Hey guys/girls, as I posted below I was lucky enough to make it to the final 3 in the Party Like a Search Engine Rockstar contest. Now there is a public poll going to help decide who will win-it’s a close race and I could REALLY use your help :). So now I’m asking for a favor from my readers - if you could take a minute to vote for me at (SEO Loser) at http://www.shoemoney.com/2007/11/13/pubcon-roll-with-the-rockstars-finalists/ I’d really, really appreciate it. It would be so cool if I could manage to win this contest. Thanks!

  

  

Next week is SES San Jose 2007 and I’ll be there attending the full show (hopefully I don’t stay out toooo late). I haven’t posted here in a really long time, I know, but I promise it’s because I’ve been working hard on some interesting projects and I’ll hopefully have some cool/useful affiliate tools/data/information I can share soon. Hope to see some of you at SES next week, and for those of you that are coming you can look forward to some really nice sun if it stays like it is now–I’m from (grew up in) Santa Cruz which is just about 30 minutes from San Jose, so if you feel like coming to the beach, going fishing (apparently the halibut are in “in force” right now) at all or exploring Santa Cruz just let me know and I can tell you the good places to go :).

Of course you should also remember to register for the Google Dance, my favorite party of any SEO related event so far (been to three of these Google dances now). Even though it ends early it’s a blast while it lasts… there are usually a few thousand people, tons of games, free wine and beer, free food, live music, etc. Basically it’s just a great party and if you feel like partying later there’s almost always something going on back in San Jose afterwards (Google provides free transportation via bus to/from their event). Register for the Google Dance 2007 here.

  

  

For me, today is one of those days where you wake up and clearly feel that you had wayyy too much fun the night before. I feel like Frank from the movie Old School when he says “I had a great time last night!” and his buddy answers back “We know you had a great time last night. The whole town knows you had a great time last night.”

I have to admit that I do take comfort in one thing: when you start out as the SEO Loser, you can’t really fall too far. Whenever I find myself doing something stupid or embarrassing I laugh and figure “Okay, I’m living up to my title.”

Around 9:30 or so we decided to leave the Hilton bar and grab some food. On the way out we bumped into some other attendees and started talking with them. I wasn’t paying full attention but my ears perked up when I heard a lady say her name: Rae Hoffman. For those who haven’t read my blog in the past, I ripped on Rae pretty badly in my first post. Afterwards I felt guilty about it because I thought I was too harsh and a couple friends/people I respect had contacted me saying Rae was actually really nice–I must have gotten the wrong impression.

Anyway back to the story—I had to tell Rae I was the SEO Loser. I couldn’t resist. But at the same time I knew she would (rightfully) hate me. Luckily I was pretty deep already and any form of timidity was long gone.

It was the kind of awkward situation I’m prone to, but Rae was really cool about it although she was a little heated at first. I’d say more but we agreed the conversation was “off the record” (the first time in my life anyone has ever asked me to have an off the record conversation … I must be moving up). I’ll just end this topic by saying Rae was really nice.

There’s one more incident worth mentioning that happened before we made it to our restaurant. On the way out we met a couple other nice girls attending SES and my friend asked them what company they were from. They pointed at my SES man-purse–specifically to the Findology logo on the side of it. Being a little tipsy and in bad lighting, the yellow O (the first o) didn’t really stand out. So I said in the stupidest way possible, “Find – Low – Gee? You’re company is called find low gee?” It was pretty bad. She called me an idiot and said “What company would name themselves Find Low Gee?!

After grabbing a bite to eat, we felt like we’d pretty much missed the boat in terms of the party scene. Word on the street had it that Pepperjam was hosting a killer party and unfortunately we hadn’t heard about it so we were about to give up on SES-parties and just check out some NYC bars. But first, we decided we’d give the Hilton one last shot.

I’m very glad we did. At the Hilton we bumped into Daron Babbin (aka SEGuru)–a very cool guy I’d actually met before at the Ghost Bar during PubCon. We talked to him, had a few drinks and met some other SESers around the bar before migrating to a bar down the street where a big group of conference goers had congregated. On the way out I saw Neil Patel sitting on the bench. I know what you’re going to say—“do you ever learn?”—but the answer is no, I don’t, so I walked up to Neil and started talking to him. He was a really nice guy as I would have expected based on the tone of his blog that I’ve been subscribed to for several months.

There was a lady sitting next to Neil and somehow it came out that her last name was Schoemaker. Mrs. Shoemoney?! I talked with her for a bit, told her how much I loved her husband, you know—the usual. A few minutes later Shoemoney walked into the hotel.

Now one thing that’s interesting about being an SEO Loser is that you’re never sure if people are going to recognize you or not. I’ve only posted one picture of myself on this blog and it was pretty blurry. Still, sometimes I’ll get a glare or weird look and I’m always wondering if they recognized me from the blog. The same was true when Shoemoney walked in—to be honest I didn’t think he’d recognize me. But he did. “Dude the SEO Loser!!!” he yelled and came up and gave me a hug. That was pretty fun.

We let the Shoemoneys go and headed out to the bar where we bumped into Chris Hooley – now famous for his ability to get SEOs wasted :). I had met Chris at PubCon as well so it was cool to see him again and have a few drinks.

In addition to Chris, there was a whole crew of SEO / SES ‘elite’ at the bar. I talked to Todd “Oilman” Friesen, one of the actual SEO Rockstars along with a bunch of others. Andrea, Shoemoney’s sister, was at the bar as well and it was cool to finally meet her— very nice girl.

Chris Hooley drink baited me into a final shot / beer combination that ultimately did me in. I could feel myself spinning and when I saw the homeless guy making fun of me I knew it was time to go.

I’m sure there’s a lot I’m leaving out but it’s time to start another night so I have to wrap this up. Hope to see some of you out tonight! As always comment on the blog or send an e-mail if you’re at SES and want to meet up and I’ll try to get in touch. Have fun!

  

  

I received an e-mail about a week ago informing me of an ‘official’ thread at Search Engine Watch with details regarding the SES-related parties. It was remarkably helpful and welcoming for the average attendee—the hospitality and warmth of the post is so overwhelming I decided I’d provide a summary here:

Monday:

• Private Party – Early bird VIP party.

Tuesday:

• Private Party – The name says it all.
• Private Party – Very Important People only. You can’t come.
• Private Party – Highly exclusive.

Wednesday:

• Private Party – Awesome.
• Private Party – Word has it this one is off the hook.
• Private Party – Open bar all night.

Thursday:

• Private Party – Don’t even try to get in.
• Private Party – Only the three (3) coolest people at SES granted entrance.
• Private Party – I’m having dinner with some friends and you can’t come

Seriously—what is the point of posting a public, not to mention “official,” list of private parties? I don’t want to pass judgment too early, but I’ve got to say this list of SEO after-parties is comically reminiscent of the PubCon scene.

If a party is private, why post it on a widely read and publicized list? The only motivation I can see for posting such a list is let others know there are parties they aren’t invited to. And that other, more ‘important’ people will be welcomed. Some people were cool enough to get an invite, and you weren’t—“you’re an SEO Loser! I’m a search engine optimization rock star…”

After all, if it’s a private party, I think it’s safe to assume the guys on the VIP list already know about it.

Because this list is so ridiculous, I’ll try to keep an up-to-date version here consisting only of parties that are actually open to all attendees.

  

  

I just boarded the plane (flying Jet Blue out of Burbank where I was spending Easter) and figured I’d post a quick update.  One little rant—and maybe someone will comment on this and explain—but why the hell don’t domestic airlines offer internet access?!  I know the technology is there as I’ve used it before on international flights.  If a certain airline offered internet access, even at a fee, I don’t think I’m the only one that would go way out of their way to book with that airline as much as possible.  Especially for coast to coast flights—this is six hours in the plane. 

Anyway, I’ll be staying in Brooklyn with an old friend from home who now lives in New York so it sounds like I’ll have a 15-20 minute train ride each morning to get into the city.  I have no experience with New York so just finding my way around will probably lead to some interesting stories. I’ve already seen a couple of Yahoo! backpacks and a PRWeb t-shirt, so I know I’m on the right flight   I’m looking forward to providing some coverage of what I hope will be a great event. 

  

  

I saved yesterday’s Shoemoney show for today, knowing that I’d be in the car for a few hours. Shoe’s guest was Scott Jangro, the founder of BumpZee – a very cool and, in my mind, promising social networking project. The guys discussed a number of topics, mainly news (I wish I’d listened live and called in as I’d loved to have heard this very knowledgeable and successful duo discuss some more ‘precise’ / applicable affiliate strategies), but toward the end of the show they discussed conferences like PubCon, Affiliate Summit, Ad Tech, and SES. Scott’s favorite was, not surprisingly as he’s a long time affiliate marketer, the Affiliate Summit. I agreed with his sentiments in that the atmosphere at the Affiliate Summit was really unique, welcoming and fun.

One of Scott’s comments reminded me of a phenomenon I’d thought of blogging about in the past but apparently forgot, and that is the incredibly “tight lipped, big paranoia fest” (borrowing Scott’s perfect description) that is so prevalent at these shows. Basically, many attendees feel there is an unwritten rule–separating the wise from the ignorant–that you don’t talk about things that make you money. If you do, the idea is that others will copy, compete and ultimately conquer you.

The fact is, however, ’secrets’ that the elite or even the losers can share about how they’re making money online—for example, which programs they use and how they are promoting affiliate offers—are not likely (with a very few exceptions) to hurt or benefit anyone to a significant extent. While talking to a few guys attending the PubCon conference outside my hotel, I remember one of them asking me “so what affiliate programs are you doing well with?” My response was something like “mortgage leads are making me a lot right now” and both of the guys looked at each other with a poorly disguised expression of victory. When I saw their reaction I immediately attained a fairly certain guess of what they were thinking: “Dude, we got him! This idiot must have had a little too much to drink and gave away a secret!”

“DEAR GOD NO! Now they know I make money off a mortgage affiliate program. I’m ruined! And they’re gonna be rich!” Reality check guys–this just isn’t how it works. Go ahead, “bring it!”

If you disagree with me that’s great, because then I can give you one piece of advice that’ll get you a ton of these ’secrets’ and you don’t even have to get anyone drunk: call your affiliate manager and ask him which programs people are making money with. Ask for conversion data, keyword lists, etc. They’ll give you stacks of spreadsheets and other information in a matter of minutes with no questions asked.
Sure, there are a (very) few cases I can think of where a person might have discovered some incredibly easy maneuver that earns big bucks. But for the most part income of that type is short-lived and usually isn’t the part of your portfolio that’s going to make you rich.

In my opinion it’s more ignorant to think you’ve tricked some ‘fool’ into giving away the bank than it is to tell someone about an affiliate program that makes you money. We’ll see how people are at SES, but I’m hoping the ‘paranoia fest’ isn’t quite so pronounced. It’s fun to talk to people about online business, particularly at these shows. But it’s not fun when people naively assume substantive discussion automatically means idiocy.

  

  

I just finished making all the flight and accommodation arrangements for Search Engine Strategies (SES) New York, 2007 so there’s no turning back now—the loser will head to New York in a week.  I fly to New York on the 9^th and back home on the 13^th.  I was thinking of sticking around for the weekend following but figured I’d be pretty partied out by Friday. 

This will be my third conference since starting the SEO Loser blog.  For those who haven’t followed the whole saga, the first event and inspiration for SEO Loser was the Las Vegas PubCon 2006, where I had a number of funny, embarrassing and unexpectedly awkward experiences. 

Affiliate Summit, on the other hand, was much different.  The atmosphere was much more relaxed and welcoming—there weren’t as many plainly visible cliques and exclusive groups.  At the upcoming SES I’m expecting something more like my first experience.  I know this show is attended by nearly all of the SEO elite, including most (if not all) of the characters from PubCon.  I’m definitely looking forward to the show and will post as much coverage as I can live from the event—both on actual search related issues and on the social side.

Anyway, If you want to meet up with an SEO Loser and have a drink or a cup of coffee or maybe even check out some parties, leave me a comment or send me an e-mail at kris [at] seoloser.com.  Either tonight or in the next few days I’ll also post a rundown of the sessions/panels I plan on attending and what my expectations and hopes are.  Hope to meet some other SEO losers out in New York—and maybe even a few Rockstars :). 

  

  

One humorous experience I had time and again at Affiliate Summit West involved employees of affiliate networks trying to sell me.

This is meant as advice, not criticism, but I have a tendency to come across as aggressive or critical in my blog posts from time to time, so this is my disclaimer. That’s really not what I’m trying to do here.

First of all, at least be straight up about it and get to the point ASAP. You aren’t going to trick affiliates—we recognize a pitch when we see one. Think about how we make our money. We sell things to other people, and we do it all the time. It’s no secret that you make money every time we sell your product, so we know why you’re in this. And, because the affiliate industry does have its sleazy elements, we’re exposed to scams and deceptive marketing all the time—a decent percentage of affiliates even participate in this themselves. Really, you’re not going to trick us. We get it. We know what you’re doing, and it creates an awkward situation when you try to sell us while pretending that’s not what’s going on because we stand there trying to be polite while you run through your spiel. Really, it’s like going up to a car salesman and trying to sell them a car. Often times I was embarrassed for the person talking to me, because the pitch was so transparent.

I think the best way—and with me, the only way—you have a chance of getting me on your network or promoting your product is to “SHOW ME THE MONEY.” I know I talk about Shoemoney a lot here, and it’s because I think his advice is really solid and to-the-point. So I’ll borrow one of his stories here and because I’m mixing it with my own thoughts, the story is italicized, and keep in mind the quotes are basically what was said but not word for word.

Shoemoney promotes ring tones, as most of my readers probably know, and he’s good at it. In the story I’m thinking of, an affiliate network (I believe) called him up and tried to get him to promote a ring tone offer of his.

The first feeling going through an affiliate in this situation is “ugh.” It’s because we’re so used to this, and there’s usually nothing you’re going to tell me over the phone that I haven’t heard before or that isn’t available on your site.

In his situation, Shoe cut to the chase by saying “how much do you pay per lead? And how do you convert?”

Tip: Please, please don’t reply with “we pay the highest” or “we guarantee the largest commissions” or one of the hundred other oft-made claims. It sounds to us like BS and because everyone says that, it’s meaningless. Very few affiliates would think “Wow, sweet, the highest payouts?!” What we want is NUMBERS or PROOF. Not jargon, but real information. How much do you pay? What’s the conversion rate? Those are the first two questions that come to my mind, and I’m looking for actual data-style numbers, not hype or marketing talk.

Back to the story—the guy on the phone said something like $14. Well Shoe was already at $18 or $20, I can’t remember the specifics) so things didn’t sound too good. But, because the guy was persistent, Shoe humored him with what I thought was a great offer. “Look, you approached me” Shoe explained, “so you know who I am and that I can deliver. On the other hand, I don’t know who you are. I don’t even know if you’ll really pay me. So I’ll tell you what, give me a $50,000 deposit to ensure that I can trust your guarantee and I’ll give you a chance.”

Not surprisingly, there were stutters and the conversation ended without any kind of deal. To sum up, my advice (as an affiliate) to people trying to sell to affiliates is to make it quick and don’t do anything that could possibly be interpreted as being deceptive. We’ll see through it very quickly and you lose your credibility and end up looking like a schmuck, often without even realizing it.

  

  

I apologize for not posting frequent, live Affiliate Summit West event coverage as I meant to. After a late, exhausted arrival I was playing catch up the whole time and didn’t get to blog as much as I’d hoped–I’ll try my best to do a better job of this at future events.

My adventure in Las Vegas ended on a great note—Kris Jones from Pepperjam gave an awesome presentation that was, without question, my favorite of the event. And I’m not just saying that because he mentioned my blog on one of his slides, although I admit that surprise did make my day (I know, I’m a loser) :).

Although things have been hectic, this event has caused me to reflect and think about what makes a presentation good—at least in my eyes. I came to the conclusion that the main reason I liked Kris’ session so much was because you could tell he does not ‘have a job.’ At these events, I find there’s a big difference between a speaker who is a creator / entrepreneur as compared to a speaker who is an employee. Why? A number of reasons, but I think the most important is that these are the people who give you something to take home—something you can’t find in a hundred business books. Not to mention that these presenters are, understandably, more comfortable speaking because they aren’t being judged or restricted by an employer.

Kris’ session reminded me a lot of Roger Montii’s at the last PubCon—it had my mind racing with ideas and made me take notes I’ll actually read and act on as soon as I get home, which is very rare for me :). I can appreciate and understand that other ‘employed’ speakers might be very intelligent, qualified, etc., but for me personally, hearing creators discuss the things they know so intimately is priceless—not to mention extremely fun and motivating. It’s always more interesting to have a conversation about something a person loves than something they feel forced to do as a ‘job’—and while I don’t know this as fact, I’d be willing to guess the majority (if not all) of the speakers I’ve enjoyed most don’t consider working on their projects or businesses to be ‘work,’ even if they might use the word.

I tried to find a transcript or audio file of Kris’ session (and some of the others) without success. If anyone knows where these are located please comment :).

I’ve never been a note taker because I feel like writing keeps me from truly listening to speakers, but I did jot down a few things. As soon as I find the slides / audio / transcripts I’ll give a more in depth write up of the points I found most enlightening. In the mean time, here are the few notes I didn’t want to forget (these are all from Kris):

Google Quality Score: Kris has found that having a privacy policy seems to improve the quality score a page is given by Google (Kris also mentions the more frequently cited concerns of substantial, quality content, navigable link structure, etc.).

Digital River (to be honest I can’t remember what they do and all I wrote down was “Digital River,” so I’ll have to elaborate on this point later or maybe we’ll get some comments with more info).

Keyword Tools – Kris recommends: Rapid Keyword, Keyword Discovery, Keycompete (Kris says this one is the best. If I understood him correctly, the tool somehow lets you identify what keywords competitors are bidding on. Wow, that makes work sound like a waste of time – just let someone else do it), Google Suggest and Yahoo Suggest.

Rejected Keywords: With Yahoo, Kris has found that they’ll reject about a third of any list for no apparent reason. Once you get the list of rejected keywords, just upload that one, and they’ll reject another third, and so on. I haven’t had a problem with this yet, because to be honest I haven’t played with Yahoo Search Marketing in three years or so (Overture back then).

Duplicate Clicks / Click Fraud: I actually asked this question near the end, and Kris’ reply was really helpful. Basically, I understood how I could detect the duplicate clicks, etc., but I had no idea how I could present that information to MSN/Yahoo/Google/etc. to get a refund. Do I put it in a spreadsheet or send server logs or..? Kris answered that the first step is, of course, to analyze the clicks yourself and identify any suspicious activity. If the damage appears to be substantial and worth pursuing, you should send an e-mail to the network explaining that you’ve found what appears to be duplicate clicking and make your case. Not surprisingly, Kris says the first reply is usually something along the lines of “We don’t see what you’re seeing,” so you will have to get a dialogue going and continue to make your case. Often times they will refund you for invalid clicks based on this communication. But if they don’t, the next step Kris recommends is to tell them you’re going to blog about this experience. Try not to make it sound like a threat, Kris warns, but let them know that blogging is the next step on your end if you can’t get this worked out. Apparently they appreciate the power of blogging and might acquiesce at this point.

* Please keep in mind that this is my recollection of Kris’ words and not an exact representation of what was said.

  

I just wanted to post a quick update since I haven’t been able to blog at all since getting to Vegas. I had a really rough weekend (family-type problems) that resulted in a missed flight after a night with just a few hours of terrible sleep. I made it to my hotel at about 5:30, much later than I’d anticipated and couldn’t keep my eyes open. I fell asleep at about 6:30 PM and because it was so early I didn’t set my alarm–little did I know I’d wake up at 10:30 AM today, missing the keynote. It’s okay thought, I have to earn my Loser title somehow And as you can imagine after all that sleep I’m feeling a lot better today and excited for the sessions, parties, etc. I’m also ready to blog with some more event coverage ASAP (and as frequently as I have something to report / say).

The first session I went to was called Marketing Your Affiliate Site - Outside of the Box by Scott Hazard. I really enjoyed this presentation, particularly because Scott was such a likeable, friendly person. You could also tell this guy was ‘in the trenches’ so to speak and working on his own stuff. I find time and again that the presenters I like best are the ones that don’t have ‘jobs.’

Okay, I wish I could write more but I really do not want to miss anything from the Shoemoney / Jon (of WickedFire.com) presentation–this is the session I came to Vegas for Hopefully there are good questions and I’m sure there will be some great answers. Maybe I’ll even ask one, if something inspires me. Nothin’ planned though.

Overall though, and despite being a little off because of some family problems, I’m having an awesome time here at the Affiliate Summit and so far the people have all been really, really friendly. The vibe here is very unique and so far I love it. Okay, time for Shoe/Jon’s session!

  

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