Enkay Blog

Need Some Affiliate Tips?

I was recently requested to review AffiliateTips.com which is a website dedicated to affiliate marketing and everything you’d like to know about it. Lets discuss a few things related to the website.

Introduction
I have just entered the field of affiliate marketing and this website is a great resource for someone like me. I know that many others are just as inexperienced as I am in this field and at least I can go through the Affiliate Directory to see what offers are producing the best returns. At first glance, the design of the website is highly appealing to me. The front page is divided into separate sections. The first thing that strikes me is the Top 10 Affiliate Programs List that rates the program on 7 levels and the commission. Here is what the list looks like:

Next to each one of the programs you can see a detailed review of each of the programs. The review page is highly organized and graphically supported to be very visually appealing. The page provides a quick rating, a user rating as well as other key information. The quick facts section covers information such as payment periods, commission and support details. It provides a short list of the pros and cons as well as screenshots of the index page of the programs, landing page and of the statistics. Each review page is really well organized considering the amount of information it covers. Here is a review page. You can click on the image to see a detailed full page image.

Click To See Enlarged Page

Compare Programs
Their Compare and Find Affiliate Programs page even lets you compare affiliate programs and search for affiliate programs based on the category you select. Whether you select auto affiliate programs, education affiliate programs or any of the other 19 categories there are, there are several different types of programs available for any category that you select.

Articles
They even have a host of articles that are separated on the main page into beginner articles, guides & reviews, advanced articles and many more. I personally liked the beginner articles specially the one about getting started with PPC. I went through quite a few of the articles and noticed that all of them were well written and some even included lists which is always a plus in my book.

Organization Is Key
With a website such as AffiliateTips, which includes so much great information, its essential to be well organized and they completely succeed in being organized. Every page on the website is well organized and has an easy to understand interface whether its the main page or any of the subpages. The color schemes are easy on the eyes and te text boxes are placed in a manner that is easy to understand too. Organization also helps many of the beginners get used to the manner in which information is presented.

Is This Useful?
I personally think its very useful considering, first of all, that its a completely free resource. You can search through several programs, networks as well as read reviews from other users that have implemented those programs. Their articles are also a good resource if you’d like to read them and their how-to guides are great for users who need a little help. There are many resources on the internet that actually charge for such information however you can find that here for free. All in all, I’d say its pretty darn useful.

Overall Impression
Although the idea may not be as unique, you have to tip your hats to the guys over at AffiliateTips for putting together a website that incorporates almost all aspects in the affiliate marketing feel that a beginner or an advanced user would like to see. The amount of work put into the website is visible within the first 10 seconds that you look at the website. The front page resembles a news website and lets you stay updated by just browsing through the different sub-sections. Overall, a great resource for users of all levels and definitely a website I’ll be keeping on my radar. Check out AffiliateTips and give me your thoughts.

What To Look For In A Blog

I come across lots of new blogs every so often and it seems like with the similarity in topics going on lately, I like to find ones that I’m going to WANT to read and not be obligated to read. It gets kind of hard and I have 5 criteria that are so normal for me that I dont even have to think of them or say them out loud and its all a matter of my first quick browse. Here are my reasonings:

1. Good Quality Posts - Its not quantity that matters but the quality of the posts that I look at. Some bloggers are only able to do 2-3 posts a week and thats fine as long as the posts are of good quality. I also see sometimes when bloggers have 2-3 paid reviews followed by one good post and thats not the kind of blog that I usually follow. I look for the type of posts where I can tell that there has been time spent on the post. I’ll be having a post sometime soon where Ill be talking about how much time I usually spend on a post but I need to see that the blogger has inputted time to make the post useful and informative for his/her readers

2. Design Efforts - Okay, I know I’ll probably get a little heat about this but you can’t just pick a default template and add your blog title to it and call it customized. If you can’t edit your design then ask someone for help and atleast customize it to the point where you can differentiate your blog from others. By design I not only mean the way the template looks but organization. You don’t need design skills to organize your sidebars, to have logos display properly and advertiser spots show up without overlapping content. Its all about the way you present your blog.

3. Experimenting New Ideas/Concepts - This isn’t a key requirement but I like to see “case studies” or things of that nature. This is usually something that gets me hooked onto a blog. If I see some type of tutorials or case studies or experimentation with new monetization techniques then that gets me really interested. The reason for that is because it helps me realize your skills and abilities in a glance and thats usually a good selling point.

4. Reader Interaction/Input - This doesnt mean that you have to have comments on every posts or anything of that sort but its about the way the blogger interacts with the readers. If he asks for their input or asks them to relate to the post, it shows that the blogger would like to see how the readers would respond. If the readers are responding, its a good indication of how loyal they are and thats always a good sign but as I mentioned, its more about if the blogger is concerned with reader interaction rather than the number of comments his/her posts generate.

5. Obsessed with MMO without Making Money - Some bloggers are just too concerned with making money online without actually having made money online. Someone had asked me to talk about how much money I actually make online and I’ll be discussing that in the next week however you can’t be all about writing sponsored posts and loading your blog up with Adsense and disclosing a $200 income per month when all you’ve had is paid reviews and nothing else. I dislike to come across a blog that pretends to make money when its actually a 100% active income and a result of forcing ads upon readers.

Well, that wraps up this post and I apologize for the delay in posting this. This week was the first week of school and has been quite busy but I’ll have more posts lined up for the coming week. Hope you guys have a great weekend!

Friday Weekly Link Roundup!

So I know its been a while since I did these but I came across some new blogs so if you don’t see your blog mentioned then thats because I had found around 9 links and since I usually only give out 5 links at a time, I’m saving yours for next time. Anyway, had some great posts in the past week or so and so lets get the ball rolling with the links for this week.

1. Rajaie Talks - Rajaie talked about 11 tips on how to run a killer blog contest. Considering I’m almost done with my little surprise and am ready to start my contest, I liked this post a lot. Its a good resource for anyone that wants to run a blog contest in the near future or is planning on running one shortly.

2. SlyVisions - The Sly Guy over at SlyVisions mentioned not 10, not 20 but 30 tips to help you increase traffic. Thats a lot of great tips all combined into one great post. I think everyone in the blogosphere likes a little traffic and this post definitely pulls out some great tips. I really liked that there were so many tips that were quick to grasp considering they were all short and to the point.

3. DesmondBlog - Desmond has talked about whether backlinks come first or traffic and has done a really nice post about backlinks vs. traffic. I think that backlinks and traffic are equally important however backlink leads to traffic and incoming traffic can lead to backlinks so its a cyclical process in my opinion. He has brought up a great topic here.

4. Balkhis - Syed has done it again and this time has written a post based on my suggestion about how to implement an email subscription box on your blog. He obviously knows a lot about design and on his last tutorial I asked if he would write a tutorial about email subscription boxes and he did. Now I’ll finally be able to implement my email subscription box this weekend thanks to Syed.

5. NetStrife - Lucas over at NetStrife has a great post about how you can increase your affiliate sign ups. I mean, theres nothing like checking in your accounts and seeing passive income coming in on a daily basis and Lucas has some great tips to help you keep that income coming in. Affiliate sign ups earn some bloggers anywhere from $1500-$2000 a month and thats definitely not chunk change.

Hope you guys enjoyed this weeks Friday Weekly Link Round up. Hopefully if things work out well this weekend and no storm comes over Texas, then I’ll have my contest ready to go by Monday or so. I hope you guys are looking forward to that. Have a great Friday!

Should I Accept The Review?

I know that many of you don’t offer paid reviews or haven’t had the chance to do any paid reviews yet. Paid reviews are quite common in the blogosphere and can lead to several leads for the advertiser. The issue that comes to my mind is what happens when you come across a review that you’re not sure whether you should accept or not. I’ve had it happen twice already and I’ve had to say no. Heres how you can decide:

1. Niche Relevance - Sometimes you get review offers that are for credit card offers or airline tickets and you just can’t accept those types of offers. I know that its hard to resist the temptation of money but you really don’t want to lose your readers for the price of a review. Your readers want to see reviews that are in your niche and are relevant to the topic of your blog so accept review offers that match your blog topic.

2. Unique Concept - If you find that the review is for a website that is relevant to your niche then you should think about whether the concept is unique enough. I would dislike reading a review about a product that already exists or has no new upgraded features. Its like reading about Comment Relish being “modified” and sold for an exorbitant amount.

3. Reader Benefit - If the review has no benefit to the reader then its not a useful review to begin with. To write a review for the sake of writing a review is not a good idea. You should only write a review if you feel that the service or product being offered is genuine and can truly help your readers. This should specially be considered if readers have to pay a certain price for the service or product.

So there are my tips regarding whether you should accept a review offer or not. The point is that lots of times I see bloggers that are reviewing a product that will cost more than usual (typically $100-200) and the product being offered is already available for free and isn’t any different from the free product. Sometimes, there have been issues of advertisers not being genuine and the product being a scam. I always check the domain registrar and get a whois report on the websites that I review to ensure that they weren’t created just for the review in order to scam my readers.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my tips about reviews. i’m sure that this topic strikes close to home for some of you specially after having to deal with some odd reviews on blogs so I’d like to hear your side of the issue on it. Have you rejected a review before? Also, have you come across a review thinking that it was a waste of your time or that the product offered is a duplicate of a free product?

Blogging In Your Schedule

As many of you are aware, school and college started in some parts of the US today and that means that its time for me to go back to school. Considering I’m at the university everyday from 8:30am to 4pm, I tried coming up with ways to stay in touch with my blog. I know that my schedule is not as constricted as some of yours and I wanted to share a few ways that I try to check up on my blog and write posts and I’d like to hear what your schedules look like as well.

1. Wake Up Early - I usually wake up 20 minutes before I actually need to wake up so that I can quickly check email and comments and respond. This helps me not seem like a slacker and means that individuals that are located in different time zones get replies within 2 hours. Waking up early means that I lose out on 20 minutes of sleep but it also means that I dont have to worry about coming home to an inbox full of emails from the night before.

2. Blog During The Day - I know that if you’re at work, it gets hard to blog until you return home however, since I go to university, I sometimes do get 30 minutes to an hours break in between classes and that means that I’m able to login to my Wordpress dashboard and partially write out my posts. I usually write them out in outline format and when I get back home I complete them. This allows me to not throw away good ideas that come to me during the day.

3. Weekend Blog Readup - What I’ve planned on doing is visit my favorite blogs during the weekend if I am unable to get to them through the week so that I can read up on them and write comments. So, if you haven’t seen me around just yet, dont worry. I’ll be there this weekend making my rounds as usual and leaving comments and suggestions.

4. Multi-Tasking - I dont know if this is true for you guys but I’m learning to multi-task. I have the feeling that most guys don’t know how to multi-task but most females do. I mean that in the best possible way, by the way! I’m learning to have to be able to read emails as I reply to them and be able to proofread my blog posts while checking comments and such. I’m a newbie at multi-tasking so its difficult but im catching up quickly.

Anyway, I’d really like to see how you guys balance out your schedule. I know that some of you go back to school and long days of classes while most of you are working the entire day. How does blogging fit into your schedule?