Posted by Andy Crofford
 Will it pay off? Hot on the tale of my entry last week called “Article Marketing - What is it?” I am currently in the process of writing a ton of articles. In the past week I have been doing a lot of research on various prodcuts offered by affiliate networks and have decided to try my hand at promoting some of these things through search engine marketing.
There are approximately 10 products I have picked out to experiment with SEM on. With each I item I am writing several articles in addition to optimizing my main sites for the product keyword. It is a great deal more work then I thought it would be and I thought it would be a ton.
The good news is I am almost finished up with the first site. All I have to do is get the articles I have written onto some more blog directories. The only thing really holding me back is the fact that I HATE having to sign up for different article directories. It should take me long to get past this little wall and I should hopefully be ranked on the first page of Google in a couple of short weeks. I will keep you posted.
I am also working on some BANS stores as well as PPC marketing. Yes, it appears I am spreading myself pretty thin with all of this and my full time job but it is how I work best. So stay tuned. It is my goal to have an income report by October.
Posted by Andy Crofford
 Changes are coming. There are going to be some pretty big updates to Google Adwords. Here is the meat of the update:
- Quality Score will now be more accurate because it will be calculated at the time of each search query
- Keywords will no longer be marked ‘inactive for search’
- ‘First page bid’ will replace ‘minimum bid’ in your account
You can read more about this on the AdWords Blog. It will be interesting to see how people adapt to these changes. That is one thing you can always count on with Google, things will change.
From an end user prospective I think the changes are good. Google is always looking to improve the end user experience and I think this is another move in their effort to do just that.
What does everyone else think?
Posted by Andy Crofford
 UBD Unique Blog Designs is celebrating their first anniversary by having a context. The rules are pretty simple and I encourage everyone to enter as the prizes are pretty sweet.
How to enter:
- For one (1) contest entry - just reply to this post with a comment. Only one comment per person will be counted.
- For five (5) contest entries - write a blog post about the UBD 1-Year Anniversary Contest and link back to this post. If your blog post does not appear under the “Pingbacks,” leave a comment with a URL to the post.
The Prizes:
Grand Prize - Brand New 8GB iPod Touch ($299 value) and One (1) Copy of the New UBD Citrus WordPress Theme (coming next week).
Three (3) runner-up prizes include copies of the new UBD Citrus WordPress Theme.
Now that my entries are in I sure hope I win the new themes. I was really hoping the grand prize would be a unique blog design but that is asking for a bit much.
Posted by Andy Crofford
 Promote it with blog directories. Anyone that has been on the Internet, even briefly, can see that blogs are very popular. There are many different kinds of blogs. There are blogs where the author rants about any subject they choose, blogs for the fun of blogging, and blogs created to make money. It is possible, and difficult, to generate income with a blog. The most difficult part is generating enough readers to make it worth someone’s time to advertise on your blog. This is a pretty simple forumla, the more readers you have the more money you can make. The big question is: how can you get this traffic?
One of the best ways of doing this is by submitting your blog to blog directories. Blog directories typically have blogs sorted by category and are very diverse. Regardless of your niche it is safe to say you can probably find a category on a blog directory that is relevant to your blog.
In conclusion, promoting your blog on blog directories is a great way to get traffic as well as build those precious backlinks.
Best of the Web - Blogs
Blogging Fusion
Blogarama
Blog Catalog
Blog Explosion
There are many other blogging directories. Check out the article 20 Essential Blog Directories from the Search Engine Journal.
Posted by Andy Crofford
If you have been considering purchasing the Build A Niche Store (BANS) software now is the time to do it. Their new site looks great. Much more professional then the last version. As Alan pointed out on Affiliate Confession it looks like the buys who create BANS are targetting a much more serious affiliate audience.
I really like BANS. It is easy to setup and easy to configure. The only thing I ever really hated about BANS was the UGLY default templates it came with. That has all changed with the new updates. The new templates they have released look awesome. Here is an example:
 Example of the new BANS templates. These new templates have actually rekindled my excitement for BANS. I am going to start investigating some niches and get some sites up.
Buy Build A Niche Store today and check out the awesomeness for yourself.
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