Super Affiliate Marketing Blog

You know, I look around at other blogs, and instead of paying attention to a faulty or very conservative figures Feedburner counter, I typically guage how popular a blog is by the amount of consecutive comments they have on each blog post entry. There are so many big boy bloggers out there that are not really good at anything except talking and blogging (or maybe speaking through their typing if you want to call it that). The whole 90/10 rule also comes into play. There are MILLIONS of blogs out there, well over 100,000 of them in our industry alone (internet marketing). From all of those blogs, how many of them are actually read by more than just the author? Very few. 90% of them will never be seen or heard of for years, if ever, and then you have that 10% (but probably a lot less) that are visited all the time, and people hang on to every word that the blogger writes, however lame or ridiculous it may actually be.

Now, I’m not doing this to bash anyone for a change, I’m just using the following personalities as a reference/example. Let’s take a look at Shoemoney, Darren Rowse, and John Chow. I’m sure all of you, if not most of you know these names, you probably visit their blogs fairly often, even though all three of them are completely different, in terms of their topic. Well, at least that’s the way it was when they first started out.

So first off we have Shoemoney. Here’s just a regular guy who became famous pretty much overnight because of a radio show on WebmasterRadio. But let’s be fair, because that’s not all that did it for him. It was also that damn check from Adsense and Azoogle for the ringtones. Very impressive, I know. Some people claim it’s fake, others swear it’s real. In the end, who cares, because it has absolutely no bearing on what his blog first started out to be about, and the direction it came to be at right now. Many people don’t realize, but we’re in the year 2007 right now. Shoemoney started in the year 2005. That means he’s only been in the game for 2 years. Not a long time at all, and yet, people make him out to be the Jesus of ringtones and pay per click marketing. How did this happen? Easy! All you have to do is just trace back the posts to when he first began and with a bit of research you’ll see that he most likely stopped himself one day and said “wait a second here, if I am just upfront, or just tell people what they want to hear, the masses will come”. Just like in the movie Field of Dreams, “if you build it, he will come”. Well, Shoemoney built it alright. Very simply put, all he did was started to be more vocal about what other people weren’t talking about. Which gave him an edge. It’s the edge which is what all of those other blogs you will never see or hear about lack. But that’s not all, it’s also about molding yourself into a character you want to come off as, and appeal to people as. If people want to hear about exploits, security holes, back channel news, then tell them about it! It’s really just that simple. He also played a great game of “network network network”. I’m a big fan of this game myself, and he ended up becoming pals with the right people to help him reach the masses. He didn’t need to give away a car, or have some weird secret talent he was born with, or even lose the weight he did. He molded himself into what the people wanted to see, hear and manifest him as, and he did a damn good job at it too.

Now let’s move onto Darren Rowse, known as ProBlogger. What does Darren have going for him aside for a cool Aussie accent, a very articulate type of writing style, and a damn good domain name (even though it’s a .net)? Nothing! I’m not saying that to be mean or to pick a fight, but if you look at who Darren Rowse is BEFORE the blogging took off, who was he? Just a regular guy playing follow the leader just like everyone else. Except Darren, like Shoemoney also realized that if you were clever enough, you could say or do just about anything, and as long as you were polite about it and sort of stayed as Mr Neutrality then everyone would love you… And they did! He was thrust into the limelight, well, also because he was one of the first people to really take blogging seriously, when everyone else was wondering “is this going to be just another pet rock fad?” when it clearly wasn’t. If we take a quick look at what Rowse has accomplished, aside for the obvious in blogging stardom, the answer is a bit sad.. nothing! He’s not an expert at SEO, PPC, social networking, mailing, domaining, traffic, affiliate marketing, just blogging. But he does the blogging thing better than most of us put together. Without the blog, he’d just be another person on the internet with a day job.

The point I’m trying to make here is that there is nothing spectacular or extraordinary about any of us who are in the web-celeb status. The reason we (I don’t consider myself like these guys in terms of blogging, but I know I blow them out of the water in almost everything else, especially my tenure in the industry beats them out combined, but that’s neither here nor there) have this status is because we know how to talk. We know how to properly regurgitate known information, and spin it in a way so that it sounds completely new and original, but nothing they write about, or most any of us write about in terms of tips, tricks, advice is not already being done or common knowledge. The only thing that’s been altered is YOUR perception of how you read it or accept it.

So let’s go through a quick checklist of how to become a web celeb blogger in your industry. Since we already know that ANYONE can do it, and there are no special talents or gifts anyone was born with, everything was learned and/or studied and applied.

1. Be confident. You’ll notice almost every single one of these guys are confident in what they write as if it’s the word of God himself. A lot of us wind up with a holier than thou approach, where what we write is RIGHT and everyone else is just 80% correct. I know it sounds like an asshole thing to say, but I can assure you it’s true. Go look at the posts and you’ll see for yourself. I had it, and may still have it without knowing, but my WF pals brought it to my attention, so I didn’t let it take hold of me and I think I’m a lot better about it now.
2. Spin something you know is 100% true, whatever newsworthy or type of advice to make it appear as if you are the one who came up with it. This compliments rule #1 very well if you get it down correctly.
3. Network as often as possible. Get the word out about your blog and yourself. Take pictures, let people into your life, but not very far into it so that they know everything. Remember, because you’re in control and confident, you get to decide what people can see or learn about you, and what they will just make up about you on your own.
4. Bad press is better than good press, but play it safe as often as possible. Never get into any open debate where anything you write about or speak of is questioned or where you’re put into a situation where you don’t have the upperhand.
5. Promote yourself to be DIFFERENT and UNIQUE compared to all of the other bloggers around. Tell lots of stories, show lots of pictures, use lots of fun examples. Make your points come alive. Don’t just sit there typing things out like a drone or because you HAVE to. Add some spice into it, make it exciting. Get people revved up and excited to read your blog. Remember, the more out there, different from the crowd and original and unique you are, the more the crowd will love you and the easier self promotions will be.
6. Get your ass onto a radio show or be a guest blogger! This is quick and easy, and the outcome can be huge.
7. Participate on forums. Don’t give away all of your gems on forum posts, and definitely DO NOT spam anyone or drop your blog links in any posts, but you can put it into your signature or profile so the curious people (these are usually the ones who become loyal subscribers) can find it on their own.
8. Do NOT under any circumstance lie to your readers. People are a lot smarter than you think. Why do you think only the pathetic people are the ones who stand behind all of the ebooks they buy and swear it was totally worth the cash they paid, only to continue being in the same stupid spot they were at before, or the loyal fans of some bloggers who will literally demolish someone because they dare speak badly about their beloved blogger. These people are nuts, and every web-celeb has fans like these. Sometimes they are good, but usually they aren’t. If you lie, and they catch you.. I’d suggest getting a restraining order against these types of people, you’re going to need one.
9. Start a fight with someone you know you can beat. Sort of like an easy target when a school bully goes onto the playground and beats the piss out of the kid who is smaller and picks his nose. Easy target, easy win. But try and put on a show when you do it. Remember, bad press is better than good press, and people will remember this! But don’t make it look too staged, otherwise some of the smarter fans will catch on!
10. It’s all about the numbers. Seriously, it is. Look at Darren Rowse’s Feedburner count, or look at Shoemoney’s Technorati rank and Review Me payout, or even John Chows stats for that Algoco scam. The numbers are almost intimidating to everyone. But they are just numbers, and numbers, the more the merrier will give you instant credibility in the blogging world. Do you really think people care if the vast majority of these fans are complete idiots, or underage kids from Malaysia? Hell no! There’s no way to prove it anyhow, so stick to those numbers and swear by them!
11. Finally, the last thing.. Use the shock factor at least once a week. By that I mean something that will make other bloggers blog about you, so it helps your inbound link count, thus increasing your trust rank in Google and a number of other engines. For example.. There is this huge boner of a guy named Lee Dodd, who claims to be a saint since he’s an Evangelical Christian and prays with his family and all of that wonderful crap. Now what Lee Dodd does is every now and then he’ll come up with some reeeeeally dumb “newsworthy” bit that gets everyone so riled up it’s almost as brilliant as it is ridiculous. Like for instance, he tried selling an arcade site of his for $110,000. The site uses YPN in which it clearly violates their TOS because he’s targeting mortgage niches on an arcade site, and admits the site only makes around $1500-$3k a month, but it’s like 4 years old, so it must be SO worth the asking price. Oh yeah, and it also uses a $30 run of the mill script for the games. So instead of focusing on the so very obvious factor that he is trying to sell you a piece of crap site for six figures, he reminds you that he is Lee Dodd, and he is a righteous man, and he is a family man, and he is a forum master (even though his own forum sucks a fat one, but that’s off topic) and he’s also one of the leaders and co-founders of that insanely overpriced seminar they call Elite Retreat (which the domain actually leads to a bisexual camp of all places, no, I’m serious) where they charge a whopping $5,000 to tell you what’s wrong with your website and how to fix it with ideas they THINK will work, but haven’t really.. but anyway, he’s no expert, he’s not the saint he wants you to believe he is, he’s not the genius or the expert he claims to be either. All he is, is just a regular guy on the internet trying to turn his $30 into $110,000.

So there you have it. No fluff. No bullshit. Follow these rules and you will be sure to enter the wonderful world of online stardom. But may this be a warning to you.. in the wise words of Dave Chappelle “you can be INFAMOUS but you can never be unfamous”. And I can tell you from experience, I’d love to get my old quiet life back instead of being at the center of things, but this is the choice I made, so instead of trying to play Mr nice happy guy who just wants to please everyone, I tell you how it is. Straight up, no sugarcoating. Is this why I’m not allowed to speak at certain conferences anymore? Or why so many people dislike me? Maybe. But I could care less, because I have been and will remain honest, and upfront about anything and everything.

How’s that for a comeback post compared to the last one eh?

>=oP

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