Amarnath Online

Directories

1. Submit your site to 200 cheesy paid directories (averaging $15 a pop) that send zero traffic and sell offtopic run-of-site links.

Forum Spam

2. List 100 Web sites in your signature file.

3. Exclusively post only when you can add links to your sites in the post area.

4. Post nothing but “me too” posts to build your post count. Use in combination with a link-rich signature file.

5. Ask questions about who provides the best [WIDGET], where [WIDGET] is an item that you sell. From the same IP address create another forum account and answer your own question raving about how great your own site is.

6. As a new member to various forums, ask the same question at 20 different forums on the same day.

7. Post on forum threads that are years outdated exclusively to link to your semi-related website.

8. Sign up for profiles on forums you never intend on commenting on.

Blog Spam

9. Instead of signing blog comments with your real name, sign them with spammy keywords.

10. Start marketing your own site hard on your first blog comment. Add no value to the comment section. Mention nothing other than you recently posted on the same subject at _____ and everyone should read it. Carpet bomb dozens of blogs with this message.

11. Say nothing unique or relevant to the post at hand. Make them assume an automated bot hit their comments.

12. Better yet, use automated bots to hit their comments. List at least 30 links in each post. Try to see if you can hit any servers hard enough to make them crash.

13. Send pings to everyone talking about a subject. In your aggregation post, state nothing of interest. Only state that other people are talking about the topic.

14. Don’t even link to any of the sites you are pinging. Send them pings from posts that do not even reference them.

Garbage Link Exchanges

15. Send out link exchange requests mentioning PageRank.

16. Send link exchange emails which look like an automated bot sent them (little or no customization, no personal names, etc.).

17. Send link exchange requests to Matt Cutts, Tim Mayer, Tim Converse, Google, and Yahoo!.

18. Get links from nearly-hidden sections of websites listing hundreds or thousands of off topic sites.

Spam People in Person

19. Go to webmaster conferences and rave about how rich you are, and how your affiliates make millions doing nothing.

20. Instead of asking people what their name is, ask what their URL is. As soon as you get their URL ask if they have linked to your site yet and if not, why not.

Be Persistant

21. Send a webmaster an alert to every post you make on your website.

22. Send a webmaster an email every single day asking for them to link to your website.

23. Send references to your site to the same webmaster from dozens of different email accounts (you sly dog).

24. If the above do not work to get you a free link, offer them $1 for their time. Increase your offer by a dollar each day until they give in.

Getting Links by Being a Jerk

25. Emulate the RIAA. When in doubt, file a lawsuit against a 12-year-old girl. (Failing that, obtain bad press by any means necessary.)

26. Steal content published by well known names. Strip out any attribution. Aggregate many popular channels and just wait for them to start talking about you.

27. Send thousands of fake referrals at every top ranking Web site, guaranteeing larger boobs, a 14-inch penis (is that length or girth?), or millions of dollars in free, unclaimed money.

28. Wear your URL on your t-shirt. Walk or drive your car while talking on a cell phone or reading a book. When you run into other people say “excuse you, jerk”.

29. Spill coffee on people or find creative ways to insult people to coax them into linking at your site.

30. Sue other webmasters for deep linking to your site. Well, this is more “hilariously dumb” than it is a “bad linking practice”.

Every one in this internet world will have a question on how to search in search engines in order to find different things. So I think it’s time I gather up some info for all of you so you can read a bit about this issue. By researching online, found some good sources. My main point is to help YOU, my visitor, to know and understand the process called Search Engine Optimization. But before learning how to optimize for a certain keyword, we have to know how to search that keyword in search engines.

Be Specific

Before learning math, it’s a helpful reminder that the more specific your search is, the more likely you will find what you want. Don’t be afraid to tell a search engine exactly what you are looking for. For example, if you want information about Windows 98 bugs, search for “Windows 98 bugs,” not “Windows.” Or even better, search for exactly what the problem is: “I can’t install a USB device in Windows 98,” for example. You’ll be surprised at how often this works.

Using The + Symbol to Add

Sometimes, you want to make sure that a search engine finds pages that have all the words you enter, not just some of them. The + symbol lets you do this. For example, imagine you want to find pages that have references to both President Clinton and Kenneth Starr on the same page. You could search this way:

+clinton +starr

Only pages that contain both words would appear in your results. Here are some other examples:

+windows +98 +bugs

That would find pages that have all three of the words on them, helpful if you wanted to narrow down a search to Windows 98 bugs, rather than on Windows 98 in general.

+star +trek +insurrection

That would get you pages about Star Trek that also specifically mention “Insurrection,” the title of a Star Trek film. The + symbol is especially helpful when you do a search and then find yourself overwhelmed with information. Imagine that you wanted to reserve a camping space in California’s Yosemite National Park. You might start out simply searching like this:

yosemite

If so, chances are, you’ll probably get too many off-target results. Instead, try searching for all the words you know must appear on the type of page you’re looking for:

+yosemite +camping +reservations

Using The – Symbol to Subtract

Sometimes, you want a search engine to find pages that have one word on them but not another word. The – symbol lets you do this. For example, imagine you want information about President Clinton but don’t want to be overwhelmed by pages relating to the Monica Lewinsky scandal. You could search this way:

clinton -lewinsky

That tells the search engine to find pages that mention “clinton” and then to remove any of them that also mention “lewinsky.” Similarly, perhaps you are looking for information specifically about Windows 95 but keep getting pages about Windows 98 or Windows 3.1. You could eliminate them with a search like this:

windows -98 -3.1

Perhaps you are a fan of the original Star Trek series but instead keep finding pages about Voyager, Deep Space Nine or Star Trek: The Next Generation. Try a search like this:

star trek -voyager -deep -space -nine -next -generation

In general, the – symbol is helpful for focusing results when you get too many that are unrelated to your topic. Simply begin subtracting terms you know are not of interest, and you should get better results.

Using Quotation Marks To Multiply

Now that you know how to add and subtract terms, we can move on to multiplication. As in normal math, multiplying terms through a “phrase search” can be a much better way to get the answers you are looking for. For example, remember above when we wanted pages about reserving a campsite in Yosemite? We entered all the terms like this:

+yosemite +camping +reservations

That brings back pages that have all those words on them, but there’s no guarantee that the words may necessarily be near each other. You could get a page that mentions Yosemite in the opening paragraph but then later talks about getting camping reservations in the Grand Canyon. All the words you added together would appear on this page, but it still might not be what you are looking for. Doing a phrase search avoids this problem. This is where you tell a search engine to give you pages where the terms appear in exactly the order you specify. You do this by putting quotation marks around the phrase, like this:

“yosemite camping reservations”

Now, only pages that have all the words and in the exact order shown above will be listed. The answers should be much more on target than with simple addition. Likewise, remember this addition example?

+windows +98 +bugs

As you can imagine, multiplying the terms together within a phrase search would work better, because that exact phrase probably appears on good pages dealing with Windows 98 bugs. So try this:

“windows 98 bugs”

Remember the search for information about the latest Star Trek movie? We could transform that into a phrase search like this:

“star trek insurrection”

But the movie’s title actually has a colon after the word “trek,” and many pages might also follow this format. Thus, a better phrase search might be:

“star trek: insurrection”

Combining Symbols

Once you’ve mastered adding, subtracting and multiplying, you can combine symbols to easily create targeted searches. For example, remember the person who wanted pages only about Star Trek’s original series? We searched this way:

star trek -voyager -deep -space -nine -next -generation

A better search might use subtraction and multiplication:

“star trek” -voyager -”deep space nine” -”next generation”

Source : SearchEngineWatch.com

15 Adsense Alternatives

With Google Adsense “Smart Pricing” continuing to cut into many blog and website owners income, a wise Internet Marketer will look over the alternatives to Adsense.

Smart pricing as Google calls it, was allegedly an attempt to increase “value” for advertisers. From what I can tell, no one can tell exactly how “Smart Pricing” works. From the discussions on many of the forums lately, Adsense revenues are falling further and further for site owners.

Yesterday I was reviewing my Adsense revenue, which by the way is down across all my sites, and notice there was one ad that received 10 clicks. I got 26 cents for those 10 clicks. Not 26 cents per click, 26 cents for all those clicks! That comes out to a whopping 2.6 cents per click for that ad!

As far as I can tell, and many other website owners as well, Smart Pricing is an excuse for Google to keep more of your money.

Adsense Alternatives To Help Boost Your Website or Blog Earnings

Here’s quick rundown of some alternatives for replacing Adsense on your site.

• AdBrite - AdBrite advertises that it serves 727 million impressions to 33,534 sites. The income is a 75/25 split in the site owners favor.
• Advertising.Com – They have a wide range of advertisers to choose from. They have CPA and CPC programs with a net 15 payout.
• AzoogleAds- Azoogle has many companies to choose from with many different ways you can apply those ads. This is a popular Affiliate Network for credit card offers, debt relief, car loans and insurance offers.
• BidClix- This is a model where advertisers bid for the highest placement. BidClix advertise that they serve over 30 million ads a day for their advertisers. They pay every 15 days.
• Bidvertiser- Bidvertiser serves up ads that look like Adsense ads (as does many of these other companies). They also will pay your through PayPal, which I like!
• Burst!- Burst has over 4200 specialty content websites currently on over 400 channels. Some of their recent advertisers include John Deere, Weight Watchers, Vonage and State Farm just to name a few.
• Chitika – Let’s face it, they have the best looking contextual ads on the Web. But a wise publisher will do their research before joining up. Read the Internet Marketing forums and ask questions.
• Claxon- Claxon pays on the 15th and the 30 or 31st of every month. At one time Claxon payed 85% of the gross. I’m not sure if that’s still the case since they were bought by Human Ingenuity International. You’ll have to contact them or join their program.
• IntelliTxt- Another inline text contextual advertiser. They advertise that they serve over 250 million user-initiated video ads per month.
• Kontera- Kontera offers inline text ads. Personally, I’d do more research on them before joining. They advertise that they’ll get back to you within 5 business days of submitting your application, but it took them over 2 weeks to get back to me the fist time and they denied 5 of my sites. Oh yeah, the denial email was a form letter that said they denied my claim because my “site” was offline (remember, I submitted 5, not 1). Ummm…yeah. So I recently submitted them under Joel Comm’s link and its been nearly 3 weeks and I haven’t heard a peep. They don’t seem to be real big on answering emails or applications!
• Miva- They offer pay-per-click ads (resembles Adsense ads) along with inline-pay-per-click ads.
• MSN Adcenter- Another Adsense type contextual program from the good people at MSN.
• TribalFusion- TribalFusion says it serves up 19 Billion impression…yes, that’s Billions as in starts with a “B” plus some of the highest payouts on the Web. They pay 55% of ad revenue with a $50 minimum. You’ll have to wait 45 days for you money though.
• ValueClick – They pay by the 25th of each month for the previous months clicks. They also pay by PayPal.
• YPN- This is Yahoo’s version of Adsense. Trustworthy and their ad blocks resemble Adsense.

Okay, there you go. 15 alternatives to Adsense. Sure, there are other advertisers who you can sign up with, but these 15 seem to be the big players in the industry.

Many site owners have got complacent and have failed to test other Contextual Advertising Programs. I’m sure we’re leaving money on the table. It’s time we all put Adsense aside and tried out some of these other networks.

Also, you need to know that I’m only an affiliate for a few of these companies and I’m certainly not an expert on any one of them. I’ve provided the link to their sites so you can do your own research to find your Adsense alternative!

If you’ve tried any of these networks, let me know how they worked for you!

A Warning For Ebay Partner Network Affiliates

I know many of my readers are heavy Build A Niche Store users and PHPBay users. If you’re currently using Ebay as a source of income, or thinking about using them, here’s a warning for all Ebay affiliates.

I’ve been watching the situation with the Ebay Partner Network unfold for about the last month. It seems to have settled down some, but most ebay affiliates aren’t breathing a sigh of relief yet.

What’s Going On At Ebay Partner Network?

Some of you may have not heard about the latest news concerning the Ebay Partner Network (or EPN as it’s more commonly known) and its affiliates.

What happened was about a month ago Ebay decided to dump some of its EPN affiliates. Then, a few weeks later, it dumped more. From what I can tell, there have been around 300 to 400 affiliates dumped.

The “Official” reason for dumping many of these affiliates without warning was: “we determined that the traffic generated from your account is significantly less engaged with the eBay site as compared to the standards set by our other affiliates.”

Luckily, knock on wood, I haven’t received such a notice.

However, many affiliates who rely on Ebay for their income have received these notices. Some of these affiliates were bringing down $10k to $30k per month!

The real reason behind the Ebay bans?

There are many speculations about the reason for the bans by Ebay. The most popular is that Ebay is running some type of metric on incoming traffic and comparing those metrics across all affiliates sites. Apparently if the traffic you send Ebay does not behave in a certain way, the feel it’s junk traffic generated by black hat methods.

That being said, I know many of the people who had their accounts pulled out from under them who were doing nothing wrong and relying on organic traffic only.

It would seem that this “metric” Ebay is running generates quite a few “false positives” and Ebay just dumps everyone who falls below a certain threshold in order to try and remove black hat sites that are sending junk traffic.

Sounds good on the surface, but I have a problem with that theory. Most black/grey hat guys I know, wouldn’t waste their time sending hoards of traffic to ebay if it didn’t pay off. They’re about making money just like the rest of us. They’re not about wasting a lot of time sending traffic just for the hell of it.

It’s more likely some geeks at Ebay developed this “metric” and refuses to tweak it or to do manual reviews like Google does. This would have prevented a lot of this mess from happening.

What you can do if you’ve been banned by Ebay Partner Network

If you’re one of the unlucky ones who has had you account terminated by the EPN, you’re only other option is to use PepperJam Network.

Is that a final solution? Probably not. Who’s to say that Ebay won’t terminate their agreement with PepperJam like they did with CJ?

Both BANS and PHPBay have the ability to use Ebay listings through the PepperJam network. With the Build A Niche Store program, you can download a “patch” at their site. With PHPBay, there is a field under your WordPress settings for PHPBay where you can input your PepperJam ID number.

On another note, I have heard about ebay affiliates who have emailed Ebay and have had their accounts reinstated. Although this seems as a last ditch hail marry technique because many were still rejected. But hey, if your house note depends on it, it’s better than sitting on your butt doing nothing!

What to do if you haven’t been banned from EPN

If you’re one of the lucky ones who still has an account with EPN, you should be thinking about your next move should Ebay throw you out in the cold.

Remember Enron? Remember how the employees lost everything they had because all their savings were in Enron stock? Enron? Ebay?

This should be a lesson for us all. I’ve been burnt a few times in the past by merchants who either stopped their affiliate programs or went belly up, owing me thousands of dollars.

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket! I can’t stress this enough!

If you’re with EPN now, you might want to consider signing up under PepperJam, just in case.

Otherwise, you should be working on diversifying you affiliate marketing efforts. Yeah, I know it’s hard to work on other affiliate programs when you have one or two that are really raking in the money. But if you’re going to survive with affiliate marketing, you’re going to have to learn how to diversify.

How Long Should A Blog Post Be

How long should a blog post be? Ever since I started blogging a few years ago, that is one of the questions new bloggers have asked. The blog Guru’s will tell you that blog post need to be short. The theory is that if you make longer post, the reader will get bored and leave your site.

It has always been said that Internet users have short attention spans. That’s still true for the most part.

When I first started, the rule was the post should be between 250 and 500 words. I naturally write long articles as it is. So I was getting comments and email saying my post were too long. So I started trying to keep them around 500 words. That was hard for me to do!

Here are a few reasons why you should be writing long blog post:

• If you’re only interested in attracting Social traffic, stick to making those short, concise post. Most Social readers have shorter attention spans than a 3 year old, especially if they come from Digg.
• If on the other hand, you want your post to rank high in Google SERPS and bring in loads of targeted organic search traffic, you’re more likely to do it with longer keyword optimized post than shorter ones.
• You’ll naturally have more long tail keywords in your long blog post. Long tail keywords bring in more targeted organic traffic to your site.
• Looking at it from Google’s perspective, which post is more informative? A short one or long post? Google is in the business of delivering targeted relevant information to Internet searchers. Google’s algorithym searches for the most relevant and informative information on the Internet when you enter a search into the the search box. So which post do you think it will return higher in the SERPS? A 250 word post about ‘Mens Hair Loss’ or a 1400 word article?
• If you run a content rich site with Adsense, you can increase your CTR with longer post and articles. Why? Because you’ll stand a better chance of the reader losing interest and clicking on an Adsense ad. Yeah, I know, it’s a pretty underhanded Adsense trick hunh? But it works
• You may lose a few RSS subscribers who do not like long post, but you’ll also gain a few more who feel long post are more informative and detailed. They’ll see you as a detailed authority on the subject.

What constitutes a long post?

The way I look at it is, anything over 1000 words is a long post. I know some who say 700 to 800 words is a long post, but a 1000+ word blog post is much better, especially if it’s keyword optimized.

Long post are also more detailed. Instead of making some short-to-the-point sentences, you can take your time and go into more details with your post.

Tips For Optimizing Your Blog for Long Post

If you’re worried about losing your RSS subscribers to long post, here are a few tips that will help you keep them interested and to optimize your long post.

• Use the H3 tag to break up your long post into sections. Properly constructed H3 headings also add SEO benefits to your long post.
• Use bullets and numbers to break up list or for making points
• Use blockquotes when quoting others or for highlighting a resource
• Use Bold, Italics and Colored Text to get your point across and to break up your long post.
• Not all of your long post have to be a War and Peace novels. Just the really important post you want to expand on and the ones you want top rankings for. It’s okay to mix short post with long post. I’ve done this same thing here on AffiliateWatcher.Com

Still not convinced that long Blog post are better?

Take a look at the thumbnail picture below (click it to enlarge the picture). It’s a screenshot I did of a search for “How To Monetize A Blog With Adsense.” I posted it Monday morning and when I got home that afternoon, I was sitting at the #2 spot for that keyword term.

I jumped over some pretty big names to get to the #2 spot with nothing more than a 1400 word post about how to monetize a blog with Adsense. The only reason the B2evolution network outranks my post with their little generic post is because they have more backlinks to that page. It would be rather easy to outrank them and take that #1 spot away with fewer backlinks because my post has more weight than theirs.

Fortunately for me, this happens a lot with my long blog post. Whether or not it’s on this blog or one of my other ones. Long optimized blog post rank better! I no longer ask; how long a blog post should be, I just start writing and stop when I’m done!

How To Create A Profitable Blog Empire With Blogger

A cool thing happened to me last week. I was sitting here one evening and my Wife hollers in from the Living Room, “Hun, who is Click Bank?”

“Umm, I don’t know why?” I half heartily replied because I was’t really listening.

“They sent us a check for $246.18. Are you sure you don’t know who they are”

Man, I was out of my chair quicker than Flash Gordon!

“Let me see, let me see it” I said. Halfway expecting it to be one of those phony checks you get in the mail from banks, mortgage companies and other Spammers of snail mail.

“Cool” I said.

“So you do know who Click Bank is” my Wife stared at me.

“Yeah, I may have heard of them.” I gingerly replied.

How I Used Blogger and ClickBank To Start A Profitable Blog Empire

Now, $246 isn’t going to set the world on fire, but when you’re not expecting it, it’s cool. And when you realize you can duplicate it over and over, you begin to see how you can that this technique has some power to it.

I’d like to tell you this was planned from day one, but I can’t. Here’s what happened.

Late last year I bought the eBook “Blogging To The Bank.” It’s about a technique of creating Blogger blogs and gaming MSN search, IMHO. MSN search use to have a loophole where you could quickly and easily take advantage of their love of Blogger blogs. You could easily outrank most any website with a blogger blog and some backlinks.

About the time I bought this ebook, MSN finally got around to closing this loophole, although I didn’t know it at the time.

I read the eBook. It sounded a lot like the author would use PLR articles and some RSS feeds for content on his Blogger blogs. I thought “Geez, if I pick a category I know something about and write some quality content, it should work better.”

Here’s How I Set My Blogger Network Up

I set up 5 or 6 Blogger blogs on a niche that I settled on.

To find the niche, I went to Google and searched for a niche that would have less than 1 million pages showing. I know this sounds like a big number, but trust me, not all those pages are about your niche.

For this example, I found a niche called Royal Copenhagen Glassware. As you can see, Google is showing 169,000 pages. This is a very small niche. (by the way, I love Royal Copenhagen glassware, but I don’t have a website about it)

I would then add content about Royal Copenhagen glassware to each of the Blogs. I would designate one as my Primary blog that would have the Affiliate links on it. The other blogs were designated Satellite blogs and have no affiliate links on them.

Use your main keyword for your Primary blog. Your Satellite blogs should be made up of relevant keywords to your Primary blog, but not the exact keyword. Make the network relevant to the Niche you choose. One niche blog network per Main keyword. This is where your network will get it power to generate profits from.

Each blog would have anywhere from 4 to 10 SEO keyword rich post on them. All the blogs would have links with the keyword in the anchor text pointing at the Primary Blog.

The last post on the Primary blog would be a review of the Clickbank product along with an affiliate link to the Clickbank product. “We’re pretending there is a Clickbank product about Copenhagen glassware, I have no idea if there really is”

TIP:Do not put ADSENSE ads on these blogs! In fact, do not every put Adsense ads on a Affiliate Marketing site. That site should be dedicated to selling the Affiliate product! Never give your visitor a reason to leave your site for a few cents! I’d rather have them leave and not make nothing rather than lose a potential sale because my Visitor left on an Adsense click! If you want Adsense money, build a Content site!

How To Find A Niche Product On ClickBank

One of the most important things that helped some of these sites achieve the high Click Thru Ratio that they achieved, which you need with a small niche, is the price of the ClickBank product. I chose products that had a price tag under $20. The product also had to pay me at least $9, preferably more!

The reason I look for something at or below the $20 threshold is because I believe people do not hesitate much, if any, on pulling out their credit card and buying something under $20. So far this has worked extremely well on these niche blogs.

Another important thing to do is go and look at the landing pages to see how well the Copywriting is. If you’re not compelled to order the product, chances are your Visitors won’t either.

Next, buy the product. Yes, you heard me right. You should never sell an info product if you’ve never read it or used it! If it’s crap, you’ll end up with a high return and all your hard work will be for nothing! ClickBank will not pay our for returns!

To find a good product on ClickBank, I look for a product in the marketplace that has a “gravity” of 60 or higher and a refer rate of around 75.

Gravity is the number of distinct affiliate’s who earned commission with this product. I really like products with a Gravity over 100, but that’s hard to find in some niches.

Refer rate(or Rdfd on Clickbank) is the fraction of the totals sales referred by Affiliates. The high the number, the better. This tells you that other people are having succes at selling this product.

Patience Is A Blog Empire Builder’s Best Friend

Once you have your product chosen and quality content on your site, you then need to get them indexed in Google. Just find some high PR relevant sites to link back to each of those blogs until they are indexed. It’s that easy! It usually takes a few days for my blogs to be indexed.

Next is the hard part. Wait! Have Patience! Expect your blogs to sit for 6 months to a year before they climb the SERPS and start bringing in the Search Engine traffic. You can work at driving traffic to the blogs, but I prefer the “Build ‘em and forget ‘em” approach. I have way too many other things going on!

You can help the SERP climb of each of the blogs by linking to them from other sites already indexed outside your network, but it’s not a “must-do”. The higher the PR, the better the link. Just remember to use keywords in your anchor text!

Where My Mini-Blog Empire Is At Today

What happened is that those networks that I built about 10 months ago finally started getting some PR and climbing their way up the SERP ladder in their little niches.

The Primary blog on one of these networks has only 3 post on it. Yet, somehow, it has a PR2 with no backlinks (go figure that one!). Apparently Google isn’t counting any of the backlinks to it, yet Yahoo shows 45 backlinks to the page. (backlinks I found for them)

The Primary blog is at #12 for the Primary keyword and two other lesser keywords are on the front page about halfway down in the Google SERPS. This is where the traffic is coming from for those sites.

The blog network worked it’s way into the Top SERPS positions sometime in late Aug. and early Sept. That’s when the orders started trickling in, unbeknown to me!

Build ‘Em and Forget ‘Em

I had forgotten all about these blog networks. Shortly after I built Blogger network #3, I started hearing that MSN had closed the loophole that allowed Blogger blogs to dominate its SERP’s. Sure enough, none of my Blogger blogs were indexed by MSN. So after a few weeks, I wrote off the project.

So you see how sweet it is that Google came to my rescue and started sending them traffic.

I have no doubt, that if I had used PLR articles and RSS feeds, they’d still be in SERP hell and no where near the top. The articles on those blog networks are quality how-to articles and I sincerely believe that’s why they are nearing the #1 spot in Google SERPS.

What I’m Doing Now To Boost The Blogs In The SE Rankings

In the last few days, I added more keyword anchor text pointing at my Primary blogs on the network, from high PR sites, this should be the final straw and those blogs should reach the top 3 within a month or less.

I’ve also added some more keyword rich articles to the Satellite blogs. This should help them continue upward in the SERPS.

This technique is not for everyone I understand. But it may be something you want to add for an additional stream of revenue, especially if you have a small niche! A small niche may not have enough traffic to support you by itself, but having a network of niches can provide you some good passive income!

Once you have your first network tweaked and running, wash, rinse and repeat!

Affiliate Marketing – Getting Started – $10 in 30 Days

Affiliate Marketing Getting Started

Last year there was buzz in the Internet marketing community about a challenge that Dan Raine was holding. His challenge was to make $15,000 in 30 days. He started a blog and chronicled his every move so the readers could follow along. You can still check out how he did it and learn one aspect of Internet marketing by clicking here.

This year there is a new challenge. One that is a little less lofty as far as money goes but important for the new affiliate marketer all the same. This years challenge seeks to take the new affiliate marketer and provide them with the tools and training to make their first $10 in 30 days without spending a dime of your own money!

Although this challenge started August 1st, you can still follow along and find the training task by going to the thirtydaychallenge.com.

The people behind this challenge are Ed Dales, Dan Raine and Nicolas Messe. These are about as big of names in affiliate marketing as you can get.

Yeah, I know, I dropped the ball on this one. I should have known about this back in July and told you then! Oh well, better late than never. As I said above, you can still learn loads of information from this challenge. They have a blog and forums as well as daily task. The best of all, it’s FREE!

Why $10 in 30 days? Probably because it’s a realistic goal for beginners. Everyone can follow along and with just a little effort and no money, make their first $10. The goal is to teach you how to make money with affiliate marketing. Once you learn how to make $10, it’s only a short line to making $100 per month, then $1000, etc. But first, you have to learn the basics and pocket your first $10.

This isn’t some pie in the sky “make a million overnight” get rich scheme. If that’s what you’re looking for, don’t bother. If on the other hand, you wanting to learn how to start a prosperous online business, you’ll learn the basics at thirtydaychallenge.com.

How To Find The Hot Products To Sell Online

One of the biggest stumbling blocks for new affiliate marketers is deciding on what to sell online. Many try product after product in an attempt to find something they can sell successfully online. Choosing a hot selling product to sell online isn’t hard. With the simple tips below, anyone can learn to find hot selling products to sell online.

To be successful in affiliate marketing, you have to find a product that many people want. Not only that, you have to find one that they are likely to purchase over the Internet. Sure, a few people will buy a car or boat online, but not many. There are some products that people want to see, touch and evaluate in person before buying. You can’t do that online! Find a popular product that you believe in and then see if they have an affiliate program and find out the terms.

Start by making a list of the things you like and are passionate about. It has always been said that you can sell something you believe in. That’s true. It’s also true that it’s very hard to sell something you know nothing about or have no experience in. This is why it’s critical in finding something that you enjoy or are passionate about.

Both Yahoo and Google have sections where you can go and look to see what the most searched terms are for the previous week, month or year. This will tell you what people are searching for online. Google also has a section called “Hot Trends” that is updated throughout the day to show you the most searched for terms. This can be a huge benefit if you follow it over time.

The other section in Google you want to do research in is Google Trends. This tool will tell you how well the product you’re interested in has been searched for in the past. Google trends is a free tool and one you should not overlook. You want to see the line on the grapch either fairly steady across the graph or rising. A downward line on the graph tells you that interest in the product is tapering off.

The section you want to look for in Yahoo is Yahoo Buzz. This section tracks the most searched for terms of the previoius week or month. It will also tell you whether or not your term is on the rise or tapering off. Personally, I prefer Google Trends for seeing if the product is on fire or cooling off. To find it, go to buzzlog.buzz.yahoo.com. Play around with it a while to really find the best niche products that are hot.

Another excellent place to find hot selling products is ebay. Ebay has a section that will show you the most popular selling products. This can also give you ideas on what to sell on ebay and on the Internet as well. The section you want to look for is called Ebay Pulse. You can also drill down to find which specfic prodcuts are hot. For example, iPods are always hot on Ebay. But which color? Use Ebay Pulse to find which color or which model is hot.

Finding a hot selling product is not hard. You just have to know where to look in order to find them. Picking an affiliate product just because it has a high payout is a sure fire way to fail. Pick something you know about and then research it to see if there is a demand for it. This way you’ll have the confidence to stay the course until you see the fruits of your labor pay off.

How To Insert Your Adsense Pub-ID Into An Adsense Ready Wordpress Theme

Every since I put up The Ultimate List of Adsense Ready Wordpress Themes, I’ve received some emails asking how to change the Adsense codes in the Themes.

It goes without saying, I hope so anyways, that you’ll need an Adsense account. If not, go get one first before trying this.

I’m going to try and explain it here, step by step. For this example, I’ll be using the Ads Minded Theme.

1. Choose an Adsense Ready Wordpress Theme. You can get one by cliking the link above.

2. Download the theme, choose it in your Wordpress control panel under “Presentations”.

3. Once you’ve selected the theme you want and it shows up on your site, go to “Theme Editor” under the “Presentations” button.

4. The Adsense Code can be in different files depending on which Theme you choose. The Theme developer will tell you which files contain the Adsense code. You normally find this either on their website or in the readme.txt file. This is what it looks like.

5. Once you find the Google Adsense code in the file, highlight the existing code and replace everything between the <script> and </script> tags with your own code. Now save the file. That’s it. The code in the Wordpress Theme should be your own.

DO NOT CLICK ON YOUR OWN ADS! It’s against Google Adsense TOS and can get you banned. I know it can happen sometimes when you’re working on a site and you do it without thinking. If that happens, you might want to contact Adsense and let them now what happened.

To make sure that the correct ads are showing, I monitor my Adsense ads in my control panel and make sure impressions and clicks are showing up.

Let’s say you have www.123abcdef.com with adsense on it. You’ve just used a new blog theme and inserted your adsense code into the theme. Let’s also assume that you’ve been receiving impressions and clicks so you know you have traffic. If you stop receiving impressions and clicks after inserting the code, you may want to redo it. Chances are it’s not counting.

Good luck and have fun with these Wordpress Themes and Google Adsense!

How To Get Your Adsense Account Unbanned In 5 Easy Steps

For those of you who’ve read this blog for a while, you know about the hugely popular post I wrote a while back titled “How To Get Your Adsense Account Banned.”

I’m not sure why that post is so popular, but it still brings in a lot of traffic.

This post will be about how to get your Google Adsense Account unbanned!

First off, let my start by saying that if your Google Adsense Account was banned because you violated the Google Adsense Terms Of Service (TOS), your up the proverbial creek without a paddle. Chances are you’ll not get your Adsense account unbanned.

However, if you feel the Google Adsense gang unfairly banned your account, here are5 simple steps to follow that may help you get it unbanned. (this means you have read the Adsense TOS and have determined without a doubt you did not violate their terms)

Remember, most bans come from an automated machine. Something went wrong and it caused a Red flag to pop up at G Headquarters. Your goal now is to have a human review it.

1. Try and determine why your account was banned. This is important because you need to know what happened before you can gather evidence. Google will not always tell you and many times they’ll tell you it’s because of “Invalid Clicks” which can mean anything under the moon. I’ve heard of accounts being banned because of a sudden increase in clicks due to a site hitting the front page of Digg and because a previous owner of a domain had his Adsense account banned.
2. Contact the Google Adsense team and be nice about it. If you’re email starts with “You Jerks at Google Banned My Account For No Good Reason,” then you’ll not likely get it unbanned before Hell freezes over. Your emails should be very nice and non-judgemental. Assume it was an honest mistake by Google, because it may very well have been.
3. Provide Proof Of Your Innocence.If you have a good idea of why your Adsense was banned, offer to give it to Google. This could be everything from server logs, a letter from the webhost or a WhoIs file. Be nice and politely show Google where they went wrong.
4. Have some patience.The folks at Adsense won’t be tripping over their self to get to your case. I’d be sending follow up emails every other day or so and checking on the status of the human review. Remember to keep them nice and polite. You may also want to keep offering to give them evidence. Try and show you really want to help in the investigation.
5. Persistence pays off. If you give up only after an email or two, then chances are you may never hear from them again. Stay with the follow up emails! Eventually they’ll get tired of you and either give you a Yea or Nay. Remember, the squeaky wheel gets the oil!

There is no guarantee that these tips will help. But if you’re going to fight to get your account reinstated, this is the way to begin.

I can’t stress this enough, read the damn Adsense TOS before you cry about getting banned. After you get your account banned is not the time to familiarize yourself with the Google Adsense TOS.

You’ll be surprised at the type of things you account can be banned for. I’m always amazed at people in the forums who’ve had their account banned because of something they did that was against the TOS. Then they proceed to tell everyone they “didn’t know.”

And if you can’t get you Adsense account unbanned, you can always use one of your other Adsense accounts …right?