Associate Programs Newsletter #322
How do you write an affiliate marketing instruction manual which is for both beginners and experienced affiliates?
Can it done?
I reckon Tim Schroeder has made a jolly good effort.
CONTENTS:
1. New affiliate manual has tips for beginners and veterans
2. Lively debate on our affiliate forum
3. Useful resource: Backlink checker
4. Thought for today: Who's right?
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1. New affiliate manual has tips for beginners and veterans
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I've just finished reading a new affiliate marketing manual, Affiliate Outline, by Tim Schroeder.
You may know Tim as the owner of the popular Webmaster-Talk.com forum, but he also owns a number of affiliate-driven websites and he's been earning a nice living through affiliate marketing for many years.
He says he earns a six-figure income from affiliate commissions and ad sales. After studying several of his sites, I have no reason to doubt him.
His new book, Affiliate Outline, is aimed at both beginners and experienced affiliates.
If you're feeling overwhelmed and suffering from information overload, Affiliate Outline will definitely appeal to you. In just 63 pages, Tim cuts through the clutter and gives very concise, clear information and tips.
He doesn't tell you how to build web pages. He assumes you already know this or are prepared to learn.
Topics he covers include: An introduction to affiliate programs and how they work, jargon explained simply, and tips on finding the right affiliate programs. He does a really good job of providing links to useful resources, with a brief summary of each one, such as affiliate networks, affiliate directories, CPM networks, keyword research tools, PPC search networks, affiliate magazines, affiliate forums and affiliate blogs.
He gives concise, easy to understand tips on marketing your website, search engine optimization, buying and selling text links, submitting to web directories, which offers to choose, how to find a niche, using freelancers, protecting your links, creating blogs, using long-tail keywords, AdWords, Squidoo, AdSense, iframes, press releases, creating email lists, negotiating higher commissions, and joint ventures.
He has the knack of explaining complex things simply. The whole book is very easy to read.
If you're an experienced affiliate, you should already know all or most of what's in the main part of the book. You may want to go to the handy index and click on “Miscellaneous Tips”, near the end of the book. This is where I found it became really interesting.
For example, Tim presents a little PPC Arbitrage case study in which he describes how he bought pay-per-click traffic cheaply from one source and earned significantly more by getting AdSense clicks.
He not only explains how he went about it, he tells you where he bought the traffic, the keyword tools he used, and shows you the web page he created for this ad campaign, which was done in January, 2007. He shows you exactly how much he spent and how much profit he generated. Even if you're already doing PPC arbitrage, I think you'll find it useful to study Tim's landing page.
If you love tracking and testing stuff and want to get into PPC arbitrage, it's worth getting the book just for this short section alone. I've given this section to our Special Projects Manager, Jay Stockwell, who loves PPC and tracking and testing stuff.
In a section called, “Buy Text Link Ads and Then Sell Them!”, Tim reminds us that using affiliate programs is just one way to monetize a website. He has some useful ideas here, but I think he should have mentioned that Google has warned us that sites which sell text links may not pass on PageRank. I think the best way to buy or sell text links is to be subtle. Enough said about that.
His section on using iframes, a sort of page within a page, for affiliate marketing bothered me. To me, this technique is downright sneaky because the affiliate places a cookie on the visitor's computer when all the visitor has done is visit a page, NOT click on the affiliate link. Tim warns us that you need to read the terms of the affiliate program or affiliate network because some affiliate networks such as Commission Junction forbid this.
Another of the networks which forbids this is ClickBank, which even goes as far as using the word “illegal” to describe it, which is inaccurate, but it gets the message across. I could be wrong, but I believe that if you haven't got the click, you haven't earned the commission.
The section “How to use reBlog as an affiliate marketing tool” will also give you food for thought. This automated technique has a major benefit you may not have thought of.
One of the most innovative sections in the book is where Tim describes his ingenious use of AdWords Site Targeting. He used Site Targeting to buy ads on a marketing blog, aiming to make the ads so eye-catching that he'd receive lots of clicks. With Site Targeting, you pay CPM, so it's a jolly good thing if you get lots of clicks. Tim's imaginative ads proved to be so eye-catching that people commented on them, and the blog owner ended up writing about them and linking to Tim's site. Be sure to read this section. I think it's brilliant.
(I keep seeing a TaxBrain ad on AssociatePrograms.com so often I think the advertiser must be using AdWords Site Targeting.)
Tim also gives you some innovative tips on how to profit from the bonuses which come with his book.
If you want to do some detective work to find the sites which earn Tim a six-figure income, that's easy. Just click on one of the links in the book and explore a little. You'll easily be able to find a list of websites he owns and ones he used to own and has sold.
In summary, the 63-page Affiliate Outline is a no-fluff, no-hype manual which concisely covers all the main affiliate marketing topics, except website creation. It includes a short section for experienced affiliates. I've been marketing online for 11 years and I still learned valuable tips in that section.
Find out more about it here…
https://www.associateprograms.com/tim
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2. Lively debate on our affiliate forum
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Just wondering… Do you think GoDaddy did the right thing?
This stinks! GoDaddy cancels domain registration
https://www.associateprograms.com/discus/ftopic22925.html
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3. Useful resource: Backlink checker
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This will help you figure out one very good reason why a website is outranking you.
It's a free tool which shows you where your competitors are getting their links and also the PageRank of the pages those links are on. Perhaps you can get links from those pages, too.
https://www.iwebtool.com/backlink_checker
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4. Thought for today: Who's right?
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“The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.” – George Bernard Shaw.
All the best
Allan Gardyne
