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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TNX.net is a relatively new program that pools advertisers and publishers to aggregate advertising links into publisher’s websites. With TNX.net, you’ll be able to sell advertising links on every page of your website, instead of just the main page. The more pages you have indexed by the system, the more money you will make. When you add the TNX code to your website and submit it to the system, a spider will go out and index all of the pages on your website and disperse ads across the pages. Each time an ad is place and viewd on your site, you earn TNX points which can be redeemed for advertising in the system or for cash value. The current value of TNX points is .70USD for 1000 points. It doesn’t take very long to build up thousands of points if you have a site with a lot of pages that has reasonable activity. The best part about this program is that you earn residual income withouthaving to do anything more than login to your account and sell your TNX points back t the system. Payment are made in Paypal and usually are funded within 72 hours.

From their site, here is a description of their service…

TNX.net combines the benefits of Contextual Advertising, Text Link Brokers and Relevant Exchange of permanent non-reciprocal text links. You’ll be able to sell links on every page of your website, instead of just the main page. Automatically sell links to thousands of advertisers. Receive payouts every month in advance, via PayPal, Check, Wire, or any other applicable payment method. Our system is Secure and Confidential: No public list of users. All sales are automated.

While it’s a well-known fact that Google has been cracking down on buying and selling text links, many of these affiliate programs are still bustling with business. Possibly the main reason is many webmasters are choosing to ignore Google’s guidelines and manage their own websites the way they want to manage them, not the way that Google tells them to manage them. Essentially, it’s fostering a community that is no longer dependent upon Google PageRank and placement in Google search. For many webmasters who have no rankings and are merely looking at text links as an advertising medium, or for webmasters who are unaware of Matt Cutts and his grandstanding on using the “nofollow” tag on advertising, the answer is quite clear, that bloggers and webmasters alike are growing tired of being dominated by sponsored listings, black hat SEO’s and the Google Dance.

With TNX.net, we’ve found them particularly useful to monetize forums. Hand in hand with Kontera Content-Link, TNX.net can add value for most forum owners becuse the text links are easy to slip into a forum context and are virtually undetectable from normal content.

For publishers interested in buying advertising links in the TNX system, you can automatically place millions of non-reciprocal links to your site and your links will be placed on relevant pages (of which you’ll be able to choose it’s quantity and quality). Additinally, SEO specialists and consultants get discounts up to 50%.

If you’re interested in joining this program, click the banner below to sign up.

Happy Publishing,
Dave

         

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Whether you’re new to affiliate marketing or if you’re in the process of learning the ropes and making your first returns, there’s one thing that everyone will learn sooner or later. That one thing is that there is no “Get Rich Quick” solution or an easy path to success and prosperity in affiliate marketing. Undoubtedly you’ve seen heavily marketed program or systems with catch phrases such as “the easiest money you will ever make” or “make money on autopilot”, suggesting that you can work mere minutes per day while taking in hundreds, or even thousands of dollars. The real truth is very few people ever succeed using the techniques offered in these exaggerated programs or systems.

Very few affiliate marketers actually earn the kind of money they claim to be making in their ads or on their blogs. Their claims of huge earnings are not necessarily false but their suggestions that you can easily achieve the same results by following their techniques are far fetched. No two affiliate marketers are exactly the same and much as there is no sure-fire way to make money on the Stock Market or by trading forex, there is no sure-fire method to achieving success in affiliate marketing. All opportunities take a great deal of trial and error which generates learning experience but the process takes not only time, it takes blood, sweat and tears.

Four Tips for Success

Tip #1 - Build a Mailing List. - I know this tip seems so simple but if you intend to make a living in affiliate marketing, it is absolutely essential that you start building lists as soon as possible. All experienced marketers have mailing lists with tens or even hundreds of thousands of customers on them. Notice, I said “All” in the last sentence. When a new product or service becomes available, the experienced marketer can type up a single e-mail sales pitch and have it delivered to 50,000 people or more within an hour. Everyone else has to try to sell the product by writing articles or by trying to attract paying customers to their website.

Tip #2 - Network, Network, Network. - I can’t tell you how important networking is for success in any business and how especially essential it is for affiliate marketing. Networking is the fundamental of all marketing and no matter how much some people will deny it, there is no escaping the inevitable so the sooner you lose your inhibitions and learn to put yourself out in front of your pitch, the sooner you’ll be seeing success. The internet offers an incredible array of networking opportunities where you never have to even meet people face to face, but if you do find yourself in situations with real, live people, always carry your business cards and hand them out. You never know when you will find a stream of revenue from simply handing out a business card.

Tip #3 - Never Give Up. - I’m sure everyone is aware of the old adage “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.” but how many of us actually live by that adage? If you’ve answered that question honestly, and your answer was that you live by that adage, then you are probably in the successful group. Nothing is accomplished by making a quick start and a quick exit. Those who end up making a living while living their dreams have had to fail many times before they see their first real success. Granted there are those who succeed immediately but they are highly unlikely to maintain success over a long period of time and often find trouble trying to duplicate or replicate success. Which brings up tip number four.

Tip #4 - Duplicate and Replicate. - This tip is the most important for continuing success over a long period of time. Once you’ve already found something that works, duplicate and replicate it. If it works one time, chances are that it will work to some degree every time you deploy it. In standard business where you might have to maintain inventory, do shipping and billing this tip would not be necessarily applicable, but in the world of affilate marketing, this is the most essential practice and will allow you to cover all bases and open up revenue streams beyond your wildest dreams.

Anybody who is interested in affiliate marketing shouldn’t be discouraged by the notion of hard work and should welcome the lessons to be learned through exploring the ethic. In time, one can create a large network of profitable Websites and a large mailing list of consumers who are ready to buy upon your recommendation. All of these things are achievable, but they take time and effort. In spite of all the advertisements that litter the Web making claims such as “printing money”, “autopilot profits” or being buried under an “avalanche of cash”, most people who make money through affiliate marketing do it the old fashioned way - they work for it.

Cheers,
Dave

         

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Sometimes you just gotta love the internet for all the half-witted amusement it conjures up. Take for example the current, Battle of the Bloggers, Showdown of the SEO’s, Fight for the Feed-Readers, Nerd War between Jeremy Schoemaker of (Shoemoney.com) and John Chow of (JohnChow.com). Both are waging a battle to see who can subscribe the most new RSS feed readers in the month of October. Shoemoney is giving away at least $13,000 in prizes to randomly chosen readers in an effort to surpass John Chow, who has put up an array of prizes as well. It appears, at the moment, John Chow has the lead.

Something strikes me as ultimately nerdy that two men in their mid-thirties would engage in such a childish contest but given the history of both bloggers and their guerilla marketing tactics, linkbaiting and blatant self-promotion it’s no suprise that this little contest is having a viral effect and is creating a stir amongst other bloggers who are watching the showdown.

Even though I don’t put much stock in Feedburner stats because they are easily faked I’ll throw my vote in for John Chow because I find his blog very useful on occasion. I’ve not been a fan of Shoemoney’s blog since Jeremy’s most nefarious linkbait Dmoz Extortion and his subsequent lack of following up with adequate proof of his accusation. Not to mention Shoemoney was the creator of the biggest affiliate flop of the year, Auction-Ads.

Cheers,
Dave

         

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