Pubcon is well-known as an event where you can gain a huge amount of accurate information from highly knowlegeable people.   At other conferences the speakers are often guarded, not wanting to give out all their “best info and techniques.”  At Pubcon the speakers are more open, laying out information and advice freely for all.  The reason for this is two-fold:  the great community, and the high level of skill and experience needed to master the information being disseminated.

I take this to heart when I speak.  Because there is so much misinformation and so many questionable tactics in much of the SEO world, I feel  an absolute obligation to inform as much and as freely as possible when I speak.  People simply and earnestly seek the answers and keys to online success - they just want to know how to do the right thing for their business - so it is our job to help.

Will a lot of companies take the information we provide and try to improve their business?  I certainly hope so, and I wish them and their business the best of luck.  I trully believe what goes around comes around.  No matter what happens to their business, everyone will benefit. 

How?  When they find success, they appreciate the advice and seek me out afterwards for more advice.  The result is a growing relationship, two strong and vibrant businesses, and a partnership as we help them take their business to a whole new level of success and their life to a whole new level of income. 

Other times people do not have the resources or time to implement the advice we give them, so they don’t find the success they were hoping for.  In that case they seek us out as well.  The level of what must be done for them to attain the success they seek is very, very high.  The simple fact is, it takes a huge amount of work!

Companies need hundreds or even thousands of pages of content of all types in order to dominate their industry and succeed.  They need good site structure.  They need tremendous amounts of high-quality inbound links and a good linking strategy.  In fact, most audiences we speak to realize this right off the bat, and just come straight to us to help them from the start.  They realize there is so much to be done that outsourcing it to experts simply saves them tremendous time and money.  Again, good relationships are created, and we again help them build their business out to great success.

Additionally, the personal interaction, the opportunity to speak to and help people one-on-one cannot is priceless.  Inevitably, great personal and business relationships, communication, help, and success are created.  Truly win/win.  And that is what good business is all about.

 - Matt

The session had close to 200+ people in the audience which was much larger than what I had seen at previous WMW conferences. 

David Rivero, the founder of JoeBucks Affiliate Programs joined Matt on the panel along with Elisabeth Archambault of Buckworks - a successful affiliate marketer and John Coronella, an internet marketing consultant with OnlineMarketer.  Jake Baillie, a leading SEO strategist and regular speaker and moderator at the SES conferences was in charge of moderating the session. 

Tom’s Take:  

Affiliate Marketers need to position themselves for long term success by creating demographically focused content.  As the major brands and companies begin allocating larger budget to online marketing they will move the smaller affiliates out of the way by  overpowering them with paid search. 

Affiliates should act preemtively with their content strategies.  Building new sites and unique content around what they know to be important to their target audience.    

Affiliate Programs should be investing in their affiliates.  If I owned an affiliate program I’d be developing content distribution technology to supply my affiliates with fresh up to date content to help promote my products or offerings.  Every week I’d have something new to bring to my affiliates.  By delivering unique content to their affiliates they are building out real estate in the vertical. 

If it’s a health & wellness vertical, every page of content given to an affiliate is another chance to take out an opposing company for competitive keywords.  Unique Content development compounded over time is a win/win combination for an affiliate program both with organic real estate and building trustworthy links back to their brand.