Affiliate Blog

Sphinn … it's all the buzz today and I'm reading about it everwhere I go to catch up on today's latest and greatest.

According to Linda Buquet at 5 Star, latest and greatest is an appropriate phrase to use when describing Sphinn.

If you are into SEO, PPC and Internet Marketing you just may want to take "Sphinn" for a SPIN. (That's the pronunciation BTW.)

Many are saying this will replace the now defunct Threadwatch, but with all the social functionality this site has, I say it will far surpass it.

I was wondering what Danny Sullivan was up to these days and now, I get this awesome surprise from the master of webology.

Danny brings us all up todate on his SearchEngineland Blog with the new changes and other changes coming in the near future.

When Search Engine Land launched last December, I talked about liking the name in part because it sounded like "a community, where people can meet, talk, discuss and network." I promised to upgrade the site to help a community thrive. It took much longer than the original "month or so" I envisioned to make this happen. But today, we're happy to unveil our new social site, Sphinn.

And what specifically is Sphinn?

Sphinn is a social site for search and interactive marketers. It's designed to allow you to share and discover news stories, read and take part in discussions, discover events of interest and network with others.

Now what Marketer in their right mind wouldn't like the sound of that?! Hey Linda, thanks for the ping on Sphinn. I'm really looking forward to watching this grow. 

I just posted to my Webmaster Blog about the sale of vBulletin to Internet Brands.

I'm not looking to double post on this topic, so I'll just direct you to the post … Webmaster Blog.

Tomorrow, Nielsen/NetRatings will announce that they are no longer judging the popularity of web sites based on the number of page views. Instead, Nielsen will use a different metric, rating popularity by how much time visitors spend at a site.

You, the web user, drove this change, through the software you prefer and the way you use the web. And most importantly . . . with your interest in watching online video.

One of the biggest trends is the movement towards more use of interactive video.

I've found an awesome tool called Screen Show Pro and it's an inexpensive screen capture tool similar to Camista. I'm using Screen Show Pro to build my interactive videos for my various Internet businesses.

After I made my videos, I joined the new interactive video community site called FreeIQ. It's free to join and gives both a venue to distribute your videos, as well as your products, services and affiliate links.

FreeIQ is full of helpful and informative educational materials and products … many of which are for free.

Visit my FreeIQ website … http://freeiq.com/bobbiegrennier to learn more as the Internet is quickly moving towards a video rich world and you need to be a part of it to be successful.

The use of sites like FreeIQ, are changing the media landscape. Your propensity to spend time interacting with the web via video and other new forms of media makes the time you spend a much more authoritative judge of a website's popularity than the number of pages you view.

How do you make sense of the Internet noise that's coming at you from all directions?

According to Seth Godin's Squidoo.com…

Searching online should really be called poking online. Because that's what you do. You poke around. You poke in Google and you poke at some ads. After looking at a bunch of links and pages, then, finally, you get it. You understand enough to take action—to buy something or make a decision. The thing is, this takes a long time.

Squidoo's goal as a platform is to bring the power of recommendation to search. Squidoo's goal as a co-op is to pay as much money as we can to our lensmasters and to charity. And Squidoo's goal as a community is to have fun along the way, and meet new ideas and the people behind them.

Their goal at Squidoo is to leverage the power of personal recommendation online.

That's an awesome goal, but my first visit to Squidoo left me muttering, "Huh?" I couldn't figure out how it worked. It's like being a PC user in a Mac environment with all the cute names for everything, but I just wanted to get in, do it and play. Instead, I had to do something I hate to do … I had to read the directions.

Squidoo has what they call Lenses. I call them web pages or blogs. They're listed in Lenserolls … so, in my mind that's something like a Blogroll. I came across a Lense that helped me a lot How To Squidoo.

Lensrolling is a way to share the love and create your own personal lens network. List your friends' lenses, relevant lenses on your topic, or even link to other lenses by you!"

Another must read page is thier Squidoo FAQ. There you can read about Modules, which according Squidoo are…

Modules are the building blocks of lenses. A module makes it easy for a lensmaster to point to links, images, blogs or even things to buy. Some modules are curated (you enter all the links and content manually) and others are automatic (you configure the inputs and then the lens draws on RSS feeds to update your lens without any work from you). Similarly, some modules are commerce-oriented and others are just content based.

See how this is like learning a whole new language?! But it's well worth the trouble. PC World calls Squidoo one of the top 25 websites to watch, so clearly reading the directions is going to be well worth your time.

Once you're up and running on Squidoo, you'll want to read the Hot Traffic Tips and Advice from Top Squidoo Lense Masters on how to drive that traffic to your Lense (aka web site).

Do You Squidoo? Try it!

I  get so much email everyday, it's absolutely over whelming. There are things that I want to post about, but I'm too busy deleting to even have the time to post. I'm sure many of you know exactly what I'm talking about.

So, I thought I'd just post an overview for your review.

Who sends me the most opted-in email? Right now, it's Russell Bronson by far. So many emails, I just don't pay attention to them anymore. Today's email was Russell promoting Mike Filsaime. I unsubscribed from Mike's email because he was just flooding my in-box.

To be honest, when I see one marketer pushing another marketers stuff, I don't pay attention to it. It's pretty clear they're just cross promoting each other to make a few bucks. One of the other guys who does this a lot is Anik Singal at AffiliateClassroom.

When I get something from Affiliate Classroom, I check to see if it's really about Affiliate Classroom or if he's doing a promo for another marketer. If it's Affiliate Classroom, I'll read it … but anything else is just not worth the time.

What I really love is when I get a bunch of emails from all the players, all promoting the same thing. I'm torn. Who's links do I click to go see what it is now that I'm supposed to go buy?

By the way, Affiliate Classroom's April eMagazine is out. Now those are worth reading. Anik does a good job on those. Visit AffiliateClassroom.com to get yours.

 

1: Accessibility

Search engines must be able to access your web pages. If search engines cannot parse your web pages, then they will ignore your site and you won't get good rankings.

Make sure that your web server does not return any error codes when search engine spiders visit your web pages. If your server returns an error code, search engines will not index your site.

The correct code should be "200 OK". You can check the status code that your web server returns to search engines with IBP's search engine spider simulator (free).

In addition, make sure that the HTML code of your web pages does not contain errors that prevent search engines from indexing your site.  The content of your web pages must make sense to search engines. Do not use images or Flash to present the main content of your web pages.

2: Site and information architecture

Your web site should have a good site architecture to make sure that it is not just a collection of random web pages. The pages of your web site should be related by topic and they should show search engines that your web site is relevant to a one topic or niche.

This is very important because most major search engines seem to use latent semantic indexing in their ranking algorithms.

3: Keywords choice

Choosing the right keywords is one of the most important steps that determines whether your SEO efforts are successful or not. Consider hiring an SEO Writer.

It's best to focus on 2 or 3 word keywords for search engine optimization. One word keywords are less likely to convert to a sale, and they are also much more competitive. So, focus on keyword clusters of two and three keywords together.

4: Content

Web sites that only offer articles and affiliate/AdSense links that can be found on dozens of other web sites will have a harder time getting search engine rankings.

Try to create unique and trustworthy content that separates your web site from the others. Write — and write more — unique content for your web site to make sure that your web site becomes the best resource of information for that topic/niche.

5: Inbound links

Without good inbound links, it is impossible to get high rankings on major search engines. You should get as many links as possible from related web sites. The more targeted and relevant the link, the more it will help your search engine rankings.