If I were asked which WordPress plugins I would recommend to bloggers that use this popular platform, and want to enhance the usability component, I would list the following five: 1. Akismet [plugin's site] by Matt Mullenweg – Checks comments posted in your blog against their own database and places suspicious ones into a Spam folder. It [...]
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Over the past four days I have been receiving numerous emails from merchants and affiliates, asking how to word their texts to meet the new Federal Trade Commission rules for testimonials, reviews and endorsements. Affiliates wonder how to put together disclosures: As a publisher, is there generic type of blurb that I could add to [...]
Continue reading about How to Word Disclosures & Agreements to Meet FTC Rules
A tremendous tsunami of blog posts and articles has been raised by the recent Federal Trade Commission’s announcement of its guides for disclosing the sponsor-endorser element in testimonials and endorsements. At the time of this post there currently are 948 news articles and close to 4,000 blog posts on the topic: The wave was to [...]
Continue reading about FTC Says the $11000 Fine “is Not True”
—————————————————– Edit: 2 follow-up posts: (i) FTC Says the $11000 Fine “is Not True”, (ii) How to Word Disclosures & Agreements to Meet FTC Rules —————————————————– On 1 December 2009 the new Federal Trade Commission’s endorsements/testimonials rules are coming into force. I am referring to the “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in [...]
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Throughout my own blogging experience, as well as watching other blogs grow in their success, I have pinpointed 11 factors that may contribute to a blog’s success. They are: Posting valuable content Putting together meaningful titles Timely replying to comments in your blog Creating communities around blogs Leaving comments on other blogs Posting regularly Being [...]
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Fake is as old as the Eden tree. – Orson Welles Blogs, forums and other websites that allow room for such elements of online social interaction as customer reviews are still a great way to promote merchants through affiliate programs. One thing to keep in mind though is the fact that faking reviews is not [...]
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In continuation of my earlier posted thoughts on the effectiveness of blog reviews, it seems appropriate to now turn to the Federal Trade Commission’s plans to monitor blogs for paid/biased reviews. On Sunday, the Associated Press wrote that blogging, which continues blooming, “has taken on characteristics of community journalism — but without consensus on the [...]
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I’ve written about blogs as an excellent marketing method for affiliates to employ in promotion of affiliate programs. I have also published some encouraging stats and forecasts on blogging here. Yesterday eMarketer.com has published some additional statistics we should know about. While word-of-mouth recommendations still move the end users to purchase online, “word-of-blog” reviews are [...]
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A blogger has e-mailed me seeking advice on affiliate programs that work best on blogs. In scenarios involving blogs the choice of the affiliate programs to partner with should not be based on the means of promotion (banner/ad placements on blogs), but rather on the topical match between the blog and the affiliate program. If [...]
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Jason Rubacky’s “unique content tips” he’s been systematically posting in ShareASale’s blog since April 17 reminded me of an one amazing post made by Rand Fishkin earlier this month. In it Rand listed and discussed 21 tips that every blogger simply must incorporate into their overall blogging strategy if they want that blog to be [...]
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