It’s been some time since my Top 20 Affiliate Marketing Bloggers to Watch in 2011 post. And besides the fact that one of these twenty has claimed her Affiliate Summit’s best blogger award (Tricia Meyer, who is now inspired to reach new blogging heights, and, of course, belongs on my below list), a few other things have happened too.

In fact, the landscape of affiliate blogosphere has been changing almost as dynamically as the industry itself. In the course of late 2011 I’ve spotted quite a few bloggers gaining steam. The spectrum ranges from the fairly new ones to affiliate marketing blogging to those who have been quiet for some time, and are now back in the game. All of these guys (and gals!) deserve a list of their own — one for 2012.

So here we go (again, in alphabetical order, and with everyone’s Twitter handle listed):

10 Affiliate Marketing Bloggers to Watch in 2012

1. Sarah Bundy: SarahBundy.com Blog | Twitter

2. Dave Cupples: FatCowBusiness.com | Twitter

3. Existem’s Team: Affiliates4U News | Twitter

4. Sam Harrelson: SamHarrelson.com Blog | Twitter

5. Impact Radius’ Team: ImpactRadius Blog | Twitter

6. Scott Jangro: Jangro.com Site | Twitter

7. HasOffers’ Team: HasOffers Blog | Twitter

8. Owen Hewitson: Econsultancy Blog posts | Twitter

9. Tricia Meyer: Tricia.me Blog | Twitter

10. Shannon Weidemann: Marketing Elf Blog | Twitter

If I’ve missed your favorite affiliate marketing blogger (especially, if you believe them to be a rising star!) please do mention them in the Comments below.

On Saturday my Google Alerts notified me of an article at lexology.com which talked about a merchant agreeing to settle with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), having “signed a consent agreement and agreed to pay $250,000 for deceptively representing that endorsements … that were posted on blogs or other websites created by Legacy’s affiliates.”

Sad precedent which obviously required a bit of additional digging on my part. And the source wasn’t hard to find. FTC itself has all the details:

A company selling a popular series of guitar-lesson DVDs will pay $250,000 to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it deceptively advertised its products through online affiliate marketers who falsely posed as ordinary consumers or independent reviewers.

…The Learn and Master Guitar program promoted by Legacy Learning and Smith is sold as a way to learn the guitar at home using DVDs and written materials.  According to the FTC’s complaint, Legacy Learning advertised using an online affiliate program, through which it recruited “Review Ad” affiliates to promote its courses through endorsements in articles, blog posts, and other online editorial material, with the endorsements appearing close to hyperlinks to Legacy’s website.  Affiliates received in exchange for substantial commissions on the sale of each product resulting from referrals.  According to the FTC, such endorsements generated more than $5 million in sales of Legacy’s courses.

The FTC charged that Legacy Learning and Smith disseminated deceptive advertisements by representing that online endorsements written by affiliates reflected the views of ordinary consumers or “independent” reviewers, without clearly disclosing that the affiliates were paid for every sale they generated.

So we’re talking about the Federal Trade Commission’s endorsements/testimonials rules which came into force on December 1, 2009. In essence, these FTC’s rules say that when there is a sponsor-endorser relationship (merchant-affiliate relationships included) between an advertiser and a marketer who publishes a testimonial about the advertiser’s product/service, such a relationship must be clearly disclosed on the marketer’s website. Additionally, the advertiser is responsible for educating and equipping the marketer to comply with these rules, as well as for policing and enforcing such compliance.

The above isn’t the first instance of the FTC bringing action over “deceptive advertisements”. In September of 2010 I blogged about a settlement with Reverb Communications over a very similar issue, with the only difference that there we no affiliates involved (reviews and testimonials were posted by company’s employees instead).

Affiliates, merchants and affiliate program managers must understand that the FTC is very serious about those mandatory disclosures. If you aren’t yet compliant, you want to take care of this a.s.a.p.!

Here are some articles that you may find of help on this subject:

• How to Word Disclosures & Agreements to Meet FTC Rules
• FTC’s Video Response to Questions on Endorsement Guides
• FTC Means To Say That Everyone is Accountable

With the fairly recent Google’s “Farmer” Algorithm Update multiple bloggers (affiliates in particular) became concerned (subject also brought up by Joe Sousa in his recent post here), and started wondering if they (as content producers) may be affected by it.

The short answer is: “No, as long as what you produce is unique and quality content.”

For more detailed explanations/commentary, I’ve contacted four established SEO experts and book authors, and would like to bring you their opinions in what follows:

Quality content that’s keyword rich, but written with users rather than search engines in mind will always triumph. Sure, search algorithms change, and will continue to do so. Rankings will change. But articles and blog entries will continue to be found and spidered. Following the basic guidelines always helps: frequent updates, links, tags, a decent CMS. Content is what powers the web, and that’s not gong to change any time soon.
– Rebecca Lieb, Author of The Truth About Search Engine Optimization

If your blog can be viewed as featuring duplicate content, or mostly non-unique content, you should be worried. As that’s not the case for your average blogger, and is more relevant to spammy sites, I wouldn’t worry about it.
– Gab Goldenberg, Author of The 7 Curiously Obvious Rules Advanced SEOs Rely On

What’ll happen to article based content search? In general, Google’s latest “content farm” algorithm change was manual (versus automated) and intended to penalize sites with what Google perceives as low quality content. I imagine, another way of looking at what Google is attempting to reduce or penalize is content that was solely created to rank in search-engines for purposes of some form of arbitrage. Either way I’d say that any content that is likely to be perceived as low quality is at risk of being pushed out of the SERP’s. For instance, if articles are poorly written and written specifically to rank on search-engines they are at risk. In addition, Google has always had specific rules about duplicate content – in this way, using article distribution as a primary strategy for building links was always shortsighted. So the moral of the story is to make sure that you are writing high quality, unique content and that it fits into a larger strategy to rank well on search-engines and ultimately provide the end user with value.

Is it just the article sites or are keyword content blogs in danger? As mentioned above, any content that is likely to be perceived as low quality is at risk of being pushed out of the SERP’s — this includes blogs that exist solely for the purpose of ranking well on search engines. I’d strongly advise to build a site around the content, encourage user generated content, interact with readers, hold contests, open social media accounts, leverage word of mouth and buzz marketing strategies, and build links as naturally as possible.
– Kris Jones, Author of Search Engine Optimization: Your visual blueprint for effective Internet marketing

I personally don’t think blogs are in danger from the Google Panda/Farmer update if they have established a credible brand that engages its audience well. We know from Google that this is an algorithmic change and they are looking to de-emphasise “sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content”

SEOs have naturally speculated about the signals which would enable Google to identify this type of site. For example a high proportion of ads above the fold. But Google have said this isn’t a signal. Instead I think its useful to turn it on its head and think about how Google can identify a site with quality content that engages its audience. Obvious signals of a quality engaging blog are a higher proportion of:

• Original content (many Article sites posts are reposts from blogs and press releases
• New backlinks compared to new articles
• Comments
• Social mentions via Twitter of Facebook
• Bookmarking via Google Bookmarks/Toolbar
• Brand name searches

All of these signals are features of an engaging brand, that’s what successful SEO is about in 2011, so if your blog has these features there’s not too much to worry about. But these features aren’t natural features of a retail site for instance, so it’s not clear how Google differentiates these type of sites — perhaps there is also some on-page analysis of the semantic markup and use of images.
– Dave Chaffey, Author of E-Business and E-Commerce Management: Strategy, Implementation and Practice

Being a blogger myself I don’t view this Google’s update as any kind of immediate or even precedent type threat. If you have something to add to the above, I would, of course, love to hear your thoughts as well (please use the “Comments” area below for it).

Yesterday I’ve learned of BlogDash, a system which provides you with “the tools to find the bloggers who will actually care about your story, company, product” as well as with “all the information … to make a personalized and educated pitch”.

BlogDash was actually announced by David Spinks (one of the company’s Co-Founders) at BlogWorld in October 2010 [more here] and it is now functioning in alpha. As it is clear from their own above-quoted description, the basic idea behind the service is to help businesses find the right bloggers to work with. “Perfect for affiliate recruitment!” — was my first thought.

So, I reached out to David, he has set up me up with an account, and after playing with the tool for some time, I’d like to give you a quick snapshot of it in my today’s post.

At the time of this writing, BlogDash is profiling 27,918 bloggers.

Without narrowing things down by category I’ve set my filters to show me blogs with Google PageRank of 5 or higher, and a Klout score of 50 or higher. One of the 132 bloggers BlogDash has found was that of Chris Brogan, and I thought you may find it interesting if we use his profile as an example, as we see how a typical blogger profile looks at BlogDash (highlighting mine; showing only a part of all information displayed):

As marked above, in each profile you will see:

• Data on blog’s focus, target audience and type of content
• Blogger’s receptiveness to “gifts/products for review”, paid posts, “sponsored giveaways”, and guest posts on other business’ sites
• …and we also see a counter of how many invitations we can send out

The first two of the above three bullet points are actually extremely useful for affiliate program managers looking to recruit thematic bloggers. Also, since the goal of every affiliate recruitment campaign is to find online partners to market your product/service, I can certainly see how BlogDash can be used effectively outside of affiliate recruitment too.

The tool also allows you to put information on tweets, posts and comments, and more. The video on this page is helpful to get a basic feel of it. Off to play with it some more…

As the year draws to a close, and I’m looking into ways of improving my readers’ experience with my blog, I see that the numbers of those who access it via mobile devices has greatly increased since 2009 (as many of you probably know, I started blogging daily on 1/1/2009; so it is good/right to compare 2010 to 2009 now).

Here’s a vivid example: comparing the period of 10/27-12/26/2010 to the same period in 2009 we see a 746.15% increase in traffic this year:

However, as it is obvious from the above data, the considerable traffic increase hasn’t been coupled with significant improvements in the ways this traffic used/read the blog:

• Number of pages viewed per visit has gone up only by 7.23% (from 1.21 to 1.30)
• Average time on site increased just by about 17% (from 56 sec to 1 min 6 sec)
• Bounce rate has dropped only by about 11% (from 89.35% to 79.65%)

The lack of serious improvements is easy to explain: due to a fairly low traffic volume from mobile devices in 2009 nothing has been done to improve the mobile user’s experience with the blog in 2010 — nothing whatsoever.

However, now that I have already had over 4,100 visitors access my blog via their mobile devices in 2010 [see graph below], it is time to change something!

Yesterday morning I have installed WordPress PDA & iPhone plugin, and I’m already registering some improvement. The time on site of iPhone users (the most popular device people use to access my blog) has already more than doubled increasing from 00:38 to 01:29. Of course, it is too preliminary to make any conclusions, and I still have to see if there are better WordPress plugins available out there (WPtouch looks promising), but it is always good to register a quick improvement.

Is your blog mobile-friendly yet? If so, please share your tips on how you’ve achieved it (in the “Comments” area blow). I am certain that many people (myself in the first row!) will benefit from any additional tips.

A new issue of FeedFront Magazine has come out last week, and on page 62 of it I talk of the three main types of content publishers (bloggers certainly included):

1. Reporters — love to write about breakthrough ideas and technologies, new studies, and fresh statistical data. They love to announce, analyze, and draw conclusions or provide commentary of their own.

2. Theoreticians — they are about connecting the dots between scientific researches/studies and our day-to-day reality.

3. Coaches – teachers that share their generally experience-based “how-to” knowledge with readers who want to master in this or that subject.

More in the article, and here’s a shot of it:

You may also find (and enjoy) the full issue of this FeedFront here. Thanks to Missy Ward for also including my thoughts into her “Is Your Social Media Expert a Fraud” on page 9.

Yesterday I received an “Advertising Alert” from Gary Kibel, a lawyer at Davis & Gilbert LLP (D&G). This alert brought to my attention a recent action taken by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against a public relations agency involving claims of misleading online endorsements. It is the first case of FTC bringing an action against an online marketer over this subject, and therefore it is an extremely important one to analyze. It both emphasizes the importance of making proper disclosures about marketer’s relationships with those whose products/services they decide to endorse/promote online, and shows us that owners may be personally liable, and the liability may actually be tied to marketing performed prior to the FTC’s guidelines regarding mandatory disclosure (of sponsor-endorser relationships) coming out.

D&G ends their report with the following 3-point conclusion:

Why Is The FTC’s Action Against Reverb and Snitker Important?

The FTC’s action … is not only important because it is the first action against bloggers since the effective data of the revised Guides but it is significant because:

1. The FTC brought its first action against a public relations agency — not the agency’s client. By bringing the action against a public relations agency, the FTC makes clear that agency employees have the same duty to disclose their relationship with their clients as the client’s own employees.
2. The FTC brought the action against an individual — Snitker, the agency’s sole owner and only office and director. According to the FTC… Snitker directed, formulated and/or participated in the misleading online endorsements…
3. The FTC brought the action … for posts they made between November 2008 and May 2009, several months before the effective date of the revised Guides (December 1, 2009). By doing so, the FTC puts the industry on notice that it can bring an action against misleading online posts made prior to the effective data of the revised Guides.

You may read the full alert in PDF here.

If you haven’t done so yet, make sure you comply with the Federal Trade Commission’s requirements regarding the disclosures. Samples (both for merchants and affiliates) may be found here. FTC’s answers to questions regarding the guidelines may be found here and here.

I know the title of the post may sound banal and obvious, but it wasn’t such to me when after 500+ days of daily blogging I decided to take a break, and write only Mondays through Fridays. I had heard some old-time bloggers argue that regularity is no longer the key, and I decided to test things on my own blog.

Saturdays and Sundays have historically been the worst traffic days for my blog. Well… They’ve become even worse when I took the brief break from my a-post-a-day blogging pattern, and started having weekends.

Two weeks ago I resumed my daily blogging, and reaped immediate results.

We’ve already had 4 weekends this month. I did not blog on 07/03-04 and 07/10-11, and did write on 07/17-18 and 07/24-25. Let’s now compare the changes.

Traffic Impact

Looking at the traffic stats from my Google Analytics report, I see the following picture (weekends highlighted, and arrow added to show how weekend traffic increased on the 07/17 when I posted on Saturday):

I’ve registered some 14% traffic increase the weekend I resumed daily blogging (on 07/17-18), and a further increase of over 53% during the weekend that followed (or 07/24-25).

Social Engagement Impact

Looking at the blog’s social engagement — or the resonance that a blog’s content has across multiple social platforms (starting from comments on your own blog, and going beyond them: to Twitter, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, Google Buzz, etc) — we see a picture that is even more encouraging.

Here’s a chart from my PostRank report:

Regularity is obviously extremely important. So, after a few weeks of rest, I’m back to my daily blogging.

Earlier this week I have found out that the Federal Trade Commission has recently created a section within their website, devoting it fully to frequently asked questions on the revised Endorsement Guides (about which I blogged extensively as soon as they got announced).

This is a great addition to the FTC’s video responses released back in November of 2009. Obviously, many people are still confused, and to respond to numerous concerns the Federal Trade Commission compiled the FAQs.

At the time of this post The FTC’s Revised Endorsement Guides: What People are Asking webpage contains answers to 30 questions, with a brief section dedicated specifically to affiliate marketing.

Here are just a few of the questions and answers from the FTC’s new FAQs page:

Why did the FTC revise its Endorsement Guides to include social media?

The FTC revised the Guides because truth in advertising is important in all media – including blogs and social networking sites. The FTC regularly reviews its guides and rules to see if they need to be updated. Because the Endorsement Guides were written in1980, they didn’t address social media. The legal principles haven’t changed. The FTC revised the examples to show how these standards apply in today’s marketing world.

Are you monitoring bloggers?

We’re not monitoring bloggers and we have no plans to. If concerns about possible violations of the FTC Act come to our attention, we’ll evaluate them case by case. If law enforcement becomes necessary, our focus will be advertisers, not endorsers — just as it’s always been.

I’ve heard that every time I mention a product on my blog, I have to say whether I got it for free or paid for it myself. Is that true?

No. If you mention a product you paid for yourself, the Guides aren’t an issue. Nor is it an issue if you get the product for free because a store is giving out free samples to all its customers. The Guides cover only endorsements that are made on behalf of a sponsoring advertiser. For example, an endorsement would be covered by the Guides if an advertiser — or someone working for an advertiser — pays a blogger or gives a blogger something of value to mention a product, including a commission on the sale of a product. Bloggers receiving free products or other perks with the understanding that they’ll promote the advertiser’s products in their blogs would be covered, as would bloggers who are part of network marketing programs where they sign up to receive free product samples in exchange for writing about them or working for network advertising agencies.

Is there special language I have to use to make the disclosure?

No. The point is to give readers the information. Your disclosure could be as simple as “Company X gave me this product to try …”

Do I have to hire a lawyer to help me write a disclosure?

No. What matters is effective communication, not legalese. A disclosure like “Company X sent me [name of product] to try, and I think it’s great” gives your readers the information they need…

I’m an affiliate marketer with links to an online retailer on my website. When people click on those links and buy something from the retailer, I earn a commission. What do I have to disclose? Where should the disclosure be?

Let’s assume that you’re endorsing a product or service on your site and you have links to a company that pays you commissions on sales. If you disclose the relationship clearly and conspicuously on your site, readers can decide how much weight to give your endorsement. In some instances, where the link is embedded in the product review, a single disclosure may be adequate. When the product review has a clear and conspicuous disclosure of your relationship — and the reader can see both the product review and the link at the same time — readers have the information they need. If the product review and the link are separated, the reader may lose the connection.

As for where to place a disclosure, the guiding principle is that it has to be clear and conspicuous. Putting disclosures in obscure places — for example, buried on an ABOUT US or GENERAL INFO page, behind a poorly labeled hyperlink or in a terms of service agreement — isn’t good enough. The average person who visits your site must be able to notice your disclosure, read it and understand it.

Once again, you may find the full list of questions and answers on the Federal Trade Commission’s website here. It’s a must-read for everyone who is doing business online.

Related posts:

• FTC Disclosure Rules & Affiliate Marketing Implications
• FTC Means To Say That Everyone is Accountable
• How to Word Disclosures & Agreements to Meet FTC Rules

I know, CCCP may not bring up good memories in most minds, but today I’d like to give the old abbreviation a new meaning — one that comes from my personal experience and understanding of what makes a good blog post, and a good blogger.

There are 4 adjectives to remember:

C – Consistent (a-post-a-day keeps search engines awake)
C – Concise (most blog readers appreciate eloquence)
C – Clear (most blog readers don’t want rocket science)
P – Practical (and, of course, be as pragmatic as possible)

Most of my blog posts that have become popular reflected all of the above.

PS: The image chosen to go with this post carries an important meaning. It portrays an egg and a ping pong ball — both stamped with what used to be the USSR’s most famous logo. We called it “государственный знак качества” (literally the “state quality sign”), and it appeared on products which went through a state system of attestation meant to endorse products of superior (or high class) quality.