Is Clickbank Screwing Affiliates?

Posted on by Donald in Clickbank Leave a comment

I’ve been following this one thread at the eWealth forums for the past couple weeks. The title of the thread is, Very bad week for sales…

The thread started September 12th and to this day is very active. One of the major points is that venders are getting the same amount of sales, but affiliates on the other hand have had very low unusual sales of the late. I know I don’t do tons of sales like big Clickbank affiliates (not yet), but my sales are up and down as well. Just recently a vender spoke the differences she noticed.

I did notice something strange in my stats on Saturday. As a vendor, I sold a record number of one product – without affiliate referrals. Normally 95% of my sales for that product come from affiliates. On Saturday, the average number of sales was about the same, but 50% of them had no affiliate referral. Now that makes for a nice sales number for me – but if something is wrong with affiliate linking – then that will hurt me in the long run.

So I looked into it with my own tracking system – and noticed that several sales came from pages with an obvious affiliate link on the page – but for some reason the link didn’t show up in my tracking stats, and the affiliate did not get the sale. So I’m not sure if there is a problem w/ clickbank – or if there may be something new blocking the CB cookie.

This worries me, because not only will I loose affiliates if something is wrong, but I also sell CB products myself as an affiliate. And I’ve suspected this type of loss in my own affiliate sales in the past.

If this is true, which I have no reason to think otherwise… a lot of Clickbank affiliates, including my self are getting screwed by weak Clickbank tracking. Clickbank needs to work on this before I and other affiliates jump ship! This has been going on long enough.


Halo 3 Damage Disc Contest Update

Posted on by Donald in Adventure, Contest, Fun, Games Leave a comment

Halo 3 is still available until the 3rd of this month! I’ll pick the winner after the 3rd and contact you for details. If you still want Halo 3, here’s you chance! Simply leave a comment here and you might be the lucky winner!

halo3

Halo 3 Damage Disc Contest


Free Halo 3 Game!! (Scratched Non Working Disc)

Posted on by Donald in Adventure, Life, Rant 8 Comments

Well, just as the title says. Shortly after I bought Halo 3 from GameStop, I went to play some multiplayer with friends. I stupidly started the game before I moved the console to an optimal location for our multiply frenzy. When I picked up the Xbox, I reached under where the game DVD resides… and lifted the console in which I heard sounds of horror come from within the Xbox. Sounds as a game enthusiast you never want to here. I knew from that moment Halo was being viciously attacked from within the console. There was nothing I could do. Somehow when I lifted the system, it unbalances the game disc and scratches the hell out of it. I took pictures:

Halo3damage

(Oh NOES!!)

halo3damage2

(SOB!!)

So, instead of me throwing this disc away like I wanted to do, a friend recommended that I give it away. What kind of value does a scratched game like this have (which does not work)? Well, as a past Blockbuster employee, I know kids like to rent good games and return their scratched non working games all the time. Why? Well just for this reason! So, if you want a scratched non working version of Halo 3, leave a comment here and I’ll pick the lucky new owner! I usually don’t post often, so I don’t expect to have a lot of comments, so if you really want this game, here’s your chance!

P.S. I do not condone scamming Blockbuster for a new version of Halo. You’re free to use this game in any way you want.

halo3


Why Not Make Money Online? Get Started Today!

Posted on by Donald in Clickbank, How-To, Life, Rant, Recommends, To-Do 2 Comments

Working for your self or working for someone else.

I don’t understand how people like working for someone else and never trying to better their self. Most people I know are either not doing anything at all, or just working for someone else going no where. I’ve tried to motivate friends and family members on the fine points of making money online, but for the most part it’s too much for them. The simplest of things like using an FTP program, buying a domain name or even understanding what I’ve just wrote is beyond them.

In a place where instead of making 2k a month working 40+ hours a week, a person  can literally make as much money as they want working from the comfort of their own home and even make money while they sleep! I try to tell people they can do so much better working for their self, but it seems everyone I talk to is either afraid of taking a risk or too lazy to do anything at all. Even the smart people I know, who I give step by step advice for making money online never goes through with it. (not you david)

I’m just tired of defending the worker bee!

I’ll help a person out to the point where I’ve done 90% of the work, but if they can’t do that last 10% then I’m sorry, it was never meant to be. If you’ve ever wanted to succeed with something, you have to take a risk and follow through! If you can’t follow through, you’ll never have anything in life.

If you’re having trouble getting your goals completed, the best advice I can give is to create a to-do list. Write down what your goals are, and what you need to do to reach them. Then take the time and work to reach your goals! Instead of watching TV all day, reading blog post like this or forums, take the time to get something done!

If making money online is your thing, then I recommend downloading The Ultimate Wealth Package.

The Ultimate Wealth Package is one of the greatest money making systems out there. Simple to use methods, great earnings potential and good tutorials to help you get started + get a free (limited-time) offer on a new website. Download your copy of The Ultimate Wealth Package today.


Blog Update – Clickbank, Kontera, Adsense, and other Crap!

Posted on by Donald in Clickbank, CPA, eBay, Intresting Stuff Leave a comment

I think I have too much going on. I have two forums, 60+ websites, several of which generate my main source of income, hordes of affiliate projects, testing, maintenance, updates and more! I don’t consider my self a workaholic, but geez… it seems the more traffic a website gets, the more it takes to maintain it. Which I guess comes with the territory. Other then working online, I workout at Golds Gym as much as possible and spend lots of time on my other hobbies, cars! I’m a Webmaster, Affiliate Marketer, Internet Marketer, and I guess a soon to be writer. (working on an eBook).

Which brings me to, what do I call my self. As a job title, I would like to say I’m an Internet Marketer. But whenever people hear that, they think I work for some crap company, trying to sell some crap product. At least that’s what I would think. Calling my self a webmaster seems a bit much. What am I so good at that I’m the master of?

What about Affiliate Marketer? That goes with Internet Marketer I guess. I’m finding more and more Affiliate Marketing is becoming a big chunk of my monthly income. It’s about 1/5 right now… which is nice! I should call my self a writer! Even though I consider my self a poor writer, I seem to write more then anything else. Internet Marketing requires being a decent copy writer.

Affiliate Marketing and other ways to create money is what I want to focus on from now on. I still love talking about SEO, and ways to build websites, but I think people want to know about making money online. I know that’s what keeps me going to my favorite blogs.

John Chow Dot Com and ShoeMoney.com

These guys have some great blogs that are updated a heck of a lot more then my blog (they make thousands off their blog a month). I wish I could focus more on my blog, as it’s producing better and better stats everyday, but until it starts producing real income, besides adsense and Kontera ($100-$200 a month), I can’t spend all my time on it and not on my real money makers. Maybe I should find a niche and stick with it! Lol. I talk about too much stuff with this blog and I can’t target any good affiliates with it. Even though this Blog is blowing up because of my eBay suspension guides and forums, I hate talking about eBay. Other then in the forums, I don’t want this blog to turn into another eBay hater. I want to talk about alternatives to eBay. And other ways people can make money. I think that’s the better route to take.

Well, another post about nothing. I seem to do that a lot! I guess its better then posting nothing at all?

What kind of value can I give off this post? Hmmm

Well, I talked about Kontera a bit.

Kontera to me is okay. It does a little better then adsense, but the lag time for the text links to be created are a bit much. Kontera doesn’t work well in forums either, it seems to do okay in blog post. So far I added it to about 5 blogs, and it’s had about 500 clicks this week, the results aren’t impressive. I’m willing to wait a few more weeks to see what happens. The good thing about Kontera ads are they don’t take up any additional ad space. And they’re highly configurable.

I’ll talk more about this in a couple weeks when I can give more details stats on it.

Oh, and Clickbank affiliate program is working great still! I almost reached my second goal of $200 a day! The most I’ve made so far has been $187 in one day. The average I’m making is $60-$130 a day; which again is nice considering this is all free traffic through a couple blogs and email marketing. I’m definitely going to keep working on this. It’s more then just making money; it’s the progress I love to see.

Well, until the next egotistical post, have a great day!


Clickbank RSS Mass Automation

Posted on by Donald in Clickbank, Recommends Leave a comment

A Message from Mass-Automation – Software I use for a several of my sites. If you’re working with Clickbank but find it hard to update with the latest products as often as you want, Clickbank RSS is for you.

View the demo of the software here.

Dear Aspkin,

My latest software called CB RSS has just been released!

Check out a demo video here: Clickbank RSS

I’m excited about this because it finally brings the power of RSS to
Clickbank. Enabling you to create customized, niche RSS feeds all coded
with your unique Clickbank affiliate ID.

Who is this software for?

Anyone who wants to monetize the website traffic.

* If you run white hat websites or blogs, this software can make you
more money.
* If you create blackhat sites this software can make you more money.
* If you create auto-generated websites or blogs, this software can
make you more money.

View the Demo


How to Generate Search Engine Traffic – SEO Tips

Posted on by Donald in Google, How-To, SEO 1 Comment

I get this question all the time… How do I generate traffic for my websites?

The hardest part about creating a successful website is getting the traffic. If you don’t have traffic you won’t make any sales. Don’t worry though; it’s your lucky day! I just drank a whole cup of coffee and I’m ready to write a guide on how I generate traffic for my websites.

If you’ve read any of my older post you would know I run 50 plus websites with my latest being an IP tracking website called IP Burger. Most of these websites are content based running off wordpress and automated software – which takes a lot of the hard work out of maintaining my websites. It also gives me time to build up my network with off site SEO.

Okay to the meat! How do I generate traffic? The two most import things you should know about generating search engine traffic is that the more targeted unique content you add to your website daily and the more relative high ranking in bound links you have pointing to your website – the more traffic you’ll create.

Content and the value of that content determines your traffic. You can’t just have any old content on your website. Your content has to give real value to the visitor. You have to have something that people will want to know. If you repost something already found on the internet, Google will notice and give you crap for ranking. It’s not worth your time and effort using other people’s content. You have to use unique content and you have to add or update that content often for Google to keep your website up in the ranks.

What I mean by this is Google will continue to visit your website if there is content updated or added often. The more you add or update your content, the more Google will visit your website. And you want Google to visit your website as often as possible! The reason for this is the more Google visits your website the higher your search engine placement will be compared to less visited websites. Do you get me? Another way Google will visit your website often is in bound linkage. The more in bound links you have, the more Google will visit your website and update your web presence.

So the key is to add fresh and relevant content to your website as often as you can without spamming the search engines, and to have plenty of in bound links. The way you get in bound links is by posting your links in forums, blogs, articles, or anywhere else you can have you link counted. The higher ranking the website your link is coming from, the more weight Google places on your website for targeted keywords. This will also give you a small boost in your search engine ranking which will increase traffic.

Think about adding content this way. Every new page you create on your website is like adding a new doorway into your site. The more doorways you create, the more traffic you’ll receive. And again your content needs to be relevant and unique to your business in order to generate targeted traffic.

Keywords!

What are keywords? Keywords are words you’re trying to rank #1 for in Google. If the keyword you’re trying to rank for is blue widget, then any in bound links you create should have a variation of that keyword in it.

Example Keywords: Blue widgets for sale, cheap blue widgets, blue widgets information, your guide to blue widgets, etc.

Google relies on these keywords to decide what your website is about; which brings me to your webpage titles. Your webpage titles should include keywords you’re trying to target. Google will look at your in bound links for keywords, but will only act on them if these keywords are found either in your content or title.

Example: Google ‘Miserable Failure‘.

A few months ago, when you looked up this keyword in Google, the first site that would be listed would be about George W. Bush. Now Bush never used the words Miserable Failure in his website, but because of the way Google was ranking keywords at the time, he was listed in first position for that word. But now since Google has made it clear that keywords must be found in your website before being counted toward your search engine ranking, the first site ranked for Miserable Failure is a wiki site about Google Keyword Bombing. Search engine optimization is funny stuff.

Enough with keywords –

Let’s move on to crawlability. Search engine spiders scour the internet to update as many websites as fast as they can. In order to maximize the ability for a search engine spider to crawl all your web pages, you’ll need URLs that are search engine friendly. Most search engines are able to crawl some parts of dynamic URLS, but this won’t be enough if you want high rankings for your website. You need URLS that end in PHP, HTML, ASP, ASPX, etc. You need static URLS. Trust me on this!

Some more about the type of content you have –

The Experiment!

statsOkay this is what I did a few days ago to double my traffic for one of the websites I run. The website is a content based site where user rate guides submitted. What I was doing to generate around 1000 visitors a day was to simply add new guides daily which would be displayed on the index page. It’s somewhat a Digg style website. This worked okay, but I was having a hard time increasing traffic. So then one day, I noticed users responded negatively or positive based on the content posted. If there was a great guide posted one day, I would see an increase of traffic. It seemed visitors reacted to the guides differently depending on it’s quality or it was the search engines. So I tested something a few days ago. I made it where the top rated guides would be shown on the front page. The moment I did this, I saw a surge in traffic! Twice as much as the day before! Why does better content have such a big response like this? I’m not really sure. Most of the traffic is unique and coming from one place. Google. Google seems to love the good content I have.

This tells me the better your content is, the more people will react to this and give you traffic. Same with search engines, the better content you have, the more traffic you’ll receive.

Just something interesting I found. Content is king, but the value of that content is what really matters.

The overall message I’m trying to give you is in order to increase your natural search engine traffic for the long run is to have tons of valuable content and in bound links. It’s as simple as that.

You can create a forum, which this site has (eBay Suspensions Forum) and have your users generate the content for you. You can have a blog which is what this site is founded on, and update it daily (which I don’t). You can create a simple static website and build pages from there. There are a lot of little secrets when it comes to SEO, but building content and in bound links is the basis for a successful website.

I hope you enjoyed these little tips, now get to work. 🙂


IP Burger – Whats Your IP Address?

Posted on by Donald in How-To, Intresting Stuff, Recommends Leave a comment

I just finished creating a simple IP checking website called IP Burger. There are a few of these IP checking sites out there, and well I saw they were doing well, and the fact that I usually recommend people checking their IP address to these sites, why not create my own? Well I did. IPBurger.com

The website displays your:

  • Current IP Address
  • Name Address
  • Remote Port
  • Browser

Go to IP Burger here: What’s my IP address?

Any linkbacks welcome, go to the link page here.

What is my IP Address?


Oh Noes! A New Reason to Work Harder!

Posted on by Donald in Cars Leave a comment

A new reason for me to work harder has arrived! The new 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X! That means I need to work harder with affiliate marketing, my marketing job, and other projects! I’m on it! I’m currently trying to get rid of my 94 Mustang GT and maybe my older 87 Mustang if I get the new EVO in a couple months! Zero to sixty in 3.7 seconds! Add some NOS with that and I’m flying!

eve

My reason to work harder. A toy – LOL

What’s your reason to work hard?


What is a Landing Page? Clickbank and PPC Advertising

Posted on by Donald in Clickbank, Google, How-To, Intresting Stuff, PPC Leave a comment

What is a Landing Page?

In my quest of earning $200 a day from Clickbank I’ve come to a roadblock when it comes to generating sales using pay-per-click. To this point I’ve only been making money using banner ads on my personal websites. It’s all free organic traffic, so I’m making 100% profit. The thing is I want to start making money that I can control with a flip of a switch. The problem with PPC advertising is your sales have to beat out your cost to make a profit. I understand this. I understand the proper way to get going with PPC. I just can’t seem to create a proper landing page.

I was reading this great forum post earlier today, it’s about 17 pages worth of great information on getting started with Clickbank. And in the forum this guy talks about his progress with Clickbank and PPC. This thread is an absolute gold mine!

Here are a few highlighted text I found in the forum! There is a lot of great information here, be sure to read before the this thread to get the whole picture.

  • Well one problem I see time and time again is that people try to sell the product on their landing page.. you shouldnt be SELLING the product… thats what the vendors pitch page is for..your landing page should presell… give an introduction to the product.. let other know how the product helped you etc.. then have a link to the vendors page… a customer doesnt want to read your landing page.. then have to read through the same stuff on the vendors page.. it will only bore them…
  • As someone who’s been in all facets of sales before, the hardest part isn’t getting them to agree on the PRODUCT. It’s getting them to agree to the CONCEPT. Timeshare for example, is neat in concept, but has a terrible stigma (in most cases rightfully so). The hardest part selling them was gettign the people to realize it could HELP – at that point it was just a matter of which product they wanted.
  • I see these pages selling one product, several pages, lots of pictures and big red text, and being savvy, it’s off-putting. But when I see several products it’s like my defense is lowered because I’m not guarding against one big scam, but instead 4-5 products which each may be scams, but are arranged in a format that doesn’t make me immediately think so.
  • An old sales trainer told me to sell the way a predator attacks a horse. Run straight at them and they’ll freak. Wind side to side moving closer each time and they’ll let you get up to their face before running because the slow, steady movements are disarming. Not sure if it’s true, but it was a hell of an analogy.. I think it goes along with the idea that you can’t throw a product in the customer’s face and force them to buy and expect good results. You start off slow – arouse some curiosity, develop some intrigue, provoke some thought.
    Then, you further keep their interest by hitting some of their emotional “hot-buttons” – connect with them, bond with them, show them you’re one of them. Then, making the offer as someone who identifies with them, you offer to give them more information about the product [link to merchant sell page] (instead of shoving it in their face) as something you, as someone similar to them, would honestly recommend to help them out. Thereby, instead of going after them straight away, you “tack” back and forth several times to get the sale.