#ASW10 — Day One of Three (Part 2)

Where did we leave off? Oh yes, I briefly spoke with Greg “The Hoff” Hoffman (@akaGorilla on Twitter).

I was quickly off to my next session, as I wanted to get a good seat, you know, one with an electrical outlet. The name of this session was “Monetizing Blogs for Affiliate Marketing and SEO.” I really had my eye on this session as I would love to know the secrets of how to make money from my blog. These little banners in my sidebar get clicked, but ultimately there have been zero sales or leads to come of them.

I was really disappointed with this session. I think it was mislabeled. It should have read Optimizing Blogs for Search Engines as there was only one shred of monetization tips found. It was 99% newbie-oriented. I mean, I already know what plugins to use on WordPress, link to your home page and other posts from your other posts, link back to your blog from off-site content, use do-follow, reply to your commentators, etc.


One of the panelists, Drew Bennet from BenSpark.com even contacted me prior to the show to ask me what questions I wanted answered. None of them were even addressed. Should we blame it on the moderator? Who knows. I will give him an ounce of credit, as he advised that he makes money from his blogs by utilizing Izea. He buys the product ahead of time and makes a review. (Sometimes gets a free review copy) and then writes a review blog post and there you have it. Kind of straight forward, but not with banners as my questions in email were: “What is your favorite banner plugin?” and “What banners work best on a blog?”

If you are brand-spankin-new to blogging, I recommend this session. Otherwise, if you didn’t attend this session, you didn’t miss a thing. Sorry guys.

The next session I attended was “Video: Biggest Affiliate Marketing Opportunity Since Google” with Jeremy Palmer and Rosalind Gardner. I really wanted to meet Jeremy as we “met” online in his PPC Classroom #1 product. I was a moderator on the forums.

The gist of the information covered statistics on video marketing. For instance, the average internet user watches eight hours of media online, whether it be youtube videos, tv shows, news, or movies. There has been a shift from couch potatoes to desk potatoes.

Rosalind pointed out that the older user (35 years and up) love, I mean love to watch instructional videos online. (Rather than read how-to articles)

Also, with Google’s switch to Universal Search, you can now get more hits by utilizing media on your sites such as video, photos, and audio. The rest of the story is that Google loves video. Okay, we got it. I walked out of this session — I was hungry because I was running on empty since waking up.

I caught up with Stephanie as she was rushing to the Affiliate Summit Mentor Program meet-up. She reminded me of the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, lol. Eventually I got there too, (those rabbits are quick!) but Jennifer hadn’t even started yet. Woot!

I thought that I could become a mentor, and that’s why I went. However, I don’t think it was for me. I said hi to a few friends and then bounced, but not before taking a dailybooth pic.

It was a pretty good time at the Rio on Sunday, and I was looking forward to the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance Under the Stars party by Share-a-Sale. I met James’ affiliate manager from BlooSky, Bethany. Then I kicked it in my room before heading down to the party.

It was a wonderful party, as I had never been to one before. There was, ironically enough, an under-the-sea motif going on. SAS was hinting at their Affiliate Aquarium. Good Job!

Lots of finger foods, karaoke, bouncy house, chocolate fountain, photobooth, and casino games made for a whopping good time. It was a little too loud to actually get some networking done. No, this was more for fellowship, not pitching. I enjoyed myself playing blackjack and then holdem. I met Kat Capparelle (from PMG) at the poker table and did an impromptu interview. Did I mention the open bar? Yep, I had a few Jack-n-Cokes and was barely getting that good feeling when it was all over.


I didn’t know what else to do or go, so off to beddy-bye I went. I think. It’s all a blur, lol. And that’s what you can expect at your first day at Affiliate Summit. Have fun, interact, be merry, and invite someone to lunch – your treat. You’ll be surprised at how it relaxes you.