I Need Your Advice! My SEO Is Too Good!

24 replies
Hey Warriors,

I have a really profitable affiliate site that ranks for a bunch of keywords relating to a specific product name. Just recently I obtained the top ranking for the actual product name.

This is fantastic and has resulted in a nice influx of sales. The problem is that the product owner has since become incredibly pi$$ed off at me. So much so that he has threatened to stop paying out (I'm pretty sure that he isn't able to do that as this is a clickbank product) which annoys me as Im fairly sure id be one of his top affiliates.

Does anyone have any advice on how I can handle this guy? Ive already given him some tips on optimizing his site but he didn't seem interested.

Thanks in advance
#advice #good #seo
  • Profile picture of the author Jeremy Kelsall
    This would be my response, feel free to cut and paste.

    Dear Sir,

    Kindly kiss my ass.

    Regards,

    Jeremy Kelsall

    If you do decide to cut and paste make sure to put your own name in place of mine.
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    • he is a stupid business man

      just move over to another affiliate program
      or better
      start advertising another product with his own name

      lol
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    • Profile picture of the author nick1123
      Originally Posted by Jeremy Kelsall View Post

      This would be my response, feel free to cut and paste.
      Kindly kiss my ass.
      .
      No no... kindness will get you farther.

      What if he did cut you off? Could you recreate the product? Find another affiliate program in the same niche? Could you make money with adsense?
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      • Profile picture of the author Jeremy Kelsall
        Originally Posted by nick1123 View Post

        No no... kindness will get you farther.

        What if he did cut you off? Could you recreate the product? Find another affiliate program in the same niche? Could you make money with adsense?

        Nick,

        If I were an affiliate for a guy that insisted that I "bow" down to him in
        either SEO or pretty much any other aspect of my business, my words
        would likely be very close to what I have written above.

        What kind of kindness would you suggest? Maybe giving the vendor
        full commission for every sale you make or make your site not perform
        as well to make the guy or lady happy?

        To hell with that.

        Jeremy
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      • Profile picture of the author Richard Tunnah
        Mike,
        That's Crazy with a capital 'c'! Of course he should be emailing you....but to thank you and telling you about his other great products he'd love you to promote. I'd look around for a similar product and maybe someone that will appreciate the sales you are making for them!

        Good luck

        Rich
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        • Profile picture of the author Daniel Molano
          He can't cut him off, it's a Clickbank product, and even if he did he would later contact Mike begging him to come back as his sales would dramatically drop.

          The only thing he could possibly do is change the publisher ID and delist the product, which in my opinion would be the worst move in Internet Marketing history as he would lose all his affiliates.

          I suggest you do as Jeremy says and copy paste his reply.
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  • Profile picture of the author UcheO
    You can always offer to sell him your website if he is willing to pay enough.
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  • Profile picture of the author bendiggs
    I think the guy is full of crap and is pissed just because you are doing a better job marketing his products than he is. I guess he doesn't understand that you are still making him money and he should be doing everything he can to support you.
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  • Profile picture of the author DaniMc
    Change your high ranking site to a negative review and promote his competitor. Trash his product and make money somewhere else with his name.

    He will beg your forgiveness.
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    Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
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    • Profile picture of the author ravijayagopal
      Originally Posted by Daniel McCoy View Post

      Change your high ranking site to a negative review and promote his competitor. Trash his product and make money somewhere else with his name.

      He will beg your forgiveness.
      Haha...

      @Daniel, what a great idea! That's how I would think too :-) .

      Try reasoning out with him. Go stages, ultimately threaten, and then trash product and promote competitor.
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  • Profile picture of the author flnz400
    Leverage must be over rated in '08.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kurt
    Let him know you are a reasonable person and you'll let him choose which option he prefers:

    1. Continue this mutually profitable partnership

    2. You will drop his product and promote a competitor's

    3. Develope your own product to sell on your own site(s)

    Let him know it's totally up to him...
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    • Profile picture of the author AndrewCavanagh
      In all liklihood you're his best affiliate.

      So you just need to be polite.

      You can either ignore him (probably the best course of action) or you can write back to him and tell him that it is your site and your traffic and you're not under any obligation to promote any particular product from your site.

      You'd prefer to keep sending him affiliate sales but if he's going to threaten cutting off payments (which is against the Clickbank terms of service and unethical) then you'd be forced to consider finding a different related product or create a product of your own.

      Tell him you'd prefer not to do either of these things and hope that you can continue as one of his leading affiliates in a mutually beneficial arrangement.

      You know you could call this guy on the phone...that often helps enormously.

      You'll quickly find out if he's a reasonable human being or a complete idiot.

      Kindest regards,
      Andrew Cavanagh

      P.S. And if that doesn't work don't bother telling him to kiss your arse.

      Quietly find another product or create your own.

      You should be thinking about what to do in the worst case scenario anyway so finding another product is a no brainer.
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      • Profile picture of the author Ernie Lo
        Hmm thats wonderful Advice their Andrew BUT....

        can't you please add a tiny section where it says that Mike can tell the guy to "kiss hiss ass"

        It will be such a disappointment after reading this thread, if he doesn't lol..


        Originally Posted by AndrewCavanagh View Post

        In all liklihood you're his best affiliate.

        So you just need to be polite.

        You can either ignore him (probably the best course of action) or you can write back to him and tell him that it is your site and your traffic and you're not under any obligation to promote any particular product from your site.

        You'd prefer to keep sending him affiliate sales but if he's going to threaten cutting off payments (which is against the Clickbank terms of service and unethical) then you'd be forced to consider finding a different related product or create a product of your own.

        Tell him you'd prefer not to do either of these things and hope that you can continue as one of his leading affiliates in a mutually beneficial arrangement.

        You know you could call this guy on the phone...that often helps enormously.

        You'll quickly find out if he's a reasonable human being or a complete idiot.

        Kindest regards,
        Andrew Cavanagh

        P.S. And if that doesn't work don't bother telling him to kiss your arse.

        Quietly find another product or create your own.

        You should be thinking about what to do in the worst case scenario anyway so finding another product is a no brainer.
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        • Profile picture of the author Daniel Molano
          Originally Posted by Ernie Lonardo View Post

          Hmm thats wonderful Advice their Andrew BUT....

          can't you please add a tiny section where it says that Mike can tell the guy to "kiss hiss ass"

          It will be such a disappointment after reading this thread, if he doesn't lol..
          Agreed!

          And if he cuts you off somehow, promote his competition using exactly the same SEO and keywords you are already using, that would truly piss him off since now he's not even making money from you an as affiliate, his competitors are (and you also ).
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  • Profile picture of the author matthewd
    He can have Clickbank kill your affiliate link... in that case, I would just start selling my own product.
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  • Profile picture of the author dvduval
    I would offer to charge him for some paid SEO services, and tell him that you loved his product enough to promote it, and you won't apologize for liking his product.
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  • Profile picture of the author Floyd Fisher
    Originally Posted by Mike Benkovich View Post

    Hey Warriors,

    I have a really profitable affiliate site that ranks for a bunch of keywords relating to a specific product name. Just recently I obtained the top ranking for the actual product name.

    This is fantastic and has resulted in a nice influx of sales. The problem is that the product owner has since become incredibly pi$ off at me. So much so that he has threatened to stop paying out (I'm pretty sure that he isn't able to do that as this is a clickbank product) which annoys me as Im fairly sure id be one of his top affiliates.

    Does anyone have any advice on how I can handle this guy? Ive already given him some tips on optimizing his site but he didn't seem interested.

    Thanks in advance
    How about you dump this chump and promote my products?

    Now you have two happy people.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Bogowski
    Thanks for all the feedback guys! I already have a fairly good idea of what I'm going to do but it's always nice to hear some good advice from fellow internet marketers.

    My intention was (and its now confirmed by all the great advice) to create a very similar product in the same niche and use the site to promote both of them.

    This guy is annoying me so much that ill probably invite him to become an affiliate of mine and rub it into his face a little bit that he now has not only someone out ranking him but an extra competitor in his own niche.

    Cheers Everyone
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  • Profile picture of the author zerofill
    LOL...this is definitely on of the funniest things I have heard in awhile...
    If I put a product on clickbank I want you to beat the hell out of me in SEO...put my product everywhere so I don't have to promote it...is this guy retarded or something?

    Yeah I would definitely make my own product that was in direct competition with his then.

    Obviously this guy has some other agenda then making money?
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    • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
      Mike, the guy is a moron. Just keep promoting it. There is nothing he can
      do and I mean NOTHING.

      Hey, you can promote any of my products any day of the week. You have
      my full permission.
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  • Profile picture of the author Yogini
    Mike,

    The idea of your own product is very good, plus a lot of the suggestions above are excellent. I once was a paintball affiliate and was higher in search engines than the merchant for his products and he was mad and de-activated me in cj. I re-applied and then was automatically back in again . I was making around 1500 a month in commissions so he was doing very well from this. He de-activated me again a few months later and I decided to call him. Basically he said he didn't "approve" of my being ahead of his listings since there'd be no point in his hiring his seo people. I didn't really understand his logic but I think people's egos get involved a lot in these things. I wasn't promoted any other affiliate program than his.

    Debbie
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  • Profile picture of the author James Schramko
    This is the same link bait story some Buzz marketers used to get a server melt down. lol. "Please stop outranking my site". It is unbelievable.

    1)I would create your own product

    2)Use all the information you have to clone your site into a similar product in the same niche or use your site as a lead generation / list builder to sell multiple products in the same niche.

    3)Sell your site for multiples of earnings.

    4)Sell the "How To" information about SEO and clickbank marketing to the hungry crowd who would love to buy it.

    5) Make a product to teach how you dominated a market, leveraged it, cashed up, sold the info and now you have a multi million dollar business....

    - beats insults right?
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