You are reading the archive seo blog

To visit the new seo and affiliate marketing blog please click here and then bookmark the new blog page. All new posts will be in the new blog :)

There will be no new post in this blog starting today Jan 24th 2004. Enjoy the archives.

Tanya

This week I will not be blogging much. I plan on moving over to wordpress. I will be archiving this blog.

After the move I will begin doing some tutorials on building seo friendly websites for affiliate programs. I will post more on this as soon as the new blog is ready :)

Today I stopped by Aaron Wall's blog SEO Book. He has wrote an interesting article on Why Many People Buy Shitty SEO Services. It goes over the problem, facts and alternatives.

Many people would like to do SEO themselves. These people or companies should be reading more about search engine optimization, instead of trying to get a good SEO cheap. It just isn't going to happen. For those that want to learn, I really suggest you buy Aaron Wall's SEO book. It is an excellent start for anyone!

Things to think about when looking for Good SEO Services:

If you are buying SEO services for $2,000 or less a month and selling products or services that make you $50 a sale and have an affiliate program that you pay out $30 a sale. How many sales are you really expecting?

If an SEO tells you they can make you $30,000 a month and they are only getting $2000 a month. Do you really believe their services are going to make what they are promising? Think about it, they could be making $18,000 just as an affiliate.

If you are buying PPC traffic and have no organic listings, how much is it worth to you to get that traffic as well?

For any Business
Nothing in life is free. If it is, it probably isn't worth it. Organic listings are free, but that is only if you can do the job to get them.

If you can't do the job, you hire someone. It is that simple. Yes you will have to pay to get those "free listings". But if you hire the right SEO for the job, it will make you a profit. That is what you are looking for right?

MSN Search Engine
Well if you haven't heard, MSN has been rolling out their new search engine. I have seen it here, it still says beta on it. They say it should be fully out by Feb. 1st.

Affiliate Programs
I'm looking to pick out some Affiliate Programs to test out. Does anyone have any suggestions? I would like to pick an "SEO Friendly Affiliate System" and a not so friendly one.

I plan to promote them and post here in the blog. Going over how I build, link and marketing the products and services. Also watching the SERP's and testing the SEO Friendly Affiliate Program out with the new no follow link tag and without.

I'm thinking about giving Friend Finders a try. This program is SEO Friendly.

If anyone has any other suggestions, please email me ;) tanya@overthemark.com.

Search engines have come up with a new tag to help blog sites. This new no follow tag will tell the search engines not to follow the link. This was made for blogs, but I'm guessing can be used in other ways.

You can read more at the Google Blog Preventing Comment Spam.

I will probably test this link out on Search Engine Friendly Affiliate Programs. This one would be good to use if your wanting to keep the traffic on your own domain.

If it works with all links, then many will need to keep better track of their links with partners, link buying, and any of their linking strategies.

Also, wordpress...I have started using this blog software on another site. I have found I like it much better. I may archive this blog and start using wordpress. Probably as soon as I figure out exactly what I want to do...and have time to do it.

I have had discussions with many who visit forums or email me about concerns over Domain Specific Affiliate Programs.


Questions on Domain Specific Affiliate Programs

Many question have been do affiliate programs really do this? If it is domain specific, does that mean I will not get paid on affiliate links that rank in the SERP's? How many affiliate programs do this? What affiliate programs do this?


Here are my answers:

There are so many affiliate programs available. I can't tell you what each one does or does not do. What I suggest is that you read their TOS or ask them.

Many times pay per click affiliate programs will monitor where clicks come from, to reduce their chance of paying for clicks that were fraudulent.

Some affiliate programs may be domain specific so they can monitor where their services, products or memberships are being offered. This reduces their chances of showing up in sites that could cause them legal problems. Can’t blame them for that either.

I’m definitely not saying they are doing this on purpose. They have to protect themselves from fraud, spammers, and sites they don’t want to be apart of.

Here is an example of just one affiliate script backend. This script is built to work with a popular store script. (Oscommerce).



Notice the Tie to URL. When set to true, this script would ignore all sales generated from anywhere other than the affiliates domain.

Many affiliate programs are not domain specific as far as I know. It would be hard for them to be, with as many free hosts that are being used. But I can’t say what their policies are or how their script works.

SEO Friendly Affiliate Systems Overview

This overview of an SEO Friendly Affiliate System is based on my experience with SEO Friendly Affiliates over the last year and a half. This will go over different stages of what I have seen with SEO Friendly Affiliate Programs.


My Experience

I started like anyone else. I built my first site in 1998 and became an affiliate to generate income off my website. Then over the past 7 years I continued to build websites and promote affiliate programs. In 2001 I began working on an affiliate system. In April of 2002 I launched my first affiliate program. So my overview is based on my experiences as an SEO, Affiliate System and Affiliate.

I understand HTML, PHP, Perl, java scripts, flash, and many other types of web related code and graphics. I have administrated several Unix and Windows based servers (MCSE). I work on over 300 websites. I have an Associates Degree in Computer Science from Sawyer College in Merrillville Indiana and a Bachelor in Fine Arts (Visual Communications) American InterContinental University - AIUonline.com.


Stage 1. SEO Friendly Affiliate System.

During the first stage of working with a SEO Friendly Affiliate System I watched as my site ranked for keywords I targeted. Usually I had several sites that promoted the affiliate programs products or services. Sometimes I would use the same affiliate link in several sites and other times I would use a different affiliate link to track how well a domain was doing. During this stage everything seems well. In the examples I am Affiliate 1 and Affiliate 2.



This is wonderful. I'm ranked and my affiliate links are ranked as well. I like this stage and would be happy to stay in this stage. But as an affiliate system gathers more affiliates and as you continue to push your domains and your links, problems develop.


Stage 2. SEO Friendly Affiliate Systems. Problem 1.

As I continue to promote the affiliate programs products and services and my own domains, I started noticing changes in the SERP's. Now instead of ranking on Page 1 several times and even my affiliate links ranking, my sites have gained value. At this point my anchor text has promoted the affiliate link making it more important than my own sites. Google starts noticing that the affiliate link is important so it starts ranking them as important. Then Google notices that these links are all the same page. So Google ranks the most important link.



This is ok; I'm still ranking well and generating income from the Affiliate Programs. I can live with stage 2 or make changes to the way I link to the landing page and increase my domain in the ranks again. But from the Affiliate System point of view, I'm getting less traffic because now the landing page ranks and traffic no longer comes through many affiliate sites. On the other hand the traffic is going straight to the landing page which many times will have a higher conversion rate.

I also noticed during this stage, the rankings now changed. Instead of showing several high quality content provider sites that are PR 5 and up sites in the SERP's. I now see my one affiliate link, and many lower PR 2, 3 and 4 sites taking the spots. Some are even the newest domains I recently started to promote these products or services.


Another SEO Friendly Affiliate System Problem Occurs

Now in Stage 2 with some Affiliate Programs I realize I'm losing money. This Affiliate System is domain specific. They will only pay me on clicks coming from MY domains. Clicks are now coming from Google. During Stage 1, while some of my affiliate links are ranking, I don't realize this isn't a good thing for some Affiliate Programs I'm promoting.




Stage 3. SEO Friendly Affiliate System. Problem 2.

During this stage the affiliate system has many links into their site. They are gaining PR and being ranked as more important. My affiliate links are generating less income. I start seeing at first the Affiliate Programs domains ranking right under my affiliate link in the SERP's. As this stage continues I see the Affiliate Programs Main Domain ranking in place of mine. It could be their main domain or their default landing page. (It depends on the affiliate program and their internal linking structure, which link I see taking my place).



This stage pretty much sucks. My income decreases. I'm no longer getting anything for my wonderful work. Also from the affiliate systems point of view, I'm getting fewer rankings in the SERP's.

Now at this stage I realize I need to take control back. I can either talk to the Affiliate Program about letting me customize my landing pages or I can start trying to block the affiliate link from being index.


Conclusion

Each SEO Friendly Affiliate Systems will have different problems. Affiliates and Affiliate Systems should review what they have seen or not seen. This way they can plan for these problems. I'm not saying they are bad. But I will value the Affiliate Programs that offer me Customized Landing Pages and NON SEO Friendly Links, so I can have some control over my own marketing methods.

Lastly I would like to thank Aaron Wall the writer of SEO Book for suggesting I create some images showing the flow the stages in this article. Thank you Aaron!
___________________________
Written by Tanya Martin from Over The Mark. Keep an eye out for more great articles and tips at her SEO Blog. Interested in having your linking methods evaluated or your affiliate system evaluated? Contact Debbie Bonventre at debbie@overthemark.com or 1.888.987.7861.      

Ways to take advantage of SEO Friendly Affiliate Systems

I have had a few questions on what you can do to take advantage of SEO Friendly Affiliate Programs.

SEO Link Builders
It really depends on what you are good at doing. If you just like link building, then you can concentrate on building links into the landing page. So you would link with the affiliate link they give you.

But you have to be really good at building links. This type of affiliate system will be hit by a duplicate filter. You will be bunched with the systems default landing page and other affiliates pages. There can really be only 1 that will rank the best.

SEO Content Builders
Content builders need to find ways to prevent the links being spidered. They want to keep their page ranking in the SERPs instead of the affiliate programs landing page from ranking in the SERPs.

These would be all the things you have learned to stay away from like:
1. Put the link in a flash button
2. JavaScript’s added to the link, like a mouse over.
3. Maybe frames? If you can get part of the frame to be indexed and the part that has your affiliate link not, it might work.
4. Search for the SEO no no's and see what they suggest you don't do to your links. Test doing something like that.

How will you know it is working? Well, if currently your affiliate link is ranking higher in the SERPs than your page. Then you will need to watch for your page to start showing up in that spot instead of the affiliate link.

What SEO Friendly Affiliate Programs should think about

SEO Friendly Affiliate Programs can be adjusted to allow affiliates links not to be hit by a duplicate filter. Here are some things they may want to consider.

1. Can we find a way to make each affiliates landing page Unique?
2. Will we need to give affiliates some type of control over the look or text on those landing pages?
3. What legalities can arise from letting affiliates have some customization options for the landing pages?
4. How will any customizations to the landing pages affect conversion ratios?
5. What other ways can we make each affiliates landing pages unique without giving them too much control?

The customization would have to be enough so search engines that have a duplicate filter will not see them as the same page. Is this possible? Right now I think so, but since search engines algorithms change frequently you will need to keep watch on everything.

There are many reason that Affiliate Programs should take advantage of SEO Friendly Affiliate Systems. But there are also reasons Affiliates may need to be cautious of them. If the affiliate doesn't understand linking or the effects of search engine algorithms then they may need some help from an Affiliate Manager.


Semi-SEO Friendly Affiliate Programs

These are programs that are getting hit by the duplicate filter but are not getting the advantages of PR transferring to the pages. These systems should look to see if they could use Mod Rewrite to become truly SEO Friendly.

They should also be able to prepare affiliates for this. With custom landing pages and a good Affiliate Manager to help affiliates with linking or customizing.

Feel free to come ask me questions over at Digital Marketing Online Forum. I would love to discuss this and the different degrees of this happening.

___________________________
Written by Tanya Martin from Over The Mark. Keep an eye out for more great articles and tips at her SEO Blog. Interested in having your linking methods evaluated or your affiliate system evaluated? Contact Debbie Bonventre at debbie@overthemark.com or 1.888.987.7861.

By Tanya Martin
SEO Blog & SEO Training

I highly recommend this As Seen On Tv Affiliate Program. Mixed Goods As Seen On Tv Affiliate Program providing you with the best information on Search Engine Tactics for affiliates.

Want to drastically improve your income with affiliate programs? Learn what affiliate linking SEO strategies can help. Find out exactly what you should do to take control of your traffic.

So you are marketing affiliate programs and other ad revenue programs. Is the Rebound Effect making your shots a slam dunk or is your shot a brick? Are you even in the paint?

You have done everything you can to make your site rank high in the SERPs and your site is getting good traffic. But are you losing sales and you do not even know it? Could the affiliate program you are promoting be a traffic leak?

For about a year and a half I have been watching the changes in Search Engine Algorithms and how they are changing how your affiliate program or ad revenue links rank. Take some time to read this article and learn what to look for and what you can do to take control of your traffic to increase your ROI.

Some of the things we will go over so you can see the Rebound Effect are:

• Are you losing Google PageRank to your Affiliate Program? (PR Transfer – The “Brick” – linking to affiliate systems that gain PR from you, why it can be bad and why it can be good)


• Is your Google PageRank fluxing back and forth to the Affiliate Program? (PR Bounce – “In The Paint” – the affiliate system doesn’t index well so your PR tries to forward to them but doesn’t)


• Are you losing sales because of the Affiliate Program’s tracking system?


• Ways to improve your control of PR Transfer or PR Bounce. Start creating a “Slam Dunk”. (Slam Dunk – learning how to take advantage of how each affiliate system tracks so you can keep or gain sales from it)


• Things to look for so you know if the Rebound Effect is helping you get a “Slam Dunk” or keeping your shots from being nothing but bricks. Maybe something went wrong but you now have a “free throw”. Learn how to take advantage of your linking methods.


• How this also works in “Ecommerce SEO”. If you own an online store and link to products with tracking codes, then this will show you how to evaluate your linking tactics.

Ok some of you might be thinking it doesn’t really matter, if my site ranks high then I know I’m not losing sales. Really? If your sure, well then you can skip reading this article. But before you go, lets look at some things that might be causing you to lose.


Now first, I’m not saying AT ALL that the Affiliate Program on any of these examples are doing anything wrong or are bad in any way. Also I cannot say that an affiliate system doesn't have a good SEO. A good SEO that evaluates this and does things in their favor creating a “Technical Foul” against their affiliates or if their SEO is working in the affiliates favor. Honestly some Search Engine Marketers may not even take things this far when evaluating Affiliate Programs. (Technical Foul - an affiliate program that works knowingly to gain PR from affiliates AND set themselves up to rank higher than affiliates).

What I’m really saying is Search Engine Algorithms change and there are things you as an affiliate can do. Also some affiliate systems may want to change how they do things or offer different ways for affiliates to link to them. I know many Affiliate Programs go out of their way to make sure there are many ways for an affiliate to promote their sites.


Now lets get started, I just put the term “replica rolex watches” in Google. I search through a few pages looking for affiliate looking links. I found First Zone then right below that you will see another link that says, “more results from www.first-zone.com”. *See screenshot below.



Now lets click more results under the link that is titled “First Zone: An American Pay Per Click Search Engine” So we can evaluate exactly what is happening. When you click the link you will see more links that are a part of the first-zone.com website. *See the screenshot below.



Interesting that AID=28952 is higher then AID=31197. Why is that? Does 28952 have more weight with Google then 31197 does? Can he or she (31197) do anything to change his or her rank? Should they? There are things they can do to make sure they get ranked higher. If they change the way they link to this sponsor they can rank #1 for that term instead of the sponsor. They will have to evaluate how they are linking to that site. They will have to come up with a better way to structure the links so they can rank higher.


Some things an affiliate or publisher of ads might do to improve their results with a system that can be indexed by SERP’s:

• Link with the same tracking code on all your sites. This way you are always pushing the same page. This method works best with someone that can gain weight above the main domain they are promoting. I have done this. But be warned, at times the main domain appears below your link in SERP’s, so you still may lose some sales to the main affiliate program. But you can make your affiliate link be the highest PR for that system and rank well for it. (*See next example) Good for Link Builders.


• Link with a mouse over or something that prevents a spider from indexing the link you are promoting. This method works well if you are promoting your pages more then the actually affiliate program. Good for Content Builders.

“The Brick” with Strong PR Transfer
An example of this would be an affiliate linking that has blind variables. These have been starting to pop up the last 18-24 months, and still aren’t all over the place. Yet. Search Engine friendly affiliate programs these are ones that give you links that look like this:

http://www.landingdomain.com/product/affiliate/



SE friendly affiliate systems can get PR. I have seen it with many of them. Also then you are competing with other affiliates for the SE Spot. Think like this “there can be only one”. With duplicate filters it is very easy for a link like this to rank but to rank in the more results.

Now what does this mean to both the Affiliate and the Affiliate Program? The Affiliate System wins because they are gaining some PR from this affiliate. Is the affiliate winning? Well that all depends on that affiliate. This type of tracking is great for an affiliate that can build many links but doesn’t want to build much content. They can put all their time into building just links and gain PR and rank in SERP’s. But to the affiliate that wants to have the traffic on their own domain and doesn’t want to lose PR, they may want to adjust their linking structure.

Also for the Affiliate System, they can make some changes and easily get many more rankings instead of just one with many results…but I will save that for some other time.


Also here is another problem, most affiliate systems ask for your URL when you sign up. Some require the click to come from your URL. If the click is going straight from a search engine to the affiliate systems landing page you will be losing sales. Ask the affiliate program you are promoting if they required the traffic to come from the domain you submitted to them. Or look in their faqs to find out if they mention this.

Now, if you find out that where the click comes from doesn’t matter. Then here is another plus to think about. If you can rank high on SERP’s with a keyword and they go straight to that landing page. That is one less click your traffic has to take for you to make the sale. Another big plus is you can concentrate more on link building with good “anchor text”. (Anchor Text - the keyword or keywords you use in the hyperlink that appears on the page instead of the hyperlink).


For affiliate tracking systems that do not do well in SERP’s, you can usually link the same way you always have. But remember Algorithms change all the time and search engines are trying to index sites better. You need to be aware of how your sites and linking structure is working for you.

Getting The “Slam Dunk” Some things to look at when evaluating an Affiliate Program or Ad Network:

• Are the links being indexed? Try using the site: command on Google to see what type of links are coming up in the SERPs. Like First-alert.com above, site:first-zone.com replica rolex watches (term you want to see the rankings for).


• Are they showing PageRank?


• What do you do to gain Search Engine traffic? Do you build links? Do you build content?


• How do you feel about losing a little PR?


• Do you want more control over your traffic?


• How is duplicate content coming into play with this affiliate system?


• Is the system willing to work with you or add some things that will help your landing page be a little more targeted or Unique?


• Have they already made adjustments to their affiliate tracking system that will allow you to have Unique content?

After that, you need to decide how to structure your links or sites to take advantage of how the affiliate tracking system works. Really this includes any tracking system that you use for contextual ads, ad networks, e-commerce stores, and more.



I could go on about many other things to evaluate or do when you promote affiliate programs. But this has become a pretty long article, so I will try to continue to provide tips and articles in my seo blog.

• finding out what type of linking you should do


• what type of affiliate programs will work for you


• examples of what type of affiliate systems link builders should promote


• what type content builders should promote.

But if you want to learn more in the meantime you should really check out SEO Book. It is the ONLY SEO BOOK I recommend to employees that should know some SEO, programmers, webmasters, anyone that wants to know more about SEO and text content providers.

Feel free to come ask me questions over at Digital Marketing Online Forum. I would love to discuss this and the different degrees of this happening.

I highly recommend this As Seen On Tv Affiliate Program. Mixed Goods As Seen On Tv Affiliate Program providing you with the best information on Search Engine Tactics for affiliates.

Written by Tanya Martin from Over The Mark. Keep an eye out for more great articles and tips at her SEO Blog. Interested in having your linking methods evaluated or your affiliate system evaluated? Contact Debbie Bonventre at debbie@overthemark.com or 1.888.987.7861.

You can find a list of Free Directories there.

I have had a few people submit some of their free directories that are seo friendly. So here are a few more:

Conner submitted VFunk Global Dance Music Directory - A good place to submit your music related sites to.

Dan has SEO Friendly Directory List there.

Doriant has a thread here that is a list of a Directory of Directories. He also has a Forums Directory.

Mark has Primo Directory which looks seo friendly, it has PR and the links are straight to your site. He also has Yeandi which looks seo friendly too.

If you have any free seo friendly directories and would like to submit it to my blog and list, please email me at tanya@overthetmark.com or submit it to me over at Digital Marketing Online Forum Directories Area.

If you haven't heard, I'm working from home with the chicken pox this week. Yes, I have the chicken pox. No I don't know how I got them.

I spent most of the evening yesterday answering phone calls and telling friends and relatives that I don't know how I got them, I just have them.

So if you haven't heard. Now you know.

I will see what I can come up for the blog this week. But if I happen to miss a day, you know I was in bed then!

If you want to find out more on chicken pox. Check out this site Varicella.

At VBulletin Webmaster you can learn and discuss how to build, optimize, promote, customize, manage and profit from your Vbulletin forum.

Now I have some more free directories that anyone can submit to. I will update them in the free directories blog in a few minutes. But here is the list of new directories:

General Directories
Directory Chick
Directory Bytes
Directory Babe
Chicken Directory
Web girl Directory
Hot Sites Directory
Easy Lock It Directory
Synergys List Directory

General Directories on Older Domains
4 hitz Directory
Synergys Directory
Sloogle Directory
Easy File Lock Directory
Easy Privacy Software Directory
Easy Internet Eraser Directory
Webs Made Easy Directory
4 iSpy Directory
Easy Eraser Pro Directory
Flying Popups Directory
Free Digital Marketing Report Directory
Sliding Ads Directory
Software Sells Directory

Affiliate & Webmaster Resource Directories
Affiliate Hell
Affiliate Lotto
Affiliate Shout
Webmaster Cooler
DMOF Directory

Now you may be wondering why.... [Read More!]

I finished my degree in Fine Arts (Visual Communications). We had classes on everything from type, colors, dreamweaver, flash, photoshop, illustrator, InDesign, Pagemaker and more.

I'm glad to be done and ready to work more :)

Over at Digital Point they are discussing how to get your site into Yahoo fast and free. Yahoo Tips.

This is for blogs. If you have a blog, you may want to check this one out. I'm trying it out now.

Good Luck.

I thought today I would give you some links to some of the Search Engine Blogs out there.

Googles Search Engine Blog
Yahoos Search Engine Blog
MSN Search Engine Blog

Just some interesting reading if you have the time :)