A discussion of earning with Affiliate Programs, SEO, Wordpress Blogging and General Motivational Ideas for Internet Publishers

I logged into my PepperJam account yesterday and noticed that I’d earned $7 for a PJN affiliate referral. I was rather suprised because the usual bird-dog fee for recruiting new publishers into PJN is $5. My questions were answered when I checked my email and found an announcement from PJN that they were offering some firecracker deal for the month of July.

Here’s the the skinny on PJN’s July incentives :

• Commission Payout Increase - For the entire month of July the Pepperjam Network Publisher Referral Program will pay publishers (aka, affiliates) a flat $7 for every new publisher referral. That’s a 40% increase from our baseline payout!
• $10 New Publisher Sign-Up Bonus - To assist you with recruiting new publishers to Pepperjam Network we are going to allow you to provide them with a $10 Sign-Up Bonus. This means that any new publisher that you refer will be eligible for a $10 bonus just for signing-up for Pepperjam Network. Keep in mind, in order for your referrals to get the sign-up bonus they must become an approved PJN publisher, not have an existing PJN account (spamming will not be tolerated*), and click-through one of the special “$10 Bonus” banners or text links provided to you within the generate links section of the PJN Publisher Referral Program. Referrals sent in from any links other than the special PJN $10 Bonus banners or text links will not be given the bonus.
• Blogger Incentive Program - Bloggers are the lifeblood of the PJN Publisher Referral program and tend to be our biggest supporters and closet friends. As a result, we thought we’d create a sort of “Pay Per Post” incentive program where any PJN publisher / blogger will receive $10 for each post you make (up to 5 per month) that promotes Pepperjam Network or any Pepperjam Network tool. If you are looking for blog ideas check out the Pepperjam Network blog - www.pepperjamnetwork.com/blog. So that our team can track your efforts and eliminate spam please e-mail bloggers [at] pepperjamnetwork [dot] com prior to making your post to gain approval of the topic (i.e. I want to write about Pepperjam Chat or the launch of the PJN Blogger Incentive Program, etc.). BTW - of course you can use your PJN Referral Program affiliate links and make even more money every time you post about Pepperjam Network!

Those are some pretty sweet deals for PepperJam affiliate publishers and especially sweet for those of you lucky enough to be signing up now and getting the $10 bonus.

As stated above, to receive the $10 bonus, you must click through one of the special affiliate banners such as the one below :

Good Luck,
Dave

         

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Program Overview :

NeverblueAds is a Cost per Action (CPA) network that only pays publishers for actions generated as a result of their promotion. If you’re like me and prefer CPA networks that feature a significant amount of lead based programs then NeverblueAds is definitely one network you will want to join.

Publishers are permitted to send traffic directly to most ads on the network. However, there are specific ads which require a publisher built landing page for certain promotional methods. This requirement, along with any other requirements or restrictions, will be outlined in the campaign Terms & Conditions or under the Search Marketing Restrictions for each specific campaign. If a campaign you wish to promote requires that you agree to any Terms & Conditions before gaining access to your links or creatives, please read all terms carefully prior to promoting. This question is often posed by SEM publishers who are under the impression that landing pages are required for Search Engine Marketing. Although landing pages are not a requirement, they can be very helpful for improving your ranking on some search engines.

When you signup you will be required to provide a valid phone number for a NeverblueAds Account Manager to contact and verify your information. On the site it says that they will contact you within a few days of your application but several people report that calling NeverblueAds at 1.877.LEAD.GEN will get your account verified much quicker than if you wait for the call from them. When I setup my account, it was on a Saturday night and on Monday morning I called and spoke to my assigned AM Craig and he had me setup within minutes of calling. I know many people will complain about having to validate a phone number but there is a significant upside to this. Once you’re verified in NeverblueAds, you won’t have to wast much time applying to programs that are manual approval like publishers are required to do in CPA networks such as Commission Junction. The majority of programs in NeverblueAds are automatic approval, however there are a few that require a publisher to agree to Terms & Conditions as previously stated above.

One of the exciting ascpects about NeverblueAds is that they’re garnering a very positive reputation for publisher support. When operating in a professional affiliate network of this calibre it is important that publishers never be intimidated or afraid to contact your AM (Account Manager) regarding any issues or questions you might have.

Payment Details :

The default method of payment is by cheque sent by mail. However, when you contact your AM (Account Manager) you can request payment via Paypal.

Referral Program :

NeverblueAds also has a great referral program that operates on two unique payment structures :

- Get Paid By Signup
  The Per signup referral program where you can get paid right away when you generate a signup. Each successful signup earns you a $2 lead commission.

- Referral Commission Program
  Refer affiliates to NeverblueAds and make money! Earn 2% of what your referrals generate in revenue.

Reporting and Campaign Tracking :

Generating reports about your activities is one of the most important features of any affiliate network. Here again, NeverblueAds has raised the bar and provides state of the art reporting and tracking for publishers. With the click of a mouse, publishers can obtain a report summarizing statistics by campaign, statistics by creative, statistics by date range, statistics by site and advanced reporting that allows you to create a report based on any criteria your heart desires. Reports are available in HTML, CSV, TSV and XLS formats. You can also save any report inside your publishers control panel for future retrieval.

If that’s not enough, NeverblueAds also has a Web Services/API which gives publishers the ability to run and display statistics reports in your current infastructure or tracking system using PHP, Java or .NET technologies.

If you’re ready to partner with one of the most professional affiliate networks and start making money, click the NeverblueAds banner below to join !!

Happy Publishing,
Dave

         

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In reaction to the recent events surrounding the heavy handed move by the Associated Press to impose guidelines (and ridiculous fees) on the exerpted copy in the blogosphere, a new website billing itself as the Unassociated Press is urging bloggers to create a multipartisan buzz and let AP hear all political bloggers loud and clear. All of this is in reaction to the Associated Press issued DMCA takedowns last week to Drudge Retort bloggers for excerpting short snippets of its articles.

This scenario reminds me of the 1976 Sidney Lumet directed film Network, where the main character Howard Beale (portrayed by Peter Finch) aka the “mad prophet of the air-waves” gives a raving revelation about how the media has turned the news into entertainment for their own profit (shhh, don’t tell CNN or MSNBC). The most memorable (and often quoted) part of the film occurs when an obviously enraged Beale launches into one of the most memorable film speeches of our time…

‘I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!’ I want you to get up right now, sit up, go to your windows, open them and stick your head out and yell - ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!… You’ve got to say, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Then we’ll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it:

For those of you who’ve never seen the film “Network”, here’s a clip from YouTube but be warned, although this movie was made over 30 years ago, it just might startle you how relevant the concepts are to our current existence…

If you’re a blogger and have somehow missed the news regarding the AP’s strongarm tactics which rival the RIAA’s nastiness in terms of censoring the internet to maintain their own bottom line, the New York Times carried a story The Associated Press to Set Guidelines for Using Its Articles in Blogs on June 16th which briefly highlighted the AP’s stance on this strange, new initiative of theirs.

The Associated Press, one of the nation’s largest news organizations, said that it will, for the first time, attempt to define clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt without infringing on The A.P.’s copyright. Last week, The A.P. took an unusually strict position against quotation of its work, sending a letter to the Drudge Retort asking it to remove seven items that contained quotations from A.P. articles ranging from 39 to 79 words. On Friday, The A.P. issued a statement defending its action, saying it was going to challenge blog postings containing excerpts of A.P. articles “when we feel the use is more reproduction than reference, or when others are encouraged to cut and paste.” An A.P. spokesman declined Friday to further explain the association’s position.

Of course, this ignorant action by the AP has set off fireworks across the blogosphere with bloggers such as Daily Kos openly defying the AP’s announcement of a new fee schedule called the Excerpt for Web Use Policy that bloggers have to pay to cite text from AP articles. The fees are as follows:

• 5-25 words = $12.50
• 26-50 words = $17.50
• 51-100 words = $25.00
• 101-250 words = $50.00
• 251 words and up = $100.00

If you’re scratching your head and still don’t believe all of this nonsense. Maybe it’s some sort of sick, twisted, latent April Fool’s day prank, have a look at the Associated Press Content Services webpage where these morons actually expect bloggers to fill out a form with a cut and paste of the text fragment you want to excerpt along with the url where you will be publishing the exerpt on.

Have these dinosaurs at the AP even realized that the majority of bloggers are using software to publish their articles and that the url of their story is not fully formed until the moment after the blogger presses the “publish” button ? How on earth would a blogger be able to submit their url they intend to use an excerpt on before they’ve published their story?

Not to mention, what is an AP writer who borrows content from a blog for use in an AP syndicated article supposed to do about compensating the blogger who initially broke the story? It’s a well known fact that, more often that not these days, bloggers (and YouTube users) are breaking news BEFORE the AP writers can prostitute it to their streetcorner pimps known as newspapers. How many times have we seen a story pop up on Digg or Reddit only to see it coming across CNN or MSNBC’s air-waves hours (or days in the case of print media) after it was already “old news” on the internet.

Is the Associated Press jealous that they have been made obsolete by the social phenomenon known as blogging?

         

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You might be wondering why I’ve chosen to use such a strange title for today’s article but this article is intended for ClickBank Merchants who do not want to have their downloadable products stolen. How can this happen ? It’s very simple. All a potential hacker has to do is go to Google and search for “A Charge From Clickbank Or Clkbank” and they will see a number of order confirmation pages complete with downloadable products.

The problem isn’t Google’s search engine spiders nor is it with ClickBanks setup. The actual problem lies with ClickBank Merchants using the Alexa Toolbar or the Google Toolbar when they are testing their sales confirmation pages. The problem can also arise from legitimate purhasers using either of these toolbars when they confirm the purchase of a product. ClickBank requires merchants to show the text ‘you will see a charge from clickbank on your bank statement’ on your confirmation page to let the purchaser know the charge on their credit card is valid. This also means all a hacker has to do to steal your hard work is search for that specific phrase on Alexa or Google. While many advanced ClickBank vendors protect their confirmation/download page with a login or choose to send the product via email, many merchants are still leaving themselves open to the simplest theft.

In order for a merchant to protect himself/herself from this basic hack, all that would need to be done it create an image with the text ‘you will see a charge from clickbank on your bank statement’ instead of using plain text. You can also add ‘NO FOLLOW, NO INDEX’ META tag to all of your confirmation/download pages.

Hopefully this information will be helpful to any novice ClickBank Merchants, although a few hackers might hate me for spilling the beans.

Happy Publishing,
Dave

         

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