How To Buy And Sell Domains

Before entering in the domain name game, you need to educate yourself.  To read about the history of domaining, buying and selling domain names, this is an excellent resource:  The Domain Game, by David Kesmodel.

 

There are a number of excellent online resources as well, such as:

• Domaining.com -  An aggregator of domain names news and blogs 
• NameBee.com    - Also an aggregator of domain news and blogs
• iGoldRush.com  -  One of the oldest resources on domain names
• eRealEstate.com -  Domaining info from Rick Schwartz 
• DNJournal.com   - A Forbes site about domaining

New Corel Video Editor, VideoStudio Pro X5 Ultimate is going live March 7

New Corel VideoStudio Pro X5 Ultimate to go live Wednesday March 7. It will have $500 in bonus movie-making and editing features for just $100 bucks. 

Top 10 Reasons to Buy  Video Studio Pro-X5 Ultimate

1. Corel's most comprehensive video-editing package

With breakthrough speed, easy-to-use features and high-value creative video effects plug-ins, new Corel VideoStudioProX5Ultimate has everything you need to take your video-editing potential to the max. The huge variety of tools in this release makes it ideal for anyone who wants to create more sophisticated productions without added complexity.

2. NewBlue Video Essentials and NewBlue TitlerEX

Enhance, optimize and accelerate your productivity with NewBlue Video Essentials, a best-selling collection featuring 20 highly practical effects. You also get NewBlue TitlerEX, the easy-to-use titling solution that lets you create beautiful, complex and

Affiliates' Wordpress Plugins, Widgets & Themes of Choice

The 2011 Affiliate Summit polled their attendees and then generously shared the results in the published Affiliate Summit Report.  There's a number of interesting findings, but I found two areas to be particularly  helpful.

First, it was determined that the most popular Wordpress theme used by affiliate marketers is.... [drumroll please] the "Affiliate Theme".  (how appropriate), and I plan to be checking it out asap.

And second, the top Wordpress widget of choice for affiliate marketers?  The Clickbank Widget.

Awesome Tool: AWeber Auto-Responder

AWeber is a email marketing tool that facilitates communication to subscribers and helps increase readership.  It automates emails, newsletters, subscriptions ~ all kinds of cool things!  It also has a tool that you can use to create your own opt-in boxes... Basically, it's an all-in-one product that increases efficiency and reduces the tedious manual labor of building and maintaining an email list.  (Time is money!)  They currently service over 102,000+ businesses and

3 Tools To Design A Landing Page

• Step 1)  Create a simple page using an HTML Editor  (such as kompozer.net)
• Can insert table and cells, and then simply type in content, add photos and links
• Switch to "source" tab to manually modify HTML code
• Opt-in boxes can be made by using a snipped of code from the auto-responder that you decide to use.  (I plan to use
• Step 2)  FTP Client  (such as Filezilla-project.org)
• Upload Kompozer file into Filezilla (your FTP client)
• Filezilla has a split screen: a local site (your computer), and a remote site (
• Step 3)  Connect the Kompozer file to the server space
• Connect to the hosting space (the server space) by entering your domain, username & password in the boxes at the top of the screen.
• Highlight the file (on the left hand side of the screen in the "local" area, right click & "upload"

Words, Lets be Friends.

OMG!  Say wha? Slow down!  Speak English! Doooood.  What does THAT mean?!      #commonlyheardphrasesinmyhead 


When it comes to learning about affiliate marketing & monetizing content, one of my biggest sources of aggravation has been the inundation of new wonky terms.  Like cracking any field, this voyage comes with an entire set of acronyms and industry specific lingo that must be learned as if it's a second language.   There's so much that authors take for granted or consider common knowledge, that for a noob like me, it can be pretty #facepalm provoking.  But, alas, I know it's just a part of the process.

#sigh

Often times, I've found that to make meaning of posts, I had to decode sentence by sentence, literally googling terms and abbreviations one at a time.  It became clear that starting a list of those terms would be a good idea.  That way I could refer back to it later, pop-quiz myself,  and

Today's To-Do List: Getting Started

GOALS FOR TODAY:

1) Sign up for affiliate networks

2) Pick a couple offers

3) Begin to research, gather info, plan a first campaign

Complete With NickyCakes Recommended Contacts

Don't be confused: It's all the Same Thing

Publisher = Affiliate = Associate = Partner = Reseller = Content Site

What is a Squeeze Page?

A "SQUEEZE PAGE" is a single, simple web page created by internet marketers with the sole purpose of capturing information and creating an"EMAIL LIST" for follow-up marketing.  There NO exits, no hyperlinks to prevent the visitor from distraction.  Thus, a visitor has two option, register to receive further information, or leave the site.

A "SQUEEZE PAGE" spells out who you are, what you're offering, and why folks should be interested.   It also should allay folks' fears of spam through specifying your privacy policy. Email subscribers self-select themselves and inasmuch have identified themselves as bonified INTERESTED.  With that interest, your probability of "success" increases.

COMMON ELEMENTS OF A "SQUEEZE PAGE:

What is Google Website Optimizer?

Google Website Optimizer is a free tool that helps you test and fine-tune campaigns.  It boost conversion rates by removing the guesswork from your landing page designs.

There are two main types of tests, and a third ‘advanced’ test as per a Nickycakes commenter.

1)Standard A/B Test
You split test one url against another. Good for testing 2 different landing pages on one domain.

JillianMichaels.Com Affiliate Program

JillianMichaels.Com offers a three-tiered commission program, so that when you drive more subscriptions, you increase your revenue.   The three tiers are as follows.

Tier 1: Earn 70% of $0-$2,600 in initial enrollment fees per month

Tier 2: Earn 80% of $2,601-$5,200 in initial enrollment fees per month

Tier 3: Earn 90% of $5,201+ in initial enrollment fees per month

And that doesn't suck. 

How the program works:
1. Sign up to be a publisher through Linkshare.
2. E-mail their affiliate team & include your Linkshare member number & website URL.
3. Follow the instructions on the invite to join our program through.
4. Place banners and text links on
your site.
5. They pay 70% of the sale price for every paid subscriber. You have the opportunity to earn up to 90% of the sale price per subscription.

8 Ways to Maximize Your Kewords

There are 8 ways to maximize your on-page keyword usage. 

1. Title
2. URL
3. Meta description
4. H1 
5. H2-4
6. Body
7. B/Strong
8. IMG ALT

The more you utilize, the greater your return.

6 Recommended Affiliate Networks (per NickyCakes)

Apparently, there are hundred of Affiliate Networks.  So, I'm wondering, how does one know which ones to pick?  My understanding, at this point, is that there are 4 biggies:

• Commission Junction:
  
• LinkShare
• Clickbank
• Google Affiliate Network

You're safe sticking with these, and they offer advantages that others don't, such as consolidated payments, and upfront EPC (earnings per click.  Linkshare works with over 700 merchants in a wide variety of categories with big names like Target, Nordstrom, Disney and American Express.  ClickBank offers downloaded products, mainly Ebooks.  It's cheap to join, there's a huge variety of products that range the gamut of quality.   A good place to search for niches.   Google Affiliate Network is a professional site, also with big name clients like CompUSA, EddieBauer, HP, Kohls, VerizonWireless, etc.

So, I'm curious - are these the BEST affiliates networks?   Today I will be looking into networks recommended by NickyCakes below, and will likely sign up for several, if not all..... I'm ready to launch this thing!   Curious about other people experiences with any/all of these networks. 

Advaliant – They have a lot of really good exclusive offers that convert "amazingly well". 
Good affiliate managers (AM):  Geofferson Marcy, Alla Semenchenko, Richard Okolo.

Ads4Dough – A upfront network run by Jason Akatiff.  They'll help you with what's converting, how to promote, and give you landing pages where you can put your ad.  They offer great tools.   Experienced, knowledgeable AMs.

Convert2Media – Run by Ralph Ruckman, former owner of cashtactics blog.  "Good guys who know their stuff."

NeverblueAds – Good for beginners.
Nickycakes recommends: Scott (ext 289)


CX Digital – Previously "Incentaclick"   They’re one of the largest networks around, in terms of number of affiliates. Many offers, good place to start. 
Good AM’s: Winkie, Debrani