You know you have a cushy job when you can make money even when you're not working. Especially when you make LOTS of money when you're not working.
It's always hard for me to tell people what I do. They ask about my hours and how much I work. I sometimes say that I work about 3 hours a day. But sometimes I say that I work every hour of every day--24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Both are true.
I sit down and get some work done for about 3 hours most weekdays. Usually in the afternoon while my kids are in school. I do all kinds of things, but it's mostly creative work. Honestly, it's not all that easy. I'm the one coming up with new ideas to make money. I don't report my hours or punch a clock. I don't have someone telling me what has to be done next. That is both a blessing and a curse because I'm the boss and I have to perform, or I don't make money.
I love setting my own schedule, but I have to be responsible and keep myself on task. No one else is going to do it.
What do I do? I do Internet Marketing. Basically, I help people find what they are looking for on the Internet. Google and I love each other because we both have the same purpose--help the user find what he or she needs to find. Google and I cooperate a lot to give the user the best, most relevant experience possible.
Doing business on the Internet is awesome!
If someone is looking for a great way to work at home, I help them find it. I went out into cyber space and evaluated a lot of the work at home programs and posted my reviews on the ones that I found to be the best. The user appreciates the research I did. They come looking for information and if they find an ad that they think might help them, they click that ad and I get paid.
What a great business!
My computer was at home working for me while I was at the movie with my wife last Monday night. We came home from the movie that night and I checked my numbers. I had made over $300 during the 3 hours we were gone! That was a bit unusual for me, but it still happened! We were elated. We decided we would go to the movies more on Monday nights!
And the great thing is that the whole time I was just helping other people find what they were looking for on the Internet. What a great job!
If you want to know how to get started on a job like this, check out the opportunity that Profit Lance has to offer. That's how I got my start in this exciting business.
One more caveat to this little tale. I just checked my stats and I made 60 dollars while I wrote this article. Did I say I LOVE this business?! I know this sounds too good to be true, but it really happened.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Clickbank Explained for The Newbie
The largest reseller of digital products on the Internet is Clickbank. The company has become very popular in the affiliate marketing industry and for many affiliates has become a main source of income. Below I have wrote a mini guide to clickbank to help affiliates and vendors increase their sales. You might find vendors that would even charge for this kind of information.
What Is Clickbank?
Clickbank (CB) is a payment processor with a built-in affiliate program. The company developed into a huge affiliate network allowing vendors to tap into their affiliate sales force almost instantly. CB specializes in selling digital products like ebooks, software, and many other downloadable products.
Benefits For Vendors:
Quick and easy set up with their payment processing services
Access to over 100,000 affiliates searching for products to promote
Free listing in their marketplace
Built-in affiliate program feature
Automated transactions and refund processing
Accepts all major credit cards and Paypal
Bi-weekly payouts by check or wire transfer
Recurring payments
Benefits For Affiliates:
Access to thousands of products to promote
Automated commissions
Tracking feature to track multiple campaigns
Fast affiliate link creation
Checks are sent on time twice per month
Detailed statistics
High commission payouts (up to 75% per sale)
Easy to setup
ClickBank Affiliate Guide:
First of all, you need to set up an account with CB. To sign up with clickbank just go to their homepage at clickbank.com and click on the sign up link. Fill out the registration form and confirm your email address to activate your account.
Next, you will need to find products to promote and develop your business strategy. Mainly affiliates promote clickbank products using Google Adwords. You can also build a niche website and get it to rank on top of the search engines to reveive free traffic. SEO requires some skills and more time is needed to start generating a decent income. Using Google Adwords you can tap into instant targeted traffic and see profits the same day.
If you want to learn more about SEO then read Killer Niche Marketing ebook.
So how do you find profitable clickbank products? Well, CB lists all their products within the marketplace by popularity. That means the more sales of the product the higher it will rank within the Marketplace.
CB also gives you data like on the screenshot below:
[$/sale] - Tells you how much you could earn per transaction resulted from your promotions ( this amount is an avarage after refunds)
[%/sale] - Tells you what is the percentage that the vendor pays out to the affiliate
[%refd] - Shows the percentage of sales made by affiliates ( you can tell if the product is being promoted by affiliates or if the vendor makes most of the sales)
[grav] - Shows the gravity of the product. The clickbank gravity tracks all the sales made.
Clickbank doesn't reveal exactly how they calculate that number.
Here are different strategies that clickbank affiliates use with Adwords:
1. Bidding On The Specific Product Name - With this method you are trying to monetize on the traffic generated by other affiliates. When a specific product makes a lot of sales it becomes popular on the Internet and a lot of people will search for its name on all major search engines. This allows you to tap into highly targeted visitors that are ready to buy. Cost per click could be high if the product gets a lot of searches.
2. Using Massive Relevant Keyword Lists - By utilizing this method you could generate a lot of cheap traffic. The key to making it work is to generate a lot of keyword phrases and track which ones make the most sales. I highly recommend Keyword Elite software to create your lists of keywords. You could also try the free
Keywordsuggestion tool from Google.
3. Creating Site-Targeted Campaigns on Adwords - With this method you can actually tell Google on what webpages you want your ads to appear. This is not an easy way to drive traffic. If your CTR (clickthrough ratio) is not high enough you could pay for the impressions and not get any clicks.
How to maximize your profits:
Making money with clickbank used to be a lot easier just a few years ago. You could have just gone to Adwords and set up a direct linking campaign and watch the sales coming through, but not anymore. Clickbank has become so popular that it developed a huge competition among affiliates.
Google actually is not allowing the same affiliate page more than once on the search results anymore. So if there was another clickbank affiliate promoting the same product that you are then you would have to start a bidding war.
Don't worry, smart affiliates already figured out a way to go around this. You see, you need to develop landing pages for the product you want to promote. You could provide a detailed review of the product and bonus if the visitor makes a purchase through your clickbank hoplink.
Super affiliates go even one step further and capture their visitor's name and email address to follow up with them in the future if the sale wasn't made the first time the visitor went to the product's salespage.
Since Adwords became so competitive you could also place Adsense ads on your landing page to monetize on those who will never buy the product, but might click on your Adsense ad. This way you could lower your advertising cost.
Another thing you should consider is that the more popular clickbank product is the higher chance that your cookie will get overwritten by another affiliate.
What you should watch for when choosing a clickbank product
I have to say that there are a lot of bad products in the CB marketplace as well. Some of them don't even convert. You don't want to choose a product with a sales page that can't convert your traffic into sales, otherwise you could waste a lot of money on advertising.
This product is one of the best selling products for newbies on clickbank
Make sure that the salespage doesn't have an affiliate signup link. Believe it or not, but people can buy through their own affiliate links and steal your commissions. If the vendor has a link to the affiliate sign up page your potential customer could remove your clickbank ID and insert his/her own.
This of course doesn't apply to all the niches. Mostly products that sell in the "Business To Business", "Marketing & Ads", and "Money & Employment" categories. If you pay for traffic then you should definitely watch for the affiliate sign up link on vendor's salespage.
Clickbank Vendor Guide:
CB attracts a lot of merchants due to its huge affiliate network. If the product is good and converts then you could easily dominate the marketplace in your niche, which would also attract a lot of affiliates. Clickbank charges $49.95 one time fee to activate your account for selling. CB also charges fees per each transaction which is $1 + 7.5%. This actually might seem very high compared to other payment processors, but the fact that clickbank has a lot of affiliates makes it not an issue.
How to start selling through clickbank:
It's easy! All you have to do is sign up for an account and submit a product for approval. Once CB approves your product you will need to pay the activation fee and you are ready to start selling.
Before submitting the product for approval, you must have your salespage ready and the thank you page. Clickbank might also review your product itself to check if it complies with their TOS. Also make a test purchase to check if everything works correctly.
Next you should categorize your product. Simply choose what categories you want your product to be listed in.
How to attract affiliates:
First of all, you should make your listing headline catch attention of the affiliates browsing through the marketplace. You could also remove the affiliate sign up link from your salespage if your product is related to affiliate marketing. That's because a lot of your customers are aware of how clickbank works and might buy through their own hoplinks.
I also suggest that you cloak the order link, because it displays your vendor ID. It's too easy for people to generate their own clickbank link if they know your vendor ID.
Test your salespage for conversions. The higher your conversions the more affiliates your product will attract, which of course will make you a lot more sales.
Advertise your affiliate program in all major affiliate directories. Go to Google and search for websites where you could list your affiliate program.
Participate in affiliate marketing forums and network with other affiliates. You would be surprised how well this works.
How to increase your sales by motivating your affiliates
You could set up a contest once per month, and offer prizes for top performing affiliates. I suggest to increase the commission payouts to 75%. Capture your affiliate's name and email address to communicate with them. Send out announcements to get them motivated.
What Is Clickbank?
Clickbank (CB) is a payment processor with a built-in affiliate program. The company developed into a huge affiliate network allowing vendors to tap into their affiliate sales force almost instantly. CB specializes in selling digital products like ebooks, software, and many other downloadable products.
Benefits For Vendors:
Quick and easy set up with their payment processing services
Access to over 100,000 affiliates searching for products to promote
Free listing in their marketplace
Built-in affiliate program feature
Automated transactions and refund processing
Accepts all major credit cards and Paypal
Bi-weekly payouts by check or wire transfer
Recurring payments
Benefits For Affiliates:
Access to thousands of products to promote
Automated commissions
Tracking feature to track multiple campaigns
Fast affiliate link creation
Checks are sent on time twice per month
Detailed statistics
High commission payouts (up to 75% per sale)
Easy to setup
ClickBank Affiliate Guide:
First of all, you need to set up an account with CB. To sign up with clickbank just go to their homepage at clickbank.com and click on the sign up link. Fill out the registration form and confirm your email address to activate your account.
Next, you will need to find products to promote and develop your business strategy. Mainly affiliates promote clickbank products using Google Adwords. You can also build a niche website and get it to rank on top of the search engines to reveive free traffic. SEO requires some skills and more time is needed to start generating a decent income. Using Google Adwords you can tap into instant targeted traffic and see profits the same day.
If you want to learn more about SEO then read Killer Niche Marketing ebook.
So how do you find profitable clickbank products? Well, CB lists all their products within the marketplace by popularity. That means the more sales of the product the higher it will rank within the Marketplace.
CB also gives you data like on the screenshot below:
[$/sale] - Tells you how much you could earn per transaction resulted from your promotions ( this amount is an avarage after refunds)
[%/sale] - Tells you what is the percentage that the vendor pays out to the affiliate
[%refd] - Shows the percentage of sales made by affiliates ( you can tell if the product is being promoted by affiliates or if the vendor makes most of the sales)
[grav] - Shows the gravity of the product. The clickbank gravity tracks all the sales made.
Clickbank doesn't reveal exactly how they calculate that number.
Here are different strategies that clickbank affiliates use with Adwords:
1. Bidding On The Specific Product Name - With this method you are trying to monetize on the traffic generated by other affiliates. When a specific product makes a lot of sales it becomes popular on the Internet and a lot of people will search for its name on all major search engines. This allows you to tap into highly targeted visitors that are ready to buy. Cost per click could be high if the product gets a lot of searches.
2. Using Massive Relevant Keyword Lists - By utilizing this method you could generate a lot of cheap traffic. The key to making it work is to generate a lot of keyword phrases and track which ones make the most sales. I highly recommend Keyword Elite software to create your lists of keywords. You could also try the free
Keywordsuggestion tool from Google.
3. Creating Site-Targeted Campaigns on Adwords - With this method you can actually tell Google on what webpages you want your ads to appear. This is not an easy way to drive traffic. If your CTR (clickthrough ratio) is not high enough you could pay for the impressions and not get any clicks.
How to maximize your profits:
Making money with clickbank used to be a lot easier just a few years ago. You could have just gone to Adwords and set up a direct linking campaign and watch the sales coming through, but not anymore. Clickbank has become so popular that it developed a huge competition among affiliates.
Google actually is not allowing the same affiliate page more than once on the search results anymore. So if there was another clickbank affiliate promoting the same product that you are then you would have to start a bidding war.
Don't worry, smart affiliates already figured out a way to go around this. You see, you need to develop landing pages for the product you want to promote. You could provide a detailed review of the product and bonus if the visitor makes a purchase through your clickbank hoplink.
Super affiliates go even one step further and capture their visitor's name and email address to follow up with them in the future if the sale wasn't made the first time the visitor went to the product's salespage.
Since Adwords became so competitive you could also place Adsense ads on your landing page to monetize on those who will never buy the product, but might click on your Adsense ad. This way you could lower your advertising cost.
Another thing you should consider is that the more popular clickbank product is the higher chance that your cookie will get overwritten by another affiliate.
What you should watch for when choosing a clickbank product
I have to say that there are a lot of bad products in the CB marketplace as well. Some of them don't even convert. You don't want to choose a product with a sales page that can't convert your traffic into sales, otherwise you could waste a lot of money on advertising.
This product is one of the best selling products for newbies on clickbank
Make sure that the salespage doesn't have an affiliate signup link. Believe it or not, but people can buy through their own affiliate links and steal your commissions. If the vendor has a link to the affiliate sign up page your potential customer could remove your clickbank ID and insert his/her own.
This of course doesn't apply to all the niches. Mostly products that sell in the "Business To Business", "Marketing & Ads", and "Money & Employment" categories. If you pay for traffic then you should definitely watch for the affiliate sign up link on vendor's salespage.
Clickbank Vendor Guide:
CB attracts a lot of merchants due to its huge affiliate network. If the product is good and converts then you could easily dominate the marketplace in your niche, which would also attract a lot of affiliates. Clickbank charges $49.95 one time fee to activate your account for selling. CB also charges fees per each transaction which is $1 + 7.5%. This actually might seem very high compared to other payment processors, but the fact that clickbank has a lot of affiliates makes it not an issue.
How to start selling through clickbank:
It's easy! All you have to do is sign up for an account and submit a product for approval. Once CB approves your product you will need to pay the activation fee and you are ready to start selling.
Before submitting the product for approval, you must have your salespage ready and the thank you page. Clickbank might also review your product itself to check if it complies with their TOS. Also make a test purchase to check if everything works correctly.
Next you should categorize your product. Simply choose what categories you want your product to be listed in.
How to attract affiliates:
First of all, you should make your listing headline catch attention of the affiliates browsing through the marketplace. You could also remove the affiliate sign up link from your salespage if your product is related to affiliate marketing. That's because a lot of your customers are aware of how clickbank works and might buy through their own hoplinks.
I also suggest that you cloak the order link, because it displays your vendor ID. It's too easy for people to generate their own clickbank link if they know your vendor ID.
Test your salespage for conversions. The higher your conversions the more affiliates your product will attract, which of course will make you a lot more sales.
Advertise your affiliate program in all major affiliate directories. Go to Google and search for websites where you could list your affiliate program.
Participate in affiliate marketing forums and network with other affiliates. You would be surprised how well this works.
How to increase your sales by motivating your affiliates
You could set up a contest once per month, and offer prizes for top performing affiliates. I suggest to increase the commission payouts to 75%. Capture your affiliate's name and email address to communicate with them. Send out announcements to get them motivated.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Blogging To The Bank
I know that you may have heard about people making money blogging and promoting affiliate programs. Actually in my opinion this is probably the easiest way to start making money online as an affiliate. Blogs get into search engines fast because they deliver fresh content. Search engine spiders will visit your blog on daily basis if you keep posting new content. I have just read this new ebook about how to make money blogging written by Rob Benwell who is college dropout making over $500 per day using the power of blogs. It's pretty amazing what he has revealed in the ebook.
I have learned some great techniques that will increase my profits with my own blogs by 900%. Blogging To The Bank ebook is very simple, short, and to the point blueprint to get you started making money with blogs. I don't think you can even fail with this one. It is so simple that anyone can do it. Everything is written in a nice step by step format for you to follow. I can guarantee you that if you follow Rob's directions that are covered in the Blogging To The Bank ebook you will see money coming in your first week. Below are just a few things that you will learn from Rob.
You Will Learn:
Simple technique that ensures that your blogging venture is a success
Secret about choosing between Blogger blogs and Wordpress
Which free software you need to get that will help you succeed
Learn about secret backdoor to quick search engine traffic
How you can start making money today without a product or website of your own
How to get search engine traffic to your blogs in under 10 days
Some good seo tips
I seriously think that if you are a beginner and need some quick money fast then this ebook is for you. It will get you started right away. Some of my friends I know started making money within the first 5 days!
Blogging To The Bank is the easiest way to affiliate marketing profits period. Check it out for yourself because you have nothing to loose. Rob offers 60 day money back guarantee so if for some reason you don't like it, then simply return it for 100% full refund.
I have learned some great techniques that will increase my profits with my own blogs by 900%. Blogging To The Bank ebook is very simple, short, and to the point blueprint to get you started making money with blogs. I don't think you can even fail with this one. It is so simple that anyone can do it. Everything is written in a nice step by step format for you to follow. I can guarantee you that if you follow Rob's directions that are covered in the Blogging To The Bank ebook you will see money coming in your first week. Below are just a few things that you will learn from Rob.
You Will Learn:
Simple technique that ensures that your blogging venture is a success
Secret about choosing between Blogger blogs and Wordpress
Which free software you need to get that will help you succeed
Learn about secret backdoor to quick search engine traffic
How you can start making money today without a product or website of your own
How to get search engine traffic to your blogs in under 10 days
Some good seo tips
I seriously think that if you are a beginner and need some quick money fast then this ebook is for you. It will get you started right away. Some of my friends I know started making money within the first 5 days!
Blogging To The Bank is the easiest way to affiliate marketing profits period. Check it out for yourself because you have nothing to loose. Rob offers 60 day money back guarantee so if for some reason you don't like it, then simply return it for 100% full refund.
So What Is Affiliate Marketing Anyway?
So What is affiliate marketing?
You, the affiliate, via your website, or any other means drive traffic to a merchant’s site. The merchant may be selling a product eg DVDs or e books, or they may be trying to sign on clients eg a bank. The merchant pays you a commission once the visitor has completed the desired action eg bought a product or completed a registration form
The beauty of this is, once your site is up and running, you can continue to earn money from it whether you are in bed, on holiday or sleeping. This is called passive income. It is passive because after the initial effort of researching your chosen market, building a website and setting up your campaign, you can continue to earn from this with very minimal day to day input in your campaign.
Say, for example, a company manufactures Product X and that company has a website and affiliate program. You like the look of the product and are interested in promoting it. You build a content rich website about some related matter, apply to the company’s affiliate program and get an affiliate link.
The link given to you is unique to you and contains your affiliate ID [a number or your affiliate name]. The link allows the merchant to track sales generated from your visitors so that you get your commission for sales generated via that link.
Place this link on your site and drive traffic to it. Every time someone clicks on that link on your website and then buys product X, you get a commission.
It gets better! With some reputable affiliate programs, the person does not actually have to buy during that click. So say they landed on your website, clicked on your affiliate link to product X, looked at it then clicked off without purchasing. A week later, they log in directly to product X’s site and make the purchase, you still get your commission! This is because the merchant's site installs a cookie on the surfer’s computer.
Note of caution: Cookies vary in their duration so read the companies affiliate agreement carefully to find out the life span of their cookie. A 3 month cookie is more desirable that a one week cookie, for example.
The buzz word here is Content Rich Website. What is in it for you?
You do not need to develop your own product. You make money promoting other peoples product.
At affiliate marketing Introduction we advice that you eventually develop your own product
You have no responsibility for after sales service for the product. This is all handled by the merchant
You do not deal with shipping or storage or packaging or inventories. Yes, you guessed it right, the merchant deals with all that also
You can promote one product, several products, drop a product if you are not satisfied with it. You are not tied in to any product
What is in it for the merchant?
More exposure
Cheap advertisement
What affiliate Marketing is not
Affiliate marketing is not a get rich quick business.
It requires a lot of hard work and determination.
As you get involved with affiliate marketing you will come across a lot of products that claim to teach you how to make hundreds of dollars in 15 mins. Beware of the hype!! The reality for most of us marketers is that it takes a few months of hard work to start making a substantial income.
So if it takes so much hard work and dedication, why affiliate marketing? Imagine for a second if you continue in your current job [Just Over Broke] for the next 10 years, will you earn enough to be financially free for the rest of your life?
Now if you find a legal business that if worked at for a few months or years has the potential to make you financially free for the rest of your life, would you not grasp the opportunity?
If you would like to see the program that I use to make a nice living online Click here.
You, the affiliate, via your website, or any other means drive traffic to a merchant’s site. The merchant may be selling a product eg DVDs or e books, or they may be trying to sign on clients eg a bank. The merchant pays you a commission once the visitor has completed the desired action eg bought a product or completed a registration form
The beauty of this is, once your site is up and running, you can continue to earn money from it whether you are in bed, on holiday or sleeping. This is called passive income. It is passive because after the initial effort of researching your chosen market, building a website and setting up your campaign, you can continue to earn from this with very minimal day to day input in your campaign.
Say, for example, a company manufactures Product X and that company has a website and affiliate program. You like the look of the product and are interested in promoting it. You build a content rich website about some related matter, apply to the company’s affiliate program and get an affiliate link.
The link given to you is unique to you and contains your affiliate ID [a number or your affiliate name]. The link allows the merchant to track sales generated from your visitors so that you get your commission for sales generated via that link.
Place this link on your site and drive traffic to it. Every time someone clicks on that link on your website and then buys product X, you get a commission.
It gets better! With some reputable affiliate programs, the person does not actually have to buy during that click. So say they landed on your website, clicked on your affiliate link to product X, looked at it then clicked off without purchasing. A week later, they log in directly to product X’s site and make the purchase, you still get your commission! This is because the merchant's site installs a cookie on the surfer’s computer.
Note of caution: Cookies vary in their duration so read the companies affiliate agreement carefully to find out the life span of their cookie. A 3 month cookie is more desirable that a one week cookie, for example.
The buzz word here is Content Rich Website. What is in it for you?
You do not need to develop your own product. You make money promoting other peoples product.
At affiliate marketing Introduction we advice that you eventually develop your own product
You have no responsibility for after sales service for the product. This is all handled by the merchant
You do not deal with shipping or storage or packaging or inventories. Yes, you guessed it right, the merchant deals with all that also
You can promote one product, several products, drop a product if you are not satisfied with it. You are not tied in to any product
What is in it for the merchant?
More exposure
Cheap advertisement
What affiliate Marketing is not
Affiliate marketing is not a get rich quick business.
It requires a lot of hard work and determination.
As you get involved with affiliate marketing you will come across a lot of products that claim to teach you how to make hundreds of dollars in 15 mins. Beware of the hype!! The reality for most of us marketers is that it takes a few months of hard work to start making a substantial income.
So if it takes so much hard work and dedication, why affiliate marketing? Imagine for a second if you continue in your current job [Just Over Broke] for the next 10 years, will you earn enough to be financially free for the rest of your life?
Now if you find a legal business that if worked at for a few months or years has the potential to make you financially free for the rest of your life, would you not grasp the opportunity?
If you would like to see the program that I use to make a nice living online Click here.
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