John Chow dot Com

Using A Blog To Promote An Online Store

March 20th, 2007 by John Chow

I want to expand a bit on my men’s gift guide review. The concept of using a blog to help promote an eCommerce store is a good one and it’s something every online store should consider if they want to make money on the Internet.

Ever since Google came out with AdWords, they have steadily reduced the number of online stores they show in their SERP (Search Engine Results Page). The reason for doing this is to get these stores to use AdWords to get their position. It’s really a smart, and evil, strategy (one that Google will not admit to). If you have an online store, it’s a strategy that could cost you a lot of money.

Knowing that Google favors content over eCommerce, many eCommerce sites are adding a content element to their operation. The sponsor of our Nintendo Wii contest, 1234Pens.com recently added a blog to their site.

Here are a couple of tips to follow when adding a blog to an eCommerce store.

Decide If The Blog Is Going To Be Stand-Alone Or Promotional

The Men’s Gift Guide is a stand-alone blog with its own unique URL and editorial focus. The 1234Pens.com blog is a company blog with posts that are only related to the company.

From a SEO standpoint, it’s better to separate the blog from the eCommerce site. Google is not a search engine that stands still and is fully aware of eCommerce stores creating blogs to promote themselves. This is where The Men’s Gift Guide got it right. By completely separating the store and blog and having the blog write about and link to different stores, they present a much stronger case that they are an independent blog instead of a promotional arm.

This is not to say company owned blogs cannot show well on the SERP - they can (especially on long tail keywords). However, because of their more narrow focus they may not show up as often. My personal recommendation is to have both a company blog and independent blog that covers the market your online store is in. This will not take much extra time since the company blog can get all its content from the independent blog. All you need to do is rewrite a few words to avoid the duplicate content filter.

Update The Blog

This one should be obvious but you will be amaze at how many dead company blogs are out there. Running a blog and a business can be tough and puts a lot of time pressure on the store owner, who would rather make money online than update a blog. Nevertheless, the blog is part of the marketing strategy and has to be maintained. If you are too busy with running your online store, then consider hiring a blogger to update the blog.

Having a blog as part of an eCommerce setup is one of the best move an online store owner can make. The return on investment can be higher than any other forms of advertising. How much money would you save if you don’t have to pay for Google AdWords to get to the front of a SERP? Moreover, there’s always the added bonus that the blog itself may turn into a moneymaker.

Review My Blog - Batch 37

March 20th, 2007 by John Chow

Time to rocket a few more blogs up the Technorati ladder! The Make Money Online reviews just keeps coming in and there’s no end in site. This maybe batch 37 but batch 38 and batch 39 are complete and I already got eight reviews for batch 40. I expect to be at batch 41 within a few hours.

Here are the 10 reviews from batch 37.

• Blogger Lounge
• How To Buy a Website
• Nathan Hannig’s Blog
• WWWking World Wide Web Blog
• Josh Buckley Internet Entrepreneur
• Fuery.com Really Smart Guy
• BobmeetsWorld.com
• Make Blog Money with a 13-Year Old
• Hollywood Headache Hollywood Gossip
• Nuker.nl The Random Source of Random Information

Want to give your blog some buzz? Then consider reviewing my blog. I link to anyone who does a review. The link will send you some traffic and give you a link from the 76th most popular blog on the Internet. That will improve your Technorati and search ranking.

If you want to do a review of my blog, then link to this blog’s home page with the anchor text “make money online” and link to this post showing the review rules. Here is an example:

If you want to make money online, then you need to check out John Chow dot Com. He will link to you if you review his blog.

The sooner you get you review in, the sooner you’ll get listed. I have just two more slots for batch 40. If you start now, you might make it.

Into The Technorati Top 100

March 20th, 2007 by John Chow

The good news just keep coming in. I got up this morning to find that Technorati likes me again. They have unfrozen my account! That was the first good news.

The second good news is I have broken into the Technorati Top 100! I’m currently at position 76, ahead of TechDirt and just behind Autoblog. Technorati hasn’t updated my rank on my blog directory page yet - it shows me at 101. I’m sure they’ll update it later.

Not only have I broken into the Top 100 most popular blogs, but I’m also ranked 21 for Most Favorited blog. Add me to your Technorati favorites.

Getting into the Technorati Top 100 was one of my goals for 2007. I gave myself an entire year to achieve it. I never would have thought I’ll be there in three months. A big thanks to everyone who helped me achieve this goal!

The Men’s Gift Guide - Affiliate Marketing Blog Example

March 20th, 2007 by John Chow

Justin Consuegra of The Men’s Gift Guide sent a ReviewMe request to have his blog reviewed. In his request, he asked me to review the overall blog. However, I’m going to give him more than his bargain for. I’m going to expose his entire business model.

Back in 2005 Consuegra started an eCommerce store call The Round Table. The online store, based in Midlothian, VA, sells unique gifts for hard-to-buy-for men. You’ll find all the cool toys for boys at The Round Table.

It all started when I stopped believing in Santa. Since then, each and every October my mother has asked me the exact same question: “What do you want for Christmas?”. And every October I have given her the exact same answer: “I don’t know.”. I believe that it is universally accepted that men are the hardest people to buy gifts for. Some men may be easier than others. If they have a strong hobby or interest, with infinite accessories available, gifts can possibly flow easily. Even in this case, gifts can get predictable and boring. I decided it was time to do something about it.

The problem with the The Round Table is the same as most eCommerce stores - Google won’t rank you. Google gives preferential treatment to content based sites/blogs and will push eCommerce sites out of the index in order to force them buy their position with Google AdWords. Of course, Google will never admit to doing this but ask any eCommerce stores trying to get to the front of Google’s SERP (Search Engine Results Page) how hard it is to outrank a blog and you’ll see that Google is every bit as evil as me. To get around this Google sandbox, Consuegra did what many eCommerce stores are doing - start a blog and have the blog link to the store.

More Than Just A Promotional Arm

The Men’s Gift Guide is more than just the promotional arm of The Round Table store. The blog has turned into a pretty cool gift blog. And it looks like it makes money on its own right. While many of the gifts listed in New Stuff are from The Round Table store, there are just as many (if not more) gifts from other online merchants. The Men’s Gift Guide list 21 merchants in their resources page.

The Men’s Gift Guide is divided into eight sections: Home, About Us, Gift Ideas, New Stuff, Product Reviews, Resources, Thoughts, and Stuff To Check Out. The guide isn’t updated that often. There’s been 14 posts this month and only 6 posts last month. I guess new gifts for men doesn’t come out at the same rate as new dresses for women. The current gift on the front page is a Super Mario Bros. Sound Block. I love Super Mario so I think I’m going to pick one up. The same goes for that High End Rubik’s Cube.

A Great Example Of An Affiliate Marketing Blog

The Men’s Gift Guide is a great example of an affiliate marketing blog. While the blog does have sponsored ad buttons, AdBrite and Google AdSense ads, I would say a fair chunk of the blog’s income comes from affiliate sales. Many of the gift links are affiliate links or direct links back to The Round Table. The Men’s Gift Guide either signed up for the affiliate program directly with the merchant or used a 3rd party network like Linkshare or CJ. No disclosure is made about the affiliate links but that’s how affiliate blogs work. Most readers wouldn’t care. They’re reading the blog to find gift ideas. I doubt they’re concern the blog owner is making a cut of sale.

What Consuegra should do however, is hide his affiliate links. In the past year, Google and other search engines has gotten a lot better at detecting affiliate only websites and removing them from the search index. The Men’s Gift Guide is not an affiliate only blog but there are a fair amount of affiliate links so Google may place less trust in it. The easiest way to prevent the detection of an affiliate link is with a redirect. You can find out how to do that in my Hiding Affiliate Links For Better SEO post.

It’s Really Targeted For Guys

You would think The Men’s Gift Guide is targeted for women looking to buy stuff for guys. However, from reading the blog, I can see it’s targeted to guys who want to give their girlfriends/wives ideas on what to buy them. While the blog is about gifts for men, I’m sure just as many women would love to receive a Iceberg Lettuce Safe. I’m going to add that to the shopping list.

Make Money Online - Feel The Power Of The Anchor Text

March 19th, 2007 by John Chow

Well, that did not take very long! Barely four days after I changed the rules for the Make Money Online reviews, I am on page 1 of Google.com for the term “make money online.”

If anything can demonstrate the power of anchoring you text links, this is it. Four days ago, this blog was ranked 158th place for make money online. Now it’s at the number 3 spot. Judging by the number of sponsored links, make money online is a highly prized key phase.

How does this translate in terms of traffic? The overture keyword tool says there were over 44,000 searches last month for make money online. Overture only reports on Yahoo! properties so you can expect Google to have at least twice that volume. If just 10% of searchers click my link, it could mean 8,000 or more Google visitors to this blog every month. And this is just for one search term!

Getting everyone to link to my blog with my anchor text was just part of the puzzle. I had to make some changes to the blog to speed my charge to page 1 of Google. The first thing I did was change the title of the blog home page from John Chow dot Com - The Miscellaneous Ramblings of a Dot Com Mogul to Make Money Online with John Chow dot Com.

The second thing I had to do was to make sure some posts on the front page had the targeted keywords in them. Ideally, they should be in the blog post title because more weight is placed on that. Now you understand the evilness behind some of my post titles. In addition, the targeted keywords should be repeated a few times in the article.

Tips To Choosing Anchor Text

Sure, you may think “super cool dude” is a great anchor for your blog but if no one searches for it, then it’s worthless. The best way to find out what anchor texts to go after is by using a keyword tool like Overture or WordTracker.

Overture is free but doesn’t give you much information other than how many times that keyword was searched for over the previous month. WordTracker cost money but offers a ton more information. You enter some keywords, and WordTracker tells you how often people search for them and how many competing sites use those keywords. They also offer a free trial and 30-day money back guarantee if it doesn’t work out for you.

The other way to choose an anchor text is to look at what words searchers are using to get to your site now and try to rank for variations of it. For example, I could go after make money blogging or just make money. You just have to be creative. And being a little evil helps too.

Make Money Online With ReviewMe

March 19th, 2007 by John Chow

Whenever a new ReviewMe review gets posted on this blog there are always comments asking if people actually read them. The answer should be obvious. I wouldn’t be getting new ReviewMe orders if the advertisers weren’t making money on them. What may surprise you is how much money advertisers make off these reviews. Here are four ReviewMe case studies to show how advertisers make money online with ReviewMe reviews. If you’ve ordered a review from this blog, and would like to be featured in a future case study, then send me the results of your ReviewMe experience.

Interspire SendStudio NX

My guest blogger, Mitch Harper, recently ordered a ReviewMe review for his SendStudio NX software. He wrote a post on how well the review did.

I got home at 1am on Saturday night and saw John had posted the review. Now, for $250 that review has been read over 7,000 times. That equates to 3 cents per reader. It’d be fair to say that at least 70% of John Chow’s readers would be savvy to Internet marketing and would therefore find a review on SendStudio NX useful (based on the comments under the review, everyone loved it).

That’s incredible value and readership for $250. I can’t report on the conversion rate from the post on his blog but within 2 hours of the review going live we had received 50+ pre-sales emails about SendStudio. I’m confident at least 25% of them will convert, so that will be a return of at least $2,868 (12 x $239 - the price of SendStudio). Not bad right?

Mitch is so impressed with ReviewMe that he plans to spend $10,000 to buy more reviews over the next three months. That’s a pretty serious commitment but it’s also an endorsement on the power of ReviewMe for both the advertiser and the publisher.

Auction Ads Network

My review of Auction Ads started out as a regular post. Shortly after posting the article, I received a ReviewMe order from them. Now, some would say