Be very, very quiet. I'm hunting affiliates!!

I would like to continue the affiliate marketing partner discussion today with a review of OfferVault and CPA/DNA.

As you dig into OfferVault a little deeper you will see the offers listed are actually listed with other affiliate marketing networks. Although you might like an affiliate marketing partner listed at OfferVault you will still have to get the advertising through another site.

With that being said, OfferVault is more of a search engine to find affiliate marketing partners but you still have to make contact with another affiliate marketing network such as CPA/DNA.

CPA/DNA is much like Commission Junction. They differ in the affiliate partners they represent. Like CJ you will have to apply to each affiliate marketing partner to participate in their program.

What’s nice about both CJ and CPA/DNA is you don’t have to fill out anything to apply to a company. You just click a button and your site information is then forwarded to the affiliate partner. Many companies okay you application instantly, others may take a day or two.

I added another page to this site (Free and Trial Offers) and put up banners from CPA/DNA. The new page will have free offers and trial offers.  Even though the offers are free for consumers, you as (an advertiser) are still paid a commission for leads or sales.

The banner advertising is available for you to use free of charge. There are numerous advertising tools for each affiliate marketing partner. Tools include HTML or Java banner code, text link code, email copy, search engines, tool bars and so on.

CPA/DNA seems to offer more styles of marketing options than CJ. CPA/DNA also offers an array of tools and tracking reports for you to use at no charge. These are very handy and show you graphically what is happening at your site.

The easiest way to see if advertising works is to track how many people actually visit (tracked as an impression) the banners website (or text code or whatever marketing tools you may be using). If people are visiting the site advertised then you are half way home. 

The second half of that equation is targeting the advertising to customers who are ready to purchase. Lookers are great but you are trying to create a profitable home based business. My vision with this site is to provide not only information but also provide useful tools for a home based business.

Prepaid debit cards, Yahoo affiliate program, Amazon aStores, Amazon Affiliates, Outright.com, Amazon wireless, AVG Technologies, National pen Promotional Products and so on are provided as useful tools for an online home based business.

Like I have said in the past I am a big believer in prepaid debit cards for use online. I will transfer only the money I need to the card. If I have money deposited to the card I transfer that to my business account right away. 

So, if my card number is stolen or I lose my card it is not tied to my personal bank accounts. Since rates and such vary I advertise more than one provider for you to choose from. 

The same goes for Amazon Affiliates and Yahoo affiliates. If you are looking to get started in internet marketing Amazon and Yahoo make it very, very easy. Everything thing you need to start an online business is available from Amazon and Yahoo. Websites, products, advertising, statistical tools and training are all provided in one place.

Outright.com offers online accounting services that rival Quickbooks. I am lucky enough to have a wife with an accounting and business background. If I did not have that resource available, I would definitely be looking for an accountant. If I can do that from the comfort of my home even better.

National Pen Promotional Products is also offered as a tool to get your websites name out there. People are curious by nature. The web makes it easy for any individual access to information to feed that curiosity.

If I see a web address that sounds interesting to me, I take a look. It costs me nothing but a minute of my time to check it out. If I don’t like or need it I can leave with no one the wiser. But if by chance I find something interesting, your advertising efforts have paid off. Get your websites name in front of people, every chance you get.

  

My next blog will be a discussion of article marketing.

Like always, join and follow the blog, click the banners and text links to start making money. You can use the EWAHR forum to post questions or request a review of a site. You can also email me directly at ewahr2011@yahoo.com

 

Peace.

Simply SEO

Keywords (a word used in a performing a search) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO, the process of choosing targeted keyword phrases related to a site, and ensuring that the site places well when those keyword phrases are part of a web search) are tools that must be used to create and maintain a profitable website.

“choosing targeted keyword phrases related to a site, and ensuring that the site places well when those keyword phrases are part of a web search”. That's about as clear as mud!! Let's break it down and I will show you examples of each.

Keywords, a word used in performing a search. The majority of people searching for a product or service on the internet, will enter a complete or partial sentence as their search criteria. If someone is looking for a purse, they may enter the query “purses”. If they do they will get millions of hits relating to purses.

The search engine spiders (A spider is a program that a search engine uses to seek out information on the internet, as well as to index the information that it finds so that actual search results appear when a search query for a keyword is entered. ) will comb the web looking for any webpage with the word “Purse” in the content. More specifically the keywords in the header (a line or lines of text serving to indicate what the passage below it is about). Purse is the keyword. 

 

Here is what a search for Purses looks like. Purses search results 42,500,000 results returned .

If you have a couple of weeks you could sort through the list and find the purse you want. Or, you could be more specific. This time you search for Liz Claiborne Purses (that's what my wife buys) you get this.Liz Claiborne purses search results 728,000 results returned .

Still a lot more choices than you will want to go through. And those who have used the internet for shopping for any length of time know to be as specific as possible to narrow search results.

So, know we search for Liz Claiborne silver beaded evening clutches for less than $35 you get this.Liz Claiborne silver beaded evening clutches for less than $35 search results 30,600 results returned.

Notice how the amount of results gets smaller and smaller as the search query is more clearly defined.

But know the keyword issue becomes more complex.

 

Let's look at the query, Liz Claiborne silver beaded evening clutches for less than $35. 

 

Now, the spiders are looking for the keywords; Liz Claiborne, silver, beaded, evening, clutches and less than $35. And here is what they found in the first site listed. Cached results

The content of the page is Keyword rich. It has been optimized using those keywords in the body of the page. If you look at that page at the top you will see, Keyword results.

If you scroll down you can see where the keywords are highlighted in the text.

This section defines the keywords used in the search. You can access that information by clicking the Cached link in the search results. Link example .

I hope this helps to explain SEO. Another tool for SEO is Google AdWords Keyword Finder Click here.

The keyword finder does exactly what is says it does. You enter a search query and it tells you what keywords are most likely to be used in a search. You must be registeredwith AdWords to use this tool. Registration is free.

So, if we enter Liz Clairborne silver beaded evening clutches for less than $35 into the word or phrase box at the top we get this, Google AdWords. If you scroll down it will show how many results were returned for each keyword or phrase. Keyword count. 

 

I have a red box drawn around the highest counts. These are the keywords you want "sprinkled" throughout your header and content if you are marketing that particular purse.

For some reason this was the hardest thing for me to get my head around. It is like this is some deep dark secret only shared among internet marketing gurus. 

So now if you look at the search for my site you see. Simple Search.

Here is what is in the cache, Cache Results. 

 

Notice the highlighted keywords. Now go back and take a look at yesterdays blog looking only at the bold and or italicised words. How many keywords do you see?

Hopefully, the light bulb turned on at this point just like it did for me. Sorry we didn't get to a review today. I think this is a very important tool and I wanted to discuss it with a little more detail.

Like always, join and follow the blog, click the banners and text links to start making money. You can use the EWAHR Forum to post questions or request a review of a site or, you can e-mail me directly at ewahr2011@ yahoo.com

Peace.

More on blog content and a review of Amazon aStores.

Happy Saturday.

I want to share a very positive opportunity that arose as a result of my blog writing. Late last week I received an email from a fellow named Dan.

Dan runs a website designed to provide help solutions for those who are unemployed, specifically those who are considered 99ers (people who have been unemployed for 99 weeks or more).

The email said he had read a blog posting of mine at Squidoo (remember we discussed Squidoo yesterday) and he invited me to be a guest blogger at his site.

This is important for a number of reasons. First, it shows postings at Squidoo do get read no matter how much of a novice you may be. The article he read was one of the 3^rd or 4^th articles I ever wrote. Secondly, it provides a backlink (a hyperlink) to my site. I don't completely understand why exactly but this something the search engines look for. And of course it offers exposure to his audience.

Take the time to visit Dan's site he has been doing this for a while and has a lot of good information at the site. http://www.99ers.net/

Now, I want to discuss blog content a little more and then move on to the Amazon aStore review.

Once you have keyword rich content, you need to keep in mind just how inattentive and hurried we have become as consumers. I believe a lot of this is due to Television advertising. We are so used to getting all the information we need in a 30 second time slot, anything longer than that becomes boring. The same is true when people are reading online. Try to create short 3 to 6 line paragraphs or “modules” within your blog.

My modules may be a little longer at times, due to the fact I want to complete the message of the module. But, the short concise modules make reading your blog much simpler. They create a nice reading pace in the blog. It is also easier for someone to get back to where they were in an article, if they had to stop reading and come back.

If you look at this blog you will see the pattern. I am going to stop here and will discuss publishing your blog tomorrow.

Amazon aStores https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/ are available to all Amazon Associate members and can be used with Blogger and other web hosting sites. The is no fee to become a member.

In essence Amazon provides you with an empty online store. It is up to you to stock that store with products marketed by Amazon.You also have the option of letting Amazon do the stocking.

This another really useful tool for beginners. They do a very good job of walking you through building an online store. Every step in the process is clearly explained and are very easy to understand and use.

If you have been to my Blogger site or have looked around my forum site you will see banners for Aipom's Jungle Shop http://astore.amazon.com/johnjohnstore-20 and Poppy's Guitar Zone http://astore.amazon.com/poppys-20 . They are both Amazon aStores that I created.

Aipom's Jungle Shop features only Pokemon related toys and games. Again,I am looking for that “niche” in the market. My son is a huge Pokemon Trading Card game fan and plays in league and tournament events. So a store full of Pokemon products makes sense, he has, even at age 11 a certain expertise when it comes to Pokemon.

Poppy's Guitar Zone http://astore.amazon.com/poppys-20 was created to work hand in hand with my forum site. It offers high quality, low cost musical equipment and accessories. If you notice this is another “niche market”. I have been purchasing musical equipment and accessories from Amazon for the last three or four years. It is very hard to beat their pricing.

If you search online for a product, more than likely Amazon will turn up in that search. The other thing you will find is they not only offer their featured item and price, They also give you other purchasing and price options for the same product. Try it and see. Look for a product and price and then go to Amazon and look for the same product. Amazon's price including shipping is 8 out of 10 times lower than anyone else.

After 30 years in Quality Assurance I have heard enough complaints about substandard product. I don't want to spend any part of my day handling customer complaints. Representing a company with Amazon's reputation for customer service (#1 in a recent poll) was an easy decision.

An Amazon aStore may be all you need to create extra income. Since Amazon offers almost everything under the sun, it is not hard to get people to shop Amazon. The rising cost of fuel is only going to help this type of business. Help your friends and family save time and money, send them to your aStore.

If I can wait for the produt to be shipped to me (usually 4 or5 days), I always check Amazon first. We consistantly use Amazon if we have to ship a product we purchase. Gifts for friends and family that live out of town can be shipped directly to them at no extra cost.

As an Amazon Associate you are paid an advertising fee for products purchased through your website. And they pay you that fee even if the product is not found at your site. Both of my aStores have a link to Amazon's homepage. Customers can search your site and if they do not find what they need they can search the entire Amazon product catalogue. Since they entered through your site, sales are credited to you.

I wanted to verify if this was true. I went to Aipom's Jungle Shop and didn't find some Pokemon decks my son John was looking for. I did find them at Amazon proper. I ordered the cards and in 2 days I was paid a 4% advertising fee. Amazon aStores is not a scam. They pay you for advertising fees earned.

If you do no more than shop for yourself at your site, you will automatically be paid 4% back or up to 6% if sales are more than 6 transactions per month.

I am marketing these two sites using banners and I have printed business cards with the sites name and hand them to everyone that will take one.

While we are on the subject, if you are going to be in business, you should always carry business cards. You can buy business card software and stock and make your own. Or they are many services offered online. Even your local CopyMax or OfficeMax will help you design and print your business cards.

Business cards are a relatively inexpensive way to advertise your business. The nice thing is with todays technology you can buy 100 cards or less and still get a very good price. And try to keep it simple, there is no reason to fill a small card with tons of unneeded information and graphics. 

My cards are medium weight white stock and have only my websites URL, the sites title and my name in the lower right hand corner. I am not going to waste money on something that may, more than likely be thrown away. I used money I earned at M-Turk to pay for the cards.

Like always, join and follow the blog, click the banners and text links to start making money. You can use the EWAHR Forum to post questions or request a review of a site or, you can e-mail me directly at ewahr2011@ yahoo.com

Peace.

Next time: Publishing you blog and a review of Work at Home No Scams.com http//workathomenoscams.com

Web Hosting, blog content and a review of Jimmy Jazz

Ok, you have decided to build a blog based website. You have your niche market, you picked your web host, you've got your computer and you are ready to rock and roll!!

If you have never built a web page either using HTML code or using template software you need to do some reading or check out YouTube for videos. I searched YouTube for “building a webpage using Yola” and there were numerous videos walking you through the Yola process. Yola has a tutorial as well. Take the time to watch a video before you start.

Now the real “Brainwork” starts. Take the time to look at other websites in the same category. It is not a crime nor a sin to “covet” the layout of someone elses website. If you find one you like go ahead and borrow their ideas. Or if you are artistic (I am a musician not an artist) then come up with your own design.

Once you start building you will need to consider the “content” of the webpage. You need to decide how many pages you will need. I have five; a Home or landing page, a page for the blog itself, a forum page, Recommended links page and a page to sign up for the newsletter. You decide what works best for you.

I like a home page at any site. It should provide you with enough information to keep you at the site. Mine even has a partial excerpt from my blog to entice people to stay. The banners are there for two reasons. One so I can show you examples of affiliate marketing partners and most importantly to get potential traffic even if they never leave the home page. You will need a page for the blog, the other pages are at your discretion.

The problem at this point is getting feedback for your design work. I would like to help you with that issue. If you need someone to give you “notes” on your website, feel free to send me an email with the details. I will at no-charge, give you a fair one page critique.

With those things completed, you are ready to start blogging.This can be either the easiest or the hardest thing to do.

In order to get noticed by the “Search Engine Spiders”you need to use words or phrases people use as search criteria. If your blog is about work at home opportunities, you want to attract people searching for work at home opportunites. So, you want the blog to be “rich” with these type of keywords. I am not sure if it just because of the subject matter, but I have no trouble creating keyword rich content.

I purposely use bold italic type for words and phrases I want to emphasize, but it also to allows you to see how keywords sprinkled throughout the blog's content will look. Go back to the top of this blog and then scroll down looking only at the bold type. Get it?

If someone's search query is “ How do I start blogging at home online for free?”I am giving the search engines plenty of keywords relating to that search.

I would suggest to anyone who has never blogged to sign up at Squidoo http://www.squidoo.com/. They have a site designed to help “budding” bloggers. They offer tons of help direction and support. You can even have other bloggers critique your blog before you post it. I started out using Squidoo and picked up a few good tricks. And the best part is it is free!!

How about a review, today we have Jimmy Jazz http://www.kqzyfj.com/click-4929398-10789531

a 

Jimmy Jazz is recognized as the largest urban clothing and sneaker retailer in the United States. They offer our customers the hottest hip hop brands of clothing for teenagers and adults; and “kicks” for both adults and kids alike. They feature premier apparel brands like Rocawear, founded by Hip Hop icon Jay-Z, Coogi, Akademiks, Baby Phat and Dereon, along with the best selection of shoes from Nike, Creative Rec, Jordan, and Polo Footwear to name a few.

Living in a small(ish) town in southern Wisconsin you can imagine there is not a lot of options for folks wanting Urban style clothing. It is a “niche” market. Jimmy Jazz is a division of ManAlive! http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-4929398-10793833 If you went to a disco or a mall in the late seventies you know who they are. They have a good reputation, the pricing looks reasonable,they offer discounts and price breaks for the customers and carry a wide selection of styles and sizes.

I am marketing Jimmy Jazz http://www.jdoqocy.com/click-4929398-10789531 through Craigslist and with banners at this site. Even though the clothes and shoes are not my style, I see it everywhere I go. I may email market this affiliate marketing partner later this year. Up to 10% commission and exclusive coupons and deals for affiliates.

Like always, join and follow the blog, click the banners and text links to start making money. You can use the EWAHR Forum to post questions or request a review of a site or, you can e-mail me directly at ewahr2011@ yahoo.com

Peace.

Next time: More about content and a review of my Amazon aStores.

Poppy's Guitar Zone http://astore.amazon.com/poppys-20
Aipom's Jungle Shop http://astore.amazon.com/johnjohnstore-20

Free web hosting and a review of Collections Etc.

Today’s blog comes from the Hedberg Public Library in Janesville, WI. I am here for a couple of reasons. First, they are removing a tree in front of my house so, I have no internet service for the second day. Secondly, to give you one more way, to not spend money when starting your home based business.

Besides the library there are numerous hotspots WI-FI hot spots in my area offering free internet access. Even McDonalds has free WI-FI. Take advantage of this if it makes sense for your situation.

One of the best business rules I ever learned, was simply; “If it doesn’t add value to your process, don’t do it”.  Don’t spend money that doesn’t increase your profit margin or make your job measurably easier. This includes wasting time and energy.

Which brings us to, Tools.  One of my “shop floor rules” is “Don’t do math in your head”. Use a calculator every time. It is a “tool” designed to make accurate calculations every time. Use the tools available to you to make your job easier. I feel the same way regarding, free website providers.

 

I am not going to spend time learning to write HTML code just to get a website up and running, when providers like Blogger and Yola who are experts, and do it for a living, allow you to access their service for free. It makes sense to take advantage of that expertise so you can focus on marketing.

 

Here is a tip I wish I had before I started my website. You are designing a marketable product. Especially, if you are contemplating, a Blog based website. You really have to “sell” your product. So it needs to be “appetizing” to a wide range of people and personalities right from the start.

I completely changed the format of this site in the first 3 weeks. If you step back and look at the pages and formatting today, it all has purpose. My intent was to provide a site that is professional, yet modern and friendly. The colors are easy on the eyes. The font is a readable size and color. Links to other pages are right at the top at eye level and easy to use. The banners are placed alongside the blog for readers to access easily. 

I want the reader comfortable as they read. I also want the reader to come back. So I have an RSS link (Really Simple Syndication) so you don’t have to go to the site every day, it comes to you. I know in my case, if I have to “work for” or wait to view a website, I am moving on.

If you keep these things in the foreground, you can save yourself some time. Of course a blog based site is not your only option. Though, I think it is a very good solid option.

I also have a forum style site. This is a site designed to allow musicians to post questions and comments about musical equipment. It is in fact another “Tool” I am using for affiliate marketing. I use the site to post advertising for my affiliate partners. I chose the affiliate partners specifically aimed at the musician demographic (a specific group of customers). Visit the site and you can review this option.

The next site I am “rolling around in my head” is a direct sales site. This site will feature products of my choosing marketed to a specific “niche market”. A niche market is a group or groups of customer who interest is in a very specific area. 

People who knit comprise a very large market. People who collect antique knitting needles are a “niche market”. Since I am a musician my next site will probably be musical equipment related.

So, there are three options for you to explore. Notice all three are fueled by my own personal interest. I use knowledge I already have to provide valuable content to the sites.

Yola offers a very powerful hosting service. The tools for building and tracking your website are very easy to understand and use. Customer service replies the next day to questions. And if you need it to be, it is free. Since this site is a blog, I may never really need to purchase a domain name separate from Yola. 

That is the caveat your domain name has .yolasite.com tacked on to the end. Even with Yola tacked on to my URL the search engines are still picking up my site. I recommend starting out with Yola, you can always go elsewhere if does not work to your liking. 

Here is the review. Collections Etc. http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-5193667-10720837 My wife has been receiving a Collections Etc. catalogues in the mail for years. They are a company based in Elk Grove, Illinois.  They have been around  for 40years and online since 1997. They offer all sorts of fun knick knacks for the home and garden.  Lots of nature themed home décor products (bears, eagles, wolves etc.), yard tools and even Garden Gnomes. The cool part is everything is $19.99 or less.

We have personally order products from Collections Etc. http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-5193667-10720837 and have never been disappointed. They have themes based sales promotions for each holiday season. I posted an ad on Craigslist on Tuesday and sent out 30 emails to targeted addresses. I have received 171 impressions and 28 clicks this is a conversion rate of 16.37%. Almost 17% of the people seeing the email or posting clicked the banner and went to Collections Etc. website. That makes Collections Etc. my biggest performer to date. 

Next blog will be about Free webhosting, blog content and contain a review of affiliate marketing partner Jimmy Jazz http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-5193667-10789531. 

 Like always, join and follow the blog, click the banners and text links to start making money. You can use the EWAHR forum to post questions or request a review of a site. You can also email me directly at ewahr2011@yahoo.com

Peace.

Non-traditional work models continued and review of Complete Tax

The reason I suggest you start out with Amazon M-turk and survey sites is the positive cash flow you can develop. Those sights will create income surprisingly, very quickly. At M-turk you can cash-out (transfer money) at 10 dollar intervals. My Survey allows you to exchange 1150 points for a $10 Amazon or PayPal gift card. Vindale Research has a higher cash-out threshold ($50) but you can make money pretty quickly (if you choose to) with Vindale Research. But , remember “You reap what you sow” you have to put in some effort to receive the rewards.

By the end of the first month your balance sheet should be in the black (positive cash flow). At that point you can “invest” that money back into your business, if you like.

Now, with money in your pocket you can begin to look at other opportunities.

Hopefully, by now you have some sort of business plan and have set a long term goal and a couple of obtainable short term goals. If you need help with goal setting, send me an email and I will try to help.

To some this may seem trivial or unneeded. But, look at it this way:

If you live in L.A. and want to drive to New York you would either use a conventional map, Google or Yahoo maps or maybe even GPS to determine the route to your destination.

Hmmm, If I want to get to an unfamiliar destination I can use a map (plan).

Then doesn't it make sense to devlop a plan to help direct you to your ultimate destination? Of course it does. So, with your business plan in place and money coming in, let's take a look at expanding our horizons.

Even though I am using only “free” opportunities” as a part of my business model it doesn't mean that is your only option. There are literally hundreds of work at home opportunities that require a small start-up fee (a fee charged for initial enrollment in a program).

Some have been around longer than I have. Companies like Amway, Avon, Tupperware, PartyLight and Mary Kay have a very well established product lines, training programs and ad campaigns. “With your nose to the grindstone” all these companies can be profitable.

I recently read an article that claimed there are thousands of “abandoned Avon customers” all over this country. People get started, build a customer base and then give up for one reason or another. That leaves their customers without a representative. People can be very loyal to the Avon brand. It cost as little as $20.00 to get started with Avon.

Tomorrow, I will begin the discussion of building a website using Free Website Hosting.

Now, I want to review Complete Tax http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-5193667-10861198

There are two things in life you can't escape, Death and taxes.

I want to explore a variety of affiliate partners before I really settle in on the ones I will continue to use. I have been using tax prep software at home since it hit the market. It is much simpler and much more accurate than doing things with pencil and paper.

Complete Tax tax return preparation and e-filing software offers the convenience of a secure, browser-based tax interview, allowing the taxpayer to use their home computer to save time and effort when preparing and filing their tax return. Access the tax return conveniently from any computer at any time. They pretty much offer the same things as other tax prep companies.

I understand their will be slow growth most of the year, but April 15^th is 4 days away! I would think from December to May will be the busy season. I am marketing Complete Tax through banners at this site, Craigslist and email marketing. Commission is 20% of each sale generating from your site.

If this is your first visit, I will remind you this is a chronological journal of how I started a home based business. Be sure to check older blogs to get all the fine details.

I want to take a minute to thank everyone who reads this blog, you are a big part of the reason this project is moving forward. Keep up the good work!!!

Like always, join and follow the blog, click the banners and text links to start making money. You can use the EWAHR Forum to post questions or request a review of a site or, you can e-mail me directly at ewahr2011@ yahoo.com

Peace.