General
Picking Offers For Affiliate Marketing
Sep 3rd
So, you know that I’ve been playing with the idea of Affiliate Marketing with Market Leverage and the end of August concluded my experimentation and I realized that there are ways that you can pick offers to maximize your earnings specially as a beginner. I’m going to share a few tips as to how you can pick the right offers and what to look for:
1. Target Audience - Every offer that you pick to advertise has a target audience. If you’re advertising dating websites to a 60+ year old audience then it won’t be as profitable as advertising to an audience between 20-30 years of age. You have to keep your target audience in mind because thats how you can expect to generate the most leads.
You can do one of two things (1) select your target audience and then pick offers or (2) pick offers and then decide who the target audience is. My opinion is that the second option works better because after you have picked an offer, selecting a target audience after that will make it more accurate.
2. Dont Look at Just CPA – Sometimes individuals decide to pick offers that provide large amounts of money for a lead. Don’t look JUST at the CPA. Obviously, you have to look at it but don’t just pick an offer because it offers you a great CPA. Make sure that the offer you pick is the one you want based on the number of leads you can expect to generate. Consider this:
1 Lead with a $100 CPA = $100 for you
20 leads with $20 CPA = $400 for you
So its not really about how high the CPA is but how many leads you can generate from it.
3. Would You Click On It? – Sometimes you have to think whether you’d click and complete the offer that youre putting out there. Its not necessary for you to think that but sometimes the offers require quite a bit of information and you’d have to think whether someone would be willing to fill the information out.
Some offers that require emails or zips earn low CPA but they can convert really well since most people are okay with giving that information out. Others that require a lot of information and specially credit card information can tend not to do as well unless you know what you’re doing. I’m just suggesting that if you’re a beginner stick to the basics for now.
Conclusion
So hopefully you guys can take something away from this post. I know that some of you are getting started and I’d like to hear some advice from some of you who have already experimented with affiliate marketing. Let me know your thoughts! Have a great mid-week Wednesday!
Top Commentator August 2008
Sep 2nd
This month’s Top Commentator was surprisingly a new blogger. A new individual that has done so well in the blogosphere these past couple months that you’ve definitely heard about him. I won’t ruin the surprise so lets take a look at how you stacked up:
1. ImWithJoe – ImWithJoe is a fairly new discovery for me and instantly I have been hooked on Joe’s contest. I know that I haven’t contributed as much specially lately with my last year at school and stuff but you really have to check out Joe’s blog daily. Honestly, there are a few blogs on my mind that I visit daily before class starts considering I get there early, and Joe’s blog is one of them. The videos are great and hilarious and the posts are unique and informative. I mean, its a no brainer!
2. Dr. Teeth – Dr. Teeth has started up a new venture lately called Webmasters.bz and has been busy with that however the site already seems to be doing really well. Much like anything Faheem is involved with, he is a 100% committed and I wish him luck!
3. Balkhis – Syed is the one blogger that I have even added as a shortcut on my Ipod. Its just that simple. Great content, great tutorials and the reader interaction is amazing. He even wrote a tutorial recently based on my suggestion. How great is that? Syed is a very talented young blogger and it would be great to see him continue on the path of success.
4. Dinesh – There used to a lot of contest blogs out there but lately they seemed to have disappear and in this time of scarcity I turn to Dinesh’s blog to check out the newest contests going on in the blogosphere. Yeah, I said blogosphere. What happened with some of the other contest blogs was that they started to cover contests that had no relation to blogging. I know that Dinesh’s blog is in my watch list for new contests all the time.
5. LifeIsColourful – Abhijeet has been the longest supporter of the blog and with the recent design upgrade he has received from Balkhis, I think that he’s ready to take his blog to the next level. Abhijeet is on a very tight schedule and I’d really like to see him blog more often but I’m not complaining since I’ll take what I can get plus I know what its like to juggle several different things all at once.
When you look at the list, you’ll realize that Joe has taken over Nick from RomanDock and that means that Joe will get a free blog review this month. Since I already wrote one recently, I’ll write it for the middle of the month and I’m sure that although Joe doesn’t really need the extra traffic, he’ll enjoy it 
. So basically it pays to be a top commentator and I really enjoy reading comments and implementing them on my blog so why dont you try for next month? I think its worth it.
Need Some Affiliate Tips?
Aug 31st
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.
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.
Friday Weekly Link Roundup!
Aug 28th
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?
Aug 27th
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?
