Unfocused Content

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For the last 45 days I have been undercover, posing as an affiliate marketer on the Internet, in an attempt to learn all that I could about this illicit ring of hack sites and expose the pseudo-industry for what it is – a big fat hairy lie.

Before I dive into my report, I’d like to provide some background for this case. For years I held out hope that the world was fair and that my blogging effort from mid 2002 to late 2007 was akin to the efforts of other writers who submitted their work in the more tradition manner involving stamps and SASEs and (shudder) cover letters. In what was perhaps a moment of true clarity, in November of last year I came to the realization that my blogging efforts to date were weak and half-hearted, which greatly contributed to their being wholly unrewarded. It was at this time that I decided to “take my blogging seriously.” So, I began in earnest to research what it took to become a successful blogger. I learned a great deal about the things that I had been doing wrong, but the main thrust of almost every site I visited was that I needed to blog about something – be it “photography” or “Mining in Utah” or “Paris Hilton.” I needed focused content.

The problem, as I saw it, was that my pen and paper travels had always taken me to unique and diverse ports of call. I am a man of many interests because it is not the thing I am interested in, so much as the way it plays upon the human psyche. For instance, I am not overly passionate about the raising of children, but I do enjoy writing about some of the more outlandish stuff that is associated with children and with parenting. I could not see limiting myself to one topic, so in true Jay fashion, I started a blog called Unfocused Content. This was my way of telling the world that I would not conform to the rules of the Internet. I am a renaissance man, and it was my hope that I could transcend the pre-formed cubby structure of the blogosphere and have at least marginal, if not overwhelming success.

That didn’t work. I blame myself mostly, because at the same time I was gearing up a new career, and I was not able to produce consistent, quality content. At this moment I still believe that I could, with the right level of effort, make Unfocused Content work as a concept. But, it would take more time than I have available in the day, so I have resigned myself to the fact that this is simply a place for me to record my musings for my wife, mother and the occasional passerby to read.

Two months ago I was at a crossroads, both personally and professionally. We had some scares at work that forced me to stand up and evaluate my mid-term and long-term goals. I came back around to an idea that I’ve held for several years – I don’t really want to work the rest of my life in a cube. This is in no way revolutionary, but it was something that I’d forgotten to think about, so when it was pulled forth from the farthest reaches of my brain, it brought with it a sense of longing, but also a sense of adventure. I knew there were people making money on the Internet, and I gleaned from here and there that they were not doing so by writing semi-humorous 800-1000 word articles, or even by writing daily posts about the stars of High School Musical. So, I took it upon myself to investigate this world of Internet money, to see if it was right for me.

The world I’m talking about is affiliate marketing. It is often mislabeled “blogging for money” because many affiliate marketers chose the blog format for their sales pitches, but it is in no way related to the blogging that you and I know so well, wherein we discuss something, usually our lives, for our own edification.

The idea behind affiliate marketing is that people like you and me purchase goods and services on the Internet In order to find those goods and services, we use search engines. It is human nature to type in what you are seeking, then chose one of the first few results on the first page, all while thinking to yourself “hey, I typed in what I am seeking, and the search engine returned something, so these results must be related.” If, however, the affiliate marketer has done his job correctly, when you type in “free anuall credit report” (misspellings intentional) the first result on the first page of the search engine results page (SERP) will be his site that is optimized for your misspellings. The site may or may not contain actual information about Credit Reports, but it will certainly contain the keyword “free anuall credit report” about a hundred times, it will certainly display advertisements related to credit reports, and quite possibly it will provide a link where you can sign up for a credit report service. If you click and ad, or sign up for the service, the affiliate marketer makes some cash.

“Well, that’s not so bad,” you say, “at least I found some information on credit reports.” Did you? Let me ask you this – if there were no affiliate marketers, when you typed in “free anuall credit report,” what do you think you would see? Probably a suggestion from the search engine for the correct spelling, which might then lead you to an actual page of an actual company that provides an actual service related to credit reports. In the end, you are at the same place, which means the affiliate marketer did not “help” in any way. So, why does he exist? Good question.

It is not just misspellings that affiliate marketers target. They have an animal called “long-tail keywords” that they optimize for as well. If you were looking for a Wii Fit, you might just type “Wii Fit.” According to Wordtracker’s Gtrends, there are 6,347 searches for Wii Fit a day, and 13.5 million sites out there that contain the phrase “Wii Fit.” As an affiliate marketer, it would be awesome to get all 6,347 people to your site, but with 13.5 million people competing for that keyword, you would be lucky to get one visit a week. But, 12 people a day search for “wii fit with wii balance board,” a long-tail keyword, and there are only 17,000 sites competing for that traffic. So if you were the top site on the SERP, you could expect most of those folks to come to your site. In the affiliate marketing game, it is not about making $200 a day on a single site, it is about making $1.00 a day on 200 sites.

But, to create 200 sites, you would have to know a little something about 200 different things. That is when it struck me – what I’d been doing wrong on Unfocused Content (besides not posting enough, and being sort of boring most of the time) was throwing all of my ideas on to a single site. I should start a blog about trips to the zoo, and another blog about trips to the amusement park, and a third blog about trips to the Virgin Islands. (Wait, maybe I just need a blog about trips – FamilyAdventures-321.us. Hmmm.)

So, here is where the confession part begins. Even though I think it is unscrupulous to mislead honest folks to coming to my sites just to view and click on my ads, and even though I think it is despicable to make money doing this, I tried it. Following the advice of some professional affiliate marketers, I set up several blogs that were optimized for long-tail keywords. I published a few posts on these blogs with my keywords sprinkled liberally throughout the text. Then, I published these blog posts at free article sites, making sure to include a link to my site in the text of the article. I added some extremely attractive “widgets” to my page, all advertising items related to my keyword and all linked to my account so that, if clicked, I would get paid. Lastly, I submitted my sites and site maps to the search engines, and waited for them to get “indexed.” (Indexed means that they will appear in search results. Until the search engines index your site, it is just out there in space and no one can find it unless they know it is there.)

And, it worked. If you type in “used Wii games,” my site comes up on the first page of the search results. This took about a week, which is apparently really fast, so I must have done it correctly. And, I have had a small amount of traffic. I have not made my first dollar yet, but I am sure it is coming. I’ve pulled together nine sites so far and I was going to make a tenth this morning when I realized that to get to 200 sites at my current rate of production, I would be building for another year and a half. Of course, affiliate marketers have an answer for this too – automation software.

I could buy software that would build the sites, build the links and even write the articles for me. All I would have to do was sit back and watch the machine crank out money.

“Really, you ask?”

“Well, I’m not sure,” I reply, “I didn’t try it because it sounds sort of blackhat.”

“What is blackhat,” you ask.

There are three types of Search Engine Optimization (SEO.) Whitehat SEO is playing by the rules and doing everything that the search engines (mostly Google) tell you is ok. Blackhat is SEO that is definitely against the search engine rules. For instance, creating a site for a good cause, getting links to that site from some reputable sites, then redirecting your good cause site to a sales pitch site, which pops way up in the SERPs and makes you a ton on money. That is illegal, and bad. Grayhat SEO falls somewhere in between the two, and is harder to define, but the tactics described in this article probably fall into the Grayhat category..

“So, what kept you from buying the automation software,” you ask, “besides morals?” It came down to how I felt after my relations with the affiliate marketing pros. There are tons of categories that affiliate marketers focus on – but two that come to mind are related to people looking for help with their lives – weight loss, and get-rich-quick schemes. Guess which one “affiliate marketing” falls into. I began to realize that the guys who were telling me how to do this stuff, the gents who were lovingly guiding me toward my big money future, were also mentioning here and there that I needed this tool or that program so that I could bang out the volume of sites I would need, or generate the links required to make real money. It turns out, I was just another one of their “customers,” and they were selling to me just like they were selling to the credit report guy. One guy actually said “you need product X. If you can’t afford to spend $27 to make thousands, then you’re in the wrong (expletive) business and you should just go get a (expletive) job at McDonalds.” I thought to myself, “where have I heard that sort of no-nonsense language before?” “Oh, right, the used car salesmen I used to work with.”

The last straw came this morning when I signed up for a “free” service that was guaranteed to increase my sales volume. (Not that I am selling anything.) As soon as I signed up, I was greeted with a one-time-only offer to by over $6,000 dollars of worthlessness for only $67. (Everything in the affiliate marketing world has a price that ends in “7.” Apparently research indicates that people will buy stuff if it costs something-7 dollars.) I said no to that offer, then I was greeted with another page that wanted me to create a page just like the one I had said no too, and put it on one of my sites where I sell this “free” service, so that each time one of you suckers signed up for the free $67 offer, I would make 75%. To me, that sounds a lot like MLM – if you don’t want to buy, it, maybe you want to sell it? It was then that I said “this is all a bunch of malarkey, and I am done, done, done.”

So, here we are. I closed that page, and I started this entry. I don’t think I will spend the next year and a half making worthless sites and trying to insert myself in the sales process just to make a few bucks. I am not adding value, and I am not really providing anything that folks could not get from an actual product site, so why am I there? Sure, the money would be fantastic, but it reminds me too much of a Tupac song.

“I made a G today.”

“But you made it in a sleazy way. Selling crack to the kids.”

“I gotta get paid.”

“Well hey, that’s the way it is.”

Plus, it’s not like this is new. Guys just like me have been doing this exact thing for several years. It is no secret that every domain name out there is registered by someone for something. (Even everydomainnameistaken.com is taken.) And, think of anything you might want to purchase on the Internet, and type it into a search engine. I guarantee most of the top sites in the SERPs are affiliate marketing sites. It is just sad, and there is no room for a semi-scrupulous guy like me.

As for my future, I have no idea what I am going to do. I actually enjoyed building the sites, writing the articles and optimizing for search engines. Maybe I’ll try to find some freelance work building sites for affiliate marketers. I hear that is a booming little industry.

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