The Super Affiliate And Traffic Maven Behind An Ink Refill Site And .MUSIC Reveals His Techniques – with Constantine Roussos
on Mar 29, 2010 - 2:35 PM PSTOne of the things I know about you is that you hate when an entrepreneur is asked how he built his successful business and interviewee responds with one of those meaningless kindergarden answers like, “By working hard.”
That’s why I think you’ll find this program helpful. When I asked Constantine Roussos how he and Dimitris Constantinou built an ink refill business from the ground up and made it into a multi-million dollar business with stores in 8 countries, he talked about how he leveraged the power of the long tail of SEO to capture huge traffic from thousands of less-competitive keyword combinations. When I asked him how he build a quarter of a million dollar per month shoe business, he openly talked about the “multiple-website” technique he used that was so effective that he even outranked the shoe brand company’s official site in the search results, leading to a cease-and-desist letter. And when I asked him how he achieved hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers, he talked about how he used simple SEO tactics and other social media tips to help increase followers and build awareness for his companies.
Now Constantine, a songwriter and musician himself, is launching the .music top-level domain extension, giving the music community its own unique domain identity on the web to better market themselves, powered by the Music.us marketplace platform to help monetize their creative works and services. Constantine’s outreach efforts to the music community to support the launch of the .music domain has been a testament of his deep knowledge on social media and the growing needs of the global music community. The .music initiative gathered over 1.3 million signatures as well as became the most popular Myspace profile with nearly 4 million friends. You’ll hear him talk about all that and more in this program.
The FULL program
This program was sponsored by
Wufoo- The easy way to add elegant forms and surveys to your site. (I use them on my site’s contact page. When we got married Olivia and I used Wufoo on our wedding web site to collect RSVPs because their forms are beautiful.)
Shopify – Thousands of stores are built using Shopify because it’s easy to set up and manage. Tim Ferriss recently announced a contest that offers $100,000 prize for the highest grossing store. Go start your store now.
Grasshopper – Entrepreneurs (like me) love and use Grasshopper because it offers all the features of the big, expensive phone systems (like multiple extensions, music on hold and call forwarding) but it works with any phone and starts at only $9.95 a month.
[This interview was suggested by Mosses Akizian. Thanks again Mosses!]
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March 29th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
Hey Andrew,
why don't you include the mp3 in the rss feed anymore?
And what's more, right click “save as” to get the mp3 does't work on chrome.
March 29th, 2010 at 4:17 pm
Great interview. Very practical advice.
March 29th, 2010 at 8:59 pm
Can't help but get distracted by the random cabinet in your background. Found it kind of weird he couldn't talk about the revenue behind 123Refills. I know the printer OEMs have a big target on companies like that, but what's the harm in talking about it and building awareness around the cost savings to the consumer? Lots of good techniques. Thanks for your work on this one.
March 29th, 2010 at 11:42 pm
I love how he kept saying “Ykipedia”. And when you said “mastering” …that sounds a bit odd too, lol. The long tail SEO domain strategy is very interesting. I'd like to see how he figured it out, by testing it?
March 30th, 2010 at 3:38 am
Hey Andrew, I think your dim lighting gives you what Seth Godin calls an “edge”. I think it gives you a look different from a shiny tv show. But in case you do want to fix it, something as simple as a table lamp facing you should be enough.
Anyway, thanks for another solid interview.
March 30th, 2010 at 8:24 am
This was a great interview. Constantine was very insightful and willing to share as much as possible. He dedicated two hours of his time and I'm sure he would have gone two more.
March 30th, 2010 at 9:30 am
I'm about to have more edge. The lighting guy came to fix it yesterday
but I had to tell him to stop because my interview was starting.
Now there's no telling when he'll return.
March 30th, 2010 at 9:30 am
The camera makes that cabinet look mishapen. Good point.
Sent from my mobile
March 30th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
this guy is a bit of a phony he clearly understands seo but fails to admin that the only reason he has a lot of twitter followers is because he follows them first and they autofollow back using tweetlater. he has a team of people every day going around and following people and when he hits on someone using tweetlater to autofollow follow back he gets a new follower and if he follows someone that does not follow him back he unfollows that person the next day. rise and repeating this task over and over will get you a lot of followers. it has nothing to do with his tweets being interesting and if he never tweets about his own site they he is not getting traffic to his own site from it. spammy.
March 30th, 2010 at 5:23 pm
Hey Marcus,
Thank you for calling me a phony. I have no idea what Tweetlater is by the way. Following other people back is automated but that is not the strategy. I do not have time to listen to everyone's tweets. On the other hand my goal is to provide “retweetable” comments of value. My goal as I described in my Interview is to provide useful news and information to others about the subject matter and once in a while Tweet about a call to action for my projects.
I do not have a team of people going around to do anything with Twitter and I assure you none of my content is spammy. I run and manage all my Twitter accounts. I do not engage in sending direct messages nor do I read those. I read everything that says @musicextension that is sent to me.
I think you have failed to listen that I cross promote across all my Twitter accounts. As a token of appreciation I do auto-follow my followers and that is ok for me because I am not on twitter all day listening to what everyone is talking about on my list. I do not have time to be reading everyone's tweets unless they are directed to me @musicextension. It would not be the best use of my time.
I really disagree with labeling someone as phony and a spammer when I have not spammed anyone nor have I forced anyone into following me. My strategy is quite the opposite. Offer useful news and then once in a while do the self-serving pitch. If you think I have a team doing all these things then I am probably better than I thought because I do not. About the traffic to my site you need to be aware that I own hundreds of domains that point to music.us which have traffic and that I have lots of point of entry as I have explained in my interview. I will let my performance and numbers speak for themselves.
Just a word of advice to you Marcus. If you are going to bad mouth someone, call him a phony and then a spammer, you better have the evidence to back it up, especially in a public setting like this. I always go out of my way helping others and providing feedback. I think that is the only acceptable way of doing business. Bad mouthing others just does not get the job done and I assure you it will not serve you beneficially in the future. Just my 2 cents on this.
I would like to thank everyone who emailed me or Tweeted me, thanking me for the interview, the advice, insights and the tips I gave. If anyone has any questions or would like any feedback, feel free to contact me.
Constantine Roussos
.music
March 30th, 2010 at 5:37 pm
I will try to answer your question.
When pay per clicks became more expensive it was important to figure out how to rank organically. So what I did was to hang around at search engine forums and chat rooms and read what people were saying and what they were doing to increase their chances of ranking higher.
The long tail of SEO is an interesting one. Any business or industry that can be segmented into categories as well as has many synonyms and products are perfect for SEO and long tail. In other words it is all about maximizing combinations of words, brands and synonyms.
In the printing industry, like I described you have the major printer cartridge companies: Epson, Lexmark, Canon and HP (Hewlett Packard). They all have thousands of printer cartridge numbers and printer numbers. For example, Canon BJ 200EX. You can split this up on many combinations such as BJ200EX, BJ 200EX, BJ200 EX or BJ 200 EX. Then the words “ink, ink-jet, inkjet” can be used as a combination of synonyms. Then “refill, refills” and “cartridge, cartridges” and “kit”. Just from one cartridge number you virtually can have over 100 combinations that can be SEO-optimized.
The key is to figure out your area and how to attack the long tail. Another industry that is a great example is lyrics. You can have band name, song name, the word “lyrics, song, lyric” and combination of it. SEO optimized lyrics pages are one of the most visited websites. This is because of this SEO-effect of long tail combination of words/synonyms.
This is a lot of work but it is important to stress on <title> tag as being the most important component. Users will link to you if they find your content useful which will speed up indexing as well as link popularity which in effect will improve your overall search ranking.
Constantine Roussos
.music
http://www.music.us
March 30th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
Hey Kyle,
While I can not get into detail about the revenues of 123Refills because of the partnership agreement I had with the co-founder/partner, I can point out that the cost savings to the consumer were significant. The printing business is all about the printer being the loss leader and the cartridges being the big money maker.
We did stress that it was as easy as 1-2-3 to refill your cartridge as well as bringing savings up to 85%, depending on cartridge model. One secret that the printer companies do not tell you is that the cartridge that comes for free with the printer might not be a full cartridge. That way it runs out quicker and you buy another new one immediately to replace it.
Another mission that 123Refills strives for is building environmental awareness about advantages of recycling and refilling cartridges. Attaching a “green” cause to refilling is another reason to refill and not throw away used cartridges. You would be surprised. 123Refills would even pay for some of your unused cartridges :)
Constantine Roussos
.music
http://www.music.us
April 2nd, 2010 at 3:54 am
I really liked this interview. It's a whole different side of the Web industry that hasn't been discussed on Mixergy. I got a lot of great ideas from this interview.
BTW, thank
April 3rd, 2010 at 3:24 pm
[...] the friends we had some musicians, Brendan Miranda (founder of MusicTrainer), Constantine Roussos (founder of music.us), and Rufus Philpot (bass player and instructor). Web developers included [...]
April 5th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
Excellent interview ! Loads of useful information, and very inspiring story.
April 6th, 2010 at 9:39 am
I admire his drive and ambition but I feel like this interview lacked real substance. He never really goes in depth of his passion for music. He pretty much just uses his knowledge of SEO to leverage more traffic to his site. His business is another me too business. He doesn't explain how he's better or differs from competitors. These are the the kind of “seo experts” that Google tries to derail during their updates.
April 6th, 2010 at 10:52 am
Chris, I hate to admit it, but I don't care about his interest in music. I
care about business. I'm a philistine.
What's interesting to me is how he used search engines to get traffic which
he converted to sales. You call the business a “me too business.” To me, the
fact that others were in this space and he still made money makes him even
more interesting.
Andrew Warner
Founder, http://Mixergy.com
=====
How many of these questions can you answer?
http://foundersmix.com
====
April 6th, 2010 at 11:14 am
Chris. This interview was not focused on the music side of his passion, but SEO. Specifically about his company 123Refills. I would like to see him again for a second interview dedicated to music and specifically his challenges of bringing .music TLD to the internet.
April 8th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Hi Andrew. good interview. I know you are toying with a revenue stream for the site. I wouldn't pay for random entrepreneur interviews, regardless of how compelling a story. I would however be willing to pay for would pay for interviews on how to drive traffic like the one I just listened to.
In any event, great work. Keep it up.
April 8th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
Thanks. I understand that.
I appreciate the feedback.
April 9th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
Hey Chris,
As I mentioned in the interview, times change and so does the environment. Adapting to the search behavioral patterns of users and the technology that powers it is key. Search is not limited to Google. You can optimize for search engines that power sites such as Twitter and Facebook. The key is to figure out a way to break away from the noise.
I have not lost a beat from getting found on the Internet. I even got ranked #5 for one of the most competitive terms “music” on the web in December 2009. However you have limited control of your search results and you should not put all your eggs in one basket. Also you have to look into applying key performance indicators and measurement metrics that will help you make decisions in your overall marketing strategy.
Here are two articles I wrote for optimizing for social media. I talked about a lot of the points in the interview but I hope these 2 articles help:
SEO.tv: Socia Media Marketing Secrets
SEO.tv: Social Media Optimization Strategy
Not sure how I am a “me-too” business if I have built one of the largest social networking profiles on the Internet with 4 million friends and in the top 1% of Twitter. Never knew that launching a generic top-level domain extension is a “me-too” business. There is only a handful of them.
I do not think that I am better than competitors but I have to admit I always have an underlying strategy that is built around the big picture as well as finding out ways to find where the “blue oceans” are. In regards to business, there is no way you can make a considerable income or sustain an competitive advantage as a “me-too” business or joining the bandwagon of competitive “red oceans.” You need to predict the change before the change occurs (eg a bubble) and adapt to the environment and business landscape. Most business only change when they are forced too. Problem is that can be too late. If there is one tip I can leave you with is for you to determine what your business key performance indicators are and tie them with your overall strategy to help you make decisions. That will make you different from 99% of people who really have no KPI or a sound underlying strategy that makes a difference that matters and can be flexible enough to change when needed.
Great interview Andrew! I got a lot of positive feedback because of it. Also a lot of compliments about your interviewing style.
Constantine Roussos
.music
http://www.music.us
http://www.seo.tv
April 9th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
[...] Super Affiliate And Traffic Maven Behind .MUSIC Reveals His Techniques: http://mixergy.com/constantine-roussos [...]
April 10th, 2010 at 1:10 am
Hey Chris,
As I mentioned in the interview, times change and so does the environment. Adapting to the search behavioral patterns of users and the technology that powers it is key. Search is not limited to Google. You can optimize for search engines that power sites such as Twitter and Facebook. The key is to figure out a way to break away from the noise.
I have not lost a beat from getting found on the Internet. I even got ranked #5 for one of the most competitive terms “music” on the web in December 2009. However you have limited control of your search results and you should not put all your eggs in one basket. Also you have to look into applying key performance indicators and measurement metrics that will help you make decisions in your overall marketing strategy.
Here are two articles I wrote for optimizing for social media. I talked about a lot of the points in the interview but I hope these 2 articles help:
SEO.tv: Socia Media Marketing Secrets
SEO.tv: Social Media Optimization Strategy
Not sure how I am a “me-too” business if I have built one of the largest social networking profiles on the Internet with 4 million friends and in the top 1% of Twitter. Never knew that launching a generic top-level domain extension is a “me-too” business. There is only a handful of them.
I do not think that I am better than competitors but I have to admit I always have an underlying strategy that is built around the big picture as well as finding out ways to find where the “blue oceans” are. In regards to business, there is no way you can make a considerable income or sustain an competitive advantage as a “me-too” business or joining the bandwagon of competitive “red oceans.” You need to predict the change before the change occurs (eg a bubble) and adapt to the environment and business landscape. Most business only change when they are forced too. Problem is that can be too late. If there is one tip I can leave you with is for you to determine what your business key performance indicators are and tie them with your overall strategy to help you make decisions. That will make you different from 99% of people who really have no KPI or a sound underlying strategy that makes a difference that matters and can be flexible enough to change when needed.
Great interview Andrew! I got a lot of positive feedback because of it. Also a lot of compliments about your interviewing style.
Constantine Roussos
.music
http://www.music.us
http://www.seo.tv
May 5th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
[...] Constantine Roussos of .music TLD. Listen to his Mixergy interview. [...]
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