Why Is Paris Hilton Always More Popular Than Me?

Here's something I found on Technorati. You can post updating charts on your websites to show how often people blog about a certain topic.

Here's Posts that contain Paris Hilton per day for the last 30 days.


Posts that contain Alice Seba per day for the last 30 days.


And for goodness, sake I'm not even more popular than moldy bread


SIGH...oh well.


Get your own chart!

I've Been Stripped of My Sweetie Status

Earlier today, I received a message from an angry subsriber/customer. His complaint wasn't about my product, but my "poor communication model". The message began something like this:

Alice, you really have to get your act together if you really want to get "to know" people. Although I will concede that you are a professional person and maybe you mean well but, your personal communications are shallow and meaningless.

Now, even though it started out pretty bad, I definitely wanted to listen to what he said because I really could feel his frustration. The gist of what he said was that I claimed to be a "sweetie" and that on the 2nd day after you sign up for my newsletter, you get a message with the subject line "I want to get to know you" and invites you to submit a question about your business and I will try to answer it in a future issue. I've change the subject line of that email, so people don't misunderstand my intent because I think he had a valid point on that one. I don't want to mislead anyone.

He also had issue with the fact that my assistant answers my emails, but just to clarify, the email automatically goes to my assistant. It's not like I get a specific email and pass anyone off to my assistant. It's just the way it's set up.

And to make matters worse, I've recently changed my point of contact into a ticket system. But this system is a sign of a growing business. I had numerous assistants helping with different areas of my business and it was becoming a bit unmanageable. Everything was being done by email and really, I had no clue what kind of emails were coming and how they were being responded to. Now that there's a ticket system in place, I can oversee everything and make sure tickets are being answered appropriately. So, while on the surface, it may seem more impersonal...it gives me more control over what's going on.

Still, in the back of my mind, I have sometimes felt hypocritical because I have made myself somewhat unapproachable - but I really have no choice but to be that way. I'm the mother of 2 young boys and family ALWAYS comes first for me. Although I'm extremely dedicated to my business, my hours working on it are limited.

When I first started online, I answered countless emails, helping individuals with their business - and received no compensation for my time. I was spending way too much time at the computer and wasn't dedicating my time to the resources I'd created to help other online business owners. That's why I had to make the decision that I would always run my business for the greater good.

I want to help as many people as I can in their online businesses, so that's why I have so many information websites, newsletters, mini-courses and run teleseminars. I still answer questions from my subscribers, but they have to agree that the answers can be shared publicly on my FAQ. That way, everyone can benefit and I can help as many people as possible and my family doesn't have to wonder where I've disappeared to. :-(

For those who read my blog here, or read the FAQ - you may not think I'm so elusive and I generally respond to comments and questions. So, if you wanna get my attention, post comments here for sure. Also, I am working on making a Priority FAQ membership for people who want to submit specific questions about their business. They will get priority answers and have access to other members-only stuff. YES...you'll have to pay to be a priority member, but I'm sure most of you will agree, my time is valuable. If you don't agree, you are most welcome to use the free resources I have...and I'll continue to make them.

So, if you've felt that I have been unapproachable and think my desire to help people is false, I guess there's nothing I can do but continue to help people in the best way I know how.

If you're running your business and trying to help everyone and are spending too much time answering emails, please remember - YOU CANNOT PLEASE EVERYONE and you should never try. You need to run your business in a way that doesn't compromise your relationship with your family or personal life. Sometimes that means giving email to an assistant or whatever you need to do, so don't let your business take over your life.

Ahhh - It Make the Affiliate Manager Feel Good & Productive (Part 2)

I got a response from the affiliate program that decided to suspend my account for inactivity. Before I get into that, I wanted it to be known that the only email I ever got prior to the suspension was my confirmation that I was signed up as an affiliate. They had no autoresponder to help get started with the affiliate program and never sent any updates or anything. In short, they did virtually nothing to help me (or any other affiliate) get motivated and get started.

Anyway, here's what the guy wrote:

Hi Alice,

First, I have reactivated your account.

Thank you very much for your thoughtful response. You make many valid points and I want to address a few of those.

You asked how suspending affiliates streamlines anything. Here's one example. We measure our marketing investments, of which the affiliate program is just one of many. It is an investment--we have invested in the software, pay for the clicks and impressions generated by affiliates, and pay commissions. If we simply include 100 affiliates who are non-performing, or in many cases, affiliates who simply signed up and never followed through on creating their website (and thus will never contribute to the program), the measurements we track and report will not be accurately represented. That makes it difficult to determine the true value of our marketing investment, and xxxxxxx's owners prefer to make decisions based on the most accurate information available. So, when we eliminate the need to use manual processes to reduce bias or skews to our measurement data because of underperforming/inactive/never active affiliates, it increases our efficiency. Streamling is also important to xxxxxx because we do not have a full-time person who manages the affiliate program.

I agree that many affiliates may sign up for a program today but will not start promoting the product/company immediately. Many of the affiliates who signed up to be a xxxxxxx affiliate did so as far back as April, 2005. A year later these affiliates still have not completed their website or have not put a xxxxxxx text or banner ads on their site, and have no intention to do so anytime soon. Several affiliates who signed up more recently, including you, were included in our review.

I agree that banner ads do not provide the best sales conversions. We strongly emphasize that our affiliates use text links as they produce a much higher click through rate and conversion rate. You have a clearly defined method of the best way to convert sales as an affiliate. Sadly, many affiliates do not participate with such a strategy in mind.

Congratulations on your successful endeavor as an affiliate with other programs. The latest information I reviewed regarding affiliate programs was that a large percentage (90%+) of affiliates never make money at it (generate commissionable sales). Historical data for xxxxxxx affiliate program can validate such information. xxxxxxx certainly wants to provide the best to its affiliates who "actively" use customized web pages, text links, banner ads, or other means to generate awareness, interest and sales of our product.

Thanks.

XXXXX

I still don't get it. Yes, I understand data would be "skewed" if they counted activity of non-active affiliates in their calculations of their active affiliate effectiveness. But from all the affiliate programs software systems I've used from the backend (not a huge number, but there's been a few), you can always separate the stats of your performers from your non-performers, but it seems that clicking a few buttons might be too much for some affiliate program managers. Instead, it's more effective to alienate people from promoting their products. :-( This particular program uses MyAffiliateProgram.com, so if you know anything about that software, do enlighten me.

Outside of that, does it make sense to dispose of your potential business partners, just to have your stats look at little better to nobody but yourself? Also, as an affiliate manager myself, it is my constant goal to move more of my affiliates into action. The statistic of how many of your affiliates are active vs. how many are inactive is very telling of the quality of a program. Simply removing people who are inactive doesn't make your program more effective - it means you're messing with the stats to make it look better...and that's not going to mean anything to anyone, but yourself.

This gentleman told me they don't have a full-time staff person to work on the affiliate program, yet he probably took several hours to manually search affiliate sites so he could suspend anyone without the company's link on them. Seems those hours could have been spent on more positive affiliate program building activities.

Yes, inactive affiliates don't help me for my own affiliate programs, but they don't hinder me either. I know most affiliates produce nothing, but that's because they're aren't really sure how to be productive. As a business owner looking for sales people who work for FREE unless they make a sales, I need to do whatever I can to:

- Make them excited about promoting my product
- Provide them with quality materials
- Encourage their loyalty in anyway I can.

Punishing them with suspensions just seems to work against this goal.

Affiliate Account Suspension - Bad Joo Joo

I've received a few of these types of emails in my affiliate career, but today, I felt particularly irritated. Maybe because it's Monday morning and I wish I got a bit more sleep last night...but mainly I think it's because this just doesn't make sense (I have removed names and company names to protect the un-sweetie behaviour):

Dear Alice,

In an effort to help our affiliates get the most benefit from the XXXXX Affiliate program, I recently reviewed the XXXXX banner and text ads on affiliate websites.

I was surprised to see that many affiliates websites, including yours, did not display any XXXXX advertising. There are many possible reasons for such an absence: you simply have not updated your website, your site runs alternating banner ads and XXXXX's did not appear at the moment I viewed the site, or the XXXXX ads are further within the site and I was not able to find them with relative ease (example: a directory without categories relevant to XXXXX's business such as homeschooling, education, or learning).

In an effort to streamline the focus of the XXXXX affiliate program and based on the lack of XXXXX banner or text ads on your website, we are suspending your affiliate account until further notice.

If you are actively displaying XXXXX ads, please send us a web page link that demonstrates usage, or let us know if you are using a rotating banner feature. Please send the information directly to me at XXX@XXX.com. We will review the information, and, if appropriate, reactivate your account.

Thank you for your participation in the XXXXX Affiliate program. Please contact me if you have any further questions or need assistance of any kind.

Sincerely,

XXXX XXXXXX
Marketing Specialist
XXXXXXXXX, Ltd.

So, I wrote back. I was going to edit a couple thing, but I hit "send" instead of "save" - DUH - so this is how it went out. I was going to remove the cocky statement in my first sentence, but maybe he'll the point that he's alienating potentially high-performing affiliates with his suspension technique:

Hi XXXXX,

As an affiliate who has sold hundreds of thousands of dollars in products for other companies, I found the email suspending my account very strange. I have heard other companies try to "streamline" their affiliate process and they suspend affiliates, but I really have to question the method. I am not asking you to reinstitute my account, but am sharing another perspective.

I don't understand how suspending affiliates streamlines anything. When you create promotional materials, it doesn't matter if you're creating them for 1 affiliate or 1 million affiliates, the work is the same. For affiliates that aren't performing right now, there's no extra support involved because they aren't asking for help. How does suspending an account make your organization more efficient?

If the suspension is meant to coax affiliates into action, it seems like such a negative approach. I was a naughty affiliate for not having my banner on your website, so I got suspended. :-( Perhaps an email trying to give the non-performing affiliates a hand to get going would have been better to build that relationship and loyalty from your affiliates.

But outside of all that, I can tell you that as a busy affliate I may sign up for an affiliate program today, but I may not immediately start promoting a product. This could be due to a number of reasons:

- I just didn't get a chance to do it yet...or I'm working on it.
- I am planning to promote it on a future project.
- It doesn't fit into what I'm doing right now as I thought, but it might in the future.

So, why close the doors? I also found this part of your email particularly puzzling:

"I was surprised to see that many affiliates websites, including yours, did not display any XXXXXXX advertising. There are many possible reasons for such an absence: you simply have not updated your website, your site runs alternating banner ads and XXXXXXX’s did not appear at the moment I viewed the site, or the XXXXXXX ads are further within the site and I was not able to find them with relative ease (example: a directory without categories relevant to XXXXXXX’s business such as homeschooling, education, or learning)."

To me, it sounds like you are suggesting that I should have a banner ad on my site or some ad text and then I would be an "active" affiliate. The problem here is that displaying a banner on my pages is not going to give us the best sales conversions. When I promote an affiliate program, I create specific pages on highly-targeted topics with specific recommendations for your product. I then drive highly targeted traffic to that page that reads my page, sees my recommendation and then is more likely to buy from you when they visit your site. Slapping on a banner ad is rarely in my affiliate plan.

Adding to that, I (just as many other good performing affiliates) have multiple websites with multiple pages, mailing lists, etc. on topics related to your products. It would be impossible for you to come to my main site and find exactly where your links were.

You seem to recognize this in the paragraph I quoted, but if I had already done the work, you would have made my links inactive by shutting down my account. Then you would have created more work for me when I have to request that my account be reactivated. Of course, you can look at your records and see if I was sending you any traffic, but that just means there is no traffic today. As pages get indexed in search engines and various promos were set up, the traffic would start flowing in.

Anyway, I'm just hoping that as a fellow business owner, you don't keep shutting the door on your business partners like this. As a person who runs a few of my own affiliate programs and sells products through affilate programs, I only hope to provide the best to my affiliates and the companies I promote.

All the best,
Alice Seba

So, whatcha think? Am I just cranky or does affiliate account suspension just not make any sense?

$526,744.35 in Adsense in One Year

Nope, it wasn't me who did that. Not even close, but I'm working on it!

But if you haven't seen this video from John Reese showing how HE did that over the past year, watch it now for some intense inspiration. Just goes to show what you can accomplish when you start small (he made 93 cents on February 15, 2005) and keep at it.

Click here for the video.

Calling All Affiliate Managers

If you run your own affiliate program, I wanted to let you know about a free teleseminar I'm offering next week called Long-Term Affiliate Marketing Success Strategies. I know what it's like to get affiliates motivated and trained - and how to keep them from using questionable methods to promote your products. ARGH!

This would be a great call to get your affiliates on. They wil be eduated about the crappy and spammy software products that are marketed as the magic-pill to affiliate marketing woes. I'll also be revealing the keys to long-term success in any market.

You can send your affiliates to the link above, but I'd like to see you compensated for your efforts. Sign up for my affiliate program first and then you'll receive a healthy commission for any future sales of my upcoming Affiliate Marketing Sweetie course. ;-)

Yeesh - Ghostwritten articles, I know...but what about autoresponders?

For over a year now, I've been working with an awesome article writer (Who shall remain nameless because I want to keep her for myself and she's already very busy! :-) But I will tell you that I found her on Elance). She's been pumping out 10 well-written articles for me each and every week. I've been adding these articles to my various sites to increase my traffic, build my mailing lists and increase my sales. It's been great.

But I never thought to use her for my autoresponders. I have a number of marketing-related autoresponders that I love to write each week and I have no problem keeping up with those. But there are a few autoresponders that just seem to be a thorn in my side...and I rarely seem to add content.

Well, I had a brainstorm (and don't laugh at me if you've been doing this forever) and I asked my handy-dandy article writer, "Can you write me 52 short tips, just a paragraph of two, on xxxx topic?"

Well, three weeks later, she has provided me with a whole year's worth of autoresponder messages for the price of 26 articles (since the tips were about half the size of the articles she's been writing for me). Now, that's awesome! I can follow-up for a whole year and I barely lifted a finger. Now, all I have to do is pass on the tips to my VA and she'll put them in the autoresponder.

Now, I can concentrate on getting subscribers instead of getting bogged down in little details.

DOH! I've Been Tagged!

It took me a little while to get to this...but apparently, I've been tagged. I didn't really know what it meant when it first happened, but Paul Short at BlogLogic did it to me. It wasn't painful or anything, but apparently, I'm supposed to answer some questions and then tag 4 more people. Are you READY?

Four Jobs I’ve Had :

1) Telemarketer (first job when I was 16 - ICK!)

2) Waitress

3) ESL (English as a Second Language) Instructor

4) HR Manager


Four Movies I Can Watch Over And Over :

1) Anchorman

2) Fight Club

3) Finding Nemo (because I don't have any choice)

4) Hallowe'en


Four TV Shows I Love To Watch :

1) Desperate Housewives

2) My Name is Earl

3) Grey's Anatomy

4) Nip/Tuck


Four Places I’ve Been On Vacation :

1) Prague, Czech Republic

2) Amsterdam, Netherlands

3) Santorini Island, Greece

4) Las Vegas, USA


Four Tunes That Play In My Head :

1) For those with young kids, "Go Dieeeeeego...Go Dieeeeego"

2) Scooby Doo theme song.

3) My Humps (Black Eyed Peas - it won't ever leave my head)

4) Static (When my brain gets cloudy)


Four Favorite Dishes :

1) Sushi

2) Chicken Wings

3) Pasta - all kinds

4) Yummy salads someone else made.


Four Websites I Visit Daily :

1) CinemaClock.com and/or Movies.Yahoo.com

2) Google.com

3) My own sites

4) Sites about saltwater aquariums


Four Books I Really Love :

1) Most Books by Margaret Atwood

2) Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (I loved it years before the movie came out!)

3) She's Come Undone - Wally Lamb

4) Curious George - H.A. Rey (I have to love it because I have to read it almost every night)


Four Places I’d Rather Be :

1) Watching a movie.

2) Staring at my fish or getting more fish.

3) Back in Santorini.

4) Watching Nemo or reading Curious George.


Four Bloggers I’m Tagging : All right...it's your turn....

1) Nell Taliercio

2) Jason "Profit" Moffat

3) Carrie Lauth

4) Derrick Pizur

Now it's your turn, folks!

Outsourcing for Business Control Freaks

I've been told my many business owners that they would love to outsource, but they can't give up control of their business.

Personally, I think that's a bit crazy. :-) But, I understand. I felt the same way until I tried it and immediately felt liberated and able to focus on parts of my business that I enjoyed and excelled at.

But if you still can't give up control of business, why not outsource other things in your life? Here's some ideas:

Hire a housekeeper for a few hours per week.

Hire a local kid to mow the lawn.

Order your groceries online and have them delivered.

If your feeling decadent, send your laundry to the local laundromat and have them wash, dry, fluff and fold. You still have to put the clothes away, but it will save you hours of work.

Doing these will give you more time for your business or extra time having fun when you're not working.

All These Darned Emails

You know, I hate it when my inbox gets jammed each month with those "Affiliate Sales" emails on recurring commissions. It takes so long to delete them all.














Just kidding...I love it! I know I can turn the notifications off, but they are a nice reminder that recurring commissions rock.

If you could make an affiliate sale today and have it pay you month after month - why the heck wouldn't you? It's a great source of passive income.

Recurring commissions are often offered on membership sites, newsletter subscriptions, monthly services like web hosting, autoresponders, etc.

If you can't find recurring commissions in your market, start your own program that pays you month after month. You can start your own membership site or paid newsletter.

Once you have programs like this in place, you'll find you'll have a more steady monthly income - and if you continue to promote those programs, your income will steadily increase.

And hey, before you go, I wanted to let you know that I've set up a free Affiliate Marketing Tips list and will be offering a great discount on my upcoming Affiliate Marketing course. I hope you'll join me. :-)

Hmmmm...Can We Stop this Duplicate Content Debate?

A little while back, I posted an entry to my FAQ entitled, "Does Duplicate Content Get You Banned?" I was speaking from the perspective of using reprint and PLR articles in an original website. I said I'd been doing it for years and felt no ill effects. Some people expressed they felt that was going to change and people should beware of using duplicate content.

I just read an article at Web Pro News called Duplicate Content Jeopardizes Your Site, which is a summary of what was discussed by search engine representatives at the SES in New York. Since much of the info David A. Utter shares in his article came straight from the horse's mouth, I am actually paying attention because I'm tired of people debating about things they aren't really sure about (and yeah...even I don't know the answers to it all! LOL).

Is it just me, but I don't see any reference to people using articles that may appear on other websites? They talk about carbon copy websites, linking, multiple landing pages and redirecting. And much of the duplication issues seem to surround having the same content within a single site.

And as written in the article, some wise words from Google's Matt Cutts:

"Honest site owners often worry about duplicate content when they don't really have to," Google's Cutts said. "There are also people that are a little less conscientious." He also noted that different top level domains, like x.com, x.ca, are not a concern.

A site that has an article broken into multiple sections, and also a printer-friendly version that contains all of those sections, likewise aren't cause for worry.

Cutts did emphasize the importance of consistent internal linkage as Baillie did. For example, if a site uses www., it should be used everywhere on a site, or nowhere on the site.

So, if you want to live in fear, I guess there's nothing I can do about it...but I'm going to keep on keeping on! :-)