New at Clickbank: Recurring Billing
On June 19th, Clickbank announced that it will offer a recurring billing option to merchants that sell subscription services and/or have membership sites.
This is great news for merchants and affiliates alike.
As an affiliate marketer, I’ve always specifically sought out those affiliate programs that pay recurring monthly commissions on product sales, such as for dating site memberships and web hosting services.
So, the next time you’re in Clickbank looking for a recurring product to promote, do a search sorted by “Future $” which is the average total rebill revenue earned by the affiliate due to sales from a site. Generally this equates to the average sum of all rebills.
Granted, it may be awhile before anything shows up in this category, but well worthwhile to keep checking Clickbank to see who comes on board to offer recurring commissions.
Popularity: 21% [?]
Project Black Mask Review
If you are as uncomfortable as I am with ‘black hat’ or ‘grey hat’ SEO techniques then Project Black Mask - the latest ‘tell all’ Adsense product for affiliate marketers - is definitely not for you.
Project Black Mask is the next-in-series of IM products by Chris X, the author of Day Job Killer, Affiliate Project X, and Adwords Miracle.
I read it about a week ago and quite frankly, there’s NO WAY I would take this approach to making an affiliate income. Seriously, why would anyone want to invest in 100’s or thousands of domains to make a dollar a day (probably less) on each through Adsense, when they can earn at least as much or more selling real products as a content publisher through just one, two or three sites?
Granted, the content publisher approach always appears to be too much like work for some folks - especially those who hate to write, don’t want to pay for PLR or ghostwriters, or have no time or inclination to build a list and create real relationships with newsletter subscribers.
If that describes your take on content publishing as an affiliate marketer, then perhaps Chris’ approach will seem like a godsend, but don’t say that I didn’t warn you about domain or software outlays or, if this technique eventually turns out to be another flash in the pan approach to affiliate marketing.
All that said, one section of Chris’ book that is worth it’s weight in gold is the keyword list generation chapter. He says, “I’m a keyword addict. I collect good keywords like a museum collects expensive paintings” and it’s obvious to this ‘keyword addict’ that Chris knows exactly what he’s talking about when it comes to keyword research and generation.
Chris tells you exactly how to build and use big beautiful lists of longtail keywords. It’s absolutely fabulous information and in my opinion, worth the price of admission, whether you’re into black hat SEO or a by-the-book white hat affiliate marketer like myself.
Project Black Mask will be available at 3PM Eastern today.
Popularity: 51% [?]
What’s the Point to Technorati Tags?
In a comment made on the Technorati Tagging Made Simple post, Jim Hutchinson asked, “What’s the point of using Technorati tags in your blog?”
If you are using Movable Type, WordPress, TypePad, Blogware, Radio to blog and are publishing RSS or Atom feeds, Technorati will read your categories as tags and your posts will be automatically included without tagging.
Tagging individual posts just gives you a chance for more exposure.
Technorati’s tag pages get indexed on Google and quite frequently appear high in the search results. If your blog is listed on a tag page, anyone searching Google is more likely to find your blog.
For example, I searched Google for ‘iphone’ and the fourth listing that came up was iPhone: Blogs, Photos, Videos and more on Technorati which leads to Technorati’s QuickView page that shows the most recent blog posts that are either tagged iPhone or include the word iPhone in the post.
On that page, you will also see videos and photos. The videos come from YouTube and the pictures from Flickr and have all been tagged with the word ‘iPhone’ - presenting yet another opportunity for exposure, traffic and more sales!
If you’d like more information about Technorati tagging, please visit the Technorati Support page.
Popularity: 20% [?]
NPT Digest - Your challenges, tagging, Derek Gehl, SAH and Baby Bloggers
I’ve just had a challenging week trying to sort out a problem and it got me thinking about how what we THINK is a problem or challenge may in fact NOT be the problem at all.
I expose the nitty gritty details in the NPT Forum at ‘What’s YOUR Biggest Challenge?‘ and invite you to share both your challenges and tips.
In other news this week:
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The first messages for the discounted Super Affiliate Handbook have gone out - and there are still plenty to come. We had a bit of a server issue last night with all the traffic, so I’m spacing things out a bit. Please be patient, and stay tuned — I will get to everyone.
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Derek Gehl and I will be doing a teleseminar on Thursday June 14th at 4PM Pacific. I’ll be talking about where my online dating service review site is today and Derek plans to share some excellent info for affiliate managers and merchants.
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You have the opportunity to contribute to our panel at the upcoming Affiliate Summit in Affiliates: What Do YOU Want?
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Technorati Tagging Made Simple - self explanatory.
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Pippy: The Youngest Affiliate Blogger? is a wonderful story shared by Mark Harrison.
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Speaking of problem-solving, my friend John Harricharan has just released an updated version of his best-seller, the “Power Pause“. John says, “There are only 3 problems — money, health and relationships” and has a solution that helps you to solve your problems and achieve real, lasting success in just 3 minutes and with only 3 steps.
I plan to read this latest version this weekend… I obviously need it.
Til next time — promote and prosper.
P.S. Please share your thoughts, comments and suggestions in both the Blog and the Forum. Always love to hear from you!
Popularity: 17% [?]
Teleseminar: Derek Gehl and Rosalind Gardner Spill the Beans
Mark your calendars! On Monday June 14th at 4PM Pacific (7PM Eastern) Derek Gehl and I will be getting on the horn to discuss affiliate marketing from the perspectives of both merchants and affiliates.
Derek has promised to share his strategies to building one of the most powerful affiliate programs in the world and I’ll tell you what I’m doing now to earn even more as an affiliate.
And just in case you’ve never heard of Derek Gehl (is that possible?), Derek is the former president of the “Internet Marketing Challenge” who also worked closely with Corey Rudl, founder and CEO of the “Internet Marketing Center“. Derek took the reigns at IMC following Corey’s untimely death in June 2005. Derek is also Entrepreneur.com’s “E-Business” columnist.
Although this call is for members of IMC’s Internet Entrepreneur Club which features a monthly Strategic planning call with Derek plus exclusive access to his latest Internet Marketing research and proven strategies.
But don’t worry if you’re not already a member of the IEC. Derek has agreed to give you access to the club through a $2.95 trial membership.
So, sign up today to listen in on Monday’s call as Derek Gehl and I spill the beans!
Popularity: 22% [?]
Affiliates: What Do YOU Want?
Jeremy Palmer, Scott Jango, Vinny Lingham and I are ramping up for our panel discussion at the next Affiliate Summit called “What SUPER Affiliates Want” to be held on July 9th in Classroom C at 11:30am.
We’ve built a BIG list of all the things that we, as affiliate marketers, would like to see improved in relation to affiliate programs, merchant site conversions, communication between managers and affiliates, and more.
But we don’t want to miss anything at all, so you’re invited to add to that list. Please leave a comment and share what affiliate program aspects you really appreciate and/or those that absolutely peeve you the most.
Go ahead, don’t be shy - you’ll be helping to improve our industry.
Popularity: 21% [?]
Technorati Tagging Made Simple
I’ve noticed that a lot of Wordpress bloggers code each of their tags (keywords) for Technorati individually using the [tag][/tag] code - which takes more time than is necessary.
If you use the free Broobles » SimpleTags WordPress Plugin, you can save time by placing your comma-separated keywords and keyword phrases in one line at the bottom of your post in between the following code (without the quotes) - “[tags][/tags]“. Notice that you’ll use the word ‘tags’ instead of the singular ‘tag’.
Alternatively, if you’re code-confident, you can modify the quicktags.js file to tag selected words using your QuickTags. The tutorial is located here.
Popularity: 33% [?]
Pippy: The Youngest Affiliate Blogger?
Mark Harrison shared a great story on the NPT Forum about how his 4 year old daughter’s blog out-ranked Amazon and Play on Google.
Be inspired.
Read “If she can do it, you can“.
Popularity: 20% [?]
Can’t See the Merchant’s Landing Page?
If you’re an affiliate who lives outside the U.S. or a U.S.-based affiliate promoting non-U.S. merchants, you’ve undoubtedly tried affiliate links that redirect to completely unrelated sites (usually a survey site), because the merhcant’s offer is only available to residents outside your country.
It’s a pain in the butt if, like me, you won’t promote offers that you can’t check out and soooooo many merchants don’t (or won’t) provide affiliate links that allow their non-U.S. affiliates access to see the offer firsthand.
Anyway, here’s a very simple solution.
Use Proxify.com, a web-based anonymous proxy service that hides your IP address so you won’t be identified as a non-U.S. based surfer.
You don’t need a paid subscription. Just enter the affiliate link in the search box and voila! you get to see whether or not you really want to promote that product.
On the other hand, you might want to promote Proxify’s service to your site visitors and subscribers who have other reasons to remain anonymous. The program is available through ShareaSale.
Popularity: 19% [?]
WordTracker Eliminates 1-Day Subscription
I noticed awhile back that WordTracker was no longer offering their 1-day subscription service, but as of an email sent to affiliates today, they’ve made it official.
“We have eliminated our base one-day subscription level. We are confident that this step will improve our average revenue per sale without being detrimental to our conversion rate.”
Subscription rates are now as follows:
1 Year: $275.88 / £140.00
1 Month: $ 55.18 / £28.00
1 Week: $ 27.59 / £14.00 (still a great deal!)
Affiliates promoting Wordtracker should change their promotions to reflect the change, otherwise you might be disappointing your site visitors and losing sales.
Please note also that Wordtracker has a new affiliate tracking system that requires you to change your current affiliate links.
Popularity: 19% [?]
