Blogs

If you're starting out in internet marketing, it can be quite overwhelming. There are a ton of sites, forums, blogs, books, e-books, videos and strategies out there. Which is right for you? What should you focus on? Where to begin? I think the first step is to understand the large pieces first. What makes up internet marketing. What are the large segments? Once you identify the large areas, you can start to put some of the resources out there into these larger categories.

For the sake of this post, I would like to break it down into these three primary sections. Remember, we are looking at the broadest sense of these areas.

- types of monetization
- types of delivery
- types of traffic generation

I've been a PHP developer for quite a few years now. I've accumulated a fairly large library of PHP and MySQL related books and have read countless how-tos and development articles on the web. As a PHP developer you really need the ability to identify and overcome daily programming challenges. This is done via web searches, forum posts and referring to books on occasion. Now-a-days I have a very large set of code to pull examples from, which can be very helpful, but it's important to always push yourself and find a better or more efficient way to perform the same task. If you do any coding at all, you'll surely know what I'm talking about.

This is a very common thread topic at Digital Point. It happens quite often and can be concerning and frustrating, but I do have a tip for everyone. I too get these, and get them often. People at Digital Point will almost automatically ask where you are from. It appears that immediate declines are indicative of filter rules that are in place at CJ. These rules could be the number of earning bars within your account or the location you listed with your account. Manual approvals take longer, and can often lead to declines as well. Since it's a manual decline, it means that someone physically looked at your request and possibly visited a site or looked closely to your account.

Well, now I know why I have a blank spot where BlogRush use to be. I tried to log into my dashboard and saw that they are shutting down BlogRush. I have to admit, I used it from the day they launched... and never really 'got it'. I don't think I ever received much traffic from them, and was considering removing it anyway. The internet is a tough place. A place for opportunity and dreams, but also a place of reality and failure. They mentioned that they didn't want to go the route of taking offers regarding acquiring BlogRush, but I definitely wouldn't be surprised if they ended up going that way. Seems like the obvious direction and an opportunity of making lemonade from lemons.

Here is the leter I was greeted with when trying to log into BlogRush this morning.

Well, I noticed that I haven't added any code examples in a while, so here is a new one I'm working on now. PopShops is a great tool to display products from different merchant networks like Commission Junction, LinkShare, ShareASale, etc. You can quickly create product pages and have them delivered using multiple methods. Methods include javascript, PHP, XML, etc.

Okay, a few people were asking how my 30 day challenge has been going. I initially discussed this on the 'getting inspired' posted earlier this month. The challenge was to create three new sites and to see if I could generate $100 in net sales. I would be happy with making $100 in gross sales, but I wanted to see if it was possible.

It took me a good part of the first two weeks to get the sites created, but I was able to get the three finished and live. That left the remainder of the month to push traffic to these sites and see if any of them were good. I picked three different niches. One proven earner for me, one occasional earning niche and the last was a total experimental niche. I also used a variety of EPN, AdSense, PopShops/CJ. I also tried to use new improved layouts and functionality. One site I was able to integrate EPN/API with GoogleMaps/API for extended search capability.

Wow, another new tool site discovered today. This was mentioned at DigitalPoint, and it's a great site to check the health of your website. WebsiteGrader does handy things like check backlinks and ratings, as well as check for proper 301 Moved Permanently handling with your www and non-www domain. I think this along with a validator would really get your pages dialed in for bots scanning the site. I'll definitely be using this service!

The latest, greatest tool I discovered to help work on backlinks is Social Marker. This is a great tool to quickly update your social bookmarks with new site launches. You simply add the title, URL, description text and tags. Then you select what sites you'd like to submit to. You can pre-select sites based on popularity, dofollow links, news, etc. One thing that is super great is the ability to easily register to sites you're not yet registered with.

Looking at my earning reports, I'm well on my way to the $20K mark for 2008 (gross not net) sales. I felt this was actually pretty good with the set backs this year. I think if eBay didn't move away from CJ, Google AdSense terms/privacy change didn't happen and finally the YSM change didn't mess with my expense bottom line, I would have done much better. I know those factors slowed my development. In fact, today, I launched my first EPN site since the cutover. Even with the run of bannings, and my confidence at a all time low with this affiliate program, I still punched a site out. Earlier this year, I would stress that building was the key. Build and learn, but always stay proactive. I know after the summer, I took a more passive role and maintained my earnings, while not building to earn more. That was a mistake, but I think it was necessary to ensure that these changes didn't drastically impact my portfolio first.

I wanted to sit and stew over this for a bit. If you're a EPN affiliate, then you should be well aware of the mass account bannings that occurred on Aug 20th. I was one of the lucky ones that didn't get banned (knocking on wood!), but it definitely left a sour taste in my mouth.

There are some clues and information that came from this to possibly help in the prevention of a banning if this happens to your or I. The first common factor that I've seen is that users have low EPC, usually under $10. The other factor that I see is that ACRUs seem to be a large percentage of their earnings, approximately 40% or greater. To me this combination says a few things, and are part of EPN's banning criteria.

EPN stated that they want engaged traffic. EPN also stated that they would start qualifying ACRUs. Both of these statements seem to be related to EPC/ACRU. They want people to go to their site and buy. Not sign up (potentially illegitimately ). And not for people to browse and leave.