Having pushed a lot of different products in the past I have to say that this is rare - when trying to choose a new program to target with your affiliate site consider the company backing the different products. Companies focused on customer service will tend to be around much longer and result in more residual revenue for you.

The execution this time, however, has been different than in the past. Rather than hitting sites renting links it appears as though Google went through all sites actually selling links and hit them across the board. This is a bad thing for the link brokers trying to disclose everything - it’s a huge plus for the guys selling links that appear natural. Also, link prices on higher page ranked sites appear to be going up since the most recent update. Google’s making the wrong guys rich.

Number One on the Google is basically an experiment with viral video featuring a guy that I would swear is Ricky Gervais’ brother (in energy if not looks) talking about search engine optimization. It’s basically just a YouTube video talking about developing a website and ranking (you guessed it), Number One on the Google.

This video is 4 minutes and 12 seconds, but the first 4 minutes is basically some dumb guy talking about starting a website and driving traffic. The ending wraps everything up - they basically say not to be like this guy and to give them a call (Push On).

I think it’s a pretty interesting experiment - instead of following the boring old (and new) media channels, they decided to create something obviously low-budget designed to entertain. I will keep an eye on the company and see if it appears to be a successful experiment.

My only warning is that the language may be nsfw. If you like The Office (UK) and you’re looking for an SEO partner in the UK, this may be a great fit for you. If you are more interested in doing SEO on your own check out their marketing tips by email.

Noticably absent from any of the potential hires list of seo priorities was the practice of renting links. I asked each one of them (5 guys, 1 girl so far) why they didn’t suggest any of the clients rent links and they each gave me their version of why renting links is unethical.

Is this how most people feel or is there a selection bias because I live in an area where SEO is not an everyday word? Or is it possible that I just happened to meet the 6 self-professed SEO’s who don’t practice link renting? I’m not sure but one thing is clear - I’m glad most people don’t do it - it makes it a lot cheaper for those of us who do

One of the problems with all of the SEO blogs popping up is an unusually high noise-to-signal ratio. It seems like everybody and there brother want to read a few of the original blogger’s sites and regurgitate everything they read.

Shoemoney, however, is not one of these bloggers. Jeremy Schoemaker (aka shoemoney) is a real internet marketer making serious money in affiliate marketing and (for some reason I don’t honestly understand) he loves to share information with other people.

Shoemoney is a staple in my blog reader because he’s actually been there and done it - so many self-proclaimed “SEO’s” have day jobs and make $10 or so per month on their sites - not shoe. Shoe makes serious money employing SEO and PPC tactics for his SEO sites.

Lately he has been sharing details of his aggressive approach to the ringtone industry - according to a recent post he was able to gross over $1M last year in the ringtone industry alone. Considering the low overhead associated with being an affiliate this is some serious cash.

Learn from somebody who knows what they’re talking about and is willing to share information freely - if you send shoemoney an email you’ll get a real response back, most likely with a really good answer if you take the time to ask an intelligent question.

Eight months later, however, it’s a different story. I noticed that my affiliate earnings dropped off the planet and finally did a little research. I found that most of my products were pointing to dead links.

OK, so I must be the unlucky affiliate marketer who added a bunch of products that got discontinued, huh? Nope - I still found the products on Amazon, the URL’s had just changed. These aren’t different products or anything like that - the same exact products, different URL’s.

Obviously this isn’t good for me and I can’t imagine it’s helping Amazon and it really sucks for my users so I don’t know what’s going on.

*sigh*

Long story short Apogee Search is a internet marketing agency. At first glance I assumed it was simply a search marketing agency (as the name would indicate), but they also offer services such as pay per call management and affiliate program management. So rather than classify them merely as an SEO or SEM company I would call them a full-service internet marketing agency.

They advertise on their homepage the fact that they are an Adwords Qualified Company - most of the people I know who are “Adwords Qualified” aren’t impressive so that doesn’t mean much to me. I am slightly more impressed, however, by their membership in SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization). Not because I really think SEMPO is anything special or anything but I know it’s not cheap to join - an indication that Apogee isn’t just some fly-by-night company run out of a guy’s basement.

When I consult with friends who are choosing a marketing agency I always recommend they avoid anybody in Las Vegas - it is just too hard to determine whether you are dealing with Traffic Power (under a different name) - these guys are from Austin, Texas so they definitely pass the smell test on location.

Also reading their site Apogee doesn’t sound at all like a bunch of brand new SEO’s trying to make money bilking people out of adspend - they highlight on their homepage:

• Specific number of completed lead forms
• Precise conversion rates
• Actual cost per lead, cost per sale
• Comparison of sales against search marketing investments
• Total revenues generated per day, week, month, quarter and year

That is exactly what an internet marketing agency should be focused on. Too many agencies out there are going after “brand marketers” because they typically spend money without any accountability for results. If you are interested in direct marketing (ie, you want to see ROI within days instead of years on adspend), you should check out Apogee and at least get a quote. I don’t know how expensive they are, but if the price is comparable with other agencies out there they are definitely worth a second look.

Here is the scenario - we got a new client who had an SEO previously who did a bunch of comment spam. Interestingly enough it seemed to help them a bit in msn and yahoo, but their listings are nowhere to be found in google. So I talked to Matt Cutts at a recent tradeshow and he verified that they did have an algorithmic penalty due to some “questionable backlinks.”

I did more investigation to figure out how to overcome this penalty (I’ve never dealt with this issue before because I never spam) and I basically found out I had 2 options:

1) Go ask all of the bloggers who have been spammed to remove the spammy links (not realistic)

2) Build a bunch more clean links and essentially overpower the spam links (still a lot more work but much more realistic)

It has been quite a good learning experience for me - I’m not sure whether it makes sense to keeping working on this client’s account or not but I did learn just how detrimental push-button SEO can be.

Are you trying to get your marketing message out into the blogosphere? One of the problems that many marketers face is that they don’t look “organic” enough - you definitely don’t want your marketing message to seem contrived or manufactured if you’re trying to appeal to bloggers or their readers.

SuperExpansion helps you overcome that with MySpace Bulletins, a way to take Social Media Optimization (SMO) to a whole new level. Basically they have created tons of “account holders” with thousands (or millions) of friends.

The concept of using an artificial network to appear “real” to users or search engines will definitely not appeal to everybody - I would definitely have my reservations about using such a service. But the proof is in the pudding - if their service is effective and produces a positive ROI than the service is relatively cheap (plans start at $19).

They also have a service that will comment on craigslist and other communities to get your ad message out. These services start at $.50/message.

When you boil it down Super Expansion is a guerilla marketing firm offering to take some of the hassle and leg-work out of a full-blown internet marketing campaign. I would test the service with a site that you wouldn’t mind losing in case the algorithms pick up that you’re trying to game the system, but if you see positive results you could try it on higher-profile sites. Always move with caution on these types of things - they can be risky but, as always, high risk equals a high potential return.