Vinny Lingham’s Blog

Presented by Wil Reynolds - Seer Interactive

Here’s a different approach - this speak started with : There are a lot of people in the industry who THINK and SAY they know what they are talking about, but they actually just mislead people.

SEO Myth : Every site ranks well for SOMETHING!

Online Success Recipe

Topics of Discussion for Today’s session:

• 5 Time Wasters
• Developing a search architecture
• Keyword Selection
• Linking (why you should use firefox)
• FIY vs. Outsource

Rules change, I will send to you all my SEO bookmarks which I have aggregated and reviewed for the last 5 years if you are looking for tools, directory lists, forums, automated tools, etc.

Technique’s not used by speaker in 4 years:

• Image Alt
• Keyword Meta Tag
• Keyword Density Analysis
• Optimize 1 word terms
• Submissions / Re-Submissions

Techniques he does use:

• Circular Architecture (not hierarchy)
• Intense Keyword Research
• PR Optimization
• Heavy Link Valuation
• Forums / Blogs (research)
• Resurgence of meta description tag

Developing a Search Architecture:

Wheel and Spoke site development vs. hierarchical site development:

• Dropdowns
• Sitemaps
• “Useful links”
• All the optimization in the world may not help your site if you have major architectural issues.
• Sitemaps are critical!

Architectural Issues:

• JavaScript-Based Menus
• Important links in flash/images
• Orphan pages / entry pages
• Redirected homepages (use 301’s)
• URL’s with ?’s, =’s, &’s (dynamic pages, shopping carts, CMS’s - Ektron / Interwoven)
• Search friendly vs. Search Optimization - Ex: Automatically generated title tags
• Linking Techniques, strategies, tools

Develop something worth linking to & people will link to it. Calculators, free trials, articles, etc.

• Spread yourself thin on links
• How many links are on the page?
• Robots.txt or nofollow tags?
• Search for people linking to you and see if you can get more heavily optimized text.
• Use a pagerank search - competitors

Keyword Development

We all stink at developing our own keyword lists (it’s not our fault):

• We are biased by our own search behavior
• Too close to the product / service (acronyms, jargon, product features, etc)

All is not lost:

• Use Tools (not just overture keyword tool)
• Start wide (Prilosec - heartburn)
• People search for solutions to problems not products and services

If you build for humans, you don’t have to worry (as much) about getting penalized.

Ways to spot a bad SEO company:

Good chat overall - nothing I disagreed with.

Panelists:

Tom Manspeaker – Direct Leads
Linda Goodman – The Goodman Law Firm
Steven Richter – OptinRealBig.com
Mark J Rosenberg – Of Counsel, Sills, Cummis, Epstein & Gross P.C.
Ernie St. Gelais – LinkConnector

The panelists kick off by discussing the legal issues relating to behavioural targeting. The key is that information is build up using non-user identifiable information.

The Federal Trade Commission is looking into deceptive advertising. When is something that is free, not free? It seems that they’re targeting companies that get consumers to be automatically enrolled into survey products. The FTC is looking at ruling that incentive sites are not operating above board and the free ads for iPods, for example is deceptive.

The FTC has an entire e-book on their site, called Dot Com Disclosures, but according to Linda, the book contradicts itself.

This session seems very to and fro, as most legal discussions are. Not sure how much more I can take! This can happen, that can happen, this can happen, that can happen – usual lawyer rambles.

Apparently, also, there are State laws, regulating the use of the word “Free” on incentive sites. Steven Richter basically compares affiliates incentivized site law with the CAN-SPAM act of 2005, and how in the past, all the states also had different laws, which were finally combined under one law.

Can trademarks be used in your campaigns? According to Mark, yes you can use it – but if you cause confusion, then you are infringing it. He also says that different courts have different rules. If you’re selling a trademark product or comparing it – there should be no problem using that trademark.

There is far too much legalese/technicalities here – my brain is shutting down. It’s amazing how complex law is in general – and if startups had to follow rules by the book – they would never startup!

Presented solo by:

Alan Lewis (eBay Technical Evangelist)

“Web Services provide great opportunities for innovative affiliates to make money”

•    What is the eBay Affiliate Program?

The eBay Affiliate Program is a community of developers, webmasters and entrepreneurs who get paid to promote Ebay.

Originally launched in the US in 2001, there are now programs in over 25 countries worldwide.

Top 100 Global Affiliates make an average of more than $500,000 a year.

•    Affiliates and the eBay API

o    Data

Knowledge is Power.  You can use the eBay API to extract data and information around their marketplace, like Keyword Market Trends, Supply/Demand Discrepancies

Key Calls:
-    GetSearchResults
-    GetPopularKeywords
-    GetRelatedKeywords (Upcoming)
-    GetContextualKeywords (Beta)

Historical Data
- Not free, but worth the money – through their data partner, DataUnison.

o    Content

Quality Content is available at a low cost by using the API.

Shopping Comparison:  Use eBay Search and listing data to understand pricing trends for products. Display items with a low price on your site for frugal shoppers.

Key Calls:
-    GetSearchResults
-    GetCategories

eBay is one of the largest source of free content on the web.

You can also use the RSS Feed Generator from eBay, which has customizable feeds embedded in eBay Advanced Search technology appended with the affiliate tracking information.

Key Call:
-    GetSearchResults

o    Communications

Instant Messenger

Concept:

Search/Browsing
Alerts (Price, Listing)
Contextual

Key Calls:
-    GetSearchResults
-    Instant Messenger API  (provided by the IM platform)

Email is already a huge driver of eCommerce Revenue…IM could be to.

Mobile Technologies

Concept:

Search/Browsing
Bidding
Alerts: Text/Call

Key Calls:
-    GetSearchResults
-    PlaceOffer (Upcoming Pilot)

Takeaway:

-    Take advantage of the rapidly expanding mobile marke

o    Platform

eBay exposes the eBay platform, for free.

Concept:
-    eBay Widgets
-    Television Set Top Box
-    Desktop Search Tool
KeyCalls:
-    GetSearchResults, GetItem, GetMyeBayBuying

eBay is extending the reach of the eBay Platform to reach a broader audience in new/creative ways.

•    eBay Web Services Overview

eBay Developers Program started in 2001

Auction tools were already screen scraping, eBay wanted to standardize the data through XML.

47% of listings are through eBay Web Services (about half through 3rd parties)

30,000 members, who have created 2,200 live applications

Total number of calls in Q4: 8 Billions!!!

Buyer-oriented web services started in 2003

Features of eBay Web Services:

o    Search
o    Listing Items
o    Transaction/Order Management
o    My eBay
o    eBay Stores
o    Feedback management
o    Watch list
o    Anything that you can do through the eBay site

RSS:

Very low-tech API – search terms and options are specified in the feed URL
Similar to REST API , but with standardized schema (non-eBay specific)
Look at the bottom of any eBay search page for this.
RSS Feeds can be affiliate-enables too.

He also went into a lot of the stuff like AdContext from the eBay Developers Conference - so I’m not going to repeat that in this blog - just browse the categories on the right and look at the eBay category if you want more information.

Dan Murray, Internet Marketing Strategist, Ravenwood Marketing
Tim Ash, President, Epic Sky and SiteTunes
Adam Viener, President, Imwave, Inc.
Mike Jacobs, Vice President – Products & Services, iMarketing Ltd.

Adam’s company IMWave builds landing pages and sites, as well as sending traffic directly to merchants.

Mike manages all the campaigns for iMarketing’s clients – HotJobs & New York times, as well as being an affiliate himself.

Tim’s company build a bid tool, BidGuard, and eventually realized how good their software was and used it to arbitrage instead of selling it. They eventually diversified into SiteTuners which optimizes sites for conversions.

Dan opens with some leading questions:

“How do PPC affiliates fit into the merchant’s programs?”

Mike hits the first part – PPC arbitrage – buying clicks cheap and sending them to the site and taking the risk on the click. Tim focuses on comparison sites on a CPC basis.
Arbitrage is defined by Mike as simply buying clicks cheaper than their average EPC (Earnings Per Click).

“What’s happening right now in the PPC world?”

Tim hits out at the AdSense arbitrage guys who build sites and buy clicks from Adwords. He makes the distinct definition of Click Arbitrage on a CPA/Rev Share basis, and an AdSense Arbitrage basis. I personally think that the model of buying Google clicks to send to Google AdSense ads is going to disappear as Google improves it Landing Page Algorithms for Adwords with the Quality Score.

Adam mentions that Google AdSense ads are on by default – which is what affects many advertisers, without them even knowing about it. Adam also notes that as part of the AOL-Google deal, AOL will receive their own search platform.

Tim also impresses the fact that Google is driving out Private Label sites with the same functionality & content as the original. If the sites have different content and functionality, they should be fine.

Mike forces home his views that Google are tampering with the Min CPC in the backend – I don’t quite buy his view on this, but he has seen rising Min CPC’s on good keywords in the past.

“Are any of you using the MSN Adcenter?”

“Microsoft needs to taken seriously” – that’s the word from Adam. He says with the launch of Vista, that MSN will become a serious player. There are much higher margins for affiliates right now, and MSN allows duplicate display URL’s.

“Should you let affiliates bid on your brands?”

There is a quote from the Marketing Manager at Travelocity in Revenue Magazine May Edition, which basically said that when Travelocity stopped affiliates from bidding on their trademarks, they saw a marked increase in the number of competitors ads and losing sales to their competitors on their own trademark terms. They have since changed their stance on trademarks.

Adam points out that merchants are now looking toward trusted affiliate partners to work with companies on trademark bidding. This topic got very interesting – and now we moved onto questions – so I’m going to shut my laptop and aggravate the speakers a bit ?

So I’ll be leaving Cape Town tomorrow to return to my real home, Virgin Atlantic (sometimes I really wonder!).

No, seriously, I’ll be speaking on Tuesday (& blogging) at the Affiliate Summit in Orlando, Florida this weekend - stay tuned to this blog for all the details. On Wednesday, I’m flying through to London (on the red eye), to speak at Commission Junction University UK. After that, I’m not sure where I’ll be as I have an open ticket back home depending on some things - but probably San Jose, CA & Germany.

See you at Affiliate Summit - tickets are already sold out! Oh, right, what about the freebies? Well, we managed to overbook our squad for this conference, so I have 4 free full conference pass tickets to give away by tomorrow (each valued at nearly $2000).

I’m sure that I’m going to make blog history with this one - we paid hard cash for these tickets - so here goes:

To coincide with the launch of the new Wordpress version of this blog, I’m giving away 4 tickets (which incuBeta has graciously paid for - and realistically, we could have sold on eBay!), to someone who is a registered member of this blog (i.e. a reader who is able to post comments). All you have to do, is signup (try posting a response to this comment, for example, and it will take you through the process) and then send an email to vklingham-affiliatesummit@yahoo.com (email address will expire in 1 week) with your email address used to signup, Name, Company & Title. Please not that you must email me, as I obviously get daily signups so I’m not sure if the person signing up is looking to attend the conference in Orlando. All entrants will go into a lucky draw.
I will post details of the winners (with permission) once it’s been finalised.

Good luck - and forward this post to friends who may be interested in attending!

UPDATE: Apologies - I have 3 Full Conference Tickets (I included mine in the original count, but I am attending), instead I am also giving away 3 Nights Free Accomodation at the Hilton Orlando Disneyword with one of the tickets!!!