection sites” will hit affiliates who use PPC to drive traffic to zip/email submit type offers or to an opt-in page for a free report.

And who’s going to file a “user complaint”? The visitor? Unlikely. More likely, Continue reading →

When’s The Internet Going From 2.0 To 2-Way Media?

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Here’s an interesting item from WebProNews, The Artist Formerly Known As Prince (or is it Prince now that the copyright hold on his name has been dropped…) is trying to take action against the big kahuna of file sharing Bittorrent sites – The Pirate Bay, Youtube and eBay over alleged copyright infringement of his name and intellectual property.

Somewhat ironic considering he had a promo with a British Sunday newspaper to give away copies of his “Planet Earth” CD free with a particular edition.

Already the Prince video clips are going up faster than older ones are being taken down at Youtube. Is this really a battle worth fighting for?

When products were physical – in the form of a CD, DVD, book, manual – it was easier to maintain copyright. When Prince distributes his CD free with the UK paper, were the CDs imprinted with “Promotional CD – Not for Sale”? Did they say “Resale Rights granted”?

And if you give away media and content free in one channel, how do you enforce pricing in another channel, whether it’s a iTunes store or in a CD store?

The moment something can be digitized, whether it’s an MP3, PDF, DOC, JPG or other digital media file, you can have legislature like the DMCA (digital millenium copyright act) and DRM (digital rights management) infrastructure in place. You can even password protect your files, but eventually these protective measures will be overcome.

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Don’t get me wrong, because Continue reading →

BlogRush: Is Network Marketing-Based Traffic Generation A Waste Of Time?

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The veteran Internet Marketer known as John Reese has recently launched BlogRush, a blog-specific web2.0 widget which syndicates blog publicity across it’s network. It’s raised some debate among a number of bloggers and more importantly, how effective is it?

blog rush john reese

The idea is that each BlogRush widget displayed earns you a syndication credit, which in turn earns you a reciprocal ‘widget view’ on another blog within your category. As far as I’m aware, traffic is NOT guaranteed. You’d still need to put some effort to come up with a great headline and quality content.

What’s blogging maestro Jim Kukral’s bone of contention with BlogRush? Read: Don’t Waste Time With BlogRush, It Won’t Work.

Jim’s point about low traffic blogs not benefitting from the network (which functions as a type of exchange) is certainly valid (and likely not to get much traffic)…Unless Continue reading →

Monday Question: Do Link Exchanges Work?

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I got a question about traffic generation and link exchanges this past week:

“Hi Andrew,

I’ve a new site and getting traffic seems to be a challenge.

I have been thinking of link exchanges. I’m hearing different things about them. Do they work?

-Dylan”

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In my opinion many marketers are overly obsessed with traffic.

Traffic won’t solve your worries if your site has a ‘leaky’ design (with multiple exit links for visitors), doesn’t have effective channels for monetization or list building, or doesn’t have sticky content to get visitors to keep coming back. For the purposes of discussion, I’ll assume that you got those areas covered, or are working on them.

Besides raw traffic quantity (number of visitors), you need to monitor and closely refine your traffic quality (how relevant your visitors are). There’s no point to get everyone and his mother over to your site if they don’t fit your site’s demographic.

That’s where alliances are handy.

A link exchange is where two websites or blogs have Continue reading →

Friday Podcast Episode 21: Developing Profitable Products With Hungry Markets In Tow

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Newer product creators might be cracking their brains developing a product for a hungry market.

Instead of going along the lines of “what product to create”, an asset-based approach and solving a need will help you conceptualize a product with a hungry market behind it.

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Click the “more” tab to access the notes:

Continue reading →

Customer Relationship Management = Huge Long Tail Profits?

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You’ll often hear that “the money is in the list”, but a more important dimension to look at is the type of relationship you have with your list. It’s not just a quantity (ie numbers) game, the quality (relationship) game is more important.

I have a number of banking accounts and financial trading account. It’s always an interesting exercise to see what happens in September.

I got a package from Citibank, which included the following:

citibank

Blue Magnolia’s one of the premiere bakeries in Singapore and to have the bank buy me a cake on my birthday gives an indication of their priority in building a relationsip. I also got a greeting card from one of my stock brokers.

Any word from my Standard Chartered Bank banker? Or the other Continue reading →