'Net Features : 372011

WordPress-Enabled Affiliates and Avantlink

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 04:30:00 GMT

Affiliate network Avantlink has released a WordPress plugin that might be worth a look. As it stands now, the plugin has been download just over 100 times. So WM asks you - how do you monetize your WordPress site? Do you need a direct from network plugin?

AvantLink affiliates that download the plugin have access to tools and functionality including the ability to integrate text/banner/video ads, the ability to use AvantLink's affiliate link encoder, create custom links, and create product ad widgets. But is it enough?

"For some time now we have recognized the power and scalability of the Wordpress CMS as it relates to our industry," says Gary Marcoccia, AvantLink CMO. "More and more affiliates are using Wordpress to manage their content, so it was a no-brainer to develop a plugin that not only covers the basic installation of banners or ad widgets, but also allows users to integrate significantly more complicated ad techology like our ProductSearch API."

To use the plugin, affiliates will need to have an active and valid account at Avantlink.

So affiliates, how do you monetize your WordPress site?

Publisher Tools Analysis from Lijit

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 03:15:00 GMT

Lijit Networks, a site search and engagement tool provider for online publishers, announced results of its 2010 Publisher Tools Analysis today.

Lijit surveyed 735,834 websites to collect data on referring traffic and on-site widget deployment (any regularly occurring functionality on a website powered by an external service, voluntarily installed by the site owner, and powered by Flash or Javascript).

Sites analyzed include all 15,000 sites in the Lijit Network as well as their extended network, which incorporates blogrolls and other linked sites. Of the sites surveyed, 84.8% have widgets installed.

Information of note from the study includes:
- Widget adoption specifically related to Facebook and Twitter almost doubled, growing from 6.96% to 11.86% deployment.
- Of referring traffic from social media sources, 44% came from Facebook, 41% came from StumbleUpon, 6.7% came from Digg, 5.13% came from Twitter, and 2% came from Reddit.
- Related content tools used to keep readers on-site longer didn’t make the list of Top 10 tools in 2009, but are now being used by 3.68% of sites surveyed.
- Online advertising services continue to track at a 20% adoption rate; however, new monetization tools used in affiliate marketing programs such as Skimlinks, Infolinks, and Amazon saw a 16% increase in 2010.

“Online publishing has become a two-way street, and those who are most successful have learned to use social media to build highly engaged, conversational communities of readers,” said Todd Vernon, CEO and founder of Lijit Networks. “Social media tools should not only be used to attract new readers, but also to engage and retain them by allowing people to post comments, receive feedback, and share relevant information.”

SEO and Directory Depth Factors

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 02:00:00 GMT

In honor of our most recent cover story on the modern elements of search engine optimization, it would prove useful to do a few case studies over the next few days to identify some of the other core elements of SEO that may have been addressed sparingly in the article. Today let's look at how depth might affect a number of factors as it relates to placement on search results pages by the major search engines.

What we are ultimately trying to find out in a current analysis of depth in relation to SEO is whether it is best to place optimized pages higher in the site architecture or lower and within subdirectories (which obviously provides opportunities to present relevance cues to both search engines and users in the form of keywords).

The keyword in question (Easter gifts for children) is both timely and modestly competitive. Keep in mind that it is likely that results will vary, but there is something definitely to analyze here.

Google and the Depth/Architecture Factor: Based on our evaluation, there is no evidence that Google favors pages that are included extensive directory systems or structures. Within the first 30 results, 43 percent of pages returned could be found within the root directory, 26 percent were found one directory level deep, 13.3 percent were two levels deep, 6.6 percent were three levels deep, and 10 percent were four levels deep.

Bing and the Depth/Architecture Factor: The same holds true for the Bing index: it does not seem to favor sites with extensive structures. Within the first 30 results, 50 percent of pages were found in the root directory (80 percent in the top 10 results), 23 percent were found one directory level deep, 20 percent were two levels deep, and 6 percent were found three levels deep.

Grok-o-matic: Adwords Campaigns in Minutes

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 00:45:00 GMT

Y-Combinator backed startup AdGrok has released a solution that will appeal greatly to those interested in starting large-scale AdWords campaigns quickly without spending the thousands of man hours (and dollars) typically required - it's called Grok-o-matic.

What the solution provides is a way to extract data from landing pages which can then be used in keyword and text ad templates. - quite useful if you have a few thousand product pages.

Users of the AdGrok feature simply upload a text file of URLs, define page attributes such as name and price (using a combination of CSS/XPath selectors together with a regular expression), and within a few clicks an entire product catalog can be up on Adwords. AdGrok has made the process even simpler for some merchants, integrating with at least one shopping cart in Shopify. Expext others to be added in short order.

Grok-o-matic is feature of AdGrok's ProGrok account which cost $59/month, but a fifteen day free trial is available. For those spending less than $500 per month on Adwords, AdGrok is free.

Email for Internet Retailers

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 23:30:00 GMT

E-commerce software provider Miva Merchant has partnered with email service provider Exact Target, releasing a new email marketing application dubbed Miva Merchant Mailer.

The application includes pre-bult templates and customization options for HTML-capable users. Merchants can also add opt-in email addresses directly from their websites and add them to the email marketing list in real-time. The announcement indicated that other features are on their way, including modular integration with the Miva Merchant software. Existing Miva Merchant users can try the application free for 30 days - pricing starts at $9.95 for up to 250 contacts.

"We've been an Enterprise customer of Exact Target for a number of years,“ says Rick Wilson, Miva Merchant COO. "When the opportunity came up to partner with them to leverage their platform in an easy- to-use, intuitive product for the small and medium sized business space, we immediately moved to offer such a product."

Miva is a very well known solution in the mid-tier e-commerce product landscape, so expect others to start touting their software's current email marketing capabilities or integrating with similar services soon.