Anyone have a Landlord like Pearl the Landlord?
I know this blog seems to be turning into a blog about videos, but after getting all the hate IMs last week, I thought I’d make it up with this funny one!
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Gary Lee
I know this blog seems to be turning into a blog about videos, but after getting all the hate IMs last week, I thought I’d make it up with this funny one! -
Gary Lee
Test your Tolerance and Watch My Bounce Rate Skyrocket!
I can barely watch this . . . . . my time was 0:16 . . . . can any one last longer? Leave a comment to tell us your time!
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Mystery Bob
1 Minute 10 Seconds… then i shot myself
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Mike
1 Minute 25 Seconds. It’s funny seeing someone get embarrassed but in some cases you end up just feeling sorry for them. I picture this guy appearing in the next American Idol audition getting laughed at by millions of people.
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sans
almost two minutes until I threw up in my mouth. The gun hand motions though…pure gold. This is moderately worse than two girls one cup.
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Saman Sadeghi
I made it to :49 – the line about PJ’s confused the hell out of me….
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Gary Lee
MTV Shares Videos AND Links
Growing up in the 80′s and 90′s, I was suppose to be the kid who relied on MTV to keep me quiet and out of trouble. Well, being that I grew up in an Asian house where cable was more of a luxury than a necessity, I only got to watch music videos at the local circuit city. Well, I can finally fill in that missing void in my life by going to the new mtvmusic.com where MTV has just released it’s vault of music videos online!In regards to the free links, MTV left a opening in their comment section where you can enter some HTML and get a free link back to your site. It’s probably a technique that’s a little old school and not as effective, but if you do it correctly, you can get link backs from relevant and possibly high traffic volume pages. Here’s what you gotta do:
1. Set up your MTVMusic.com account – Think like a fan and create a name that doesn’t raise any flags with MTV.
2. Find a relevant video – i.e. Thriller by Michael Jackson
3. Comment on the video with an anchor text – i.e. “Wow, where do you think I can get those Halloween Costumes” – using html code that looks like this <a href=”http://www.domain.com”>KEYWORD</a>
That’s it! Again, I would recommend making everything relevant and not gaming the system. Just get some relevant links here and there and you’ll be good.
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danielle
we’ll have to wait and see if it works i suppose since it just launched yesterday
thanks for the heads up! (btw how did u hear about it?)
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Gary Lee
SEO-Theory.com PageRank Timeline in Color
I’m a big fan of Michael Martinez’s SEO Blog – SEO-Theory.com and just read a recent post: Architecting of Web Sites – Designing from a SEO Perspective. He included a time line detailing the history of Page Rank and I thought it would be a good idea to use Bee Documents Time Line program to make Mike’s time line a little bit easier to visualize. So here it is . . . it is a little big, so there is some scrolling involved:
Click Here to Download Full Page Rank History Timeline
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Michael Martinez
I’d love to see the larger version but neither link seems to work for me.
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Michael Martinez
That is SO cool Gary. Thanks!
BTW – I edited the original post to clean up a lot of typos. It should read much better now.
Gotta run!
See you in the SERPs.
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wisdom
Cool, interesting to see the progression.
Jeff is discussing. 
sans, 
Mike and one other person are discussing. 
Gary Lee
Don’t Mess with Candace!
Here’s another reason to hate on Detroit Basketball! Seriously, don’t mess with my new favorite WNBA Player!
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Derek
How fitting that this involved a team with Bill Laimbeer and Rick Mahorn on the coaching staff, lol. Oddly enough, I went to high school with Candace’s brother, who plays for the Toronto Raptors, and she was a few years behind me. This has been all over the local media as you might imagine.
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Gary Lee
Ya . . i hate Detroit almost as much as I hate Boston . . .
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Derek
No way man, I hate Detroit way more than Boston. The fans and players are all knuckle-draggers. We won’t see Boston in the Finals next year. But we’ll definitely see the Lakers again!
Gary Lee
5 Reasons Why $5 Gas Doesn’t Suck
With the price of a barrel of oil reaching $143 as I write this post, I’m reminded of the constant whining and moaning the mass media and general population are doing about having to spend so much on gas! I’m not gonna lie, I bitched and moaned about it all weekend as I drove a total of 350 some-odd miles, but then I realized that it’s really not that bad at all. It could be a true “blessing in disguise!”
So, these are my 5 Reasons why $5 Gas doesn’t suck as bad as we think!
1) $5 Gas is Environmentally Friendly – All those tree-huggers must love what’s going on as their wishes of less cars, more carpooling and an overall smaller carbon footprint per person is coming true. By the way, find out your carbon footprint here with this widget I found!
2) $5 Gas Helps Us Lose Weight – It looks like $5 gas is starting to make people realize that walking a few blocks to the market isn’t really that bad. More and more people are either walking or riding their bike to help them get around. We haven’t seen this much calorie burning since the caveman days when we had to hunt and gather our own food!!!
3) $5 Gas Makes Us More Social – More and more cars are being left in the garage in favor of carpooling, trains and subways. It’s a great opportunity for you to meet new people and helps us realize that “hey, people aren’t as crazy and senile as I see on the news!”
4) $5 Gas Makes for Less Traffic Jams – With less people wanting to drive, there are going to be less cars on the road. Less cars means less traffic. I hope to gain at least ONE day back from the 2 weeks I lose sitting in traffic every day!
5) $5 Gas Improves Local Economy – I’m assuming most of us live in neighborhoods where we can walk down to the local farmer’s market or local restaurant for a night of entertainment. We can probably discover new neighborhood events going on like outdoor movies in the park. Bottom line, we’re not going to be venturing too far away from home anymore, so why not enjoy where we live?
Anything else you can think of? Feel free to comment below and let us know!
Also, don’t forget to check out this great LA Times article “Envisioning a World of $200 a Barrel Oil“
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Michael Kwan
The other reason why $5/gallon for gas doesn’t suck is because it’s over $1.50 a litre here in Vancouver. For those of you keeping score at home, that works out to over $6 a gallon.
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Zac Johnson
I’m sure $5 gas doesn’t suck if you are a big investor in the oil and gas companies… they continue to push higher numbers than ever. $5 a gallon gas sucks for everyone owning a hummer though
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Jon Lee
I’ve heard (not sure if it’s true), that the manufacturing of the parts that make up a hybrid cars actually pollutes MORE than how environmentally friendly it is to drive. But with gas at $5 a gallon, these things are only going to get more popular.
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Hannes Johnson
Interesting points… yeah, it’s not all bad that gas is so expensive.
Over here in Iceland it’s about 176 ISK per litre – which is about $8.45 USD per gallon – if I got the calculations right
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Cole
You have a good point – for those who are willing to relinquish the “freedom” of driving, there are benefits. I’ve never driven myself so I’m relatively unfazed. Still, it’s a lot less convenient and timely to walk someplace, especially with an armfull of veggies and I don’t know of anyone – besides you – who actually lives within walking distance from the farmer’s market.
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Digitalnomad
Time to get off the hydrocarbons. The only good reason is it will force us to finally find alternatives for energy.
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Gary Lee
I remembered when someone from england told me they were paying $5 a gallon a few years ago and I was like . . . man, I can’t imagine paying that much. I’d just walk everyone if that happened. . . . being an american, I guess I never realized how much the rest of the world has suffered with these kind of prices!
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Gary Lee
i bet that’s a rumor big oil companies leaked out
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Czar
Reading this post made me realize that the ongoing crisis on petroleum prices has benefits too. You’ve really got the brilliant points.
If only most people think the way you do…
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Jez
In the UK it is the equivalent of $10 per galon… sparked a few “fuel protests”.
I just get the train to work, cheaper, safer, can work / sleep en route to work… much better, apart from catching colds in the spring
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Tom - StandOutBlogger.com
I actually dont have a car anymore. I just walk anywhere. and if it is too far I grab a lift of someone. Saves me so much money each month from fuel.
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Stephen
My scooter does 200KM on around $5 – 6 in gas. It will also run on cheap booze. Gas crisis solved, but I would need to attend AA.
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AgentJon
I do agree that $5 gas will help us all in the long run…I can’t say much because all I use is an electric scooter and a bicycle though
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Steven Wilson
That is a great way to look at the situation adding humour to it makes it not seem so bad.
Gary Lee
Alba vs. Hathaway: Is this really fair?
So i’m surfing around on a hot as hell day in Southern California and I come across this featured article on LATimes.com – “Anne Hathaway vs. Jessica Alba” – and the first thought that comes to my head is “Damn! Jessica’s looking good!” . . . then my second thought is “Damn! Anne must be pissed cuz this is such an unfair competition!” . . . . then the third thought is “I’d hate to be Anne’s boyfriend right now!” because the dreaded “What do you think?” question is coming FOR SURE!
This is the Dark Angel vs. the Princess Diary!
Maxim’s Sexiest Woman Alive vs. World’s Biggest Smile!
Don’t get me wrong though! I think Anne Hathaway is a total hottie. Starting from Devil Wears Prada (Yes, I saw it . . . so what?) to the 150 “Get Smart” commercials and billboards i see every day, she’s really racing up MrGaryLee’s list of “Hot Girls who I actually think have a brain, too” list.
You can even look at the picture the Times decided to use. Anne looks like she got off a helicopter and Jessica looks like . . well . . Jessica friggin Alba! I know the Times is trying to increase their page views per visitor count, but damn, at least pick a better match up. Let me offer some suggestions:
Halle vs. Jada
Eva vs. J.Lo
Hu vs. Q
I could do this all day. Anyone want to help?
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Ed Lau
Charlize Theron vs. Katherine Heigl
Sharapova vs. Kournikova
Megan Fox vs. Angelina Jolie
Kristen Bell vs. Elisha Cuthbert
Gisele vs. Heidi vs. Adrianna vs. Alessandra vs. Karolina vs. Izabel vs. Miranda. vs Marisa vs. Selita
Longoria vs. Mendes would be a better challenge.
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Hurdlechamp
Wow.. I really like this one! And that comment above is great!
Gary Lee
How to Build a Landing Page for an Email Autoresponder
For Wendy Piersall’s Crowd Sourcing post, I want to go over how to set up a simple landing page and email autoresponder program. I’m talking about properly setting up a landing page for your site to convert visitors to subscribers and then setting up your newsletter service to convert your subscribers into buyers much like this:
I’m going to show you what it takes to create the most basic of landing pages that have one of the highest conversion rates across the board for all products in this industry. These are the 3 main items you will need to create:
- Tagline – The Main Header Title that your visitor will read first
- Description – Additional information that helps support your Header Copy
- Email Subscription Field – Where your visitor will enter their email address
The Tagline is the most important part of this landing page as it is usually placed in the middle of the page and is the first thing that visitors see when they arrive at the site. For our Auction Tips site, here are the Header Taglines I’m considering to use:
- We’ll teach you how to conduct the right type of Research on eBay, instead of just wandering aimlessly around the internet
- Understand how the eBay Feedback system works and how to take advantage of the feedback system
- There’s nothing like word of mouth advertising and we’ll show you how Great Customer Service is one of the best Marketing Techniques out there.
The Description is located underneath the Tagline and should offer more detail on how the potential subscriber will benefit from subscribing to this newsletter.
As for the autoresponder service you should use for your email newsletter subscription, I recommend the only that I has worked for me:
- AWeber – Aweber has one of the best click through rates in the business as it protects subscribers from getting spammed. For example, you can’t just dump a list of emails you have into Aweber and then start sending email. They will ask the recipient first to verify that they have subscribed, then allow that person to receive any of your emails.
Aweber is extremely easy to use and has a wizard to help you generate the proper html code to place onto your landing page.
*To let you know, I am using affiliate links for aweber, but want you to know that I recommend this program because I use them for my work and if I can make a few bucks, then why not, right?*
There is an ongoing debate on how much content you should post on your landing page to achieve the highest conversion rates. From what I’ve seen, as long as you have a subscription field located in every “fold view,” the conversion rate will not be affected dramatically. What I mean by “fold view,” is that when your user is scrolling down your page, as one subscription field is being scrolled away, another subscription field will appear.
Once you have set up these 3 main items on your web site landing page, one of the most important things I recommend you set up is your Google Analytics and Google Web Optimzer accounts. They both come in the Google Adwords Account which is absolutely free.
If you do not know already, Google Analytics is a web analysis program that keeps track of key metrics of your website like conversion rates, traffic sources and number of clicks your site receives, just to name a few. Google Web Optimizer is used to test different parts of your website like the tagline and description by displaying each variation equally to avoid the troublesome task of weighing the effects of testing during peak and offpeak hours.
If you’d like to take a look at the completed product, please take a look at the site Auction 411.
Don’t worry about the graphics and all that extra stuff. If you’d like to add more things to the landing page, feel free, but just make sure to use the Google Optimizer to make sure that you know what kind of effect the image will have on your conversion rate.
Hope this helps. If you have any questions, please feel free to comment and I will reply to them as soon as possible.
Michael Johnson
A very good tutorial for building a simple squeeze page. People try to make things too fancy and spend way too long making them.
And making sure to track your page changes is more important than how the page looks when you start out. Get it up there and test it before you spend hours making it pretty.
Piedro Molinero
A very well written article about how to make a squeeze page. Keep it short and simple is also here the best choice. And using aweber as autoresponder service is a good recommendation as it offers the most reliable service and it is worth the money.
Gary Lee
Airwolf for Sale on Ebay
I don’t know about you, but as a kid I had dreams of owning just 3 things:
K.I.T.T.
Street Hawk
AirWolf
I remember watching the last 20 minutes of these shows (since that’s the only time they ever showed what these machines could do) and being in awe of the technology and pure testosterone my TV was oozing. People may wonder why I’m such a tech freak . . . well, these 3 vehicles are a big reason why!
Now being the “mature” 30 year old man I am today, I’ve become more realistic in my dreams. Now . . I just want Airwolf and holy gobbles of goose shit . . . a replica of Airwolf is being sold on eBay for about $40k!
Anyone want in on this?
shanna, 
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Natron
Throw in the General Lee and the A-Team van and you got it made!
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BigPappa
I just wanted the General Lee. I guess I still do. With a Hemi of course.
Ohhh Yeah, I forgot about the B.A.’s Van from the A-Team. But the best would have been a Viper from Battlestar Galactica.
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shanna
you’re so weird gary. but since we’re talking about things we wanted & will never get….i always wanted spirit, the flying horse she-ra flew on…=)
Gary Lee
20 Ways to Pay it Forward Offline
Ever since I’ve started this blog, I’ve always had this dream to do something that will affect the world in a positive manner. Last year, I came up with a pretty diabolical link train that I think Google still hates me for. It was insanely popular and I still see links come in from stragglers who just learned of the train last week so I know how huge something can get if everything is lined up correctly. I also just saw a rerun of “Pay It Forward” last weekend and thought it’d be nice to try the same idea on the internet. I’m sure this has probably been done here and there, but this train won’t ask for anything crazy. One tiny gesture of kindness can go a long way so I want to see how kind we all can be offline.
Here’s a list of 20 things I thought would cover most nice gestures, just in case you evil people out there forget what your heart felt like .
- Write a Letter to an Old Person – Yes, a letter with a pen, paper, stamp and envelope. For you young whipper snappers who don’t what I’m talking about, google it. I know “Old Person” is a pretty relatively term, so think of someone your grandparents age. If that’s too old, then write to a friend you haven’t spoken to in over 10 years.
- Teach someone younger than you how to do something new – i.e. fishing, changing the oil, dicing an onion, riding a bike, etc.
- Call someone who’s sick and make them smile.
- Go through your closet and find 3 nice peices of clothing you don’t wear anymore and donate them to a local clothing drive.
- Talk to the shyest person you know.
- Let someone ahead of you in line.
- Fix something for someone.
- Do something nice for someone and don’t let them know that it was you who did it.
- Read a story to a small child.
- Pay the Toll/Parking for the car in back of you.
- Stick up for someone.
- Plant a tree.
- Donate Blood.
- Volunteer at the local homeless shelter.
- Tell the manager of a restaurant how great your waiter/waitress was.
- Pull over and help someone that’s stranded on the side of the road.
- Return the grocery cart for someone at the supermarket.
- Buy a book for a child.
- Give up your restaurant table to an elderly couple.
- Offer to babysit your friend’s children.
So, this is how it’s going to work:
1. Pick one of these nice gestures and do it.
2. Share your experience – Email, Youtube, Twitter, Blog Post or at a Club Meeting.
3. In the same announcement, challenge your network to do perform one of these gestures as well. If possible, display this list of 20 gestures to make it easier for them to think of something to do.
That’s it. I’m not asking for links. I’m not asking for any sort of credit for this idea. I just want to see how far this can go and hopefully by Christmas of this year, everyone will have at least one story to share about a good deed they have performed.
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Michael Kwan
Neat idea. I just might give it a whirl.
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Anthony a.k.a. OldSchoolSEO
People still hand write letters? (kidding) That is a great “let’s not lose site of reality” post. We miss out on so much of life by not doing things the old fashioned way. Thanks for the reminder.
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Digitalnomad
I do this stuff all the time, but I am running out of time. Yes, it’s nice to be important, but also important to be nice.
Stanium
Hm, after reading the list I realised had made some of the gestures. However, planting a tree and donating blood sound like a good idea, too
Gary Lee
The Official SEO Anthem
This guy is on POINT! For all you up and comers, memorize and internalize this performance!
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One Year Millionaire
I think that this has got to be some of the most entertaining videos about SEO I’ve seen. great info too….
Gary Lee
Weatherman Sounds Off on Dead Beat Moms!
I wake up to the KTLA morning news every morning and they have this special segment at 9am that is hosted by the women of the show. I guess the weatherman, Mark Kriski, couldn’t take it anymore and took full advantage of a segment called “Sound-Off” to go off on everything from dead beat moms to earth day to people who play with used golf clubs to even the playful dolphins!
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Michael Kwan
That was awesome.
Gary Lee
Apple is Sitting Pretty
First of all, I want to wish Steve Jobs a speedy recovery from his Pancreatic cancer treatments. I know it’s not a easy cancer to recover from and wishes him well.
Next, if you missed the Apple event today, they just announced the release of their iPhone Developer’s Kit which gives developers the blueprints of how programs work on iPhones. What this means to the average consumer is that we’re going to get a lot of NICE programs for our iPhone now without having to hack at it and worry that our iPhones are going to turn into glorified paper weights.
Why is Apple sitting pretty you may ask? Well, for those of you who missed my Steve Jobs is a Genius post a couple of months ago, I pretty much nailed what he was going to do today regarding the distribution and compensation of iPhone apps. There are going to be a lot of newly rich developers coming out this year.
My apologies for telling people to invest in Apple stock when it was at 160-ish and now is in the 120′s (blame that on the weak US dollar and fear of recession), but I’ve put my money where my mouth is and have invested even more into Apple stock. They’re going to have a VERY nice 2nd half of the year.
Who wants to think otherwise?
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Jay, writer Memberspeed.com
The people at Apple really have a knack for releasing one surprise after another. Well, maybe it’s not so much a surprise to you but one would have thought that the Macbook air was the last big bang for a while. Instead, one finds himself enthralled by a new release barely recovering from the last one.
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the kid
First of all best picture ever!
Secondly congrats on the beautiful call!
Thirdly Apple stock is going back to $200 just give it 6 months =)
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benny
This is fantastic news. Now maybe some ringtones will be available. What happens if someone comes out with a voip application though?
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knockster
Very interesting info! Apple has really turned around. Fantastic insight as to waht is to come with the iphone and apple new additions with the public involved. Wonderful marketing strategy!
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cohnsey
your article was pretty good but that photo was breath taking. i would like to see Bill Gates ghost ride the whip next.
Gary Lee
Do you know who Paul Potts is?
“My dream is to spend my life doing what I feel I was born to do.”
- A Mobile Phone Salesman from South Wales
I woke up this morning and as usual, turned on the KTLA morning news here in Los Angeles to see what’s been happening in the world. During the broadcast, they were promoting a concert of this man named Paul Potts ( I was thinking . . “that’s such a english name”), then they showed a clip of this lump of coal from England’s version of American Idol.
All I had to say was “I’m posting about his guy today!” These are the kind of stories that just make you believe that any of us can do what we love just as long as we get a chance.
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ms danielle
wow i wasnt’ expecting that either. amazing
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Gyutae Park
That is pretty amazing. The expression on the girl judge in the middle is classic.
Opera really ain’t my cup of tea, but this is great.
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Keidric
just sayin hi. had a chance to look at bunkers paradise. looks like its coming along nicely. that paul guy is cool too.
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jez
Errm… wasn’t American Idol a clone of the UK version??
Consider it our revenge for Jerry Springer
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Big Cajun Man
And I bought my wife his CD, thinking she’d like it, and never listened to it. Coming back on a plane, the audio system had his CD there, listened to the whole thing and was impressed again, amazing stuff.
C8j
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Aaron
And I think the show was “Britain’s Got Talent.”
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benny
Didn’t amercan idol come from a european show?
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Yannis
Paul is amazing. I had seen this video a couple of months ago, but didn’t put too much attention to it. I had a chance to see it again a couple of weeks ago. I was speechless. He is amazing. As of April 25th The video on YouTube has had 23,783,783 views.
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John Peden
The show was called ‘Britain’s Got Talent’; guests are invited in to perform on stage. The contestants are whittled down from thousands to a single performance, who gets to perform at the Royal Variety Show. This year’s series is airing right now.
I love the video, Simon is ready to send him off before he has even begun!
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Esther
Gary Lee your my new best friend. Thanks for this post it was very touching and inspiring.
Gary Lee
First Day at Affiliate Summit West
I might have got sidetracked just a little bit about my first day at ASW with my observations on Jason Calacanis’ viewpoints of Shoemoney Photos, so I wanted to make sure that I get the rest of the day caught up with, so that you guys know that more is going on here than name-calling and ego-boosting!
So after the infamous keynote speech, we headed over to session on “Video Innovation in Affiliate Marketing” featuring Melissa Salas from Buy.com, Tim Carter from AsktheBuilder.com, Joel Comm from Infomedia.com, Brian McCarthy from Revver.com, Steve Rosenbaum from Magnify.net and Gary Vaynerchuck, the host of Wine Library TV. The theme of the session was again the quality of content determines the popularity and traffic of your video. There was a little bit of insight on how Google Videos timestamps and transcribes the content in a video to make it more search-friendly. Also, Steve Rosenbaum gave some demographic information by telling us that a majority of videos are viewed at the office, so keep that in mind that the average internet video user might not have an elaborate setup at home to watch video on their home big screen. Other than that, Gary was trying to get attention by using profane words and outlandish claims like going against Yahoo’s advice to make his videos shorter from the original 14 minutes to a more friendly 6.5 minutes and instead making them longer to 25 minutes because his content was that good. To each his own, but I know this session was only scratching the surface of what is to come on the internet.
Danielle, Greg and I then headed over to the luncheon where we sat down with the crew from Shopzilla.com. A guy named Dave something started asking Danielle and I about Pink Deals and was selling us on his ideas of how we could integrate their feeds onto our site. He didn’t really say anything we didn’t know, so we just smiled and continued to eat. The awkward silence was broken when a quiet Asian guy in a suit comes and sits at our table. At first, I was just happy he sat down at our table because he had with him one of the best giveaways at the conference – a skateboard with a Las Vegas collage on the background. I wanted to ask him where he got it, so I could make sure to get one for myself before I leave. To my surprise and also to Danielle’s (see her reaction here), the quiet Asian guy that was getting his ass kissed by Shopzilla was Ben from BensBargains.net – one of the oldest and most successful deals/coupons site on the internet. To tell you the truth, Ben’s site was the site that truly inspired me to become the online entrepreneur I am today, so having him sit at our table out of the hundreds of tables in the luncheon room was quite amazing.
We got to ask him a few questions and he was very straight forward with his answers. He began his site while he was at college and populated the site with deals between classes. I remember his posting pattern was about 20 some time during the day and then 20 more at night. While I was at college, Ben’s site was the place to go if you wanted to get any coupon for Dell computers. For a stretch, I remember I was buying an item from his site on a weekly basis. It was sick. He also told us that all his posting was done manually and that there was no way to maintain quality control while having feeds populate your site. Bottom line – it’s going to take a lot of work to get Pink Deals up to par with Ben’s Bargains! No matter though, Ben was very cool and offered his business card to contact him at any time if we had any questions. I really appreciated the offer and we wished him well.
After lunch, we met up with Greg and John over at another table in the lunch area. We were talking about some kind of new online reality show that John might be a part of and the other sessions we were going to after lunch. All of us went to go check out Wil Reynolds speak on “How to Futureproof your SEO Efforts” which wasn’t extremely informative, but instead, was a very engaging presentation:
Topics and Points that I jotted down on my notepad (in no particular order):
Inequalities:
- Putting a Digg Button on your website does not equal Social Marketing
- Writing a Blog does not equal Blogging
- Recording a Video does not equal
Link Bait Tips:
- Use Digg
- Get Social Traffic
- Be Creative – it takes time, but it’s worth it.
- Be involved – get out there and comment on other people’s blogs. Integrate yourself.
Link Tips:
- Get rid of your reciprocal links
- Buy good quality Directory Links
Meta Tips:
- Write quality descriptive titles and descriptions that get users to click on your link instead of stuffing as many keywords as possible.
Tools:
- Digital Point Keyword Rank Checker
- Touchgraph
- Google Alerts
- Copemix Tracker
- Adcenter Plugin for Excel 2007 – this one he swears by and is something I will be testing out very soon.
Guess who’s the guy with the Flat Top rocking to Blue Man Group!
After that session, we just headed back to our rooms to get ready for a night of food and partying at Venetian’s new club – Tao. The party was sponsored by Pepperjam, RocketProfit, Webmaster Radio and some other affiliate networks. I’m really not going to talk much about the party because it sucked. It really did. Here’s why:
- I didn’t need to RSVP for this party. They just wanted my information.
- The line at the bar wasn’t too long, but the bartenders were horrendous. It looked like they just got out of bartending school since I saw one girl printing out a cocktail recipe and all of them were on edge, making sure they made the perfect drinks. It wasn’t until everyone left the party that I got a bartender to get me drinks quickly.
- The DJ for this party was THE WORST DJ EVER! I don’t know who it was but it had to be the kid of the club’s owner. It was worse than an iPod DJ. It was worse than just setting up a radio at a house party. The DJ had no clue how to control the ups and downs of the party. He had no idea how to turn down the music to make announcements, but instead, just turned off the music. He didn’t even know how to make annoucements as I’ve heard commencement speeches shorter than his “shout outs!”
- The Blue Man group that performed were aight. I’ve definitely seen better and I definitely wasn’t too impressed. The crowd wasn’t too enthused so I think they may have just cut the show short because of that.
After the party, we headed back to our room at the Rio where we got some drinks and I passed out.
Today, we’re headed over to hear John and Zac speak and then we need to go snag a skateboard.
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Jeff Kee
SMURFS!!!
So you met the shopzilla.com guy eh? I became an expert at doing that Shopzilla XML feed through the TTZ Project.
jez
Interesting comment regards feeds / quality control.
You could go halfway and feed a console from where you could post or reject coupons… It really depends on how much time it would save… and how short of time you are!
Jez
Gary Lee
ya . met them, but one of their reps just seemed a lil shady . . . someone told me not to trust them too much
Gary Lee
i personally think it makes a lot of sense to include analytic and feed information into SERPs . . . that’s not something you can game too easily
Wil Reynolds
Gary,
Thanks for the shout out…quick question, drop me a line and let me know what more I could have done to make it a more useful presentation? I am always looking for feedback to sharpen the saw so to speak.
Thanks!
–Wil
Gary Lee
Jason Calacanis Starts off ASW by Embarassing Shoemoney
To be honest with you, I was still a little confused as to why I was here at Affiliate Summit West. One of the biggest reasons I signed up to come was because of how much fun I had a Blog World Expo and also because I received a free pass from ASW. I did a mini-tour of the booths last night with Morgan and D, but wasn’t really excited to see anything there. I wasn’t really looking forward to any booth touring today and yes, I realized I was in danger of getting into party-pooper mode . . . . until this morning when I arrived at the Keynote speech given by Jason Calacanis, the founder of Weblogs Inc and Mahalo.com.
Admittedly, I arrived a little late and even more admittedly, I didn’t know who the hell was speaking as I entered the room. I just heard so smart mouthed, New York accent cussing and trying to get some cheap laughs. I finally figured out who Jason was and began to listen to his main messages
- To ask affiliates to stop polluting the net with garbage.
- Quality Content is King and will prevail for the long term.
- Be prepared to take 5-10 years to build a high-quality site.
- Reach for the stars. Go ahead and build for the long term.
- I’m a dork who struck it rich and wants to put down everyone else that didn’t do it my way.
You’re probably guessing right that he didn’t really emphasize the last point in his powerpoint presentation. That message was translated all by yours truly. As I was listening to his keynote speech, I was having no problem with his elitist stance that the internet needs to be cleansed with the junk that affiliates are making to trick the unknowing. It was only until he got to pointing out bloggers like Shoemoney and Zac Johnson, who take pictures with their 6 figure checks. He includes both Shoe and Zac’s famous check pictures in his powerpoint presentation. Jason uses words like “pathetic, desparate, and uncouth” to publicly embarrass these bloggers. Jason tries to save some of their reputation by calling them “brilliant,” but through the rest of his presentation, he would use the “100K people” reference to represent the group of internet marketers that you shouldn’t strive to be like.
So, don’t get me wrong and think that I’m on Shoe’s and Zac’s side because I’ve personally met them and think they’re really great people. The point at which I felt I should write something about today’s events came later in the presentations when Jason begins to point out how he was a struggling magazine writer when he first started and that his first job was working on HP laser printers. He talked about how no one in the “Valley” wanted him around because of what he wrote. Well, he finally started getting credit for his work and was quickly establishing himself as a major voice in the internet community. This is the part of the presentation where he pathetically waves his resume and tells us how he gets invited to “all the parties” because everyone wants him there.
I know it’s not like showing off how much you make, but in a way, it really was. I can understand that he’s proud of the quality content he’s been able to prove. I can understand if he wants to rub it in people’s faces that his vision for quality would persevere all trends. I can understand if he wants the internet to be full of purists who strive for high quality content forever and ever.
The only thing I can’t understand is the quality of Jason’s character in putting down other’s to make his ego feel that much better.
More to come about the rest of my first day as I got to meet one of the people that inspired me to become the entrepreneur that I am today and notes from some of the presentations being given at Affiliate Summit West.
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Michael Kwan
Nice post. Too bad you don’t have a video of it.
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Darin Carter
Wow, that was deep. Sounds like you are having fun … LOL
Wish I was there.
Darin
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Derek
Very interesting to hear. As Michael mentioned, video would have been outstanding! Hope you guys have a great time.
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Stephen
Ran into Jason Calacanis at the BlogHaus, and from what I observed of him, I can totally see him being the way you describe. He totally had this air of “SuperEGO” around him as he strolled around the “Haus”.
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Anderson
Gary, can you fix the PDF link on this post, please?
http://www.mrgarylee.com/becoming-a-blogging-hero/Best,
Anderson -
Joel Comm
Spot on, Gary. I Was very disappointed with Jason as well. Here’s my take.
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ms danielle
i think most people that were at the keynote understand his character a little bit better now. i’ve never seen him speak before either and i think it’s unfortunate for him to judge a handful of the most successful marketers — the ones that are HELPING OTHERS succeed — in order to justify his own business model. i applaud zac for addressing the issue in his session today, and defending his success and the industry as a whole directly to jason yesterday. kudos to shoe and zac!
Gary Lee
I think the shock of the presentation and where Calacanis was going with it stopped me from pulling out my camera
Gary Lee
My Most Asian Post EVER!
For those of you who get offended easily, don’t read this. That’s my disclaimer.
For the rest of us normal fun people, this is going to be my most “asian” post I’ve ever posted, so hopefully get a smile out of it! Coming from California, I’ve met every one of these Asians, so it’s pretty hilarious how damn close each description is! I wonder where my friend Greg Morgan falls into this list!
After your done, check out my YouTube Video at the bottom of this post – an asian dance crew called Kaba Modern (click for their Profile) from my alma mata – UC Irvine – competing ( and representing pretty well) in MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew! Zot! Zot!
What Kind Of Asian Are You?
Young Asians in America come in many forms. Below are the major categories. Most Asians fit into multiple groups. For example, Rice-boys can also be Fobs and many Tabs are Fobulous. The only groups that are never part of another group are the Twinkies and the Asian-Americans. Claim your Fobbiness! When you see your Asian friend, greet them with “Wassup Fob!” And if your Asian friend says something ridiculous, say “Fob please!” Of course, when a non-Asian calls you a Fob, that is grounds for a fight. Ahahaha… The categories below are to be taken lightheartedly. Read, recognize and laugh.
Twinkie
- Besides your nationality, there is little to distinguish you from white people
- Your significant other is not Asian and never has been
- You have few Asian friends, if any
- You are embarrassed at family events because you cannot speak your language and everyone has to switch to English to communicate with you
- You have no idea that the other types of Asians on this list even exist
- You think Hello Kitty is dumb and do not know what Sanrio is
- You are the only Asian on this list that does not know what Bubble Tea is
- You drive a Ford or some other domestic car and if you drive a Honda, it is stock
Asian-American
- You claim yourself as Asian, but real Asians think you’re whitewashed and non-Asians see you as a foreigner. You fit in nowhere
- You have heard of Bubble Tea but have never actually had any
- You are confused about your cultural identity and express this frustration through spoken word performances at your college
- You read A. magazine and think it’s great
- You do not know who Edison, Jay Chou, Ayu, or G.O.D. are
- You are only vaguely aware of the other Asians below
Yap (Young Asian Professional)
- You are in one of these professions:
a) Medicine / Pharmaceutical
b) Engineering
c) Finance
d) Investment Banking
e) Accounting
- Most of your wardrobe was purchased at Banana Republic
- You go to “mixers” on Thursday nights to meet other Yaps and talk about the Dow Jones.
- You did exactly what your parents wanted you to do and as a result, your life is hella boring
- Your apartment/home is decorated almost exclusively with stuff from Pier 1
- Your parents always talk to their friends about how much money you make. If they don’t, then you’re a dissapointment
Fob (Fresh Off tha Boat)
- You were not born in America
- You know who Edison, Jay Chou, Ayu, or G.O.D. are. In fact, you have seen them at Atlantic City or Las Vegas recently
- You speak your native language fluently and so do all your friends
- You do not have any non-Asian friends
- Your parents do not speak any English
- When you speak English, you like to make everything plural
- You get extremely good grades in school
- You cannot dance
- Your fashion sense comes from whatever country you’re from and you incorporate nothing from American fashion into your wardrobe
SuperFob
- Your command of the English language is minimal and you don’t care
- You like dim sum chicken feet
- You do not own a single CD, VCD, Video game, or DVD that isn’t bootlegged
- Your only hangout is Chinatown
- All the lights in your house are fluorescent
- You dry your cloths outside your window
- You need a haircut
- You either smell like cigarettes or food
Fobabee
- You are an Asian-American or Twinkie who has recently “awoken”
- You have a newly found fetish of Asian girls/boys
- You have taken the Asian Studies course at college
- You are trying to learn as much as possible about your culture to make up for your lifetime of trying to be white (Twinkie ; Banana) or Black (Chigger ; Tea egg)
- If you are lucky, you will grow to become Fobulous
Gangsta Fob (Fobsta)
- You have shot another Asian
- Your favorite hangout is a pool hall
- When you talk, you sound like a cross between a Fob and an urban black kid
- Your hair looks silly, but no one will tell you because you’ll shoot them
- You have a serious gambling problem
- You are a Rice-boy, but your mods are cheap and are never painted to match the rest of your car
- No one tells you your rice ride looks cheap because you’ll shoot them
- You want to have a Tab girlfriend, but can only get Hoochie Tabs
Tab (Trendy Asian B*tch)
- You shop at A/X, Bebe and Club Monaco
- You only wear black and will occasionally wear white to “mix it up”
- You do not weigh more than 105 lbs
- You have never paid for dinner at a restaurant in your life
- Platform heels are your favorite
- You are a makeup expert, in fact, you appear completely flawless
- You do not smile in public
- You are the object of desire of all Asian men and you know it
- You smoke
- Your cell phone is completely customized
- Somewhere in your purse is a Sanrio item
- You only date Asian and will only date a boy with a nice car
- You are often seen with Rice-boys
- You never travel alone. You are either in the company of other Tabs or your Rice-boy boyfriend
Hoochie Tab
- You are an import car model
- Your boobs are not real
- There are naked pictures of you floating around on the internet somewhere
- Clear heels are your favorite
- Your role models are Tila Nguyen and Kaila Yu
- Your boyfriend is a Gangsta Fob
- You cheat on your boyfriend
- Unlike most Asians, you do not do well in school
Rice-Boy
- You drive an Asian import. Usually a Honda or Acura
- Your souped up car (known as a Rice-ride or Rice-rocket) is unrecognizable from it’s original stock form
- Your exhaust pipe is big enough for your head to fit in
- The spoiler on your car looks like it was made by Boeing
- The interior of your car also looks like it was designed by Boeing
- You always drive like you are racing someone
- You are not afraid of dying in a crash, but you are afraid of speed bumps and parking lot on-ramps
- The only other person besides yourself who can sit in your car is your 105 lbs Tab girlfriend. If anyone else sits in your car, the entire bottom of it will be touching the ground
- Even though your car is a Honda, it goes faster and is worth more than a Lotus Esprit
Fobulous
- You speak perfect English and you are fluent in your native language
- You have Asian friends as well as non-Asian friends
- You listen to Asian pop as well as American music
- You are equally aware of both popular American culture and Asian pop culture
- You are a good dancer
- You date Asian by choice even though you could rock the opposite sex of any other race
- You are a good designer and have superior Html skills (for that fly MySpace / Xanga page)
- For you, FOB stands for Fabulous Oriental Being
- You have lots of Asian pride
By the way – Happy Be-lated Chinese New Years!
:P, 
KemKem, -
Jeff Kee
I guess I’m closest to Fobulous but vaguely.
My background is interesting cause I grew up in North America/Asia back and forth so I know both cultures way too well and speak English better than Korean while still having near-perfect Korean..
I date any race, however. P*ssy is P*ssy.
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ms danielle
i guess i was twinkie until i was 17, then when all the white people realized they didn’t want to be my friend anymore bc i was actually asian, i landed in the SJ and gangster crowds. (SJ = Super Japanese for those of you who don’t know — you know, the j kids who play basketball, wear HIC, and hang out together at Obon.) ah, high school…..
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BCMblog
So your proud to be asian huh? Great to hear
Aren’t Asian’s Great?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=K-5HhN0_75AEnjoy =)
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Teaching Kimchi
I used to be a twinkie, but now that I’m in Korea I think I am FOBULOUS!
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Domainholics
which asian are you?
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Entrepreneur
I’ve heard better lines, but this is funny as well. The only thing with this list is it applies mainly to Chinese Asians as opposed to any other Asian, doncha think?
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Gary Lee
haha . that’s the one I selected for myself too!
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Gary Lee
eh . . i think it can apply to all asians . . . . but I can see where you’re coming from
Lanceuppercut
I liked how you bagged on every other Asian type except your own. Funny stuff :0P
Neil Duckett
Fobulous sounds like the group to be in.
Hurdlechamp
Ummm.. what about Emo Asians? They’re pretty smart and misunderstood. Never at the family reunions and usually only hang out with other emo Asians as well. Fun post!
Gary Lee
what are you talking about . . . . I’m a ex-rice boy fobaYap . . you best recognize!
KemKem
What about hapas? I’m being told that I’m like a diet twinkie. I’m not sure . . I love Hello Kitty, have lots of Asian friends, and love all Asian food. Well, whatever I am, I absolutely love this post!
:P
haha this is hilraious as! i think i kinda fit into the last category haha
Gary Lee
Thank You Jerry West! Good Riddance Kwa-Me Brown!
Today is a great day for the City of Los Angeles as my Lakers have added the final piece to the championship puzzle. If you haven’t heard yet, the Lakers have pulled off the steal of the year by trading one of the worst players in the league – Kwame Brown – for Pau Gasol – an underrated 7 Foot Power Forward who has lead Spain to the European Championships. When I heard the news, I was literally screaming in my car while driving down Wilshire Blvd in Santa Monica! People must have thought I was crazy, but I didn’t care! I was loving my Lakers!
I know some of you are going remind me that I was asking for Kevin Garnett last summer, but now he is a mortal enemy as he wears the horse manure green of the Boston Celtics! I usually hate Stephen A. Smith, but the man’s speaking the truth in this video clip and I can’t wait to celebrate our next Championship down Figueroa!
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jennifer
whos the guy talking? is that jerry west? he is really funny ! “he has small hands!!”
how was ur first few days @ the happiest place in the world?
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Zac Johnson
Suns vs. Lakers in the playoffs would make for a nice Western Conf Finals! (Shaq vs. Kobe)
Gary Lee
Email has become Snail Mail
For the past couple of weeks, I have been working on a multitude of projects which require a tremendous amount of correspondence via email. With all these different types of projects comes a variety of different types of email accounts – Multiple GMail Accounts, Hotmail, Yahoo and more than 5 different domain based email addresses. What I’ve found is that checking all these emails have really made this sort of communication the new snail mail of our generation!
Why so many email addresses?
Personal (GMail): I use this to communicate with friends and family and get my evites for fun non-internet related events.
Business (GMail): I use this to register for all my main services like my hosting and and affiliate programs.
Spam (Hotmail): For all those contests or promotions that require email to enter. I use it more to research how these contests are working so I can put my own twist to it.
Domain based Emails (gary@example.com): I have a lot of sites where when I communicate on behalf of the site. My rule is that when communicating to vendors for a website, try and use the domain to show a level of authenticity so that the vendors will take you more seriously.
How do I check and organize my emails?
Mail.app – This is the program that comes standard in Leopard and is a pretty decent mail system if I was only using one computer for all my jobs. The reality is that I move between at least 3 different computers throughout the day so my best solution should be a web based email program.
GMail – I thought this would be my solution since GMail has a feature to check all your emails and to also send all your emails. From what I’ve seen, the feature works like Google promotes, but the problem is that I don’t get my emails right away, so when someone is emailing me to my other accounts, I don’t receive it until 15-45 minutes later. In our fast paced life, this is definitely a problem.
I haven’t found a solution yet for my email woes, but hopefully, I’ll figure something out. While writing this post, I found some stuff on .Mac’s iSync. I’ll go check that out and see if that’s something that can work better than GMail. For now, I’m just gonna have to deal with the sloth of the snail unless you have something you could suggest?
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Jeff Kee
I only use POP3 emails straight through my servers. I don’t have a gmail acct, and I still have a hotmail acct only for personal stuff. ALL of my emails are in mail.app, with the option turned ON to leave copies on the server in case I need web-based access.
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Derek
One thing I had briefly experimented with was to use a portable version of Thunderbird on a thumb drive. I went back to my current web-based mail clients because I was having issues with Thunderbird being blocked by the firewall at work.
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Julie, writer surefirewealth.com
When I first read the title of your post, I thought you were looking at email from another angle. I thought that email had become too slow for your liking. A lot of us live in a faster-paced world now with things like twitter and all those other add-ons on blogs. About gmail, I didn’t realize that it processed mail slowly. the reason why I opened a gmail account is because someone told me that attachment was quick and that you get to send and receive messages on time. Anyway, I’m fairly new to gmail so I guess I’ll just have to wait and observe.
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Bob Walton
It indeed is a problem, especially with all the spam out there clogging up cyberspace. I tend to stick to just a couple of accounts and forward the rest to those accounts to help keep things manageable. That way I only log into secondary accounts when it is absolutely necessary.
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Saman Sadeghi
Guys,
Check out IMAP. I have all of my email accounts (including GMail) set up as IMAP and not POP3. This way, regardless of my OS (Linux, Windows, Flash Drive) or client (Thunderbird, Mail, Evolution) I have the latest info.
IMAP will reflect any changes on the server (and not just the clients). If you create a folder, move a message or even read/reply to a message, that change is made at the server level. That means that, if you check your mail at work (say, XP & Outlook) each account will be updated so when you get home (OSX & Mail) read messages will be marked as so!
Best of all, use a flash drive (encrypt it with TrueCrypt) and set up portable Thunderbird so you can travel with your mail! If you’re at your mom’s house or the library, messages will still be updated!!!!
Check it out, you will thank me!
Gary Lee
Get 5% back from YSM and Increase Traffic
A few days ago, American Express struck a deal with Yahoo Search Marketing to help promote their Amex OPEN Savings Program. I personally have the American Express small business card and it has really saved me a lot of money with flights to Blog World Expo and hotel expenses when traveling around the country. Adding this new deal with YSM to help me save 5% on my total spend is a great bonus as I have already tied my accouts to my amex cards!
It’s not only 5% that you’re saving, it’s the increase in Gross Margin that you’re gaining.
With that said, you will be able to bid just a little bit higher on your campaigns over your competitors that aren’t using American Express. Remember my article on finding out your maximum CPC? Now you can use the number you found and apply the 5% discount to find your new maximum bid.
Example:
Formulas to Know
Cost Per Click (CPC) = Total Cost of Campaign / Total Clicks from Campaign Landing Page
Conversion Rate (CR) = Total Number of Leads / Total Number of Page Impressions
Cost Per Action (CPA) = Cost Per Click / Landing Page Conversion Rate
Lead Value = Value of Sale * Lead to Sale Conversion Rate
Gross Margin = (Lead Value – Cost Per Action) / Lead Value
Assumptions
Landing Page Conversion Rate = 10%
Lead to Sale Conversion Rate = 25%
Value of Sale = $100 – Determined by Total Profits divided by number of Sale
Lead Value = $25 – Determined by Total Profits divided by number Leads
Goal
Find Maximum Cost Per Click for a 20% Gross Margin
Solution
Maximum CPA = Lead Value – [Gross Margin (20%) * Lead Value ($25)] = $20
Maximum CPC = CPA ($20) * Landing Page Conversion Rate (10%) = $2.00
Example
Budget = $200
Clicks = 100
Leads = 10
Sales = 2.5
Total = $250
Gross Margin = (Revenue – Cost)/Revenue = (250 – 200)/200 = 20%
So you have figured out that you’re maximum CPC is $2.00, but now that you have got yourself an American Express small business card, you get a 5% discount, so what is your real maximum CPC before the discount?
New Maximum CPC BEFORE 5% discount from YSM.
$2.00 / 95% = $2.10
When it comes to search engine marketing, $0.10 can be the difference between ranking 7th and getting no traffic and ranking 3rd, which is the optimal spot you want to rank for highly targeted, converting traffic.
So, what are you waiting for? Go get your American Express Card and your Yahoo Search Marketing Account today! Here’s some of the things they get discounts for:
Travel and Dining
– Delta(R): 3% off flights (plus 2% with co-branded Business Cards)
– JetBlue(R): 3% off flights (plus 2% with co-branded Business Cards)
– eSkyGuide: 20% off digital flight timetables
– Hyatt Hotels & Resorts(R): 3% off hotel stays
– Hertz(R): 5% off car rentals
– Courtyard by Marriott(R): 5% off hotel stays
– Fairfield Inn by Marriott(R): 5% off hotel stays
– SpringHill Suites by Marriott(R): 5% off hotel stays
– Wingate(R) by Wyndham: 5% off hotel stays
– Ruby Tuesday(R): 5% off dining
Supplies and Services
– Yahoo! Search Marketing: 5% off internet marketing
– Yahoo! Small Business: 5% off internet business tools
– FedEx: 5% off express and ground shipping
– FedEx Kinko’s Office and Print Centers(R): 5% off business services
– 1-800-FLOWERS.COM(R): 5% off flowers and gifts
–
American Express
Incentive Services: 5% off prepaid cards
– Symantec: 10% off security software
Business Building Tools
– BizFilings: 20% off incorporation services
– Ceridian: 20% off payroll services
– Constant Contact(R): 5% off e-mail marketing services
– ExpensAble: 25% off expense management software
– Logoworks by HP: 15% off logo and graphic design
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The Kid
Nice post man, i love my credit cards they get me lots of points, but you don’t need to RSS the story 4times hahaha! You must really love your card
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Gary Lee
damn WP made me think that I never published the original, so I did the whole multiple button tap . . . . sorry about that . . hahahaha
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Rock (Become An Affiliate)
Unfortunately, AMEX caps you at $500 cash back. So if you are a big spender, then that $500 savings might not be worth it. But if you are still a little fish in the big pond then any cash back would be great when starting with PPC.
Jeff 11.22 am on 04.11.2008 Permalink
She is my landlord!