In the past few weeks, there has been a lot of talks in the affiliate community about the possibility of Amazon dropping affiliate sales generated through search engine results pages in the U.S. Amazon has already indicated that it won’t be paying affiliates in the U.K if their affiliate links get ranked on Google. Here is what Amazon had to say about this issue to its UK affiliates:

In addition, as of February 1, 2010 we will no longer pay referral fees on purchases made by customers who are referred to http://www.amazon.co.uk or http://www.javari.co.uk via Free Search Results. Free Search Results are links containing an Associate’s tag displayed in a search engine’s free, natural, or organic search results in response to a search query which send customers directly to an Amazon site without the customer first being sent to an Associate’s site and the customer clicking on a link to arrive at the Amazon site.

These changes do not prohibit you from purchasing paid search advertisements or submitting links to search engines so long as the links that appear on the search engines send customers to your site.

That of course doesn’t mean that you can’t make money by optimizing your website for search engines and get ranked that way. In some ways it’s understandable for Amazon taking such an action. There are plenty of SEO experts who can get their links up high in the rankings and make money that way. Amazon wants to reduce consumer confusion by making you take people to your own site before bringing them to Amazon.

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Search engine optimization has got quite a reputation among those who don’t know what the business is all about. Some consider SEO as a form of hacking. Others consider search engine professionals as snake oil salesmen. Of course, there are a few people that consider search engine optimization a bad thing for the whole web experience. A lot of bad reputation that search engine optimization has gotten in the past few years is due to SEOs being more obsessed about traffic than improving the experience of web searchers. There are many people that spend more time stuffing keyword, changing their copy to include more keywords that make sense, and even add more text elements to each page to get better rankings in the SERPs. I am not suggesting that you shouldn’t focus on on-page and off-page optimization tactics, but as a SEO, one needs to know why they go about implementing a certain strategy. Your audience may not care about minor changes to your website or a few extra keywords here or there, but it’s tough to know where the boundaries are.

It’s true that search engine optimizers are hired to help websites climb up the rankings and get more free traffic. But if you haven’t spent time to optimize your site to make things more convenient for your readers, you are missing the boat. And I am not talking about adding breadcrumbs or other forms of navigation to your website. It’s about providing value to your readers and giving them what they need. I can’t tell you how many times I have found a page on the first page of Google only to realize it offers no real value other than a page with a bunch of keywords on it. That’s not what the search is about.

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I have to admit. Search engine optimization is a bit of gaming when you think about it. Many SEOs want to admit that SEO is either an art or a science. But it’s a little bit of both. Nevertheless, the whole field is built upon the fact that SEO professionals can test and figure out what search engines like and give that to them. There isn’t anything malicious behind what most white hat SEOs do but let’s call a spade a spade. The word optimize is closer to the word gaming than most SEOs want to admit.

Every aspiring SEO wants to know how is it exactly that search engines go about ranking search results. Is it the number of links you have or maybe the type of links you are getting to your site. Could it be your domain name or the location of your server? There are hundreds of factors considered in a modern search algorithm. While none of the algorithms out there today are perfect, they do the best possible to provide folks like you and I with the most relevant results. Google and other search engines may be moving towards personalized and real-time search, but SEOs are not going to give up trying to figure out search engines’ algorithms and dominating them. (more…)

Search engine optimization is not rocket science. It’s true that there are some aspects of SE algorithms that are not known to us, but if you have been in this business for a while, you have somewhat of an idea what works and what doesn’t. What does work all the time is targeting the right keywords on your pages. You should always take time to expand your keyword list and target the right kind of keyword on your pages. By that I mean keywords that people are searching for and can help you meet your business goals.

There are plenty of places to look for new keywords. I have talked about top keyword tools that allow you to dig up keyword ideas fast. But you don’t have to spend money to dig up new keyword ideas. There are plenty of places you can look at to find out what people are searching for and how you can take advantage of that. Here are 5 places that are worth exploring:

Twitter: Twitter is a goldmine of data for those who know how to take advantage of it. Going through Twitter trends is just one way to figure out what people are searching for. TweetVolume and Twendz are both great tools to help you keep track of keywords on Twitter.

Facebook: there are plenty of people who spend hours on a daily basis on Facebook. That means more data to look at for you and I. Facebook Lexicon is a great place to tap into this goldmine. (more…)

As a search engine optimizer, it’s always amusing to hear what others think of what I do for a living. There are very different perspectives on the whole field of SEO depending on who you ask. Search engine optimization is looked at this cool, super advanced tactic that can bring money to small businesses. To those who have tried and failed to show up on the first page of Google (for highly competitive terms), search engine optimization is all hype. Of course, there are people who think of SEOs as being unethical and no better than Blackhat hackers.

John Dvorak at PC Magazine seems to be one of those people who have no love for SEOs. I can understand that. He makes some valid points about why SEO is ruining the Internet. But let’s see if he is being fair. Here is how he defined SEO:

Essentially the process involves tricking Google or Bing or Yahoo into ranking your particular Web site higher than the competition by reverse-engineering the tricks used by Google.

I can assure you that there are a lot of SEOs who are not out there to “trick” the search engines. Sometimes you have high quality content and an unclean code. Do we look at how search engines treat each ranking factor? True. But it’s not tricking if you are trying to help Google and other search engines find your website and give it the exposure it deserves. Some will abuse the system, but bundling everyone in one group is just not fair.

It’s all underground and consists of thousands of individual specialists who consult for just a few companies and chat among themselves in the background.

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2009 is finally over, and it has been one busy year in the field of search engine optimization. We are no longer in the predictable era of search engine optimization. Google, Bing, and other top search engines are jumping on the latest trends and changing the way we all search. Personalized Search is going to be the big thing in 2010, so will be mobile, local, and real-time search. If you are a business owner who have no idea about SEO, the sooner you start the better.

A lot of people assume that it’s too late to catch up as many have already optimized their websites for the search engines. That can’t be further from the truth. There are a lot of people who don’t even implement the most basic search engine optimization tactics, and those who do often give up before seeing any tangible results. If you are looking to enhance your website’s reach in 2010, here are 10 simple tactics you should implement in the new year:

1. Listen: if you want to create high quality content, you need to keep your ears more open than ever before. There are plenty of new channels that you can take advantage of to gather valuable information about your post, but you have to keep listening to what people have to say about your products and brands in your niche, and more importantly things people say about you and your business.
2. Keywords: there is never a bad time to expand your keyword set and target new phrases. Targeting long-tail keywords and phrases that you have not targeted yet is a good way to start the new year.
3. Title: I can’t tell you how many times I see people who talk about search engine optimization but still have not taken time to optimize their title tags. It’s the no-brainer move of the next year if you haven’t already optimized your title tags.
4. Link building: links do matter. The more relevant, quality links you get to your pages, the better chance you have of getting your pages ranked high on top search engines. Search engine algorithms differ on how they treat incoming links, but in general if your content is good enough for people to link to, you are on the right track. (more…)

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Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to monetize your online content and make a living without having to work for the man. Of course, you can always use your affiliate income to supplement the one you get from your day job.  There are a lot of affiliates who make money by optimizing their websites for search engines. You can have the best paid search campaigns or get the sweetest display deals, but nothing beats getting free traffic from sites such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. As long as you can get your blog or affiliate portal to show up for short-tail and long-tail keyword searches, you are going to get an additional boost of income and lower your costs per conversion dramatically.

Before getting aggressive with your affiliate campaigns, you want to make sure that your affiliate program gives you enough freedom to implement your tactics. Many affiliates assume that using branded terms in domains or even sub-domains is OK, but many affiliate programs are cracking down on those types of sites, especially after the FTC put more pressure on them to deal with bloggers, affiliate marketers, and social media professionals.

Affiliate programs are not trying to be mean to you when they decide to kick your website out of their program for using branded terms. You just don’t want to confuse people and give them an indication that you are in any way or shape working directly for an advertiser. Let’s take Amazon for instance. If you are trying to build a website on Amazon’s movers and shakers, the last thing you want to do is secure a domain that has the word Amazon or its misspellings in it. Not only that, your sub-domain shouldn’t have those trademarked terms either. What’s the price? You’ll get kicked out if you are caught doing it.

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I have talked about in the past about the directory submission service that I personally use to get some links to my portals. Directories are not as strong a factor as they used to be when it comes to ranking high on the search engines. But they still do matter. Directory Maximizer is a fairly cheap service that automates the process (not all of it) and keeps you in control of your submissions as well. The service was decent before, but now you can add your own deep links to directories. That should give you some additional bang for your buck. Here is what the company had to say about this upgrade:

In a move that will reinforce your belief that Directory Maximizer is indeed the best directory submission service you can find on the Internet, we are rolling out our Deep Link Submission service. Deep linking, as you probably know, is an oft-overlooked method of SEO whose benefits are manifold and long lasting. You, dear customers, can now build links to your inner pages and not limit your SEO efforts to your home page – and we are going to help you do that.

Deep links do matter. Having the ability to optimize your individual pages for your keywords of choosing makes a big difference. I can’t tell you how time consuming submitting to directories could be, so services such as Directory Maximizer can truly save you a lot of time. (more…)

We have all heard of how real time search is the future. It’s actually not that far out if you think about it. Google’s Real Time search is a good indication to where the industry is heading. By integrating services such as Twitter, you can now do your search on Google more effectively, and in real time. I have talked about in the past how portal developers need to focus on videos, images, forums, blogs, and other avenues to maximize their presence on sites such as Google. But with real time search, you’ll have yet another revenue to get the word out about your product and get traffic back from Google in return.

As long as you are on the latest tab, you are going to see real time results on Google. It may seem a bit strange at first, but if you have been on Twitter for a while, it should come naturally to you. You can obviously click on the tags and search based on those.

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That’s not really a question if you listen to Matt Cutts and other top Google engineers. A Google redesign is in the works, and we are not just talking about the look and feel of the site. After all, who really cares about how Google.com looks as long as you get the most relevant results that help you move forward with your project. The future of search is social, mobile, and much more. Your only source of information will no longer be Google news. There are millions of people who are blogging, discussing issues in forums, creating videos, taking photos, and writing books on all kinds of topics. The next generation search engines bring all of that together.

If you have wanted to try this new Google design but have no clue how to, Gizmodo has you covered. The site has released a mini trick that forces your Google to use the new design to do your search. The trick does work, and the results are very interesting.

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