My plan was to edit GoodLife4All.biz so that I could submit it to Yahoo UK advertising. Problem is I am not very good with HTML. I can cut and paste some simple links, and change the location of a couple things, but going in and doing serious editing is just beyond me right now. So I decided to advertise it with AdlandPro for the $9.95/month. So my monthly advertising expenditures are JUST over $100/month right now. But I've gotten some commissions through GoodLife4All.biz, so something is working - What a perfect lead in for my Tip of the Night! LOL
I have head about this AdTracker program - it is supposed to be very good. If we are going to spend advertising dollars, we really will need to know which ads are/are not working. If you want a free service though, go to Google Analytics. I have a Gmail account already, so I just signed up and posted Affiliate Curve. All you do is paste a piece of HTML code into the bottom of your site (even the newbie's can do that!) and then you get full statistics on where your visitors are coming from. Now, the AdTracker is probably better, but it costs. So if you need stats, but want to save some money, go with Google Analytics.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Hitting our Goals
Lets talk a little about how to best use our time. I don't have endless amounts of time to explore every product out there - Not only will that overwhelm me, it doesn't let me Focus on important things. For me, I have about an hour and 1/2 per day right now to get started in Affiliate Marketing. This isn't much time, especially considering how much I'm trying to get done. So I spend my time away from the computer Thinking about the most valuable thing I can do next for growing this online business. 3 days ago my goal for this entire week was to JUST get my NetSuccess programs set up. I conquered that in 1 night. How? I just thought about what I needed to do before I got to the computer. By the time I got to work, I had already mapped out exactly what I was going to do. I finished my weekly goal in about 2 hours. Next I realized that I needed to get my advertising campaign going. So I spent yesterday thinking about the inexpensive advertising options recommended. Now that I have that underway, I have it in my mind to get my AffiliateJunktion site up & running because they sent me the needed updates yesterday. I also have my next projects in the back of my mind - creating my web page to move this site to, setting up GoodLife4all to advertise on YahooUK, finding another traffic exchange site, buying an ebook I saw last night that looks really great. All these things are in the back of my mind right now. But the most important thing is what I'm doing TODAY, and what will help me the most right now.
What can we learn here? Simple - Set yourself a daily goal for what you want to accomplish. Think about what you need to do and map it out in your head. Then when you get time to work, you aren't browsing all over the internet trying to figure out what to do for your business that night. You have a plan and you are ready. Now don't overwhelm yourself - I don't go into a online work session saying "lets get 3 new sites all set up tonight!" cause again, overwhelming myself just leads to frustration.
Is this some revelation? For me it is - It's part of what you may have heard before - Work Smarter, not Harder. Like I had mentioned before, I am not a highly organized person. However, I am accomplishing much more than I thought I could in such a short time frame and this is the main reason.
Hope you find this useful in your own endeavors, whatever they may be.
What can we learn here? Simple - Set yourself a daily goal for what you want to accomplish. Think about what you need to do and map it out in your head. Then when you get time to work, you aren't browsing all over the internet trying to figure out what to do for your business that night. You have a plan and you are ready. Now don't overwhelm yourself - I don't go into a online work session saying "lets get 3 new sites all set up tonight!" cause again, overwhelming myself just leads to frustration.
Is this some revelation? For me it is - It's part of what you may have heard before - Work Smarter, not Harder. Like I had mentioned before, I am not a highly organized person. However, I am accomplishing much more than I thought I could in such a short time frame and this is the main reason.
Hope you find this useful in your own endeavors, whatever they may be.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Money Management & Just starting out
If you have read my posts, you know I don't have an endless stream of resources, so I have to keep things on as tight of a budget as possible. This is why I started with the inexpensive advertising - LinkReferral, TrafficSwarm, EasyHits4U, ExactSeek & now AdlandPro. But we need to keep track of expenses and I have to keep spending to a minimum - I'm trying to get the most for my advertising dollar. I am new, but I do know that you are going to have to spend some money on advertising. My goal is to keep it as cheap as possible, while still getting results.
With LinkReferral, TrafficSwarm & EasyHits you can get your advertising done absolutely free. My problem is I just don't have the time to surf for an hour & 1/2 every night. So for ME, I believe it makes more sense to pay for the upgraded memberships and spend my time finding a great Affiliate Program. There is also tons of free advertising (check NetSuccess again here), but eventually your going to have to face this simple fact - If you want QUALITY traffic, you are going to have to spend money at some point. Lets see how I'm doing so far:
TrafficSwarm = $30/month. Saves me about 1/2 hour a night of surfing to keep up with my unlimited URL's and also gives Pro Members a lot of "free" benefits (I " " free because if your paying $30/month its not REALLY free, BUT the Pro benefits at TrafficSwarm are great!)
LinkReferral = $35/month. Saves me another 1/2 hour a night surfing and increases hits a LOT (I have 110 hits in 3 days - that's a lot of traffic)
EasyHits4U = $6.95/month. Saves me surfing time and gets my links viewed by a LOT of people. Again, $7/month is totally worth it, to me.
ExactSeek = $12 for 3 months - If I get any traffic from this it's TOTALLY worth it.
AdlandPro = $14.95/month and you saw the list of services this provides.
So as you can see I'm keeping my budget PRETTY tight, but still spending it on things that I feel are very useful. I can't say for sure how these campaigns will turn out, but right now I'm feeling pretty good about every dollar I'm spending.
Hope you find this helpful.
With LinkReferral, TrafficSwarm & EasyHits you can get your advertising done absolutely free. My problem is I just don't have the time to surf for an hour & 1/2 every night. So for ME, I believe it makes more sense to pay for the upgraded memberships and spend my time finding a great Affiliate Program. There is also tons of free advertising (check NetSuccess again here), but eventually your going to have to face this simple fact - If you want QUALITY traffic, you are going to have to spend money at some point. Lets see how I'm doing so far:
TrafficSwarm = $30/month. Saves me about 1/2 hour a night of surfing to keep up with my unlimited URL's and also gives Pro Members a lot of "free" benefits (I " " free because if your paying $30/month its not REALLY free, BUT the Pro benefits at TrafficSwarm are great!)
LinkReferral = $35/month. Saves me another 1/2 hour a night surfing and increases hits a LOT (I have 110 hits in 3 days - that's a lot of traffic)
EasyHits4U = $6.95/month. Saves me surfing time and gets my links viewed by a LOT of people. Again, $7/month is totally worth it, to me.
ExactSeek = $12 for 3 months - If I get any traffic from this it's TOTALLY worth it.
AdlandPro = $14.95/month and you saw the list of services this provides.
So as you can see I'm keeping my budget PRETTY tight, but still spending it on things that I feel are very useful. I can't say for sure how these campaigns will turn out, but right now I'm feeling pretty good about every dollar I'm spending.
Hope you find this helpful.
I think I found a great advertising tool!
I think I found a GREAT option for inexpensive advertising. It's another of the NetSuccess advertisement suggestions under AdlandPro. Check out what you get for $14.95/month!
3,000 credits every month on our Targeted Traffic Exchange network - put your ad in front of thousands of potential visitors!
5,000 banner/text ad impression credits to display your ads on top of our pages. - Excellent exposure.
Submissions to 80,000 search directories each month. - Saves you the time and hassle of trying to get listed on search engines yourself.
Automatically renewed ad (every hour) on one of the most visited Classified sites on the internet. - Saves you time by keeping you from having to renew your ads manually to keep them on top
Well this seems like it's WELL worth the $15/month to me. Also, you go to your account and get full statistics on all your ads. I have heard about a program that Tracks all your ads, and I will probably be getting that soon, but for now, I am happy to be able to view all my stats from AdlandPro -
If this sounds like a good advertising plan for you also, go to AdlandPro and sign up today
3,000 credits every month on our Targeted Traffic Exchange network - put your ad in front of thousands of potential visitors!
5,000 banner/text ad impression credits to display your ads on top of our pages. - Excellent exposure.
Submissions to 80,000 search directories each month. - Saves you the time and hassle of trying to get listed on search engines yourself.
Automatically renewed ad (every hour) on one of the most visited Classified sites on the internet. - Saves you time by keeping you from having to renew your ads manually to keep them on top
Well this seems like it's WELL worth the $15/month to me. Also, you go to your account and get full statistics on all your ads. I have heard about a program that Tracks all your ads, and I will probably be getting that soon, but for now, I am happy to be able to view all my stats from AdlandPro -
If this sounds like a good advertising plan for you also, go to AdlandPro and sign up today
site style & colors
I'm really trying to make the site as attractive as possible - I want it to be eye appealing and easy to read. That FLAT white might have been a bit bright, so I'm going to try this on and see if I like it - Feel free to let me know which you prefer! Email me at therealnewbie@gmail.com about this or any other comments you might have! thanks!
Lets start the advertising campaign!
Okay, despite the fact that I need to still clean up this site a bit, I think it's time for us to start figuring out which paid advertising works for us. LinkReferral & TrafficSwarm are providing a lot of hits so far, but in order to succeed I'm going to have to get this out there even more. SO, I'm going to start small (and INEXPENSIVE) and use the NetSuccess Paid Traffic Recommendations (check it out here.) If that doesn't work, just click the NetSuccess link and sign up for a free account. I am not QUITE ready to pay the big prices for Google & Yahoo PPC ad's, plus I need to read the Google Adwords before I commit a few hundred bucks. BUT, they have ExactSeek - you can list a 30 character intro and 100 character description line. 3 months of advertising for $12! Now, this is the first time i've heard of it, but NetSuccess recommends it and this seems like a very reasonable cost for any advertising. I signed up with the keyword "Test Affiliate Marketing" - I'm guessing that this being a cheap advertising source, there are probably a TON of ads with Affiliate in it, so I added "Test" to hopefully differentiate it a bit - I just bought 1 ad, but you can buy as many as you want @ $12 for 3 months - I'll let you know how it goes. Tonight I'll probably sign up for the AdlandPro service - $9.95/month to keep your ad at the top all the time (rotating or something - haven't checked it out thoroughly)
anyway, hope your choosing a program that seems right to you. I think in a month from now I will be able to offer some REALLY solid advice & tips. Right now it's all new to me as well, but I hope your finding it useful.
anyway, hope your choosing a program that seems right to you. I think in a month from now I will be able to offer some REALLY solid advice & tips. Right now it's all new to me as well, but I hope your finding it useful.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
I am pretty excited about NetSuccess
A few days ago the head honcho at NetSuccess emailed me about their new marketing lines. I wasn't that impressed with my first NetSuccess partner program, but I decided to take a look. I figure if the owner of the company is emailing me, it is probably worth looking into! So I went to the new landing page and was immediately impressed. Instead of the standard "get your free website" they had completely revamped the entire Affiliate Marketing program. They now have 4 areas of focus - all very relevant to online marketers - Search Engine Marketing, Web Traffic Strategies, Internet Marketing Education & Online Business Opportunities. I immediately thought to myself "hey, this company is getting serious". So I took a look around and found some outstanding programs. I personally signed up for Cash Machine Landing Page & SiteBuilder Elite. Both of these have free Affiliate Programs. All I did was sign up, get a referral code and add the link to my Traffic Exchanges. They both look like some serious cash generating affiliate programs. There are many more programs - If you become a Pro Member ($50 fee) you have access to 18 of their 20 programs FREE.
They have a free account where you can sign up and check out everything NetSuccess is about. I am really not one to be overhyped, and I don't want to fall into the standard industry Flash campaign, but NetSuccess is showing me that they are very serious about online marketing and giving us a serious platform for success. They have Free & Paid Traffic ideas there for you to use, a Members Traffic idea area as well as options to advertise on their forum. NetSuccess gave me the best startup tools & ideas I have seen, ESPECIALLY since I am so new to Affiliate Marketing! Right now, they are my #1 recommendation. Go see the landing page and judge for yourself - This really feels like the best program I have found.
They have a free account where you can sign up and check out everything NetSuccess is about. I am really not one to be overhyped, and I don't want to fall into the standard industry Flash campaign, but NetSuccess is showing me that they are very serious about online marketing and giving us a serious platform for success. They have Free & Paid Traffic ideas there for you to use, a Members Traffic idea area as well as options to advertise on their forum. NetSuccess gave me the best startup tools & ideas I have seen, ESPECIALLY since I am so new to Affiliate Marketing! Right now, they are my #1 recommendation. Go see the landing page and judge for yourself - This really feels like the best program I have found.
addendum to Affiliate Junktion
I can highly recommend the Affiliate Junktion program and my own site, GoodLife4all.biz. However, I do have a word of caution about IPower - So far there customer service has been pretty lousy. It took me 30 min's to get ahold of someone last week when I tried to call. I also used the "Live Help" and the phone was actually faster. If you sign up for AffiliateJunktion, do send in emails whenever you have any problems.
The low cost of the hosting is a great benefit. The services are equal to any other hosting site I have seen & used. But I have to recommend sending in an email and be Patient with the customer service. My problem was self created, but I think the very 1st thing someone should have asked me was if my firewall was turned off - Kinda like the story about the lady who calls in cause nothing is coming up on her computer monitor. The very patient tech kid went through the protocol for all the "normal" things and it turns out the lady didn't have her computer plugged in - Sometimes you just start with the basics :)
The low cost of the hosting is a great benefit. The services are equal to any other hosting site I have seen & used. But I have to recommend sending in an email and be Patient with the customer service. My problem was self created, but I think the very 1st thing someone should have asked me was if my firewall was turned off - Kinda like the story about the lady who calls in cause nothing is coming up on her computer monitor. The very patient tech kid went through the protocol for all the "normal" things and it turns out the lady didn't have her computer plugged in - Sometimes you just start with the basics :)
Saw something about exchange surfing today
and thought I'd pass it on. I read that it's unimaginable to believe that surfers are only surfing 1 exchange at a time. Really? That's all I ever did - But it makes sense. You can pull up a couple of your traffic exchanges and surf 2 windows (or more I guess) and your getting double surfing time in. So I tried it tonight and I have to admit it works pretty efficiently. Now, for me I am very focused on my current blog and my netsuccess links that I'm putting together - So bottom line is I have MORE than enough going on and I'm not really looking for anything more - I honestly do good surfing though. I'm interested in what is on the exchanges and what is being promoted. But if your behind on time, go ahead and pull a couple up and do "zombie surfing". Sometimes you just need to get those surfing credits in!
my first impression review of AffiliateJunktion!
I found AffiliateJunktion through one of my new networking pals on LinkReferral. As soon as I saw the site I thought it was for me. It is an AffiliateMarketing program and they tell you all about it right up front. Heres the FLASH! Guarantee to make $150/day within 30 days of following their instructions. WOW - That is $1,500 every 10 days, within the first month? That is impressive - When I signed up last week they had the guarantee and would give you the difference between what you were making and the promised $150/day - They have since changed the language a bit, but still, that is a very good amount of money to be earned. To see my Affiliate Junktion site go to http://www.goodlife4all.biz/
The program works as follows: You sign up for 1 year of hosting at IPower. This is a great deal - $59.40 for the 1st year and that includes full hosting services and a domain name. As far as cost, this is one of the best hosting deals I've found! The first thing that attracted me to this sign up offer was the ability to get my own site with MY domain name - This may seem irrelavant to some, but when I see affiliate programs with 7 numbers in it, I don't want to click on it. But a site with a Distinct domain name stands out a little more...but that just might be my own preference.
After you sign up for the 1 year hosting, you send your receipt in to AffiliateJunktion and they immediately credit your account $75! So we have now paid $59.40 but have $75 in our Affiliate account - We are already ahead $15.60. The hosting account also includes $50 in yahoo sponsored search credit and $30 in Google AdWords credits! So as soon as we set up out site we are ahead $95.60. This is a pretty good start - but there is more
On to the meat and potatoes part - Affiliate Junktion is providing outstanding support and easy to follow steps to get us going. You get your affiliate password and go to login and get your site set up. Follow the easy instruction tutorial (takes about 45min's) to get your site name copied and your files uploaded - TIP #1!!!! When you get to the Upload Files Through FTP, if you have ANY problems, TURN OFF YOUR FIREWALL - I lost 3 nights of wasted time because I had never used FTP (file transfer protocol) and my McAfee firewall wouldn't allow the program to send the FTP to upload to my site. I wasted about 8 hours of valuable time going back and forth between IPower & AffiliateJunktion - See, this is one of those mistakes I hope you all avoid! Anyway, I get set up (finally) and move on to the Yahoo UK advertising -
Yahoo UK is a separate search engine for the United Kingdom. Yahoo has not integrated it with Yahoo U.S. AffiliateJunktion has listed this as their #1 place to advertise. You get a free copy of Google Adwords and a 50lb (British Pounds bonus) ad credit for signing up with Yahoo UK - This is $120 in free advertising! I signed up and wrote what I considered to be a Stellar quality ad (I'm high on my own writing LOL) and submitted it for approval - I signed up for 3lb's/day which is about $6/day US and that should give me 25 clicks/day - If that advertising works well, I will raise the amounts.
Advertising thoughts from a newbie - My Yahoo UK advertisement looks like this:
The Revolution of Earning Money Online
Make substantial money online with a Free Affiliate Marketing Program.
goodlife4all.biz
Now, is this a good ad? I don't know - but here is my thought process: I HAVE to get attention and get it quickly. I don't have too many words to use. The revolution line 'seems' good to me. Also, at 25cent/click, I want to "prequalify" people just a bit - I don't want everyone clicking my ad if they are looking for "survey programs" - I have a limited budget to start with and I want people to click if they have thought about or may be interested in Affiliate Marketing programs - Is this a terrible idea? I don't know - This was just my thinking process for as few of words that I was given -
Right now I am stalled with Yahoo UK - My site was rejected there because it was just a copy site - Apparently, and this isn't the only time you might find this, a site has to be original and Obviously yours. Not just an affiliate site. So right now I have emailed my affiliate manager about what I can/need to do to get Yahoo UK advertising approved. I will keep everyone updated as to what happens here next. Hopefully I can tweak the site just a bit and get it approved soon! It really does seem like a great Affiliate Program and I'm happy to be promoting it! There are 2 other affiliates that I have networked with that both love it - They are already making close to what A.J. promised $150/day. This is a very realistic & achievable goal.
The program works as follows: You sign up for 1 year of hosting at IPower. This is a great deal - $59.40 for the 1st year and that includes full hosting services and a domain name. As far as cost, this is one of the best hosting deals I've found! The first thing that attracted me to this sign up offer was the ability to get my own site with MY domain name - This may seem irrelavant to some, but when I see affiliate programs with 7 numbers in it, I don't want to click on it. But a site with a Distinct domain name stands out a little more...but that just might be my own preference.
After you sign up for the 1 year hosting, you send your receipt in to AffiliateJunktion and they immediately credit your account $75! So we have now paid $59.40 but have $75 in our Affiliate account - We are already ahead $15.60. The hosting account also includes $50 in yahoo sponsored search credit and $30 in Google AdWords credits! So as soon as we set up out site we are ahead $95.60. This is a pretty good start - but there is more
On to the meat and potatoes part - Affiliate Junktion is providing outstanding support and easy to follow steps to get us going. You get your affiliate password and go to login and get your site set up. Follow the easy instruction tutorial (takes about 45min's) to get your site name copied and your files uploaded - TIP #1!!!! When you get to the Upload Files Through FTP, if you have ANY problems, TURN OFF YOUR FIREWALL - I lost 3 nights of wasted time because I had never used FTP (file transfer protocol) and my McAfee firewall wouldn't allow the program to send the FTP to upload to my site. I wasted about 8 hours of valuable time going back and forth between IPower & AffiliateJunktion - See, this is one of those mistakes I hope you all avoid! Anyway, I get set up (finally) and move on to the Yahoo UK advertising -
Yahoo UK is a separate search engine for the United Kingdom. Yahoo has not integrated it with Yahoo U.S. AffiliateJunktion has listed this as their #1 place to advertise. You get a free copy of Google Adwords and a 50lb (British Pounds bonus) ad credit for signing up with Yahoo UK - This is $120 in free advertising! I signed up and wrote what I considered to be a Stellar quality ad (I'm high on my own writing LOL) and submitted it for approval - I signed up for 3lb's/day which is about $6/day US and that should give me 25 clicks/day - If that advertising works well, I will raise the amounts.
Advertising thoughts from a newbie - My Yahoo UK advertisement looks like this:
The Revolution of Earning Money Online
Make substantial money online with a Free Affiliate Marketing Program.
goodlife4all.biz
Now, is this a good ad? I don't know - but here is my thought process: I HAVE to get attention and get it quickly. I don't have too many words to use. The revolution line 'seems' good to me. Also, at 25cent/click, I want to "prequalify" people just a bit - I don't want everyone clicking my ad if they are looking for "survey programs" - I have a limited budget to start with and I want people to click if they have thought about or may be interested in Affiliate Marketing programs - Is this a terrible idea? I don't know - This was just my thinking process for as few of words that I was given -
Right now I am stalled with Yahoo UK - My site was rejected there because it was just a copy site - Apparently, and this isn't the only time you might find this, a site has to be original and Obviously yours. Not just an affiliate site. So right now I have emailed my affiliate manager about what I can/need to do to get Yahoo UK advertising approved. I will keep everyone updated as to what happens here next. Hopefully I can tweak the site just a bit and get it approved soon! It really does seem like a great Affiliate Program and I'm happy to be promoting it! There are 2 other affiliates that I have networked with that both love it - They are already making close to what A.J. promised $150/day. This is a very realistic & achievable goal.
before you start Affiliate Marketing
this might go w/out saying, but I am a beginner and I will add everything I feel is relevant. The FIRST thing you need to do before getting into traffic exchanges and Affiliate Marketing is to set up different email addresses - I have 6 right now and I still get a TON of junk mail. I know LinkReferral is working on something where you can just sign up with 1 email, but when I first found it, I had to sign in with 5 different emails for 5 different things I had just started promoting. There will be lots of things that sound great when you first see the ad - After looking into it a little bit you may well decide you don't want anything to do with it. Thats fine - But once they get your email, you will KEEP getting email -
Also, I am very guilty of this but I really need to work smarter, not harder. Right now I've got so much going on and so much that I want to accomplish, but in order to give you GOOD reviews and good results, I need to slow down and concentrate on 1 project at a time. This week is going to be about NetSuccess (I will write up a bit about that soon) - I tend to spread myself thin a lot. I want it all and I want it all RIGHT NOW! The best thing about this blog may end up being that it keeps me focused and organized.
So my goals for this week are simple - Get my affiliate links all set for NetSuccess and write that review (this is exciting, really!) - Get those links set up on all my traffic exchanges and start promoting. Not too much to undertake, but in a couple weeks we should start to see if we are getting any results or not - Oh yeah, ADVERTISING - I've got a few more ideas about advertising options - I'm not quite ready to commit to the Google & Yahoo prices but have found some decent alternatives - Of course I will let you know asap what I'm starting with.
Also, I am very guilty of this but I really need to work smarter, not harder. Right now I've got so much going on and so much that I want to accomplish, but in order to give you GOOD reviews and good results, I need to slow down and concentrate on 1 project at a time. This week is going to be about NetSuccess (I will write up a bit about that soon) - I tend to spread myself thin a lot. I want it all and I want it all RIGHT NOW! The best thing about this blog may end up being that it keeps me focused and organized.
So my goals for this week are simple - Get my affiliate links all set for NetSuccess and write that review (this is exciting, really!) - Get those links set up on all my traffic exchanges and start promoting. Not too much to undertake, but in a couple weeks we should start to see if we are getting any results or not - Oh yeah, ADVERTISING - I've got a few more ideas about advertising options - I'm not quite ready to commit to the Google & Yahoo prices but have found some decent alternatives - Of course I will let you know asap what I'm starting with.
Monday, February 25, 2008
time to get serious about traffic
Today I found another traffic exchange site that seems very good. It is called EasyHits4u.com. They have 60K+ members which is on the MUCH higher end as far as exchanges go. The surfing and navigation were a little difficult for me at first, but the programs here are very flexible. They have a free membership that you can list 5 sites on. They have their "Premium" membership and for $6.95/month you get 500 bonus credits every month. I signed up for a 6 month package today and got 2,000 credits for $34.95. If you don't want to sign up for a membership, you can also buy advertising credits starting at $5.95 - These are some very good pricing options in my opinion.
Upon surfing this site I found a lot of programs I hadn't seen on other exchanges before. I even bought an ebook about 13 deadly sins of traffic exchanges (hey, i need all the info I can get). A really cool thing about this site is the way they do the "exchange". For every site you visit, they send 1 visitor to your site. So you get guaranteed hits. They have been #1 at TrafficHoopla for 10 weeks in a row (as of this posting) so they seem very legitimate. I am happy to recommend them - I think we will find this traffic exchange very beneficial! Check out EasyHits4U.com if you haven't been there.
Upon surfing this site I found a lot of programs I hadn't seen on other exchanges before. I even bought an ebook about 13 deadly sins of traffic exchanges (hey, i need all the info I can get). A really cool thing about this site is the way they do the "exchange". For every site you visit, they send 1 visitor to your site. So you get guaranteed hits. They have been #1 at TrafficHoopla for 10 weeks in a row (as of this posting) so they seem very legitimate. I am happy to recommend them - I think we will find this traffic exchange very beneficial! Check out EasyHits4U.com if you haven't been there.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
#1 problem we are going to face in our search
The obvious problem, for me, is generating real traffic for the Affiliate Marketing Programs. Here I am JUST trying to figure out how to get traffic for BadLuckHandicapper. Finding a QUALITY traffic generation system is going to be critical for this and every other program we find. This seems like priority #1 if any of this is going to work for us. LinkReferral & TrafficSwarm are great, but lets face it, probably 75% of the traffic we receive there is going to be people exactly like us. I believe they are very good places to start, but to really get things moving we will have to do more. And my guess is that means spending some money.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Deciding to switch to a web hosting account
I think this blog is great - Getting a free blog and having a LOT of design options is really an outstanding service I am getting from Blogger.com (& Google). 1 problem I'm foreseeing is that I plan on writing a LOT of reviews and recommendations. I don't want that to end up being a HUGE list down the left hand side - I want it to be available information for visitors to find my stuff easily. So right now I have this blog but I'm strongly considering opening this up as a website so I can customize things even more. I only have 3 programs and 2 links right now and the page already feels cluttered to me. If you have my site name, that will be enough. I own the affiliatecurve.com domain name, so the site address will stay the same. 1 day you might just find this is a whole new layout :)
By the way, if you do sign up for TrafficSwarm, I just looked through the bonus' of upgrading to Pro Membership ($30/month). As an added bonus, you get 1 year of free hosting through Jumpline.com. This is a pretty strong bonus, in my opinion. I did read the fine print and found that they charge $19.95/month AFTER the 1 year - but hey, 1 free year of hosting service is nice - That also includes all of their web design software. Pretty nice added bonus I thought I would share, but didn't feel the need to make another Link recommendation quite yet.
By the way, if you do sign up for TrafficSwarm, I just looked through the bonus' of upgrading to Pro Membership ($30/month). As an added bonus, you get 1 year of free hosting through Jumpline.com. This is a pretty strong bonus, in my opinion. I did read the fine print and found that they charge $19.95/month AFTER the 1 year - but hey, 1 free year of hosting service is nice - That also includes all of their web design software. Pretty nice added bonus I thought I would share, but didn't feel the need to make another Link recommendation quite yet.
best advice I've read today!
I read this today while trying to admittedly "hurry" through some text link requests. This is good advice, but especially important to read if you are new to this like I am.
Welcome to Commission Junction! You are receiving this automated message because you are submitting a question from an account that was established within the last 30 days. Because literally hundreds of people create a new Commission Junction account everyday, we have found that it is helpful to provide a basic introduction to some of the key things that are important to know in order for you to get started. And while it may seem impersonal, we have found that new publishers benefit more by receiving a summary of the basic things to start off right, than waiting for an answer to just one question. In order for you to be fully aware of all of the benefits and opportunities as a Commission Junction publisher and to create a program based on a clearly defined strategy, you are encouraged to devote a substantial portion of time to investigate on your own how your CJ Account Manager™ works. Because the CJ Account Manager™ has been developed for use by individual users with little knowledge of internet affiliate marketing as well advanced developers who are creating accounts for businesses or corporations, some of the terminology and processes can seem confusing at first. It is very common for a new publisher to create an account and dive right in and start applying for any and every advertiser program and putting up banners and text ads on dozens of web pages—then hope for results. While your enthusiasm and zeal is acknowledged this is definitely not recommended. The best advice you can take at this point right now is: Educate yourself! You are probably familiar with sayings like, “Don’t mistake activity for productivity” or “Work smarter not harder.” That could not be more profoundly applicable to internet advertising and affiliate marketing. The temptation might be to hasten your activity with an urgency that is driven by internet “Gold Rush” fever. If you do not take the time to educate yourself thoroughly with respect to affiliate marketing and do some thorough independent research into developing a good business plan you may find after all your effort that you are like a miner in 1849 in the middle of vast salt bed, without a pick or shovel, wondering why you haven’t struck gold. Before you generate a whirlwind of activity without doing your homework:
Familiarize yourself completely with the CJ Account Manager™.
Scroll through the topics available when you select the “Help” link.
Click on the link that says “CJU Online” and use the tutorials (for both beginning and advanced web publishers).
Begin researching articles online about affiliate marketing that have anything to do with tips, strategies, do’s and don’ts. Make sure that the source is credible. Avoid anything with a lot of hype and claims that are too good to be true. Remember that most of the answers to your questions can be found anytime and any day by using the “Help” feature in your CJ Account Manager™. We are constantly working on ways to provide current and thorough information there. If you can’t find your answer after performing a reasonable search on your own, we welcome your questions through the “Ask A Question” interface. Thank you for selecting Commission Junction. We sincerely hope that the dynamic capabilities of the Commission Junction system and the relationships with advertisers that we can help facilitate will help you achieve your carefully considered web-publishing model. Remember, if your intention is to simply put up random banners on a web site and then check back occasionally to see if you have made any money, your effort will probably not see the results you are hoping for. It can be successful if your willing to:
Commit yourself to learning, developing a sound strategy—
Dedicate yourself to employing the right resources for a professional presentation and execution of your business model—
Discipline yourself to analyzing what and why something is either effective or ineffective and adapt accordingly—
Realize that this is an endeavor that requires skill, effort, understanding, nurturing and commitment.
Welcome to Commission Junction! You are receiving this automated message because you are submitting a question from an account that was established within the last 30 days. Because literally hundreds of people create a new Commission Junction account everyday, we have found that it is helpful to provide a basic introduction to some of the key things that are important to know in order for you to get started. And while it may seem impersonal, we have found that new publishers benefit more by receiving a summary of the basic things to start off right, than waiting for an answer to just one question. In order for you to be fully aware of all of the benefits and opportunities as a Commission Junction publisher and to create a program based on a clearly defined strategy, you are encouraged to devote a substantial portion of time to investigate on your own how your CJ Account Manager™ works. Because the CJ Account Manager™ has been developed for use by individual users with little knowledge of internet affiliate marketing as well advanced developers who are creating accounts for businesses or corporations, some of the terminology and processes can seem confusing at first. It is very common for a new publisher to create an account and dive right in and start applying for any and every advertiser program and putting up banners and text ads on dozens of web pages—then hope for results. While your enthusiasm and zeal is acknowledged this is definitely not recommended. The best advice you can take at this point right now is: Educate yourself! You are probably familiar with sayings like, “Don’t mistake activity for productivity” or “Work smarter not harder.” That could not be more profoundly applicable to internet advertising and affiliate marketing. The temptation might be to hasten your activity with an urgency that is driven by internet “Gold Rush” fever. If you do not take the time to educate yourself thoroughly with respect to affiliate marketing and do some thorough independent research into developing a good business plan you may find after all your effort that you are like a miner in 1849 in the middle of vast salt bed, without a pick or shovel, wondering why you haven’t struck gold. Before you generate a whirlwind of activity without doing your homework:
Familiarize yourself completely with the CJ Account Manager™.
Scroll through the topics available when you select the “Help” link.
Click on the link that says “CJU Online” and use the tutorials (for both beginning and advanced web publishers).
Begin researching articles online about affiliate marketing that have anything to do with tips, strategies, do’s and don’ts. Make sure that the source is credible. Avoid anything with a lot of hype and claims that are too good to be true. Remember that most of the answers to your questions can be found anytime and any day by using the “Help” feature in your CJ Account Manager™. We are constantly working on ways to provide current and thorough information there. If you can’t find your answer after performing a reasonable search on your own, we welcome your questions through the “Ask A Question” interface. Thank you for selecting Commission Junction. We sincerely hope that the dynamic capabilities of the Commission Junction system and the relationships with advertisers that we can help facilitate will help you achieve your carefully considered web-publishing model. Remember, if your intention is to simply put up random banners on a web site and then check back occasionally to see if you have made any money, your effort will probably not see the results you are hoping for. It can be successful if your willing to:
Commit yourself to learning, developing a sound strategy—
Dedicate yourself to employing the right resources for a professional presentation and execution of your business model—
Discipline yourself to analyzing what and why something is either effective or ineffective and adapt accordingly—
Realize that this is an endeavor that requires skill, effort, understanding, nurturing and commitment.
my first AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE post
As far as online money making programs go, the first one I absolutely HATE is survey's. I signed up for these about 2 years ago when I was on disability. I had 3 months at home and wanted to see if I could make any money in my spare time. Unfortunately I found paid survey's. I paid the $35 to join the course, downloaded the "auto fill" form filler and proceeded to spend hours upon hours signing up for survey sites one after the other. I opened a Paypal business account and a separate email account. It wasn't long before I started receiving these (they deliver a LOT of emails). I filled them out diligently - Over and over I kept reading the rewards and every single one of them gave you a "contest entry" ticket or you built up points for that particular account. I'm not kidding when I say I spent perhaps 100 hours doing these. I'm also not kidding when I say I didn't make even 1 red cent - not 1 penny! After about 2 months of filling out 20-30 survey's daily, I finally had enough. Everytime I checked one out it was the same thing - Get 1 ticket into the contest drawing for filling out our 15 min survey.
I don't know if others have had success with participating in survey's, or maybe even success in their Affiliate Programs, but I will stick by this with ABSOLUTE RESOLVE - Avoid them at all costs! They are the biggest waste of time as far as online money making ventures go.
This goes with another feeling I have about what you decide to promote. If you don't believe in something, how can you promote it? If you don't like the product, how are you going to convince someone else to buy it? This is the simplest philosophy in my mind, but yet I see site after site of the same garbage being promoted on the traffic exchange sites. I feel like if you aren't doing something yourself, you have ZERO business promoting it. The bottom line is that there are so many programs out there, you can Definitely find one or 2 that you really like and believe in. Isn't it easier to tell your friends and acquaintances about something that YOU believe in? Of course it is - your promoting will be a TON better if you are writing quality ads because you believe in the power of your particular product - in turn this will drive more people to your site. I'm just spewing opinions at this point...I can't point to facts or say something for sure - All I know is that in my experience, I really do a good job promoting things I like alot myself. Like GoDaddy's TrafficBlazer is the easiest thing for me to promote because I used it and LOVED it. It's easy for me to tell all my friends about BadLuckHandicapper cause it's a passion for me. These are things to consider when your signing up for Affiliate Programs -
see, i'm longwinded to the point of philosophical - LOL
I don't know if others have had success with participating in survey's, or maybe even success in their Affiliate Programs, but I will stick by this with ABSOLUTE RESOLVE - Avoid them at all costs! They are the biggest waste of time as far as online money making ventures go.
This goes with another feeling I have about what you decide to promote. If you don't believe in something, how can you promote it? If you don't like the product, how are you going to convince someone else to buy it? This is the simplest philosophy in my mind, but yet I see site after site of the same garbage being promoted on the traffic exchange sites. I feel like if you aren't doing something yourself, you have ZERO business promoting it. The bottom line is that there are so many programs out there, you can Definitely find one or 2 that you really like and believe in. Isn't it easier to tell your friends and acquaintances about something that YOU believe in? Of course it is - your promoting will be a TON better if you are writing quality ads because you believe in the power of your particular product - in turn this will drive more people to your site. I'm just spewing opinions at this point...I can't point to facts or say something for sure - All I know is that in my experience, I really do a good job promoting things I like alot myself. Like GoDaddy's TrafficBlazer is the easiest thing for me to promote because I used it and LOVED it. It's easy for me to tell all my friends about BadLuckHandicapper cause it's a passion for me. These are things to consider when your signing up for Affiliate Programs -
see, i'm longwinded to the point of philosophical - LOL
some "warnings" about me
I am not a highly organized person. The last few days I've had a Thousand & one thoughts about what I want to do here. So my posts will sometimes be random and my thoughts will be incomplete. I hope that I can organize all these in order of importance so that you find it useful, but as I'm starting out, i'm just pouring it on - anything and everything. Like I've said a ton already, Affiliate Marketing is brand new to me and I'm excited about it. But one of my professed problems is that I have a tendency to just jump right in and flat out overwhelm myself. Just yesterday I signed up for a hosting service and a domain name, then cancelled it 20min's later because I realized I probably could just use a blog to post my thoughts about my journey into Affiliate Marketing. I also bought 2 domain names then cancelled them the same night after I realized I spelled Newbie wrong! SO, I will try to slow down and keep things organized here. I really think this will be good for me both personally and professionally. I will try to keep things I find most useful right in the front & very easy to find. But the fact is I'm not a pro - I'm just a regular guy.
I am also a bit long winded - I posted for the 1st time yesterday and it was an entire page. I just wanted to say hi :) I will make every attempt to shorten things up as I know most of us online surfers have no patience for 2 page blogs - we just want the meat & potatoes - But hey, I've got a lot to talk about LOL. Okay, i'm overusing lol and probably will be the entire time. But if you can't enjoy what your doing, then what is the point? If this gets to a point where its all too tedious, then i'll just stop. If I can't keep it fresh and fun it's just not worth it. This site is never going to turn into one of these super short, super serious types of money-making sites that we see all over. For me they all just blend in after a little while.
I love website colors - If you check out BadLuckHandicapper (the first website I ever designed and still work on everyday) you will notice it's just Loaded with color. Someone called it "christmas on crack" but you know what, I wanted it to be different. I want my stuff to stand out a little bit. So if the colors bother you, I don't know, maybe you can use a monitor cover? alright, that's it for now. I'm going to go write a few short reviews about the sites I'm currently enrolled in.
I am also a bit long winded - I posted for the 1st time yesterday and it was an entire page. I just wanted to say hi :) I will make every attempt to shorten things up as I know most of us online surfers have no patience for 2 page blogs - we just want the meat & potatoes - But hey, I've got a lot to talk about LOL. Okay, i'm overusing lol and probably will be the entire time. But if you can't enjoy what your doing, then what is the point? If this gets to a point where its all too tedious, then i'll just stop. If I can't keep it fresh and fun it's just not worth it. This site is never going to turn into one of these super short, super serious types of money-making sites that we see all over. For me they all just blend in after a little while.
I love website colors - If you check out BadLuckHandicapper (the first website I ever designed and still work on everyday) you will notice it's just Loaded with color. Someone called it "christmas on crack" but you know what, I wanted it to be different. I want my stuff to stand out a little bit. So if the colors bother you, I don't know, maybe you can use a monitor cover? alright, that's it for now. I'm going to go write a few short reviews about the sites I'm currently enrolled in.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Why Affiliate Marketing?
I have so many thoughts about what I want to do here. I will start by filling out some reviews about the Affiliate Programs I have started so far - Kind of a "first impressions" type of review. Lets be honest, I am NOT an expert by any means. In fact I'm starting this with no prior experience or knowledge about starting an online business. So where do we start? Well, I think we should start simple - Lets talk about what we want to get out of an Affiliate Program, and also why I'm choosing this program, instead of countless others available.
1 - Freedom. The daily grind is just that - a grind. I happen to like my job quite a bit, but it's the people I work with more than the job. The enticement of an online business, for me, would be freedom. I think it would be great if I ever got this to the point where I could possibly stay at home and raise my son. Although this probably isn't going to happen (I would be happy just making some extra income), it's still always good to have an ultimate goal in mind. Some people call it never being satisfied - I call it being driven.
2 - Residual Income. This is a term that will be thrown around a LOT when you start surfing sites and researching work at home business' online. Does it exist? I don't know yet - But it sure would be incredible if we could grow an online business to a point where it works for you. It's not going to happen quickly - I am fully prepared to go through plenty of failures, but I will certainly hope that I find a great program that actually delivers something in the ballpark of what they all promise.
3. Low start up costs. Even in my short time of researching Affiliate Programs there are already a lot of potential benefits that I see. Compared to the costs of starting a restaurant or a store, an online business provides a chance for us to invest as much or as little as we want. If we find a product or program we really like, we can invest our time & money in that program. If we don't really have any money to get started, there are a lot of completely free Affiliate Programs we can join. Don't be fooled - there are a lot of ways to spend BIG money. Advertising can be expensive! But comparatively speaking, the real loss potential is limited to what you put into it.
4. You choose what to promote. This is 1 of the immediate benefits I see for Affiliate Marketing. Almost every website you visit has an affiliates link at the bottom. I find the products I have used myself and then find ways to promote them. My personal opinion right now is to stay focused and concentrate on only a few things at a time. But I already know that I'm going to sign up for a GoDaddy affiliate program - I bought Traffic Blazer for myself and LOVED it. I have told all my webmaster friends about it (all 3 of them lol). And hey, if they are going to buy it anyway, I might as well get a little piece of that pie, right?
5. Nothing to build, design or keep in storage. This is a huge benefit, in my opinion, of Affiliate Marketing programs. You don't have to create anything. You don't need to design massive websites and spend thousands on advertising. You can simply promote other company products. You don't need a huge warehouse with inventory on hand and a shipping company thats ready to go. You simply promote other business' products & services.
So these are some of the reasons I am trying out Affiliate Marketing. I am 100% positive that I am going to fail much more than I succeed, but the basic principles behind it seem very solid to me. Now, finding the right commission structures and companies to do business with is a different matter altogether. I am sure that my failures & successes will be valuable information for someone though (hopefully you!)
1 - Freedom. The daily grind is just that - a grind. I happen to like my job quite a bit, but it's the people I work with more than the job. The enticement of an online business, for me, would be freedom. I think it would be great if I ever got this to the point where I could possibly stay at home and raise my son. Although this probably isn't going to happen (I would be happy just making some extra income), it's still always good to have an ultimate goal in mind. Some people call it never being satisfied - I call it being driven.
2 - Residual Income. This is a term that will be thrown around a LOT when you start surfing sites and researching work at home business' online. Does it exist? I don't know yet - But it sure would be incredible if we could grow an online business to a point where it works for you. It's not going to happen quickly - I am fully prepared to go through plenty of failures, but I will certainly hope that I find a great program that actually delivers something in the ballpark of what they all promise.
3. Low start up costs. Even in my short time of researching Affiliate Programs there are already a lot of potential benefits that I see. Compared to the costs of starting a restaurant or a store, an online business provides a chance for us to invest as much or as little as we want. If we find a product or program we really like, we can invest our time & money in that program. If we don't really have any money to get started, there are a lot of completely free Affiliate Programs we can join. Don't be fooled - there are a lot of ways to spend BIG money. Advertising can be expensive! But comparatively speaking, the real loss potential is limited to what you put into it.
4. You choose what to promote. This is 1 of the immediate benefits I see for Affiliate Marketing. Almost every website you visit has an affiliates link at the bottom. I find the products I have used myself and then find ways to promote them. My personal opinion right now is to stay focused and concentrate on only a few things at a time. But I already know that I'm going to sign up for a GoDaddy affiliate program - I bought Traffic Blazer for myself and LOVED it. I have told all my webmaster friends about it (all 3 of them lol). And hey, if they are going to buy it anyway, I might as well get a little piece of that pie, right?
5. Nothing to build, design or keep in storage. This is a huge benefit, in my opinion, of Affiliate Marketing programs. You don't have to create anything. You don't need to design massive websites and spend thousands on advertising. You can simply promote other company products. You don't need a huge warehouse with inventory on hand and a shipping company thats ready to go. You simply promote other business' products & services.
So these are some of the reasons I am trying out Affiliate Marketing. I am 100% positive that I am going to fail much more than I succeed, but the basic principles behind it seem very solid to me. Now, finding the right commission structures and companies to do business with is a different matter altogether. I am sure that my failures & successes will be valuable information for someone though (hopefully you!)
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Welcome to my blog!
I'm very excited to be starting this blog. My goal is simple - to find out if the average person can make it in affiliate marketing. That is a broad statement so let me clarify my background a little bit. In September 2007 I started my first online website. I only had an idea for the site - I had no training, no special skills, no experience at all. I was starting out a COMPLETE newbie. That didn't bother me though - I figured I would learn as I went along. I'm a relatively bright guy and I figured I might as well give it a try. At the very least I would learn a little bit about web design if I ever did actually come up with a good idea :) Starting out I basically I knew fonts and colors...I'm totally serious! I signed up for a Yahoo account, bought a domain name and went to work. Well, of course it wasn't easy. I started off with a very basic web design program which didn't give me any tools that I wanted to use. After a few weeks I realized I needed SiteBuilder. So I started using that to build my site. I taught myself through trial & error (mostly error!). After a lot of work I finally had published my first site. I never intended to make any money off of it. I just HOPED that maybe I could make some, someday. Well after a few months I realized I wasn't getting much traffic. I was basically spamming the yahoo fantasy boards for visitors. I didn't spend any money on advertising - Only word of mouth. Everyone that had seen the site said they really liked it and that it was very original. I was getting about 60-80 hits/day. Not terrible, but I really did want to share my site with a larger audience. About a month and 1/2 ago I found some stuff on Search Engine Optimization. I had looked into SEO and keywords and site submission services but this stuff was PRICEY. Each service would range from $50-$800 each! My goal was to do as much as I could, when I could. One day I found what I thought was a great solution. I found GoDaddy.com's "TrafficBlazer" for $30. It was great - It had SEO, keyword analysis, site submission services, site analysis. Basically it had 4 services all in 1, for $30! I bought it and went to work. I put title tags in, got some unique keywords and "tried" to optimize my site. If you type in "unique sportsbetting strategy" I show up #3 in Google (it also ranks my site high for "unique sportsbetting advice"). So I was pretty happy. I got listed in a bunch of search engines, but couldn't get listed on MSN or Ask.com. I did some research and found that in order to get listed in these search engines, I had to be linked to other sites. So I went looking for other places to "link" my site to. What I found was traffic exchanges. This was a brand new concept to me. I got to list my link for FREE and if I would go "surf" for about 20 min's/day they would rank my site higher. Well I signed up right away! Free advertising after all. So I linked my site and started perusing around 2 primary sites. Link Referral & TrafficSwarm. While visiting these free traffic exchanges I found something called Affiliate Marketing programs. There are ALL KINDS of these to be found. A lot of them are completely free. So I started signing up for a few of these. Once I signed up I promoted them in the same place I had found them. Link Referral & TrafficSwarm. I started doing this about 2 weeks ago. Right now I have signed up for 3 programs - NetSuccess Partners, SFI Marketing & AffiliateJunktion.com. I have been promoting these sites like my other site and just came up with a GREAT idea today. See I want to make money as much as the next guy/gal does. I have a good job and a great family - What I don't have is a TON of time to surf for credits every night. From information I've read there are MILLIONS of Americans who would like to start their own business and/or work from home. So what stops us? Lack of time? Yeah - Too many scams? YES! Too many "get rich quick" schemes? Absolutely.
So what is MY blog about? Well, i'm going to focus on Affiliate Marketing and see if there is a way we can make money online. I don't have much free time. I don't have lots of resources. I do have desire though. I also feel like I'm pretty creative. So what I'm going to do is "test run" affiliate marketing and give you the results. I'm going to show you what programs I'm using. I'm going to tell you what is working for me and what I feel is hogwash. I'm not going to sell a bunch of crap. My goal (short term) is to find an Affiliate Marketing program that I can make a reasonable online income from. I have no delusions of getting rich overnight. From my own, albeit limited, research, I already know it takes patience and time and effort. If you want to tune in and read 3 min's of ads and have $50k deposited into your bank tomorrow, there are plenty of scam ads you can sign up for. I'm looking for realistic programs where I can generate a reasonable income over time. Can it be done? I believe it can. Can I do it? I don't know - Can WE do it? We are going to find out!
So what is MY blog about? Well, i'm going to focus on Affiliate Marketing and see if there is a way we can make money online. I don't have much free time. I don't have lots of resources. I do have desire though. I also feel like I'm pretty creative. So what I'm going to do is "test run" affiliate marketing and give you the results. I'm going to show you what programs I'm using. I'm going to tell you what is working for me and what I feel is hogwash. I'm not going to sell a bunch of crap. My goal (short term) is to find an Affiliate Marketing program that I can make a reasonable online income from. I have no delusions of getting rich overnight. From my own, albeit limited, research, I already know it takes patience and time and effort. If you want to tune in and read 3 min's of ads and have $50k deposited into your bank tomorrow, there are plenty of scam ads you can sign up for. I'm looking for realistic programs where I can generate a reasonable income over time. Can it be done? I believe it can. Can I do it? I don't know - Can WE do it? We are going to find out!
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