Affiliate Marketing

Okay, so you've bought a domain name & hosting, set up Wordpress, chosen a theme, optimized your blog, and added some content. Now how do you make money from this thing?

One of the most popular and effective ways of monetizing a blog is by using affiliate marketing. Basically, you become a salesman for a particular company / product, and you receive commissions on everything you sell.

Many bloggers are affiliates for Amazon or Ebay. If we made a blog on “bamboo fly fishing rods”, this would be a good option because it is a physical product, and chances are good that people searching for that keyword might want to buy it.

It's extremely easy to sign up as an affiliate for these websites.

Another highly popular website is Clickbank. Clickbank specializes in digital products like eBooks and software. Affiliates love to promote these products because they usually offer high payouts ($15+ per commission).

A quick search on the Clickbank marketplace and I was able to find “Deadly Fly Fishing Tactics – Revealed” which might be okay to promote to someone looking for bamboo fly fishing rods. However, it's not terribly targeted like an ACTUAL bamboo fly fishing rod for sale on Amazon or Ebay would be.

Keep these things in mind as you choose a product to promote. You want to be as targeted as possible.

Other websites where you can find products to promote are Commission Junction, PayDotCom, and Share A Sale. Also, sometimes individual companies offer affiliate programs on their websites. There's also CPA (Cost Per Action), which is in a whole other ball park. Do some research and see what you come up with.

When you find a product you want to promote, you'll receive an affiliate code to put on your website. It's good to put some kind of ad on the sidebar of your blog, which you can do by accessing the “Widgets” page and adding the code into the “text object” box.

Also include text affiliate links throughout your blog posts. But not too many, otherwise it'll look spammy.

Writing Blog Entries

Okay, so a blog isn't a blog without content. You'll need to write some blog entries about bamboo fly fishing rods or whatever niche you've chosen.

“But, but... I don't know how to write! And I don't know anything about bamboo fly fishing rods!!”

Let's clear up some misconceptions. You don't need to be Shakespeare to write decent web content. Some of the most successful internet marketers, many of whom are popular bloggers, can't write very well. You just need to have a basic grasp of the English language, which includes decent grammar and spelling. If you can write emails and status updates on Facebook, then you can probably write short, simple blog entries.

And what about subject matter? Well, no, you don't have to be an expert on bamboo fly fishing rods in order to write about them. If you've ever written a report for school or a paper in college, then you should know the basics of research.

All you have to do is conduct a simple Google search. Spend some time reading about the subject matter to gain some familiarity with it. Websites like Ezinearticles, GoArticles, Squidoo, Hubpages, and Wikipedia all contain useful information that you can use as a basis for your blog entries.

Whatever you do, please refrain from just copy & pasting. You want your blog to have 100% unique content. Google does not like duplicate content, and who wants to plagiarize other people's stuff anyway? Write your own content, even if you think it sucks.

Don't try to make your blog posts into masterpieces. Just write some content between 350-500 words. You want this content to be optimized for one or more of the keywords in your keyword list. A keyword density of around 2% is perfect. You can use the program DupeFreePro to calculate keyword density and do other cool stuff.

Also, make sure that your keyword is in the title of the blog post.

With a blog, you don't just slap some content on it, leave it sitting there, and expect to make millions. You have to update it on a continuous basis. Frequency doesn't matter so much as long as it's consistent. I would recommend updating your blog at least a couple times per week.

Fortunately, with Wordpress, you can write blog posts now but schedule them to be released at a later date. This is quite a nifty feature.

Now, if you REALLY doubt your writing ability, or you simply don't feel like writing, you can always outsource it. Of course, this takes a bit of start-up cash.

You can either hire a really high-quality writer for $10 - $15 per blog post, or you can find someone from the Philippines to do it for $2 an hour. Obviously, you won't be getting the same quality with the second option, but if you're really strapped for cash, it might be your best bet.

Of course, not all of your blog entries have to be in written format. You can post a related YouTube video, a podcast, photos, etc. Use your imagination.

What's most important is that you offer quality content for your visitors. If it's obvious that the sole intent of your blog is to make money and not really provide anything of value in return, your visitors will sense that and they'll go elsewhere. 

Setting Up Wordpress & Optimizing Your Blog

Now that you've purchased a domain name and hosting, it's time to set up Wordpress and get the ball rolling!

What is Wordpress, and why should you use it?

Wordpress is a CMS (Content Management System) and blogging platform that is extremely flexible and easy to use. Total newbies can learn how to use it without any problem and more experienced web programmers will delight in its flexibility. It is extremely customizable.

It also has a “ping” feature and lots of cool plugins that make it easy to rank in the search engines. Simply put, Google loves Wordpress blogs, and most bloggers love Wordpress too.

So how do you set it up? By far, the easiest method is by accessing your Cpanel given to you by your hosting company. Most Cpanel interfaces have a feature called “Fantastico”.

Using Fantastico, you can install Wordpress in only a couple minutes with a few clicks of the mouse.

Another method is to install Wordpress manually, which you'll have to do if you don't have access to Fantastico (or if you don't want to use it).

We won't go into manual Wordpress installation here, but it's not really hard either. It just takes a bit more time and might be a little intimating to “technophobes”. Do a Google search and you'll find plenty of tutorials.

So, now that you have Wordpress installed, there are a few things we can do to optimize our blog. First of all, get rid of that boring Kubrick default theme. It's ugly and plain, and we want our blog to look nice. There are thousands of free Wordpress themes available.

Take the time to browse and choose one that really stands out and suits our blog's niche. You can even invest in a fancy premium Wordpress theme if you want, but it's definitely not necessary.

Next, go to the “Settings” tab. Under “General”, make sure that your blog title contains the keyword phrase.

Next do a Google search for “Wordpress ping list”. Copy and paste this list into the “Update Services” text box located on the “Writing” page.

This will “ping” a wide variety of services every time you publish a post, thereby increasing your exposure on the web. It will also lessen the time it takes Google to index your site and your individual blog posts.

Finally, go to the “Permalinks” page and choose something other than the Default link structure. I prefer to select “Custom Structure” and put %postname% in the box. This makes it so your links look like this:

www.myblog.com/my-blog-post/

Instead of:

www.myblog.com/?p=176

This will help with your SEO as well.

Now we'll move on to plugins. Here are some of the best plugins for Wordpress:

Askimet -- Blocks spam comments. Very useful plugin that will save you a lot of headaches.

Google XML Sitemaps -- Builds a sitemap of your blog and submits it to Google. Basically, a sitemap is a list of all the pages on your website. Having one makes it easier for Google and other search engines to crawl the pages and index your site faster.

SEO-All-In-One-Plugin – This is a great tool for your blog. It allows you to customize the meta tags for each individual blog post, so you can optimize them for their keywords.

Pretty Links – (optional) This is one of my personal favorites. It turns your ugly long affiliate links into something like this www.myblog.com/my-product/

These are the plugins that I use the most. However, there are tons of plugins available for just about everything, so take the time to browse through them. Don't go crazy and install 20 or them or anything though, because that will drastically affect the load time of your blog.

Marketing Your Services

Besides affiliate marketing, Adsense, and selling ad space, what other ways can you make money from your blog?

Lots of people choose to market their services through their blog. These services may include freelance writing, web design, programming, graphic design, and more – virtually anything people do to make money as freelancers.

Showcasing your services through your blog is a great way to speak to clients – because they're not just taking your word for it. They can see your writing ability in the blog posts you've written. They can see your graphic and web design talent in the look and feel of your blog.

Often, many bloggers find freelance writing work through their blog without even advertising it. Other people see their writing and wish to hire them based on that. In a sense, their blog becomes somewhat of a portfolio.

Get a Domain & Hosting

Okay, so you've chosen a niche and picked out some keywords. Now it's time to get your blog started, which generally means buying a domain name & hosting. A domain name costs around $10 (for a .com) and about $4 to $8 per month for hosting.

“But, but, but... I don't have any money!”

Well, all right. You don't necessarily HAVE to buy your own domain name. You can use a free blogging platform like Blogger (don't use Wordpress.com, as they don't like advertising/marketing). There are many popular, high-ranking, money-making Blogger blogs.

However, keep in mind that using a free blog platform and having your own domain is like the difference between renting a place and owning your own home. When you rent, your place isn't really yours. You're just staying there.

You can't tear down a wall or remodel your kitchen or even paint your walls a different color without permission. All of your rent money goes into someone else's hands. And you can get kicked out for breaking the rules or breaching contract.

But when you own your own home, you can do whatever you want with it. It's all yours. You make your own rules. And eventually, your home becomes an asset.

When you use Blogger, you're pretty much handing over all control of your blog to them. They can delete it if they don't like it, and then all of your hard work will be thrown out the window.

Okay, my lecture is over. Do whatever feels most comfortable to you.

For registering a domain name, two of the most popular companies seem to be GoDaddy and NameCheap.

For SEO purposes, I'd recommend you buy a .com. Google seems to like .com's, and they sound the most professional. (although they are more expensive than other TLDs, .info's are usually cheaper than a dollar, but they also don't seem to rank well at all).

It's also important to choose a domain name that has your main keyword phrase in the URL. For instance, www.bambooflyfishingrods.com. If that domain name is taken (it is), I like to put a word at the end of it, like bambooflyfishingrodsonline.com.

Or you could use dashes between two or more of the words. However there seems to be some debate over whether or not that is a smart idea. A domain name like bamboo-fly-fishing-rods-today.com sounds spammy, and apparently Google doesn't like that sort of thing. Just use your own discretion.

Next you'll have to buy hosting. Godaddy and Namecheap also offer hosting. Some other popular web hosting companies are BlueHost, Hostgator, DreamHost, Media Temple, and Just Host.

Follow the directions given to you by your domain name provider and hosting company and you should be up and running in no time.

Choosing Good Keywords

Okay, so now that you've chosen your niche, it's time to do some good 'ole keyword research and accompanying competition analysis!

Gasp! What do these crazy terms mean, you ask?

Well, it's really quite simple. Keyword analysis means taking a look at the actual keywords and keyword phrases related to your niche that people are typing into Google on a regular basis.

Your goal will be to pick one good keyword phrase, as well as several secondary keyword phrases (the more the better). Our intent here is to rank high in Google for these keyword phrases, and that will be the primary means of driving traffic to our blog.

Competition analysis means checking to see how many websites are going to be in direct competition with your blog as you try to rank for those keyword phrases.

We'll start with keyword analysis. There are many ways you can do this. You can buy programs that will perform keyword research for you, but we won't bother with that here. For now we're going to concentrate on one tool, the Google Adwords Keyword Tool:

By imputting our keywords into this tool, we can see on average how many searches they get per month. Scroll down a little further, and you can find related keywords-- “Additional Keywords to Consider”.

As you can see, “bamboo fly fishing rods” gets about 2400 searches per month. That's not bad. Generally, for your main keyword phrase, you'd like to have at least one or two thousand searches per month. If you can get more than that, it's even better.

Now let's go to Google and conduct some competition analysis for this keyword. Type your keyword phrase in quotes like this: “bamboo fly fishing rods”.

Notice how many search results pop up. Generally, anything under 30,000 is pretty good, and anything under 10,000 is great! So this keyword “bamboo fly fishing rods” has potential.

Now I like to conduct a couple more searches for good measure. Search for allintitle: “bamboo fly fishing rods” . This gives you every website that has its title optimized for “bamboo fly fishing rods”. There are 4,040 results.

Next, input inanchor:"bamboo fly fishing rods" and you'll see how many websites have “bamboo fly fishing rods” in its anchor text (link text). There are 6,010 results.

These results make up your REAL competition: the people who are actively trying to rank for this keyword by using on-page SEO and using the keyword in the title and in anchor text.

Now, to dig up a little bit more information on these sites, I like to use an add-on for Firefox called “SEO For Firefox”. Once installed, a little icon appears in the extreme lower right corner of your browser. Click on it and you'll be able to see more data about the websites you go to.

Once you can see tons of information about the site. These are all factors that come into play when determining the site's rank. This site ranks #1 for the keyword “bamboo fly fishing rods”.

What you will want to do is try to determine WHY it ranks #1, and what you would have to do with your blog to try to compete with this site, as well as with all the other websites on page 1 of the Google search results.

I'm not going to go too in depth with competition analysis, because it's a wide topic that could comprise several eBooks on its own. If you need more info, do a quick Google search. There's tons of information that can be found all over the internet for free.

Once you've picked your main keyword phrase, go back to the Google Keyword Tool and select a whole bunch of secondary keyword phrases-- anywhere from 5 to 20. These don't have to have thousands of searches per month.

These secondary keyword phrases are meant to be the “low hanging fruit”-- they don't get tons of searches, but they also have very little competition, so they should be easy to rank for.

Choosing A Niche

Niche blogging means blogging with the intention of marketing to a particular niche. A niche is a subset of a market. Think of it this way:

Sports >> Fishing >> Fly Fishing (niche)

Cars >> Sports Cars >> Ferrari (niche)

Why not just create a blog about sports or a blog about cars? Well, we could. But the reason why we want to narrow it down is because we want focused content. We want our visitors to be looking for something in particular-- and we want them to find it on our website.

A person stumbling on to a sports website could be looking for anything. Football scores, golf tips, etc. It that case it becomes very difficult, if not impossible, to cater to everyone.

But if you have someone curious about the best fly fishing rods and he happens to come across your blog aptly titled, “Fly Fishing Rods”, then you have satisfied his need.

He has stumbled across a website that offers exactly the content he's looking for, and potentially the products that he wants too.

In this way, we don't need to drive TONS of traffic to our blog just to generate a few bucks – because we can make just as much, if not more, from a small amount of visitors because this traffic is highly targeted.

To break it down further, we'll be headed into mico-niche territory. An example of this would be “bamboo fly fishing rods”. This is even more targeted than “fly fishing rods”.

However, the key here is knowing whether or not this micro-niche is popular enough to warrant making a blog about it. It doesn't matter how targeted your blog is: if no one cares about this topic and no one is searching for it, then you won't make any money.

A good way to tell if your micro-niche is popular enough is by browsing Amazon.

By doing a simple search for “bamboo fly fishing rod” on Amazon, we can see that there are several popular books on the topic.

·        Casting a Spell: The Bamboo Fly Rod and the American Pursuit of Perfection

·        A Bamboo Artisan Fly Fishing on the Ruby River

·        Bamboo Fly Rod Suite: Reflections on Fishing And the Geography of Grace

·        Fishing Bamboo: An Angler's Passion for the Traditional Fly Rod

·        Fundamentals of Building a Bamboo Fly-Rod

·        Handcrafting Bamboo Fly Rods

How can you tell if a book is popular on Amazon? Overall, there are no hard and fast rules. Just browse through the selection and it shouldn't be hard to determine whether or not people are interested in the topic.

Just the fact that there are books written about the subject should tell you something.

Check to see how many reviews the book has-- the more the better (obviously). Also take a look at the book's rank.

Look in Amazon. Generally, anything under 100,000 is considered decent. It is also ranking pretty well in several categories.

To sum it up, just browse Amazon for a while to get a general idea of the popularity of a niche. But don't be too analytical-- it's easy to get bogged down in the analyzing/research stage, and once that happens, you start to hesitate and second-guess yourself.

What if this niche isn't a money-maker? Well, you won't really know until you try. So try! Even if you fail, at least it will be a good learning experience, so you will be better equipped for your next blog.

Another step you take to tell if a niche is profitable or not is to do a simple search on Google. In our case we're searching for “bamboo fly fishing rods”:

 To the right of the search results, you'll notice a bunch of Google Adwords advertisements. This is a very good sign, because it means that companies are advertising for this keyword, which in turn means that people are SPENDING MONEY in this niche.

If you don't see any sponsored links when you search for your niche, there's a good chance that there's simply no money in it.

Newbies Guide To Blogging For Profit

 What is blogging, and how can it be your ticket to financial freedom?

Blogging is method for writers, artists, individuals, ANYONE really, to broadcast their thoughts and opinions for the whole world to read. Blogging allows you the opportunity to potentially get hundreds of thousands of people to read your stuff without having to be a celebrity or a published author.

Some bloggers have emerged from the depths of obscurity, starting out as nobodies. Now they're famous! (Perez Hilton is one example.) There are also many blogs that have become authorities in their niche, overtaking even media giants.

TMZ.com and DailyKos.com are two more examples. These types of websites garner visitors in the millions each and every month.

So it shouldn't come as much of a surprise to learn that blogging is also a highly effective way to make money online.

Countless bloggers all over the world silently rake in hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars per month! The best part is that it's not particularly hard!

Dedicating an hour or two per day to working on your blogs and publishing new content should be more than enough to get your blogging income off the ground.

Curious to learn how to do it?

Then come along for the ride... Follow this blog for more information

The Importance Of Tracking

The best way to keep your offers converting well is to pay attention to your tracking.  Don’t ignore this aspect of CPA marketing – it is really easy to tweak or change ads for a site, based on your results.

At the very least, you should have Google Analytics installed on your site – paste the code right at the bottom of your HTML, immediately before the </BODY></HTML> tags. 

You can also use tracking tools, such as Prosper202 (which is free and fairly easy to use).  Another popular tool is DirectTrack.

Another program I’ve heard positive comments about: Statsrobot.  Actually, I just checked the sales page out for the first time, and not only is it free, it looks easy to use, focusing directly on keeping track of CPA network stats: Which is exactly what you want!

Whatever program you use, however, make sure it tracks clicks, not just sales. Keeping track of clicks is your real key to CPA success.

Where To Get Free CPA Information

A good place to find really blunt, honest feedback is WarriorForum.  You don’t have to join – just search for “CPA” in the WF search box.  This is the first place I go to, when I want tips on a marketing method or feedback on a software program.  I don’t waste time wading my way through blog sites filled with biased “reviews” on Google.  And you’ll often find excellent Special Offers targeted for the subject you’re researching. 

Wishing you much success with CPA rewards!

Thanks for reading and good luck with your amazing CPA campaign.