If you didn’t get a chance to see my talk on outsourcing you can download it here.

I also want to address several questions that came up regarding outsourcing :

Q : “If you’re a newbie affiliate, should you hire someone to build you an affiliate site?”

A: If you’re a complete newbie to affiliate marketing, I would strongly recommend that you NOT outsource.

Here’s what I can tell you from my experience : when I first got started I didn’t know enough about ppc, landing pages, or just about anything else to justify hiring someone to make an affiliate site for me. You need to know what the heck you’re doing, before you starting outsourcing your web design and site content.

By doing everything yourself in the beginning, just as I did, you will learn a great deal about this business. By building your own landing pages and writing your own content in the beginning you’ll be forced to learn what type of design and copy works best. Once you’ve done this a couple times and have launched at least one successful affiliate site, then I would say you’re ready to outsource.

There’s one caveat to this : if you want to add content to your affiliate site so it won’t get slapped by Google, I would recommend outsourcing that content, but not the content on your landing page - it’s important you write that yourself (in the beginning).

Q : “Do you train your team and provide them tools that will help them out?”

Yes, I’ve spent $1000 purchasing training resources for my team and providing them whatever tools they need so that they can do their jobs better. In my opinion the best investment is investing in your people.

Want a great copywriter but don’t shell out big bucks? Here’s a tip : Buy some copywriting resources and training for your writer. Then have them start writing your landing page copy. In the beginning you may need to guide them a little bid and help them out, but once they understand how to write effective copy for the niches you’re in then that will really allow you to scale your efforts.

Q : “Where can I find a good bookkeeper and accountant?”

I found my bookkeeper through my concierge service. When I first called her she was VERY enthusiastic about Quickbooks, I hired her immediately and she’s done an excellent job ever since. I just send her all my bank, credit card, and paypal statements every months and she takes care of everything!

I also have an AWESOME accountant who saved me about $60k in taxes last year, I found him through a referral.

The only tip I can give you for finding a good bookkeeper and accountant is to go through the numbers. I went through a very medicore accountant and 2 very bad bookkeepers before I found my current team. I just kept looking.

One thing I can tell you is don’t chince on this by trying to do it yourself or hiring someone really cheap. I pay my bookkeeper $35/hr and my accountant $85/hr. The amount of time, money (in taxes), and headaches I’ve saved make it more than worth it.

Once you start making few $1000/month in profits start looking for a good accountant and bookkeeper.

Also, the link to the basecamp, the project management platform I recommended on the webinar is :

basecamphq.com

Once you start hiring outsourcers and start working on multiple projects I HIGHLY recommend you sign up with basecamp. It’s an EXCELLENT service that will improve your productivity and keep things organized.

The Blog Off is over - and it was a great success!

Thanks to all of our bloggers all over the network for their participation - but especially to my great crew at the Business Channel. Most of my bloggers have full time jobs in their related industry (like me) and I was so impressed at their dedication to this event.

In case you missed it, here is a round up of some of the best posts of the day from our top ten Blog Off bloggers. It’s worth noting that the blogs are listed in order starting with the most prolific poster:

1, Everyday Networker (31 posts, an amazing feat). Jennifer posted 31 posts - 31! Jennifer did a great mix of guest posts and a series: Signs of a Bad Networker. The series made me laugh and this post, in particular, struck a personal note.

2, Taxgirl. Wow, telling you which post I like best from among the ones that I wrote would be like my great-grandmother telling which great-grandchild she liked best. She always said she might have one, but she’d never tell. So, instead, I’m choosing this great guest post from the always fun Kate Olson - are folks who make $300,000 really rich?

3, Startup Spark. Shannon also had a lot of guest posts on her site during the Blog Off. Lots of good stuff there but my favorite was written by Shannon herself - 7 ways to make your business more visible.

4, Yielding Wealth. Miranda counted down her most valuable personal finance tips. I think she saved the best for last: remembering to enjoy life.

5, Accounting Solver. Ren did an amazing job of explaining economic realities and the effect of microfinance on the poor. He kicks things off with a succinct explanation of why sustainability is important.

6, Business & Blogging. Laura went solo at Business and Blogging, providing 24 hours of business blogging tips. One of her tips is one that I need to learn: never post in anger. Well said.

7, Interview Chatter. Gina and Darlene pulled it off, despite cross time zones. One of the most valuable posts is the Top 50 Web 2.0 Tools for Job Seekers (though Twitter should be higher and MySpace should be way lower!).

8, One Vote Matters. Maddy also went solo for the Great Blog Off. Since Senator Kennedy’s diagnosis and recent operation for brain tumors, Maddy devoted the Blog Off to more about the Senator. I don’t know much about the Kennedy family, so I was particularly struck by her post about whether the tragedies in the Senator’s life might be the result of a curse…

9, My Organized Biz. Talk about your baptism by fire. Becky just got hired to take over My Organized Biz - and rose to the challenge of the Blog Off! Becky compiled a list of her favorite office supplies - and as an office supply junkie, I agreed with a number of them on the list. My can’t live without supply? #8.

10, Home Biz Notes. Mary Emma and Yvonne worked together to bring us great home business related news. Yvonne reminded me of one of my favorite work days of the year: National Take Your Dog to Work Day.

Whew. So there you have it - the best of nearly 350 Business Channel Blog Off posts!

Thanks much to our readers for stopping by, leaving comments and support Accion. You kept us going throughout the day!

And finally, a huge thanks to our fearless leaders at b5media (esp CJ, Shai, Jeremy, Tris and Darren) for letting us do this - we had a great time!

The Great Blog Off has come to a close - after a marathon day of writing, hundreds of new posts were created by the Entertainment writers (and many guest writers!) and by the Business writers.

As you know, the Blog Off was a charity event. If you enjoyed this marathon, I encourage you donate to The Actors Fund to "sponsor" the great work of our writers. Your donation will help people in performing arts who have hit hard times.

To explore some of the great new content in Entertainment that was created for the Blog Off, check out the roundup posts on the participating blogs:

• 24 Headquarters
• Comedy Centric
• CSI Fanatic
• Dance Watcher
• Daytime Talk
• Fame or Famine
• Film Gecko
• Gilmore Girls News
• Gossip Girl Report
• Grrl TV
• House is Right
• Medium Dreams
• New to TV
• Reality Exploits
• Screamstress
• Searching Bones
• Superhero Profiles
• Ugly Betty News
• VH1 Reality World

Tags: blog off, the great blog off, b5media, entertainment, roundup

New blog alert!  For those of us who love sparkly jewelry and gems (who doesn’t love sparkly jewelry and gems??), we are happy to announce Gleaming Things, written by Chloe Findlay-Harder.

Chloe blogs with us already at Her Accessories, so hopefully she isn’t totally new to you, and is an artist herself with a real eye towards beautiful and unusual jewelry, so I know you will enjoy seeing what she finds at Gleaming Things.  Take a moment to visit and subscribe to the Gleaming Things feed, and if you want all the latest in beauty and style, check out our Beauty & Style Channel feed!

comScore has released its monthly comScore qSearch analysis of the United States search engine rankings for May, 2008. Last month, searchers in the United States conducted 10.8 billion core searches. Google increased their market share slightly according to the stats.

In May, Google’s core searches reached 61.8 percent, which was up from 61.6 percent over the previous month. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with a 20.6 percent share (up from 20.4 percent the prior month), followed by Microsoft Sites (8.5 percent), AOL LLC (4.5 percent), and Ask Network (4.5 percent).

comScore Core Search Report*
  May 2008 vs. April 2008
  Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
  Source: comScore qSearch 2.0

                                           Share of Searches (%)
                                                                     Point
                                                                     Change
                                                                     May-08
                                                                       vs.
  Core Search Entity                 Apr-08          May-08          Apr-08
  Total Core Search                  100.0%          100.0%           N/A
  Google Sites                        61.6%           61.8%           0.2
  Yahoo! Sites                        20.4%           20.6%           0.2
  Microsoft Sites                      9.1%            8.5%          -0.6
  AOL LLC                              4.6%            4.5%          -0.1
  Ask Network                          4.3%            4.5%           0.2

  * Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and
    cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and
    user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five
    search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

Searchers in the United States conducted 10.8 billion searches at the major search engines, representing a 2-percent increase versus April. Google handled nearly 6.7 billion searches, followed by Yahoo! with 2.2 billion, and Microsoft with 920 million.

  comScore Core Search Report*
  May 2008 vs. April 2008
  Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
  Source: comScore qSearch 2.0

                                            Search Queries (MM)
                                                                     Percent
                                                                      Change
                                                                      May-08
                                                                        vs.
  Core Search Entity                 Apr-08          May-08           Apr-08
  Total Core Search                  10,582          10,777             2%
  Google Sites                        6,514           6,664             2%
  Yahoo! Sites                        2,159           2,221             3%
  Microsoft Sites                       961             920            -4%
  AOL LLC                               491             486            -1%
  Ask Network                           458             486             6%

  * Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and
    cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and
    user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five
    search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

In comScore’s May 2008 analysis of the Top 50 web properties where they watch search activity, Google led with 8.8 billion searches. Yahoo! ranked second with 2.4 billion searches, followed by Microsoft with 963 million searches, and AOL with 831 million searches.

  comScore Expanded Search Query Report
  May 2008 vs. April 2008
  Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
  Source: comScore qSearch 2.0

                                             Search Queries (MM)
                                                                     Percent
                                                                      Change
                                                                      May-08
                                                                        vs.
  Expanded Search Entity                Apr-08        May-08          Apr-08
  Total Expanded Search                 14,988        15,463            3%
  Google Sites                           8,467         8,838            4%
       Google                            6,639         6,814            3%
       YouTube/All Other                 1,828         2,024           11%
  Yahoo! Sites                           2,323         2,387            3%
       Yahoo!                            2,290         2,352            3%
       All Other                            33            35            6%
  Microsoft Sites                        1,000           963           -4%
       MSN-Windows Live                    964           932           -3%
       Microsoft/All Other                  36            31          -14%
  AOL LLC                                  839           831           -1%
       AOL Search Network                  459           456           -1%
       MapQuest/All Other                  380           375           -1%
  Ask Network                              461           489            6%
       Ask.com                             298           321            8%
       MyWebSearch.com/ All Other          163           168            3%
  eBay                                     450           449            0%
  Fox Interactive Media                    360           402           12%
       MySpace                             354           395           12%
       All Other                             6             7           17%
  Craigslist.org                           273           314           15%
  Amazon Sites                             137           141            3%
  Facebook.com                             112           121            8%

b5media bloggers are clicking all over the blogosphere - all day long - in support of charity today.

Today marks the first day of the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s the first time that the solstice has not occurred on June 21 since 1975. Pretty remarkable! To celebrate, bloggers across the Entertainment, Business and Lifestyles Channels are blogging every hour for 24 hours to support charitable causes.

The Entertainment Channel is supporting The Actors Fund. The Actors Fund provides support and services for entertainment professionals who are experiencing crisis or transition. You can read more here - or go directly to The Actors Fund to donate.

The Business Channel is supporting Accion International. Accion International provides business advice and financial support to small businesses in need all over the world. You can read more here - or go directly to Accion to donate.

Not to be outdone, Eliza from Babylune has announced an ad hoc group of Lifestyles Channel bloggers who will be blogging in support of The Children’s Hunger Fund.

Your financial support to the charities, links to our blogs and comments are all appreciated. Together, we can all make a difference!

And hey, don’t forget to enjoy the start of summer!

–

To read the official b5media Press Release about the event, click here.

Before we get started let me define what a long tail keyword is. A long tail keywords is a highly specific keyword containing 4 words or more.

Here’s an example :

buy nike tennis shoes size 10

discount nike running sneakers

red leather high heeled shoes

As you can imagine someone typing in a keywords like : “buy nike tennis shoes size 10″ is READY TO BUY! In other words an effective long tail keywords will have a very high conversion rate.

But here’s the thing, a 4+ word keyword will not get a lot of traffic, maybe 1-2 clicks a month. So the trick is to bid on 30k,50k, even a 100k long tails. You can do the math, the traffic will add up.

These keywords have very little to no competition so you’ll get a very low cost per click. Heck, with a strong list of long tails you can launch a very effective direct linking campaign, and completely clean up.

Sounds pretty simple right?

Well I hate to burst your bubble, but coming up with huge ’smart’ list of long tails (like the examples above) that actually get traffic is NOT easy :

1. Sure you could crack open KeywordDiscovery and Wordtracker, but you’ll be disappointed with what you get back. They’re typically not the type of quality long tails that will generate massive amounts of traffic and high conversion rates. Plus everyone else in your market has access to these keywords.
2. The other thing is that the long tail strategy really doesn’t work well in every niche. Niches like retail, travel, insurance, that have massive amounts of search volume, and people are often looking for something very specific, will work well with the long tail strategy.
3. You could make a huge multiplier of terms related to your niche and generate 100k long tail keywords. However, unless you really understand your niche chances are you’ll get a huge list of junk keywords that don’t get any traffic.
4. The long tails for different niches, say retail vs travel, will be very different, so that just one more layer of complexity added in!

So is it worth cracking the long tail strategy for ppc affiliate marketing. Are there really affiliates out there making a fortune bidding on 100k+ long tail keywords?

Every heard of Clicks2Customers (C2C)? They’re the biggest super affiliate company in the world, started by renowned PPC expert, Vinny Lingham. Clicks2Customers (which has now become more of a performance-based agency), specializes in the travel and retail markets with a direct to merchant long tail strategy.

When I mean long tail, I mean REALLY long tail. C2C bids on several million long tail keywords per merchant. And you thought managing your 10k keyword campaign was intimidating!?!

C2C brings tens of millions of dollars in affiliate commissions every year.

So I wouldn’t say long tails are the holy grail of search so much as developing a killer system for generating quality high converting long tails, now that’s THE Holy Grail of Search.

This is a research project I’ve started with a fellow super affiliate. We have some very good ideas, but we still need to test them.

It’s been a busy time around the Travel & Culture Channel as we get ready for summer and watch the political climate heat up as much as the temperature.  Something tells me it’s going to be a long, hot summer – in more ways than one!

And hopefully our summer will be a green one as well, as we welcome Liz Lewis and Traveling The Green Way to the Channel.  Liz will have all sorts of useful, helpful, and practical information and tips to help make your travels on the planet as eco-friendly and carbon neutral as possible.  Stop by for a read!

To learn about some of the things that you may have missed around the channel over the last few weeks, take a look at some of the tasty tidbits our bloggers have been writing about:

• Filipina Soul – A yummy sounding recipe for Putong Puti (Rice Muffins).
• Flyaway Cafe – Picks her 7 Family Vacation Destinations that are FUN & Educational.
• Geeky Traveller – Answers the questions Is the New iPhone 3G useful for travelers?
• Let’s Visit Asia – Unfortunately, Thai Airways Adjusts Fuel Surcharge (hint:  it’s going up).
• Sirened – An argument for decriminalization of drugs with Prescription Drugs Kill More People than Illegal Drugs.
• Southern Byways – Suggests Museum Exhibitions to See This Summer.
• Starked DC – Give us his Electoral College Forecast: 6/17 Update.
• Starked SF – Explores Reality Television: America’s Obsession with Losing and Failure.
• The Boston Traveler – Another yummy regional recipe, How to Make Boston Cream Pie from Scratch.
• The Chicago Traveler – A restaurant review, Green Zebra Offers Upscale Vegetarian.
• The DC Traveler – Something to think about, Place to Reflect and Remember.
• The Denver Traveler – A beautiful look at Colorado’s Capitol Building.
• The Disney Traveler – Spells out the 2008 Walt Disney World Park Ticket Prices in Simple Terms.
• The Hawaii Traveler – An eating guide,  Aloha, and Thanks For All the Fish.
• The Kuala Lumpur Traveler – Saving money is always important, Pak Lah latest cost cutting measures proved that the government can save.
• The Las Vegas Adventurer – Good news on a popular story, The Mirage Welcomes Tiger Cubs to the Secret Garden.
• The London Traveler – Shopping anyone –  Harrods or Harvey Nicks?
• The New York City Traveler – Outdoor urban haunts, 5 Favorite Rooftop Bars in New York City (and 1 in New Jersey).
• The Paris Traveler – Explain a culinary treat, Let’s Go To Italy (Or My Kitchen) and Eat Some Nutella.
• The San Diego Traveler – BIG golf news, Tiger Takes It In Sudden Death Overtime.
• The Seattle Traveler – Fact and fiction, The Legend & Money of D.B. Cooper.
• The South Florida Traveler – Keep cool, Cool Off at the Venetian Pool.
• The Switzerland Traveler – Simply beautiful, Even More Photos of Chateau Chillon.
• The Sydney Traveler – It’s about the animals, A Day at the Zoo.
• The Tokyo Traveler – The song and the game, Pachinko - Get your Gambling Fix in Tokyo!
• The Vancouver Traveler – It’s all about the music, 23rd Vancouver International Jazz Festival.
• Traveling the Green Way – Sustainable eating, On the Road: Finding Eco-Friendly Restaurants.

Did you miss some of the great posts?  You can make sure that you don’t miss out on a single thing, by subscribing to the entire channel feed.

We’re looking for a couple bloggers to join the fantastic group listed above, taking over duties at The Atlanta Traveler and The Toronto Traveler.  If you live or work in either of these cities, are passionate about your city, and have a desire to share that with others, you could be the blogger we’re looking for.  Send an email expressing your interest, along with links to relevant writing clips to Mary Jo Manzanares, Travel & Culture Channel Editor.

Until next time – safe travels!

The 2008 Universe IDEAL(TM) Employer Survey says that undergrads’ desire to work for Google is growing. The survey also reports that the demand to work for Ernst & Young made a big jump over laster year. Job security and the work-life balance are reportedly top concerns.

Nearly one in five undergraduate students chose Google (17.1 percent this year) as their IDEAL(TM) Employer. Google’s popularity grew this year, 13 percent of undergraduate students chose it as IDEAL(TM) in 2007.

Walt Disney (who came in 13 percent this year) cam in second in the survey results. Apple Computer (10 percent) was third, and Ernst & Young jumped up eight positions since 2007 to be fourth. Ernst & Young edged out the U.S. Department of State (who came in at 9 percent). Goldman Sachs, Deloitte, Peace Corps, NASA, and PricewaterhouseCoopers completed the top 10 list.

For the 2008 survey, 43,313 students from 195 colleges and universities participated in the Undergraduate Edition of the Universum IDEAL(TM) Employer Survey. This was the largest survey of its kind in the United States.

In the survey, undergraduate college students answered questions about their career expectations like their top industries, their career goals, their communication preferences, their salary expectations, and their IDEAL(TM) employers.

According to the the UNIVERSUM Communications, “The career goals of undergraduate respondents directly reflect attitudes about work and current economic and social events. An overwhelming 64 percent of students feel that a work-life balance is the most important career goal, job security and stability (45 percent) came second. Third on the list is being dedicated to a cause or to feel they are serving a greater good (44 percent) followed by being competitively or intellectually challenged (39 percent), and to be a leader or manager of people (33 percent).”

UNIVERSUM Communications says that Working in an organization like the U.S Dept. of State allows undergraduate students to achieve top career goals like giving back to the community and their financial goals which is why government/public service remains the No. 1 industry. Healthcare came in second followed by accounting (public), education/teaching, and marketing/advertising.

This year, undergraduate students are expecting, on average, $50,640 one year after graduation, and $96,438 after five years.

Catylist, a commercial real estate marketing company, has unveiled what they’re calling “the most technologically advanced search interface in the industry.” This new scenario-based search engine has been updated throughout the Catylist Network, which includes over 35 locally-operated commercial information exchanges as well as Catylist’s National Commercial Marketplace, Commercial IQ.

What’s interesting about this commercial real estate search engine is that they system allows you to refine your search by adding or removing all sorts of real-time filters. The search results give you a more efficient way to quickly identify commercial real estate properties that match your specific criteria.

The search results have been revamped recently and now include list, expanded and map views. Advanced mapping and aerial tools incorporate different views from Google Maps, Google Street View, and Microsoft Virtual Earth Bird’s Eye. In addition, all listings contain basic demographic data. If you’re a full member, you have access to more comprehensive demographic reports available to download in PDF or an Excel export.

As an example, I searched for “Dallas, Texas” and found many different commercial real estate properties in my area. There are many different views available, including a list, photos, and map views. Depending on the location, a street view is available if Google Maps has that data.

Founded in 2002, Chicago-based Catylist is a commercial real estate marketing company. Thousands of real estate brokers, investors, tenants, property managers, landlords, and appraisers use Catylist to market and search commercial real estate. Catylist is the #1 provider of Commercial Information Exchange (CIE) solutions for real estate communities, developed and operates Commercial IQ, the national commercial real estate marketplace and offers marketing services for commercial real estate professionals. For more information, visit http://www.catylist.com/.