When to use Genesis vs Thesis

by Joe Sousa on January 27, 2012

in Affiliate Stuff,Uncategorized

From everything I have seen Genesis and Thesis are the two most popular premium WordPress themes out there. I use both of them regularly (this site runs on Thesis) and regularly recommend both of them (and not just because I get an affiliate commission).

Overall both of these premium themes are very SEO friendly, somewhat easy to use, flexible. But what makes me decide to use one vs the other? Here are a few strengths and weaknesses I see in each for different applications. And yeah, I know there are probably ways to make each of them do what I want in certain situations and from time to time I do mess around with the PHP code and CSS but for the most part I usually want to just install it and go.  And keep in mind I am speaking in big generalities here. But here is when I use each theme and what makes me decide to use one vs. another:

1. If I am going to update the site on a regular basis (like this site) I will use Thesis. I think overall the layout is more conducive to a “real” blog. I like the nice,  clean layout, I like how everything is displayed, and I like the simplicity. Order Thesis today

2. If I want something that looks a bit more complex I will use Genesis. With Genesis when you get the “Pro Pack” you also get access to 45 different child themes. These all look quite different, all have some cool widgets and features, and are all suitable for different projects. BTW, on February 1st the price of the Pro Plus pack will be going up. For the next few days you can get the Pro Plus pack which includes Genesis and 45 child themes (plus all future child themes) for $299.95. And if you use the code TEN you can save 10%. So if you are thinking about getting it do it now and save yourself a few bucks. Order the Genesis Pro Pack today.

3. For a datafeed based site I will usually use Thesis. I like the way the archive pages are displayed in Thesis and the layout is a bit more functional for me when I am dealing with a bigger datafeed based site. I do have some datafeed sites using Genesis but for the most part I use Thesis for those ones.

4. For a hand written content based site I will usually use Genesis. I really like some of the fancy widgets and sliders and stuff you can use on the Genesis pages with many of their child themes and think that in many cases it can add a nice finishing touch to a site.

But then again a lot of what I use is just based on what I feel like at any given time. And many times I will start building on Genesis but switch over to Thesis and vice-versa. I really do like having the flexibility of both premium themes at my disposal and I would definitely recommend having multiple options to work with whether it is these two or some other premium themes.

The Genesis Pro Pack is a bit spendy at $299.95 vs. $164 for Thesis but the abundance of child themes makes the price much more tolerable.

Order Genesis Today

StudioPress Genesis Child Theme Marketplace

Order Thesis Today

Thesis Theme for WordPress:  Options Galore and a Helpful Support Community

So what factors do you consider when deciding which theme to use for your affiliate sites? Leave a comment and let me know.

{ 0 comments }

Like I mentioned in a post last week I want to keep you updated on what I have planned for this week. After looking at all the stuff I have to do I decided a set schedule of tasks isn’t the way to go. I just need to prioritize the different projects and sites I have out there and start working down the list.

Also it is hard for me to really work on any one task for more than a couple hours so rather than say “On Tuesday I will write 5000 words” or whatever I just want to make more weekly goals than daily tasks.

So for this week I have a few tasks I need to get done:

1. I have a local client and I need to finish their site. It is mostly done but I do need to move it from the test server to their server and that can always cause a huge set of headaches. Hopefully it all goes smoothly and doesn’t take more than a couple hours.

2. A few weeks ago I registered 6 domains of college players that should be coming out in the NFL draft this April. Two of them decided to stay in college for another year (How dare they get an education and not let me use these domains this year!!!) but there are still four of them who will be drafted in the first round. So I need to get some sites built for them. I don’t think I will do too much monitization on these sites yet (there can be issues using the names of college players like that) but I will get the framework of the sites built, start adding in some content (mock drafts, teams that could use them, etc) and once they get drafted in April I can load them up with jerseys, shirts, etc. But for now I want to get some content on them and start the aging process.

3. Write 2000+ words for an ebook. I have about 1600 words done but haven’t written on this project in a couple months. I would like to get more content in it and hopefully be done in a month or so. I am guessing it will end up around 8,000-10,000 words when it is all finished. I am not totally sure what I will do with it (give it away to build an email list, put it up on Kindle, sell it for a few bucks, etc.) but it will be nice to get it finished so I can start working on the sites related to it.

4. Write 8 product descriptions (200-500 words) for one of my old domains I need to revive/rebuild. There has been nothing on this domain for years but it was registered in 2005 so it has some good age to it. I want to use this domains to pick the best 8-10 products in each category for this niche, handwrite some content, and see what happens compared to just throwing up a 5,000+ item datafeed. It will probably take at least a couple weeks before I have enough real content to set this site up but I want to have the content ready to go for it.

5. Update the datafeeds on 5 old sites – I probably have about 20 that could use an update but I will start with these 5. For a couple of them it will just involve downloading a new feed, making a few modifications, and loading it up. Others might take a bit more work. But I should be able to spend less than 3-4 hours on this.

6. Work on getting a new client – Since I will be finishing up that one client this week (well, mostly finishing. There will be a bit of ongoing work.) I want to find one more client to take on. Maybe it will be another local company I can do some SEO stuff for, maybe it will be some sort of consulting work, maybe I will work with some affiliates to review their sites and help them improve, or maybe I will help out a merchant. If you are interested in any of these services or if there is anything I can do for you be sure to check out How Can I Help You.

Maybe I am being too ambitious, maybe I am setting the bar too low. I guess we will see on Friday when I recap how this week went.

{ 0 comments }

Many times in the past, either here or on Twitter, I have railed against the bad affiliate management out there. It is just a part of doing business in this industry but you can’t escape the fact that many affiliate programs are being mismanaged by people who really don’t know anything about the affiliate industry.

Affiliate program management isn’t just a position in your company you can throw anyone with a couple spare hours a month. It is much more than just looking at the sales reports and telling the higher ups in the company how many sales were generated. Affiliate program management is a very specialized marketing position that should be filled by someone who knows what they are doing.

One problem is there is very little quality training or educational opportunities out there for affiliate managers. Most affiliate managers I know basically just learned on the job or were just thrown into the position without knowing what they were doing (read Daniel Feinberg’s story) and had to learn on the fly. There have been a few training opportunities in the past and there is always some great information at Affiliate Summit for affiliate managers but just like most other professions an affiliate manager needs some sort of training.

Recently there have been two big steps forward towards properly training affiliate program managers. We need more of these but these two are a start:

Affiliate Management Days

1. Affiliate Management DaysGeno Prussakov has started a conference specifically for affiliate managers. It is a two day intensive training conference with some great speakers like Todd Crawford, Sarah Bundy, Karen Garcia, TimAsh, Rebecca Madigan, Sam Harrelson, Kim Rowley, and others who have many, many years in this industry and have some awesome knowledge to share. 

I recently asked Geno three questions about this conference and here is what he said:

Why do you see a need for this conference? 

Because affiliates need educated affiliate program managers. Remember the quick Twitter exchange we’ve had between you, me and Tricia Meyer? That one exemplifies the (crying!) need perfectly well.

Besides the educational component, Affiliate Management Days, becoming a regular conference (we’ll start with two conferences in the U.S., but hope to gradually add a third one, as well as an international one) will provide something else. The industry is dynamic, and new threats, issues, and challenges spring up nearly weekly. AM Days is also meant to become a professional forum for affiliate managers and merchants to discuss the most pressing questions, and collaboratively come up with solutions to the biggest problems.

Is this for experienced AMs or people just looking to get into affiliate management?

Both. If one takes a look at the AM Days San Francisco 2012 agenda they’ll see that we’ll give attendees some choice there. The keynotes will be perfect both for people who are new to affiliate marketing, and to the savvy and experienced ones. While with breakout sessions we’ll offer two tracks, and regardless of an affiliate manager’s (or merchant’s) professional maturity level, everyone will be able to pick something of interest.

What do you hope people will take away from this conference?

Three things: (1) inspiration/motivation, (2) a truly holistic approach to affiliate as a way of online marketing, and (3) actionable knowledge — to come back, apply it, and reap higher revenues, as a result.

So all in all this will be a great place for current and prospective affiliate managers to gain knowledge, information, and connections with other great people in this industry.

Today is the last day to get the early bird registration ($1,195) and tomorrow it jumps to $1,495 so save yourself $300 and register today.

2. Affiliate Management Trainers – According to their site “Affiliate Management Trainers (AMT) was created to fill the need for professional and personalized affiliate management training for Internet Retailers around the world.”. So here we have a group of experienced affiliate managers who want to train other affiliate managers.

They are offering one on one training as well as other consulting services. From what I have seen a brand new affiliate manager will learn much more from a one on one approach like this than they could ever learn in a classroom.

Sarah Bundy, Matt McWilliams, and the rest of the trainers are some of the top affiliate managers in this industry and have a ton of knowledge they can share with anyone who wants to learn.

I really do believe both of these opportunities will help train up some new, awesome affiliate managers. How many affiliate programs are out there? 10,000? 20,000? And how many quality affiliate managers can you name? 20?30? Maybe 50? There is a huge need for trained affiliate managers out there and Affiliate Management Days and Affiliate Management Trainers will both help get those people a head start on their job.

Just to illustrate how there is a need for quality affiliate managers: I recently talked to a local manufacturer/merchant about their affiliate program. They do have a private program but they don’t publicize it at all. Overall they have about 20 affiliates that barely produce any sales. I offered to help this company get their affiliate program up and running, recruit new affiliates, set them up on Shareasale, and as much else as I could do for them. I am by no means an expert in affiliate management and I was gonna cut this guy a great deal since I would also be learning on the job.

But as an affiliate for the past 14 years or so I do have quite a bit of knowledge and experience that would have been valuable to them. But they decided to just let their website manager run the program. I have little doubt I could have turned their affiliate program into a very viable sales channel for them and am pretty confident I could increase their affiliate revenue by at least 10x what they are doing now but they decided to let someone who has no clue about affiliate marketing run their program. Just imagine what a properly trained affiliate program manager could have done.

Sadly this is not an uncommon tale. We need more good affiliate managers!

{ 10 comments }

Like I have mentioned somewhat recently, I have a ton of domains I have registered and have never really done anything with. Some of them were part of a bigger project that never got off the ground, some were just domains I stumbled across, some were just ideas I registered before giving them much thought.

In order to protect myself from registering so many domains I will never do anything with I have come up with the following three questions I want to ask myself before buying a domain:

1. Are you really gonna build that site? Is this really a project you will sit down and work on from start to finish?

2. No, really, are you gonna build a site on this domain? It seems like such a good idea right now. I really do need to register this domain because this site will be awesome.

3. Dude, seriously. Are you gonna build the site? Well, OK. Probably not. I guess I can pass on this one.

Pretty simple thought process there that could save me hundreds of dollars a year.

But seriously, is it just part of the affiliate business that we register domains with visions of grandeur but never even get around to setting them up on the server? Or is there a way to focus on current projects and only get a new domain when a site will actually get built?

This is something I have been thinking about a bit lately and while I am sure I will fail and fall back to registering any domain I think of here are a couple safeguards I want to put in place for myself to keep me from buying so many useless and unused domains.

1. Write 10 pieces of content – Blog posts, product reviews, informational articles… I don’t care what I write I just want to have some content ready to go when I register the domain. If I do this there is a much greater chance of me actually building the site.

2. Create a graphic – I suck at graphics. So if I take the time to make a header or some sort of graphical element to the site there is a very good chance I will build the site. Or even if I just pay someone to do it I wouldn’t want that money to go to waste.

3. Prepare the datafeed – If the site will be based on a datafeed I want to have the feed ready to go when the site is up. So many times I will get nearly everything ready to build but then lose steam fixing up the datafeed.

Basically I want to have some sort of investment in the site before I buy the domain. Yeah, there will be some hot domains I will want to snap up as soon as I see them and won’t have time to do this other stuff but for the most part I want to have put something into the site before the domain gets registered.

What else can I do to invest some time or effort into the site before I get the domain?

 

{ 3 comments }

A few days ago I got an affiliate agreement update from a merchant saying “Submitting affiliate links to social sharing sites such as Pinterest, Reddit.com, Digg.com, Twitter, StumbleUpon.com, and others is prohibited”.

I put up a tweet about it and Scott Jangro expanded on it a bit and I figured it was a topic worthy of a post here. Also Eric Nagel wrote up a post about affiliates and Pinterest yesterday and I have heard from a few people it was a good point of conversation at Affiliate Summit this year.

If you don’t know Pinterest is one of the latest social/curation sites out there. Generally speaking it is a place for women to post recipes, fashion ideas, home decorating ideas, and stuff like that they find on various sites and blogs all in one place. It can be a very useful tool for someone trying to decorate a baby nursery for example. Rather than bookmarking dozens of pages from various blogs you can just “pin” an image to your Pinterest board.

Pinterest and affiliates

Can affiliates use Pinterest effectively?

Or say you are looking to organize all the recipes you want to try sometime in the future. I know I will look at a recipe online and think it is something I want to make sometime and then leave and forget where I found it. With Pinterest you can just pin all those recipes to a board and have them all in one place for when you need them. Of course people can follow your pins, repin them, like them and so on so there is a pretty decent social aspect to the site as well.

But what does this have to do with affiliate marketing? 

Well, pretty much every platform like this has been abused utilized by affiliate marketers with varying detrimental effects. Generally speaking, if there is a place to post a link you can bet there are affiliates out there who will post as many as they can.

With Pinterest it really wouldn’t be hard for an affiliate to take a merchant datafeed, write some sort of auto-pin script, and flood Pinterest with thousands or even millions of pins. It wouldn’t take long before Pinterest becomes useless.

So that gives some great justification for the merchant mentioned earlier prohibiting affiliates from posting links on social sharing sites. If users were to see tons of links all sending them to one merchant the backlash would be at that merchant, not the affiliate. I can’t blame that merchant at all for updating their terms of service and I fully expect to see many more merchants follow suit.

Does that mean that Pinterest can’t be used by affiliates? Of course not. There are many ways affiliates can effectively use Pinterest. Here are a few ideas I have thought of. Of course I am not the rule maker for Pinterest and you can do whatever you feel comfortable doing but these were just some thoughts I had as I figure out how to use Pinterest myself:

1. Don’t be a tool – This applies to nearly all forms of social media. If you go in and start pinning everything on every site you have you might be a tool. Space your pins out, don’t just blindly pin all the pages on your site, and try to use Pinterest as the makers intended.

2. Create some topical boards for your pins – Here is an exampe: I have a site selling Seahawks gear. There are probably 1,000 products on the site. Rather than just post every page I want to break it down a bit and create some more topical pages. Since Pinterest is slanted towards women right now (I think 70+% of the users are women) I wanted to make something that could relate a bit more to them. So I created a board dealing with decorating a bedroom with Seahawks gear. I then went and pinned a few items from my site. http://pinterest.com/drcool73/seahawks-bedroom/. Eventually I will go in and add some more products from other sites so everything isn’t just coming from my site.

But rather than just throwing all the Seahawks stuff on that site on one board I want to break it down so people will follow my specific boards and repin specific items.

3. Think like a woman – Since the main audience in Pinterest is women you need to think like a woman. What would a woman want to share? What are they interested in talking about? What are they likely to re-pin? For some of us that is hard but for many of you it will come pretty easy.

4. Engage other users – Just like any other form of social media you need to engage others. Repin stuff other people post, follow others with similar interests, and connect with users just like you would if you were to use Facebook or Twitter effectively. If you can get some of the heavy hitters to share your pins that can be a good generator of traffic.

5. Be careful about direct to merchant links – Rather than linking direct to a merchant site make the links go to your site. It would be very easy for Pinterest to decide they want to make money and start overwriting affiliate links. And currently some of the direct links don’t track properly. Some like Amazon do but just to be on the safe side I want to send people to my site and not directly to the merchant when I can.

6. Make yourself worth following – If you just pin garbage nobody will share your stuff. To really be effective on Pinterest you want other to follow and repin your pins. So make sure you are posting stuff people are interested in.

Those are just a couple ideas I thought of off the top of my head. I (like most people) am just starting to use Pinterest and I am sure as it grows and matures the rules will change and there will be new ways to use it to generate traffic to your affiliate sites.

I think Pinterest and affiliates can co-exist very well assuming both parties are responsible. If Pinterest decides to just flat out ban affiliate links or starts overwriting tracking codes that would be bad. If affiliates start auto-pinning everything under the sun that is bad. Both parties need to act responsibly and sooner rather than later.

So how do you use Pinterest? Do you see it as an effective way of generating traffic to your sites? Is it just a waste of time? Leave a comment and let me know.

{ 1 comment }

Last week I wrote a post about the recent butt kickings I have received. My motivation to succeed is higher than ever right now due to these two recent events and for the past two weeks I have been working on a plan.

Of course this plan is totally subject to change and as usually happens there will be something that comes up that will drag me away from this plan. I know myself though and if I don’t have a plan it is way too easy to just sit here day after day and piddle away on some of my projects and never make any real progress.

I am guessing there are some other people in the same boat as me and while my plan might not work for you hopefully you will be able to take something from it.

1. Organization – When it comes to organization I am HORRIBLE! I have so many projects in various states of completion and disarray. I need to get all that stuff organized and come up with some sort of plan/schedule for either completing those projects, scrapping them, selling them, or something. I have well over 100 sites and I would guess much less than half of them are really worth anything at this point. So I need to:

List out my domains

  • Designate each with either fix (rebuild, update, clean up, etc), sell, scrap, build, or hold.
  • Start working down the list of the fix and build sites. Hopefully crank out at least two a week.
  • If a domain is worth selling list it on some of the domain selling sites
  • Scrap – Don’t waste money renewing the dang thing!

Develop a plan

  • Create some sort of checklist for my sites. I am always forgetting some simple aspect of building the site as I go along. I need to be more organized in this to make sure I don’t forget to add Google Analytics or change the permalinks or something simple like that.
  • List out potential merchants for the domains and apply for the programs. Too often I wait until I am building the site to get my merchants lined up and by the time I get approved I have moved on.
  • Datafeed? Daily posts? Regular blog type site? What do I want to do with each of these sites?
  • Anyone I can partner up with on these sites?
Ditch it or Keep it
After I get all the sites up and going I need to decide if it will be worth the effort to hit them hard or ditch them. I have way too many domains that aren’t related and would like to try and stick to no more than two main niches. If you know me at all you know sports will be one of those. I am still trying to figure out the other one. Most likely it will be baby related. I have a few ideas but will need to see how they pan out.
Anyway, if the sites don’t fit into those two niches and don’t make sales they are gone. Either I will sell them to someone who can do something with them or I will just let them die. If they do make sales though I will keep them updated more often, add more content somewhat regularly, and work on building more links to them. No reason to ditch something that is making money unless I can sell it for a decent price.

Get Cranking

Like I said in my previous post, I have been lazy and complacent. Part of the solution for me will just be to work harder and more efficient. I will probably have at least 50 sites I need to build and that will take time. Some of them might only take a couple hours but some might take a few days. I would like to think I can have most of them up and running by the middle of February sometime. But I do need to work harder on the stuff like this that can become mind-numbing after a few sites.

2. Stick to a Schedule – Working from home it becomes way to easy to get a late start to the day and an early finish. But I need to treat this more and more like a “real” job and try to keep somewhat of a consistent schedule going. It is way too easy to run upstairs to talk with my wife and see my baby, way to easy to schedule midday meetings that take a couple hours out of the day, and way too easy to use the work day to run errands. While I will never give up the flexibility to do those things I do need to get them more under control.

Along with that I want to have some sort of weekly schedule. I am still working through that but something like this:

Monday – Work on sports sites

Tuesday – Work on baby (or whatever second niche I pick) sites

Wednesday – Build/Update old sites (At least one site a week, preferably two or three)

Thursday AM – Testing/Trying – new plugins, new link building, new WP themes, maybe try to learn some programming, etc.

Thursday PM – Writing – Got a couple ideas for some ebooks that would fit well with a few of my sites

Friday – Tie up loose ends, strategize, research, etc.

That isn’t the final schedule I will be working off of but something like that. Once I do get it figured out I want to post it every Monday on this sites with some details and then follow up on Friday to see how I have done. I am sure some weeks will be encouraging and some will end up being disappointing. But even this little bit of accountability will be good for me.

3. Do What I Should Have Been Doing All Along – There are many, many things I should have been doing for the past 14 years since I started doing this stuff. We all have those “If only I had started doing X when I began in this business…” moments. And I have those daily. Here are a few things I want to start or start doing more:

Build lists – Not every site will be a candidate for this but I do have a few of them where a list will be invaluable. So I need to dust of my Aweber account and actually use it. I already have a few great ideas of how to effectively use it for some of the sites so I just need to make that part of my weekly routine.

Write – Once again, this won’t apply to all my sites but there are a few of them where a couple good ebooks would be great. I can either give them away for a newsletter signup or even sell them depending on how they turn out. But if I could get a topical, focused ebook of some sort written every month? Awesome.

I also need to just do more general writing for the sites. It can be so hard to crank out content day after day but if I were to even write three or four decent blog posts a week over my sites and write 10-15 custom descriptions for products I think it would end up making a big difference in the long run.

Another area I need to improve in is link building. Whether that involves paying someone to do it or just taking the time to do it myself I need to do a better job getting quality links to my sites.

Better utilize social media. There is just so much that goes into this it is hard to write up quickly here. But it is an area I need to put more effort into and build a better social following for my sites.

If I can get those four things under control in the next couple months I will be happy.

4. Focus – It is so dang easy to lose focus. Every day there are new merchants to look at, every day there are new ideas that pop into my head, every day there are new promotional methods to test. But they are not all necessary. I need to forget about many of those for a couple months while I get all my other stuff in order.

Yeah, visiting Facebook and Twitter take time but I feel like those are somewhat of a necessity for this business. It is good to stay connected to the affiliate marketing community and those are the best way to do it. But do I really need to check Facebook every 15 minutes? Did the world change that much while I went to the bathroom or got a snack?

Having a plan and schedule will also help me focus. Having a list of tasks to get done before the day is over will help me focus. Even cleaning my office up a bit will help me focus. There will be day I just need to put the blinders on and get cranking on some sites.

I think those four main areas will help me turn everything around. If not I will need to find four more things to work on. I am hoping within 3-6 months I can replace the income I lost and hopefully even exceed it. We will see.

But I could use your help!!!

1. Ask me how I am doing – Facebook, Skype, Twitter, etc. Get ahold of me and ask me what sites I am working on, what projects I am finishing up, what I have planned, etc. Help keep me accountable! Please!

2. Follow along with me – Like I mentioned earlier, I want to post every Monday what I will be working on that particular week and then post a recap on Friday of what I got accomplished.

3. Work with me??? – Maybe you will see some of my sites that are similar to yours and you want to trade links, swap guest posts, share methods, or whatever. Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you see something that can benefit us both. I really do want to help you as much as I can so let me know what I can do for you.

4. What works for you? – Are there any organizational tools or methods that have helped you? How do you keep track of all your projects? How do you stay focused and motivate yourself? Please let me know what works for you.

Thanks to all in advance. I will do my best to keep this site updated at least a couple times a week with my progress.

 

 

{ 1 comment }

What kicks you in the butt?

January 12, 2012 Affiliate Summit

TweetWe all need some motivation from time to time. It can come in many different forms, it can come at any time, and it will look different for everyone. What motivates one person might not do a thing for someone else. Usually around this time in January I have a ton of motivation after returning [...]

3 comments You know you want to read more →

The Great Domain Sale of 2012

January 4, 2012 Affiliate Stuff

TweetLike probably every other affiliate marketer out there I have amassed quite a bit collection of domains over the years. Many of the sites have been up and generating sales for years, many of them have just partially completed sites, and many of them have nothing on them. All of them were good ideas in [...]

0 comments You know you want to read more →

Handicapping the 2012 Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards

January 2, 2012 Affiliate Summit

TweetI have handicapped the Affiliate Summit Pinnacle Awards for the previous two years so I figured I would give it a shot again this year. Just to refresh you here are the results from the previous two years: 2010: Affiliate Of The Year: Nicholas Koscianski Affiliate Manager Of The Year: Matt McWilliams Exceptional Merchant: eBay [...]

17 comments You know you want to read more →

Affiliate Summit West 2012 – Sessions I Wish I Could Go To

December 28, 2011 Affiliate Summit

TweetAfter a string of quite a few years I am gonna be taking a break from Affiliate Summit West this time. The biggest reason is because I have a new baby boy that was born last Thursday I will need to take care of. I can’t leave a 2 week old child that is this [...]

4 comments You know you want to read more →