Speaking At Affiliate Summit

Well I am not sure what they are thinking, but I am going to be a speaker at Affiliate Summit West 2008 :). I am pretty excited.

I sent in a simple proposal to talk about PPC marketing since that is what I do. My proposed session title was "Which PPC Engines Work And How." It was going to be a nice presentation probably with power point slides ;)

They contacted me and asked if I would "be interested in leading a roundtable discussion for the “Ask the Experts” General Session? This is an environment where attendees will sit at a table to chat with you, and 8-10 of these discussions will be going on concurrently.

Also, there is no presentation involved – you’d be answering questions and talking about your respective issues informally."

Frankly this was awesome! I just have to relax and answer questions and discuss PPC and so on informally. So... I'll be there :)

On a side note, it looks like most of the speakers have titles like CEOs, Founders, Presidents, Owners and so on. I picked "Affiliate" as my title since I think it fit best :) I'm just a regular guy who has figured some things out well and am still looking to learn and grow more.

My thanks out to the Affiliate Summit people for giving me this opportunity.

Subscribe Via RSS

Keyword Research Tools...

In NO particular order at all. This list is for my reference just as much as anybody's

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

http://www.wordze.com

Also.. those xml feeds from dogpile and metasearch and so on.. look very intersting.

And a good link to some tips for page optimization for search engines it goes along with what I said about SEO optimization.

Subscribe Via RSS

How To Make Money Online 6 of 11 (PPC Traffic)

I am going to finish this series if it kills me :)

Ok.. PPC Traffic. I like PPC (Pay Per Click) traffic because it is easy to measure and quantify results.

You can find an old list I made of PPC Engines that work.
You can also find a list of bottom feeder PPC sources to avoid.

Here is an excellent primer on AdCenter (MSN's PPC). I didn't write this but it is so well done I totally recommend it.

For a successful PPC campaign you will need:

1. Quality landing pages that relate to the ad text (and convert)
2. Short and Long Tail Keywords
   A Short Tail Keyword is: flowers
   A Long Tail Keyword is: buy red flowers for my girlfriend in vegas
   
   The short keyword is going to be expensive to bid on because everyone is bidding on it (thus driving the price up)
   The long keyword is going to be very cheap because no one will be bidding on it AND it will convert well because someone typing in a phrase like that is ready to buy.
   (buy KEYWORD is better then KEYWORD)
3. Ad Text That matches your landing page.
   Dont use something totally generic.
   
   Not So Good:
   Flowers
   Buy Flowers Here
   
   Better:
   Looking For Red Roses?
   Special Deal On Two Dozen Red
   Roses With Free Delivery $24.99
   
   The better ad tells the user exactly what to expect before they even click on the ad. You are pre-selling them. If they click they are more likely to actually buy the flowers since they already know what to expect. Just make sure the landing page has a picture of some beautiful flowers and a clear cause to action (button to click to buy the flowers) (see #1 in this list)
   
4. Tracking!
   This is the most important and most glossed over aspect of PPC. And this is why PPC can be so powerful. You need to track the combination of landing page, keyword, source, and so on of each user coming in via PPC. Then track what they buy (or if they fill out a lead form). Use this to determining how much profit (or loss) you make from each click for each keyword. If you are losing money on a keyword butt getting conversion lower your price per click for that keyword. If you are making a TON of money and your position is low you can try raising your position by raising your click cost. But be careful and remember what it was. If you have found a sweet spot you want to know what it was so you can go back it raising your position results in more clicks but fewer conversions.

This ought to be enough to make you dangerous in PPC. Reading all about online marketing is great but you do actually need to get out and do something.

Subscribe Via RSS

Directory Sites

I was talking with a friend about an idea they had for a site. It was essentially a directory site. You know.. kinda like a yellow pages site for their particular niche. There are a two ways to do this.

1. By Hand. Create a page for each city and add listings by hand.
   This is only for people who don't want to learn anything new and have time and patience to do it this way.
2. Build it with a database and a simple web application.
   I personally use .NET and SQL Server, but that is only because I've been using them for a while now. PHP and MySql isn't that hard either though. If you are starting fresh and just want some simple things I'd say go with PHP and MySql. The hosting is usually cheaper and there are plenty of free tutorials and examples out there.

Now that you know how to build it, here is how I would make a directory site.

1. Organize your listing by city/region/whatever you are going to use.
2. Build your template/site reading off of a simple database you have put together
3. Test.
4. Test
5. Optimize for SEO
6. Test
7. Populate the data from sources that you have permission to use.
8. Test

Constantly Update The data. Building a list slowly over time "organically" will do better for you in the long run then a quick full blast of everything you can find.

Bonus Points: Build a system to automatically find new data (that you have permission to use) and have it add the new listings daily so your site grows a little bit each day.

Extra Credit: Allow people to correct listings/add reviews or comments and rank the listings.

So.. thats how I would do a listing/directory site. :)

Subscribe Via RSS

Making Money Online -- Update!

I've left them alone for a few days. You can see an updated chart here.




Program 1 finally panned out. Not bad for spending a few dollars and leaving it alone. Program 3 seems to be struggling a bit so I'm tweaking the keywords. (Turning some off and so on).

For Program 3 it really seems to be more profitable when people are at home (not 9-5). Too bad my PPC program doesn't support turning campaigns off during certain hours. However there is an easy fix to that. Just write a program to log in and turn them off for me in the morning. Then have it log in again in the evening to turn them on. I won't do that till I'm certain of a pattern.

Subscribe Via RSS

Making Money Online -- Done!

In this experiment I broke just about all of my rules hoping to put something together quick. And you will find that some rules are more important then others.

First rule I broke:
I used a direct to vendor landing page. I fixed that with a cursory website and saw success.

Second rule I broke:
I didn't build a full on site (or mini site) around the offers, I just threw them up on some existing domains I already had other offers on. This affects some offers more then others.

Third rule I broke:
I did a halfway job on my keyword research. I found a winning combination anyways (this is due to a combination of luck and experience).

Fourth rule I broke:
I didn't use ANY of the big three PPC places for traffic.

Results:
Before you see these, note that I actually ran more then three offers but these three are the only offers that got any sort of significant traffic.



This is as of 15 minutes ago. (15 minutes because I kept fighting firefox and blogger on pasting a table from excel. I found a compromise ;) )

Program 1:
It was an offer for long term care insurance information. I think program 1 would do better if I built a full fledge website around it instead of just a landing page AND used a different traffic source. I'm still running it since it is on very low traffic, I may hit something long term. So I am leaving it alone for a while.

Program 2:
This is one of those fill out a form and complete some offers and win a free $500 gift certificate/ipod-xbox/etc offer. It didn't do as well so I just shut it off till I can find some traffic that converts how I like.

Program 3:
This is ALSO one of those fill out a form and complete some offers and win a free $500 gift certificate/ipod-xbox/etc offer. Except the landing page was very different and I was able to tweak the keywords to a winning combination. Then I tweaked the keywords again after looking to see what words weren't performing well and now I am just watching it.

That is it. Find some offers, build websites around. Drive traffic to them and concentrate on ROI. Rinse and repeat.

But wait?! $20 a day isn't much. Yeah but $20 a day * lots of different sites and offers is a lot.

Next up... PPC :)

PS. This was just a small sample. Sometimes I lose a lot more before I find something that works. Usually I lose less then $100 before finding a winning combination (of site, keywords and traffic) or I give up and move on. The most I ever lost before I found a working combination was $750 in the hole; and when I did get it profitable, it was (and still is) only pulling about $4 profit a day. I have 160 days left before that project is in the black :)

Subscribe Via RSS

How To Make Money Online - Stop Talking And Start Doing

Instead of talking about how to make money online, I'll just do another site.

I've already found an offer with ABC Leads. I'm going to put together a quick web page and start promoting it with PPC. I'll let you know how I do :)

I'm off to make some cash.

Subscribe Via RSS

How To Make Money Online 5 of 11 (Search Traffic)

Search Traffic

Search traffic is #1. It is the best. Period. It does not come over night. Search traffic is reserved for quality sites with good information that has steadily been built up over time (hint, hint). Spammers and so called Black Hats can also get plenty of Search Traffic but it is only temporary-- I'm in the quality content and site will be better long term camp.

You can search and find all sorts of tricks and link strategies for getting higher search engine ratings. They are fine to give you an idea of what you need to do for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Some basic things:

1. Use ALT tags on your images
2. Use meta tags (doesn't hurt you but some say it isn't as important anymore)
3. Use descriptive title tags on each page. Don't use same title tag for every page on your site.
4. H1, H2 tags are important, use CSS to change the size of them
5. If you have a menu on the left of your page, use your code to display it last and then use css to rearrange it. You want the search engine to see your content first, not your menu
6. use strong tags instead of b for important content
   
7. Have content that doesn't suck and isn't just a copy of someone else.
8. Link to good sites (stay away from "bad neighborhoods"/link farms)
9. Press Releases are good-- prweb is free (or was last time I used it)
   
10. Writing articles and posting them to quality article banks with a link back to your site is good. (google for ezines)
    

Thats all for now, there are LOTS of other tips you can find. Remember to take it all with a grain of salt, and don't just jump on the bandwagon of every SEO "tip" you see. Being creative and ethical will take you a long way.

Subscribe Via RSS

How To Make Money Online 4 of 11 (Combining Offers)

Combining Offers

This one is pretty straightforward. You are essentially hedging your bets.

1. AdSense + Affiliate Offers
   Lets say you are promoting hair care, but you are worried that you will have someone on your site that is not ready to buy or is not interested in the particular item you picked. There is where a combination of AdSense + Affiliate Offers comes in to play.
   
   Put them both on the same page. Put which ever thing you want looked at the most by users in the top left of the content of your site.
   
   
2. Comparison Sites
   I've seen this done many times as well. Lets take Blockbuster + Netflix. Make a site comparing them (and the other competitors in that niche). Make sure you are signed up with their affiliate programs ;) This way no matter what the consumer chooses you win. Some will prefer blockbuster some will prefer netflix some will prefer some other 3rd party DVD/Movie rental program you found. Don't just stick with the top 2, unless you can't find anyone else.
   

Here is where you get to be creative. Give people a reason to come to your site. Don't just slap a bunch of ads on a web page and think you are done. Whatever you pick aim to be the best.

Subscribe Via RSS

How To Make Money Online 3 of 11 (Finding Stuff To Sell)

I received a few complaints that I didn't finish. I took a few days off. Lets move on to part 3.

Finding Stuff To Sell

This one can be a little overwhelming, I'll narrow it down to four basic things you can sell. These are usually called CPA (Click/Cost Per Action) campaigns. You will get paid when you refer someone and they do a specific thing. Fill out a form requesting a mortgage, buy some soap on amazon, subscribe to a newsletter, etc.

1. Clicks/Impressions (See Step 2)
   
   
2. Leads (Forms That People Fill Out)
   
   
3. Products
   
   
4. Services
   

Ask 10 people and you will get 10 opinions on which is the most profitable. It really depends on how well you are able to make your pages and campaigns convert. (This will be covered in the future).

I personally like numbers 1 and 2 for beginners, although I have seen some success with 3 and 4.

Here are a few places you can find products/services to pimp out promote. This list is just from memory and is by no means conclusive. Hint: If I have made money from them (and it is not a private program) I remember them ;)

InsureMe
LeadPile
CJ
ShareASale
Azoogle
LinkShare
Amazon

Hint #2: You can find more profitable programs with better payouts if you go direct to a smaller company. Lets say you are finding success promoting widgets on Commission Junction. Look around for places that are selling those widgets but aren't on the first search page of google, yahoo or msn. Check to see if they have a direct affiliate program. Most of the time their program will pay more then you will get through a large program bank (like cj or linkshare).

Subscribe Via RSS

Placing Ads On Your Website 2 of 11

There are 4 basic types of ads you can put on your website.

1. Pay Per Click
   You get paid when someone clicks on the ad on your page, I'll focus on these right now.
   
2. Pay Per Impressions
   You get paid when someone goes to your web page. These are usually sold in lots of 1000 impressions. So for every 1000 hits you get paid
   
3. Pop Ups
   These are annoying and stupid so I won't tell you much about them other then they do work and are successful; I don't like them though.
   
4. Pop Unders
   See #3

These are places where you can sign up and (after you are approved) they will give you a small snippet of code to place on your website. Their code will then read your webpage and come up with ads that are relevant to the content about your website. For example if your web page is about razors, then you can expect to see ads about razors.

1. AdSense
2. YPN
3. 7Search
4. AdBrite
5. and many, many more
   

Do not click on your own ads or encourage anyone to click on your ads. This is called click fraud and can easily be discovered and you will lose any money you may have earned.

Subscribe Via RSS

How To Make Money Online 1 of 11

To make money online (or anywhere) you need to do one thing. Just one thing.

1. Acquire something and sell it for more then it cost you.

That is really it. The trick is finding something you can profit on. Now I'll break it down.

1. Find something to sell
1. You can sell ads on a website (such as AdSense, YPN, and tons of others)
2. You can promote affiliate offers (such as Amazon's products or one of many, many programs out there)
3. You can combine these together
2. Find people to buy
1. You can use SEO traffic
2. PPC traffic
3. Viral Traffic, Email, etc.
3. Get Them to Buy
1. Make the web pages good, give them a reason.
2. Let them compare products
3. Give them information that is actually useful enough for them to make a decision
4. Dont just give them crappy spam, you need to add to the value of the internet.
   

Tomorrow I'll go over 1.1 in detail.

Subscribe Via RSS

Bottom Feeder PPC Engines to Avoid

Here I am minding my own business an my firewall/network watcher goes off like crazy. Apparently one of the many computers on my network has some spyware on it. And it thinks that 8:44am MST is the time to go off. There is something very interesting (to me) about what it was trying to do.

It was calling a bunch of PPC feeds from various partners. Why would they do this? Simple: $Money$ They can produce real looking traffic and real clicks. Ever wonder why some of the really cheap guys give you tons of trashy traffic? Now you know one of the many methods used for fake ppc traffic. I looked through the sites and put together a list of places to avoid for you:

These are all bottomfeeder PPC sites.

Here is the list of places to NOT BUY PPC ADS FROM.

Official Looking Sites:
http://www.xmlrevenue.com
http://www.adonnetwork.com
http://www.bid4keywords.com
http://www.vortalinteractive.com
http://www.vortal.com

Sites that are obviously a scam:
http://www.trinity-searchz.com
http://www.paid-to-promote.net
http://www.mygole.com/
http://www.findwhat.com/ (These guys are part of Miva, I know some people at Miva I'm gonna contact them and see what they know about this)

And... if you REALLY want the raw URL's here they are:

http://xmlrevenue.com/other.php?k=hohdzhznhahohhhczvfczyzdspaaac
spaksdfkhchdhchoznzmzzzphchazadczphkaxshacadfxhhzphkzizyzdhvhohz
hczdhmzifnhfhcsiaozmzxhnfvhfhcfddshcazsyhchdhcfpzmhkzzhdhdhazazs
dydpzhzyzdsxavsxsvapsddxhchdhcfpzmhkdozohzzzdihchoaoayayaxssshfy
zszvhszohzzzzdzmzofnzxhnsnanspadahavfyhmzsahafadssavaxszhmadsvsm
avaksxamskzxahspapsihhaaafsdspsxskspamanhmsxsfssapaaavsyakhkhias
snakamsysszksvsxsnhhshakshanshayhxhzzyaksascsczdhksyazsmaksdaaai
hkhozxzyhchahohhhkhohdhmsvhfzahcznznsczyhahfzmhcaxznzszmhdhcsahd
zozozdzphdhxzahfsnzoszzmhkhcsahfzsznzdzkazhdzzhczmznzxzkhfhfzhhc
znznzczkhyhfzfhczvznapzkhfhfzizpsssfshhfhyhvzfzmzazohmzohzzyzphd
hxhzzyaksascsc&u=cafefind&a=milppc&keywords=radiology jobs&gen=x
mlfeed&gto=zizczyhfhxzdhczazpzz&pip=1205537220


http://www.trinity-searchz.com/search/index.php?username=wyatt&k
eywords=Anal


http://www.paid-to-promote.net/member/ptp_v.php?username=seo2007
&refurl=freeadult-movie.info/9.htm&md5=T/kbc3BMLuk6/WoqWPpDpLJ7c
CprO59mhfMScHZQL 869mcuVO4Uc21EMOc4AnApT/cbeG1GN g3AnApV/gQcXJML
Og1 WQqT/YPcXVPMeo4 GkwU/QUbW1HNe86G0rUPUceqOFYSJrK6FFYxQjcnZQLu
Qy/GkyWDZHsqWQbSQ8AnAyhjRWsHZFLRkwL6VbiilFq2p5bSMxOnVQWzUntqOGcv
daN6o5dyonjrSGdjBI n0 VPE5mYOHQgtTNHpdby1WqYOIQgxL 55qbypWrn6Aci
BJMqpiZTk1tY QdSxR J1ebTk5tYKDRSxG Y19AC527094ADD91833C7047BEA63
C6E19NZC0puoCAciRJQqpdZC05soVKdelo 5w kvApqoyNRBx4NatqYPRKqoqPQi
haPp5CZjlWrqaDVeln 30 bDE5uqOLdQBQQqpmhzcntoOKcyBpP5pmbzFXio MRP
9T owrYDJJspKDRulG606gi5KsomPciRVNXsdzpKsrKMUwBtO3peVDpKiq6DRCxs
PHsrci04io2MRQR1/JtykTZZhY2LdSx8PI5tcDNXeaSMYwBU 55qePNXc6ZKdQx7
H1ycS0peJBJYwh0On5icTo3qq6DVixLNZ0xivJXjp JUyxEQp5ycfNIrouLQhhP
O31mcTdXgqyJdfxrNqtpdC5IppQRSBaO5phdPRJtoWIdjByOntek/RZrn6JZShwO
6tCcDlZeZSMRCRxP3tGYTU6qo6EZRxA16594CE9B30884FA57426B9A280DBE1sQ
a4 h/NKuoqQU/hu Jpqj/M3c36QUxxO JpmbDkpkrVJVe9XOnxmiTEpspGEdRx0P
6xqgjMngnJIZCBTPJ0 Z/NXqp JZhxnO3pahDdJgraLZQRKOo1mZzYpgo QdRBRP
ntydzk4pp6EYyh4Oatec/NXsn9IdQxm/HpajvImprZIRCB0 6tOaPQmrqxKQxxHQ
q4 eDY3pY6QViR0 51qkjopc56PdiBo HxBcDJGqmyQZSBR 6pqh/AqoqRHRBxK/
Ks6kDFZkqmDUwxTPp4qczQ4rrGJVCtY ZsqczYnc7aQdRBL ZxqgjRJsqaIQyRJ
npamPFJc55IRSQ4 XtiYjNHpqOEYStVNn05ZC05srVIcxx2Pn1ebPBIpq2QRCxUP
atelPA1tY ERR9INY1pcS1GhZaDYvtWMnxajjU2lY2ARCRzOKphby9WcoOMcyM7N
ZlRcC5T


http://c4_2026.redirect.bid4keywords.com/cr.php?affiliate=bestoh
yes_s_c&subid=C4_2026&terms=espresso furniture&mc=T/kSdW5MMeo1AX
AygCVVtKt dxt1J6lXgfocd21EMOc79m8mT/kYenZHL 81 GwvVvQUenZNL Q0 W
8mV 4TeXJDL 8y/WguUfQVeWlHL81GwsUPQUenZYZxo2E5txlS9UpK9jZxo8AmYm
TvEceqGJbihnO6lnSSZXsqp/cit0LXAyWPpKtLCGOOUxOmRahyQWq6GPdSV0LKkm
gS9Pb6t9LSZ0BYZrkPtUr3lHOShlBWczgilJpaKOgz/m9Zf/kYo6B5YRto/GtZfy
JHdZ9KMeozAGxZfyEVe6d/YvM0K2YuVPAVdnR3Me1l/5svg/VFonBJYBto WkuVy
QVoXeKO czAWkoVPQUdG5RdPM1A5pZkiEfeG9JNhtlKmYuTyQVcJ9ONO00Kmgrgv
cScHBMNBo7 m5eUfEWdG56XxdnAJswUvdHdnV4Nuky Gctg/dFop13MOk5 5wtU/
ISom1IX pl/mwsUfgSo2xPZBpo WlZgSNDcKFOX Zk/G9ZT/AacXBJYxsz mgpTv
MZo21KNxkyLm4sVSUUc2x8N 1oLG0rfyRFdaJLMhhkLWYvVPgSeXVIYhg0 pkqfy
VFpm5ONBxoK2Zbg/MYpm55NRdk 25dTvQaoXV5Yuwz/pgsf/Qacp56M 03/mpafy
EZoXVMX c6/mwziiEfdm5LMe84A6JlW/cTeW9PMPFtP3MpVfMUdG1NMuo9LZo1WS
JOoXlMNOc4AG8zgCxPfXROM o1AHFaiTcfc25GNe0z GYpWSJYqaBTLc9KqZhWy1
VoWxHOSxrLHMtWTFWfaGJbihnO6lnQ/ISprGIbB92PahdWTZUfXeCcvNEFXFlkv0
kcXd/bvM5 WQqT/kQeWpHN w9OKo1T/tVtHlHMeQz WQoTPEQcGpGLOY9N6k1UO4
Sbm1ELuQ0 GQpVe4TbnBRcS8/M5txlS9UpHeDd/NkKZljhClOrHd9YyU/AG8sUvE
Ze6V/O g7 2QthPQbbnBNLxlk/2kqTPFHonJRbiQ/A6pnW/tWo3lHOSZxBWczjiM
fcXeGZ/N2KpUtWTRVfXeIa/N MKpsjvoRb657Yh909ptyfy5JoWp5bSMxB6s1hjR
WsHZFLS15P2RmgzRVtKGILBlxNWVqgzNXrLCJLShnO6tkkjNBoa54LBd1OHVohyQ
fpbZ3bB1j lxjgzlZr656cfNoPahmhzRXsqFBYh90LZlsRAs5iYBTZCt0Np9skzJ
HZq DcPN9G4VNcAMnn45bRDM=&v=58dac72d4ab880847f16c06081a345ad&use
ragent=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.
8) Gecko/20071008


http://c4_2039.redirect.sexblo.com/redp.php?affiliate=adseo_s_6&
subid=C4_2039&terms=rn job&mc=T/kSdW5MMeo2 nAyfyRVpat1cRU4AnAvT
4UcXVEN QzAWwyWPETeW9GNO06/GkyWPcTbm5HNQ79mcxVO0TeWxLMOw1/GoqS/
ETeW9GNOo0/GkyWAxRr6dpaxd0PHdclSFUpYlbUvc8AmYmTvAXenaIbOFsN5gyW
PocqLCKbvAx96gmii9Rq6 DXyh29plni 9Rp2uGcPNSO6gzkC8fcneIYfM1A5ph
hSVVtHl3NRtj 5ougPcVoXB3MOwyKW1eV/ITcHB3Meo2LmkwVvtNqaBTMBky/mw
oUfYaoW9NYe1n/5stgSIWc557ZOc1/m9cUSEdtHlHL 81 GwsUPQVe7JTMfFmKa
pZW/cZeZ58Mxg0/JpZUPlEonFLMe9j ZsxgfZGc6F5YRtm5gwUfNDeG9ONxs0Km
xeUPBEd218NBk2K2gsgSFIpKBHYRo2KZdcf/AScG54MO8zAZcogvYbcnF7NRxn/
m0xVyFEo3N4Yu1kLplZf/RDop1IMBdoAWcqgiFHcJ54YRhoAJpchCVHdG1NYOZl
ZcxgPEZeHRPNBgy/morgfcZcJ96MOo0LWcoTvlIo25GL5lK5gphCMad6FJMRw3
/mpdVSMXdW9JLhc2LWgogPYTcm57NBg0KWcxTvhDdZ1MNeg5KZxeTvMTdm5INxc
1 m1eU/tOoXlIL 47 HFki/0WdXVJN/FtP3MpT/YSdHJHNfFnLHMzjzQfsqo7MO
ZsN5gzlDIfe6iKO/tPA6NsWwUSe6WGO 0z9mgpV4bbm1PNPFyPHMqWTNWfXFJLO
o49mkmUe4SbmxELvFxO3MqTPAQdGpILO8wAWQrTPIds7VTaRt7P6VqgvtPuXmJa
xd0PHFfgy8feHVKMuc5A59hW/JEpGpLZBs29movTyNEd29JLOc3 2gzji4fe7CF
O/F2K3MrWTBRfW5Rbhk/ 3Foh/1QopJM/F2O3MzkC0fvKSKciY892VvlTcQo6uE
ch9wLaRsfyxQta6JYykwK6VlTQ==&v=b11598e37dfd7df61c61a6c46ea6a278
&useragent=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1
.8.1.8) Gecko/20071008 Firefox/2.0.0.8



http://www.vortal.com/results.php?search=oahu vacation rental



http://c4_2021.redirect.bid4keywords.com/cr.php?affiliate=321fe
ed_2_m&subid=C4_2021&terms=medical malpractice attorney sacrame
nto&mc=T/kSdW5MMeo2/3AyUfITpqF7YhU0J6MyWPcTbm5HNQ79mcxVPoccW1PM
eY4/24sVvocd21EMOc79m8mT/kYbW1PLus0/mksUvcPcW1PMeY4/GgsVvocgqV6
MgFnQa1nkCRVjaV6OPAy9mYpWPpPpaB/YRdu86NZijBUoZKZxln85dski9UrqGP
KSljK6hZiyVQtKtQOPA8MKpsjvoRb65EYB9m/KFdlzdRsqCJLBlxNWVnhe9Ssnl
mcSg9OqU1UPtUo3lIORprL5trkv0Zc3V4Mhs0/mYsgvYWeHVMZOcz/GorTvIapX
F3Mhk3/XFjhyQfcp9GNOwy 2wwf/MZo3N7NRs3K5gsUSJHpm1JNO9m 5czkv0Tc
XVJLuw2 mowWTYfc3d6XypjBZcqVfBGc3B4NxtjLWwwVvVIoZ9NMxg1/JouUPQZ
onRJN Yy/ZwwgiIZcHFGY c1KZlegvIXo3BGY xmGtegPJEdG1LYO1mLpkugvUV
paJ5NO4z/WcsgSZGd514MOY7/5krgyQbpHVNNhs7KZgwUSYXdKFMMc7pwuT/NDo
m97MBplKZpdUCFHdXR7NRpoAJleT/cacqF7Ne03LmdbUSEUcaJGL czAW1ZgvMa
dnNOMRdk WopUyQUcW17ZOs1AWpdUvQWdm1NYOg2LW9eV/hGoXRGNBo1LG8qgPc
YcqBMM k1 pdbVCMYoZ9JMes7LXFkf/0YcnFJNw9NKM1VfEbc3VIOSF5BWcvUfI
WcXNKM/FnLHMzgCxDfXNINe45/3Faii0feHRMMuc1A5hjlf0VcnRKMOo7AWkzgD
ZLpHlHL/FkOJ81izNDcG1RdB9mBWszjzQfraF6ZxljNFsqTi1DrKyIXxl2MZldQ
/ISobCKbShwLa8dUPBVoZ IXyNnNqpnWTZUfXeCcvNEFXFlkv0kc3d/bvM5 WQq
T/kQeWpHN w9OKo1T/tVtHlKNuQ2/2QoTPEQcGpGLOY9N6k1Uu4Sbm5ELuQ6 2Q
rUO4Ubm1MOSl7BaFdlzdRsqBRay8/KpdbiSZLrKhRZRtxBW4xUvQTd3d/Z/M0K2
cmUyFHo2pKNedlKm0rVu4XdZ5RbiQ/A6pnW/tWo3lIOSZxBWgzjiMfcneGZ/N2K
pUtWTRVfXeIa/N MKpsjvoRb657Yh909ptyfy5JoWp5bSMxB6s1hjRWsHZFLS15
P2RefzZRsqWKYRlN6MnkCVVtaiKceV0LaltijRVn52IYORjO6Y3jilGfaGQXyRp
KVxjgzlZr656cfNjPKpnkC5HuWeJYxd0K54eiTdLpHl3cipxOqRdlZVra5TeQlR
HYg7Yx80hYKT&v=d5b6ba3eb2a703d184bec50f7853de2e&useragent=Mozil
la/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.8) Gecko/20
071008




http://www.vortal.com/results.php?search=video downloads




http://www.mygole.com/cgi-bin/search/smartsearch.cgi?username=
seo2007&keywords=escort


http://us01.xmlsearch.findwhat.com/bin/findwhat.dll?clickthrou
gh&y=38669&x=gFGi:CWvth:iNzm4pv5NgjCGj9eTcdLbLu;ETmfBLJ:K:5;EL
mGJy9qZcpel6z6izcfWNuV0RRM;8jeWPIC6ezTZ099CDmvfNmfwC9Vc:vT5jCm
1LYQWNcr2tqrQ3hii5LqB8JID5JljLviZpO:RedfBVD5PoW6kNOrYyLQt0LeMt
0TTjCfwVv5CctM$j



http://xmlsearch.mygeek.com/presults.jsp?partnerid=111127&vendo
rId=558175&appid=302&type=2&code=28016513&rate=785785&cr=422362
362&domain=www.atomfilms.com&query=1193039042800::0.0.0.0::work
at home&geotagid=3229&date=20071022&url=http://www.atomfilms.c
om/2007/possumdeathspree/index.jsp?brand=AON

Subscribe Via RSS

I <3 InsureMe -- in a mostly platonic way :)

I've worked with several companies in my Affiliate Marketing... .blah.. you know.. let me just tell you my InsureMe story.

Long ago I was building informational websites about a TON of different topics. At one point reviewing my PPC bids, I noticed I was outbid on a keyword for insurance. I though, "How dare someone outbid me!" (I was new at this :)) They were sending traffic directly to InsureMe. I checked in my list of thousands of CJ affiliates... sure enough they were in there. But they also had a direct affiliate program. So away I went.

I figured if this poor sap can bid this (I think it was something like 30 cents) and make money, how hard can it be? So I start bidding on PPC and sending direct traffic to them. No landing page, nothing. But I am making a *small* profit. Along comes one of the many Google slaps. Landing pages?! Content?!?! The Google lords will be the end of me!

*Fine*, I'll make a killer landing page (or two or 3...). However with a cool landing page you don't want to lose people in the crossover to the merchant... InsureMe had (still does have) this really cool thing called cobranding. You make your own site and when you send people to InsureMe it matches your site's layout and design. Awesome!!!! (I think :) ) Now people are more likely to complete the quote. You know.. cuz they won't be thinking.. wait, I was on site A, now I'm on Site B?!!?!
This was pretty slick and things are going along fine. I happened to be in Colorado and I even got to have lunch with April (my *awesome* affiliate manager) and their CIO. It was a great experience, we traded ideas and war stories; I even was able to meet some of their IT folk. (When I asked April if I could meet them she seemed a little surprised--but I've spent my entire career in IT and you can tell alot about a place by the *feel* of the IT folk--the feel seemed fine.) After my meeting and InsureMe tour, I put even more effort into it and got in their top 25 or so affiliates for about a month. Good times...

I started focusing on other things (all sorts of RL things kept popping up [RL = Real Life for you non-mmo-gamers]) My traffic was dropping (you know if you don't keep on top of your PPC/SEO game, the results drop) A few months passed and I went from one of their top 25 affiliates down to 60 or 70. A pretty significant drop. But did they give up on me?! No.

Out of the blue I get an email from April to try out one of their pilot programs. It was perfect for me. I ended up working for a handful of people over at InsureMe and a lot of back and forth phone calls and emails to get it working. Even though I was not one of their "top" (or even close to middle at the time) affiliates, everyone I worked with was professional and really top notch. I'm not sure how much I can say about the pilot program other then I am in it. If they say I can say more, I will :)

So... long story short: They rock because even though I had some crappy months they still treated me awesome.


PS: InsureMe Affiliate link. (What kind of person would I be if I didn't include an affiliate sign up link!)

Subscribe Via RSS

Ad Blindness is a Myth

This will be short and to the point. People do generally try and ignore advertisements. They don't like them, but they put up with them.

However, as soon as there is an ad for something they want people immediately get excited.

When reading a web page, watching TV, driving in a car you are inundated with advertisements. We all ignore them. But our brain is taking everything in... everything. Sure we may not remember each detail, but it is stored up in our noggin. Our brain knows what we like. As soon as an advertisement is noticed that matches our wants/needs/desires, whammo! We see it. We don't even think about it.

You can be looking at a page with 12-15 different ads on it and ignoring all of them while reading the tiny news article in the middle of the page. If there is an ad for a product/service you were thinking about the ad suddenly "appears."

So.. don't fret so much over ad blindness. Make better ads and target places with people who are likely to want your product.

Subscribe Via RSS

A Good Link Exchange Email

Earlier this week I got one of those link exchange emails, but this one was actually good-- It got me to read it.

From: webmaster@REMOVED.com

Dear Webmaster,

I visited your web site earlier today and I just wanted to congratulate you on a well presented, and informative web site. It is not often that I come across a web site that offers a wealth of quality and hard to find information.

I have spent a lot of time and effort to ensure my visitors gain the maximum benefit from the information I have to offer.

As you more than likely already know, links are the best way to increase the reach of your web site.Thats why we will give you two links instead of one.

Please add my both sites information under proper link page (PR 2+). Here the our site details:

TITLE: REMOVED
URL : http://www.REMOVED.com
DESC : REMOVED

TITLE: REMOVED
URL : http://www.REMOVED.com
DESC : REMOVED

TITLE: REMOVED
URL : http://www.REMOVED.com
DESC : REMOVED

I will add your link at
http://www.REMOVED.com/REMOVED.asp PR 5 http://www.REMOVEDcom/links/REMOVED.html PR 2

Please note that all the existing links on these pages are have good Google Page Rank and it will be a big advantage for your website to be listed with reputed websites only.

If you have more sites for link exchange. We are interested to exchange links with them too.

If you need any more information please feel free to contact us webmaster@REMOVED.com.

Awaiting Reply

Thanks & Best Regards,
REMOVED
Marketing Manager
REMOVED
http://www.REMOVEDcom

Chat Id
Yahoo: REMOVED
GTalk: REMOVED

Disclaimer:
Your e-mail ID is taken in person directly via visiting your website online.
Please reply to this e-mail if you are not the right person to receive this e-mail message or if you have received this e-mail by default.

This wasn't sent via regular email, it was done by a real person posting on one of my contact pages. Now, granted it is a fairly obvious form email, but it starts off with a nice little your website is so great that it fluffs you up just enough to keep reading. It isn't a bad deal really. The web pages he wants linked are related to my site but do not compete. That being said... Is 3 outbound PR 2/3 links better then 2 inbound links (PR5 and PR2)? I can't be certain. But I am fairly comfortable the information in the target pages is real content and not a bunch of garbage, so in the end it gives the users a good experience.

Subscribe Via RSS

How I pick an affiliate program

Know them.
I like dealing directly with the company when pimping an affiliate product. You get to know the people better and it is amazing how flexible good companies can be.

I have a handful of individual companies that I do affiliate marketing for and it is a whole lot more fun going direct then having a blank face.

I still have a few campaigns I run from some of the big boys (linkshare, cj, etc.) but they are essentially on auto pilot and withering away slowly due to lack of attention from me.

Find them.
I am always looking for new affiliate products to pimp. Usually I'll go through cj and find a product/service that I am interested in and check their home page to see if they have a direct affiliate program. I am much more likely to even bother with a test campaign if they meet this criteria. Sometimes I get lucky and hear about some great offers by word of mouth or via a post on bumpzee.

But the biggest thing I look for is if they are running the program themselves vs just farming the whole operation.

Exceptions.
I always make exceptions to my rule. It really depends. I'll test almost any campaign and see if I can get it working (profitable) for me. But I am more likely to put forth effort if the program is run internally. Because I know the company is more likely to really care about it affiliates.

Subscribe Via RSS

Crud, you really do have to rotate your ads.

I have some ads (video and text) on various PPC engines that just don't convert like they used too. My video ad still gets plenty of plays, but the clickthroughs have dropped to zero.

This is easy enough to fix: Make new ads and videos.

Subscribe Via RSS

What does Lingerie, Junk Car Removal and Paintball have in common?

(Answer to the question is below)

I tried TextLinkAds (affiliate, non affiliate) in the past, and sure enough you can get your one way link on a page.

However. Look at the links you are next too. I was doing some research last night on link backs. Using SEO Elite (affiliate, non affiliate) for one of my niches. There was a site I found which was paying quite a bit for TextLinkAds (and other places) to link back to them from some high PR sights.

This is a classic example of why this is not always a good idea.

Look at the subjects. We have Lingerie, Credit Cards, Lawyers and Insurance. In some sick twisted way you could say these are related and relevant. But who are we kidding. Even though these links are on a PR 7 (Yes PR 7) they can't be all that effective.

Moral of the story. Getting links is good, but to be REALLY effective you must get relevant links.

Now the solution? My current experiment is using paid blogging. So far so good, but it hasn't been long enough to see any results, but at the very least I have very relevant content linking to my niche and sites.

Oh and the answer to the question:
What does Lingerie, Junk Car Removal and Paintball have in common?

Nothing.

Subscribe Via RSS

Affiliate/Internet Marketing is WoW with real money.

Before I got into Affiliate/Internet Marketing I was big into MMO's (Probably too much... )

World of Warcraft, The Matrix Online, Starwars Galaxies, Guild Wars, PlanetSide, Seed, EVE, etc.

I played them all at one point or another.

A few months ago it hit me. The way I played MMO's was the same way I should approach Internet Marketing. In the MMO's you try and get your character experience and money. Then you use that experience and money to get more all the while you are having fun killing things or selling junk you find in the game to other players for even more fake money... And when you found something that worked (killing easy prey for easy money) you would milk it over and over until the devs (people who controlled the game) changed it. Rinse and repeat.

So now I focus on getting my websites traffic and conversions. When I find something that works I keep at it until something changes. Rinse and repeat. It is the exact same thing but with real money and a bigger game world.

Subscribe Via RSS

PPC Engines that work

** This has been updated


I have been dabbling in PPC (Pay Per Click) Affiliate Marketing.

I have gone through a ton of different places for traffic, and found some that work and some that don't.

Some of these are going to be obvious, but some might not be.

PPC Engines I have been able to make a profit using:
1st Tier:
AdWords
Yahoo Sponsored Search
MSN AdCenter

2nd Tier:
LookSmart
AdSonar
SuperPages

3rd Tier:
7Search
Enhance
SearchFeed
goClick

PPC Engines that I have consistently lost money using:
(and yes I know some of these share traffic with engines I have marked as profitable)
Ask
Miva
Kanoodle
IndustryBrains
ChaCha
AdBrite
ContextWeb

Niche Dependant
You may have noticed some PPC engines with Bad Reputations in my "Making Money" list.
In my experiments and tests, it really seems that these PPC engines are Niche Dependant.
This Means that a Niche will not always produce positive results in every PPC engine.
Thats why I have kept my accounts active with all of them. If the niche I am testing produces zero positive results, it doesn't mean that the next niche I try won't work.

Subscribe Via RSS

Zango Cash Experiments

I created Encrypted Messenger... wait let me back up and give a little history.

My friends and I had been dreaming of how nice it would be to encrypt our Instant Messages.

Around October 2001 or so, I ventured into the contract programmer realm.

On New Years Day a few months later I got a programmer's itch. A programmer's itch is when you are super focused and skip food, sex, sleep, etc. to get whatever it is you want done. This turned into an 11 hour programming session.

Success! It worked pretty well. I release version 1.0 to the world for free with a stipulation that it could only be used for personal use.

A few months later I was contacted by a company that wanted to use it for corporate use.

But of course they wanted a few things added... Thus, the following features were added

• RSA Key Encryption (This means you don't have to really know what your password it will make a random password for you)
• The ability to have several people in one encrypted chat conversation with random keys (that was kinda a pain to get working)
• The ability to send encrypted files through NAT. (Sending files even when you don't have a direct connection to the Internet or your chat buddy)

Word got around...

People came and asked for it to work with Yahoo, AIM, etc..

Yahoo was the most painful to get working. But once I figured out how to connect with the internal Web Browser window the interface with it became the best interaction of all the IM programs I have done it with....

People requested updates and changes were made (when they made sense), I started charging for the software.

Hooray! I was making money off of software that I made.

Then all of the sudden the income stopped. It was like someone just turned it off.

A few days later I got an email from a pirate/software crack group bragging that they had cracked the authentication for Encrypted Messenger.

(It's not like I have a really sophisticated security mechanism, but they wanted to make sure I knew that they were responsible.)

So I tried making a few changes to the code. As soon as I did new cracks would show up...

I went back and forth with a few different updates. But it really didn't matter. I just gave up at that point. I stopped updating the software as much. A friend pointed me to those ad companies that pay you to bundle their software with yours. As much as I detest stuff like that I figured, why not. I'm already being ripped off by people anyways.

So I released a new version that is Ad-Supported with Zango. People can still pay for it to get the non-ad version and people with a real us military email address can still get a key for free. (The US Military thing is a story for another time)

The results with Zango Cash are so-so. I make more than I was before I started using them. I made doubly sure that Zango Cash was easy to remove from people systems. I don't make a killing but it somewhat makes up for the whole piracy thing.

Subscribe Via RSS