The annoying thing about this update is that everyone has tried ... more]]>

Last month was a bit of a horror show for a number of people.  The Penguin update killed a lot of Webmaster’s sites (far more then Panda did according recent SEOMoz analysis) and now everyone is looking for the answers.

The annoying thing about this update is that everyone has tried to explain the synopsis and what went wrong.

I find it really irritating when major SEO blogs such as SearchEngineLand.com and SEOMoz.org write up posts on “Penguin Diagnosis” and “How to Fix your Site” etc when they don’t have any solutions or knowledge of what is going on.  It’s like they feel compelled to write about it, even though they don’t know what to say.  “Don’t panic” seems to be the main advice, which isn’t exactly advice in my opinion when people have been losing their jobs.

My Own Penguin Recovery Advice and Post-Penguin SEO Tips

First of all, the Penguin penalties for most webmasters were because of poor quality links.  People are arguing about anchor text, analyzing why specific pages moved up or down, but the fact is this Penguin update just penalized web spam with tons of low quality links.

People keep going on about how it’s “anchor text optimization”, “on-page optimization”,  “a penalty against affiliate sites”, blah blah.  At the end of the day most sites that have bought spammy links all fit these profiles, which is why there’s so much correlation.  I think a few other factors might have been involved (e.g. brand signals increasing in importance, domain age), but in general this update was all about targeting web spam, not promoting high quality sites.

Just to end the debate, my own affiliate blog was hit by this update.  I have 100% original content, a range of loyal followers (including daily type-ins), my brand name AffiliateFYI.com in all of my Page Titles, tons of excellent, natural links, excellent user metrics (average 5 mins on site, 30% bounce) etc…So you can’t say any of that was the issue.

So what did I do wrong?  I bought a ton of shitty links from DigitalForums over the last few months, which I now regret.  Regardless of whether you have a good site, Google has penalized any sites that have bought poor quality links, which is outside of their Guidelines.  Top sites have gotten away with it for obvious reasons (i.e. they are good enough for Google to ignore these things).

Advice for Webmasters Affected by Penguin

My personal advice is don’t wait around like all the SEO blogs suggest.  They don’t really know what they’re talking about and just aren’t confident to give advice on this update.

1)   Since this update targeted low quality links, you need to work out if you can remove those low quality links you bought.  If you can, great, and I’d hope that this rolling algorithm would de-penalize your site after a month or two (I don’t think there will be any re-inclusion request).

2)   The chances are you can’t, since most low quality links will be from automated SEO programs, directories, forum profiles, auto-generated web 2.0 blogs, and webmasters with no contact address.  If this is the case, I’d personally take your site down, wait for it to de-index, the re-launch the entire site on a new domain (and switch the quality links to the new domain).  This might not seem a perfect solution, but it will get you back on track and remove the risks of future updates that target web spam.

Is it Worth doing a 301 for a Penalised Site?

301’s tend to work for penalized sites, for a while anyway.  I’m currently doing an experiment with one of my penalized sites and so far the 301 has worked and restored rankings.

The problem with performing a 301 is that it’s a short-term solution, like a ticking bomb.  It might re-rank your penalized site for a month or two, but I think eventually the penalty will pass through and you’ll be back in the same position. Hence, if you have old sites you don’t really care about then I think it’s definitely worth considering doing a 301.  On the other hand, if you have a site that you invested a lot of effort and content into then you’re better off starting on a new domain with a fresh start.

In terms of planning new sites for the future, I would now focus 100% on brands (.com/.co.uk sites) with lots of excellent content, social media following and coding.  Yes, links will still be important, but you’ll need to rely on high quality links from good sites, rather then low quality links from spammy sites.

Going forward, change your expenditure from links into great content and social media, since these are risk-free assets that Google cannot punish you for.   Lots of content will lead to lots of traffic.  Even if your site gets penalized you can recycle great content so it’s good to have most of your value in it. Penalized exact-match domains on the other hand will just become garbage.  Top EMD domains are still valuable in terms of SEO, but I just think the risk in buying them has increased, plus it’s less risky to develop a brand for free in my opinion.

I still can’t see how social signals can provide any kind of effective, ranking algorithm for search engines to use.

Ignore the fact that social signals will be ten times more susceptible ... more]]> Yet again, I’ve been thinking about the future of SEO and the effectiveness of social signals as a ranking algorithm.

I still can’t see how social signals can provide any kind of effective, ranking algorithm for search engines to use.

Ignore the fact that social signals will be ten times more susceptible to gaming then links in 12 months time (they are cheaper and quicker to obtain), the types of things that friends will “share” or “like” with their friends are completely different to the types of pages that will get linked to.

The Difference Between Socially Shared Content and Link Content

Websites and authors tend to link to website pages which are relevant or which they reference in an article.

Links tend to be timeless and they accrue naturally over time.  A well-written bio page on “Gandhi” or “how to backup your wordpress site” will get linked to on a regular basis from other relevant sites, allowing Google to see what is popular and authoritative.

The types of things that get social signals on the other hand tend to be ground breaking news, gossip stories and other interesting things across the web.  As such, the majority of social signals are extremely short term and “viral” in nature.

Given the social element of liking, tweeting or +1 content, visitors are also going to limit to type of pages they share.  Anything private or medical content is not unlikely to be shared, nor is anything that isn’t ground breaking.

I might really enjoy reading a 4-year-old page on Texas Holdem Odds or the life and career of William Shakespeare, but I’m much less likely to share it with my friends.  Overall, social signals tend to be used to highlight groundbreaking news, gossip stories, pictures or the serendipity of browsing the Internet. There are certain things that are just aren’t built for sharing.  A “like” isn’t the same as a personal link, instead it’s someone saying “hey come check this out” to their friends.

Social signals are too “spiky” as well.  A news story will receive 1,000 likes, then disappear to the abyss of the archives.  How is Google meant to work out whether this story is still relevant or up to date?

When a website links to another website however, that is a timeless piece of reference passing authority and web credence to another site.  Website links have much more longevity then a human “like”, and most sites don’t link out willy nilly.  It’s still an editor-conscious decision, and it’s a system which helps bring order to the Internet.  It allows search engines to rank websites, understand the nature of their content, relevancy, establish a hierarchy of website structure and internal pages, whether someone is still popular, and so on…

Social signals provide no anchor text, geo-targeting or relevancy signal for Google.  Just because one person on the other-side of the world likes something doesn’t mean someone else will (Just like an english .co.uk website might link to something that an Israeli .co.il site wouldn’t).  If a 5-year old likes a cartoon it doesn’t mean a 50 year old professor will either. So, it’s really hard to any search engine to tear anything apart from these signals, unless of course they know the person, his profession, his age, and can recommend that sort of stuff to others in his circles (which is essentially how Facebook’s advertising is run).

This is why Google will be investing so much money in G+ and getting users on it (TV Adverts and encourage people to use it).  Social signals are pointless unless you can analyse who is sharing what and who they are, what they like.  When a website gets a link from another site, google analyses the relevance of the website where the link originated  Why shouldn’t this be the same as social signals? I still can’t see G+ rivaling Facebook however because there is no incentive for people to migrate from Facebook to it.  It’s a ghost town.

That’s one of the many reasons why I can’t see Google Authorship becoming that important.  The other day I clicked on an author from a random Guardian article in the SERPs and the author had a completely, bone-dry empty G+ account.  What’s the point in implementing a rel=author account if you’re not even actively using G+, lol.

In conclusion, while I think social signals will still be important in the overall SEO algorithm and in distinguishing between good and bad sites, they can’t possibly replace the effectiveness of off-page link ranking signals over the last 15 years.  At least until there’s a bigger breakthrough in the social networking side of things with regards to the semantic web.

Overall, it was a bit of a disappointing month with regards to business.  Income-wise it was fine but a couple of my trading ... more]]> I know it’s not the end of March yet but I’m going away on holiday for the next 2 weeks and wanted to get this recap posted now.

Overall, it was a bit of a disappointing month with regards to business.  Income-wise it was fine but a couple of my trading sites are taking longer to generate traffic and revenue then I expected.

This isn’t that bad however, since I’m just building them at a slow pace and not doing anything silly with SEO.  Slowly but surely I’ll see the results, especially with great content and information.  I’ve also more then doubled my Adsense revenue on my finance sites then compared to February.

The only new domain I bought in March was MobileRecycling.net, which will make a very nice mobile recycling comparison site.  I’m already in talks with a couple operators about developing a white label on my site, which would be really cool. I hoped to conclude a deal for another new domain this month but I’m still waiting on that.  I’ll keep you updated if that ever happens, lol.

My mobile gaming sites have been doing pretty well.  I 301’d one of my penalized domains to a new domain and it’s performing much better, plus I’ve stuck up a page on my new OddsWinner.com sports betting site help it age and get indexed.

AffiliateFYI.com Income Update

I didn’t do much SEO on my blog this month, so traffic numbers didn’t increase.  I’ve made around $100 this month (on top of the $100 last month), which is fine, but I’m starting to struggle with ideas about how to really monetize the site.

On the one hand, I’m getting a really good CPC with Adsense, but I think a monetization strategy that involves Adsense would be wasteful on this blog.  I’m sure there are plenty of better ways to monetize the site when you’re providing a guide for new affiliates.  As always, I’m focusing on quality information and building traffic first, and the monetization method can come afterwards.

I’ve also done some more guest posts on some very high traffic affiliate blogs, which have helped me pick up a bit of traffic.

I added my email capture and free SEO ebook that I’m giving away, although I’m seeing MUCH lower conversions then I anticipated.   It’s made me more skeptical about how well my premium ebook will convert if I can’t even get people to download a free ebook!  Having said that, my aim of getting 300-500/day traffic should be completely different to the 50-70/day I’m getting right now.

April Affiliate Goals

Not much to say here since I’m going away for the first 2 weeks.  My main aim is to pick up some CPAs on my Forex and Binary Options sites and possibly even sell a couple of sites in my network.  Other then that, it would be nice to conclude a deal for the domain I’m after and earn a bit more money from this blog!

General SEO Update

I couldn’t write a monthly affiliate report without talking about the changes that with regards to Google de-indexing many of the major blog networks and submitting unnatural link building warnings to webmasters

Truth be told, I didn’t receive one of these, but it has changed my SEO strategy going forward.

I’m only focusing on building high quality links from now on with very diversified anchor text and a lot of brand building.  I still think these changes have increased the value of premium domains, but things like this definitely bring you back down to Earth.  I’ve seen some huge sites that must have been earning at least $xx,xxx per month lose their rankings, so it pays to be more smart then agressive.

Let’s cut to the chance…

Factors that could Influence Google and SEO; 2012-2015

First of all, let’s look at where Google’s priorities lie: improve results for ... more]]> I’m rambling out loud here, but I can’t help but think of stuff like the future of search and “what could effect my business” type of scenarios.

Let’s cut to the chance…

Factors that could Influence Google and SEO; 2012-2015

First of all, let’s look at where Google’s priorities lie: improve results for users and reduce spam in the search results.

Obviously, the trouble for Google is that while there will be a variety of signals that they can use to identify authoritative, relevant results for the user (e.g. links, social metrics, keyword content), people will always try to game the system. 

Everyone knows that social will become the next big thing in SEO – just look at the launch and integration of Google Plus in the Google.com SERPs, or how Twitter and Facebook Shares can help SERP rankings – especially in Bing.

However, just like links, social can be gamed in one way or another.  Buying real Facebook followers or +1s will always be a possibility (just look at SocialADR).  Not only that, but if social signals do become more important then the number of services supplying social signals will increase, and get better, making it easier for webmaster to chase the money.

Moving from Binary Ranking Signals to a Continuum of Signals

The Panda update in February 2011 did more then just evaluates on-page factors such as content and ads.  It allowed Google to draw the line between spam results and high quality results, based on mathematical algorithms for finding high quality sites.

What we have to remember however is that Panda is just a filter or a penalty.  That is, it creates a binary format of plugging good results on one side, then bad results on the other.

I’m not sure exactly how effective Panda would be as a ranking algorithm in itself.  That’s probably what Google’s engineers are working on right now.  Because, when it comes down to it, Panda was about trimming the poor results out of the index as a direct result of the Vince update.  It wasn’t designed to be a ranking algorithm to replace links.  Yes, it helps find good sites, but it doesn’t help rank pages or find relevant results for users.  That’s where links and anchor text become really important.

Why Links are so Important to Google

Links aren’t just a matter of identifying authoritative brands.  They help Google identify the most important pages on the net, what the content is about, when a page is credited, what is popular when, and other relevancy metrics.

The main problem with brand metrics if you’re Google is that yes, brand queries, citations and user engagement show what a good site is, but they don’t help prioritize the importance of internal pages or figure what they’re about.

One of the main thoughts that popped into my head is that Google’s robots would become a lot smarter in understanding how a brand is associated with a certain topic through semantic proximity and vectors.

For example, if the brand “City Index” is widely used next to the words “spread betting company” or “spread betting”, then it would help City Index to rank for that term.  If you want proof that Google is capable of doing this then just search “Forex Brokers’ or “Poker Sites” in Google.com.  It displays a list of relevant results at the bottom of the page such as “Full Tilt Poker”, “Party Poker”, “Carbon Poker” or whatever, because these are the most cited mentions next to the words “Poker Sites” on the Internet.

Like I just said, even if Google did this, it doesn’t help prioritize or find the most important pages. For this, we need links (or arguably social metrics).

The Role of Social Media in SEO

Social metrics will obviously play a role, but just like links, they can be gamed relatively easily, and unfortunately they don’t provide the “anchor text” relevancy that Google needs for important pages.  Social metrics let Google see what is high quality and popular, but not what the page is about.

This is why I think Google will have such a hard time moving away from a key reliance on links.

If we reverse engineer everything and go back to basics, we need to ask ourselves “what is a high quality result for the end user”.  And what it mainly comes down to is answering the searcher’s question.  Most people who use Google are just looking for information, such as the latest football scores or a comparison of ISA interest rates.  Whether we go above or beyond our user’s question doesn’t matter that much in the face of things – we either an answer or we don’t, and the user leaves.  Obviously we want the user to stay on our site and come back later, but in terms of answering the person’s initial query we’ve done our job.  Think about it – we don’t use Google to find brands (we already know popular brands), we use Google to find things, products or information.

That’s the other binary issue for Google.  A search result is either good enough or it isn’t, which is why off-page factors such as links and social metrics will always be important for ranking.  On-page factors probably don’t provide enough key signals for ranking the entire Internet!

Rambling about Spam vs. Google vs. SEO Advice

I think the whole SEO industry is pretty messed up, for several reasons.

First of all you have Google, who wants to rank the best results and actively encourage webmasters to SEO their sites, hence why they have made over 400 “how to” videos on SEO for webmasters.

What this does however is educate webmasters about SEO.  And then they realize that they need to buy links to rank their sites above their competitors in Google.  It’s not just low quality spammers doing this – everyone is, including the biggest brands such as Barclays, BMW, Santander, Virgin and yes, even Google.

But then you have Google, who can’t exactly give the OK to webmaster to build links (it would completely destroy their ranking algorithms, it would make them hypocritical if they decide to move away from link signals, they would lose a lot of their biggest Adwords clients to SEO companies and drive Adwords revenue down), but at the same time they have to keep face and maintain a working relationship with webmasters.

Whilst this is all going on, Google is trying to stop spammers by penalizing them based on over-optimization – but there’s clearly a limit to the extent they can get away with this because a) their algorithm is still dependant on link authority and anchor-text relevancy and b) many of the biggest brands have engaged in blackhat or greyhat tactics.

The final issue is that whatever algorithm Google comes up with, people will constantly try to game it.  Search engine traffic is far to valuable for anyone to give up on, so essentially Google is constantly going to be up against it.  At the end of the day, it’s possible that they could just say, “Look, we acknowledge that that brands are buying links, it’s a free competitive market, there’s not much we can do about that, all we can really do is  remove spammy results from our index.”

Most Innovative Ranking Solution for Google to Use

Rather then becoming over reliant on certain signals, Google could compare and contrast various signals on a site and make them all balance each other out.

So for example, let’s say you have 8 results on page one with excellent content and user engagement, but then two results with OK content and engagement, but a ton of links which have pushed them up there.  Google could then say “hmmm, this guy isn’t spam, but we should try to devalue his over optimized link profile so that it correlates with his content better and so he fits in with everyone else”.

In other words, a bad score on one part of Google’s checklist could bring down the other parts, and visa versa.  So if you do have great content, then Google could then give a site with a weak backlink profile a bit of a handicap or boost.  If you have poor content, a low volume of brand query searches or poor user engagement relative to the other sites, then your backlink profile could be devalued slightly.

Essentially, it’s about preventing any one signal becoming overly important, making it extremely hard to spam the results.  Individual signals such as links would stop becoming a fixed importance in the ranking algorithm (e.g. 60%) and instead they would play off each other and vary between sites.  That being said, these are just anti-spam measures and they would not stop everyone from still buying links.

2012 Signals the End of Blog Networks and Black Hat SEO

I think the last 2 weeks have signaled the ... more]]> It’s been a hectic last couple of weeks for blog networks and the SEO industry.  I just want to add my two cents on what’s happened and on the future of SEO.

2012 Signals the End of Blog Networks and Black Hat SEO

I think the last 2 weeks have signaled the end for black hat SEO completely, which includes blog comments, link pyramid schemes, web 2.0 blogs, blog post networks, etc…

A lot of the major blog networks have closed down or had the majority of their blogs de-indexed (e.g. BMR, ALN, the Link Juice Network) and I’m sure more of these networks are to come.

Since the introduction of the Panda update in February 2011, it seemed obvious to me that black-hat SEO was going to die soon.  The SEO strategy of spinning hundreds of articles for blog post networks or engaging in link pyramids with different “tiers” was always going to become obsolete.  Everyone thought that they were protecting themselves with these “tiers” (you can read about these in the SEO eBook I’m giving away on my blog) but the truth is it’s fairly easy for Google to follow the breadcrumbs.  Once the base of your black hat pyramid scheme (e.g. forum profiles and spun articles) become de-indexed, the knock on effects will be massive and so this was inevitable.

I think the smartest black hat SEOs knew that this would happen eventually, but I think a lot of less intelligent black-hat people became over reliant on these strategies without considering the risks.  Either way, I guess we’re all still surprised at how quickly Google has acted on this.  I personally thought the majority of blackhat SEO methods would work for at least another year until Google caught up.

I’ve already seen a lot of people in the black hat SEO forums squandering about what to do now, which blog networks they should use, how to replace their backlink strategy etc, so here’s my opinion…

My Opinion on the Future of SEO

Blackhat SEO is going to be out the window.  Forget that, it’s a lost cause.  There are far too many negative signals that Google has caught onto for this to work including: low quality content, low quality blogs, lack of social signals, low quality links, over optimized backlinks etc…

I think even grey hat SEO methods from last year have become outdated.  The biggest issue of all is that you can’t escape from the past.  Even if you engaged in black-hat link schemes on your website from years ago, and have cleaned up your act now, the algorithms can still hurt you and penalize you based on historic strategies.

I think the future of SEO right now literally revolves around building a high quality site for users (good, fresh content, social metrics and user metrics) and diversified, high quality backlinks and guest posts.  Over optimization looks like it’s going to be a thing of the past.  I think going forward I’m going to focus on natural brand URLs and just try to get some general authority going with my sites.  Oddly enough I think these changes have also increased the value of premium exact-match domains.

The fact remains that SEO isn’t going to die.  Google’s algorithms still rely heavily on backlinks and anchor text for relevancy signals and authority.  This means that a good backlink now will always be valuable, regardless of what the critics say.  Nothing will ever replace links in the search algorithms – just look at the past 15 years of the industry.

Links are still as good an indicator of relevancy and trust now as they were 10 years ago.  Google just has to find a better way of devaluing the lower quality links from poor sites with no traffic.  De-indexing half of the blog networks was a great start.  These really were the lowest of the low in terms of web content and I don’t think too many people can complain.  I don’t want to sound too callous, but these changes will probably eliminate around 25% of the competition in the search engines.  I’ve already seen quite a few competitors with poor sites dropping places.

I’ve also been spending a lot of time researching the major black hat SEO forums and some of these people have been completely dependant on BMR for their rankings, with 2,000 links to their site from BMR.  Thus, it’s hard to feel sorry for some of them.  Changing to the grey-hat or white-hat method of SEO is going to become a lot more expensive or even impossible for some of them, but I think Google had to do something about blackhat SEO and automated software sooner or later.

One last point I want to make is the people arguing that Google should devalue spammy links rather then penalise webmasters, otherwise it would be too easy to link-bomb your competition.  I think this is the wrong way of looking at things however.  What Google has been trying to accomplish with these unnatural link building penalties in my opinion is prevent people optimising their sites for specific keywords.  If you have 100 links to your site, and 60 of them have a targeted keyword unrelated to your site, Google isn’t going to be capable of knowing which links to devalue.  They can only force you to remove these links manually and stop trying to optimise yourself for keywords.

That’s probably one of the issues with being an affiliate – you can never just sit still and work on a single project for the rest of your life.  You’re constantly looking elsewhere ... more]]> As a growing affiliate, I’m constantly looking out for new ideas, domains or markets to develop sites in.

That’s probably one of the issues with being an affiliate – you can never just sit still and work on a single project for the rest of your life.  You’re constantly looking elsewhere for new ideas and “the next big thing”.

New Potential Affiliate Project?

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.  In the UK, mobile recycling (cashing in or trading your old mobile phone for money) has become a fairly big market.

Even though I’ve already got enough on my plate, I saw MobileRecycling.net was available in Sedo.com for $200 (I personally think this is worth at least $1,000).  I decided to buy it since I think it’s a VERY nice exact-match domain, plus its short, brandable and a good idea for a mobile phone recycling comparison site.

Just to give you some quick figures: “mobile recycling” gets 6,600 exacts per month, “mobile phone recycling” gets 18,000 per month, “phone recycling’ gets 12,000 and “mobile phone recycling comparison” gets 3,6000.  As you can see, it’s a popular niche. It gets £2.35 ($3+) CPC, which means it could easily be monetized and there’s a ton of companies which have paid for ads on this search. Most of the mobile phone recycle companies such as Envirofone.com also pay £1-£3 per referred customer with a 30-day cookie.  Even Tesco has launched a mobile recycling phone shop.

Roughly speaking, this means the project has potential earnings of $500+ per month if done correctly.

Building a Network of Affiliate Sites

The issue I have is that I want to keep re-investing in my sites and growing my affiliate network, but choosing between starting a new site and re-investing in bigger sites is really difficult.

For example, what’s the optimum number of sites to have?  Should I focus my efforts on just a few sites, or should I diversify and build killer authority sites in different niches?

I’ve tried adopting a new strategy where I’ll only develop new projects that have the potential to make me $1,000+ per month (hence why I’ve avoided building smaller, EMD sites).  But then I’ll come across lucrative niches where I can make an easy $500/month here or there, with a really nice domain (as I mentioned above), so then again I don’t know.

Another issues I have is when should you decide to sell a site?  For me, getting 10-20 months income for an affiliate site just seems pointless, unless I can re-invest all of that into something making me an equal amount of money.  I’ve spent a lot of time and effort writing content or doing SEO for my sites, so the idea that I should sell something that has been successfully making $1k/month for the last year and then sell it for $15k seems pointless.

I also like the control of hanging onto these sites, using them for leverage with operators, negotiating 3-month advertising deals, and using them to link to my bigger sites.  I actually think I’ve made more money hanging on to my older sites as part of bulk advertising deals then if I were to sell them off individually.

Conclusion on Developing More and More Sites as an Affiliate

I haven’t really reached a conclusion yet.  I enjoy readily entering new niches and developing new projects such as StudentBanking.co.uk, BuyGold.co.uk or potentially MobileRecycling.net.  I also bought FreeSecurity.co.uk for £5, which I might develop into a free Internet security site.

Overall, while I try not to spread myself too thinly, I don’t see the point in saying no to a project that has lots of potential and is good value for me.  I’ve also got my eyes on a few other projects which I think are a really good deal.  The few sites I’ve sold in the past (and planning to sell right now) are merely ones that I’ve lost interest in and don’t see too much future potential in.

Ever since I started AffiliateFYI.com last January, my brain’s become more and more brand obsessed.

It’s not secret that Google and SEO is moving strongly in favor of sites with lots of original, well-researched content and social metrics.  While I don’t think the ... more]]> Motivated to Start a New Authority, Brand Sports Site

Ever since I started AffiliateFYI.com last January, my brain’s become more and more brand obsessed.

It’s not secret that Google and SEO is moving strongly in favor of sites with lots of original, well-researched content and social metrics.  While I don’t think the future of SEO is just to “build brands”, I do think that a lot of the changes in recent updates have given me more reasons to create brands and rely less on exact match domains.

Why it’s good to diversify with Brands

Basically, while I think exact match domains will still hold a lot of value ranking for lucrative keywords, the relative value will drop based on the number of pages you add to a site.

If you’re going to invest in hundreds of very high quality pages, then you’re going to get so much more traffic in long tails that your domain keyword won’t even matter that much (unless it’s literally bringing in thousands of extra visitors per month or generic enough to build an entire site around, like PokerSoftware.com).

Look at the likes of PocketFives.com or TwoPlusTwo.com.  The domain itself doesn’t make much difference to the site; all of the value and traffic comes from its authority and the internal pages and forum threads.

I feel like my sites such as MobileBetting.net and MobileGambling.net are just limited in how big they can become.  Eventually, the only room left for revenue growth is to brand your site and increase traffic through email list building, social media or expanding the site into other niches, which starts to make the domain look redundant.  A perfect example is the success and followers I’ve had with AffiliateFYI.com so far. I doubt it would be nearly as successful with a boring domain like AffiliateBlog.com.

I still agree you can brand short EMD domains (e.g. CheapFlights.co.uk), but there’s a limited market for these and you won’t always find what you’re looking for.

Changing Landscape of SEO in the Future

I think there’s going to be some subtle changes in SEO this year.  I’ve already seen a few of these myself.  It mainly involves Google pushing up sites with very strong content, and filtering more links from low quality sites.

Basically, I don’t think “buying” keyword rankings for your internal pages will be as easy anymore.  I think more and more affiliates will have to settle for quality long tail traffic to their inner pages (based on the authority of their site) rather then making a ton of traffic for managing specific keyword rankings.

This would also reduce the value of EMDs for inner page rankings, which is why I think it’s definitely worth diversifying with brands in your portfolio.

Choosing a Domain for my new Sports Betting Site

I’ve spent the last 4 weeks trying to find a suitable domain for a new sports betting site I’m eager to launch in Spring 2012.

I enjoy sports (football/tennis) more then any other activity in gambling, which is why I’d like to build something big in this niche and be able to blog on it and get legitimate followers reading my articles (like I do at AffiliateFYI.com).

The problem with finding a domain for a brand is that most of the good generic brand domains are almost as expensive as premium, exact match domains.  Domains such as ProBet.com, SportsReport.com, BetManager.com, SportsPro.com will all cost $x,xxx up to mid $xx,xxx.  I was also really interested in 247Betting.com at one point for $2k.  The most annoying thing is that all the .net extensions are available, but finding one with the .com extension is nearly impossible.  (Remember the same thing happened when I was looking for brand domains in Forex).

With that said, I had to start thinking outside the box for a sports betting domain.  I looked at the PocketFives.com brand and tried thinking of the equivalent for that in sports – to no avail.  I then started thinking about having odds in the domain, and then finally decided on buying OddsWinner.com (I also registered OddsCoverage.com).  It’s brandable, unique, and allows me to develop an odds script on it down the line if I want to provide some more value.

My line of thinking is that if you’re going to build a big site, you don’t really need the main keywords in the domain.  Of course it helps, but then again with so many generic “xxxsports.com” or “betxxxx”websites on the Internet these can be ineffective in being memorable. Just look at how easy it is to forget a site like 188Bet.com with 888Bet.com and Bet365.com already in the market.

In addition, the domain price isn’t that important if you do have big plans for the site, and there aren’t that many keyword exact-match domains in sports betting asides from the obvious ones.

What Makes a Good Domain for an Online Brand?

When you have successful brands like TwoPlusTwo.com, PocketFives.com and WilliamHill.com in gaming, it’s easy to argue the actual domain isn’t all that important.

To some extent I would agree, however here’s a few things I’ve concluded about buying a domain for an affiliate brand:

• Overall, it’s bad to have numbers in the domain.  There’s something about 247Betting.com, which doesn’t look right.
• Avoid dashes in the domain and stick to a .com extension.
• Avoid Building domains which are too similar too an existing brand (e.g. developing InsideSports.co.uk when InsideSports.com is already big).
• Try to make it two generic but somehow related keywords.  For example, PocketFives.com makes sense but PocketChips.com doesn’t.
• Make sure the domain actually looks good when you type it and rolls off the tongue.  For example, I think AffiliateFYI.com rolls of the tongue extremely well, and OddsWiner.com is easy to say too.
• The shorter, the better.  Long domains make poor brands full stop.
• Finally, get lots of people’s opinions.  You’re never going to get everyone to love your domain (I’ve got one person on my Skype who disliked AffiliateFYI.com while another guy couldn’t believe I bought it at reg fee).  Just try to make sure at least 75% of people you ask give it thumbs up.  It’s great seeing first time responses from people and their immediate reactions.

Finally, when buying domains through Sedo.com by clicking the “Make an Offer” button, I tend to just offer $100 for each domain knowing full well that all of them will get back to me with a serious counter-offer or their BIN.  If you start making serious offers of $500-$1,000 for lots of different domains simultaneously then they could all get accepted and you’re stuck buying too many domains at once.

In addition, making the first offer is a sucker’s move.  I like to wait for the seller to make me an offer and then I’ll aim for 50% of that.  If you make the first offer, he’s just going to inflate that by 20-50% knowing that you’ll probably be willing to pay more.  Mike wrote a great post for tips on buying premium domains here.

One of the first steps towards launching a new web project is to decide on and acquire a domain name. New webmasters usually are more than happy to pay ... more]]> The guest post below was written by Michael Wittmeyer, a long time Internet marketer and co-founder of precious metals retailer JM Bullion.

One of the first steps towards launching a new web project is to decide on and acquire a domain name. New webmasters usually are more than happy to pay $7 or so to register a new, fresh domain. However, once you gain more ambition and launch bigger projects with higher aims, you may target a specific domain that is perfect for your project, but unfortunately, is privately held.

In this case you need to be able to come up with a good valuation for the domain, reach out to the owner, and negotiate a fair price. This article is going to outline my entire process for finding, valuing, and purchasing privately held domain names.

My credentials: I’ve bought probably two or three dozen privately held domains over the past few years, with prices ranging from $X,XXX to much, much more. Although I have executed quite a few good buys that turned out huge for me, I also have made some horrible decisions that cost me a lot of money. I think this gives me a good background to write from, as I can advise you on what to do as well as what not to do. Ok, let’s get started.

Finding a Domain to Target

Your first step for buying a domain is choosing a domain or several domains to target for purchase. There are two routes to take: seeking a generic domain with no search value (like PokerWorld.com), or seeking an exact match domain to target a specific search phrase (like OnlinePoker.com).

Generic Domains

If you are seeking a generic domain, you usually have a budget in mind and plan to build a large, expansive resource that will cover several topics. When picking a generic domain, I’d avoid any domains with numbers, hyphens, or anything that’s not a .com (unless it’s a country-specific site).

My advice is to pick the main word or main two words that your site revolves around, add a prefix or suffix, and see if the .com domain is available for registration or for sale privately. For reference, here is a great list of domain prefixes and suffixes that you can use: http://www.dailyblogtips.com/200-prefixes-and-suffixes-for-domain-names/

When targeting generic domains, don’t get too attached to any single domain name, as there are plenty of other options out there. There’s no sense paying $5,000 for PokerWorld.com when PokerSource.com is available for registration fees (examples only).

Exact Match Domains

To find an exact match domain, choose the terms you want to target and check the .com/.net/.org for each. Some will be totally dead, some will have websites, and some will have parking ads along with a “This domain may be for sale, inquire here” link.

http://www.bustaname.com/ ß useful tool for smaller EMDs where you might be able to find a .org/.net or a reverse EMD for registration fees.

In my experience, the totally dead domains are the best to pursue. The next best are existing sites that appear to be old and neglected. Parked domains that are being shopped for sale usually are next best, as they are obviously for sale, but often have inflated price tags as well as the risk of a penalty/filter from the parking. Finally, if you come across a site that is fully built and operational, I’d just forget it as you’d be paying the owner way too much to just tear it down and start over.

Once you have a specific domain in mind, the next step is to come up with your valuation of the domain name.

Valuing the Domain

Before contacting the owner, you should come up with the absolute maximum $ amount you will pay for the domain. This helps you avoid “reaching” if you are close to a deal but would have to exceed your previously set maximum, and also helps you calculate your initial offer.

For generic domains with no keyword value, the valuation is basically totally up to you as you’re just paying for the name, not an implied boost in the search engines. Keep in mind that there are plenty of other relevant generic domains out there, so don’t go crazy for any individual domain.

For EMDs, unfortunately, there is no set “formula” for calculating the domain’s value. Although there are some tools you can use to help, a lot of it comes down to your gut instinct as well as experience as an Internet marketer. Here is a bit of a “brain dump” for how I go through the valuation process for an EMD:

• If you are using the Adwords tool to estimate search volume, make sure you select [Exact] for your Match Type and go off of the Local Monthly Searches, as ranking well Globally is much harder than ranking well in one country.
• Once you’ve come up with a ballpark number for monthly search volume, analyzed the competition, and decided where you might end up in the rankings (in the long term), multiply the search volume by your estimated click through percentage based on your position. Here is a great article that will help you ballpark a click through percentage: http://cms.searchenginewatch.com/digital_assets/2906/SEW_CTR.pdf
• ^^Keep in mind that those numbers will vary depending on the number of ads and injections for your search term. If you are targeting a search term that has the maximum number of Adwords ads, as well as several local injections, image injections, news injections, shopping injections, or social injections, you can assume your click through ratio will be significantly lower as you have to compete with much more than just 9 other organic listings.
• Once you’ve figured out a monthly traffic range based on the estimated search volume and your estimated click through ratio, you need to estimate how much that traffic will be worth. Based on whatever offers you will be running on your site, multiply your average CPA or whatever payment by 1% or 2% or whatever conversion rate you expect (tons of guesswork, as you can see). So, if you expect a 2% conversion rate for an offer with a $100 CPA, each visitor would be worth $2. Assuming you were expecting 5,000 visitors per month from the exact match key phrase, you would expect revenues of $10,000/month from that term.
• Consider your development costs, SEO costs, as well as the time span it may take to hit that estimated revenue range. Also factor in any brand power that the domain might offer (a category killer like CreditCards.com is worth more than just its search engine boost for “credit cards”).
• Come up with a maximum offer – I like to keep it below the maximum average monthly revenue I expect once the site has reached its potential. So if you expect $10,000/month from a #1 ranking for the exact match term, and think you can actually reach #1 in a reasonable amount of time, I would offer no more than $10,000 for the domain. My reasoning here is that there is so much more that goes into a #1 ranking than just buying an EMD, so you can’t value it like it’s a guarantee of a top ranking. You could be penalized, you could fail to hit #1, you could convert at a lower rate than expected, you could receive a lower click through ratio than expected, the Adwords tool could have inflated the search volume, etc etc etc.

Once you come up with your maximum offer, the next step is to get in touch with the domain owner.

Getting in Touch

If the domain you’re targeting is currently a live website, see if the site has a Contact Us link. If not, or if the domain is dead, go to Whois.net and look up the owner’s contact information by typing the domain into the lookup tool.

Sometimes the tool will say that the domain registry information is located elsewhere. In that case, just visit the provided link (example – whois.godaddy.com) and use their lookup tool.

Regardless if the listed information is privacy protected or not, copy/paste the email address and send the owner an email. Make sure to reference the domain name in the email – I’ve personally forgotten to do this and looked like a fool when the other party replied and I had no idea what domain we were talking about.

The First Email

I like to start off with a very simple:

“Hello,

Do you have any interest in selling your domain, XYZ.com? Please let me know and thank you for your time.

Mike”

Some people like to start with offers, but I don’t really like to do that, as at this point I am clueless as to the seller’s mindset. From here you will almost always get one of four outcomes, which will give you a little more information to work with:

1. No response. In this case, I give it a week or so and send a follow up to check in again. A lot of times the Whois emails are outdated or dead, and if that is the case you’re basically out of luck unless you can find alternative contact information for the owner elsewhere on the Internet. If they list their actual, not privacy protected, contact information on the Whois you can try calling them or even mailing them a letter (I’ve actually done this before and gotten a response via email).
2. I’m not interested in selling. At this point I usually drop it. Even if I am really interested in the domain, people who aren’t even somewhat interested in selling usually need an extremely inflated offer to change their mind.
3. Maybe, make me an offer. This is probably the most common response. In this case I take the absolute maximum amount I would pay for the domain and cut it in half to come up with my initial offer. I think this approach is way better than lowballing the seller and running the risk of them ignoring you or being offended and not wanting to sell to you. Also, I like to emphasize that my offer is serious, I can send the wire within 48 hours, we can use Escrow… basically treat it as if this is your max price, and if they accept the offer you are ready to proceed immediately. When all of the logistical details have been laid out and taken care of, and all the seller has to do is say “Yes”, the thought of $10k or whatever amount in hand within a few days is usually very appealing to someone who is sitting on an unused domain.
4. Yes, the selling price is $whatever. These responses are a bit trickier. If you are thrilled with the price, go ahead and accept. If you are not happy with the price, or would be more comfortable at a slightly lower price, I like to respond with: “Hmm that’s a bit out of my budget. I’d like to make a deal, and can pay cash immediately, but the absolute most I can offer is $whatever.” I usually make this number just a bit lower than what I really am willing to pay, as it makes it easier for them to make a concession later and “meet you in the middle” while still feeling they got more out of you than you wanted to pay.

If You Hit a Standstill…

In some negotiations you may end up in a “Mexican Standoff”, where you say that your maximum offer is $whatever while the seller says their lowest price is $whatever. In this case I like to just let them sit on the email for a week or two and pretend as if I’ve dropped it completely.

If they really won’t come down any further, then they won’t respond and you can drop it entirely. However, a lot of times they’re just trying to hold out so you will offer more money, and then when they don’t hear back from you and feel like they’ve lost the deal, they’ll come back with a lower price to try to close the deal.

Before Closing a Deal…

This is where I can really speak from my experience and mistakes. Before you close a huge deal for a domain, sit on it and think for at least 24 hours. I also like to talk to a few of my close friends about any potential deals to get their objective opinions.

The reason you should take these things slowly is because often times when you have an ultra-premium domain name within your grasp, and think of the money you could rake in with a #1 ranking, it is easy to become blinded and really “reach” for the domain by justifying an inflated price.

I’ve personally done this at least twice, as I was able to justify it in my mind with “I know I’m overpaying, but I will make this all back and more within 12 months.” As we all know, though, nothing in this business is certain, and if your site fails to perform as you expected, you end up with an enormous sunk cost and feel pretty foolish.

The lesson to take away here is to not be afraid to say no. There are an unlimited number of opportunities out there to buy excellent domains at fair prices, so don’t feel like any one deal is “make or break” as this puts you into a really poor negotiating and reasoning position.

AffiliateFYI.com News

First of all, AffiliateFYI.com has ... more]]> February was a very productive month for me, both for AffiliateFYI.com and my affiliate network.  Had a bit of a scare when Bluehost deactivated my entire hosting account with 10+ sites on it for having too much comment spam, but I quickly sorted that out.

AffiliateFYI.com News

First of all, AffiliateFYI.com has been one of the projects that I’m most excited about right now, both in terms of potential and writing content for it.

I uploaded more then 20 new posts to my blog in February (most of these were written by Andy and were over 1,500 words), did quite a lot of SEO, and so far traffic is increasing and I’m getting more long tail traffic from the search engines.  I made more then $100 from my blog last month, which is a massive milestone.  I also have 2 brand new eBooks to be launched in March (one premium and one free), which I’m looking forward to.

In addition to that, I’ve been doing quite a lot of guest posts and interviews for other affiliate blogs and magazines (been asked to become a regulator contributor on one), which is cool.  I’ve already built quite a few more affiliate contacts in the last few weeks through AffiliateFYI.com.

Finance Affiliate Network

I spent most of my time in February working on a few of my finance affiliate sites and putting everything together.  I uploaded around 10-20 pages to each site, have half a dozen solid writers, plus I’m starting to see traffic increase.

For the first time ever I’ve started making a decent amount from Adsense, which is something new.  I’m still aiming to increase traffic on my student banking site to over 5,000+ per month, so I have a very long way to go.  That’s the problem with Adsense – you need A LOT of traffic (e.g. 5,000+ per month) to make any revenue from it.

I’ve finished off a couple of my other finance sites and worked on SEO for them, however I’m trying to take things slowly and let them age a bit.  Overall though I’m hoping to make more from my finance network then gambling over the next few months.  I also just want to say thanks to Magnus, who runs JamesForex.com and helped me out with something last month.

Gambling Affiliate Network

My gambling network is still going strong and I sold another $x,xxx ad deal across most of my sites.    I’ve got my eyes on a premium domain, which I’m hoping I can conclude a deal for in the next month.  I’m still slowly building up my gambling sites but it seems to me that there is far more potential in finance.  I’ve completely lost any real interest in poker, bingo revenue just isn’t there, and while I’m tempted to build a casino portal in the future, I don’t see how I could crack into any easy niches.

March Goals and Email Opt-in Campaigns

I’m going snowboarding at the X-Games in March so won’t get as much done as February, but I will continue some light SEO work on my finance sites and aim to pick up my first FTDs on a couple of those sites.

One of my main plans going forward is to install free eBooks and email opt-in campaigns on at least five of my sites in Spring 2012, starting with my blog.

I’ve got some innovative ways of capturing emails and increasing conversions on some of my sites (including my gold site), which I’m really looking forward.

I’ve also been steadily implementing some things on my main sites with regards to Panda, building social followers and improving user-metrics.  Right now I’m starting to research how to find a good VA (Virtual Assistant) to help me with some of the workload.

Anyway that’s all.  Hope you guys have a good one!

P.S.  Watch this video if you havn’t already seen it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhAg0COnqds

We are now at the end of this affiliate marketing and SEO series from Andy. I really hope you have learnt some new things about SEO and ranking in Google.

Before I leave you, I would just like to pass on a few pieces ... more]]> Top Tips for Affiliate Marketing for New Affiliates 

We are now at the end of this affiliate marketing and SEO series from Andy. I really hope you have learnt some new things about SEO and ranking in Google.

Before I leave you, I would just like to pass on a few pieces of business wisdom and search engine knowledge. Most of these tiny titbits’ have been learnt through failure, so if you are struggling right now, know that it is not for nothing.

-       Choose a niche that has money but also one that you are passionate about. The amount of work required to be successful is massive in most cases. Unless you are passionate about your niche, you will most likely quit. Having passion will support you during the hard times when most people quit. Most people severely underestimate the amount of determination needed to succeed. Passion and determination will help you get through the hard times and come out on the other side smelling of roses.

-       Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. Once you are earning “Good money” you should diversify your efforts. Make multiple websites with multiple streams of income. I have had a 5-figure a month website penalised by Google and become virtually worthless overnight. The worst case scenario has happened to me. In order to negate those risks I now run multiple websites that Google cannot link together.

-       Build an email list using Aweber from day one. Also, use Popup Domination to increase your opt in rate. Email marketing is incredibly effective, period. Not only will it increase your sales, it will also add tangible value to your business if you choose to sell it at some point.

-       Offer some kind of free product that you can give your customers in exchange for an email opt in. Free stuff = Increased conversions.

-       Reinvest your profits back in to your business.

-       Outsourcing link development and content development is a great way to do reinvest. But be very cautious when hiring people.

-       Keyword research is important. Low difficulty, high traffic and high relevance keywords are the most valuable. These are hard to find, you will most likely have to settle for low difficulty, low traffic and high relevance keywords when you first start out.

-       It’s still all about links when it comes to ranking in Google. One high quality link is better than 200 low quality links. But one high quality link and 200 hundred low quality links beats a single high quality link.

-       If your main method of getting traffic is through the search engines, keep your eye on the SEO industry for new developments. Read SEO and internet marketing blogs. Use your bullshit detector to figure out who is legit and who is not.

-       Internet marketing and SEO forums can sometimes provide valuable information but there is so much noise and fraudulent information to filter. In general, I haven’t learnt all that much from these forums. These forums are mostly full of people who are struggling and not making money. The people who are making big money very rarely post valuable information on these forums. And let’s be honest, why on earth would they?

-       Automated link building tools work but they are only as good as the person using them. Check out my resources page for a list of all the tools I use on a daily basis.

-       It is better to take massive action with a flawed plan than to take no action at all. The most valuable lessons I have learnt have come from my failures. Embrace the fear of uncertainty and take action anyway. If you take action and fail, you now have some new information on what does not work. Now adjust what you are doing slightly and take more action. Eventually you will figure out what works and you will get all the money and success you desire.

However, unless you make a firm commitment to taking action daily, you will most likely fail. Take this e-book for example; I spent a week writing this 22’000 word e-book before I even had a single visitor to my website AffiliateFYI.com. Before engaging on this journey I had lots of fear and apprehension about what would happen and how people would interpret my message. I haven’t got rid of this fear, I still feel it, I just choose to take action despite it. If the worst comes to the worst and all my efforts come to nothing, that’s ok, at least I tried to do something I really cared about and wanted to do.

-       Model successful people: If you want to be a successful on the internet, analyse and model the most successful people in the industry. I have learnt a lot about internet marketing from modelling the most successful internet marketers and analysing their conversion process. I have also learnt most of what I know about SEO simply by listening to what other SEO experts say. The rest of what I know has come from taking action and observing the results.

If you want to become successful at internet marketing and SEO you have to immerse yourself in it fully. If you are hanging around your usual friends and co-workers all the time and they know nothing about SEO, you’re not going to get better at SEO. You get better at something by fully immersing yourself in a topic. This often means changing who you hang out with, what you spend time doing and who you decide to take your advice from.

-       Make new relationships: I have learnt an incredible amount of information over the years from other website owners. Not only have I learnt valuable information, I have also started many strategic partnerships. I cannot tell you how important it is to make contact with the biggest players in your niche.

I talk to many affiliates who work in the same niche as me. Although they are my competition, I routinely exchange information about what is working and what is not working in terms of SEO and marketing. I help them out and they help me out.

Let me tell you this, people will never forget how you make them feel, so if you put your best foot forward and try your best to help everyone you interact with, I promise it will come back to benefit you in the future.

-       Read good books: I try to read a lot of books related to business and personal development. Nearly everything valuable I know has either come from a book or from reading a website. Being able to teach yourself by reading the advice and experiences of others is a very valuable skill.

-       Celebrate every victory: When you first start out it is hard work and things you can celebrate are few and far between. Celebrate traffic, ranking and profit milestones. I will never forget the first time I got a number one ranking or the first sale I achieved. The feeling was unforgettable.  Try to celebrate every step you make in the right direction and be compassionate to yourself every time you get a setback. I guarantee if you spend any large amount of time in this industry you will have many highs and lows. The key to longevity is being able to take the lows and ride out the bad times.

Good luck on your journey. I wish you the best of luck.