Make Money Online

Know what you want…

Seems simple right? In my experience, dealing with hundreds of clients over the last 12 years, very few can actually quantify what they want.

Some tell me they want marketing help (far too vague), but when I ask about success metrics, they almost invariably cite traffic as their primary success measure. Now, not to discount traffic, but that’s not what pays the bills is it?

ROI shouldn’t be calculated on traffic*, but by counting other other measures. If your aim is engagement, count comments, reviews, buzz. If your aim is sales, count overall revenue increases, direct conversions, increase of average sales…

In an SEM campaign in particular, knowing what you want is vital, because every click costs you. Your campaigns should be highly segmented, helping you know where each dime goes, how each ad performs, how each keyword you’re buying contributes to the goals you’ve set.

Search Engine Guide has an excellent post up today about segmenting your keywords:

There are four distinct keyword segments each representing a different phase of the searcher’s buying cycle. After going through the process above you should be left with one or more groups of keyword that can be optimized into a page or several pages. The next step is to take each group and segment them even further based on those keyword segments.

Once you know what you want, you can do A/B testing to determine where your money’s going and whether or not your plan is working.  Know what you want and you have a heck of a lot better chance at getting it.

*there are a few, rare exceptions to this rule

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Online Marketing Goals

We give out way too much information online. You know it, I know it, but it’s fun and we so push the fear out of our minds and continue to chat about our kids, our friends, how annoying so-and-so is at work on Facebook, Twitter and more. But we’ve been conditioned to share, and it’s not a recent evolution.

Supermarket ‘clubs’, like those in place at CVS, Safeway, Publix, and virtually every chain supermarket, save Walmart, already share your data with telemarketers and email marketers.  The swipe saves us a few bucks so we agree… Upromise, by Sallie Mae, has already gotten into big trouble with not disclosing the truckloads of data they collect from their toolbar to their users.  Still college students add that toolbar and hope for the best. WE SHARE TOO MUCH!

A Mashable post on Data Mining in Social Media digs a little deeper, but still not deep enough. They don’t even mention the new iPhone app that’s being called a ’stalker’s dream’ nor the freaky 123People that lets you check the government documents that other people have filed (or had filed against them).

I’m big on social media, I love it, but this trend toward over-sharing, both purposefully and unintentionally, frightens me.

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Source:
Data Mining and Social Media

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New OK Go Video Actually Tops Their Treadmill Video

At work, we do these status reports and they’ve been helpful keeping everyone briefed in a large org w/o wasting time. I’ve been doing them w/my kids in the afternoons on the way home from school. Their feedback was that we needed another section for complaints.

Grace listed several complaints and I had to keep telling her to stay on track!

Also, note how important food is to them! Each of them included it in their successes…

Cady (12) — The drill sgt got hers out in 2 mins, and then critiqued everyone else’s

Successes

• Got 4 desserts on her field trip today
• Spoke her spanish conversations almost perfectly
• Won Battleship game after school

Needs to Improve

• Falls too much (up the stairs today, landed on her butt Tuesday)
• Shy

Burning Issue

• Objects to being put in the front row during gym

———–
Grace (9)

Successes

• Everyone liked the presents she made for her friend’s birthday
• Had cake after lunch
• Wrote a song on the piano

Needs to Improve

• Talks too fast (ironically she had to repeat this so we could understand it)
• Doesn’t drink all of her drink at lunch (no idea why she wants to improve this)

Burning Issue

• Struggling w/multiplication

————
Jacob (7) — I loved how pithy his responses were. All boy…

Successes

• Didn’t hit anyone today (I guess this is considered a success… LOL That one really made me laugh)
• Got a perfect score on his quiz
• Enjoyed after school snack (then came promptly home and ate a huge bowl of cereal)

Needs to improve

• Patience
• Running in school

Burning Issue

• None

——-
Ruby (4)

Successes

• Enjoyed nap (she never enjoys naptime)
• Ate all of her grapes at lunch

Needs to Improve

• Going to bed without arguing (she got mad at this point and refused to continue—she keeps this up I’m going to have to fire her)

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(via Mixergy)

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Excerpt from:
Jamie Oliver at TED: Teach Every Child About Food

(via Wired)

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Ignite NYC Open Hack

Support your favorite pirate today! Yeah, it’s on the 19th this year, but I like to party like a pirate a little early. Never heard of Talk Like a Pirate Day? Only cool people do it, so if you aren’t doing it… Well, you already know you’re ‘that’ guy.  Sad…

Anyhoo!  Javascript insert created by Tom Hughes-Croucher of the amazing team at Yahoo! Developer Network.  Get your own Talk Like A Pirate Javascript code here!

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All Me Posts Are Pirate Speak Now Mateys

Marketing Socially: Robyn Tippins from Converge SC on Vimeo.

FYI, the very first of my talk is cut off, but what you miss is my telling you that I started a diaper company in 1998, at age 22, and in month one, using forums to market it, we grossed ~$30k. The video picks up there.

See more here:
Robyn Tippins at ConvergeSC

When I talk SEO, most people new to internet marketing want to know what keywords are and how to use them.  Many still think that appropriate keyword usage is just keyword stuffing at it’s best.  ::sigh::

There is never a reason to ‘fool’ the search engines with keyword stuffing, unless you are a Tool.  And, yes, I mean tool as in a clever way to say jerk, not tool as in a useful thing that get’s stuff done.  But, I digress…

Search engines like keywords.  They literally eat them up.  By understanding keywords and SEO, you are helping both Google, and Yahoo!, to provide relevant results (disclaimer, I work for Yahoo!).  Keywords tell search engines what your site is about.  Using keywords in ‘key’ places is what makes your site appear high up in search engine results pages (SERPs).  If I want to rank well for the term SEO, I’m going to use ‘SEO’ all over my site.  But, it’s not just the main word that’s important.  The words that often appear with ‘SEO’ are key as well.  Words like relevance, SERPs, H1 tags, keywords, etc. tell the search engines that they can trust my usage of SEO, because there are other words that usually appear with this word in natural language groupings.

In my daily wanderings, I found this SEO tutorial for the person who is new to SEO.  I hope it helps.

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SEO For Noobs

Something you need to consider when choosing an affiliate network to launch your program in is the community behind that network. Some affiliate networks are more self-serve oriented; others are more relationship-focused. This impacts both the level of support you get as an advertiser as well as the kind of affiliates you can access.

Relationship-focused affiliate networks will often focus on affiliate recruitment, campaign promotion, and technical support for advertisers as well as account management for affiliates. Niche content publishers value these relationship-based networks. Consequently, the affiliates on these networks tend to be more interested in long-tail and niche promotions, as well as developing long-term relationships with the merchants they work with.

On more self-serve style networks, you’re more likely to come across affiliates whose content is broader and more general. These broader-appeal affiliates tend to be driven by commission structures rather than merchant relationships. These are often better suited for brands with a very vast array of product offers or regular seasonal promotions.

For instance, a department-store-style merchant might benefit more from a self-serve network. However, a merchant that is advertising focused product offers such as only women’s wear, only sports equipment, or only electronics might benefit from working with a network that focuses on helping affiliates monetizing their niche content.

Like any acquisition channel, affiliate marketing is one where you have to consider your own business model before choosing a partner. Just as there are both niche and multi-national PR firms, for example, there are affiliate networks that cater to different kinds of brands and, as a result, different kinds of affiliates. Choosing a network for your program that can attract the affiliates you need to promote your specific product offer will make all the difference on whether your program generates steady or increasing returns.

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Choosing a Network for Your Affiliate Program

So we’ve decided to celebrate the affiliate marketing community, and thought that the best way to do that was to celebrate affiliate marketers who are active in the community. And in the age of social media, one the best ways to contribute to an online community is by blogging. After all, blog content is interactive and shareable.

And with that, Share Results has decided to give the affiliate marketing community the — or what we like to call the Big Affiliate Marketing Blogroll – or BAMroll. This is going to be a list of affiliate marketing bloggers that’s updated every week. We’ll also be offering a badges to anyone who makes the list, and an OPML file to anyone who wants to subscribe to every blog on the list. Both the list and the OPML file will be updated every week.

Without further ado, here is the inaugural list of 16 affiliate marketing bloggers. If you want to know more these blogs, or about how the list is compiled, check out the BAMroll page.

• 5 Star Affiliate Programs Blog
• Affiliate Tip
• Andy Beard
• Dosh Dosh
• GTO Management
• Ian Fernando
• Jangro.com
• Jim Kukral
• Joel Comm
• John Chow dot Com
• Jonathan Treiber
• Jonathan Volk
• Marketing Pilgrim
• Missy Ward
• One Degree
• ReveNews
• Search Engine Journal
• Shoemoney
• Tyler Cruz
• Andrew Wee
• Zac Johnson

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BAMroll: Big Affiliate Marketing Blogroll

I’m very impressed to see these thoughtful blogging guidelines from the US Air Force. Corporations should take some notes from these very clear tips, that also leave room for creative response.

See original here:
Air Force Blogging Guidelines

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Help Children In Ethiopia With Your XMas Shopping