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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How Do You Come Up With Content For A Website

by Vinny O'Hare on December 20, 2011

One of the questions I am asked on a persistent basis is about website or blog content. People want to know how they can come come up with topic ideas and where to get good content. While I am at the point where I just figure out the content phrases and hand them off to a writer that isn’t the way I started.

Whenever I make up a website the first thing I do is take my keyword list and set up about 10-20 Google alerts. Google alerts is a pretty cool way to get content ideas and also a good way to find websites that will exchange links and content with you. Take your keyword phrase’s with “quotes” around it and enter them into Google alerts and you will have content ideas delivered into your email box the next day.

Every morning I will get 10-20 emails with 2 or 3 links in each that mention the keyword phrase and if the topic is hot you will get more. It only takes a few minutes to give a quick glance over the emails and look to see if they are a good match. You can get some good ideas for content this way. I will look over the emails and end up with a topic that will allow me to create a whole page and maybe two. If you don’t want to be overwhelmed with looking through all the emails just choose one keyword to work that day and let the others sit in your inbox for another day. By the time you are ready for the next subject you will have more emails to work with.

If the story is hot at the moment I will create the page myself and then alert the other pages that I found in the alerts. This is done either through commenting on their site and include my link as a reference or I will send an email to the website owner and tell them that their piece was great and that I have a similar article. Maybe hint at a future guest post or to trade links back and forth. Something will usually come from it, if not during this exchange the ice has been broken for future stuff. They may even know another webmaster in the niche that would also like to work together.

Outsourcing Your Content Writing

If I am in no hurry to get the content up I will usually hire a writer. I will get together a bunch of keyword phrases and put up a job on Elance.com or more recently I have been using IWriter.com. While both are good services I am happy using ELance for larger jobs but that is only because I have used them more frequently. After you use either of these services you get to know some writers that are good and you make sure you invite them to do the next job. It is also not a good idea to settle for the cheapest writer as odds are you will get lousy content back. You want to plan your job with as many details as possible. I always choose writers from the USA and pay a little more than have articles written by someone that their first language is not English. It never works out and saving a few bucks on content that is going to be on your website for years just is not worth it.

Get Your Words Transcribed

If it is a topic that you are knowledgeable about and you don’t feel like typing out the information you can always use a voice transcription service. It may sound dumb but if you are lazy like me and you type slow you can do a voice recording. Hook up a headphone and mic to your computer and peak the content for your pages. I know I can talk 10 times faster than I can type. I load up a program called Audacity (Free) and make some audio files. After I am done I upload the files to speechpad.com and get them transcribed. It is cheaper than hiring a writer and I know the content isn’t some plagiarized copy that has been spun ten times to Sunday.

You will end up with some pretty good content this way. Odds are you will surprise yourself with the results, I know that every time I get the content back I am amazed at how accurate the content is and since you talk faster than you can type (and think at the same time) you end up with twice as much quality content than if you had hired a writer.

 

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