Lye soap or made from potassium hydroxide, sodium hydroxide etc?

Vegetable oil or animal fat?

Hot or cold process?

Mixed with titanium, nickel, aluminium or silver?

Sand, pumice or some kind of more modern substance for exfoliation?

Just perfumed? Essential oils? Plant extracts?

I doubt you will find much of the technical details about soap manufacture on product labels or the purpose of ingredients.

There are real differences in ingredients used, but the biggest difference is the marketing & packaging.

If something is sold as soap there is a high chance it will get your hands clean.

The soap that gets your hands clean is the one you actually use

It is also quite likely if an affiliate set up a website to sell $0.40 bars of traditional soap they wouldn’t make much of a living from it. (I have no idea of prices in the US/UK for the cheapest bars of soap)
The same would be true for eCommerce unless you were selling wholesale or came up with a compelling way of mass marketing… or had insane conversions.

What Internet Marketing Product/Strategy Works?

• Services with significant lock-in – hosting, shopping carts & autoresponders
• Subscription based essential tools – for SEO people that is some kind of keyword & link management package that increase productivity and improve client reporting.
• Micropayments – e.g. Facebook games
• Advertising platforms
• Tools/scripts/themes/plugins on a pay once basis
• Various paid & free content strategies

One question I have always had is can you provide content for free that people will then pay for anyway because they find it useful.

• Do you need scarcity?
• Do you need to paywall most content?
• Can added value be added in other ways?

I am not exactly talking a freemium model.

Cory Doctorow seems to be able to monetize his novels effectively whilst allowing free download for non-commercial use.

Radiohead famously allowed people to “pay what they want” for downloads of a new album, though that was a limited offer and the album was finally released at a later date with a lot of success.

A huge chunk of the value of my friend Dave’s SEO Training Dojo are the blog posts that are available for free, though there is additional value in the forums, enhanced guides, the 24/7/365 chat on Skype and the weekly organized guest experts.

There are also alternative ways to monetize content through things like consulting – in fact in many cases that could be looked on as the mainstream method of blog monetization. In this case the content is more a loss-leader than an intrinsic part of the offer.

Blogs can be leveraged to promote conferences and get togethers that are commercial in nature – conferences don’t have to be expensive or be a pitchfest to offer great value for visitors & presenters (and still have a ROI for the organiser). A good example is Think Visibilty (Leeds 4th September)

If you can offset the cost of marketing with social influence, the price you charge (after cost of goods/services) is then frequently determined by how much money you want to make and how large an audience segment you can reach.

Going to have some fun soon. I love experimentation.

• Ed Dale with the 30 Day Challenge
• Sherman Hu with his WordPress Huddles
• Michael Cheney frequently holds free training sessions combined with special offers (I sat through 2 hours of one the other night)
• I know that crazy guy Jason Moffat is now into Ustream big-time

Another guy who has always been extremely forward thinking with video for affiliate marketing is Russell Brunson. He must have spent a fortune creating his “Zoobie” internet marketing videos. I am not sure whether it was a big success, but I am sure he learned a lot from the experience.

Affiliate Evolution on Ustream

I started writing this post whilst waiting in a room on Ustream of 500+ people, because Russell mailed his list. Unfortunately all I can see is the following:-

Fortunately a recording is available later, it looks like Ustream have problems with this many people at once.

Russell will be holding free training every day… LIVE at the following times

Wed. May 21st at 11 am EST
Thurs. May 22nd at 11 am EST
Fri. May 23rd at 11 am EST
Sat. May 24th at 11 am EST
Tues. May 27th at 11 am EST

This tactic is worth studying.

Russell’s team have created a landing page for Affiliate Evolution

That landing page is hosting the video – I have seen a few marketers do this recently

The new twist to this is that this isn’t some private sub page on the domain, but is being used to promote the primary landing page of Affiliate Revolution, and his opt-in list prior to launch.

If you are anything like me, an email notification before something is about to start is always handy, so don’t forget to sign up to Russell’s notification list.

Here you can find details of the Affiliate Program for Affiliate Evolution

Think I am insane?

Russell has a 2 tier affiliate program ;)

I actually have a good idea how Russell makes as much or more from an affiliate promotion than the person whose product it is, even though he might not be the top ranking affiliate.

p.s. Joy if you read this, you might want to get the tech guys to take a look at that 302 redirect

What I can refer you to is the free stuff, a ton of great audio recordings

There are 2 featured recordings available as you log into the main site

Matt Mullenweg, the WordPress founder needs little introduction
Playtime: 22:54 mins

• Initial growth
• Influx of mindshare for WordPress
• Exploring the Tipping Point and how it relates to WordPress
• The Open Source Model
• How growth affected infrastructure and internal systems
• The move from Cnet to establishing Automattic
• How would he start a new project now, looking back in hindsight?
• They don’t do any active marketing (PR etc)
• How to make an impact on people’s lives? – start small – it just happens along the way, one day at a time
• Make a difference to one person

Brendon Burchard is the author Life’s Golden Ticket and a highly-acclaimed life coach, leadership speaker, seminar leader, and business consultant.
Playtime: 48:15 mins

• Your audience is already out there, and listening to someone – find them
• Accelerate impact curve with leverage
• Leverage the learning and infrastructure of others
• We can’t do well until we do good
• We can’t make an impact until we invest in other people
• High level joint ventures

Key points:-

• Make sure it is what you want to do?
• Can I really do this myself?
• Who can I partner with that can make this happen faster, easier, and on a larger scale than I could ever do it?
• What can I do for them? What can I give so that I can receive? How can I work with them that can amplify the message?

Over 100 hours of additional audio recordings are also available for immediate download

Nathan Anderson, Phil Basten, Kevin Bidwell, Anthony Blake, Mike Chen, Joel Christopher R., Holly Cotter, Jason Cox, Willie Crawford, Paulette Ensign, Michael T. Glaspie, Carl Galletti, Rosalind Gardner, David Garfinkel, Frank Garon, Randy Gilbert, Darryl Graham, Sid Hale, Doug Hudiburg, Jack Humphrey, Andy Jenkins, Gary Knuckles, Dr. Jeffrey Lant, James Maduk, Jason Mangrum, Jane Mark, Kenneth A. McArthur, George McKenzie, Paul Myers, Dr. Neil Shearing, Anik Singal, Jeff Smith, Damon Smith, Kim Thomas, Peter Twist, Bryan Voiles, Ramon Williamson, and Eric Wyson.

Want More Attention?

Gary Vaynerchuk deserves some, even though he is an absolute master at getting attention by himself.
Rich Schefren is putting together a special teleseminar for people who buy Gary’s new book. It is a great way of reciprocating all the help Gary has given him.

Key take-aways from Gary’s presentation in Orlando:-

• Build your own brand
• Differentiate
• “A lot of you are building the brand of the people who are ahead of you”

Conflicting Information

First of all here am I building the brand of a number of people who don’t really need it, possibly adding subscribers to their lists, and whilst I might profit from promoting some of their products as an affiliate, at the same time we are competitors for affiliate commissions on other products and services, and competitors for attention.

I even do that fully knowing that I rarely make big pay checks on products I promote as an affiliate, and at times have even highlighted other people’s reviews of affiliate products rather than write my own affiliate review.

However…

• I have gone some way to build a unique brand, though that needs to eventually be backed by products or services
• I have differentiated myself within my niche – it can limit my direct reach but at the same time by offering unique perspective, the reach of my readers is certainly in 7 figures, potentially 8 figures.
• Whilst I do contribute to building the brand of others with new audiences, that can at the same time solidify my position as some kind of bridge between various aspects of the online marketing world which is currently quite fragmented with very polarized positions

In some ways I could be looked on as the “piggy in the middle” which whilst that can be fun, is hardly a position of esteem. However long-term if I am looking to produce products or services that are essential to all manner of online marketers, a central if somewhat controversial position on occasions is beneficial.

Then in the words of Brendon, “Who can I partner with that can make this happen faster, easier, and on a larger scale than I could ever do it?”

• As time passes, projected needs tend to grow with the growing scope and scaling needs of a project.
• Increasing marketing reach can actually create problems, though with enough scale, there is no need to worry about competition.
• With enough critical mass, it is even possible to ignore the initial reaction of internet giants, as long as the internet end user benefits.

So how is your strategic marketing going?

Blogging Is Marketing Your Revenue Stream

That revenue stream in my opinion doesn’t have to be current, though it is beneficial to at least have long-term plans for revenue.

To quote Fred Wilson:-

If you are building a media oriented business, particularly one that has low marginal costs, meaning you build it once and the cost to serve an additional customer is negligible, then you have the unique opportunity to focus first and foremost on building your customer base or audience.

This slightly contradicts Rich Schefren’s teaching, as he would normally recommend building a back end first before adding front end products and services, but that model is aiming for optimal monetization (check out Rich’s previous material).
Rich is also a master at business systems and processes, just look at at the time gaps of his most recent launches.

Business Acceleration 2 Seminar – July 2007
Busuness Acceleration Home Study Guide – December 2007

New Beginnings Seminar – February 2008
New Beginnings Home Study Guide – ????

Rich’s team have been through the growing pains of taking a live presentation and turning it into a high quality home study system, and you can be sure there will be a much quicker turn around – this isn’t short term preparation, as the plans for the Orlando event were already on the table in July 2007.

The systematic marketing system is now in full swing

This isn’t typical Product Launch strategy, where there might be a big build up to an event or product, with a throw away blog, or possibly a blog rising like a phoenix from the ashes for a follow on product. Strategic profits is turning into an effective marketing machine in a similar way to Agora Publishing with Early to Rise and other information services.

You Don’t Have To Be A Doctor To Blog About Diabetes

You don’t have to be a PHP guru, marketing expert, or professional writer to blog about blogging.
You don’t have to be a professional photographer to write about digital photography

Thus you don’t have to be an accredited SEO consultant to blog about SEO

Even if you don’t monetize your blog, but still discuss SEO, it is not a fallacy because you can always cover your ass and link to sources with differing opinion – in fact that is more than most “expert” SEOs would do.

Ultimately good bloggers are good researchers and communicators, though there are exceptions even then.

Experience sure does help, as does some kind of “proof”, but they are not a requirement

In my opinion the biggest fallacy in SEO blogging is when “experts” write articles that are out of date not by days or months, but years.. on obvious things like plugin selection for WordPress SEO or not so obvious but hopefully now understood, what you should use robots.txt for.

From Lee’s post

Writing blog posts for the benefit of the industry and getting links from other SEO blogs is fine, but being able to write blog posts that consider the needs and pain points of your target audience and giving enough information to demonstrate your expertise while not completely giving the goods away to competitors is a skill worth developing.

I am going to counter that – writing blog posts that are poorly researched or don’t move the free line far enough will result in lost attention and mindshare – maybe some SEO companies can live with that, but if the only information supplied by specialist SEOs are top 20 lists and newbie tutorials, a large number of people are going to continue to believe that there is no need to hire a SEO specialist.

At the same time it certainly allows others to move the bar higher – some old tennis pros stuck with wooden rackets.

The SEO specialist looking for work in 1 or 2 years time isn’t going to be me, because that isn’t my business model, and it isn’t going to be the one who continually shares high quality information without holding huge amounts back.

I know that populist guides suitable for the majority are popular with readers and generate lots of links, but they don’t take the SEO profession forward.

From what I have seen in SEO and marketing blogging:-

If you are a good SEO or marketing consultant, that is not a guarantee that the blog posts you write are good – good is subjective, but my definition is “advancing the industry”
If you are not a SEO or marketing consultant, and have no visible backend strategy, that does not mean your SEO or marketing blog posts are poor quality.

To finish I am going to leave you with a thought:-

In medicine, the people famous are the ones who provide ground-breaking long-term cures or work tirelessly for the good of man without thought for personal reward or safety.

Most of the backend software people build websites with these days are Open Source

Where is the full-featured shopping cart that really is SEO friendly?
Where is the cure for canonical URLs?

Normally it is also very important to add something special to the sales message, a compelling reason why you are offering a special offer on the products. There are all kinds of psychological why you would do this, which I am not going to delve into, but if you Google for Mike’s free guide “FireSale Secrets” you will pick up some good tips.

Meet Timothy

For the last couple of weeks I have been visiting him with my wife every few days, 8 hour round trips, and he should be coming to live with us within the next 2 weeks. Final adoption paperwork will take a little longer.

I am not going to write a long story of desperation, my wife and I moved into a new house just before Christmas, and rushing the completion was primarily due to the progress in our adoption. That does leave the coffers a little empty.

This is something I have been planning doing for a couple of months though a few other pans on the fire were preventing me make a decision.

I have no intention of making this a 20 page sales letter, so this is how this will work.

Advertising Firesale Details

I am not going to totally abandon affiliate marketing – on this blog I have been keeping it to offers I highly recommend or thought would be interesting to my readers, and earnings were less important.

This however will be an interesting experiment… unlimited advertising slots in equal rotation

I have set up just a single zone, although advertising will rotate in various places on the blog.

The final layout will be different to how it is currently.

125×125 Banners

Current layout:

12 125×125 slots on the front page and archives
6 125×125 slots on single permalink pages

Future Layout:

4 or 6 125×125 slots on the front page
12 125×125 slots for archives
12 125×125 slots on single permalink pages
0 slots on pages that might be used as landing or squeeze pages for PPC or products
4 ads within the RSS feed

With the current design it would be a little difficult with 12 adverts on the single pages, as the sidebars are almost empty. With the planned new design I am hoping there will be a lot of useful content there, so it will fit in much better – it will fit in much better than for example the 12 ads that Techcrunch are currently running.

I am going to reserve 4 slots for myself, and expect to sell maybe 30 or 40 slots initially, though I am not going to place any limit.

Here are some accurate traffic stats as I am a quantified publisher.

Those are unique visitors, there was a bit of a slump over December, not just due to the season, but also because I wasn’t posting due to moving house and connection problems.

Traffic is picking up again, and I expect it to grow

The aim is for each 125×125 advert to be displayed at least 20,000 per month here on the site, and I also intend to include them in my feed currently to 3500 subscribers.

The math is fairly easy

60,000 page views / (approx 36 adverts / 12) = 20,000

Articles are typically read by 1500 to 2000 people (based on current subscriber numbers) and based on previous posting schedules that could amount to 5000 to 10000 additional impressions, though those will be hard to track.

The traffic I receive is 35 – 37% search, 30% social media (Stumbleupon + Sphinn) and the remainder is referral though that varies and is highly knowledgeable and engaged, just look at the comments when browsing through my archives.

My subscribers have a high percentage of influencers.

Other Stats If They Are Worth Anything

Technorati Top1000 blog (currently 666 – the devil)
Alexa typically below 20K (slightly above currently – has been below 12K)
Links will all be nofollow on site (but not in feed) , but potentially PageRank 6 if/when restored

Current ranked by Advertising Age as one of the top 20 marketing blogs in the world

Pricing

This is a firesale, so it is going to start off low and increase over time

Also significant is that these are the prices that you can lock in so even when my traffic grows, you continue to pay the same amount should you decide to continue.

Due to software limitations, I set the duration to 100 days, but the pricing will effectively be for 3 months, and I am throwing in a few extra days as a bonus – the advertising will run until the end of May 2008

$60 – From now until 3pm PST Feb 21st 2008 or for the first 10 units
70 – 3pm PST Feb 21st 2008 until 3pm PST Feb 22nd 2008 or for 10 to 20 units
$80 – 3pm PST Feb 22nd 2008 until 3pm PST Feb 23rd 2008 or for 20 to 30 units
$90 – 3pm PST Feb 24th 2008 until 3pm PST Feb 25th 2008 or for 30 to 40 units
$100 thereafter

I haven’t got things automated to switch at a particular time, so there may be a little leeway on the timing, and especially on the quantity, but if this is something that would interest you, I suggest you grab it at the lowest price possible.

It is my belief that the $100 price is still very good value for 3 months of advertising, and a continued locked in rate

Rules

• You are allowed to buy multiple slots, but different artwork needs to be used in each one
• Advertising cannot be resold
• The slots are not for affiliate links – I would much prefer to be dealing with product owners, though tracking links are fine
• If less than 20 slots are sold, then I reserve the right to add some of my own banners until the total reaches 24
• Only family friendly legal & relevant links

I will be wearing my advertising manager hat rather than editorial hat when judging adverts, so advertising will not be an editorial decision one way or the other.
I will quite happily display advertising from Google next to adverts from link sellers

No payment will be charged until adverts are accepted
No refunds will be accepted, including, but not limited to click-through rates, traffic numbers or short term technical problems
The only remedy that will be considered, at my sole discretion would be an extension of the display period which in no event would exceed 6 days.
If you are crazy enough to take me to court over it, it would be great linkbait, but jurisdiction would be Poland or elsewhere at my convenience and discretion.

Additional Avertising

My own products, though that would displace widgets, not advertising

I intend to continue displaying the Strategic Profits widget and other widgets as currently, and may at my own discretion change what is displayed as part of my core content is discussion of such blog widgets.

I will also be offering the opportunity to become a “premium sponsor” for the blog, which would allow for extensive branding and livery decisions at the time of redesign. I expect that to be in the region of $3-4000 for a 3 month period, with up to half that money invested in what I hope will be a notable custom redesign.

I am going to be working hard to boost subscribers, traffic and attention for your advertising, grab a discount rate while you can.

Update

I am aware that currently a single advert is being displayed in all slots.

I had to actually hack the plugin a little to start with, as it isn’t designed to sell advertising quite in this way. I have contacted the programmer, and between us I am sure it will be sorted out fairly soon.

Note about the purchase process: it is a little confusing, as you are sent a payment link before your advertising has been accepted. Please wait until you receive an acceptance email before attempting payment. It won’t break things, but I know it has caused a little confusion.

Thanks to all the advertisers so far

Update 2

This is a Firesale, and we have now had the first price increase to $70. A couple of lucky readers squeezed in at the last minute, and I did sell a few more slots at $60 than planned.

Also of note Simon Emery whose OIOPublisher plugin I am using for advertising management was remarkable. He got home late from his new job, but still found time to help me fix the advertising rotation problems.

I should point out that all I am doing is reducing the discount for early adopters. If you compare my advertising prices with many blogs even the $100 price point for over 3 months of advertising is extremely attractive, especially considering the influential readers I frequently attract and have as subscribers.

Grab a discount rate while you can.

This was especially significant for me at the time, because I was struggling with a problem which I couldn’t solve.

A few days later 5ubliminal posted, “If I Told You… I’d Have To Kill You” – a simlar idea, again specific to SEO techniques but with a few hints to how you can work out what others are up to… without them telling you.

My End Of year Problem

Lots of sites were publishing their year end stats, showing which were their most popular posts for the year, traffic numbers etc, and many of them were missing one, and in many cases many important statistics that can be used to determine the success of a particular post.

I didn’t post a yearly roundup – it would have been a lie

I know which are my most successful posts based upon various metrics, and the metrics I use are in many cases different to the metrics other people use, and I can use them for competitive intelligence

I wasn’t prepared to write a post highlighting my most popular posts for the year, or the ones I wanted to highlight, if I couldn’t be 100% honest about my methods.

Scribd

The changes Scribd made after the revealing Stompernet videos were really the straw that broke the camel’s back. If you release information without a great deal of restraint on how that information should be used, it can cause problems, and sometimes various tactics and methods stop working, or are prevented from working.

Release The Information In Private?

This is one option I have considered – it would be easy to set up a membership site, or use a report such as this just for list building, or even give it to a number of membership sites I am a member of as a bonus, but that introduces secondary problems.

I am not a programmer

I have worked with programming teams for years, but I can only tinker with code these days. If I released the information to just a few hundred, or possibly a few thousand, there would be 2 very specific problems.

• Only about 10% of the people receiving the information would be able to do anything useful with it – this stuff is a little bit technical, and even once I have all my data together it takes time playing around in excel to really benefit from it, and realise the significance.
• My limited use of these methods flies under the radar – if you have a few 100, or 1000 people mining the same data, it would throw up a huge red flag, quite needlessly, as many would be looking for data on exactly the same websites.

If I make the information available, the ideal solution would be

• A 20 page report
• A viable proxy based extraction and storage system for compiling data
• Various tools, possibly in Excel, to make manipulating the data relatively easy for less technical folk

Oh, Andy Is Going To Sell An Ebook?

Ebooks work for newbie stuff and basic training, or techniques that get hyped but are not necessarily for your average users (even if they are effective)

This isn’t something I want to hype about, and it certainly isn’t basic training

The financial model just wouldn’t cover the development costs

I could also include it in a membership site of my own, but it isn’t something that would stand on its own, I need a lot more time to get together complimentary materials.

With the new year people are planning their course of action for 2008, and this would prove a benefit for their content planning strategy.

Content For Your Membership Site or Agency

Do you remember the days before the junk peddlers of private label rights and bundled master resale rights products when content really had value?

These days the people who create exceptional content only provide it via higher end membership sites, and most, but not all of the ebooks are beginners guides – they can still be good value, but that isn’t the kind of content I want to create.

Over the last year writing this blog I have received a number of proposals of various kinds from membership site owners looking for specialist content, which is why I am considering a slight return to the old ways of providing content to a limited number of partners for a fee that is just a “drop in the ocean” compared to the fees members pay for access to great content, and certainly much better value than retaining me on a permanent basis.

Price – contact me by email for details – I expect to spend up to $5000 on development of the scripts and tools, though depending on the way they are designed, I might also have to provide hosting. I would much prefer to have a comfortable budget for development than to be scraping the barrel.
On top of that I will also be offering support if you provide me access to your member area – there is certainly some 2-way benefit

Initially I am not going to set a specific limit on numbers, but ideally I would like to have the report and tools made available to between 10 and 20 membership sites or agencies

I am including search marketing agencies, because they often have lots of people working with clients with whom they want to share tools and reports. Hopefully a few of the more popular SEO membership sites will pick this up anyway, so small agencies can benefit from their existing memberships, but for larger corporations it would probably be best to purchase your own license.

For further details and possibly a few examples those who have my email can just email me, or you can just use my contact form

I am going to be selective about where this information and tools will be made available

To finish, just one example:-

Which one post was my most successful in 2007? This isn’t 100% accurate because like with all statistical measures there can be extenuating circumstances that mess with the data, and using this method there are frequent occurances within the top10, in much the same way a front page Digg can make a blog seem more popular than it really is.

The Tale of Little Linkalot and Some Blogging Thoughts where I actually linked through to another one of Donna’s posts, “The Tale of Little Linkalot”

If you can work out why I regard that (based on this method) as my most successful post, a “cornerstone” or in some ways “tipping point”, bully for you, but don’t go spreading it around too much ;)
Even if you can work it out, you are going to appreciate a 20 page report on how to use this method to share with your members or clients, and the tools to go with it.

I could have just written a short blog post with my top 50 stories of 2007, provided details for compiling the data, and a very rough excel spreadsheet and a few charts, but it would not be very usable for the majority of non-programming geeks, and the method would be burned or limited within a few hours or days.

Why burn a great method just for a few links?

There are multiple reasons why I have supported PayPerPost and similar programs so strongly, and yet at the same time have never reviewed a link buying / selling service.

I have mentioned link buying and selling in passing, and also a couple of WordPress plugins, but those plugins generally allow you to sell links which have a nofollow.

My emphasis both in editorial about services and in the few reviews I have myself written is to encourage the writing of quality content with editorial links. Compensation in whatever form should be based upon the time involved, expertise, and possibly the size and influence of the audience, and not based upon any SEO benefit to a site or service being reviewed.

Encouraging The Selling of PageRank?

It is my belief that I don’t advocate the selling of PageRank, especially considering how I also discourage excessive blogrolls and sitewide links. If you have links coming in for your every utterance, I suppose internal linking structure is less important to you than acknowledging sites you respect (who might also reciprocate), or possibly those you sell links to (if you do) but in general for niche marketing blogs I tend to avoid leaks in the sidebar.

Comments on Sphinn and even here in the comments recently suggest there is some kind of disconnect between how I regard paid review services, and possibly how they are regarded, used and abused by the SEO community at large, and possibly Google reacting to that attitude taken by SEOs and not that taken by the review services, or the reviewers themselves. I think it is important to point out that PayPerPost was created by a marketing company, not by an SEO or link selling company.

Rather than single out individuals for the comments they have made, I would rather answer a specific question asked here on my blog by Lisa Stewart

Hi Andy- thanks for the excellent and well thought out post and arguments FOR services like PayPerPost.

To play Gevil’s Advocate- If a site (like PPP) is offering a fee to post and the fee is based entirely on Page Rank (and sometimes Alexa traffic) then why can’t it be interpreted as paying for page rank?
A post coming from PPP on a PR3 site may cost advertiser 10.00 and the SAME post on PR5 is 50.00.

Why wouldn’t Google seeing this as gaming PR?

Now I should point out that at this time Google is interpreting this as gaming PageRank. I personally feel this is the wrong interpretation, but then my own interpretation could be extremely biased. I have been penalized by Google, even though I believe I don’t sell PageRank.

Advertiser Or Client Intent

Every potential client who has requested a review and I have considered for a review, when told that specific link text is not a possibility, and that any link I give would be for editorial purposes, has responded favourably.

It seems people are not necessarily ordering reviews for SEO purposes at all, though I do give SEO friendly links to things I highlight as part of the editorial process.

Many corporate advertisers have a different need to fulfil, that of creating a buzz about a new product and feel that blogs are an interesting avenue to explore. They will most likely get different feedback than they would from traditional reviews sites, because a reviewer whilst being a consumer, would also spend more time doing it.
In the attention age we live in, gaining feedback from consumers whilst increasingly vital, is also becoming increasingly more difficult – sure consumers might make a passing comment, but constructive feedback is less likely, unless they feel aggrieved.

Google, Microsoft, and even most startups have rank upon rank of staff members and shareholders to “get the message out” about a new product or service, but in many ways those too are paid reviews that don’t mention competing products or services.
Other large companies don’t have such an extensive and influential online presence amongst their staff and investors, thus they look to other alternatives.

• Internal PR – the largest firms retain their own public relations specialists, often with shared ties to advertising personel – this isn’t a cheap undertaking.
• PR Firms – expensive but have access to key influencers
• Press releases – wider distribution costs money, though they are less effective for companies that aren’t monitored continually, and information is less likely to trickle down to niche markets – I have seen a number of popular websites hosting paid press releases
• Focus groups – Google themselves pay $75 per hour for people to test their services, and are probably paying the person monitoring them even more – from this they gain private feedback, but I wonder how many people also write about the experience.
• Product sample giveaways – quite frequently these do not have to be given back, so a blog owner can keep them, or give them away to readers.
• Special events – I have attended special events by major Fortune 500 corporations launching products where many of the exhibitors (including me) had flight, room and board funded, along with display space, and the same was probably true of the press.
• Paid reviews and buzz marketing

For some reason there is a disconnect between paying a blogger $10 to $200 for a post, and paying a staff member $100 per hour to chase a group of bloggers to write something for free, feed them with drinks, sponsor their events etc.

Social media optimization might be looked on as successful if a $5000 budget garnered 50 to 100 links, but paid reviews can garner many more links for a similar budget, and could also be used in conjunction with a social media campaign.

Paid blogging is a way of grabbing the attention of a blogger to consider looking at a product or service and sharing their experiences about it in public.

There are obviously some companies that use it specifically for SEO purposes, and some bloggers who are willing to write something purely for SEO purposes. Then again have you never heard of “SEO press releases” and “Article Marketing” where the content is provided 100% with links just to copy and paste.

I don’t think Hewlett Packard, Ford, or major movie studios really care that much about whether links count for search engines, but they probably do care if links are clicked. If you use nofollow, to a percentage of readers who see the link, the fact that you use nofollow suggests that you don’t trust the service you are writing about, the intent of nofollow.
The same is true for any redirects which suggest affiliate links and commercial tracking.

It is quite possible that 30% of my readers, and possibly more than 50% of my regular readers can see when I have used a nofollow on a link, because I encourage them to use the Search Status plugin for Firefox.

When Google and Microsoft employees start linking to their employers using nofollow, that is when I will start using nofollow on paid reviews and linking to consulting clients.

Leading People Astray

It has been suggested that my coverage of PayPerPost, Paid Reviews, and PageRank is in some way leading people astray, and thus the “Pied Piper” connotation.

My firm belief is that my readership is extremely mature and intelligent, and quite capable of making their own informed decisions.

Many do sell advertising in various ways without the nofollow attribute value, and would choose to use that advertising or not without my intervention, as they chose to use it in the first place without my input.

When half your family income comes from a few links in the sidebar on a few blogs, it is a very difficult decision to remove them just before Christmas, especially if you have long-term contracts.

If I was to denounce PayPerPost, it would have very little effect on the decision process each would make as an individual.

Alternative Metrics For Authority

There is a pay scale in many aspects of every day life, the time of different people has a different perceived value.

Advertisers, companies doing market research, and those looking for a little consulting need some way to determine a suitable pay scale.

• Traffic metrics

  Alexa and Compete are not very relative to niches, and not enough people install Quantcast code on their site to get a real measure.

• Technorati

  easily gamed with WordPress themes and widgets – eventually Technorati do kick sites out of the Top100 but the APis will still send high ratings. Competitions and “review my blog” have also been looked on as a good way of boosting Technorati rankings, and then we shouldn’t forget memes and link chains.
  Technorati really need to move away from counting anything in a sidebar, including blogroll links.

• Feedburner Subscribers

  You would hope that this would be accurate, but due to the problems with default feed packages, and cross promotions of alternative reading platforms, the real number of subscribers could be anything from 30% to 90% of the number shown… and of course that doesn’t mean that people even open their feed reader.

• Comments

  How much can your blog actually stimulate discussion on other blogs, and in your own comments. This is a measure of influence.

• Clicks From Feeds

  Lots of people subscribe to content but don’t read it, or take action by clicking through to an article or referenced site. Feedburner do offer some tracking, but it is hard to use this as an external metric, and to get good results you have to use their tracking URLs which then reduce the numbers of links counted by other metrics such as Technorati. People make linking mistakes.

• Social News & Bookmarking

  Most sites provide some kind of API access, thus allowing you to judge the quality of a page based upon social factors and popularity. These are also gamed to a certain extent. Stumbleupon need to provide an API. Eventually something like the Social Media for Firefox extension might be looked on as more useful than other metrics.

• Meme Trackers

  Meme trackers try to track what is a hot story right now, such as Techmeme and Megite. The nearest thing they provide to an overall measure of influence are compilations of statistics such as the Techmeme Leaderboard. It is a very small subset of sites.

• Custom Metrics

  Scripts such as Blogstorm can give an indication of popularity, but require server side access, and for a blog owner to care about being listed.

• PageRank

  Proving to be too easily gamed (WordPress themes and funny redirects), and the visual representation provided in the Google toolbar is now being adjusted with manual PageRank penalties with arguably commercial considerations. It hasn’t been very meaningful for search results for some time, and now it is no longer a metric of social influence by anyone that understand these things. Unfortunately Google mislead their Google Toolbar users.



• Argus Is Coming

  I am excited about the potential of whatever Izea (PayPerPost) come up with for their Argus project which promised to provide a comprehensive metrics service for both bloggers and advertisers.

  I haven’t seen it, am not on the alpha test, and might not get early access to it because I am not going to be at Postiecon or Blog World Expo.

Examples Of PageRank Used For Ranking

The Google Directory
The Adage Power 150
The Top 25 Blogs About Blogging
The Top 100 Make Money Onine Blogs

The of course there is the PayPerPost Direct – it is an advertiser marketplace and PageRank is used as one of the indicators of authority or influence, but you can’t search the database based upon that field, and it is just one metric offered and soon to be removed.

It is quite possible Google just took that database of sites for its penalty list, without realising that whilst PageRank is used as an indication of authority, bloggers are free to set their own criteria in private discussion with someone requiring some kind of review service. Bloggers are quite able to specify that they will nofollow the links, or use redirects. they are also able (as I do) to insist that all links are editorial..

I know bloggers on that list who have never written a review for PayPerPost.

Techcrunch Crunchies

In closing, Techcrunch along with a number of other technology blogs will soon launch what appears to be an award ceremony for technology startups.
If there happens to be a monetization or blogging category, I know who I am going to nominate, and encourage people to vote for.
In something as serious as an award called “The Crunchies”, I am quite happy to try to influence any results.

Update

I just want to highlight why I don’t support paid links and this is the kind of review I really wish Sebastian had been paid for.

If Sebastian was giving that type of advice in private, it would probably cost someone $1000 or more… seriously, Sebastian knows his stuff, just as he demonstrated with the Blogcatalog redirect problems in the past.

PayPerPost and now Izea

Fittingly I think Colleen should have the first link, she has been a postie for a long time, is a top earner, and has been taking an equal amount of punches being on the firing line.
Colleen highlights the fact that PayPerPost have been planning to have a new domain for their Argus platform for some time, and it is only logical that Argus is not housed under the PayPerPost moniker, because PayPerPost will only be one of many services provided.

People who actually monitor the PayPerPost blog of course knew this was coming a month ago.

Dan, an investor in PayPerPost… well now the parent company Izea, seems happy about how money is being spent.
That is important, I am sure the Izea.com domain name cost a lot more than $9 from GoDaddy.

Here is a link to the official Izea Press release on the new corporate entity.

Mixed Reactions To Izea & PayPerPost

As always with anything related to PayPerPost, there is a lot of controversy, and mixed reaction. I have covered the more positive stuff so far, so what follows is the more neutral or negative opinion.

On Scobleizer.com

Robert Scoble writes

Translation: Ted’s company is interesting to watch cause he pisses off lots of A listers but I’m still not sure he’s really going to build something disruptive. A company doesn’t change its name if it’s loved.

Ted Murphey responds in the comments

With over 80,000 bloggers and 11,000 advertisers (including Fortune 500 companies) in our family changing the name of the parent company was a difficult decision. While we may not be loved by all A-Listers, I do feel we have a strong connection with the bloggers we serve. The name change may be hard for some of our long term supporters, but this is the right thing long term. PayPerPost.com will remain our flagship product, it just won’t be the name of the parent organization.

The name change itself is by no means disruptive, however it does provide a framework that will allow us to innovate by offering new services that don’t necessarily belong under the PayPerPost brand.

I do believe that when it launched PPP was a disruptor. I think our newest innovation (codenamed Argus) will achieve much of the same success when it is released to the public.

Tanya questioned the negative connotation

Ted responded

Tanya : The name itself is too limiting. The name PayPerPost clearly described the business when we started but confines us long term. I am not saying PPP doesn’t have a negative connotation for some bloggers, but that is not the driver behind this change. Were it the driver we would change PayPerPost.com to Izea.com and that is not the case. PayPerPost.com will continue to operate as it is under the IZEA umbrella.

Read/Write Web – The Pot Calling The Kettle Black

For a website selling PageRank passing advertising within both their sponsors section, and possibly their “partners” section, though maybe partners is just payola, I find it wrong for Marshall Kirkpatrick to concentrate on bloggers being paid peanuts and gaming the search engines.

I don’t get paid peanuts, but I do probably charge a lot less than I should for a review, my links are editorial, and my readership likes the content I write.

It seems Marshall prefers to encourage domainers to fill up the internet with parked domains showing duplicate content.

Mashable = Balanced Coverage

Mashable is notable that on many controversial issues, they keep a balanced line. They are quite capable of stirring up their own controversy, especially regarding Google’s feed stats and feed bundles and internal linking, but I actually take a similar line on those myself.

(Did you notice Techcrunch’s commentary on PageRank linked to no one?)

Those actually are relevant links, because as Mashable highlight, Izea’s new Argus platform is being hinted to have new metrics available for advertisers.

Lots of the extensive gaming of advertising stats in the industry are going to be wiped out, and many detractors of PayPerPost might be forced to use one of their services.

On Jim Kukral

Jim takes the balanced view as he has a much longer memory than most Tech bloggers

E-Consultancy

I just want to point out that PayPerPost have never offered money to any postie that I know of to break an exclusive story. Sometime after an announcement they have had opportunities for buzz marketing. Would they have vetted a story? I doubt it, they have never asked to do something like that in the past. Colleen is in a privileged position, because I believe she has actually seen Argus during a beta testing focus group, and it shouldn’t be assumed that people writing for PayPerPost are “selling out“.

The choice of linking to the Read/Write article was strange coming from a site that lists the following in their reasons to advertise in their directory.

* We link directly to your web site which has 2 benefits:
o It improves your search engine rankings
o It means our users can go straight through to your site
* You also get your listing enhanced in the PDF print version of the directory
* We include e-mail contact details
* You get more prominent formatting in any search results
* Your logo is include to help prominence and branding
* Search result prioritisation – so you rank near the top on relevant searches
o You specify 5 keywords which you want to rank top for
* Detailed online performance reporting [View sample]
o You know how many people are viewing your listing and who

Sounds to me very similar to what people degrade PayPerPost about. There is certainly no open disclosure that paid listings are paid listings.

PayPerPost Reaction To PageRank Decrease

As I have been trying to keep a record of the official stance of the major players in the Google Pagerank Fiasco, here is a quote I found on the PayPerPost message boards, from Ted Murphey, CEO of Izea (and PayPerPost)

Posties,
Before you start pointing fingers at PPP for any Google PRupdate I would take a look here:

http://andybeard.eu/2007/10/pagerank-update.html

This is a net wide hit that effect many high profile bloggers and sites in general including Forbes and SFGate.com

On a related note:

This is all the more reason that we are moving to more quantifiable segmentation options like visitors and pageviews in Argus. PR has nothing to do with the value you create for advertisers. If your PR drops from 6 to a 3 overnight does it mean you have half the amount of visitors or clicks you will generate? No. It means that Google arbitrarily assigned a value to your blog that is not necessary representative of the value you create.

Google is determining your blog’s value and subsequent earnings capability with an algorithm that is based on protecting their own paid search revenue.

Up with actually stats! Down with PR!

Now admittedly that was made before the dust settled, after my first post.

I think the dust has settled enough to determine that Google have penalized PayPerPost users, at least those with clear disclosure and I am one of them.

However just like I believe that I am not selling PageRank, I strongly believe that is the case for most PayPerPost writers.
It really is about the quality of the content written, the buzz, and the real feedback that advertisers can receive about their product.

They bring out interesting, useful, sometimes controversial or disruptive products, but they are certainly market leaders not the following pack.

In the case of RSSBrief, they are taking on an existing market, RSS Readers, and in many ways it seems they might also step into reputation management and RSS Search.

I have a feeling even Jason Calacanis is going to like RSSBrief because it will help him with reputation management for Mahalo… but when it is finished.

The closest I have seen to RSSBrief was Myfeedz, but that didn’t quite hit the mark for me, it might be better for other people. Myfeedz really gives an overview of the whole blogosphere.

RSSBrief tries to give an overview of specific blogs, or specific blog posts, extractng core details about the content – an “executive overview” to help you determine whether the full content is relevant.

Some people might argue that that is the purpose of an opening paragraph, but opening paragraphs are either lacking in specific information, or more often than not these days, carefully crafted to entice you to read the full article.

(more after the jump)

I offer full feeds but many people don’t, and opening paragraphs might not tell you what you need to know. That is a fake “after the jump” just to prove a point.

I wonder if PayPerPost will be presenting RSSBrief which is part of their Argus platform at Techcrunch40 – maybe they will get to come face-to-face with Google – just imagine if they won the top prize and having it presented by Google and Michael Arrington.
I haven’t seen a list of people presenting published – maybe having the PPP guys there would have been just too much to handle.

As Adam Ostrow notes on Mashable:-

On the plus side, the service does seem do a fairly good job of summarizing articles, but whether that is something customers are really looking for will remain to be seen.

He also notes it is an alpha, and you can’t enter your whole reading list – there is no way to log in at all.

I love seeing projects at this early stage, because it allows you to see the potential, and possibly shape it into something more useful.

Why I See Potential In RSSBrief?

I do see a lot of potential in RSSBrief, and not because I would consider the guys at PayPerPost to be friends, and they certainly don’t pay me anything to write about them.
You could class it in some ways as being payola, they have linked to me, featured me in their marketplace etc, but they haven’t to coin a phrase ‘bought my soul”.

So the first thing I am going to do in my writeup is criticise them, and quite strongly.

Here is the link to my page on RSSBrief

http://www.rssbrief.com/feeds/24

It absolutely sucks I am page number 24 and not page number 1

Techcrunch is page number 14

This is a little tongue in cheek, but there is a serious point to it, the URLs should be based around my URL

http://www.rssbrief.com/feeds/andybeard.eu

http://www.rssbrief.com/feeds/techcrunch.com

Here is why….

Summary Feeds

RSSBrief provides 2 kinds of RSS feed

A Full Feed http://www.rssbrief.com/entries/full_xml/24
A Summary Feed http://www.rssbrief.com/entries/summaries_xml/24

I absolutely hate the full feeds option currently, because it strips out all the formatting, and possibly doesn’t count as a feed subscriber with Feedburner. Guys it is ugly, and possibly pointless.

I love the summary feed with one caveat – the useless URL

http://www.rssbrief.com/entries/summaries_xml/24

That should read

http://www.rssbrief.com/entries/summaries_xml/andybeard.eu

That summary is actually something very useful I could even use on my blog or for various mashups, but even more useful would be a way to get a summary for a specific post.

I would love to be able to pull in a summary for each post into a sidebar section automatically, or to pull in summaries in some way for additional data on category archives etc.

For effective use, all data needs to be based around the actual URLs, and not numbers.

I am not a number

RSS brief isn’t a full grown application, it is a technology demo or alpha because it is suitable to be “played around with”, and I could actually use the summary feeds as it stands to add some value.

For some of those higher output blogs such as Techcrunch or Mashable, I could imagine subscribing just to the summaries.

I really wish they would change the URLs – they might currently reflect how they are being stored in the database, but end users will get a lot more benefit if they are more user friendly.

I also hope they are going to report subscribers through to Feedburner in some way (and also with their email service Zookoda)

Hmm Zookoda – I have a feeling Zookoda is going to be integrated with the Argus backend as well. Maybe we will see PayPerPost reporting subscription numbers to Feedburner, but we will also see PayPerPost competing directly with Feedburner, now owned by Google.

When I worte about Zookoda in the past, I hinted that something of this nature might be possible.

In some ways they are now a Feedburner competitor, which might make this a little complicated. If it doesn’t happen, I expect to see PayPerPost/Zookoda move into the feed syndication and statistics business extremely quickly.

Hmm statistics…

PayPerPost have already stated that they will have some fairly advanced tracking within Argus – they really need feed readership statistics to be able to offer advertisers. They can grab some of it via Feedburner API, but can also offer their own competing platform.

PayPerPost To Directly Compete With Feedburner and Google Reader?

Thus the title of this post, it is pure speculation, but PayPerPost do have the funding to pull it off, it makes 100% business sense, they have the attention of a large blogger audience, and they will provide a feed reading experience that will be attractive not just for bloggers, but also professional businesses.
They might not be able to pull people away from Feedburner – they don’t have to, they can offer a parallel service that offers value, and will gain uptake.

As long as it could be tracked, I would add an additional feed subscription for the RSSBrief summaries, and I feel other people would as well.

Zookoda’s email offering isn’t perfect, but it is free, will offer advertising revenue in the future, and is more likely to be developed than Feedbuner’s

Despite my highlighting of Feedburner’s problems in the past, they have done nothing to rectify any of the things I highlighted that is immediately visible, even a simple thing such as adding a small text addition to outgoing emails for CAN-SPAM conformance.

Ok, so they are now Google, and Google can probably get away with a lot of things that smaller companies can’t. Who after all is going to take Google to court for a spam complaint?

Can you tell I am excited about the direction PayPerPost is taking this – their business model has always been disruption, they are going to do it again.

Thousands of people were willing to pay $600 to own a fancy new gadget

• Many wrote about it on their blogs (for traffic or enhanced credibility)
• Thousands were the envy of their friends (did you really keep it hidden?)
• Lots no doubt benefited from some level of enhanced productivity or connectivity

You Have Now Been Scammed Out Of $200?

Lots of people are coming down very hard on Apple, posting about how you might be able to get a rebate if you have owned it for less than 14 days.
I am not sure whether that is purely a reaction to the difference in price, or what I feel is a greater factor, the difference in perceived value, and prestige.

You will no longer be showing off a $600 phone that not everyone could afford, it is a $400 phone, and those with just 4GB of memory have an outdated model.

This might seem a little cynical, but I live in Europe and didn’t even have the chance to buy an Iphone and reap the benefits.

I am sure if my father-in-law saw me using an Iphone one Sunday he would openly chastise me for spending so much money just on a mobile phone, but secretly there would be a certain amount of envy, and possibly a gain in understanding and credibility – the next day he would go visit his friends and proclaim how successful his son-in-law is, and spend hours talking about a gadget he doesn’t really understand the advantages of.

In many ways spending that extra $200 as an early adopter makes more sense than buying an Iphone for $400 now.

People frequently refer to the productivity benefits of buying 2 or 3 30″ Apple Cinema HD Displays, which retail for close to $2000 each (but can be picked up on Ebay for far less)

The depreciation on those monitors is probably very similar to that of the Iphone, but you benefit from it anyway.

When you buy a new car, you lose 30% of its value as soon as you put the keys in the ignition, but people still buy new cars, often at a premium rather than waiting for a special offer later in the product life cycle.

Which brings me to Mike Filsaime, once a car salesman, but he knows an awful lot about product pricing.

Mike Filsaime on Product Pricing

Mike wrote an article about the connection between Fish, Poles, Boxes and Buttons, but it is really about product pricing and return rates.

What Mike writes totally flies in the face of concepts such as “Teach a Man To Fish, Feed Him For A Lifetime” and is based upon his actual sales figures and refund rate.

• Fish: Teach “How to” Catch Fish – 10% of market, high refund rate.
• Pole: Sell The Pole – 20% of market, medium refund rate
• Box: Give Him The Fish – 30% of market, Low Refund Rate
• Button: Prepare the Fish Dinner – 50% of market, Pays a Premium, keeps coming back, and virtually no refund rate.

I suppose you could also compare this to TV dinners and take-away food, and how food your partner makes always tastes nicer than food you make yourself (assuming you can both cook)

How To Make A Profit On Your $600 Iphone

If you study Ebay, you will notice that the phones people want to buy are not those that are direct from Apple or AT&T stores. People want to buy unlocked Iphones.

Iphone 8GB Unlocked

The sellers are offering a premium product for those people who are willing to pay for a premium service.

If you had the technical skills or access to Iphone unlocking software, right now you literally have a license to print money (and lose it all when Apple and AT&T sue you, but that is another matter)

It could be possible to create a premium bonus to allow you to resell your Iphone at a higher price, maybe as much as $20 or $30 more, if you offer plenty of hard to find information and tips on how to use the Iphone effectively, maybe with video.

If it does help you sell at a higher price, you have a product you might be able to sell separately, or in some way sell the rights to it to other Iphone sellers looking to make a better margin.

Maybe it could be turned into an Iphone owners club, with the bonus as a loss leader you effectively give away to build up a list.

How You Really Make Money From This

Just by understanding what drove you to be an early adopter of the Iphone, and what intrinsic benefits encouraged you to buy one is a marketing lesson in itself, and could well be worth the $200 or more it cost you in being an early adopter.

Final Quote From Steve Jobs Himself

In an interview today on USA Today, Steve Jobs said the following:-

No, he didn’t say you will get your money back (unless it is as suggested above recently purchased)

What he did say was

I own every Bob Dylan album ever, but I buy a lot of it on iTunes, because I guess I’m just too lazy to rip it from the CD.

Learn from Steve Jobs and Mike Filsaime

Update

Forget about the $100 coupon offered by Steve Jobs, if you purchased your Iphone using a credit card you can possibly get the full difference in price refunded.