Commission Junction Provides the Tools

CommissionJunction is a highly respected affiliate program that not only creates an inventory of products/services, but also helps out with the tools. For publishers, it can be a daunting task to get started and make that ever important first affiliate sale. CJ makes it easier with CJU a free university to affiliate publishers.

CJ is attempting to start things off right in 07, with their Affiliate Publisher resolution.

Year in and year out, many sing the tired old New Year's resolution tunes about losing love-handles and firming jiggly thighs. Jazz up your New Year's resolutions by making ones that will drive revenue.

We are all here for the same thing and that is knowledge which will eventually lead to revenue. Make sure and do your homework, because there is no free money on the internet...it does take hard work.

Christmas After Christmas with HP

Did you get everything you wanted for Christmas? The answer should be no, that is unless you don't want anything next Holiday Season, or ever for that matter. :P Which brings me to my next question, why can't Christmas be year round, with the present giving and what not?

I think the answer is, we can, if we are friends with the right folks, whom love giving away free stuff. PayPerPost.com is one such company that pats itself on the back from the ability to hand out nifty HP digital camera and printers...after the holiday.

Admittedly it's been a few months since I've taken part in the success of PPP, not from lack of being paid, or from lack of opportunities, rather I've been busy with a full plate. But what better way to win me back over, than an opportunity to when a 6 mega pixel digital camera and/or photo printer from HP?

Thanks to the players from PPP for the consideration and a personal thx to HP.

HP sponsored this post.

Text-Link-Ads Now Blogger Friendly

It looks like Text-Link-Ads.com finally joined the new Blogger and introduced their service to the program. This has been a highly anticipated move by many bloggers, looking to take advantage of TLA's affiliate sales and publisher commissions.

The following email was received yesterday morning:

We are excited to announce that Text Link Ads publishing program now is compatible with Blogger! Your blog has already been approved with TLA so all you have to do now is login to your account, click on "Install ad code", then click the "Get ad code" link to the right of your domain. Choose "Blogger" in the code dropdown and follow the simple installation instructions. If you have not yet upgraded to the newest version of blogger, you will need to do so in order to use our ad program.

Thanks for your patience with us while we got our ad program ready for Blogger. We look forward to servicing you and making you some money!


Patrick Gavin
President

The major problem facing most bloggers now is that their blog is not upgradeable. For example, if your blog contains thousands of posts or numerous comments, it's not available for upgrade. Likewise, even if your blog is capable, it's still not open to be switched. Luckily, Google says the ability to merge blogs will become available further down the road.

WebHostingBuzz.com Launches Affiliate Program

Avoiding problems and growing the business is what web hosting is all about and WebHostingBuzz.com was able to achieve both in the past 12 months. To further their reach as a hosting company WHB announced today that they will be providing affiliate incentives, competitive to their market.

Commission Type	Pay-Per-Sale: 40% for all sales you deliver.
Free Bonus	$10.00 USD - We will pay you just for signing up!
Payout Threshold	$100.00 USD - Minimum balance required for payout.
Payout Duration	Payments are made on the 15th of each month, for the previous month.

Get started with your own hosting affiliate program now, it's free, and they give you $10.00 just for signing up. WebHostingBuzz.com Affiliate Program

Top 10 Affiliates

AffiliateThing.com has announced it's top 10 affiliates for October and the list is quite impressive.

1. GameTap.com
   
2. Lillian Vernon
3. Payless ShoeSource
4. Hydra Network
5. eHealthInsurance
6. Orbitz
7. Art.com
8. zZounds.com
9. Advanta Bank Corp
10. Scholastic Inc.

The list contains enough niche's that you should be able to pick one to match your site. Although, better yet, check out a new industry and see how your site does, perhaps some untapped revenue hiding in the corners of the net. ;)

AvantLink Launches Affiliate Program

AvantLink Network starts new affiliate program for ProBoardShop.com, the premiere shop for serious boarders. If your site focuses on skateboarding, snowboarding, or wakeboarding then this affiliate program should be right up your ally.

On top of affiliating for top name gear AvantLink is also offering some seriously high payouts, up to 13% of each sale. The average sale size is over $240 and all commissinons honored on return sales. The real kicker for this affiliate program, that more need to adopt, is it's 120 day cookies. This means that if your referred visitor comes back for a purchase up to 120 days after clicking...you still get the credit!

Get going here.

Finding The Right Stuff

Super Wal-Marts and eBay have way too much in common for me to use them, I prefer niche stores and market places. Mega sites that offer a mix of stamps and cars cannot provide me the best service when it comes to either and that’s why I’ve started checking out MotoYard.com If it’s not a Motorcycle, ATV, or parts then you can’t find it at MotoYard.

MotoYard can is a great source for New and used motorcycles, motorcycle parts and motorcycle apparel. As a veteran of eBay and other auction sites I feel right at ease navigating through their listings. Listed on the front page was a 2003 Black & Red Limited Edition Yamaha Raptor 660, something I’ve been looking for all summer. Hmmm, may have to break down and start placing some bids. ;)

Google Forecast, Cloudy with a Chance of Confusion

Matt Cutts, in all his SEO rockstardom has posted on his blog the supposed Google forecast. Cutts is an artist that is able to dance around topics of concern and disappears when comments start floating in.

Nevertheless, he does attempt to make webmasters feel better about being in supplemental results. In addition, Google won't steal as much of your bandwidth next time it decides to crawl and cache your site. ;)

PPP on Today

PayPerPost.com stormed the Today show on Sept 27 in an attempt to steal airtime and get some ...sorta free... publicity. If nothing else, as evidenced by the video, they attracted attention of 10's of 20's of individuals on the street.

New York is great for finding individuals looking for free stuff like shirts, hats, signs...etc. lol I saw the video produced by the boys and girls of PPP and I have to say looks like they were having fun. Hey, if you can't have fun Guerilla Marketing what can you have fun at doing?

I'm still waiting on the exact statistics of how many advertisers/bloggers the Today Show attention brought in. However, I'm more concerned with how many others will attempt to emulate such a simple and brillaint idea, Kudos to the PPP team!

SERP Positioning & Percentages

From time to time certain forum posts get my attention, if not for their unique perspective, but their inability to be properly answered. The most recent post from DigitalPoint covers the probability of result pages and their click throughs.

I want to know out what percentage of clicks the 1st position gets vs the 2nd position vs the 3rd position, ect. for the top 20 SERPs

example:

1st position 68%
2nd position 52%
3rd position 55%
4th position 31%

Does anyone really know?

Unfortunately this post was made at the beginning of September without any responses and has recently been bumped. Still no response...does anyone have any better evidence of click throughs?

List'd Ebay Marketing

I remember the first taste of making money felt on the internet and it originated from eBay. This was during ebay's infancy, when there were mainly a community of niche sellers and the bigboys hadn't signed on yet, therefore pleasant looking auctions were not the buzz...so to speak.

However, times have changed and there is a lot of competition when selling anything on ebay(Or rather "it", as their advertisements go). For those of us looking to place items fast and make them visually appealing our options are limited to what ebay offers, unless you check out what Listd.com has to offer as a eBay listing tool.

Listd.com allows for quick and easy listings and geared towards the casual seller. Setting itself apart from other similar services is their easy user interface, multiple template choices, and unlimited photo hosting! With the backing of of Photobucket its hard to go wrong, start making your listings stand out and check out Listd.com.

In addition to offering phenomenal listing services Listd.com also serves up a phenomenal ecommerce blog. GetListd.com is a blog that covers the industry news and information to become a a success on the net.

Financial Literacy Affiliate Program

Are you familiar with Dave Ramsey? The National Financial Literacy Network offers similar products to help individuals rid themselves of debt. The package, which I always thought this was comical, costs an amazing $149.95. So explain to me how a company can be concerned with your financial well being and still be interested in taking 150 bones out of your pocket?

At any rate, financial mangement is big money, therefore NFLN has launched an affiliate program. The program is available to webmasters, bloggers, and newsletter producers are encouraged to help sell this Do-It-Yourself product.

The Dallas-based National Financial Literacy Network today launched their affiliate program that enables webmasters, bloggers and email newsletter distributors to remarket NFAN products and earn 25 percent from sales the affiliate generates. Those interested in becoming an affiliate can go to www.nfan.com and click on the “Become an Affiliate” link to register.

It's success is mentioned on the official website, but for webmasters, we're more interested in the commission we would receive. 25% is nothing to sneeze at, so get signed up if your blog and/or website offers any sort of financial advice.

PayPerPost Referrals

A few of my more loyal readers have already hooked me up by allowing me to refer them to PPP. PayPerPost is a network of bloggers and advertisers that allows people like you and me to earn revenue for the posts we make. Advertisers give us opportunities, we blog about the opportunities, advertisers pay PPP, and PPP pays us via paypal.

I'd like to sing up as many as possible, so if your not a member yet and live in the US just drop me your email in a comment. For every person that I refer to the network I earn $5, not a bad way to make money.

Currently there have been discussions that PPP will offer their affiliate program in the form of links. Although it is a bit cumbersome to exchange emails, it does open the blog up to some nice conversation and allows me to meet my readers.

NoFollow Affiliate Links

With my latest project moving full steam forward and having enjoyed the luxury of top placement in the SERPs, I discovered something disturbing. Within 48 hours of me placing my affiliate links up, the site that I was affiliating for moved ahead of me in the SERP. While this could be a coincidence, I may be contributing to their success...more than I want.

I want people to find me, not them!

Online affiliating can be a dangerous game, especially considering most businesses have larger ad budgets than their affiliates. When at the whim of search engine traffic, one can't be too careful when it comes to link juice. Let's hope that by building more specific backlinks with specific anchor text I can overcome the affiliate SERP ranking.

I need to do some more research into the effects of "nofollow" on affiliate links and whether it is even allowed by most programs. Once I have some more specific data I'll report back.

Learning SEO

SEO techniques change almost daily and keeping up with what the Search Engines are doing can be a full time job. The easiest way to keep up with such a fast paced market is to monitor weblogs.

Apogee offers a great SEO Blog, that offers up the latest in search engine optimization. Updated on a regular basis following this blog makes it easy to follow trends in SEO and PPC. Successful website designs starts with quality research, Apogee offers a great resource, so check it out!

Domain Name Affiliate Program

NetRegistry has launched a new affiliate program that helps remove the burden of offering support and other requirements of reselling hosting. This affiliate scheme was designed to help businesses that wanted to sell domain related services, but didn't have the expertise associated with the support side.

"This scheme really suits organisations that want to provide these services to customers but don't want to be responsible for ongoing billing. For example, a Web designer," he said. "In this way, resellers can maintain relationships with customers but we handle the back end."

I'm sure all are aware of the low price of domain names, therefore the affiliate commission is very low. However, earning $.10 per domain purchase can really add up and you receive the commission for the life of the customer. I've already purchased over 25 domains in my short existence in webmastering, imagine how many teh big dogs are purchasing.

The Adsense Alternative

Blogging on the internet is the latest and greatest thing and for some a method to get-rich-quick. The number one tool used by bloggers, especially those on BlogSpot.com, to make money is Google Adsense.

Google Adsense is contextual advertising, which essentially takes the guess work and leg work out of advertising on a site. The ads displayed are triggered by certain keywords in posts, therefore making the ads relevant. Phenomenal idea that works for some, but not most.

The problem with Google Adsense is first to receive a check you must have earned $100. Although this may not seem like a lot, it is whenever you are only receiving pennies on the click. This is typical CPC(cost per click) for bloggers and google wants it this way, their latest is smart pricing, which we'll get into at a later date.

The alternatives to Adsense are few and far between, but leading the way is PayPerPost.com, a beta project I've mentioned on a number of occasions. Essentially a blogger is paid to post about certain products, services, or sites in general to generate a buzz. Perhaps this is the next step in Blogger revenue building techniques, Adsense may just be dead for bloggers.

Positioning Your Affiliate Site

I've mentioned previously in this blog the importance of positioning your website for prelaunch products. Today I've learned just how important that really is, especially following major announcements.

The product I'm affiliating for made an official announcement yesterday stating the launch date and pricing info. Following the information my site was literally flooded with search engine traffic, so much so that it virtually shut down my servers. All of the traffic stimmed from keywords that I had been targetting, but was not heavily searched. Now that the info is available, the number of searches hunting for my keywords has went through the roof.

24hrs after this announcement and I am well on my way to affiliate stardom. As I compile the specifics I'll keep this blog updated.

The MySpace Marketer

Interesting enough, MySpace can be a phenomenal place to market any website that you own. However, creating a presence, a persona, or even a reputation can be difficult amongst the sea of sameness.

To help in the matter of setting your self apart from the rest, avatars are often used to help individualize people. It’s difficult however, for those without Photoshop skills, to create their own avatar or rendition of oneself on the internet. To help, TheDollPalace.com offers a number of avatars for you to create, personalize, and then use as avatars as you see fit.

Although the doll maker program can be used for alternative purposes, it most definitely can create a welcoming persona on MySpace. If your like me, you don’t like showing your face anywhere, especially internet social networks, so this offers a simple alternative.

Below is an example of what TheDollPalace.com is capable of creating, flashy and perfect for the MySpace crowd.

| |

With a flashy presence on MySpace individuals will be more likely to add you to their friends list. Therefore you will have a larger audience to market to once you start sending out those ever important myspace bulletins. My MySpace research is still undergoing testing, however, as of today it is a free source of traffic…looking very promising.

MySpace Advertising

MySpace, a popular social networking site(you should know this by now, duh!?), has a bohemeth of an audience to market to, putting it lightly. There are ways to tap into this resource, but use caution when moving forward.

For example, it's probably pointless, depending on your niche, to target any and every person on myspace. However, by doing searches on topics that cover your niche you can easily find a number of people to add as friends, for whom you will advertise to. Currently, I'm experimenting with users in the gaming industry and my ability to 'market' my affiliate site to them.

I'm keeping close tabs on the numbers and hope to be able to provide a decent resource for MySpace marketing techniques. One of the biggest problems to overcome is the number of indivduals using the service, that don't have money. Persistance pays off in numbers...right?

Paper Hanger

It seems like most days I'm busier than a one armed paper hanger, but I really shouldn't be. If the boss of our location was a little bit more in the managerial field I think things would be a little smoother.

ManagerAssistant.com offers a great program that helps with managerial duties and increase productivity. Their latest toolset features the ability to help with Employee Apprasials and Reviews. It'd be nice to get a raise every once in awhile in my 9-5, that is until my online affiliate plans take off. ;)

Affiliate Planning

When we talk about affiliate marketing we are talking about products that are readily available from specific vendors. However, what about getting a jump on the affiliate train and start building sites targeted to pre-release products?

I have created a site that is focusing entirely on a product that has yet to launch. There is a large buzz around the internet focusing on this product and potential launch dates have been announced. The benefit that I have is that my site is aged, has already been optimized, and is receiving several hundred hits daily for a very specific phrase and this phrase pays BIG.

Planning ahead and watching product markets that interest you can pay off in the long run. Target products or services that your interested in, build a site focused on this upcoming opportunity and promote, promote, promote. Eventually there will be venues for affiliating that product, that's when you start cashing in. Good luck and happy affiliating.

SEO, A Part of Your Affiliate Plan

Success on the internet takes many forms, however to get there it only takes one thing, traffic. The greatest source of traffic on the internet comes from Search Engines. SEO(Search Engine Optimization) is the optimization of your site so that it's listed at the top of SERPs. Finding a company that is qualified can be difficult, but if your looking for Search Engine Marketing in Austin, then I can recommend Apogee-Search.com.

Apogee-Search.com is the fastest growing SEO company in Texas and offers a number of different services. From Paid Search Advertising to Affiliate Marketing programs, Apogee-Search has the bases covered in regards to optimizing your site for traffic and ROI(Return on Investment). Get the traffic and start earning revenue, Apogee-Search can help.

Paid to Post

On occasions there will be posts here that appear to be slightly out of place or rather not focusing on my typical subjects. These posts are more often than not instruments of capitalism and my relentless pursuit at earning revenue on the internet.

I accept posting offers from companies, through Blogitive.com and PayPerPost.com and in return I am paid through PayPal for my services and links. I'm not getting rich off this endeavor, but it is fun to do and is a quick source for a few extra dollars. However, paid-to-post services are still in their infancy and Nailsblog.com offers up a great review of one of the services. Nailsblog does a blogitive review and offers up some deciding points on which service is best for you.

Tips On Internet Marketing

This post was inspired by a thread at DP and as such I decided to summarize for my visitors here. The idea behind website marketing is simple as such, but becoming successful is a completely different story. Competition, bankroll, and unpredictable search engines can create a load of troubles for beginner webmasters. Below is a few suggestions made by the friendly people at DP.

• Browse and Read DP(and v7n) There are a wealth of sites and free information out there, feed off of the knowledge of others. If you don't learn the answer, you'll at least be able to ask the proper questions.
• Make a Site that Interests you. This is especially important considering all the barriers that will prevent you from being successful. Devoting time and effort everyday to site that your not interested in makes things worse, enjoy the topic you choose.
• Research your niche and other sites in the market. Notice what works well in the niche that you choose, emulate, but do not copy and build upon what they have done for your success.
• Research Research Research
• Don't expect to Get-Rich-Quick, online marketing is still work.

DealASite Website Marketplace

I personally have sold a number of sites through online forums, mainly through the likes of DP and v7n. Although these methods are good, a site such as DealASite.com is what is needed to maximize your profits.

In addition, I have had a site listed with DealASite as well. Buy-Wii.net was listed for a brief time on the site, before I removed it for personal reasons. In the few short days that it was listed I received a lot of hits from DealASite, let me say it again, a lot of hits. This let me know that my site was being viewed by potential buyers.

Exposure is everything and if your looking to sell a site DealASite.com is a great way to go. The next time I decide to purchase a site, once my plate is not so full, I'll be going there first. ;)

Latest Hosting Affiliate Program

MochaHost announced they are launching a new affiliate program. Like most affiliate programs it's free to sign up to and you need not be an existing customer.

The program works on a tiered commission basis, meaning payouts could range from 30-50% of the referral amount.

"We are exciting to introduce this new program and pass the profits directly to our clients. Our clients would earn on average of $20-$125 per sale", says Jim Truong, VP of Marketing with MochaHost.

The short and long of the program:

Affiliate Program Details
Commission Type	Pay-Per-Sale: 30% of all sales you deliver.
Initial Deposit	$10.00 USD - Just for signing up!
Payout Threshold	$50.00 USD - Minimum balance required for payout.
Payout Duration	Payments are made on the 1st of each month, for the previous month.

Check out and sign up to this program here.

The Relocation Shuffle

The owner of the company I work for has a success in his bloodline. His brother is the owner and operator of a large firm that specializes in relocation for highend companies. The company operates in a 1-call fashion where everything is handled from getting rid of the realestate to purchasing the new home and taking care of the physical moving of items. But this is the high-end side for rich corporations, what are the rest of us supposed to do?

Thanks to GetAMover.com we have options and we get help every step of the way. GetAMover makes things easy by utilizing their database of Moving Companies they are able to query the best option for your needs. Not only is it convenient and easy to use, but they also provide security as well.

GetAMover.com has been around for more than 5 years, so they are a website you can trust. In addition, every business added to their search database must be a member of of some industry agency, like the BBB(Better Business Bureau). By providing safety on both sides GetAMover has created a method that saves both sides money and increases your efficency at relocating.

Adsense Niche Research Tool

Many of our readers are also familiar with 5StarAffiliatePrograms.com as well, they provide an exceptional service. Recently, they have released a new tool that finds out a number of key factors about the ads you can or need to display on your site. The items are researched in this tool:

Enter Key Phrase Below to Discover:
Cost per Click
Total Clicks per Day Estimated Volume
Historic High/Low Data
Total Cost per Day Estimates
Related Key Phrases to Click and Instantly Research

Definatley a useful tool if your looking to incorporate Google Adsense with your affiliate marketing site. Also, this tool is a great at helping you to find a high paying niche market to focus your efforts on.

5StarAffiliateProgram.com Link Bait Link

Pay-Per-Post Saves GM

Domestic automotive manufacturer General Motors posted an increase in sales compared to this time last year. FordMoCo and other domestic manufacturers are struggling to turn a profit and even considering going private to help their money problems. GM attributes its latest increase in sales to Pay-Per-Post.com.

GM utilized ads on blogs through Pay-Per-Post.com in an attempt to generate a marketing buzz about their latest automotive products. By redesigning their latest SUV’s and releasing a new line of cars GM was looking for a way to build buzz about their new offerings. Thanks to Pay-Per-Post they were able to get their message out there via the blog network.

Pay-Per-Post single handedly brought GM back into the black. Thanks to it’s success, PPP is now looking at the possibility of purchasing Ford Motor Company.

Online Affiliate Mentality

The moment you join an affiliate program, you become a sales representative for the product you choose. It's important to think of yourself as a brick'n mortar business when setting up your online marketing plan. To be successful, a professional atmosphere and trust needs to be established before large earnings can be reached.

Traffic is key to a successful affiliate program, but not the only ingredient to a successful business plan. It's also important to establish trust with your visitors and reader base. Chances are if they trust you, they will trust recommendations you make off of your website. This applies to links, products, or any other gateway off of your site.

Inbed ideas such as this into your affiliate mentality. Make quality decisions on choosing an affiliate program by placing yourself in a suit and tie, then thinking, can I sell this to the first person that walks through my door?

VoIp Experience

Broadband phone lines have been around for a bit, but as of late they have taken off in popularity. One of the oldest and most experienced sites around is a Vonage forum, which takes information on VoIP to the next level.

Vonage-Forums.com is a 4 year old site with all the news, content, and user reviews of Vonage related products you could use. The portal to their forums includes uptodate news in regards to Vonage and easy navigation to find what you need to get going with VoIp.

Do you need Affiliate Program Advice?

Affiliate Program Advice is the middle man to the middle man. It offers a number of services to help webmasters get the most out of their affiliate programs and increase revenue. In addition to Affiliate Mangement they offer CPC management and SEO optimization services.

Their servcies appear to be custom tailored to each business, since their is not "generic" package.

Step One:
contact us.

Step Two:
We need a meeting to look at and understand your business. We can assist with choosing the right affiliate solution provider, we have deals in place with most of the networks where you either get a reduction in set up costs or a lowered override, in some cases both.

Step Three:
Agree if you need a full or part-time affiliate manager.

Step Four:
sign our 30 day notice period layman’s terms lease contract.

Step Five:
Introduce you to your virtual affiliate manager and we begin the briefing.

Step Six:
Begin acquiring or increasing, retaining, and insentivising your affiliates.

Your account manager will touch base with you once a week to discuss new products added or any thing you want your affiliates to promote. Provide a monthly progress report. Remember your affiliate manager will pay their own way in the sales or leads that they drive via their affiliate partnerships.

How much will it cost?
£65.00 per day exclusive of VAT for full-time affiliate manager.

Worth checking out if your about to hit the big time. Their services appears to speak for itself, although I have not tried it, they do have some big name clients in the UK.

LikSang Affiliate Program

LikSang’s affiliate program came very highly recommended, but I have yet to find out why. For starters, their system is extremely bulky, using the same interface customers would have…there is no separate control panel. And their banners, garrr, are horendous.

It’s unclear to me, at first glance, whether or not they allow deep links. That is, I’m allowed to link directly to the item I’m interested in affiliating for. Most of the time it appears your linking to what they want you to sell or the homepage. However, the focus of mys ite I’m using is very specific to what I’d be able to market. Although, it may all be null and void seeing the commissions they are wanting to pay.

When I first signed up it appeared that I would be receiving +10% on all referred sales, but it doesn’t look like this is true. I contacted the affiliate program support people in regards to a few topics; deep links, preorder affiliate workings, and banner concerns. After 2 weeks of no response I sent out a second email, this one with a second email tag in the subject. After 2 days I finally received a response back from their lackluster affiliate support people.

I would only be receiving 2% commission on the consoles that I would sell. You have to be messed up to think I would promote such a large item for such a small fraction of commission. In addition, they neglected to answer my other questions with just an assurance of that I’d get paid. Sounds like another case of cheap outsourced customer service reps.

The short and the long of it is, LikSang has terrible customer service (affiliate side), terrible marketing tools, and low low low commissions for console sale referrals. I believe I will take my possible LikSang console referrals elsewhere, perhaps local. Hopefully others have better experience with this company, because I have heard positive things…just not from my mouth.

Lost in TV Land

TV Land has grown in the past few years, especially in terms of high end televisions. The push to move toward hi-definition (HD) is making it almost necessary to brave the wild and see what’s available. Luckily, or unluckily depending on your view, there are a plethora of options available. So where is a quality and penny wise person to turn?

For those of you out there like me, we need a quality guide that will help us find our way. Thanks to The New TV Guide, we are able to find our way to everything we need to know about
home cinema systems.

Whether it’s DLP, Digital, or LCD TV’s this guide covers it all. In addition, it provides a very easy to follow break down of the TV differences and what you can expect. Taking your buying experience further, the guide helps with describing accessories you’ll need to complete any next generation TV purchase.

Hosting Affiliate Programs

You may remember me writing an article on Dream Host and the affiliate program that they offer. It is typical that hosting companies offer some sort of program, but some are better than others, as Dream Host clearly has very high payouts. However, if your looking for simplicity, then perhaps 1and1.com is the way to go.

1and1.com offers a very simple, yet effective affiliate program. Although the payouts are minimal, they can addup, especially if your using them as a hosting provider. I just signed up to one of their basic packages to try out their support/services, I'll report back here at what I have found. It's very hard to go wrong with basic packages starting at $2.50 per month though. lol

Although they don't offer the typical cPanel with their basic program, it's definately a newbie frineldy interface. Perhaps it will be pleasant to work with as a side project, but none of my serious high traffic sites. I'll report when I know more.

Blogging Job Board

ProBlogger.net is known for it's expertise on the blog market and what works when blogging. Their latest endeavor into the blog market is their Blogger Job Board. This board allows different blog sites to post help wanted ads, with many different niches available.

Currently there is a healthy list of about 15 professional blogs looking for help. Their topics cover everything from link building to linux topic blogs. In addition, their pay ranges as well, from pay per article, to words, to weekly.

Check out what they have to offer and get paid doing what you love.

The PayPerPost Agenda

Since it's creation PayPerPost.com has received attention from bloggers everywhere and not always in the positive manner. The fear to many bloggers is the idea that it commercializes the purest form of news, which is opinion fed blogging. No longer is it safe to trust a sites review of a product, they may be paid to play to make money blogging.

Dan is one such blogger that has adapted to what PayPerPost has to offer. In a recent article on his blog he discusses the pros/cons to such an infrastructure and it's acceptance amongst the net. Dan suggests that this advertising method is ahead of it's time and other major sites should adapt to it's style.

I see domain-specific social networking sites like MySpace and YouTube trying to play an advertising game that doesn't fit their core competency

Going on to explain what can cause a backlash amongst the community, users will slowly start moving toward services such as friendster.com and multiply.com.

Learning Diversity

One of the most appealing aspects of earning money online is the very small cost to enter the market place. In typical brick'n mortar businesses there was a large startup fee, which keeps many would be competitors out. However, the internet creates an almost level playing field for all who are interested.

Creating a successful stream of income online should capitalize on the fact that startup costs are small. The risk of diversifying your sites and your affiliate networks is small, yet have the potential to yield great results. The old saying also holds true, don't put all your eggs in one basket, diversify your affiliate programs and the niche products your offering.

Franklin Banker of American Chronicle creates multiple streams of income in this very way, by taking advantage of niches and diversifying.

On the other hand, diversification is a much better strategy in affiliate marketing. I have developed many different online campaigns in many different niche markets, so if one does change or go away, I simply replace it with a similar one and move on with only a small disruption in my income. In this way I truly can make the claim that I have developed "multiple streams of income".

Banker also goes on to discuss how 'easy' it is to do online affiliating, but has left out the secret, so to speak. The days of easy-money on the net are gone and everything worth doing is worth doing right. Although it's relatively low cost to start up an affiliate program and launch a site, it is difficult to bring in targeted traffic. Learn to gain and channel traffic, that's when you find the easy-money.

Walker-i Service

Walker-i is a digital media agency who lies in bed with some major businesses. Recently they announced they would be launching a new affiliate program, Walker Affiliate Software Platform or WASP.

The launch of this software was done to increase efficiences and streamline payouts. The software will have the ability to manage CPA, CPC, lead generation, and supposedly other metrics as well. A number of campaigns will be managed with Walker-i software, name those of Barclay Bank of UK.

"Following six years working with affiliates while at a network I've formed strong business relationships with the UK's leading affiliate media owners. So when it came to working at Walker-i - it seemed the logical step to work with a select group of affiliates directly via a third party solution."

AffiliateTip.com and Domains

AffiliateTip.com had an interesting article regarding domain names on Aug 16th. This is a great read for anyone that makes money on the internet, because the basics start with your identity. This identity is the first thing that visitors see, recognize, and remember...it's your site's domain name.

The domain of this site is Dead-Man-Blogging.Blogspot.com and if it was a bigger earner and a hardcore business objective, I would own many more domains. (Nevermind the fact that I would use my own hosting.) The article suggests businesses protect their online identities, even the names of top individuals within the company.

Note to remember: Register the wwwnameofsite.com, the url without the dot with any serious online endeavor.

Server Hosting Affiliate Program

Recently I signed up to the Dream Host affiliate program. First impressions of hte program leave me feeling slightly out of the loop, but promises of big earnings keeps me in line.

After being signed up for about a month my account has yet to be approved. Staring me in the face everytime I go to check my stats is the following message:

This account is currently pending approval.

If you've already made payment, please fax this form to us and you'll be approved within one business day... thanks!

Now, my fear is that the referrals will start rolling in and DreamHost will decide not to approve my account. However, another more likely scenario is that they do not approve new accounts that are not using them for hosting. Their affiliate agreement explicitly states that you do not have to use their hosting to be an affiliate partner.

For the time being I will continue to track my stats, see what I can earn and start sending emails if my $$'s start rising too high. Afterall they are offering $97 per referral or 10% of the referral for life. Needless to say there are definite possibilities to start earning some scrilla.

Check out what Dream Host has to offer:

Spreading Your Sites Content

Creating one website is difficult enough, but creating a network can be a nightmare. However, some of the most successful sites around are built on a family of sites, creating an interlinked network. If your starting out small, the easiest way to spread content is through RSS feeds.

FeedBurner.com provides an easy and automated way for you to spread "buzz" around for any site you choose, that has an RSS feed. FeedBurner generates some simple html coding that you can embed in any webpage, to display your sites content. This is especially beneficial for having snipets of your business blog on your business's homepage or subpage, without publishing the entire post. In addition, it is automatically updated everytime you make a post, which requires no further modification.

Listing Online Affiliate Site

Its been mentioned a number of times here and on other blogs, link building is the basic foundation for SEO(Search Engine Optimization). Afterall, you don't want to pay for all your traffic and by completing basic seo techniques you can enjoy the benefits of natural or organic traffic from SEs(Search Engines).

The fastest and easiest way to build backlinks is by submitting to directories. For new sites, finding quality directories that are free is the best route to go. Info.VileSilencer provides a great list of free , SEO friendly directories for you to submit to.

Submitting your site to the appropriate category is the next important step to getting the most out of your directory listing. Often times it's difficult to find the appropriate category for your affiliate marketed site, but fear not, there is always an option. The best categories to be listed in the Blackfox Directory would be Shopping and each sub-category therein. But if you can't find an appropriate category, feel free to suggest one.

Taking your time to submit to the Blackfox Directory and other quality link resources will help in gaining organic traffic to your affiliate site. Eventually, moving far enough up the SERPs will enable you to completely turn off your paid visitor methods... ;)

Leading the Affiliate Industry

The latest business helping to build affiliate marketing is straight out of Tokyo, Japan. ValueCommerce Co. is doing it's part to close the gap amongst affiliate marketers and manufacturers.

President Brian Nelson:

"(Clients) don't have to waste money on advertising. You're only paying for the benefit."

By taking advantage of affiliate marketing ValueCommerce, Co. is figuring out which half of the budget was lost on advertising. Through affilite marketing companies can enjoy the benefits of advertising, but only pay for results.

Read what the Japan Times has to say.

Vacation Rental

In a recent press release from MoreMouse.com, they announce the continued growth of Orlando, Florida and surrounding areas. Unknown to most people, Orlando receives more tourists each year than the entire population of California. This figure has a large impact on the economy of Orlando, making tourism a multi-billion dollar industry for the area.

Orlando, known for it's quick commute to 7 major theme parks is also a 45 min drive from beautiful countryside. Unknown to most is the fact that the surrounding area of Orlando resembles much of the beautiful scenery in the UK. Rolling hills, sunshine year round, and friendly communities makes it a must see destination point for anyone.

Although tourism makes up a large part of the Orlando economy, it only contains about 100,000 hotel rooms. The amount of rooms available makes it difficult to accomodate the almost 43.3 million visitors and this is according to 2000 statistics. So maybe finding a hotel room isn't the best route to take, rather a home rental would fit more your style.

If your looking for lodging in Florida consider an Orlando Vacation Home Rental. Consider the benefits of having a 15 min drive to downtown Orlando where you can enjoy the offerings of diverse restaurants and unparralleled shopping. So much to do and plenty of sunshine, spend some of that affiliate cash and take a Holiday in Orlando, Florida.

Paid to Blog

Affiliating is a great way to earn revenue with your blog, coupled with Adsense, and pay per post projects you can turn your hobby into a revenue earning venture. Currently, I am using 2 different paid to post programs. Blogitive, the newest and Pay-Per-Post which is an older and better established program.

The system is simple and easy to use, so anyone can earn. As a blogger you are offered products and sites to blog about, with a certain amount of rules. The requirements typically revolve around providing live links to site or product in question.

Once you have completed the project you are typically paid on a weekly basis, based on what the offer was. By completing a few of these projects per week you can easily add a few extra dollars to your wallet, at least pay for your coffee habit. So get paid to post in your blog and check out Blogitive.com and PayPerPost.com.

Amazon Broken Link Reminder

Affiliate giant Amazon has created a new system that will check your affiliate links. By providing an quick and easy page check Amazon will be able to identify:

• broken links
• links to outdated or misspelled categories
• links without Amazon.com Associate IDs
• product links that have low inventory availability (e.g. out of stock, 4-6 weeks)

Definately good news for those of you with multiple sites and even more complex affiliate code. For example, if you have a different item your looking to affiliate per page. Making sure old pages have updated code can be a daunting task, this program is meant to aid in this process.

P2P Affiliate

Kazaa has a new affiliate joining the anti-p2p movement. Altnet, Kazaa affiliate is joining forces with Sharman Networks to help enforce copyright infringement on it's file sharing software Kazaa.

Kazaa is known for having a huge user base with millions of files available for download, for free and without regard to copyright infringement. However, in a recent turn of events Kazaa has settled with the MPAA for a rather large sum of money and agreed to turn over a new leaf.

In addition to offering filter techniques to weed out the illegal files, Sharman networks has also hired Michael Speck. Speck was head of the anti-piracy investigation for the ARIA(Australian Recording Industry Association). A step in the right direction for legal download services. For more news and information on p2p and filesharing check out The-Grayline.com.

Christmas in August?

We are all familiar with the QVC Christmas in July and the programming is just enough to get you salivating over the Christmas season. Although 6 months away, Christmas is on the minds of many, trying to beat the rush, now is the time.

In a recent press release by GourmetGiftBaskets.com they discuss the story of the original St. Nick and how we reached the commercial holiday that is December 25th. Department stores world wide all celebrate Bishop Nicholas and what he's done for retail stores everywhere.

Buying for friends and family is one thing, but preparing for work buddies and bosses, this is a whole nother ball game. Fortunately there are sites such as GourmetGiftBaskets.com that provide their services to help you get your shopping out fo the way, even for these tough to buy for aquaintances. They provide the highest quality Corporate Christmas Gifts at the best prices and provide an easy to navigate website.

Not only does the site provide a wealth of baskets to choose from, which are perfect for associates and other corporate clients, but they also offer other services. Take for example, if you don't see something you want, simply ask and they will make it for you. So get Christmas over early this year, at least the rush, and check out GourmetGiftBaskets.com.

Text Link Ad Affiliate Referral

Today I received compensation for a referral that I sent to Text-Link-Ads.com. Although earning $25 is a nice boost, there is one thing that really sets this earning apart from other revenue channels. The difference, is that I referred the individual back in April.

That's right, Text-Link-Ads installs cookies that track a user up to 60 days after you refer them. That way, if I send a referral, they don't buy, but come back up to 2 months later, I still get credited.

Definately something to keep in mind when selecting affiliate programs, what sort of tracking do they offer?

The C Channel Network

The C Channel is building a multi-interest website that brings together 3 distinct sites - Travel, Shopping and Weddings. Each one features articles, destination profiles, vendor profiles and a whole load of new tools to attract a global audience. This includes the still young Travel Forum, and the Wedding Agenda, a promising tool that will be completely free and is due out in late 2006.

The C Channel network has also recently introduced The C Directories, 5 user-friendly directories of websites, blogs, online retailers and other sites categorized under thousands of differnet subjects. Only a month old, it attracts new registrations every day of eBusinesses eager to become part of The C Channel Network. For example, in our Tools for webmasters directory, we have a regular stream of new articles in different categories for you. We also provide links to some of the best SEO sites online such as SEO and Internet Marketing, The Webmaster SEO Blog and SEO Ireland. Plus, there's links to some of the best tools for webmasters, like Cheap domain register, Cheap domain hosting, and Webhost advisor.

There's plenty to see, so pay us a visit.

GeoDataSource.com Affiliate Program

GeoDataSource.com has announced a new affiliate program, which will enable all webmasters to earn 20% of new and recurring sales.

The program is designed and focuses on their GAP(Geographical Data Product Sales) product series. The program is free to join and below are a list of it's benefits to you, the webmaster.

• Members earn up to 20% commission on the total sales.
• Continue to earn residual income from renewal orders for as long as two-year.
• GeoDataSource handles all sales inquiries and account creation.
• No membership fees are required to join the program.
• Monthly payout by using PayPal.
  

To sign up to the latest affiliate program, look here.

Investing Affiliate Revenue

Investing your money is the best way to keep your revenue coming in. The old saying, "Don't work for money, make your money work for you", is what I'm referring to. But with so many investment opportunities out there, how do you know what's right for you.

Monex.com has some insight into what is the best method for investing and what to put your money into. In their latest press release their is discussion on the value of the almighty dollar. In later years the green backs have lost their actual value, rather than the price of commodities going up.

For example, a few short years ago it was possible to purchase a gallon of gas for a dollar. At this time the dollar was backed by real prescious metals, such as gold and silver. However, it takes upwards of $3-$4 to purchase that same gallon of gas, but it only takes the same amount of metal to do the same. Therefore, it's the USD that has lost value, not prices going up.

Because of the paper money's inability to hold value, Monex.com suggests investing your money into prescious metals such as gold, silver, and bullion coins. By investing in such precious metals your investment should rise and hold value much better than traditional investing.

Grand Gaming Affiliate Program

Here on DMB, we are quick to stress the importance of knowing your local laws in regards to gambling affiliate programs. The last thing I want to see is an individual lose all their earned revenue because they didn't understand the laws against gambling related advertisements.

That being said, Grand Gaming Group and Jon-Jon-Keegan to launch a G3 gambling affiliate program.

Looking for more info on this and what the G3 affiliate program has to offer, read here.

Selecting an Affiliate Program

Yesterday, American Chronicle posted an article that discusses the ease of online marketing, compared to traditional methods. Traditional methods included brick 'n mortar businesses, where it was a sink or swim situation. Ths cost of entry was higher and while the stakes were higher as well, the pay off took much more time.

The article then goes on to discuss the ways to properly choose an affiliate program. Making suggestions such as knowing the history of said marketing group, weighing the advantages and disadvantages, and finally stressing that an informed choice is the best route to go.

Check out the entire article here.

Webpage Accessibility and Google SERPs

Creating a site that generates traffic is a struggle and it's an even harder task to bring in organic traffic. Organic traffic are visitors that are produced through search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The ranking you hold in the SERPs(Search Engine Results Page) is directly related to how much traffic you receive from these search engines.

USWeb.com recenty published a press release stating the importance of Google's ranking methods and where it may be going, in regards to a sites accessibility. Google has long built their results page based on a number of hidden factors, including public ones such as page rank(PR). Now Google is adding another search function, which takes into consideration accessibility.

The ability of a site to remain at the top of one search function and not at the other lays in the hands of SEO(Search Engine Optimization) experts. What was once a level playing field, is not pitted against quality coding techniques and a sites ability to adapt to the needs of visitors.

Doing a search on Google for the term "Flowers" results in the site 1800flowers.com in the first position of the SERPs. However, once you do the same search through Google's accessibility function 1800flowers.com is not even located on the front page. The site that can be found ranking #1 is testco.com/flowers, a very well coded and user friendly site.

In addition, 2 of the top 3 sites for the search used USWeb.com as their search engine marketing firm. Not only were sites appealing to the eyes, offered function, but they were accessible. To take this test a step further we notice that a search for "Internet marketing" yields a position #8 for USWeb.com in regular search and a position #2 in the Google Accessible Search(GAS).

The results are startling for only a few of these keyphrases, but the impact will be wide spread. This will be especially true once Google Accessible Search catches on and it will be important to be diligent with your search engine optimization. Therefore, if your planning on choosing a search engine marketing firm to do your SEO work for you, USWeb.com is a safe bet, to keep that affiliate traffic rolling in.

Affiliate Content

Affiliating a product is easy, if you are familiar with the product you are affiliating. However, if you want to affiliate a product that you cannot easily create content for, free content is the way to go.

The Blackfox Article Directory provides a large list of articles that are free to use on your site. Assuming you keep all the live links, this content can be used beside your own or as itself to help compliment the products you are looking to sell.

Currently there are a handful of articles available in the general internet and more importantly internet marketing article category. Reading these articles can be informational for you or visitors to help you get a jump start on gaining traffic to your affiliate site.

Adsense is Affiliating

Apparently American Chronicle has a very lax definition for 'affiliate'. Their latest article compares Affiliate Marketing to Adsense, placing google as the medium for merchants.

Although there is some basis for their argument, Adsense is not affiliating. The first difference that sets Affiliating apart from being a publisher for Adsense is the fixed earnings. Adsense contextual ads fluctuate in how much you earn per click, due to a number of undisclosed factors.

Affiliating will produce the same results over and over for completing a specific action. For example, if you sell one magazine subscription you will receive $10. This example is true no matter what your pages content is, where the traffic comes from, your page rank, or any other variable.

The American Chronicle article does lead us to the goal, earning revenue. So, I encourage you to see what works best for you. I've seen Adsense whizz's make jack squat at affiliating and likewise for the opposite and it all boils down to knowing your audience.

Directory Submissions

Submitting your website to directories can be a long and daunting task, especially weeding through the ones that are worth your time. The Blackfox Directory Blog is a blog dedicated to covering link and article directories.

Are you owner of a directory and interested in how to gain traffic to your website, then check out getting traffic for your directory. This post covers free methods on how to build a solid base for when your directory launches.

After some hard work and persistance a directory can be a good source of affiliate marketing traffic. And, especially in the early days, your core audience will be webmasters. Take advantage of knowing your visitors, there is always something that a webmaster can use...espcially links.

Hosticanna Affiliate Program

Hosticanna hosting is announcing a new affiliate program to focus on their unmetered bandwidth hosting packages. Their affiliate program has several unique benefits other than offering you, the publisher, monetary gain.

Hosticanna's affiliate program offers giveaways, in addition to monetary appreciation, such as iPods and iTune gift cards.

“With HostICan, affiliate can feel confident that they are sending their traffic to a recommended host.” says Brian Lim from AffilateFuture “Every referral earning US$85 CPA commission, the company’s record-breaking growth pattern since 2003, and a great reputation for competitive pricing, affiliates will find HostICan offers an unbeatable web hosting offer.”

BlogKits Bought Out

Forge Corporation, LTD. has acquired Blogkits with a motive to bring advertisers and bloggers together. The union has been created with the best intentions, but will all end well?

There are already a number of services available that allow advertisers to work directly with bloggers. Blogitive and PayPerPost are a few that allow advertisers to make offers to bloggers in an attempt to gain linkage and market their products. This directly conflicts with the ideal that blogging is all about, unique opinions and owners own thoughts.

When big corporate is finally able to control a large amount of bloggers, it's essentially muddying the blog gene pool, so to speak(Please allow for improper grammar). There are no longer unique opinions ruling the blogosphere, but whoever has the most money gets the most buzz.

This is one affiliate venture I hope takes a nose dive and at the least does not become wide spread.

Problems with Berries

As reported by AffiliateTip.com, apparently Berries is/was having problems with their affiliate program. The problem arrose from the coding in their website not properly tracking their affiliate referrals.

Therefore, they submitted a letter to all publishers. My concern stems exactly as the same as the author from AffiliateTip, how do you know if you missed out on some sales if they were not able to track it correctly?

Due to a major website change in December 2005, which affected our ability to efficiently track business from affiliates, Shari's Berries International is terminating its affiliate program effective June 15, 2006. We truly appreciate your past support.

If you anticipate you are eligible for any unpaid commission, please respond appropriately to affiliates@berries.com by June 30, 2006. If we do not hear from you by this date, we will consider the matter closed.

Sincerely,

Shari's Berries Affiliate Program

Affiliate Startup Plan

When designing a website and choosing an affiliate program it's important to have the basics down. Going in blind will most certainly lead to failure, if nothing else a lot of frustration. So, come up with a plan, learn the basics, and THEN go in feet first. To get things rolling Startup Nation has come up with a good basics plan to help get you started.

The Marketing 101 Article focuses on 6 key points. These points apply to almost any affiliate situation where a startup is involved.

• Evaluate Marketing Channels
• Scrutinize Commission
• Focus on Retention
• Multi-teer Affiliation--
• Affiliate Measurement System
• Warning of Fraud and Spam

Saving Yourself Money - TheHandThatFeeds

Theft is one of the largest threats to automobile insurance companies. The replacement costs for stolen vehicles is what drives insurance higher and higher.

In a recent press release by CarInsurance.com, it states that California is home to 6 of the top 10 autotheft locations in the US. Because of such high theft numbers finding inexpensive auto insurance is difficult in this area. This finding was based on the latest report from the National Insurance Crime Bureau(NCIB).

What's the best way to protect yourself from paying high prices because of the thiefs that plague your area? The answer is simple, if you compare car insurance, your going to save money. In the CarInsurance.com press release it states that simply comparing insurance and finding the best deal can net you a great deal of savings. This is especially true when you are in high theft areas such as California.

Caution Easy Money Affiliates

CaveJunctionNews has a good article on being aware of pyramid schemes on the net as opposed to legit home based businesses. Warning that the idea of easy money rarely exists anywhere, let alone on the internet where there are predators looking to make a quick buck.

The article sites where most easy money schemes are produced through 'affiliate' style programs. However, the real bread winners are the ones who create the scheme and are not created to benefit the actual publisher of the program.

So, if your looking to start up an affiliate program and become a publisher make sure you know the ins and outs of the program you are affiliating for. Rushing into a program without knowing it's background can definately hurt you in the long run and basically be a waste of your time. No sense in making the big money for someone else unless you get your fair share.

Affiliating Nonsense

Pending legislation, it's possible you can be busted for affiliating gambling sites. I've touched on this notion before, but not to the extent that our friends over at 5 Star Affiliates have. Citing that it's possible for law enforcement to freeze assets, shut down your site, and possibly even face stiffer fines.

There is a fine line when promoting gambling in the United States and as such is gray area right now. Probably the most notable experience was when the Travel channel was advertising PokerStars.com. The federal government seized all the money that was paid to the Travel channel to do those advertisements.

You may notice that instead of advertising PokerStars.com the Travel Channel now advertises PokerStars.net. PokerStars.net is a free, no money exchanging hands, Texas Hold'em game. It's massively online multiplayer is attractive to those who are wanting to 'practice' their game. However, whenever they are ready to step it up and gamble real money, they are directed to PokerStars.com. This is how the Travel Channel now gets away with advertising for a gambling site.

Just a word of warning and make sure you are uptodate with all the legal procedings. The last thing you want to happen would to have all your assets taken away after you have made your affiliate so much money.

The Hand that Feeds

How many of you are creating online Affiliate Sites in the hopes of creating more money? I'm willing to bet that everyone does, it's not just for fun, and even hobbies make money sometimes. But when it gets right down to it, scrilla is why we are here, unfortunatley because its worth a lot less now than it used to.

It's been noted, that things are not becoming more expensive, rather the value of the dollar is being dimenished. The green yummies that used to buy so much more and quickly buying less and less. The real value is found in physical items, such as silver, gold, and buillon coins.

Monex is one such company that has suggested to invest a certain percentage of your stock portfolio in physical wealth, ie gold and silver. Recently, they have released a 'Press Release' that discusses the devalue of the American dollar(USD) and why not more than ever its important for gold investing.

Therefore, to start your investing out right, take some tips provided by Monex. Buy some Gold Bullions and live wealthy.

NetEnforcer Hoax

What's the latest affiliate marketing buzz? A hoax, an embrassment to hosting providers and Amazon Affiliates worldwide.

NetEnforcer, an online entity that supposedly represents major manufacturers, has been sending letters filed under the DMCA that states that a website is breaking the law and using copyrighted information. Citing examples of such infringement leads to the Amazon Affiliate link, which provides images and products specs.

As opposed to looking into such allegations some hosting providers are immediately taking sites offline. This down time has robbed many honest ebusiness professionals of money they would normally be making from their affiliate links.

Read More on The Affiliate Hoax

- Dathorn Forums
- Amazon Announcement
- Net Enforcer Homepage
- 5 STar Affiliate Article

Ebay Contextual Advertising

Well, it's happened, the auction monster eBay has decided to enter the Adwords style market. This will put eBay entering the market slightly later than the other major three that have already launched their contextual advertising product.

Google of course has Adwords, MSN has adcenter, and Yahoo has their publisher program. Lord knows the market will be saturated and advertisers won't know where to turn. I forsee this being detrimental to contextual publishers, due to advertisers being able to spread their money thinner amongst other mediums. Am I wrong?

Ultimately, I feel the price per click will go even lower, rather than higher. Still, the winners will be the home companies, ala eBay and the big G and others mentioned here.

Adsense & Affiliating

It's been touched on before, but being a publisher of Google Adsense also has other benefits. Google offers several products in which you can affiliate for, but the payouts vary greatly.

Google Packs - You can earn up to $2.00 per user that installs the google pack software.

FireFox - Earn up to $1.00 per user who installs Mozilla Firefox who did not have it previously installed.

Picasa - Earn up to $1.00 per user who installs this photo management software by google.

Google Adsense - Any user who signs up to be a publisher through your affiliate link will earn you $100 dollars, if they reach the $100 mark within 3 months.

Google Adwords - Earn $100 whenever a user signs up to their Adwords Advertising campaign and spends $100 in keywords.

While the spread of earnings is large, the potential for affiliating and running adsense can pay off. Using a good assortment of affiliate links and CPC can maximize your earnings potential.

Deep Links & Affiliating

Often times becoming an affiliate for a program will be ho-hum. As in, we like a certain product for a program, but the basic creative they provide only links to the programs homepage and not to the product in question. There is a fix to this and it is called 'Deep Linking'.

Deep Linking is not allowed by all Affiliate Programs, but they can prove a valuable tool so that you can gear your visitors directly to product you know they will be most interested in. Often times Deep Linking is as simple as adding the page url you want after the affiliate url, ie. &url=.

Just a reminder, make sure that the program that your affiliating for allows deep links, otherwise you may just be losing credit for your sales.

Affiliate Links Hurting Page Rank?

I've noticed a few questions coming through the popular webmaster forms of users questioning the affect on PR(Google Page Rank). The idea is logical and most definately will affect your PR and rank in SERP's. However, is it enough to even worry about?

The web has, is, and will always be a scary place...but why should we worry about who we link to. I say this as long as moderation is used. As a webmaster you should always be focused on linking to quality sites. That is the only guideline you should be concerned with when linking out to other neighborhoods.

Don't force the web backwards, embrace diversity and link freely, but responsibly. Don't hate thy fellow webmaster, embrace their success and achievements. Linking has to start somewhere, why not with you?

Repeat Visitors are Worth More

Building a quality site can not be placed second to affiliate or any type of ad placement. Your visitors must be the soul reason you are building your site, because if you don't please them, they won't please your pocket book.

By building a quality site you are accomplishing a couple different things. First you are providing a worthwhile resource for your visitors that they will want to come back and use. In addition, the quality of the content on your site speaks loads to a potential customer and lends its hand to brand marketing. The more professional a website the more likely a visitor will want to purchase something from you or one of your affiliates.

One of the latest articles from WebSideStory was that repeat visitors actually produce 800% higher conversion rates. This means a lot to affiliates and goes back to providing quality content and a pleasing site. The goal is to provide your visitor with all the quality content about the product in question, so that they feel comfortable moving onto the next step...purchasing.

Commission Junction Changing Things Up

One of the great things about utilizing affiliate programs as opposed to contextual advertising is the ability to 'modify' your listings to better blend with your site. Typically, contextual advertising requires an individual to 'not touch' the code, although small modifications are allowed 'pre-code creation'(Changing Text Link Color on Adsense).

Commission Junction recently announced that they are moving to Javascript style links and ads. Using javascript removes the ability for the publisher to modify their listing. This will remove one of the inherent benefits of being an actual publisher for an affiliate program. This move has upset a lot of affiliate publishers, many long term customers for CJ.

CJ responded:

"The Bottom Line: The new JavaScript linking format will give CJ more flexibility and control over their links and creative. The new links will also give CJ Google-AdSense-like insight into their publishers, which will help eliminate rogue affiliates from their network."

Is this a good move? Are they going to push publishers away? Time will tell if this does strengthen their affiliate program. The move is undoubtedly to appease investors, since the transfer to javascript will benefit advertisers more than publishers.

CJ's Homepage:

CJ Vantage enables advertisers to realize their performance marketing goals by combining Commission Junction's pay-for-performance expertise with advanced affiliate marketing functionality.

Advertisers rejoice and publishers cringe.

Blockbuster Online Affiliate Program

Blockbuster Online has raised their commissions once again!

Now affiliates will earn $26.50 per sale! Join now, and take advantage of this great offer!

Good luck, and happy promoting!

Affiliate Future announced BlockBuster Online raising their affiliate commissions. Exciting news, but don't go throwing together affiliate sites just yet.

Make sure whenever you create an affiliate site that you are aware of the programs policies. Many programs such as BlockBuster do not allow advertising that target their keywords. While this is a gray area, violating their TOS could mean you loose all your earned commissions.

So, just a friendly reminder. Familiarize yourself with the affiliate programs TOS and happy earning.

Affiliate Propaganda

When I search for a product that I'm interested in purchasing, I hope to be greeted with the most relevant pages. Typically, this would mean that I would find the 'official' page for the product in question. This is assuming that the manufacturer, retailer has an online pressence, but everyone does nowadays.

A study shows that 15% of Brand Searches Stray away from Company sites. This is extremely interesting and frankly exciting that affiliates have a chance to market a product for the big boys. Your affiliate page has the potential for being a point of sale for Brand Searching.

Users' behavior when conducting searches that include brand names is especially interesting in light of ongoing legal battles over search engines' trademark-related advertising policies. Queries involving brand names are growing in popularity, too.

Because of these findings no doubt trademark violations will be cracked down on a lot more. Google Adwords already doesn't allow the use of Trademarked names in it's campaign. But how does this affect affiliates and what advantages do 'official' sites stand to gain?

Time will tell if Google/MSN/Yahoo! want to truly keep affiliate sites out of the branding searches.

Parasites Stealing Your Affiliate Link Credit

Spyware does exist that would allow a hosts to transform your affiliate link into a link of the spywares owner. This would cause credit of the link to go to the spyware owner and not to you, the publisher. Educating yourself on these methods of 'stealing' and making yourself aware of ways to protect yourself can save you money.

5 Star Affiliate Programs offers a blog that tracks and monitors developments in the parasite world. Below are two articles, focused on parasites stealing your links.

Stop Adware
Parasite Protection

Protect yourself and your affiliate links by remaining ontop of developments in adware and the spyware world. For further news Digital Point has a thread worth reading up on as well.

Affiliate Cookies

When choosing an affiliate program cookies can make the difference!

The main purpose of cookies is to identify users and possibly prepare customized webpages for them.

The cookies will remember your referral, even though the customer may visit at a later date. This will ensure that you get credit for the referral, even though they did not enter the site through your creative.

Often times a customer will visit a site through your ad, but return at a later date to actually make their purchase. Potentially the customer is looking around, comparing prices, doing research and will return later for purchase. If your affiliate program does not offer cookies, you then miss out on the sale. So make sure you are getting the most out of your affiliate program, ask for the cookies.

Affiliate Pitfalls

When searching for Affiliate programs, be sure your comparing apples to apples. There are a number of merchant programs that disguise themselves as affiliates.

It's not an affiliate program if you have to pay, to sell their products. Such programs that charge to be a member are merchant programs. These programs provide you with a store front that you manage and sell their product. The basis for the charge is that you are purchasing the franchise rights to the site.

It's strongly suggested that beginners into the affiliate world stay away from such programs. Focus on what's free and build from there, there is potential to make plenty of money without paying for 'said' programs.

Utilizing Amazon Tools

Amazon offers a number of tools for you to use when affiliating with their products. From direct Product links to a search box they have you covered for the best creative to blend with your site. Knowing your visitors will help you decide what type of ad to use.

Utilizing the stats of your site to decide what creative to use can help increase your revenue and make your site more appealing. Knowing the entrance pages will allow you to target those pages with quality ads. In addition, knowing your most popular exit pages will allow you to take advantage of exit links, search bars, etc...

Trial and error is definately the name of the game with affiliating and patience is key.

Important Affiliate Links

Affiliate Programs

Affiliate Future
Chitika
Click Bank
Commission Junction
Amazon

Top Affiliate List

5 Star Affiliates

Affiliate and Marketing Help Forums

V7N
Digital Point

Keeping up with the sites on these links can help make your campaign a successful one. Knowing what each program has to offer, their strengths, and weaknesses will make you more revenue! Please feel free to make any suggestions on others that need to be added.

Using Auto Traffic

The use of auto surf sites tends to set on the gray line of shady business. Often times its a pitfall for the investor and a waste of time for the surfer. Auto-Traffic sites pay a small amount to users to simply visit sites, using the money from the investors looking to get their site seen. Where do you fit in?

Don't get me wrong, there are legit sites out there that can provide quality traffic. However, the majority of autosurf sites out there are scams and/or a waste of money that can be spent on legit advertising, such as Adsense.

As what's been mentioned time and time again, do your research. Taking 10min to search google can save you a lot of time and effort in the long run and possible a good amount of money. It's easier to say than do, but patience is what really pays off on the net.

Affiliate Program Spam, Stay Away

Spam, spam and more spam, it clogs the inbox of the most diligent webmaster. Sometimes, affiliate programs find their way in through the backdoor in the form of spam email. Often enough their program sounds enticing, easy to accomplish, and just worth checking out. But be warned, if spam is needed to spread their message, are they really worth doing business with?

This question has surfaced amongst some popular webmaster forums such as Digital Point and v7n and the general concensus is to stay away. These affiliate programs prey on beginner web developers and can often entice a site owner to take sign up. Once signed up, the site owner(publisher), starts advertising said product. The problem occurs when the affiliate program either doesn't payout, or sets the payout so high that it's virtually impossible to reach.

It's strongly encouraged to check out an Affiliate Program before signing up. By doing a few quick searches in google you could save yourself a lot of headache down the road. After all, it's easier to learn from others mistakes and not your own.

Monetizing with Text Link Ads

As mentioned in my previous post regarding finding niche affiliate programs, Text Link Ads has one of the best programs available for creating multiple streams of income.

Not only can you earn money by becoming a publisher for the site, but by affiliating you can earn up to $25 per referral. A referral is considered anyone who signs up to the program, from your link, and becomes a publisher or purchases text links ad space. Therefore, not only are you earning money by having the text link ad space on your site, but you are also earning from people who you refer to the program.

They have an intuitive menus system that allows you to track your purchased ads, published ads per month and earnings, and the amount of clicks/earnings you make from your affiliate program. All of these tools can help a web developer position content and ads in different parts of a site, to see which becomes most effective. So take advantage of what they have to offer, you'll be happy you did.

Affiliating with Adsense

While Google Adsense is primarily known for its contextual advertising, it does have a referral system in place where you can earn from affiliating. Google Adsense has referrals for the Adsense Program, Picasa, Google Pack, FireFox, and is always adding more.

It is possible to earn more from these referrals than from the actual contextual advertising. For lower traffic sites starting out these referrals should be the way to go. Visitors are more likely to jump on a product from Google, than click a text link. In addition, Google offers a nice blend of Banners and creatives to make your campaign more successful.

Building That Affiliate Site

As discussed in my previous post, there are a lot of MFA(Made for Adsense) sites abound and not as noticable, made for affiliate sites. The question that arises is how do you know what type of product to focus on, when building a site for the sole purpose of earning revenue off of affiliating. The answer is not simple and does not come quick, so brace yourself...'A lot of research'."

A webdeveloper could easily regurgitate a website using existing content and about zero marketing. However, will this site be successful, will there automatically be traffic? Unfortunately, the 'build it they will come' does not pertain to the internet world. For this site to be successful the owner needs to focus attention on marketing the site. One of the quickest and easiest ways to do this is to use Google Adsense, as an Advertiser.

A website owner can get started advertising through the Adsense network for as little as $5.00. The trick to utilizing every click is to focus on quality ads that truly target the market you looking to sell to. In addition, finding the keywords that are not being heavily bid on will help in your search for good ROI(Return on Investment).

To by cheap and sell high is the name of the game and will require research and time. Luckily there are tools available on the net which allow you to see what the going rate for keyword is. By doing research up front, you can save a lot of nickels in the future. In the long run, these 'thrown up' sites can pay off, IF they are marketed properly.

For more information and good suggestions on what I've touched on check out 5 Star Affiliates take.

MFA, Made for Adsense

Everyone has seen them and the majority of people despise them, they are MFA's, Made for Adsense Sites. They are creeping up a lot more fequently now and some are actually starting to gain grounds in the SERPs(Search Engine Results Page). How do the MFA sites compare to the MFAP sites?

MFAP, Made For Affiliate Program sites. It would seem to me that sites created to market(affiliate) products would be chocked full of useful content, thus making a better webpage. At least the better content would warrant having a high SERP ranking, so why not more MFAP's? The answer is simple, it takes more work.

In time Google will do something to help combat the sludge of the internet, but until then, fight the good battle. Create quality websites with good content and even better affiliating. ;)

Finding Programs to Affiliate

Sometimes the best affiliate programs are not readily available, or rather advertised. These programs are found after you join a service, purchase a product, or subscribe to some sort of offer online.

Some noteworthy affiliate programs are available from such companies as PokerStars.com and Text-Link-Ads.com, but you wouldn't know it unless you signed up for their services. To be an affiliate for PokerStars.com you must have an account, downloaded their software, and remain somewhat active. Despite these requirements, the payouts are extremely nice, and worth looking into.

Text-Link-Ads.com is another example of having a fine affiliate program. They offer the affiliate $25 for every visitor that either purchases a text ad or becomes a publisher for their ads. They provide the Affiliate with a number of catchy banners, buttons, and useful tools to track their program.