Reference and Update to
Trying the wordpress affiliate plugin

At the start of January I installed the WordPress Affiliate Plugin. I just wanted to update you on how it went for me.

I installed it on this blog but this is not a high traffic blog and it is a very busy blog with a lot of competing links  and I honestly didn’t expect it to perform well here. I was right. In the last month I have had only two click throughs to product pages.

I also installed it on two other blogs with a more specific niche focus, higher traffic and smaller post lengths. The results were only marginally above disappointing. In the month I received 6 click throughs from one blog and 22 from the other. No sales.

I also found that odd results occasionally appeared, (but not often I must stress, overall it is very well targeted). A completely unrelated product occurring for keywords which should have confined the results to a specific niche topic. The example that stood out was for a World of Warcraft site where it unexpectedly displayed a product on prostate health.  Maybe the plugin thought it wasn’t good for gamers to sit too long in front of their computers!

So with a total of 30 clicks in a month it might take over 3 months to get one sale. On the other hand – it is a completely “set and forget” plugin and with other niches perhaps it will have better results.

The truth is that any simple advertising like this is not going to make big sales for you. I truly believe that only a passionate advocate will do that.

Conviction leads to Conversion

If you don’t know what I mean by that then read the post  at the link above.

It is not that we don’t know this, it’s just that we get tired and lazy and sometimes we don’t have any enthusiasm left to spare.

If I have learned one thing over the last few years, even though I still struggle to get this right, it is that one well written page that is promoted well about a product that you believe in and speak honestly and enthusiastically about will do more for your sales than 2 years worth of pasted PLR blog posts, or automatically generated content, advertising links and banners.

If you have a blog you want to make money with, concentrate on those pillar posts Starek talks of, that you haven’t got around to yet. Concentrate on getting lots of links to those. Promote a product that you believe in and have a passion for. Help people to understand why its so good that you use it.

The rest of your blog is filler. Of interest to some people, benefits by keeping the blog fresh, offers personality and background and may inspire trust and build your relationship with readers, but please, think again about that phrase.

Conviction leads to Conversion

If you are not convinced that a product is truly excellent, if you wont stand out on a limb and say its so fantastic you can’t live without it, then can you honestly wonder why people think “whatever” and click away.

As to the wordpress affiliate plugin, its a simple automated advertising solution which may bring you in a few sales a year just like Adsense ads can add to your income on a small scale.

Do I think its worth buying? For me I think it was, because I have a lot of blogs I can use it on and it does direct that “click away” to a potential income source. For “one blog” owners or bloggers with low traffic I don’t think it would be worth it.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Tags: Clickbank, plugin, Review, wordpress

You can submit the same article to multiple ezines and article databases but either you write lots of articles or submit the same one. Duplicate content is very easy for a search engine to read and there are doubts that in time that articles with the exact same text will continue to benefit you.

If you do submit the same article, the first one that is indexed is the one that will most likely show. If you submit it to one,  or have the article on your site already, other article directories may refuse to publish the article.

The answer to this is to spin your articles. You take one article and use a thesaurus to alter the actual wording of each sentence enough to make the article unique. Its suggested that 30% unique is considered enough.

This is the best Article Spinner I have ever used.

It helps you to rewrite from any seed article, or by typing in directly,  an article that can be spun with tags. You can then use this with submission software to submit unique articles to article directories, websites and blogs. Or you can spin any number of unique articles out using the software, and save them to paste in or submit the articles to sites manually.

It is a time consuming process to create a spinnable article. The spinners I have tried before were weighty. They took half an hour to scan a document, then there was no fast way to keep track of choices for one word or phrase. It was quicker to not use one at all. One free article spinner that I installed stuffed up my computer so bad when I uninstalled it, that I had to get a technician in to fix up Internet Explorer.

This is because the spinner uses an online thesaurus to offer word substitutions and therefore messes with your browser.

But now I have found a spinner I use daily, that gives a great range of choices for substitutions, is fast and reliable and can be used with the SE Nuke SEO marketing software I use and the Free Traffic System.

Installation is a bit tricky, it needs a specific version of the net framework and I have to use the article spinner on a second computer, as my main computer needs a different version of this for the  XSitePro web editor software . Even with this headache it was worth the time and effort spent installing it to be able to use such a valuable tool. It’s – no reservations whatever – THE best article spinner. I don’t get really enthusiastic about many things but this is a tool worth having that will save you so much time if you do this type of marketing.

This article spinner has  a database of word substitutions that is so much better than a thesaurus. It still has a few limitations  – like generally not giving options when words are plurals, but the database can be added to by yourself as you work and the writer provides database updates that are being improved all the time which is – simply awesome. And its so fast, I can’t believe how fast it is!

If you want to maximise the number of links you can get with anchor text then you need unique articles. Go read a bit more about article spinning software and see what you think .

If you do decide this is a tactic you want to use for your article marketing campaigns, you can also download this short report for more information. (No optin just download the pdf)

There are paid submission programs to use spun articles with, including SENuke which is very powerful SEO software, that not only submits a spinnable article but also bookmarks and submits videos,  but until you get more experience learning how to write and submit  spinnable articles, you don’t want to be paying monthly while you learn. SENuke has a high learning curve don’t sign up until you have products set up to promote and time to learn how to use it.

Why not just sign up for the Free Traffic System and use their spinner and submission service. When you are better and faster at spinning articles, go pro with them (or any other tool) that you have to pay for monthly.

Popularity: 79% [?]

Tags: articles, backlinks, FTS, SENuke, seo, spinner

“BlogProfitz is unlike any other affiliate tool available on the market. The guys at Half Again have leveraged their intimate knowledge and experience in the affiliate business to create a truly one of a kind money making machine.”

Tags: automation, blog content, monetization, RSS

The Masterplan is a 72 page report that teaches you how to plan, launch and profit from a successful membership site. It’s pure CONTENT, plus an invitation to join his six week membership site training course.

Many times we are told that recurring income is THE monitization strategy. Advertise and convert once – and get paid recurringly there after. There are lots of ins and outs though about creating a membership site and believe me I know! If you have been thinking about creating a membership site – take a look. Take a look anyway and get the free report from Yaro Starek. You should know by now that he is one of the few marketers that really overdelivers with his free reports.

This isn’t 6 pages of ads, its a bonafide ebook that will teach you heaps.

I honestly believe this new report will blow people away and you will be eager to join Yaro Stareks course after you see what he reveals to you in the report.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Tags: masterplan, membership sites, monetization, Yaro Starek

We start out with high hopes and we add Adsense and Affiliate links to our blogs and we end up spending a small fortune on tools and making a profit that won’t buy us a new pair of shoes!

Does that about sum it up?

It certainly did for me for a long time. Well there are a number of reasons and the prime is that it isn’t as easy as they say!

First and foremost reason is traffic. Without visitors – nothing works. But this isn’t a traffic post. Monetizing your blog is about putting links on it that will pay – even if its eventually after 500 hits. Adsense is great for some things but lets face it, at 6c payment a click or even at the high rate of $1.50 a click – it takes time to add up to a pair of shoes! (Especially if you have expensive tastes)

Most people’s Hit Statistics show that few people read more than one page of a blog. Then they click away and they will usually click away on a link – Adsense is better than nothing but a Clickbank product is better still. There is a Clickbank product that draws Clickbank ads and looks similar to  Adsense.

Click Here To See It

Heres a quick run-through of the main features and benefits of putting this on your web site.

* It is easy to build effective ads it takes just a minute.
* Simple procedure targets the ads correctly to every page on your site.
* Links to the best-selling ebooks and products in the massive (10,000 product plus) ClickBank marketplace. You get to earn up to 75% of each product sold.
* Allows you to gain the maximum earnings possible from your sites visitors.
* Ads blend in to your site design to encourage responsiveness.
* You can set the keywords the application works with if any page on your site is less than clear.
* You can determine the minimum affiliate commission levels.
* Subscription includes access to click-though and impressions stats.
* 12-months subscription is currently held at the low price of $89.95 thats less than $8 per month for one of the most powerful website monetization tools around!

Also I’m republishing this article by Michael Hopkins for reinforcement and because I’m getting lazy (or smarter) about writing so many articles. It made me think, and it will make you think too…

Affiliate Programs: Don’t Let Amazon.com Use Up Your Valuable Bandwidth!
by Michael Hopkins

You already know that affiliate programs are a great way to make additional income for your web business.

By promoting products that are RELEVANT to your target audience and presenting those products in a meaningful way through the pages of your ebooks, websites and ezines, you can build up a nice steady income with little effort.

Don’t forget though, affiliate programs will only earn you money if you promote them the right way.

Otherwise they’re a complete waste of time and effort.

A perfect example of how NOT to make money through affiliate programs is by carrying banners from big web companies like Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking these companies.

However, you may as well try making money from selling used matchsticks as from carrying banner ads from companies like these on your website.

Why?

Well, firstly, most people are so familiar with these companies already, that the chances of them clicking the banner are next to nothing. You can expect at the VERY LEAST to go through 1000 visitors before you get a single click!

Secondly, even if a visitor does click the banner, the chances that he/she will buy anything are even less again. And, because Amazon.com and co. only pay out commissions if the visitor buys immediately, then the likelihood or you actually earning
anything are just north of none.

Let’s face it, these banner ads enable Amazon.com and their like to use webmasters to strengthen their brand name at zero cost.

They’ll slow down your pages and will not benefit your business or your visitors in any way.

If you are an affiliate with Amazon, then the only way to effectively make money out of them is by hand-picking a few products that are of direct interest to your visitors.

If your website deals with fast cars, then promote fast car books. If your e-book is all about The Ramones, then promote albums from and books about The Ramones (Gabba Gabba Hey!).

Then, promote those products as if they were your own. Nothing short of a rave review or a full-blown sales pitch will do. And place a “Click Here To Order On Amazon.com” link at the end.

Your visitors know you and your readers trust you. If you tell them that this product is right for them, then they’ll buy it.

One final point.

Amazon’s affiliate program, despite its widespread fame, is neither the best nor the most lucrative one around.

It may be worth your while to look around for websites that promote the same products but that have more effective affiliate programs. Programs that pay out more and that use cookies to record your visitors’ click-thrus. That way, if your visitors buy the product at a later date, you still get the commission.

Here are a few affiliate program websites and directories you can explore to find products and services that match your website:

ClickBank Marketplace
Commission Junction
WhichAffiliate – Affiliate Program Directory
AffiliateMatch - Affiliate Program Directory
Gr1innovations.com – Affiliate Program Directory
Affiliate Seeking – Affiliate Program Directory

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Michael Hopkins is a Successful Web Marketer and Owner of BizzyDays Ebook Publications. Visit Now to Download Original Ebooks for Free at: http://www.bizzydays.com

This Article First Appeared in Michael’s Newsletter, Ebook Times. To subscribe visit: http://www.ebooktimes.com

It makes logical sense to make those clicks count when people leave your site, and neither Adsense or Amazon are your best avenues for monetizing your blog when you don’t have high traffic. Think about it.

If nothing else, when was the last time you visited Clickbank? Its changed quite recently and they have a new widget to help you out. It’s not quite as configurable as the first program I mentioned which will fit nicely in the sidebar and imitate Adsense but its still an interesting option.

You pick some categories and keywords and get your code and paste it into a text widget in your sidebar. What you end up with is a neat box (which is unfortunately too large for many sidebars) with tabs and links to a range of Clickbank pages. Its free and if you have a spot for it, its worth a try. Definately worth more than Adsense or Amazon! So give one of these types of options a try and monetize your blog to the max.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Tags: monetization, monetize