The Affiliate Post
Not Just Another MMO Blog

As I say repeatedly on this blog, there are a million ways to make money online and the reason so many people don’t is because they give up or worse still, don’t even try! I’ve just been reading the PepperjamNetwork blog in which Kris interviews other affiliate marketers from around the world and the most recent of which was an interview with Paul Bourque of Uberaffiliate.com. Paul (a self confessed super duper affiliate) had some great things to say and one thing I notice that these guys all have in common is that they all took a chance, not wanting to work for the man any longer. Yes, they have all had some luck along the way but taking the chance is the first step and I can vouch for that myself….it took me a couple of years of reading blogs and other mmo sites before I took the plunge, spent some hard earned cash and got down to business.

On that note I would like to draw your attention to something that might prompt you to take the plunge. Starting on July 1st there will be a competition over at site flipping university. As a relative newbie to site flipping it is the perfect opportunity to follow Bryans instruction in order to take a site from scratch to sale in just 30 days. That’s right…in one month you will build a blog, drive traffic to that blog and sell it online at sitepoint. Bryan will not be competing himself but he will be posting step by step advice along the way and not only are the prizes looking good but you will have made money online in 30 days by selling your site.

I advise you to head over to site flipping university and get familiar with the rules but suggest that if you are new to making money online and have been looking for that push to give it a go then this is a great place to start.  As the super duper affiliate says, don’t spend all your time researching - spend 10% reading and 90% of your time doing it!

Lose the fear…but be warned, I am in it to win it!!

I have been taking a break from knocking out my BANS stores recently which has been quite refereshing. I have begun to work on a few to other little projects…..such as site flipping, not only that but I have also had time to reflect on what I have learned and achieved from my efforts and how best I can transfer that knowledge to you.

I’d like to offer a few posts about tools that I use frequently and how to get the best from said tools. The first one I have chosen is Terapeak.

Terapeak is a tool that will give you some insight as to what is selling on ebay, it includes figures for average selling price and sell through rate of products. It’s great for ebay sellers and buyers alike and also invaluable to anyone using the Bans program.

So, you are looking to set up a build a niche store website and are lacking in ideas for what to promote. You go to terapeak and put in your search term and here is the information you can gather.

For the purpose of this demonstration I did a search on Terapeak for Webkinz….not something I promote myself and I did have some interesting finds! I used the free tool for this so we are looking at last weeks information here, but the first thing you will see is this. Ok, so the listings show that you will not have a shortage of products to display on your bans sites but I have circled what interests me. Average sale price indicates what sort of commissions I am looking at per sale and sell through rate shows me that people are indeed buying these funny little bears.

Terapeak also offers you loads of details on buy it now sales versus bid sales and time of day of listings etc….but that is of no real value to anyone. The second thing I look for is the recent sales as below

Now I don’t read too much into these and to be perfectly honest I sometimes thnk that the numbers don’t quite add up. Look closely and you will see what I mean. In terms of bans though I need to be assured that the things are selling and the price is right. If you see from the above picture though what interests me is that not many people bid on those dragons. This gives me assurance that I stand a better chance of making a sale if I can get people to bid through my bans stores.

Next up I look to refine my product search and I noticed that the cheeky dog webkinz are popular so I will look at those.

I have a look at the listings as before to find that whilst there will be more competiton with the bids…..these things are popular!

Instantly I see more value in these as, although there are substantially less listings, the average price and the sell through rate is vastly improved. So, I take that product and run it through wordtracker to see what sort of organic traffic I would be looking at.

A fair amount of searches per day. What about the competiton for top spot on google?

Not a great deal of competition either. The amount of daily visits is low but this is for one particular keyword and let’s not forget this is targeted traffic too! All in all that seems like a good niche product.

I recommend you get out there and try these simple techniques to further hone your niche store skills. I will follow up with more on this subject but I think you get the idea for now.

Let me know if you have any questions or additional tips on the above…….and no, I do not have a cheeky dog webkinz bans store!!

I’ll not dwell on this one too long but version 3 of the increasingly popular web browser Firefox is going on general release today. In addition to that Mozilla are looking to set a world record for the most downloads in 24 hours.

Firefox has long been regarded as the browser of choice for the more ’informed’ internet users and, as a user myself, I can only say that for any budding webmaster out there it is a must have tool. Firefox 3 promises to make it possible for you to work faster and more efficiently on the web.

15,000 improvements to an already brilliant browser can’t be wrong!

In the spirit of open source….this is not an affiliate link.

I am having a night off after an extremely bad day at the office. To give you some idea, I felt a lot like this guy…

So I’m passing away my lunch break at work and I come across a post on the BBC website about Blogger arrests being at an all time high.

64 Bloggers have been arrested since 2003 and while the majority of these of from countries like China, Egypt and Iran (where the whole idea of the internet is flawed by restrictions and monitoring), the list includes British, French, American and Canadian Bloggers. The longest sentence stands at 8 years……….. for having an opinion!!

Of course my blog is not political or anything like that, whereas the majority of those arrested were, it makes you think! Blogs are a serious medium of communication and so very easily accessible nowadays; with people sharing huge amounts of information and points of view, where do you draw the line? I have always had my concerns about internet policing policies - with enough problems getting slapped by Google for example - but this opens my eyes further still!

I’ll ask you all for your thoughts on this subject….I firmly believe the internet should remain open and unrestricted by anyone. Do you? I’m not making this political and actually I have been reading a lot recently about a lot of bans sites being de-indexed from google so I’d like to draw your attention to that if I may. Peoples source of income vanished over night because google deems them to be of little value to it’s readers! Hey big G…how about you let the people decide that?

So you are having some bloggers blues? Not sure about the direction to take you blog? Upset about lack of interest in your posts? All common problems that every blogger can relate to!

I was halfway through writing a post about a very similar subject when I stopped to have a check on some of my daily reads; your post prompted me to come back and start over.

Now I must first note your continual insistence that your blog it not about making money online, or purely to make money online, so my question to you is this… why do you blog?? To give you an insight, The Affiliate Post makes about $10-$30 per month by way of my featured Pepperjam Network Advert you see to the right there. Not much money but I must point out that I did not set up this blog to make money; I make my money online through a number of different avenues. Like you, you will not see me pushing products on people or stuffing affiliate links in my posts. I had one clear aim (and many rough ideas) and quite simply it was for me document my personal progress in making money online. Sounds selfish right? It is indeed, but in doing so, I also allow everyone access to my personal experiences in a way that anyone who does read will not think…..’oh my god, here’s another guy trying to sell me something’.

On the point of readers, I do not have a great number and my comments are lower than yours… and naturally that is going to get you down if you are writing to please other people. I am always happy to help people and to respond to any questions they may have, but only if I feel competent enough to assist in that particular subject. We have all seen hundreds of these blogs where people have just blatantly copied other mmo blogs and then proclaim themselves to be an expert in this field. They re-hash information that is of little use to anyone in the first place and I for one am sick of it. It reminds me of those get rich quick scams whereby you spend your money on a get rich program and then some guy sends you a book telling you that to get rich quick all you need to do is write a book about how to get rich quick!

I know full well that I’m never going to please everyone and I have no doubt that many people who read this blog will already have a greater level of understanding of how to make money online, or at least pretend to, than me. On the flipside though I appreciate that there will be a huge number of people who don’t and if I can help them in a genuine way, without pushing crap affiliate products on them then I have done myself justice.

How does all this help you PB? Well it’s fairly straightforward - of all the make money online blogs out there I seriously doubt that 99% of them make money online and they are wasting their own time pretending. I’d even go so far as to say that people who DO make money with their blog will be making a lot more money through other means. Use your blog to document your thoughts, experiences and your own personal knowledge of any given subject and in doing that you will not let anyone down; least of all yourself!

I have done a bit of reading for you and suggest some extra curricular reading this week. It’s all about the passion!

You will all be familiar with the following scenario I’m sure. You walk into a shop and the assistant immediately approaches you…..

“Hi there, how are you today?”

“Fine Thanks!” (Go Away)

“Can I help you with anything?”

“No thanks, I am just Browsing!” (I thought I told you to go away)

“We have a wonderful sale on those”

“Oh, right, thanks.” (Leave me alone please)

“Oh, that would look perfect on you, would you like to try it on?”

“I don’t wear pink!” (Hey Lady, will you just go away already!)

“Oh, we have it in Brown!”

“That’s great, but I am just browsing” (I don’t like Pink, or Brown and I am here to get something for my good lady anyway… now will you please piss off!)

You get the idea right? Well it’s usually here that I leave the shop, promising myself never to return; I am sure you sometimes feel the same. It’s a recent incident (very much like this) that got me thinking about real world issues applied to an online problem.

All affiliate marketing boils down to is sales technique (of sorts), and unfortunately the internet is full of millions of terrible assistants like the one above. So, as I leave the shop I’m thinking to myself ‘why would you buy from affiliate links?’ and how can I apply my experience as a former recruitment consultant and salesperson to this problem?

Since the birth of the internet I have purchased huge amounts online (from utterly useless software programs to rather expensive holidays) and something must have made me do it! So, what is the trick?? Well there are three reasons I buy anything:

1) I NEED IT! Essential purchases such as food, gas for the car, light bulbs etc etc…you know what I mean. There is no avoiding these items and all you can do is shop around for the better price.

2) I WANT IT! In today’s day and age this is probably the major reason for any purchase. We live in a world of greedy consumers who simply must have the latest ipods, designer clothing, fine foods and other luxury items.

3) I AM SOLD IT! This happens to me very infrequently but, having been a sales person, I have been on the other side of things and know how it works. I remember starting out as a telesales agent for a DTP firm called Serif, when I sold a package to a guy who asked me at the end of the call if he needed a computer to use it!!!

Now, using those 3 reasons as to why I buy things in the first place, we can look at why I buy (or don’t buy) from affiliate links.

1) I NEED IT! There is no avoiding the fact that there are a number of programs out there that you absolutely need if you are serious about making money online, the bookmarking demons and keyword elites of this world for example.

2) I WANT IT! You have probably done searches for products that you hope will solve a problem or save you some time and effort. Unlike the real world example you want a product not beacause everyone else has one but because you want it to so something for you.

3) I AM SOLD IT! This is the biggest factor in buying from affiliate links and whereas I do not get sold products in the real world, I do tend to online. So it is this I want to look at in more detail.

When I am sold something through an affiliate link it is because I have read a post (or number of posts) about the product which created both a need and a want for me. The interesting thing about this is that I have a strict set of rules about the actual purchase. Say I have read a post about a product I will of course do my due diligence on the product but, if I decide in my mind that I want the product, I will more often than not go back to the person who wrote the best post about it to complete my purchase. Another final once over on that post and then…..a sale!

Like our terrible sales assistant above, if you pitch is rubbish I will leave. If I read a post that offers me no value I will leave. If you don’t sound like you have even used it yourself I will leave. If you cannot tell me a single fault about the product….you guessed it!

It takes either great copywriting skill or personal experience to write a great product review and I strongly believe that no product is faultless so why the hell are you trying to tell me otherwise? I’m not saying that you should tell me it’s rubbish to get me to buy but at least point out it limitations too. Let me know of your own personal experience, in a manner that shows some effort on your part, and I will REWARD you with a purchase.

Granted, many people on the internet know not what they do and yes, I am aware that I could clear my cookies and go direct to the products webpage to buy without earning anything for anyone but like I said, it is about the reward; I may never have known about certain products if I did not happen to stumble upon some random but truly informative blogs. It’s a form of personal recommendation (a huge factor in sales) but for example, if someone tells me I should buy the new Ford Focus because it’s the best thing since sliced bread then I would ask the question ‘Then why haven’t you got one?’

Don’t push your junk on me… or anyone else for that matter! Because I will leave you quicker than the sales assistant and won’t even bother with the pleasantries. Write an honest review on a product (THAT YOU ACTUALLY USE), give it your full endorsement and I will come back to reward you with a sale!

I finally took a break from building BANS sites for a moment to check in on some analytics. I have a post coming about my daily routine shortly but most of you know that I don’t worry too much about my stats and am focussed on getting these sites up and running in the first instance - you can always go back to tweak them.

The site in question was bought on TDNAM for $5 in a the closeouts, it is a two year old PR 3 site with about 70 links; I was actually very pleased with this particular domain. I have done absolutely nothing other than install bans and get the site up and running so I was pleased to see that this site seems to be heading in the right direction. As you will see below, it has been up about two weeks now and has gradually grown to attract 50 visitors a day.

90% of this traffic has come from search engines (namely google) which means that while 50 visitors a day may sound like nothing to some of you…. as you will see below 280 of the 308 visitors are coming to BUY!!! Or at least thats what I am hoping.

While I am happy to share the statistics with you all, I am not going to share the keywords (not with this site anyway) but I was also delighted to see such a spread on the keywords too. I am ranking well on some good long tail keywords with no effort on my part and that makes me smile. Not because I don’t want to put the effort in but because I can now go back and do the tweaking that I mentioned before. There are keywords I am ranking for that I’d never thought about and keywords that I can use to improve my visitor numbers even more. One of the reasons I do not check my analytics very often is because it is a huge time sink. I’m building BANS for the long term and my work schedule does not allow for me to spend hours analysing every little detail, I also find it quite addictive and become victim to information overload so I tend to get in, get the information I require and get out again.

They are not spending much time on the site which means that they are either finding what they want and clicking straight through to Ebay (perfect) or they are bouncing. You’ll see that 60% are bouncing - for those that don’t know this means 60% of people who visit my site leave pretty much right away (or without looking at another page). So why is this?? Being a niche store whose traffic comes organically, I know that I am selling what they want, so there can only be one reason……..

The BANS program allows you to build country specific ebay niche stores and I have a UK BANS SITE!!!!! Out of 308 people visiting my UK BANS SITE only 81 of those are absolutely 100% potential buyers. As soon as I saw this I kicked myself for ever underestimating the power of the US market for anything! It does not matter to me that I am missing out on visitors from France, Finland, India and god only knows where else……..what matters is that I am missing out on a substantial amount of targeted traffic coming from a country that buys a huge amount online. This certainly explains my next picture anyway.

Now I am not impressed with that, but it only took me a few minutes to recognise the mistake and more importantly it will only take me a few moments to rectify it. I can add some of the long tail keywords from my analytics list which will help pull more organic traffic and, in order to maximise every single visitor I will add a US store to the site aswell. One of the joys of BANS is that it is so quick and easy to use….especially if you, like me, are not exceptionally technical.

Some of you who read The Affiliate Post are using Bans and I know that a number of you stay away but I am keen to hear what you have to say about this site analysis. Do you have any advice based on what you see here? Do you have any questions?? I’ll be doing a follow up post on this and might well use it as a good little experiment!

Thanks for reading, now go comment!

After voicing my opinion about fulltiltblogging on another blog recently, I was challenged by Arron Abber of fulltiltblogging. The challenge was simple…..join his mentoring program and see for myself what he has to offer the mmo blogging community.

Having taken up that challenge I have received no less than six emails in the first 24 hours, none of which have been of any value to me whatsoever. Now it’s not that I did not expect this (I was of course sceptical to start) but it was rightly said by Arron himself that I should see for myself and that if I still thought he was a full of it, I could of course let my readers know.

The requirements (or favors as his email states) to participate in the mentoring program are to write a post linking back to his site and to tell ten people about the program. Well Mr Abber…..this is my post and you can be damn sure I have told more than ten people.

The course, entitled ‘How you can retire on 200 visitors a day’, comes in the form of an ebook; part one which describes the internet lifestyle. Without going in to too much detail it contained 9 pages of , what I can only describe as, fluffing*. Did I learn anything…. No, am I impressed so far…. No, do I look forward to part two….Yes! After having openly challenged me, and many others, to join this program you send me THAT! Surely it must get better.

I’m not going to be close minded on this but I think I can see where its going…….can you????

*FLUFF (noun) Something of little substance or consequence