Affiliates for Video Game Sites

Sometimes it can be hard to find an affiliate program that matches the content of your website. However, it's all a matter of where you look and what bets fits your visitors budget. If you can find a program that caters to your sites topic and offers a range of variably priced items, then your in business.

Currently, I run an affiliate program with Mad Catz, which allows me to integrate a CPA program with my video game related site. While I can market Nintendo's console the Wii, I can also sell different products like controllers and skins. It just so happens that MadCatz is offering a few special items this month to promote.

From wireless contollers to wireless thumbpads for the PlayStation 3, MadCatz has you covered. Otherwise, if you need Wii merchandise there are other places you can purchase from. My personal Wii Shop allows the best deals for Wiimotes, Wii Games, and other Wii accessories. The best part is I can offer all of this through my Amazon.com affiliate program. So never fear, there is a program available to help any site topic.

123Reg Announces Double Commission

UK domain registrar 123-Reg.co.uk has announced double commissions for the month of May. This bonus commission is only effective on the first referral you send to them. However, this could mean up to £140.

Becoming an affiliate for 123-Reg is easy and is free, simply sign up at CJ.com.

Avoiding Duplicate Content Penalty

One of my most favorite blogs recently published a post regarding affiliate datafeeds and duplicate content penalties. It's a big deal if you rely heavily upon search engine traffic, so it's worth a read. If your not familiar with 'duplicate content penalties' it's where popular search engines (Google) penalize your site's rankings because you have 'similar' content with another site.

With so much competition it's important to cover yourself whenever possible. Read about duplicate content over at 5StarAffiliatePrograms.com. The ever changing face of search engine algorithms means that this news may be dated by the time you read it, but it's important to keep moving forward. Simply copy'n paste is not always the correct answer. ;)

Easy CGI Affiliate

Through CommissionJunction I'm often contacted via email in regards to up and coming new affiliate programs. Lately, it seems that all I'm getting are programs geared toward hosting companies, which is an already crowded market.

Often, hosting companies offer exuberant payouts, due to the high competition and large profit margin. While this may seem appealing, it can be difficult to earn even a dollar from such a program.

The latest offering is from EasyCGI and boasts some eye-catching numbers.

We now offer one of the most compelling commission structures in the market with a 120-day cookie length. We are giving away $110 per sale with an opportunity of earning up to $150 per sale.

And you get a big cookie!

Time of the Year

Affiliate marketing is a ever changing dangerous beast that requires constant attention. From what I've seen there is no auto button that once you reach a certain point your 'done' with your website or marketing plan. Thanks to competition there is always something that needs to be done to keep your site at the top of the SERP's and revenue constantly flowing. Ultimately maintaining or growing business performance requires constant attention.

Keeping traffic is a different topic altogether, however keeping the revenue flowing from your existing traffic requires change with the seasons. I'm sure all of you, including myself, enjoyed increased sales ending 06, due to the holidays. But now we've got a fresh year and a new plan, possibly product, we need to focus on.

Do testing, find what product does best at which part of the year. Test, retest, placement change, etc until you find it works. Again, no auto button and what may have worked the end of 06 may not be true today.

Good luck to a successful 07 and may we all grow together!

Lexington Law Affiliate Program

Being a member of Commission Junction offers so many benefits, besides the ability to market the best products in the industry. It also gives you insight into what's coming and direct relations with it's advertisers.

Today I received a new email from Lexington Law announcing a new affiliate program and plans for 07.

Q1 2007 is the time to be working with financial programs, since people typically evaluate their financial health after the holiday season. Lexington Law is the largest and most trusted name in credit repair. Join us in our strongest performing quarter and increase your commissions.

Publisher benefits:

• Highest payout and EPC in the industry, with the opportunity to get to a VIP level
• Phone order tracking - we track and compensate those customers who are not comfortable purchasing items online, with our 800 number tracking
• We follow up each lead with our own marketing efforts via phone calls and emails and track any sales back to our affiliates
• We have the ability to work with affiliates to deliver unique creative that is just right for your needs, including content links

Note: If you are a coupon publisher, please contact us. We have an opportunity to work well with your business model.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act gives Americans the right to contact credit bureaus directly and dispute items on their credit reports. Consumers can dispute any and all items on their credit report that they think believe to be inaccurate, unverifiable, or misleading. If the bureaus cannot verify that the information on their report is indeed correct, then those items must be deleted. The experts at Lexington Law help consumers get these incorrect items deleted to strengthen their credit history and gain the financial leverage they otherwise would lack.

Please see our affiliate site at http://www.progrexion.com/affiliates for more information. You will also find resources and tools to help you grow your commissions.

Join Lexington Law now by clicking the link below and scrolling to the bottom (you may need to login to your Commission Junction account first if prompted).
Lexington Law Detail Page

Regards,
The Lexington Law Affiliate Team

Amazon Product Previews

What makes an online affiliate successful, is it placing links in a certain place, the type of links used, or traffic? The answer can be one, or any combination of these elements, so it's always a good idea to test and utilize all tools available. The latest tool from Amazon Associates is one that can potentially increase your earning potential.

When a visitor hovers over an enhanced text or image link for 400ms, a small window will appear next to that link. That window is the Product Preview. When a user's mouse is within the window, the window will remain visible. When they move their mouse outside of the window, the window will disappear. If a user clicks on the window, the window will remain visible until the user clicks the window's "Close" button. Users can also click and drag on the top border of the window to move it around your web page. Please note that the 400ms delay is a common period for triggering user-activated events on web pages, and is the same timing we use on our retail site for similar features.

Typically my pages are on the heavy side, so I'll use this method sparingly. However, it's never bad idea having more tools in your toolshed.

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.