If you want to learn basketball from a basketball great, you give Michael Jordan a call. If you want to get the inside scoop on football from a football legend, you hit up John Elway. If you want to learn about affiliate marketing from a super-star of the industry, you listen to the words and advice of Nick Reese. It is what myself, and many other people in the industry have been doing for a while, and now it is something that everyone has a chance to do.

Nick is a twenty-something year old affiliate marketing prodigy, who has been involved in the industry since his college days. Since graduating he has propelled himself into the affiliate marketing spotlight and now makes his living solely online. Countless big name Internet gurus kept coming to Nick for advice, so he decided, what better way to share my knowledge, then to put my ideas down on paper, errrr, on PDF file. From this idea was born “How to Turn Traffic and Trust Into Sales.”

The name says it all. “How to Turn Traffic and Trust Into Sales” is an eBook aimed at taking an inside look at what it takes to become successful in the affiliate marketing industry. Gone are the days where the richest online entrepreneurs are running countless Google adsense pages with no name or face attached to them. Gone are the days of spam as a successful marketing ploy. Now online action from buyers requires trust and accountability from the business behind the sale. With the countless online outlets for almost every type of product, it is up to the owner to set their brand apart from the rest.

As is stressed over and over in the book, this is NOT a get rich quick solution, and there is NO overnight success involved. This eBook guides you through the process of setting up a strong foundation for an eventual online business and brand. Nick takes you through the process of identifying a potential niche, building your brand within that niche, and capitalizing on your traffic and your brand in such great detail, that even the most experienced affiliate marketers will learn something from this book. I’d even go as far to bet that Nick may have learned something himself or found trends in his work as he put all of his techniques and ideas down in print!

Don’t get me wrong though, this eBook goes far beyond a “how to” guide for setting up your online brand. I think this line from the book can sum up the value of it better than anything I could write;

“This book has one overarching goal: To teach you how to be an ideal affiliate
candidate for companies with established affiliate programs and position
yourself to profit when you become an affiliate.”

Not only is it important that the companies with affiliate programs view you as a valuable asset, the people visiting your site have to value your opinion! If you are missing either one of these two pieces then your affiliate marketing project is already off to a doomed start.

In this book Nick talks about building your microbrand, generating traffic, developing content, and gaining trust. More importantly though than all of these subjects, is Nicks ability to take the reader by the hand and guide them through the process of building their reputation, their brand, and their websites. This blueprint is a great start to your online success, but Nick goes a step further and includes a “Planning Guide”, which will take you through the entire process, step by step, asking you questions you may not have considered. The answers to these questions may be the difference between a huge success, or and big failure. Finally, the book is filled with a large list of resources and an inside look at the different types of affiliate programs. Some might say this area of the book alone is worth the price of the entire book!

I know this eBook sounds almost too good to be true, but head on over to TrafficandTrust.com and read the reviews from countless affiliate marketers (many of whom are EXTREMELY successful) who’ve all had the same reaction as I have. The affiliate marketing world will be the first to admit, Nick hit the nail right on the head with “Traffic and Trust.”

There are no affiliate links in this article.

This is a guest post by Matt Hope from BackpackingWorldwide.com

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Pear Analytics offers website owners concerned about their ranking some interesting feedback based on a search engine’s point of view.  Does Pear Analytics actually work, or is this just another example of a great idea in theory but quite different in reality?  It might be a bit of both depending on how one uses it, but if one is willing to keep their mind engaged and not just blindly follow advice then there is a very good chance that Pear Analytics can help one’s site(s) rank much higher than they currently do.

The Importance of Good Decision Making

Almost all SEO analysis tools on the market have a single potential flaw, but that flaw depends greatly on how much one just wants to remove themselves the decision making process.  After all, it can be extremely tempting to just listen blindly to advice and not think too much about it, especially when the source clearly knows as much about SEO as Pear Analytics does.  At the end of the day, most of Pear Analytics advice is very solid, but the human factor should never be removed as ultimately content and sites are going to be viewed by human beings as well as search engines.

What Pear Analytics Offers

Pear Analytics has a lot to offer so long as one remembers that they are in control and need to think about the solutions and suggestions and not implement them blindly and unquestioningly.  Pear Analytics looks at pages one by one through the eyes of both customers and search engines and determines what is working well, what needs work, and what is just horribly wrong and should be addressed immediately.  On top that Pear Analytics offers helpful suggestions and pointers to help guide one on the road to fixing the problem(s) with their site.

From the Eyes of Search Engine

Search engines use complex algorithms to evaluate web pages, and those algorithms constantly change.  Pear Analytics has a team of experts that keep track of these changes and offer realistic feedback on what can be changed as well as what cannot be changed, such as the age of the site.  Often a small omission or field that was not properly filled out will result in a substantially reduced rating, which in turn means that fewer visitors will even see the page(s) in question.

Another factor that Pear Analytics helps to keep track of is that of the competition who compete within the same keyword-space.  Knowing what the competition is doing can help one either compete head-on or learn which niches are not quite so competitive.  Either way, it does pay to know what is going on from a search engine’s perspective, especially as it relates to the competition for clicks.

From the Eyes of a Person

Some metrics are a little more important to those who do click, such as the organization of the site or how long it takes to load.  Pear Analytics actually does an impressive job of measuring these sorts of statistics and providing feedback.  For example, if a host is too slow then Pear Analytics might suggest a new host, upgrading plans, or reworking the site.  If the site lacks other things that viewers might want to see, Pear Analytics will be sure to comment on it.

Feedback

Feedback comes in many forms with Pear Analytics, and progress is always easy to chart.  Most feedback is done in a simplified thumbs up or down method, which is usually augmented by useful advice.  Advice with a twist of humor can take the edge off of finding out just how complex SEO can truly be, and it is nice to see that Pear Analytics is not just another tool designed by engineers and gear heads.

Pricing

There are four pricing plans available for Pear Analytics, each with its own monthly fee.  The Micro Site plan is the least expensive, but only allows for tracking on 5 pages, 1 competitor and up to 50 keywords for $9 per month.  $27 per month nets one an upgrade to the Small Site package that offers tracking on up to 25 pages, 2 competitors, and up to 250 keywords.  The Medium Site plan offers tracking on up to 75 pages, 500 keywords, and 4 competitors while the high-end Large Site plan is $129 and allows for tracking of unlimited competitors, 1000 keywords and tracking on up to 150 pages.  A monthly report is available for each plan, with additional reports available for an additional fee that varies based on the quantity ordered and the plan.

Is Pear Analytics Worth The Money?

The fact is that people tend to visit the top sites provided to them by a search engine, and if your site is not on that list then you need to figure out why.  Pear Analytics even offers a free test of their service to see what your site might be missing at no risk.  If you are not getting the traction that you think your content deserves, then you should certainly give Pear Analytics a try.

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KnowEm Logo

KnowEm is a service that offers the tantalizing promise of being able to take control of your (or your company’s) social networking image through signing up on hundreds of social networking sites.  Does KnowEm work well?  It actually does, but there are a few things that it could do a little bit better that would make it an absolute must-have service.  That does not mean that KnowEm isn’t a must-have service right now, but before we get too far there is one thing that KnowEm should really be able to do but does not.

Name Suggestions

The entire premise of KnowEm is that the company will handle social networking signups and possibly even profile creation depending on the plan one chooses.  This is a great idea, but there is a small flaw in the execution that will hopefully be addressed soon: the lack of suggestions.  Any time one registers a domain, looks for an e-mail address, or even signs up for a social networking service, there is a good chance that the name they want is already taken.  Most top-notch services offer suggestions at this point, and this is where KnowEm falls a little flat.

KnowEm lets users search over 300 social networks for username availability, but it does not offer suggestions on new usernames.  Given the relatively low probability of one username being available on over 300 social networking sites, this would seem to be a very good idea.  Instead, KnowEm allows users with business-class accounts to select more than one username.  This might seem like a minor gripe, but it would be a very nice addition.

Other Than That

Over 300 networks

Other than that rather minor quip, what KnowEm does it manages to do very well: sign up for social networks.  If one were to measure the amount of time that it would take them to establish a presence on a few hundred social networks, write down the passwords, upload pictures, and fill out profile information, they would probably be looking at dozens or even a hundred hours worth of work.  Weighing this against the cost of public relations damage that could be caused by some agitated customer or jilted rival copying one’s popular social networking username and running amok on dozens of networks can be incalculable.

KnowEm offers a solution to both of these problems, as they will handle all of the sign-up information and even upload pictures/handle profile details for those with Agency-Class plans.  Personal plans can be free, which is really more of a sampler, or $99 for one with enough features to be truly useful.  For $99 KnowEm will handle the initiation process for 150 of the top social networking sites, but that still leaves hundreds of sites for hooligans to run amok on.  Step up to the Business plan for $249 nets one fewer sites (100 vs. 150), but also includes profile updates.  The Corporate plan for $349 is identical to the Business plan but covers 150 sites, while the Enterprise plan covers 300 of the most popular sites for $599.  The Business, Corporate, and Enterprise plans are all considered to be Agency-class plans, and that comes with one other perk: the possibility of brand protection.

How Clear is Your Crystal Ball?

Who knew Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter would take off like they did?  The answer is: almost nobody until it happened.  Can your business and/or web presence afford to let some new social network become popular without your profile being reserved?  If the answer is no, then KnowEm has a solution: a $49 monthly Brand Protection Program that will automatically sign your organization up for another 20 to 30 social networking sites.  This includes the full profile creation, and this service is only available to those who avail themselves of an Agency-Class plan.

Bottom Line

With a free KnowEm account that lets new users see the value of KnowEm, and there is a lot of value in keeping one’s message concise and from a single source, it is only a matter of time until they upgrade.  The free Basic account has nothing wrong with it, but it involves a lot of manual work.  For those on a shoestring budget, the manual data entry is not so bad.  For those that value their time more than a few dollars, the Personal and Agency-Class plans are simply beyond compare.

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If your business is in the need of powerful e-mailing solutions complete with tons of integrated features, then you might be in the market for a genuine simian, or a MailChimp to be more precise.  Ok, the name is a little goofy to be sure, but MailChimp actually offers a broad range of features and even some very powerful options that are so easy to use that a monkey could probably handle them.  Before covering any of MailChimp’s features, there is one point that needs to be made: MailChimp’s user interface is probably its best asset, but it could also be its Achilles heel.

The User Interface

Nice user interface

MailChimp’s user interface is very easy to use for almost anything that anyone would want, and it is well organized.  The problem is that once one has looked through the options to try to find something, they may look again and again only to realize that perhaps there is a feature that MailChimp does not offer.  This is not so common anymore, as MailChimp has been continually upgraded, but if one has obscure needs that are literally make or break, then they might be out of luck…though there is a caveat to that as well.

The major caveat is that there are a few other services that MailChimp can export to, and those in turn offer other features.  This actually makes MailChimp very flexible even if this strength maybe be borne from a potential weakness.

Templates

The best thing that can be said about MailChimp’s options has to be its countless templates and power yet easy to use editor.  Not only can amazingly good looking e-mails be created in a snap, with or without the help of templates, but those e-mails can be managed as part of a greater campaign directly from MailChimp’s slick user interface.  Add to this the fact that MailChimp now offers strong social media integration, and it would seem as if the actual e-mail aspect of MailChimp is its strongest point, but that strong point is only as good as that which backs it up: the e-mail tracking and analytics.

Analyzing Results With a Monkey on Your Shoulder

While the whole process starts with creating mailing lists and generating e-mails, it is the returns that are worth looking at.  MailChimp is actually a gorilla by these standards, with an easy to read and interpret set of statistics that can be exported to an Excel file.  Basic statistics include opened, bounced, unopened, and the click rate, all of which are measured both in raw numbers as well as in statistics.  Google Analytics can be easily integrated into any e-mail campaign, which further enhance the statistics tracking functions of MailChimp.  Twitter tracking is also a very useful feature, but the bounce detection feature probably deserves a little more attention.

Tracking stats

Messages bounce for a few reasons, but often they do so as the result of an individual who does not properly unsubscribe.  In fact, individuals may try to ‘bounce’ messages in order to hide from e-mail marketing campaigns, but MailChimp uses some clever algorithms to determine which messages are bounced by servers and which are bounced by individuals.  Timing is everything, and our in-house tests seem to show that MailChimp makes some pretty good decisions when it comes to bounced messages.  In fact, MailChimp does a great job of cleaning lists up in general, which can really help one increase the efficacy of their e-mail marketing campaign.

Free or Pay

MailChimp offers a free account and pay-for services.  The free account is limited to 500 subscribers and 3,000 e-mails per month, but it certainly is enough to give one a good idea of whether or not MailChimp is going to meet their needs.  Pay-as-you-go plans are based on credits, and can be recharged in amounts ranging from $9 to $2,500.  With a free account capable of 3,000 e-mails per month, there are only a few reasons why anyone would want to opt for a pay-as-you-go plan such as the ability to send irregularly scheduled large volumes of e-mails to a list larger than 500 recipients.  High-volume plans start at $380 per month, but that allows one a monthly volume of 600,000 e-mails and up to 75,000 subscribers.  The highest tier plan is $690 per month and that offers twice the number of subscribers (now up to 150,000) and twice the monthly volume (now up to 1.2 million e-mails) for far less than half the monthly fee.

With plenty of affordable options and a free plan, it really does not make sense for anyone to skip over MailChimp.  The service continues to evolve, which means it is only likely to get better with time.  Grab your free MailChimp account today and see if this is the right mail monkey for your needs.

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SEO Moz offers a familiar promise to potential users: a suite of tools that will check a website for errors and possible search engine optimizations, as well as another set of keyword/phrase tools.  Many packages offer either error checking/content analysis or the keyword research tools, but few offer effective tools that handle both types of tasks.  Does SEO Moz deliver, or does it simply serve up too many promises to actually have any hope of meeting them?

Before Getting Started

Before we answer this question and delve into the features that SEO Moz does have to offer, it is worth noting that SEO Moz has a LOT to offer.  In fact, it can be a little intimidating to use at first because it actually includes a lot of tools.  This is a mixed blessing because there are a lot of tools to learn.  On the other side, SEO Moz’s individual tools are cleanly laid out and are fairly intuitive.  This makes SEO Moz easy to start using, but it would not be an understatement to say that it could take one a long time to become an SEO Moz guru.

The Tools of the SEO Trade

Without a doubt, SEO Moz has some very effective tools.  It does not really matter what one needs an SEO package to do, SEO Moz almost certainly has a tool to handle that need.    SEO Moz includes tools that not only handle the traditional keyword analysis/competitor tracking, but also a unique tool called the Keyword Difficulty Tool.  The Keyword Difficulty Tool is a unique idea that takes a lot of data and distills it into the answer of a single question: is this keyword/phrase worth trying to rank for?  This is an impressive tool in and of itself, but there are times when the data available on the Internet is misleading; in fact, many have made a lot of money with nothing but a little foresight required to arrive first on any particular keyword scene.

While the Keyword Difficulty Tool is certainly a unique and useful tool (most of the time), SEO Moz still has more to offer.  Once a site is up, it needs to have a sitemap and pages filled with meta-tags.  Anyone who has spent any amount of time studying SEO knows the value of meta-tags, and SEO Moz also knows the value and offers some tools that are not dissimilar from the competition.  Tools that evaluate meta-data and/or content are fairly common, so we will not cover them in detail other than to say that SEO Moz can automatically point out everything from glaring errors and omissions to providing useful hints and tips on a per page, whole site, or selected page basis.

SEO Moz also includes a full suite of tracking and reporting tools, most of which are incredibly flexible.  One of our first thoughts upon looking at the reporting aspect of SEO Moz was that it was obvious that people who like reports work at SEO Moz.  It would be impossible to create such concise yet elegant reports unless one were to have a fetish for reports and data.  While we are not sure just who it is over at SEO Moz that has a ‘thing’ for reports, we do appreciate their amazing attention to detail.

How Much Would You Buy Time For?

One of the most interesting aspects of SEO Moz is how much time it saves.  Want to see all of the page ranking information on a single page?  SEO Moz can do it, and that can save one time checking several different tools that individually manage Yahoo!, Google, Bing, and other search engines.  Examples such of this are found throughout SEO Moz’s user interface, and the entire package honestly feels as if it was written by people with a design doctrine that was equal parts engineering for efficiency and no-time-to-waste-Corporate-America.  That is not a bad thing, it means that the no-nonsense interface generate answers to questions in significantly less time than almost any other tool that we could name off the top of our heads.

This brings up a good question: how much is your time worth?  If you need to look at only one or two tools at a time, then SEO Moz might not have much value.  If you need to look at many different data sources in one legible format, then it is difficult to argue against the value of a package that puts everything in one place.

So, how much does SEO Moz cost?  There are three plans to choose from: PRO Basic, PRO Plus, and PRO Elite.  All plans include all of the tools, but are primarily differentiated by the number of Linkscape reports and tracked ranking.  For example, the PRO Basic plan offers 50 tracked rankings per month and 20 Linkscape reports for $79 versus the 100 tracked rankings and 50 Linkscape reports of the PRO Plus package that costs $129 per month.  The PRO Elite package costs $229 per month, but offers up a stunning 300 tracked rankings and 500 Liinkscape reports.  While some of these fees might seem a bit high, there is no substitute for SEO Moz’s ability to buy time with its incredible array of well-laid out tools.

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I just got back from affiliate summit in Miami where I met some pretty cool people, was introduced to a few companies, and got a chance to look more into affiliate marketing and what it’s all about. This got me thinking about one of the most lucrative markets online – credit card offers – and how difficult it is to find a genuinely good credit card offer from a consumer’s perspective.

There are thousands upon thousands of websites online that deal with credit cards – review pages, comparison searches, recommendations, you name it. The big players in this vertical spend lots of money and resources on SEO, PPC, and driving traffic to their networks of sites.

It’s hard to find a good credit card offer because most of the information out there is being driven by affiliate sales. Most affiliates push their most profitable offers above the truly good ones. Many sites are made to look like unbiased comparison shopping sites or other trusted resources, when in reality they are far from partial and are made to drive the most traffic and conversions to the most profitable offers.

The problem with the most profitable offers for affiliates is that they are usually the worst offers for consumers. They highest converting payouts come from cards with really high interest rates and/or yearly fees. Since they make so much money from the customer, the companies are able to pay affiliates really well for pushing those offers.

In contrast, the truly good credit cards for consumers are the ones that have low interest rates, good introductory APR’s, and no yearly fees. However since the cc companies don’t make much money from their customers from these offers, they won’t pay affiliates very much to promote them.

Since the market is so competitive (for organic search results and even more so for pay per click ads), margins and economic forces drive affiliates to advertise the highest paying offers. You’ll often find offers that “look good” but in reality are a bad deal for the consumer. One example is a credit card with a low introductory rate but very high APR’s after a few months. Others have restrictive terms or penalties in their contracts.

One trick you’ll often see is a credit card offer with a really low APR. In the fine print, however, you’ll find that these low rates only apply to those with stellar credit records. The majority of applicants are offered a rate that’s significantly higher once their credit does not come back spotless.

In a highly competitive and lucrative market such as credit card offers it becomes difficult to find resources that do not have an overbearing economic motive beyond helping the consumer. Obviously the same applies to pharmaceuticals (especially for something that rhymes with shmiagra) and other “hotly contested” online markets.

What’s good (and profitable) for the affiliate site is not what’s good for you or me. They’re just basic economic forces at work.

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One of my favorite copywriters (besides Brian Clark) is Paul Robb. I’ve had the pleasure to work with him over the past few months and he’s a copywriting genius.

He decided to retire his old copy blog last month, but as his last post he’s made an offer you shouldn’t pass up: if you follow him on Twitter and direct message him, he’s send you his personal PDF cheat sheet of some of the best headlines ever written for magazines like Cosmo, Maxim, etc. This is thousands of clippings that he’s saved over the years as templates for writing killer headlines.

But Hurry, there’s only a day or two left before he pulls this offer for good – and this pdf will never be available again.

I’ve been seeing a lot of Copyblogger headlines reused in social media recently. While they are effective, I think other marketer can often see right through them and are less likely to vote for them. If you want some fresh material to emulate, check out the details on Robb’s last post (and hurry).

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Recently I’ve had a few people ask me about affiliate marketing and some guidance about where to get started.

We got into affiliate marketing about a year and a half ago and it’s been a real roller coaster ride. It’s not as easy as a lot of people make it out to be (they’re usually the ones trying to sell you an e-book), but if you are willing to put in the time (and a little bit of money) and are creative enough, it can be an awesome way to make a living.

The problem though, is that there are very few “clean” sources of information about it. Most people pushing out articles and books about affiliate marketing are actually trying to sell you something.

In SEO, there’s Aaron Wall’s SEO Book – it’s what I point everyone to who wants to learn search engine optimization. It’s unbiased (or at least as unbiased as it can possibly be) and full of information that’s up to date and accurate – pretty much the only thing of its kind. Nothing else comes close. So SEO is easy.

In affiliate marketing, the only thing that comes close to that quality of information is Uber Affiliate’s marketing guide. And yes, the links to the networks are affiliate links, but the rest are links to really good articles and resources to get you started. If you want to get into affiliate marketing, that’s an excellent place to begin.

And as you go along, just remember – take everything you read with a grain of salt and experiment – don’t think it’s going to be easy. The people who really make it are those who are tenacious, inventive, and those who are willing to put in the work. Like everything else, there’s no shortcuts (and no easy money).

Also, Once you become a mid-level affiliate marketer (or if you intend to), read this excellent post by Sugarrae: How to Survive the Affiliate Revolution.

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I signed up for the Rubicon Project and have just added one of their ad units to this site (you can see the ads 3rd column over). This is mostly just to test the ad network and see how well it performs & how well it targets ads. The ad placement is not optimal, but I didn’t want it to take away from the content on this blog.

The Rubicon Project is a new invite-only (for now) ad network that serves up ads from a a long list of advertisers including Google Adsense, ValueClick, Shopzilla, CPA Empire, etc., and optimizes them automatically for maximum revenue. I’ll probably do a review of the service after I test it for a while. It looks promising.

My Firefox kept crashing after installing the ad code, but that was because I had Firebug enabled. Let me know if you have any problems with the site or see any kind of weird ads.

I’m flying out to Pubcon tomorrow so posting will be light – I’ll probably catch up with the Rubicon crew in Vegas and try to get more info out of them – and maybe even some invited for our readers (if anyone is interested).

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I’m going to try a new link-karma, link-roundup feature called “Elsewhere on the net”. It’s quotes that stood out from other sites/blogs around the net over the past week or so.

There’s never been a better time in history to be a person who can clearly communicate ideas. Right here and now, and certainly going forward.

Source: Teaching Sells – download it here. It’s Brian Clark’s (Copyblogger’s) new project, and the free PDF is definitely worth a read if you are or are planning to make money online in the future.

The worst thing you can do is spend time/money/energy creating the best content for the wrong audience. For example you can have a 5 star chef prepare the most expensive Kobe beef you can buy, but serve it at a PETA rally and it will get an icy reception.

Interview of Graywolf, on targeting social media.

Not only is [SEObook] a good resource but it’s miles ahead of the other blogs and books trying to attract “offer fillers.” <- my affectionate term for John Chow readers.

Arron Wall’s interview of Eli (Blue Hat SEO), where he fairly aptly describes John Chow’s blog audience. Read the rest of the interview – it’s long, but good. Bonus bit: Eli says we’re being lied to about the nofollow tag – I have a suspicion he’s on to something there.

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