Lisa Picarille gave a nice list of what bloggers are saying about Affiliate Summit West 2007. I want to read through them but right now I’m still recovering.

Wayne Porter said he’s sleeping in. I didn’t get in until late last night. Lisa said she’s worn out. So am I! I’ve also got to hit the gym.

Las Vegas is a land of excess. I ate way too much and slept too little. I would say I drank too much but wait, I don’t drink. All in all a great time.

I’m going to send Lisa’s post to the RMAMA email list, along with our meeting wrap up.

Copywriting Maven did a collage of 2000 blogger’s faces. I’m in it (thank you). See if you can find me or your favorite bloggers or even yourself! If you’re not on it you can add yourself. Warning: It’s a big post and sometimes won’t load for me.

Roberta set me straight, the original 2000 bloggers list is at http://tinobuntic.blogspot.com/2007/01/2000-bloggers.html

I’m seeing a lot of traffic from it however, the link is from my old blog. I asked for an update, so hopefully they will update it! There are over 500 comments. If you still link to my old blog please change it to www.newspapergrl.com, thanks!

Favorite quotes and what is calling to me.

“A lot of stress is self-imposed, and it gets in the way of good ideas.” – CEO John Vanderslice of Miraval

From Business Blog Summit (this is another essence of web 2.0):

“Businesses are used to a level of CONTROL that is no longer possible, and that’s scary. The sooner you get over that paralyzing fear, the better”.

What is calling you right now? I realized with a laugh that for me it’s a community of supportive women. I keep being drawn to it until it dawned on me. For Dave it is his mother’s sister in Arizona. We may take a detour to visit her on the reservation.

All my career and life I’m surrounded by a community of men. I don’t mind at all. But I loved going to Kelly’s conference where we were first women or moms and then entrepreneurs or business owners. I felt very at home. Plus, I got four follow-up emails from women I met there. It was a small supportive group.

Plus, I’ve been thinking about how Curves has a business model to create community of women at a gym. Women go to Curves not just to work out but giving back to their communities and to achieve good health in general. I’ve been thinking of joining for over a year, but I like yoga classes and the day care at 24 Hour Fitness. Still, if I don’t have a community of supportive women in my workday, maybe I should go outside of work and find a way to join.

And that leads me to a question: what is calling to you right now? (in life, in work)

I’ve fought political battles over SEO many times. Do meta keywords matter? How much do they matter? Should we use this or that strategy for getting higher rankings (common phrases or long tail phrases, a few keywords or many)? There are all sorts of philosophies out there. I felt a little famous when a friend pointed out my blog is everywhere in the search engines for affiliate marketing terms…because honestly I don’t monitor it at all. I don’t have time to worry or care. I just write. In fact, I don’t write in my blog enough.

I interviewed a few people at Affiliate Summit and we have some different camps when it comes to SEO (search engine optimization). One group believes in formulas and exactness in getting ranked (a systematic approach). The other focus primarily on writing high quality, useful information for PEOPLE and arrange it so search engines can easily find and index it (site structure). Talk about formulas and their eyes glaze. (Can I name drop here? Rosalind Gardner, Colin McDougall, and Will Reynolds fall at various spectrums in this camp).

Personally I think there are some formulas or deliberate ways of going about writing that work. However, I’m not *that* detail-oriented (or I’d still be a web developer not a marketer). The actual implementation can take the joy out of writing for me. That’s what cheap labor is all about, right? let them handle the details (be the editors). In fact, I’d love to have a detail slave (there are people whose minds work like this I’m told) go through my blog and add links and format it and make it all look good for me. I need a blog editor, not as in a WYSIWYG editor or tool, but as in a real live person. I guess I know I’ve arrived as a writer if I get my own editor.

What SEO strategy more closely defines your philosophy? Are you a technician (you control the details to the desired outcome) or a creator more concerned about the overall affect (you set everything in motion and let the rankings continue to build)?

[tags] affiliate marketing, internet marketing, online marketing, search engine optimization, SEO, SEO blog [/tags]

The Online Marketing Blog posted results from their recent reader polls. Remember these are SEO geeks and they are most likely SEO agencies. I’m going to put the top answer to each and some commentary.

What do you like most about your search marketing job? (67 answers)
You are truly appreciated for your expertise and contributions (21%)

Note: Money wasn’t one of the top reasons. People like to make an impact. Building a reputation was next, which is related to this idea.

What is your favorite marketing conference? (56 answers)
Search Engine Strategies (46%)

Note: Affilliate Summit came in last with 4% (though it is more specialized and this is an SEO crowd, not a crowd of affiliate marketers).

What is the primary purpose of your blog? (54 answers)

To publish/share my ideas (35%)

Interesting enough getting the significant SEO benefits of a blog was dead last on the list at 6%. Again, this is from SEO folks (SEO agencies it looks like) who are savvy and could benefit from the marketing and SEO. Sharing openly is a HUGE part of blogging. In its best form it’s not a one-sided relationship (getting links, getting business) but a giving/contributing one. I love the community-building aspect of blogging as well. Has someone you don’t know ever hugged you because of your blog?

I talked with Danny Sullivan at Affiliate Summit about how people read things into your blog and make assumptions (like that a particular post was about them, excluded them, etc when in reality it had nothing to do with them. Chris Knudsen says that’s part of the reason he pulled back on blogging).

What are your most common reasons for discontinuing a client relationship? (64 answers)

Client is too difficult to work with (53%)

Yes, once again money again wasn’t a factor. Getting paid well is a side benefit but if the client is difficult to work with it doesn’t matter.

In a recent Salt Lake Tribune article it talks about how Utah’s low employment rate (2.6%) is hurting us. It’s good news for people who need a job but not so good for companies looking for people to hire. The perception is that Utah has reached a saturation point when it used to be known as a place to find a young, educated, and motivated workforce.

Today at Affiliate Summit, an affiliate marketing conference, I heard Jim Kukral talk about how advertisers can reach bloggers. He made a distinction between bloggers who blog for money or who are businesses and bloggers not motivated by money. His point: make it easier and more appealing for the average (hobby) blogger to utilize affiliate marketing.

He emphasized the vanity of bloggers a few times. We want to feel special, we want attention, and we are looking for unique or fun content. Money is not usually a motivator. One idea I liked is trade. Merchants can offer affiliates product points to spend on their products rather than payouts. (game credits for game affiliates, free flowers for 1-800 Flowers affiliates, etc). There are tax and brand building benefits there too.

How can you interest bloggers in becoming an affiliate for your affiliate program?

• make it easier for bloggers to sign up and get affiliate links onto their blogs - this is a challenge for the networks like Commission Junction, Linkshare, or ShareASale. Right now it’s too complicated for the average blogger.
• bloggers aren’t usually marketers and are turned off by “buy now!” “click here” messages. Instead go for text ads that say something more akin to, “I recommend _________ (product name) because _________” or “Help Support My Blog, Check Out [This Sponsor]” and other ways of introducing a product or service more conversationally.
• Make ads that fit in the sidebar and around blog posts (not in them but perhaps after the post and before the comments section. Use subtle not obvious advertising. Lots of white space. No rotating or flashy banners, lots of text.
• Suggest bloggers make their own videos reviewing top converting products/services and embed an affiliate link in them using Blubbleply.

He mentioned Rovion, which lets you put a streaming video of you or someone else talking on a blog (I hope it only works the first time you visit a site unless it’s a landing page). He recommended the book: Marketing Outrageously as a good idea-generating book. It can help you think of ways to creatively reach bloggers as your new affiliates. Who knows, some of them may end up being super affiliates, but really it’s about getting exposure of your brand in the blogosphere. It’s about creative ways to reach out to individual bloggers in mass and provide them with something of real value.

Here are my suggestions for Affiliate Summit - take it or leave it, it’s free:

• get a good moderator who keeps people on topic and keeps the discussion centered (unless really interesting tangents occur)
• have a bloggers lounge area, maybe even blogger seating towards the back of a session (with plugs nearby and wifi)
• public computers set up for people to check email and/or blog
• label some of the lunch tables: ABestWeb table, bloggers table, press table, search affiliates table, etc. to maximize networking
• a public PA system where you can tell people the sessions are starting and announce changes in schedule or reminders
• a place where people can hang out and chat between and before/after sessions (the casino bar isn’t a good place because there’s a lot of noise, it’s too far from the sessions, and too many other people. In Florida this happened a lot easier).
• choose presenters based on the content and their presentation ability…there’s a wide range of talent or lack of talent…don’t ask people to speak who don’t have people or public speaking skills no matter how brilliant or successful they may be…find another way to use their talents. ask presenters to interact with the audience (walk around in the audience as they speak, or at least get them to move in closer)
• better sound (the last one in Vegas had a professional company not the hotel handle sound and it was great)

[tags] affiliate summit, affiliate marketing [/tags]

I could resist this post about how newspapers stopped trying to reach genXers. Instead they switched their focus to moms.

I love reading the newspaper but I often don’t have the time and get most of my news online. However, there’s nothing like the tangible experience of reading the actual newspaper. I love Sunday (a&e, business, Parade Magazine and more letters to the editor) followed by Friday (weekend section), and then Tuesday or Wednesday (local business news, food news). My favorite place to read a newspaper is at the airport. Where I would read the newspaper if it were there: the beauty shop. How would a newspaper be designed better for moms? A smaller format that would fit in their purse.

If I were marketing newspapers I’d try to put newspapers in places where people are often alone and have time. Moms of young children long for those times but rarely get them. Alone time is the antithesis of motherhood. Alone time is coveted. I still laugh when I suggested my friend’s response to my recommendation to read the book Never Eat Alone about a life of networking with other people. That sounded horrible to her. She truly never eats alone, eating is done with young kids and food gets everywhere (eating with others in this case is a lot of work, not pleasurable).

Other ideas: put newspapers in places people are stuck or slowing down: fast food restaurants, cafes, coffee shops, airports, doctor’s appointments, post office lines, public transportation/bus stops, on Amtrack, break rooms, etc). I’d also encourage their use in schools as teaching aids. They would have a web site of teaching plans incorporating newspapers. I still remember driver’s ed class with the wall of newspaper article stories about car crashes. It had quite an impact on me and kept me thinking about safe driving.

Also, what about newspapers doing podcasts based on the top stories?

I see it now: newspapergrl gets a job as a newspaper marketer focused on BtoB subscriptions selling multiple subscriptions to businesses for a higher subscription fee…she also oversees a purse version of the paper that is marketed to moms.

[tags] newspapers, newspapergrl [/tags]

Today I hit my high. I loved talking to people and met. The sessions I went to were very good too. I’m an “connector” and love meeting and introducing people, which I did all day.

Highlights (some a review, please feel free to add more in the comments):
Anatech forums - the place for geeks, finding coders to outsource to

Directories to submit your web site to:
Yahoo ($295 but heard it can be worth every penny)
MSN smalll business
Best of the Web

In a list of the top 10 web 2.0 companies (and let me just say that they really are just new not necessarily 2.0 in my book) Jay Berkowitz listed PRWeb. He talked about keyword density in your press release: keywords in the first, middle, and last paragraph for a total of at least 4 times.

New tools: Syntryx (use for research, see who top affiliates for your competitors are).

Subscription model photo sharing:Smugmug (cool company, profitable).

Add links, including affiliate links to any video at Bubbleply. “How to” videos are popular and affiliates can create them for their top converting products.

I’m going out for sushi…I’ll try to add more later. I apologize for my lack of links. I have less time to blog and a lot to cover…I have a great interview lead that will be a fun story: affiliate babies (they make more than yo mama). I’ve taken in more than my fair share of calories and the hotel “gym” where I’m staying isn’t helping. It’s pretty much a closet with a few weights.

[tags] affiliate marketing, affiliate summit, affiliate summit 2007, PRWeb [/tags]