Work From Home Carefree - Be Your Own Boss Get Rich Make Money Working From Home Weblog. Billion Dollar Industry!

Quick note - I am back from the Underground Seminar and will soon enough write a complete review (but I have a lot of work to catch up on first).

But, in the mean time, I want to take a second to rant about how much I love MSN (or am starting to love MSN). I recently lauched a new niche site - 10 days ago or so. I have great content on there, about 30+ pages, a good daily updated blog, etc…

Google - I’m lucky that they’ve even come by my site so far (but given, I have not started my linking campaign yet).

Yahoo - Ehh…they have some pages indexed, but not properly (They are from the old site I was working on and never finished). I almost *wish* they would DE-index me and re-index my pages to get all the titles and things right.

O…no traffic yet from Google or Yahoo.

BUT!

MSN - ALL pages indexed and within 7 days I was already ranking well for some of the best keywords in a good niche. Now, I’m not in some “really small” niche - this niche has some big players in it!

But, MSN, has indexed my pages very fast and started giving me ranking and traffic in just days!

So, if you have not yet, go to MSN and have a look and see how you are doing there.

Berkeley Heights, NJ - March 27, 2006 — Affiliate Summit 2006 East (http://www.affiliatesummit.com) is taking place July 9-11, 2006 in Orlando, Florida. The Affiliate Summit conferences are presented by Shawn Collins and Missy Ward.

The show provides an opportunity for affiliate marketing and search engine marketing executives to get together and learn from one another in a unique, cooperative environment.

The Keynote Speaker will be Jim Bouton - New York Yankee 20-game winner, best…

Affiliate marketing is a risky scheme, and anybody that uses it to advertise their company is reckless and ill informed. Right? No, not right.

But you’d be inclined to believe just that if you took seriously the frequent hatchet jobs on affiliate marketing by folks with a vested interest in CPM and search.

Peter Figueredo wrote an entertaining piece on ReveNews recently,” EXTRA EXTRA: Online Ad Displayed Next To Inappropriate Content - BUT ITS AN AD BUY - NOT AN AFFILIATE.”

In the post,…

“Wow again…”

Ok, I have to be completely honest - I enjoyed the seminar yesterday, yes - but had some reserves. There were areas I thought it could have been better (but the networking was still golden)!

Anyways, all that went OUT the window today. The content today was just amazing.

The first speaker - Gave me great ideas about content sites and how he/she uses them to build a much larger business and customer list

The second speaker - Out right blew me away with how he can buy MILLIONS of visitors to his sites without ever joint venturing or sucking up or waiting months. He can instantly just buy traffic.

That’s just a bit of it.

So, let’s see, what “SPECIFICALLY” did “I” get out of it besides the great speakers:

1. A meeting with Mike Filsaime - There is a funny story here that I’ll probably publish one day, this guy cracks me up. Anyways, he gave me some PRICELESS advice that may have just saved my business (not kidding…). Also, I was able to get some solid feedback and advice on a product launch

2. Still chasing down Air’n - Air’n is ONE busy guy and we keep missing each other! But, we’ll eventually get a hold of each other.

Ok, to be honest, I’m dead tired so if I think of something else - I’ll post it tomorrow. Plus, a full report will come after the event (gotta check with Yanik to see how much I can reveal

In one way, Google is one giant experiment. Sure, it’s an established business, whose revenues are predicted to climb to over $12 billion by end of 2007.

But, bringing sites and eyes together is what Google does… and no one - not even Google - has yet determined the best way to do that.

(It took television quite a few years to develop to its current format, too.)

But the gorilla of search and PPC advertising, whatever you think of it, has one huge thing going for it. It never ceases to experiment with new products, techniques, and ideas - while continuing what it does really well: serving ads with search.

The latest incarnation is the addition of graphical ads to Google Local. Type in a search of, say “booksellers nyc”, as Shimon Sandler did recently, and you might see more than you’re used to.

There’ll be the usual several little red balloons. But, if you’re in some group defined by criteria known only to Google, you’ll see something extra: a postage stamp-sized graphic touting, for example, Barnes & Noble.

Why Google has for so long resisted adding small graphics is something of a mystery. All things considered it can’t take noticeably longer to load the page. And Yahoo! has had something like this for quite some time.

But whatever its former reasons, the genie left the bottle briefly, for some wishers. Odds are, it won’t stay in long now.

Readers of Affiliate Classroom don’t need to be told what this means. No one knows for sure anyway. After all, it’s one giant experiment.

One of the sections in my latest AffStat report of affiliate marketing benchmarks is dedicated to affiliate managers speaking out on topics of their choosing.

I agree with some of the opinions, and shake my head at others, such as the following…

I think a major issue is having affiliates who don’t understand your product, and just sign up because your earnings and price point are high. Also, many never even get around to building a site and don’t cancel their accounts. In over 5,000…

“Wow”

For those of you who don’t know, I am at Yanik’s Underground Online Seminar this weekend. The whole weekend actually started for me on Wednesday when I spoke at a pre-event that Russell Brunson held.

Well, today, bright and early at 8 AM (yes, I was 20 minutes late), we got started. Yanik introduced us to the LONG line of speakers and boy does he have some real “doozies” - I have barely heard of anyone who is speaking here, but all seem to be making boat loads.

So far, I’ve had a chance to rub shoulders with Mike Filsaime, Air’n Manohan, Jeff Johnson, Josh Anderson, Russell Brunson, Yanik (of course), Marlon Sanders, Jeff Mulligan, the list just goes on…

My honest opinion - of all the speakers who spoke today, Air’n was the best (he went first) - his topic was on some crucial laws of internet marketing - now I can’t tell you more, or else Yanik and the other agents will assassinate me!

I’m sure many of you are wondering, “Is the event worth it Anik?”

Well, I’ll let you judge for yourself:

1. I have a potential JV in the works with Air’n now (and not just yeaa…JV JV JV - but something serious worth LOTS)
2. Russell and I brainstormed (alot) and I found out some of the things he does to sell high ticket items
3. I met Marlon (if you havn’t yet, that ALONE may be worth $2,000 - the guy is nuts!)
4. I got to re-connect with Jeff Johnson (on the coaching club) - he’s going to help me with my new site…(one of them)
5. Josh Anderson and I did some great brainstorming about Affiliate Classroom

…umm and this is just end of Day #1!!

So, what do you think, is it worth it so far?

I’ll talk more about the actual content and presentations tomorrow (once I’ve seen more).

Until then, this is Anik, reporting from the Affiliate Classroom blog…

Over the coming months, we’ll be discussing Web 2.0 as the software — and the wider web-cultural phenomenon — matures.

Web 2.0 is, of course, many things to many people, but in general it revolves around taking the Internet to the next level. Creating software, services, and sites that replace or extend traditional alternatives.

Desktop software will, in some cases, give way to wholly web-based options. (Writely, AjaxWrite, OfficeLive, etc)

Social networks will expand, evolve, and be replaced with kinds not even yet forseen. (Flickr, MySpace, Yahoo! Answers, et al.)

Even TV and newspapers will continue to ‘evolve or die’ as online takes a larger percentage of the individual’s time.

Best of all, from the affiliate marketer’s perspective, Web 2.0 will get increasingly monetized. Techies aren’t the only creative innovators around, and where there’s eyeballs online money making opportunities are not far behind.

This is one case where more is more.

Jeff Molander, CEO of Molander & Associates Inc. and Emcee for the upcoming Affiliate Summit 2006 East conference, is conducting a new podcast series on affiliate marketing.

The podcast series is called “Best Practices in Affiliate Marketing: What Affiliates Want,” and it will feature a mix of merchants and affiliates discussing the state of affiliate marketing.

Participants in the inaugural program included Batteries.com, Factory Card & Party Outlet, Figleaves.com, Golfsmith International,…

Several recent Google offerings are apparently converging. Search Engine Watch editor, Barry Schwartz, recently reported seeing Google Base results show up in SERPs. And with a Local Search twist.

Adding Google Base items to organic results is bound to result in some controversy, but it’s a natural extension of the technique of using geographic info to provide users with more of what they’re looking for.

Some, such as WebProNews.com author Jim Hedger, are even predicting that the day of purely keyword driven search is drawing to a close.

While it’s too early to draw any hard and fast conclusions, it’s safe to say that folding demographic and user behavior information into the algorithm has clearly arrived. Considering that many continue to research online but purchase offline, the trend will undoubtedly continue. (See comScore study results here.)

As we’ve said before, there are obviously opportunities out there for affiliate marketers who can incorporate Local Search hungry elements into their sites. And the better you know your customers, the more elements you can include that appeal to their specific interests.

That’s a combination that can’t help but yield dollars.