January 11, 2007 at 11:59 am · Filed under SEO
I have been reading a few posts on various blogs about the “usefullness” of SEO. There have always been different camps and opinions on things like White Hat / Black Hat SEO practices as well as Paid vs. Organic search marketing. I am sure that the Social Media group will also put in their two cents into this debate as well. It makes for some interesting reading, but what REALLY interests me is that when people get fired up about thier opinion and feel the need to defend their position, they certainly link a TON to other blogs / sites. Debates are great “link bait”. You can catch a good summary of the debate (and the history of it) here. (I had to link somewhere) 
My Opinion?? Learn as much as you can…constantly expirement with every aspect of search so that you know what works and what doesn’t. If you want to try concepts that are “out on the edge” of SEO, do it on sites that you are willing to lose.
January 13, 2007 at 9:36 pm · Filed under Affiliate Marketing
For those looking for a way to easily integrate a store onto a website or blog, you should definately consider PrestoGifto.com. I found their Cafe Press WordPress Plugin through a search, and had a complete store running on my site within 15-20 minutes. There is no programming required, and it seems to integrate smoothly with WordPress. The cost? Every 5th click on your store switches your affiliate ID with theirs. However, if you are a store owner from Cafe Press, you still get all your markup, so no big deal. If you are just an affiliate promoting cafe press products, then it is a small price to pay for a complete store on your blog…but it gets better.
Have you ever tried to integrate merchants products into your affiliate site…it can be a real pain. However, PrestoGifto is not just for blogs…it is for any website. They also have another site popshops.com that integrates with a wide range of merchants from CJ, LinkShare, and Share-a-Sale. How cool is that!!
Here is a sample store that I set up on a WordPress blog.
Give it a try and let me know what you think by leaving a comment. I was totally pumped when I found this tool!
