ScribeFire Humps My Face

I own and operate close to a dozen blogs, which for some may not be that many, but for my time consumption it's a lot. Any way I can bring down the amount of time it takes me to produce quality unique content on each blog, the better, and because of this search and longing to spare up time I have found ScribeFire.

ScribeFire is a great little add-on for Firefox that allows you to blog directly in your browser, without actually physically visiting your blog admin panel. The tool itself supports a number of blogging services, specifically I use it for WordPress and it works awesome. The add-on is capable of adding images, categories, pages, simple posts, anything you could do from your normal admin panel.

ScribeFire is starting to grow now as well and are now offering QuickAds. This allows you to instantly add in all kinds of different ads directly to your blog through teh ScribeFire plugin. Built in management allows you to manage banners without actually needing to modify code directly on your blog, which is great for amateurs or those who just don't want to learn coding. ScribeFire is for writers first, but can be utilized by anybody.

SEOQuake For FireFox

If you are like me time is valuable and time spent researching a competitor could be better time spent marketing, fishing, sleeping, whatever. There are tools available to help with this process and SEOQuake is a great add-on for FireFox that helps automate a lot of the leg work and will produce instant data in your browser, simply by surfing to a page.

SeoQuake is a programme, which allows user to view a large number of SE parameters on the fly. SeoQuake for Mozilla Firefox consists of three functional parts: SeoToolbar (requested parameters are shown in a separate toolbar in the browser), Seobar (requested parameters are shown in a separate, fully customizable with CSS, HTML block) and output of requested parameters on Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

The developers of SEOQuake were bold enough to produce the plugin for IE users as well, which can be downloaded here.

MoneyQuake FireFox Addon

I'm a stat hound and actually starting to leave a wear spot on my screen from checking my Adsense earnings so often. Furthermore, it's not just Google Adsense earnings I'm looking into, I'm actually more into affiliate marketing and having an addon that updates automatically in the bottom status bar is awesome. Saves my mouse from traveling further than it needs to and just makes life simpler. Only problem is that the old faithful Adsense Notifier plugin for FireFox no longer will log me in, so I needed an alternative.

Thanks to some recommendations I've found a great alternative to Adsense Notifier, it's MoneyQuake. Simply by hovering over the MoneyQuake logo at the bottom of the FireFox browser you can get instant updates on a large number of affiliate networks and Google Adsense.

List of Affiliate Programs Compatible With MoneyQuake

MoneyQuake is a powerful Firefox extension, which displays your real-time earning statistics from most popular advertisement systems like:

• Google Adsense
• Bidvertizer
• TraficCashGold
• StreamRay
• UmaxSearch
• PeakClick
• Buckster
• SoftwareProfit
• AdultAdsCash
• KlikVip
• AdultFriendFinderrn
• Begun
• Yandex.Direct
• Glavmed

To find out more information on MoneyQuake and download the plugin click here.

FireFox Colorzilla Addon

For me creating a stylish affiliate landing page is the most time consuming process in my business model, or at least it seems like it. ;) Often I will find a color I want to use on another site, so I need the hexadecimal color code to use in Photoshop or in my CSS style sheet. There is a great addon for FireFox that makes this process a breeze.

Colorzilla does everything I need, like rip color codes off of html pages and comes with a color picker built in. Check out all the nifty treats this FireFox Addon comes with.

• Webpage DOM Color Analyzer
  • Analyze DOM element colors on any Web page and create a corresponding palette
  • Locate elements on the page that correspond to a given color
  • Find out what CSS rules specify a given color
  • Save, bookmark and share the palettes
• Online Palette Viewer
  • Click here for an example
  • Allows viewing, bookmarking and sharing any color palette
  • Provides a permalink URL that represents any set of colors
  • Online Eyedropper shows colors in RGB, HSV and additional formats
• Use Full Page Zoom introduced in Firefox 3
• Firebug support - allows opening the selected element in Firebug
• New languages - Indonesian, Korean, Norwegian. Thanks to the BabelZilla team!
• Firefox 3 support
• Ubuntu support (gcc4 based build included)
• Minor tweaks and bug fixes

Get the official download of Colorzilla for FireFox 3 on the official Mozilla Add-On Repository. It is already receiving almost 10,000 downloads per week!

EPN 'Make Good' Issued...for some

Many affiliates for the EbayPartnerNetwork are announcing that they have received their makegood for the ACRU reporting errors earlier last month. Unfortunately there are also a number of people reporting that they have not received any makegood, I'm one of those people. I've contacted my account rep and she has verified that I should have received it by now and I qualify for one, but it just has not posted. Below is the message I got back from EPN support:

Thank you for writing us back regarding your 'make-good' field on your
Payment History page.

I have checked your account and I can confirm that this note is missing
from your 'Payment History' page. I've forwarded your email to the
Finance team at eBay Partner Network. They will review your question and
get back to you in the next few business days.

Sorry for the inconveniences you have while waiting.Thank you for your
patience and understanding.

Kind regards,

Hopefully they will be able to give me some news by the weekend. Hiccups in the system like this really effect my Adwords campaigns and other initiatives I make to promote my sites. Also, let this be a reminder to all of you affiliates, make sure and stay up on your reporting and news from the program you are affiliating for. Had I not known a makegood was to be issued, nor had I contacted my rep, I may never received my makegood payment.

I'll be reporting what I received just as soon as I know.

NewEgg Mall Affiliate Program

I'm not sure about you, but I am a massive fan of anything NewEgg. It seems like no matter what I am buying, if NewEgg.com had it, it was cheaper even with freight. The only problem was that their inventory of items was limited to electronics, but now they've got a whole line of products similar to Amazon at the NewEggMall. I've been biting the bullet waiting for them to release an affiliate program and now it looks like they are offering one through Commission Junction.

NeweggMall.com, a subsidiary of Newegg Inc., is a premier online shopping destination for general merchandise. Launched in 2008, this elegant e-commerce site boasts a wide-ranging selection of apparel, accessories, auto, home living, jewelry & watches, and outdoor & garden products to meet the demands of the most selective customers.

Building on the success of newegg.com, the second-largest online-only retailer in the United States and preferred destination for technology enthusiasts, NeweggMall.com brings the same customer-centric principles to the broader market: great product selection and pricing, fast delivery and outstanding customer service. With more than 15,000 unique products available on the site, NeweggMall.com continues to seek out, evaluate and add merchant partners who can deliver the high quality e-commerce shopping experience customers have come to associate with the Newegg brand.

Looks like the NewEggMall affiliate program will drop a 30 day cookie and earn you a 4% flat commission on whatever is purchased. This is lower than what you can get through Amazon, but a much better cookie length. Furthermore the regular NewEgg.com affiliate program only offers a 3 day cookie length, so you better get while the getting is good. Affiliate programs like Amazon only offer a 1 day action period and I think we will see NewEgg drop the length of their cookie after this site kick off as well.

Affiliate Incentives

It's important, as in any business, to familiarize yourself with the companies that you affiliate with. Knowing their business practices and strategies will help you become a better affiliate for them and also give warning to things you may want to step away from. By becoming entrenched with a certain company though, blinders can be put on to similar affiliate programs that may offer some nice incentives.

I operate a number of automotive themed websites and blogs, which I affiliate for parts warehouses and places like eBay. While eBay is my primary source of affiliate income I also subscribe to affiliate program updates in my reader from the operating affiliate network. This means that whenever an affiliate incentive is being offered by another affiliate, in this example AutoPartsWarehouse.com, I can take advantage of the bonuses they offer. Often these bonuses are time sensitive so staying on top of an offer is important.

Currently AutoPartsWarehouse.com is offering affiliates a $50 or $100 activation bonus. This means that for an accumulated sales amount of $300 or more, you will receive a one-time cash reward of $50. If you generate an accumulated sales amount of $500 or more, you receive a one-time $100 cash out reward. Obviously this can really add to a monthly income for affiliate beginners or long term marketers alike. Had I not been attentive to the updates from my Affiliate Network I would not have been privy to this great lil bonus that should be easy to accumulate for the month of July.

In addition to staying up to date with bonuses and incentives, often times companies will provide seasonal promotional material. Web graphics and banners for affiliate programs will be updated during the holidays for special promotions that the company may be running. Being July and the 4th is around the corner make sure you are using all methods possible to promote your niche and make those extra affiliate sales.

Text Link Ads Promo Code

Looking to save some money promoting that new niche site of yours, well check out this promo code for Text-Link-Ads.com where you can save 15% in the month of July. The 15% off will continue for the LIFE of the campaign you start for any order in July.

Text-Link-Ads Coupon Code : july15

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.

• V7N Contextual
• Sponsored Reviews
• ReviewMe
• Blogitive
• PayPerPost
• Blogvertise
• Smorty
• LinkWorth

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Time To Switch to EPN

Don't forget all you affiliate marketers out there, it's time to finally make the switch to EPN. The deadline on earnings is May 31st through Commission Junction, which means any CRU's sent through their cookies that don't go active before May 31st will not be paid out. For some of us that could add up to a big headache.

Personally I've been using the new EPN affiliate system for over a month now and had great success. I've been selling used golf carts and used refrigerators and making a boat load of cookie stuffing. The amount of people looking for a good used golf cart right now is rising and accessories have never been easier to find. Likewise for finding a good used refrigerator or kegerator.

Sony Style Affiliate Time

Get Sony the way you want it. Only at Sony Style. Select, personalize and enjoy hundreds of thousands of products including computers, electronics, accessories and services you can’t find anywhere else. If it’s Sony, it’s at Sony Style.

As a member of the Sony Affiliate Program, you can expect a successful and profitable relationship, including:

Assoication with a #1 Brand that customers trust! Deep Linking with text link 10396361 3.5 - 4.0% commissions on all Sony computers and electronics Average Order Size over $595 45-Day Initial Visit to Return Day Cookie Access to Computer & Electronics Product Datafeed Sony commissions gift card sales at time of purchase – available at $25 up to $1000 increments Sony Logos may not be used to create a Sony replication page or website. Logos may be used only to highlight the company, reference in an email campaign, be used in place of a banner, etc. The logo is meant for recognition of the Sony name/brand and not to be used to create a “Sony” site. If you have questions regarding the use please contact us before you implement.

Looks like the time to start affiliating with Sony Style may have came and with such a recognizable name it's hard not to make the good green stuff.

Current Deals from Sony Style for Affiliates

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