Here is my epiphany: Affiliates are leeches. In any affiliate relationship, you should always assume that the other party is trying to cheat you, period. This is the only way to be safe and keep your costs from inflating.

What do I mean by “leeches”? Quite simply, affiliates will try everything to draw more money out of you than you should actually be paying them. If they get paid for impressions, they’ll inflate their numbers with bots. If they get paid for clicks, they’ll send fraudulent traffic. If they get paid for actions, they’ll submit spam. In any instance, they’ll try to deliver valueless marketing to increase your payout.

Like leeches, of course, you’ll never notice they’re doing it unless you’re vigilant. The only way to avoid the problem is to double- and triple-check what they’re doing. I often find myself saying, “90% of marketing is tracking,” and it’s especially true of affiliate marketing. Trust nothing an affiliate sends you until its value is confirmed. If given the choice, only pay out for marketing that produces results. Any affiliate that seems too good to be true probably is, so trust no one.

Granted, there are legitimate affiliates out there. Heck, I’m one of them. I look forward to a long and profitable relationship with Google AdSense and Text Link Ads because I don’t try to cheat them. Bear in mind, though, that I’m in the minority; I wouldn’t advise anyone to count on more than 5% of their affiliates being honest.

The advice bears repeating. If you’re using affiliate marketing to promote your website, be it through paid search like Google AdWords, third party affiliates like Commission Junction, in-house affiliate contracts, or whatever, beware. You’re swimming with leeches, and if you don’t check what they’re doing, they’ll suck you dry.

Here’s how it works. You are invited or volunteer to write on a site, preferably a reputable one. In exchange, you may be paid and/or receive a byline for your article. If it’s a blog post, you provide feedback in the comments (linking back to your own website when appropriate, even if the links are nofollowed). If you become a regular contributor, you may get an author bio page featuring a link back to your own site. It’s only courteous, since the host of the site is receiving valuable content without having to work for it.

There are downsides to this method of website promotion, of course. For starters, if your own website is a blog, your posting frequency may suffer from divided attention. If your blog is profitable, this may lead to lost income, even if you’re paid for your contributions elsewhere. Unfortunately, weighing the costs against the benefits might be like comparing apples to oranges, so it may be difficult to say if it’s really worthwhile. When in doubt, offer to contribute on a trial basis.

The real benefit, of course, is reputation. My friend JP Sherman, for example, earned some street cred in the gaming community by posting articles for Ten Ton Hammer. I’ve done the same thing by posting on Search Engine Lowdown and Daily Blog Tips. Whether or not these contributions have any immediate benefit is irrelevant; in the long run, they’re money in the credibility bank, which can easily improve your readership or even land you a new job. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call time well spent.

The key to success with link request emails is all in the execution. Most will fail to produce a link. Many won’t even get read. Done correctly, a handful of those sent out might generate a favorable response. Done incorrectly, you can count on getting a whole lot of nothing (or worse, a bunch of irritated webmasters) for your trouble. It’s the difference between minimal return and no return.

Here are a few guidelines to consider when you’re composing your emails.

• Write a provocative subject. The first step to having your link request considered is to get it read. Be sure to compose a subject that is likely to get your email opened, such as “Re: Their Page’s Title.” Don’t mislead, but don’t entitle your email, “Link Request,” since that’s just asking to have it deleted.
   
• Keep it short. Time and again, webmasters note that the best (i.e. least annoying) link request emails are brief. Don’t provide a lengthy lead-in to the purpose of your email; get to the point tactfully but quickly and conclude the same way. The less you get on the webmaster’s nerves, the more likely they are to consider your request.
   
• Personalize. Do you like getting scripted phone solicitations or “Current resident” junk mail? Of course not. Neither do webmasters. If the reader feels your email was automated or templated, they’re likely to show you as much consideration as they think you’ve shown them. If you know the webmaster’s first name, opening with that is a great start. It’s also useful to say a word or two about their website to demonstrate that the email was composed by a human being who actually visited it.

  Note: Using templated link request emails is perfectly fine. After all, writing a good one can be painstaking work and much of what you have to say will be the same from one email to the next. The point here is that it shouldn’t show. Each email should be customized enough that it sounds like it was composed specifically for the intended reader.
   

• Be polite. Much like link recovery, a webmaster is under no obligation to honor a link request. Ask nicely. Paying their website a compliment can help you get on their good side. If you’re promoting a business website, make your request as professional as possible.
   
• Show benefit. Briefly explain how a link to your site will sync up with their site’s theme and add value for their visitors. If you’re willing to provide a reciprocal link, be sure to say so. In fact, if you’re really gunning for their link, put up a link to their site before sending the email and tell them where to find it. The more incentive you give them to put it up, the more likely they are to do so.
   
• Provide code. In case they aren’t very HTML savvy, provide code for the link that can be copied and pasted directly into their site. Note that customizing this code to the specific website can be an effective way of personalizing the email.
   
• Signal your credibility. Some websites use third party services to build links. Show that you’re actually associated with the site in question by sending from an email address at that domain. It also helps to provide your contact information at the end of the email. Whether or not the webmaster chooses to contact you (most won’t), it still demonstrates that you’re a real person who is willing to discuss the link request.

It’s important to remember, of course, that link request emails are not highly favored for a good reason: They’re annoying. Many webmasters will consider your email to be spam. At best, they may delete it outright and/or filter your email address. At worst, they may respond in an irate manner.

If you’re willing to put up with a few angry emails and a lot of rejection, however, link request emails can net you a handful of valuable, organic links in places where no automated link exchange, directory, or text link ad ever could. They’re definitely not anyone’s first choice for link building, but for a growing website, link request emails can be an effective compliment to an existing link building campaign.

Is it content? No. If I’ve subscribed, I already like the content. Is it regularity of posting? No. I’ll keep an infrequently updated blog on my feed list even if it only gets a post every few weeks. It’s not like there’s any added effort in doing so, and if I like the content, why not keep it?

No, it’s not what most people might expect. I find that the fastest way to lose me as a reader is to undermine the conversational nature of blogging by disallowing my comments.

I’ve run into this problem twice so far. For courtesy’s sake, I won’t call the offending blogs out by name. One was a game design blog and another was a marketing blog. On both, I posted a few well-thought-out, relevant comments. I didn’t write a dissertation or break any new ground; I simply shared my thoughts on the post topic.

Mind you, I wasn’t spamming for link love. I believe in blogs as a platform for conversation and I know how validated I feel when someone posts a comment, even a fairly mundane one. Besides, like most others, both of these blogs automatically tagged their comment links with rel=”nofollow”, so there was no link juice being passed anyway. In a word, my comments were innocent.

Nonetheless, for reasons I can only imagine, both of these bloggers took it upon themselves to moderate my comments out of their posts with some consistency. This wouldn’t have felt so bad if it didn’t seem like I was being singled out. Why were other commenters having their comments posted while mine were being denied?

In the end, I felt intentionally excluded and unsubscribed from the blogs in question. It really is a shame, since I genuinely enjoyed their content. When a blogger obviously doesn’t value what I have to say, however, it kills my interest in what they have to say. It’s like getting the cold shoulder; you just can’t help but return the sentiment.

So here’s my warning. If you want to garner and maintain a readership, don’t exclude comments that don’t deserve to be excluded. How do you determine if a comment is worth excluding? Here are some guidelines.
 

Good Reasons to Exclude a Comment

• Spam. This one’s a given, and the main reason most people enable moderation in the first place. Spammers are out to exploit, not contribute.
   
• Flamebait. If a commenter’s only goal is to get a rise out of you or your other readers, allowing their comments will only invite trouble. Then again, it can be fun to duke it out with flamers from time to time.
   
• Irrelevant. A post and its associated comments are a conversation. If a comment fails to contribute to that conversation in any meaningful way, that’s grounds for deletion.

Good Reasons to Edit (But Still Keep) a Comment

• Content rating. If your website is family-friendly, it’s perfectly fine to edit the content of a comment to fit into your rating guidelines, such as by removing profanity. Having a clear commenting policy can help avoid friction over this.
   
• Poor grammar. It’s a fact of life in the blogosphere; some people lack the eloquence or motivation to form proper sentences. If one or more grammar mistakes are all the stand in the way of an otherwise worthwhile comment, it’s perfectly fine to correct the error(s).
   

Bad Reasons to Exclude a Comment

• Disagreement. One kind of conversation is debate, and debates can make for very interesting reading. As long as it’s worded constructively (i.e. not flamebait), a comment that disagrees with your views is worth keeping most of the time. As an example, I’ve been having a great debate about the Second Amendment recently with a commenter who disagrees with my stance on the issue.
   
• Uninteresting. Some readers don’t have a point to make. They may just want to get a word in edgewise or voice support for an opinion. As I’ve pointed out, failing to include such comments can alienate the readers who make them.

In the end, the real measure of a comment’s worth is whether or not it adds any value for your readers. Comments that advance a conversation are great for everyone, but don’t forget that your commenters are part of your readership, too. If a comment isn’t great but doesn’t do any harm, consider the impact of excluding it. You never know; you may be turning away a regular reader by doing so.

It took some explaining for me to understand. Perhaps the one and only true metric of success when it comes to marketing is a little thing called ROI, or Return On Investment for you non-marketing folks. It’s a ratio that says, “How much are you getting for what you’re paying?” If your ROI is greater than 100%, your marketing efforts are earning more than they’re costing. On the other hand, if your ROI is less than 100%, you’re losing money.

Once that was explained to me, the truth of my supervisor’s statement became clear. When marketing is done correctly, it’s a positive investment. Your ROI exceeds 100% and you’re netting more profit than cost. If it stays that way, then there’s no reason in the world to worry about your advertising budget. After all, if you’re getting $1.20 for every dollar you pay for marketing, why wouldn’t you put as much as possible into it?

Of course, achieving a perpetually positive ROI is a complex task that involves, among other things, a lot of tracking and analytics. Most marketing experts wish they could boast such a feat. Still, I find that the whole, “Marketing is never a cost when done correctly,” line is a great way to put thrifty clients at ease when it comes time to discuss their marketing budget.

Blogs are a lot like bedrooms; if you do a lot of living in them, they’re bound to accumulate some clutter. It wasn’t until recently that I started looking around the site and noticing the trash piling up. So, I decided to pick up after myself.

It was during this bout of blog cleaning that I happened upon the site’s old photo album page. As one of the few throwbacks from the old website, I couldn’t help but feel that it looked out of place. Still, nobody tosses out a photo album, so instead of scrapping it I decided to give it an overhaul.

Now, I’ve never been one for photo albums. At the risk of sounding sexist, they’ve always seemed kind of girly to me. As I pondered what to do with it (and why I made it in the first place if I didn’t really enjoy updating it), a solution dawned on me. Why not get my wife to do it?

It took some convincing. After all, my wife isn’t a blogger. In fact, when I first mentioned the term “blog” to her, she swore I was making it up. Only after it started getting used in popular media did she grudgingly accept that I hadn’t. She fought the idea for awhile, but, after I pointed out that the website was finally making some money and that she could help it make more, she conceded.

I can’t deny having felt a little apprehensive. After all, Project Paradox has always been a one-man show. Still, I can think of a lot of reasons why it’s a good idea to get someone else to contribute to your blog.

1. Variety. Loyal readers might get tired of hearing the same viewpoint or reading the same writing style. By inviting guest bloggers to post, you give your readership a break from the same old, same old.
2. Rankings. Search engines view sites with more content, and those that are updated more frequently, with greater authority, and thus tend to rank them better for search queries. By having more people creating posts, you contribute to both and may, over time, experience an increase in search engine rankings as a result.
3. Community. Blogs tend to live or die based on their level of interactivity with other blogs. This ties back in with my thoughts on blog commenting. Granted, my wife isn’t a very good example of this, but most guest bloggers aren’t spouses. Inviting others to contribute can foster the kind of friendships that help make blogs so successful.
4. Convenience. Alright, when you get right down to it, you’re having someone write your blog for you. There’s definitely an element of laziness involved. Of course, truly dedicated bloggers will take their saved time and effort and put it right back into their blogs somehow. Still, it’s nice to be able to kick up your feet and take a break once in awhile.

Okay, so I’ve been at the whole blogging thing for more than a year now, almost as long as I’ve been learning website promotion. You’d think commenting on related blogs would have been my first priority. It was certainly one of the first things that I learned could make or break a blog. I guess I didn’t consider it important until now since it’s only recently that Project Paradox started making money. Whatever the reason, though, if you want a successful blog, commenting is key.

That’s because blogging is a social activity. Blogging utilities are created with commenting functions for the sole purpose of letting others interact with you through your blog. Those little comment forms might not look very important, but they are perhaps the second most important part of your blog after the content. Through them, your posts can turn from mere words into lively discussions, providing even more value to your readers by keeping them engaged.

But commenting is about more than just your blog. Nearly every blog has this capability. It’s also important to go out and comment on other blogs, as well. You’ll be providing useful feedback to them and, more than likely, receiving a valuable link back to your own blog. If you keep this up, you’ll foster ongoing friendships and large-scale link popularity, both of which will help to promote your website.

Here are three ways to make commenting work for your website.

1. Allow commenting on your blog. If you’ve got this feature disabled, make it enabled as soon as possible. Your readers have things to say about your blog, so you should give them the opportunity. It’s easy to get spammed this way, though, so be sure to enable moderation to weed out the junk.
2. Seek out related blogs and post your comments. It’d be rude to receive comments without giving any. Go searching for some other blogs relevant to your subject and give them a well-thought-out comment. Don’t leave a useless comment just to get a link, though. After all, nobody likes spam. Such a comment will more than likely be deleted, all the while doing nothing to endear you to the author (who could always be a potential reader).
3. Follow up on comments. Comments can, and often do, lead to discussion. Respond to those left on your blog and check back in on those you’ve left on other blogs. If someone responds to your comment, be sure to reciprocate. Fostering relationships in this way will create loyal readers and excellent linking opportunities.

I peered into yet another level of social networking the other day by starting my own page on del.icio.us. It’s interesting to see how popular your favorite sites are and to browse those others have found. I was very gratified to follow this trail of common interest to find some real gems at the end.

Part of me can’t help but wonder if social surfing like this will completely replace conventional web surfing. After all, why stumble blindly around the internet looking for interesting sites when you let other people with common interests guide you to them? Like similar phenomena, it’s so simple and intuitive, and yet so new, that you can’t help but wonder why nobody thought of it sooner. At any rate, it’s yet another wonderful way to promote your website. I’ll be looking forward to seeing how much I can get out of it.

Still, his zeal on the subject intrigued me enough to take my first faltering steps into the creation of my own MySpace profile. It seemed simple enough. You collect your personal information on a standardized homepage, generate your own content, and develop a network of friends. As your profile becomes more popular, your friends list grows larger, and vice versa. It is, as Garrett would surely agree, a fine example of social networking at work.

Of course, I wasn’t truly impressed with it until, after mere minutes of searching, I successfully located and added an old coworker to my friends list. It was my old supervisor, the only boss I had at Advanced Internet Technologies who I actually liked and with whom I had been unable to get into contact for months. That I was able to reestablish a social link so rapidly in MySpace blew my mind.

I can’t say whether it was a fluke or MySpace is simply a well-designed web application, but I’ll certainly be keeping up with my profile to find out. I’m starting to see what Garrett’s always saying about the possibilities. If I can manage to find a few more friends with similar ease, you’ll hear me preaching the gospel of MySpace alongside him.

Webrings are associations of mutually-linked websites that usually follow a common theme. They appear as little navigation boxes like those found at the bottom of most pages on Project Paradox. They’re useful for visitors because they can find many related sites quickly and easily, and they’re attractive to webmasters because they generate traffic. Best of all, they can be tucked away at the bottom of a page so as not to clutter up your content.

The trick to boosting your traffic with webrings is to join as many as possible using many different pages with distinct content. Project Paradox, for example, belongs to approximately 300 webrings, although not all 300 lead to the same page. To really drive traffic to your website, follow these steps.

• Create an account on Webring.org. Be sure to create a nice, informative blurb for your pages’ descriptions.
• Go through the webring index and submit applications to join as many related sites as possible. Be sure to place the SSNB code on your pages before applying, since most ringmasters won’t even consider your site without it.
• Whenever you create a new page for your site with distinct content, repeat the process. Traffic will feed through that page into the rest of your site.
• If you ever notice a webring going up for adoption, immediately accept the offer. Even large webrings require very little work, and you can arbitrarily place your site in the Featured Sites list for each ring, generating even more traffic.

You may notice the word “content” being thrown around a lot here, and for good reason. No website can retain visitors without content, no matter how many hits it gets. What’s more, many ringmasters will immediately deny a site lacking in content, and affiliate programs like AdSense will have nothing to do with it. Content is king, folks. So, before you start applying to every webring in site, tear down those “Under Construction” signs and fill in those empty pages. Otherwise, you’ll be in for a lot of disappointment.