Saturday

Trying To Earn A Penny


It's not traditional affiliate marketing, but a new source of income for bloggers has surfaced that allows you to make some pretty good money just writing posts. There is a huge market now of companies that pay you to blog about certain sites, products, etc... as a form of advertisement for it's customers. The services differ, in regards to blog requirements and placements, but below is a list of places that pay bloggers to blog, so surely you can find one to work for you.

Thanks to the members of v7n for coming up with the list of places that pay bloggers to blog. I'm sure as new companies arrive this thread will be updated and the potential for earning revenue while blogging will increase. I myself have had limited success with PayerPerPost, but after several frustrations and poor management in the beginning I abandoned it. But, if you are looking for a little extra filler in your blog and earn a few dollars on the side, you should definitely check out one or all of these services.

P.S. I should also note that not all of these companies will allow BlogSpot blogs and require that a blog be hosted on it's own domain. This is not a blanket statement, but be prepared to run into low paying offers and possible non-acceptance into a service using a Blogger blog.

Friday

Affiliate Store Builder Scripts

I'll admit, there are a lot of automatic website building scripts available, but personally I am only familiar with a few quality ones, so that's what I'll be discussing and comparing. The two scripts I'll be briefly covering are AOM for Amazon affiliates and BANS for EPN affiliates. While both do similar things they are extremely different in setup and functionality, and yes these scripts cost money.

Associate-O-Matic - $99 (or Free lite version where you share revenues)

This script saved my ass last holiday by providing me with a quick and easy way to throw up a store that looked like I actually kept the inventory. I'm throughly convinced that by giving the impression to visitors that I was keeping the inventory and allowing them to add items to a cart got me the majority of my sales and commissions. Keep in mind I was very clear that when they checked out they would be forwarded to Amazon, but I think putting it off till the last minute netted me some repeat business.

Associate-O-Matic's simple, yet powerful, browser-based control panel lets you customize everything from categories, colors, fonts, custom boxes, custom pages and much, much more. Below are a few screen shots of what you can find in the Admin panel of AOM and what customization can be done or achieved.





Build A Niche Store (BANS) - $97

This is simply a beautiful script to behold and if used properly can simply rake in the cash and pay for itself in a week, even on a brand new domain. The eBay affiliate store script BANS creates an SEO friendly site, built on eBay RSS feeds and categories. But in addition to adding tons of products to a store, you can easily add individual content per page and create you own content pages through the admin panel.

Setting up one of the eBay BANS affiliate stores is super simple, but maximizing it's potential can be very challenging. If all you want is a cookie cutter look a like site, a niche store can be completed in probably 15 minutes. However, if you want to create a unique site, with quality content and products, then get comfortable because building quality BANS sites is addicting.






Now, there is no way I would recommend a product on my own affiliate blog, without using the product thoroughly first. Both scripts have been put through the paces as far as I' concerned and both paid themselves off quickly and made me substantial scrilla.

I'm happy to answer any behind the scenes questions you may have on either one of my AOM Review or BANS review.

Free Affiliate Link Masking WP Plugin


It's not cloaking, but it is masking, to make your affiliate links look like there are sub folders or your site. Often times it can be a turn off to a visitor to see a big nasty non-sense redirect url, but if you can make that url pretty and look like it's tied to your site, expect higher click through's. There are paid scripts out there that will allow you to mask your affiliate links, but believe it or not there is a free Wordpress plugin that will do the same thing.

Take your affiliate link from this :
http://www.kqzyfj.com/click-2982118-5655490

To:
http://used-golf-cart.net/used-golf-cart/used-callaway

Of course the url would be redirected to your affiliate landing page, cookie intact. Studies have shown that a better looking url will result in higher click throughs and ultimately better conversions for you.

WP-Affiliate is the free plugin that automatically converts these urls for you to a more manageable and better looking link. The latest version of WP-Affiliate will allow you to search through CJ products and manage all your masked links.

WP-Affiliate on WordPress.org
WP-Affiliate Developer Page

Thursday

Why Affiliates Complain About Amazon


I see it on a daily basis, affiliates complaining about Amazon.com's affiliate program. The majority of Amazon.com affiliate complaints are that they have very low payouts, but really they are above others in the same categories. While your affiliate commission for an electronics product may only be 4% that's still 1% higher than the leading electronics e-merchant on the net, NewEgg. NewEgg.com offers only 3% commissions on their entire inventory of electronics, except for cell phone plans, in which they can offer up to $25 per contract.

So, lets say you stay away from electronics on Amazon and focus on marketing other products, well then you should be earning a minimum of 6% on all sales. Furthermore this percentage will fluctuate fast, depending on how many orders you get your percentage of commission can jump up to 6.5%-8%. What's great about Amazon's commission tier is that dollars don't play a part, they simply go by the amount of items sold. That means you will increase your commission percentage if you sell 50 couches or 50 pens.

How To Get Around Low Percentage Electronic Commissions

There is an affiliate trick that I use with Amazon to maximize my commissions when dealing with electronic items. I try to focus on those sold by 3rd party members of Amazon, instead of Amazon.com's inventory. All sales through 3rd party sellers on Amazon will result in your tier commission, meaning it's possible to sell electronics and earn only as low as 6%.

Using the method above I was able to earn a staggering 8% on all the Nintendo Wii's I sold. I was able to earn that high percentage on an electronic item because Amazon did not have them in stock, all went through 3rd parties and because I was able to push more than 600 per month.

So, next time you see someone complaining about Amazon.com's affiliate program, remember the real bread winners in affiliate marketing aren't the loud ones on the forums.

GoDaddy Promo Code


Creating an affiliate empire requires domains and your yearly purchases and renewals can really add up. Recently I started dumping old domains I never found time to develop, although still really nice ones, I had to let them go. The registrar of my choice is GoDaddy, because of service, dashboard functionality, and lastly prices, which are not always competitive. That's why I utilize GoDaddy promo codes whenever I can and then I pass them on to my friends.

I just received an email from GoDaddy announcing a promo that will go on until July 3rd 2008 where you can take 25% off an order of $75 or more.

Use GoDaddy Coupon Code gdp0645y before July 3rd 2008 to qualify for 25% off. Also, be sure to subscribe to our mailing list to get updates like these in the mail. Whenever I receive a discount offer on a product I think my readers will like, I'll make sure and post it here and email those on the list so that they can take advantage of the deal as well.

Affiliate News From The Web


What is my greatest tool in my arsenal of affiliate marketing endeavors, reading what others have done! That's right, take in every biscuit of knowledge you can from leading bloggers, newbies trial and erroring, anything. Just remember to apply what you know to what you read and don't expect someone to show you the Yellow Brick Road of affiliate marketing either, the best secrets are kept that way, secret.

I came across a great blog post by Dave Martinez that broke down the top 7 things to look for in an Affiliate Program. Believe it or not it's not just how much it pays and what he covers could save you some serious head aches in the long run. Furthermore, some of the topics he covers will make you more affiliate commissions than just going after something you know nothing about.

Check out 7 Things To Look For In An Affiliate Program

Wednesday

Affiliate Programs I Use


I'm often asked where I get access to all my affiliate programs and generally there is no one answer. I stick with a handful of companies that allow me to build partnerships and affiliate for a large number of programs. Below is a breakdown of which companies I'm signed up with and why i use them to affiliate.

  • Commission Junction - They have a crazy amount of companies signed up that you can affiliate for. I originally signed up for eBay, but since then have been accepted into the NewEgg.com affiliate program and others. Many of the programs require you to signup individually for which program matches your website content, so you are not automatically accepted into their inventory of clients.
  • Max Bounty - Generally speaking, they have the largest number of affiliate programs aimed at the simple 1 form, email gathering, affiliate programs. Meaning they have the $1 to $2 payouts for leading a visitor to submit their email for potential freebies and surveys.
  • ebay Partner Network - They pay some of the highest commissions of any program I affiliate for. Their lowest tier of earnings makes you 50% of whatever eBay makes off an auction that ends with your affiliate cookie attached. Plus there are a lot of plugins and scripts to make building sites easy.
  • Amazon - Who hasn't heard of Amazon? Some of their payouts are pretty low, but it's easily made up with the amount of volume that's possible. They also offer plenty of affiliate widgets, feeds, and store builder options.
  • ClickBank - If it's a digital download, ebook, or some sort of online subscription service you can find it on ClickBank. They offer a huge inventory of these types of products that you can affiliate for with an even larger number of payout options. While I've only had limited success with this affiliate program, the potential is there if you can find a good niche.
Well, those are the affiliate programs I use in a nut shell. They have allowed me to eliminate Adsense on a number of my sites or at least not rely on the revenue from Adsense to earn a living. But remember, now matter how good a product or service may be, if you are not focusing on quality marketing you may just be wasting your time.

Affiliate Plugins for Wordpress


Yes, this is a blogger blog, but I also use WordPress for my hosted sites. What makes WordPress so great is that there are a plethora of plugins that make affiliating easy and automate a lot of the marketing process. Currently I'm utilizing EPN and Amazon affiliate programs on my WordPress blogs and I'll discuss the plugins I use to make money.

Amazon.com Affiliate WordPress Plugin
  • wp-Amazon - This plugin allows you to search for Amazon items while creating a new post. By dragging and dropping you can place affiliate links to products while writing, but there are not a lot of options for customizing.
eBay Partner Network Affiliate WordPress Plugin
  • phpBay - This plugin is highly customizable and automatically ads products from eBay into your post. It pulls images, titles, bids, and time left and displays it in a table anywhere within your post. The only downside is that it's not free, but it pays for itself very quickly.
I use both of the Affiliate WordPress Plugins above and both have made my life a lot easier. Specifically phpBay, which has allowed me to supplement my Adsense income and even create entire blogs around that one plugin. If you are not utilizing plugins now, it's time to start looking.
:)

Update 06/02/09 New Amazon Auto Poster Plugin

Please view my Amazon Auto Poster Plugin review.

Saturday

What's Better phpBay or BANS?

Within the past year I've purchased both phpbay and BANS. Both of these scripts are affiliate scripts which allow easy marketing of eBay products but in two very different ways. PHPBay is a WordPress plugin that allows you to automatically generate eBay affiliate links in your posts. BANS is a completely standalone site builder that builds your own niche store showing eBay products of your choice.

Updates

PHPBay and BANS both update frequently and change in accordance with eBay rules and affiliate changes. I would consider both affiliate scripts equal in their upgrade frequency and ease of upgrading.

Customization

Both are easily customizable and only IONCUBE loaders limit a small portion of the code. As far as looks, both can be changed to fit your needs and there is an API available for phpBay which will allow for further customization.

Price

phpBay : $49.00
BANS: $97.00

The prices are completely worth it, if you don't expect a get rich quick. Furthermore, each price are a one time fee, all upgrades are free for life and your license never expires. Keep in mind neither license are transferrable.

Overral Closing Statements

I actually use both, fairly effectively in their own right. I have several niche blogs, which are over a year old, that i utilize phpbay for. However, on some of my new sites I'm utilizing BANS ease of site creation and customization. Both of these scripts use EPN, which is eBay's in house affiliate program, so no additional accounts are required to use both.

For a more indepth review of phpbay please read my personal blog.

Thursday

Free BANs Template

Looking for a free BANs theme or template? I've just released Magazine, a free BANs theme compatible with the latest EPN version of BANs.

Anybody is free to use it, but if you are making 3 figures a day, please send me some cash. Not only have I had success with BANs but I've also been having success wit phpbay. I've got a detailed review of phpbay in my blog, if you are interested in more information or how to get started makign money through the eBay Partner Network.