Affiliate Summit West Session Slide Deck

by Vinny O'Hare on January 29, 2012

I am still getting questions about my session “25 Ways to Improve Your Website” that I presented at Affiliate Summit West 2012 so I decided to share my slide deck from that. Below is the slides content in text form, it is a little tough to read so If you want to see the slide deck it is also below. You get bonus points if you spot the mistake.

1. 25 Ways To Improve Your Website Take Action Guide To Improve Your Website. Vinny O’Hare Vincent O’Hare Consulting

2. Who Am I  – Spent 23 years in outdoor advertising industry. Started on the Internet in 1999 – EBay Powerseller. 2001 Started making content filled websites focusing on affiliate programs. 2009 Started affiliate managing and teaching. Co-host on AffiliateABC’s podcast.

3. What We Will Discuss – This presentation is set up to show 25 topics and break it down by three items for each topic. I call it first glance – second glance – third glance. Be prepared to write on your worksheet. All links in this presentation can be found at Vinnyohare.com/help

4. Your Website Now – Current Rankings! – Where are you now? Why so bad? – Are you doing something wrong? Competition – What are they ranking for? Before you start you have to take a good look at where you are now so you can judge your results. Google webmaster tools can show your average rankings for free. Don’t get caught up in stats.

5. Keywords – Do you have a keyword list? Are you sure you are using the right keywords? Keyword ideas – check your competitions. Free Tools – Google Keyword tool, Compete.com, Google Alerts, Soovle, YouTube Keyword Tool, Wordtracker.com has free sample. Chrome extensions SEO site tools, SEOquake. Paid Tools – Raventools.

6. Colors – Is your site welcoming? Can color blind people read your website? Do you have good font and font size? Dark gray fonts on gray backgrounds should be illegal! Just because you think your site “Looks Pretty” doesn’t mean others will like it or buy something.

7. Title Tag – Is your keyword mentioned? Under 70 characters long? Is your keyword near the front? Do a Google search on your keyword and see other titles and see what others are using and take notice what they are missing and what you can do better.

8. Meta Description Tag – Do you have one? Less than 150 characters. Keyword in beginning and a Call To Action or Curiosity near the end. Same as the title tag do a Google search and see what can be done better than the results that are showing.

9. Meta Keyword Tag – Do you have one? Less than three? Page should only have one focus on one keyword Most search engines ignore this tag – I still use one – It is optional. Most SEO’s will tell you to ignore this tag. Bing claims they use it to catch spammers.

10. Search Box – Do you have one? Is it above the fold? Does it work? There is a reason why 90% of ecommerce sites have them above the fold. You can’t read customers minds or intentions. If you are using Google analytics you can see what people are searching for and develop new pages based on those terms or freshen up old pages.

11. Logo – Do you have one? Is it any good? Does it link back to the homepage? Make sure your logo is optimized for faster loading and includes “alt tags” for Google image search results. Don’t be afraid to get constructive advice on your logo. Lesruba.com is who I use to design mine.

12. About Us Page – Do you have one? Is it personal? – Explain your POD (point of difference) Easily found on your site? The about us page is your chance to build trust with your readers. The page shouldn’t be all about you, it should be about how you are going to solve the customers problem. Great example Derek Halpern SocialTriggers.com about page.

13. Blog – Does your website have one? Structure – is it WordPress – Paid Theme? Are the permalinks set correctly? Blogs are good for interaction with customers. It also provides a fresh place for the search engines to spider. Make sure your blog has all the social media sharing buttons. Have others spread the word about your site.

14. Contact Us Page – Do you have one? Is the information correct? Methods of contact – phone- email etc. Let user know how long a response usually takes. Readers that choose to contact you want answers a.s.a.p. be available in many different ways. Use a contact form to avoid spam. Readers questions can become content on a FAQ page.

15. Privacy Policy – Do you have one? Does it have the correct info? Easily found in footer – Make it a no follow page. Yes you need one. You can find templates online to get you started serprank.com has a good one to get you started.

16. Trust – Does your site have it? Would you buy something from your website? Be honest with yourself. Always a job to improve it. Building trust is an ongoing thing. Would you trust your website with your credit card? Have a neighbor or a relative sit at your computer and go over your site and see their reaction.

17. Email Newsletter – Do you have one? Have an offer to encourage sign ups. Have an auto-responder series. Gets users back to your website. I use Aweber which sends out my blog post as a newsletter automatically. No need to write content just for a newsletter. You can use current content on your site in an auto-responder series. Use Twitter and Facebook to get people on to your list.

18. Navigation – Is it easy to find items? Is it helpful to visitors? Driving visitors to a trusted landing page. Have to make sure your navigation is spider-able. It is worthless if your navigation is not able to be crawled by the search engines.

19. Backlinks – Do you have any? Always have a plan to get more. Find competitors backlinks – get some from them. Blekko.com – Type in link:competitorswebsite.com Contact the websites that show up and try to get backlinks from them. Firefox extension – Quirk Search Status quirk.biz/searchstatus

20. Images – Does your site have any? Customers like them. Are they optimized for fast loading. Alt Text – Do you have them optimized? Free tool picnik.com for easy optimizing. They also have a chrome extension and a Firefox add on.

21. Videos – Do you have any? Make “How To” videos explaining solutions. Self hosted or YouTube or both. Videos build trust, users love them! Never have them auto play. You can make short videos featuring a solution to a problem. Have your videos transcribed. Speechpad.com

22. Landing Pages – Call to action. No other distractions. Quick checkout or wherever you want customers to go. Getting the user to your shopping cart or to the merchants site in the least amount of steps possible leads to the best results. No sidebars – No navigation – no leaks to other pages.

23. Internal Linking Site Structure – Link at least one page to every new page. Natural Flowing – Only link where it is needed or contribute to the existing page. Link to Right Pages To Help Consumer. If you are on WordPress there are plugins for this. Internal linking helps many things happen on your website. Time on site, bounce rate, spiders.

24. On Page Content Keyword Density – Keep in mind as you are writing. Keyword bolded on the page once. Usually in my headline. Keywords in the anchor text to product or landing page. I keep my keyword density under 3%, not a rule just always done it this way. I use it as a guide. Content is always quality! If it isn’t then it shouldn’t be on your website. If you suck at writing outsource it or take classes to become a better writer. Iwriter.com or Elance.com

25. Site Speed – What is your site speed? How can we improve it? What is holding us down? Google webmaster tools has page speed tools. Cheap hosting is not worth it. Gtmetrix.com great resource to see what is slowing down your site.

26. Blogs in Niche – Find similar niches. Leave a good comment. Nothing spammy! Look for backlinks for your site in other users comments. There are a lot of quality sites that can be found on quality comments. Contact them for a backlink or possibly a guest post on their blog. Use Google alerts with your keyword phrases. Instant results delivered to your inbox.

27. Forums – Find a similar niche – Competition there? Participate – Be helpful. Good signature with your social media urls. When you find a good forum become the expert there. I usually dedicate some time once a week to check forums for new post. As long as you are not spammy the forum admin will be happy to have you answering questions.

28. YouTube – Do you have an account? Build subscribers and friends = recurring visitors. Make helpful videos – “How To” videos are huge. Place a link in description to your website product page. Including the link with an http:// makes the link clickable for users. Leave comments on high ranking videos in your niche to gain subscribers.

29. Twitter – Do you have an account? Is a keyword in the bio? Are you interacting? Build followers in your niche or problem solving. Find someone influential in the niche and follow who they follow. If you have a local website follow the local news or radio station accounts. Get their followers to follow you! Be funny and informative. Use tools when you can to help get out your message. Examples: Hootsuite, Tweetdeck.

30. Facebook – Have an account? – 70 million+ people do. Set up a fan page? Put your url in the about section. Have Facebook contest. Builds fans and returning customers. Use a Facebook approved app. Use Facebook to get readers on to your email list so you can market them forever.

31. Google+ – Do you have an account? Set up a business page? Find the most popular person in your niche and see who they are following and follow them. Share good information and you will build a loyal following. Follow Chris Brogan and Trey Ratcliff. Findpeopleonplus.com – Great way to find others to follow.

32. Resources  – Follow http://vinnyohare.com/help – All links in this presentation can be found here and more. Twitter.com/vinnyohare –

25 Ways To Improve Your Website

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Affiliate Summit – What I Really Learned

by Vinny O'Hare on January 14, 2012

Things I really learned at Affiliate Summit.

Since my last post was kind of about what I learned personally about myself I decided to post about things I learned at Affiliate Summit.

In the creating a mastermind group session I learned that any number above 3 is too many people to have in the group. I have seen groups larger than this and it never works. If a group larger than 3 is working for you than fine but in general I think anything over 3 people is too much.

You Never Know Where Future Business Will Come From.

I was approached with so many different opportunities in the strangest of places. While I was in the mastermind session we were approached by a guy that has over 300 quality domain names that were never developed. The guy was in my session so he approached me asking what I would do with them.

After that session I went to the bloggers lounge where I was asked by two guys about his product and if he was ready for an affiliate program. Both the product and his idea of affiliate marketing was way off. Not only was his product a bad idea, his payout ratio was really really bad.

On Monday I had a time slot at the speakers lounge where I was expecting a whole lot of questions and answers. One guy came up to me that attended my session and told me about his website and that everything I said in my session he needed. I didn’t think too much about it until I was in the airport on the way home and took a look at his website. Out of my 28 things to look at in my session his website needed 27 of them. I will be contacting him during the week and help get his website improved.

As I walked around the show floor I was approached by many many people asking me questions. With my voice being so bad it was really really interesting to listen for a change instead of talking a lot. Many of the questions were basic, I learned that there was room in the affiliate marketing and website building for more training aimed at newbies. The more questions people asked me, the more I realized that a lot of stuff I take for granted really needs to be shared in the open.

Most of the networking, is done after the show. I made more connections just sitting around the show hall after the closing keynote than I did during the show. I exchanged business cards with about 10 to 15 people as I was walking out of the show hall. Out of the 10 or 15 I probably grabbed 5 to 7 cell phone numbers.

I learned that one of the benefits of speaking at affiliate Summit is the amount of sign-ups to happen afterwards to your affiliate programs. In the days after speaking, actually while I was still at the show we received many quality applications to all of our affiliate programs. This was a very unexpected benefit, and one that I didn’t count on.

Affiliate Summit really is about networking, and seeing old friends that you haven’t seen in a long time. I saw an affiliate I haven’t seen in about five years and didn’t realize his whole game plan had changed about three years ago. I also gave him a lot of advice, I’m sure that just by touching base with me we will be able to make him more money and affiliate programs.

I didn’t go to many of the sessions this year, as I was not feeling well and I watch them on video. I can’t say I learned anything in any of the sessions as I didn’t go to many. I did have some great conversations and the bloggers lounge with a few people who let some good ideas out in the open.

I am big on helping people, it makes me feel really good when I can make the connection between two people and they do business. I was sitting at my friend and she mentioned that she wanted an iPhone app and maybe a droid app for her websites. I sent out a tweet to my buddy Brad Waller who came to the bloggers lounge within minutes and will probably be making her two apps.

I didn’t make it to the white boarding sessions as they were too early in the morning for me. I did hear some rave reviews from some affiliates that said Eric Nagel really knocked it out of the park. I attended the closing keynote which was okay but nothing really groundbreaking came out of it for me. But since I got a whole bunch of contacts after the closing keynote was well worth it for me.

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What I Learned at Affiliate Summit

by Vinny O'Hare on January 12, 2012

Affiliate Summit West 2012 was a very different conference for me this year as I chose to speak for a change. I have been on a few panels before but this time I had a whole session to myself where I could put more details into a bunch of topics. My session was titled “25 ways to improve your website” but I over delivered and made it 28 and if you take that I put 3 points in each section my session gave about 84 things to look at.

Vinny O'Hare speaking at Affiliate Summit West 2012

I have to thank Shawn and Missy for letting me speak at Affiliate Summit. The session came close to being cancelled as I could barely talk between a cough I picked up and just not feeling well had me worried. The day before my session I could not talk at all. The last thing I wanted to do was have to cancel a session after finally agreeing to do one.

We got to Vegas early for a much needed break before the show. When Friday came about friends started to wander into town and we went over to the Ceasers Palace hotel to say hello to them. We settled into the Galleria bar in the lobby and as soon as we got there the smoke from people smoking cigarettes hit me like a wall. The ceilings in the place were so low there was no place for the smoke to go. Add this in with trying to talk over all the noises from the slot machines caused me to wake up during the night not able to breathe. It felt like a tennis ball was caught in my throat. Not exactly the way to start off a show, especially one you have to speak at.

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