Friday, August 31, 2007

Affiliate Masters Course - free ebook by Ken Envoy

The Affiliate Masters Course is a free online course put together by SiteSell.com's Ken Envoy. The course is meant to be completed in 10 days and is aimed at helping you become a high earning affiliate "master".

The first time I came across The Affiliate Masters Course was about 3 years ago when I was just learning about affiliate marketing. I briefly skimmed through the course and even read the entire lesson for Day 1. It was written well and contained a lot of information that made plenty of sense so I decided to take Ken's advice and actually printed all the pages in the course. All 165 pages! (Actually, I printed two pages on one so I only used 83 sheets of paper)

My schedule was pretty hectic back then and the Affiliate Masters Course was put on the back burner right along with my affiliate marketing dreams... A couple years passed and I'd forgotten all about SiteSell and the affiliate masters course.

Then, a few weeks ago while cleaning out my closet I found my "Affiliate Endeavors" binder. Inside it I had affiliate marketing notes and a few pages of the Affiliate Masters Course...

I've since become a member of the 5 Pillar affiliate program and have taken a personal vow to complete the course this time around. I'll make daily post while going through each step of the course to highlight the most important parts and also to create a point of reference for myself and others.

Please feel free to share your comments with me if you've had any personal experiences with the Affiliate Masters Course...

Take Care & CASABO!

Antonio



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Thursday, August 30, 2007

Site Build It! or Open Source CMS?


Every website that I've built has either consisted of static html pages or has been backed by an Open Source Content Management System.

I haven't experienced any unsolvable issues with the Open Source Software that I've used, but lately I've been considering switching all of my web services over to Site Build It!.

Site Build It! seems like a dream come true for online business owners. The folks over at SiteSell.com claim to have taken every tool that a successful online business needs, and condensed it into one solid package.

These are just some of the services you will be entitled to with your Site Build It! site.:


- Brainstorming and researching tools


- Sophisticated decision-making software(makes your niche-choosing foolproof)


- Ranking Reports for Search Engines


- Automated Forms & Sequential Autoresponders (with CAPTCHA    graphic-challenge)


- Unique Automated Site-Blogging


- Three unique "ultimate brainstormers"


- Unique Keyword search reports for Directories

And those are just some of the services and features that come along with your Site Build It! site... To learn more about Site Build It!, visit them over at SiteSell.com.



I'm planning of trying Site Build It! myself in the near future as me and my development team are on a site launching journey that could possibly last us a life time and a half.

So far, we've been maintaining everything under control with Nuke-Evolution (a very secure Open Source CMS) and have also been test driving a couple of other Open Source CMS's. We've installed and tested: Mambo, textPattern, RavenNuke, Pligg, drupal, & joomla.

A couple of them overlap each other in the functionality department, but each one has it's own unique feel and touch to it so be sure to check them all out to get a first hand feel of how each one works. Spend some time with each one, install a few modules, uninstall them, take your site through an upgrade cycle if possible, all so that you can get a good feel of each individual software. After doing this, you'll be able to make a better decision on which CMS is right for you and your company.

Every now and then someone asks me to recommend a good CMS for them to use for their website. I usually say: "that's a personal choice, different CMS's suit different needs..."

But if I had to recommend one, it would be Nuke Evolution. It's actually the only one I would recommend to anyone, since it is the CMS that I have the most experience with.

I love Nuke Evolution, and in my opinion it's one of the best, if not the best Open Source CMS available on the web right now. My team has used it for a little over a year now and have had very few complaints about the software. They have a wonderful support staff and their forums are full of helpful topics, bug solutions, feature requests, & install help. There are new posts daily and support requests usually get answered pretty quickly. To learn more about this CMS, visit the Nuke Evolution forums here.




I'll be trying out Site Build It! in early '08, I'm shooting for January, but definitely no later than February.

As I mentioned above, I absolutely love Nuke Evolution and am very grateful for the Open Source Community. If it hadn't been for Nuke Evolution, the creation of our first site would have probably taken us triple the amount of time that it did.

But if this Site Build It! solution really works as advertised, I have a strong feeling that it could be the last regular host I'll ever have to move my sites to. In my opinion, just the services alone are worth the cost of the entire Site Build It! package.

Anyhow, those are my thoughts on Open Source Software and Site Build It! Remember to always conduct your own research, especially when it involves making purchases.



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Other posts that may be of interest to you:
- Affiliate Marketing Full-Time.
- Getting & keeping quality traffic on your website.
- Trials & Tribulations: Adult Friend Finder.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Finding Your Niche.

Sometimes the whole process of finding something interesting to write about can become a dreaded chore. You can waste hundreds of hours clicking from one site to the next trying to spark some creative flames upstairs and still end up with nothing. The reason behind this is that what is interesting to you, might not be so interesting to others.

Here's a couple of things you can do to find interesting topics to write about.


You could study the people around you. Study their online habits, what type of sites do they frequent? Do they mention any sites in particular? If they do, what is their overall tone when they are speaking of those websites?

Time permitting, try a few subjects at once. You can then study your site analytics and make a firm decision on which topics to keep and which topics get cut.

Browse various forums and read through a good amount of posts. By reading through a wide variety of discussion forums, you'll be able to gain knowledge on what is accepted and what gets rejected. It wont always be so clear, you'll have strong opinions on both sides of the fence sometimes, but you should still be able to make an informed decision when it comes time to choose your blog topics.

Google Trends is a great tool for comparing search results information for certain words/phrases.

Google's Hot Trends is another great tool that, according to their About Google Trends page, actually "reflects what people are searching for on Google today" and is updated hourly.


These are only a few of the methods that I use to find things that are generally interesting on the web at any given time.

I've been trying a few new methods, things such as:

- viewing certain popular sites site maps.
- Using Social Networking Websites.
- Going to the Movies.
- And more!!

I'll write about these things after I spend more time actually doing them, as I have just started using these methods.



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Wednesday, August 15, 2007

If at first you don't succeed....

If at first you don't succeed, try harder the second time around.

If you still don't succeed, re-evaluate your plan, make some changes, then try again.

One thing's for sure, don't ever let anybody tell you that you can't do something. If you have a vision or dream, pursue it.

Things don't always work out as planned. Especially if it's your first time around.

Mistakes will be made just as milestones will be marked. Sometimes we over-estimate, under-estimate, overlook or measure wrong. we get caught up in the heat of the moment and schedule way too much, and other times schedule way too little.

This doesn't necessarily mean that you aren't cut out for the task, perhaps it just means that you need better time management and prioritizing skills.

One great thing about failed attempts is that you can look back, analyze and learn from them. If indeed the problem is scheduling, figure out what it is about your scheduling habits that aren't working. Is it over-scheduling? Under-scheduling? Do you need a brand new schedule?

Perhaps it's your content, your site design, the complexity/usability of your site....Who knows? It could be over a dozen different things that is preventing you from succeeding on the web right now.

The only way to find out why your current set-up isn't working is to do some research. A few things you might want to do:


- Visit high ranking sites to see what it is that they are doing, that you're not.

- Follow up on your link exchanges.

- Study your analytics.

- Study each page in your web site.

Take what you learn from analyzing your past mistakes and apply that knowledge to your new strategy. You should then note a considerable difference in your online performance. Only through proper planning and analyzing is it possible to succeed on the web today.

The tools are there at your disposal. Learn about them and use them.

Remember, things that are worthwhile require time and dedication, so whatever it is that you are pursuing, whether it be a singing career, an acting career, or a career as an affiliate marketer, it will take time and will require that you get your hands dirty with some good ol' hands on experience.


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A couple of other posts you might find interesting:
- Analyzing Your website
- Too much Reading is bad for you.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Difference Between An Affiliate & Super Affiliate

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Super Affiliate! Corny, but "super affiliate" is the new buzzword for affiliates who are both ambitious and successful at affiliate marketing. There are wild claims online about affiliate marketing: Make Millions Overnight! Never Work Again! Unfortunately, these claims are usually false. To go from being a plain affiliate to super affiliate takes a lot of work. In short, you need to be an affiliate of steel.

The vast majority of affiliate marketing sites online are run by people who have no great interest in turning a huge profit. For example, you'll find thousands of blogs where people put up a few Amazon listings and/or Google links on the off chance that a passing browser will click on them. That's all well and good, but this is no way to make a dent in the affiliate marketing game. To be a super affiliate, you need to treat affiliate marketing as a job, not just something that you do on the side to put a couple of bucks in your pocket.

There is a misconception that affiliate marketing is not a real business. After all, the affiliate is not putting out a product. This is patently false. Even though an affiliate marketer is not manufacturing a product, he or she is still offering the product up for sale. An affiliate marketer still needs to be in charge of search engine optimization, custom content, quality web design, financial management, and everything else that goes into running a successful e-business. As with any business, an affiliate marketing plan is only as strong as the amount of work you put into it.

A super affiliate will be able to turn as hefty a profit as a standard business—several sales a day on a number of different fronts. Remember, successful affiliate marketers don't necessarily stop at one site. They set up a variety of affiliate sites with a good web address, quality web design, and lucrative affiliate marketing opportunities. Additionally, once you start selling at an accelerated rate, some affiliate programs will promote you from regular affiliate to super affiliate. If you start sending sales and traffic to a business, they will reward you with better terms.

This isn't an easy proposition, but it is possible. Make sure that an affiliate program has a corresponding super affiliate program in place—better terms for more sales. Even if they don't, an affiliate with good terms up front can really pay off if you're able to make a several sales a month. Affiliate programs with great terms are also sometimes referred to as super affiliates. Find these and you know you'll have a good marketing in place at the start.


For more information please click here.


Take Care,

Antonio


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Friday, August 10, 2007

Analyzing Your Website.

In order to properly monetize your website you will need to study your site statistics. You need to know where your visitors are coming from, how long they're on your site, what pages they visit while on your site, and where they go after they leave your site.

There are a couple of different programs you can use to do this. I use Google analytics and AWStats on my websites, and on my blogs I use FeedBurner.

Google offers its Analytics service for free, it comes fully equipped with a myriad of features and integration is quick & simple. Once you've got Google analytics set up, you'll have quite a few powerful tools available to you. One of the features I like the most is the ability to create what Google calls: Goals. To give you a brief overview, you can basically turn certain links into Goals and Google Analytics will provide you with detailed info on how well your Goals are converting. This is very valuable information, especially if you are trying to increase or jump start your sales. - Learn more about Google Analytics

AWStats is the first website statistics program that I ever used. It's features are basic, especially after having been exposed to Google Analytics. But it does provide a good number of site stats, things such as: a list of all of your incoming links, which key phrases & keywords are used to search for your site, and more. You can download it for free from their website, but check with your hosting provider first, you might already have it. - Learn more about AWStats

Feedburner is a great tool for Bloggers & Podcasters. The features they offer are just mind boggling! Here are just some of them: customize the way your RSS feed looks in a browser, instantly allow your readers to subscribe to your feed, offer your feed in the form of an email, and even earn money by joining their already integrated affiliate program. They were recently acquired by Google so you know the service is going to consist of top-notch quality. - Learn more about Feedburner

Keep in mind that there are other tools available for you to analyze your website with, these are just the ones that I am currently using.

Do you use analytics software not mentioned above? I'd love to hear about it! Please leave your comments and or feedback below.



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Thursday, August 9, 2007

Affiliate Marketing Full Time.

I must admit that on a number of occasions I’ve fantasized about doing affiliate marketing full time. It's every net savvy persons dream job, right?

All you have to do is set up a few web pages, embed your affiliate links, and get people to view your pages....

The problem is...in order to get any serious amount of money, you have to get a lot of people to view your pages. And not just any people, you've got to get the right people over to your pages. And once you've got them there, your content must be good enough to convince them to click on your links and make purchases.

If you're considering affiliate marketing as a full time Job, I recommend that you do some serious homework. Read blogs like Mikes money making mission, affiliate tip by Shawn Collins, and Problogger by Darren Rowse. I would also recommend that you keep your 9 to 5; a blog/website is something that you can manage while still grinding it out on your 9 to 5 hustle.

If you’re really serious about running your own blog or website, do yourself a huge favor and look into other ways for you to earn money online. Something besides affiliate programs.

Always keep in mind that affiliate marketing is based on commission. No sales, no paycheck. If you're like most people on Earth you probably have bills that must be paid on a monthly basis, so you definitely can’t afford to leave it up to chance by relying solely on affiliate marketing.

Don't forget to check those blogs that I mentioned above, they are full of valuable information.



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Monday, August 6, 2007

Thinking Outside the Circle.

Life is a series of cycles, we wake up, brush our teeth, shower, eat breakfast, go to work, eat lunch, work, eat dinner, sit in front of the TV, and sleep. Over and over again. Some of your schedules may vary, but for the most part... that is what your day consists of.

Some people are o.k. with this and that's fine, just as long as you realize this: you're life won't change unless you do something to make it change.

In order for your life to change, you must change the way you think. To put it plain and simple, you must think outside the circle. You're probably thinking "what an idiot, everybody knows the saying goes: think outside the box"

That's the problem, most people are afraid to travel outside their comfortable little circle. It's easy to keep living your life as you have been, just repeat yesterday's cycle... And when the weekend arrives, just do as you do every weekend: Go out & get wasted on Friday, wake up with a hangover on Saturday, repeat Friday night on Saturday, and then take it easy on Sunday.

I'm not suggesting that you go lead a boring life and do nothing. Not at all. I don't think my readers are dumb, I know you get my point. If you want to change your life, you must change it. And I'm not saying this because I want you to click on my affiliate links and start blogging, (although that would be nice!) I'm writing this to you guys because I care about you. That's right, each and every one of you.

I can hear some of you right now: "You don't even know me."

You're right, I don't know most of you, and I probably never will know you personally. What I meant by what I wrote above is that I care about human beings. I hate to see humans self destruct, especially when there are other options available.

Perhaps you think I'm coming off as too preachy, some of you may even be offended by my words. If you are, take a deep look within yourself and ask yourself why? Why am I so bothered by the words that Tony has written in his blog?

The bottom line: If you're trapped in a vicious cycle, whether it be a circle of drug abuse, alcoholism, depression, self-pity - what ever it may be, it's up to you to change it! Believe in yourself, cherish your time on earth, and make the best of life.



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Sunday, August 5, 2007

Too much reading is bad for you.

I love to read, really I do. But I also believe there is such a thing as reading too much. I say this because I went through my own little phase where all I did was read. I use to log on to the internet everyday and do nothing but read.

I would read for hours.

Sometimes, I would read the same pages over and over again. I felt like I was trapped in an infinite loop!

Luckily for me, I quickly realized that it was possible for me to spend all of my time in front of the computer and not really accomplish anything.

This bothered me a great deal, so I decided to do something about it. I decided to get organized and make good use of: scheduling. Making a schedule and then abiding by that schedule can do wonders for your business, as well as your personal life.

Like I stated before, I'm a big fan of reading.

What I'm not a big fan of is: reading more information than I can actually handle in one sitting. I'm sure you've all heard of the term "information overload" at least once, well, this is what happens to a lot of people...

Again, I'm not against reading at all. The point I am trying to make with this post is simple: Don't bite off more than you can chew.

I know it can get exciting at times, trust me I do. There's nights when you don't want to shut the computer off. Then there's those nights when you don't shut the computer off.

I'm pretty sure there are plenty of people going through that experience right now.

That is not the way you want to go about running your business. You will be way more productive once you have a good schedule to follow. Remember to allow time slots for everything that your business entails.

My current schedule contains time slots for things like: Blogging, comment moderating, uploading new content, research, forum posting, and watching Flash tutorials to name a few.

To sum up the overall lesson in this post: Read, but make sure you do as much as you read.



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Friday, August 3, 2007

Five Reasons Your Company Needs A Solid SEO Plan

Here's the major reason that your company needs a solid SEO plan: profitability. Search Engine Optimization is just another way of marketing. If you don't market a product, you can't expect name recognition or sales to come pouring in. Most people surfing online go to search engines to find information or new products. Without a decent search engine ranking, your site, and products, will be passed over time and again.

There are five core reasons that SEO is important, all of which can help a business's profit margin. Let's begin with what is the basis of SEO marketing: content. The idea of providing unique content is so that the site becomes a trusted resource on a set of topics. So how does content help profitability?

First is search engine ranking. Search engine spiders love content. If the content matches the HTML title tag, an important optimization technique, and the content contains common keywords plugged into a search engine, there will be more opportunities for the site to land in the top listings of search results. Providing quality, targeted content will draw in potential customers looking specifically for what you have to offer.

Driving traffic has a two-fold purpose. Not only does a content-rich site help search engine results, but the content will leave a lasting impression on visitors. Imagine a site that's in the top three results that provides no useful information. Traffic can be useless if the site doesn't have some sticking power. Web surfers will come back to the site time and again. SEO will lead to both new and repeat visitors. Inspiring repeat visitors is reason number two for a solid SEO plan.

An offshoot of this is number three: referrals. The more content-rich your site, the more you'll be able to get referrals. Web surfer one goes to a site and finds useful information, he then refers web surfer two—it's a type of traffic that works independently of search engines, the basis of viral marketing. Part of SEO is providing an easy way for people to refer other web surfers, possibly with a reward system.

Fourth is linkbait. Again, this has two purposes. Quality content can lead to other sites linking to the original article. This will both drive traffic from the linking site, as well as help elevate search engine ranking. Search engine spiders love relevant links.

The final way SEO is useful is general: it improves the site. A website is a form of advertising--it represents the company. A site should be feature-rich and informative in order to increase brand recognition and ensure repeat visitors. Too often, website owners are caught up in how to "fool" search engine spiders. You might fool a spider, but you'll rarely fool an actual web surfer. SEO should be about providing a content-heavy site that will become a trusted resource in your industry.

For more information please click here.

Take Care,

Antonio


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Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Getting and Keeping quality traffic on your site.

You already know that the key to earning money on the internet is: getting noticed. Whatever it is that you're doing on the web, whether it be running an online mini-mall, selling e-books, or hosting a forum, the bottom line is that you need traffic, tons and tons of traffic.

In order to sell advertising space on your website or blog, you're gonna have to show the advertisers your site statistics. If you're numbers don't impress them, you can forget about earning their business. Plain and Simple.

Sure, there's always affiliate marketing & pay per click advertising, but even then: no traffic = no sales & no clicks.

There are many different methods you can use to get people to visit your site. The trick is keeping them on your site for more than a couple seconds & having them frequent your site regularly after that.

There are a couple of things you should already be doing to get traffic going to your web pages. Here is a list of some of those things:


1. Promoting your site(s) on various forums. Use common sense when doing this, Don't just join forums for the sole purpose of promoting yourself, be interactive with the community... trust me, the rewards are much greater. If you join forums that revolve around topics that you find extremely interesting I'm certain that you'll find plenty of topics to voice your opinion on rather quickly, making this chore a tad bit more enjoyable. After you become established within the community, you will have tremendous influence on which links newbies decide to click on. You can offer your helpful advice and even throw in an affiliate link whenever possible.

2. Promoting your site on one or more of the many Free social networks.You've got sites like MySpace, Digg, and Facebook that will allow you to collect your own group of friends, thus creating your own virtual network within the main network. The key to success with the social networks, as with just about anything that you're gonna do in life, is consistency. You must be consistent in order to reap the most benefit. You will have to do things like search for friends, request and approve friends, maintain blogs, and post & respond to comments.

3. Promoting your site on YouTube.This is one of the most powerful ways to get people over to your page. If you have the resources, and what you're marketing can be presented in video format, this is one of the best ways to get the word out there. If you go this route, make sure to mention the name of your website or blog in the video, embed your logo if possible. The good thing about YouTube is that if people like your video they can place it on their blogs and web pages. If your video is convincing enough, it will cause a very nice domino effect. People will see your video, fall in love with it, paste it on their websites and begin to send you traffic from all over the web.


The above mentioned methods are pretty much standard in many of today's marketing strategies. With all the hype surrounding the social networks and video podcasting, webmasters often forget about internet marketings' secret weapon: The Mailing List. Once you get all those people over to your hot new site, you're gonna want them to stay there. Alllllright, they can log off to sleep a little while, but then you're gonna want them to come back. And the way you're going to accomplish this is by using one of the most trusted methods around, the good 'ol Opt-In Mailing List.

Again, this works best if done consistently. You can pretty much set your own pace, but I wouldn't recommend going more than a month without updating your subscribers. This task of sending out bulk emails to an Opt-in list can be simplified by using the right tools. I've used a number of different mailing list software during my time as a webmaster, I'd like to share a couple of them with you. Relax, two of them are free, if one of the free software programs works out for you, then you needn't look any further.

List Messenger - List Messenger offers two versions a lite version for free and a pro version for about $45.00(U.S.). - FREE

PHP-List - PHP List is completely free as it is an Open Source Project. They have a pretty active support community on their website, so you can go and research it before you download it. - FREE

Mail loop 7.0 - Mail Loop 7.0 is pretty pricey, but it is well worth it in my opinion. It comes equipped with a plethora of features to help you organize, optimize, and target your e-mail marketing campaign.


That's all for now folks, I hope that you're enjoying my blog so far... Don't forget to leave comments or any questions that you have for me below, just click on the word comments.

The Aspiring Affiliate,

Antonio

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Trials and Tribulations: Adult Friend Finder.

The first time I heard about Adult Friend Finder I remember discarding it as a real money-maker almost immediately. The idea just seemed kind of silly to me. I had read a bit about them and knew that they were at least creating a big buzz for themselves, if nothing else...

A few months had passed when I came across an article on Digg, the title read something like: Now debt free, thanks to Adult Friend Finder!

Being that I have acquired my own fair share of debt throughout the years, I was prompted to read this article claiming that one could climb his way out of debt by promoting Adult Friend Finder. To make a long story short, I read the article and it inspired me to go and join the Adult Friend Finder affiliate program. After I joined the program, I didn't really have a medium to test it out on. All I had was a half-ass porn site that I managed to put together in my spare time. I put up a link and rotated a few banners, and after about two months all I had earned was $86.00.

That kind of discouraged me at the time... Two months, and all I had earned was a measly $86.00!! At that rate, how in the hell was I supposed to get out of debt?

Looking back on that experience I was able to analyze the situation and pinpoint a couple of reasons for my pitiful earnings. At the time, I was fairly new to conducting business on the web... and just like many people who flock to the net seeking income, I too was under the impression that: If you build it, they will come.

I was obviously dead wrong.


Even though I had an adult oriented website, my content was stale and I did nothing to promote the site. So, I guess I can actually say that I was very lucky to have earned those $86.00 from doing nothing. When I put everything into perspective, and took the time out to review this past experience of mine, a new hunger began to rumble in my stomach.

I think about it like this, if I made $86.00 in two months with a stale website and no promotion, how much could I possibly make if I were to actually do it right?

So here I go again, I have begun to promote the Adult Friend Finder affiliate program once again. Knowing everything that I know now about the web and conducting business on it, I am going to make a final attempt at earning some serious money with Adult Friend Finder.

I'll keep you guys posted as I make this final run with the Adult Friend Finder Program. If you have any stories of your own about the almighty Friend Finder, please do post them or email them to me, I'd love to read about your experiences!


Sign Up for Adult Friend Finder Today - Absolutely FREE!

or

Join their Affiliate Program and start earning money!

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