Affiliate programs are some of the best sources of inbound links online. By providing your affiliates with a link back to your website, you increase your link popularity, which in turn leads to higher search engine rankings. It can also increase your sales.

Since many of your affiliates will be people in your niche the inbound links from your affiliate program will pass search engine relevancy tests. Also, if some of your affiliates have high PageRank because they are trusted sites within your niche then that will give you an additional boost. And get a bunch of those types of links … well, the story just keeps getting better. That’s why affiliate programs can be such good sources of links.

While it is true that affiliate program links are good links, you don’t want to rely entirely on affiliate links. You also want to build links in other ways. The key to inbound link building is to be consistent over time and build solid links through a strategy that encourages other webmasters to link to you freely without you requesting them to. A blog can do that in so many ways. But so too can article marketing, forum posting, and other forms of link building and conversational marketing.

Organic search engine optimization is the process of optimizing your site using content that is effective, smart linking strategies, and by adding value through interaction thus providing your user with a great experience. The end result is being well placed in unpaid search engine result listings. The question is, is it worth the effort?

An article by Jason Lee Miller on WebProNews takes an interesting look at Universal Search and the drop in paid clicks. Grabbing a chunk from Miller’ final paragraph:

…..means that organic SEO becomes all the more vital, especially when it comes to video and images. Better, more inclusive results might mean fewer paid clicks,…..

Organic Search Engine Optimization is a time intensive specialist process that involves constant research and a thorough knowledge of what is needed to optimize a site, on a day by day basis as search engines play with algorithms and other factors.

Miller’ point about video and images should not be ignored either as search engines start to rate these factors.

Given the current economic conditions, getting placed highly in the non paid search results pages is becoming a necessity. The question should now be asked, “can I afford to not implement organic search engine optimization strategies”?

Over at Sphinn you can witness a real live cat fight – yep, the old-fashioned kind. Jill Whalen and Lisa Barone, two of the hottest Search Engine Optimization chicks in cyberland are brawling over whether or not there should be Search Engine Optimization standards. Personally, I dig fighting chicks.

It all started when the infamous Jill Whalen came out slugging with her “We Don’t Need No SEO Standards” cat chant. Then, Bruce Clay’s own decided to pop a jaw with a solid left hook and an awesome yell: Muahaha!

Jill Whalen’s reasons for not needing Search Engine Optimization standards boils down to four main points:

• There are too many ways of skinning the Search Engine Optimization cat.
• We can’t even agree on the definition of search engine optimization.
• There are already laws to protect people from Search Engine Optimization scams.
• There’s no such thing as “cheating” in Search Engine Optimization.

And she does a good job of defending her position. But Lisa Barone countered pretty well with her headlock followed by a drop kick (she’s no lady in the ring!).

According to Lisa, just because you can cook a pork chop doesn’t mean you don’t need a recipe. And that made me wonder how Emeril got in there. So then she followed through with one heck of an uppercut by countering Jill’s “no common definitions” argument with, “Yeah, but we need them!” Good comeback. I wish I’d thought of that.

After that saucy taunt, Lisa did a slideback and came around Jill’s sexy little hindquarters and whopped her a good spaghetti sauce chop in the collarbone:

I think Jill needs to understand that the best practices and standards we’d be creating aren’t meant for the black hats. I’m not trying to bring anyone over to the light here. What I’m interested in is helping upcoming search marketers learn the ropes and to give them the tools they need to learn to do things right from the very start. We’re creating standards so the next generations of search marketers get a head start and have more than just SEO blogs and forums to learn from. We’re trying to cut back on the amount of disinformation.

Are you kidding me? Disinformation is what makes the world go round Baby!

Seriously, though, I have to agree with Jill Whalen (which doesn’t happen all that often). Search Engine Optimization standards will only help the politically savvy and the dirty, greasy, grimy black hats. Teach people how to look clean and everyone will take a bath just before the preacher drops by. Leave them to their own devices and eventually all their spots will show. The beauty of free enterprise (and who can argue that the Internet is the last bastion of free enterprise?) is that people are free to succeed or fail. Consumers are free to research the products and services they are buying, or choose not to. If Lisa Barone gets her way, we all might be bowing down to worship the Goddess of High Search Engine Optimization Standards (Who Killed Freedom And Creativity For A Chance To Grab The Throne). Can anyone say “Anne Boleyn”?

Well, I might be overstating it a bit. But standards inevitably lead to one group of insiders having control and authority over everyone else and I’m against that.

We all know that new web sites take time to get indexed and appear in search results. However, once established, getting your newly created content indexed quickly can have hidden long term benefits when it comes search engine optimization and rankings.

If you create content and can get that content indexed quickly, then, provided you have followed basic search engine optimization techniques, your content will appear towards the top of any search results for those keywords.

There is the expected bonus of increased traffic for as long as that content appears on the front page. There is also a hidden benefit that will aid your search engine optimization program – and you do not have to do anything yourself.

One of major factors in ranking a web site and an important part of all search engine optimization strategies is the development of external links coming in to your pages. Obviously, while your content is appearing in a high position in the search results, individuals are going to be reading your content, and, if relevant to their interests, writing their own content linking back to yours.

Why will they link to your content? There is an assumption that if you appear in the the top of the search results then the search engine must rate your content highly and is worthy of reading and linking to. Their search engine optimization strategy is to hopefully get a trackback and ride on your successes. Naturally the content needs to be well written and worthy of linking in itself.

You may only appear on the front page for a few hours, however those few hours can potentially give your search engine optimization program a real boost. How do you get your page indexed quickly? That is a topic for another Search Engine Optimization article.

It seems there’s a new search engine in town. Quite frankly, they’ve got some work to do.

SearchMe is a visual search engine that let’s you scroll through screen shots of web pages based on your search query. Right now it’s in beta, which means it is totally incomplete. In fact, they’ve only got about a billion pages indexed right now. Google has that many pages indexed for some search queries. So you can see, they’ve got a long way to go.

The site is basically all Flash, which means it won’t rank in the other search engines and they’ll have to rely entirely on viral marketing and word of mouth not Search Engine Optimization. But due to its deficiencies, I don’t see too many people recommending it to their friends. For one thing, because it is done in Flash, load times are slower than for normal search engines. That’s a big point because if you are really looking for something then you want to find it fast.

Some other failing points are these:

1. With SearchMe, you don’t get the number of results returned for your query. I’d like to know that.
2. Also, the scrolling from page to page is a little sluggish (again, it’s Flash).
3. On the positive side, you can scroll through titles and descriptions just like with other search engines, but they don’t all appear on one page at a glance. You have to scroll, which is another awkward feature of Flash.
4. Each screen shot shows a good picture of the page result, but you don’t always know what page it is. You can’t see the URL. There is a little pop up at the bottom of each screen shot that shows you the title and description for that page, but the URL is so small you can’t really see it. It needs to be bigger.

Here are a few suggestions for making SearchMe a better search engine:

• Make the scrolling easier by allowing users to scroll through the pages by mouseover when they move over the pages left or right. The scroll bar at the bottom of the screen is too awkward.
• Put the URL of each page above the screen shot and make it bigger so that it is easier to see.
• Show me the number of results returned for my query.
• Let users know up front what the criteria for the search results are.
• Tell me what the “flag as inappropriate” button is supposed to be for – is to flag results not appropriate for my query or to flag results as inappropriate for viewing?

Even if these changes were incorporated, there’s no guarantee that SearchMe would survive. There is no reason other than pure curiosity for a searcher to use the search engine when the existing search engines do such a great job of returning results. Even with their faults, Google, Yahoo!, MSN Live, and Ask have much more to offer.

The most popular form of advertising over the last decade has been Pay-Per-Click or PPC and has generally been dominated by Google through its Adsense program. Yahoo is a more recent player in the search engine advertising market place and while there are many other players trying to attract advertisers, Google still dominates.

Google’s click rate and subsequent revenue from PPC has fallen in recent months again raising the question as to whether or not search engine advertising is a viable form of advertising. This comes in the wake of the introduction of both audio and video as advertising vehicles together with a general downturn in consumer spending.

The jury is still out on these as viable long term replacements for the current forms of advertising. The reality is, most advertisers do not have budgets that would allow them to include either audio or video in their marketing plans. Audio and video will also have several obstacles to overcome before be able to really make an impact.

Pay per click does have its own obstacles that need addressing if it is to continue to dominate. These include click fraud and the low conversion rates with often high per click costs. PPC will always per popular as a traffic generation campaign where advertisers can find low keyword click costs.

Pay per action has been discussed as both an alternative to and as an addition to search engine advertising. Affiliate marketing has been around for many years as a form of pay per action, however the action has always been related to a sale. Pay per action now includes any activity designated by the advertiser including successful telephone calls, newsletter subscriptions and of course sales.

The biggest problem for advertisers when it comes to PPC and search engine advertising is that the balance falls heavily in favor of the publisher. Pay per action swings the pendulum the other way and heavily favors the advertiser. In the meantime the middle men are happily collecting their hefty commissions.

Therein lies the future of most forms of online advertising. What are the middle men, and at present that almost always means Google, going to promote tomorrow. Google have been playing around with Adsense quite a lot over the last 6-12 months and have now introduced video ads. If revenues in the PPC area continue to fall then Google will undoubtedly look to other areas to prop up its income from search engine advertising.

Neither publishers or advertisers seem satisfied with PPC althoug it remains as the major force in online advertising. PPC and search engine advertising will maintain this standing until advertising agencies such as Google can deliver reliable results driven advertising that satisfies both the advertiser and the publisher.

There has never been a better lesson in reputation management than that highlighted by the recent demise of Bear Stearns. Could they have been saved? We will never know. The one thing that is becoming clear is the lack of effective reputation management strategies to overcome any negative publicity.

Many business houses seem to feel that they are immune to any negative publicity or, at worst, they will only suffer minor bruises when a situation arises. Bear Stearns are not the only company to suffer from a negative rumor that became viral and they wont be the last.

I wont comment on the Bear Stearns strategy itself, that has been done to death already. Rather, I think this serves as a timely reminder to check our own reputation management strategies, if indeed they exist. Size has become irrelevant. Any business, be it online or offline, can potentially be crippled by a few careless words, or the inability to negate a damaging rumor.

Online businesses have a plethora of channels including social media sites, forums and blogs where they can develop trust and respect. When a negative story appears, these same channels can then be used to counter some of that negativity.

Whilst Bear Stearns was a complex issue, any company caught in this tide of negativity needs to be able to respond quickly, over a broad area and in such a way that every negative issue is addressed in a manner to restore confidence, and, ultimately, their reputation.

As business, website owner or blogger, have you thought about your search engine reputation and how to (a) manage and develop it now and (b) counter any negative attacks when they occur?

Reputation management is often but aside as something to think about later – until it’s too late. Plan now, don’t score an F in search engine reputation management when good planning can see you earn an A+ — and so keep your business.