Archive for July, 2008

30 Day Challenge Follow-up

Thursday, July 31st, 2008

I wanted to remind everyone that tomorrow is the start of this year’s 30 Day Challenge.  As I wrote in my last post the goal of this challenge is to show you how to make $10 online in 30 days without spending any money.

They say even if you have some experience with marketing online that this will be beneficial for you.  Though I haven’t had time to do any of the pre-season stuff I do plan to do the challenge.  It is my goal to make that $10 and scale up what I learned to make $100s.

In addition to this I am also studying Gauher Chaudhry’s Pay Per Click Formula that I wrote about yesterday.

Remember, if you decide to do the challenge leave your username in the comments here and maybe we can team up and work together to become internet marketing gurus.  I love networking and working with other people so it could be a lot of fun.

Tags: 30 Day Challenge, Affiliate Marketing
Posted in Meanderings | 2 Comments »

Pay Per Click Formula

Wednesday, July 30th, 2008

If you do any type of affiliate marketing chances are you visit forums or other sites related to it and been offered all sorts of eBooks to make you rich. You know the ones. People offer you their “Make $12,000 a Month on Autopilot” system for only $5.00. Now if you use any type of logic at all you probably avoid purchasing these guides. If it were that easy we would all be wealthy, right?

If you watched Top Affiliate Challenge then you saw Jonathan Van Clute totally dominate the competition.  I really wanted to figure out how he did it because he really did well.  Fortunately he mentioned his Mentor Gauher Chaudhry and the system he created for traffic brokering called Pay Per Click Formula.  When I started reading the site I noticed that it lacked the overhype you generall see on a sales letter.  This intriguied me even more so I have decided to check it out.

Pay Per Click Formula is more than just an eBook.  It should be for $797.  What you get when you purchase this course is six manuals, six CD-ROM tutorials and two DVDs with live footage from the seminar Chaudhry gave. The material covers the following:

MODULE 1: PLAYING THE PAY PER CLICK CPA GAME
MODULE 2: BUILDING A KEYWORD EMPIRE
MODULE 3: DOMINATING GOOGLE ADWORDS
MODULE 4: DOMINATING YAHOO SEARCH MARKETING
MODULE 5: DOMINATING MSN ADCENTER
MODULE 6: DOMINATING OTHER PPC SEARCH ENGINES

You also get some spreadsheets that Chaudhry created to track CPA campaigns.

I am really looking forward to getting started with this. Hopefully I can learn the material and use it to may advantage. Either way I will keep you all updated on my progress.

Tags: Affiliate Marketing, traffic brokering, website traffic
Posted in Meanderings | 3 Comments »

GoDaddy vs Name.com

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

Yesterday I mentioned that I used to use GoDaddy to register my domains exclusively. Recently I discovered another domain registrar, Name.com. Today GoDaddy and Name.com will be going head-to-head to see who is the best. I will look at five main areas: Price, Customer Service, Registration Tools, Control Panel, and Overall.

Price
GoDaddy’s non-discounted price for a .com is $9.99. Though it is very easy to find coupon codes and discount them to $6.99 (before the .20 ICANN fee).

With Name.com it is $5.99 for a .com and $5.89 for a .net and nearly impossible to find a coupon code but at these prices do you really need it?

The Winner: Name.com - The main reason, because they have a great price without having to use coupon codes.

Customer Service
I haven’t had a lot of experience with Name.com’s customer service. I have been using GoDaddy for several years and have interacted with their customer service team from time to time. GoDaddy’s customer service is always great. They are very friendly and have always known what they were talking about. Each time I dealt with them I always hung up satisfied that I received the right answer and not just an answer to get me off the phone. Any issues I had (e.g. Auto renew turned on for a domain I didn’t want) they were very quick to refund my payment and take care of it.

Name.com’s customer service was excellent the one time I contacted them. The response I received was very timely, friendly, and answered the question I had.

The Winner: Draw - I haven’t used Name.com’s customer service enough but the time I did they were great. Each time I have dealt with GoDaddy they have always be pleasant.

Registration Tools
This one will be short and sweet. I find GoDaddy’s suggestion tool very useful when I am looking for a domain. I have used their suggestion more than once when the domain name I searched for was taken. The thing I really hate about GoDaddy’s registration process is the constant up-sell. Every page you land on when registering a domain is trying to sell you something. All I want is the darn domain!

Name.com has a pretty vanilla search tool. The only extras you get when searching for a domain are premium domains that are for sale. Their tool does not provide any suggestions. What Name.com lacks in a domain search tool they make up for in the rest of the registration process. There are no annoying up-sells to be seen. You select your form of payment and whether or not you want Google Apps and Privacy on the domain. Very simple, just the way I like it.

The Winner: Draw - GoDaddy has a great suggestion tool and Name.com has a straight forward registration system. I find myself doing domain searches at GoDaddy and registering the domain at Name.com.

Control Panel
Like their search tool Name.com’s control panel is no frills. You login to your account and are greeted by a list of your domains. On the left are all the control options. One of my favorite features is the bulk management tool that allows you to update various things on multiple domains including nameservers.

GoDaddy’s control panel is MUCH more complex. One reason is because GoDaddy offers so much more than just domain registration and it can all be managed through this one control panel. I don’t think I have discovered everything you can do within it. I have to say I prefer the simplicity of Name.com’s control panel but once you get used to GoDaddy’s it isn’t hard to use. They also provide bulk management tools and allow you to organize your domains into folders. Another feature I really like is the that lets you consolidate expiriation dates. Just select the domains you want to consolidate (.com/.net/.org only) and select Renew > Consolidate Domain Names. One downside is that GoDaddy’s control panel seems to run VERY slow at times.

Overall
Both registrars have their redeeming qualities. I used GoDaddy for a long time and thought it was the absolute best. I didn’t use any others. Then a little over a month ago I saw Name.com had really cheap domains so I tried that out. The conclusion is if you like lots of extras definitely go with GoDaddy. If you are more of the no-frills type Name.com is for you.

The Winner: You can’t go wrong with either

I hope you enjoyed this review. Who do you prefer to use? I would love to hear your comments on this.

Tags: domain names, Internet
Posted in Internet | 1 Comment »

Be the master of your domain,

Monday, July 28th, 2008

Good domain names are getting harder to come by thanks to speculators and squatters. It seems about 90% of the domains I try to register that are already taken go to a parked domain page. This gets a bit frustrating but it just means I have to get a little creative to find a good domain name.

As a general rule I try to go for a .com first then a .net and .org. I also try to avoid using hyphens. Using hyphens is a great way to make a search engine friendly URL but you should try to keep them after the domain extension. Rumor has it that Google will now penalize you for having hyphens in your domain name.

GoDaddy’s search tool is the first place I start when I begin my search for a domain name. The main reason for this is that they have a pretty good suggestion tool. Until recently I used GoDaddy exclusively because I really liked their control panel and could get domains for $7.19 with a coupon code. I have started registering my Domains at Name.com because you can get a .com for $5.99 and .net for $5.89 without a coupon code. With that said I usually check GoDaddy first because Name.com doesn’t have a suggestion tool.

If you fail to find a domain name with GoDaddy’s search tool you have some alternatives:

BustAName – Enter your keywords in box one and they will be combined to find available domains names.

MakeWords.com – Generates domain names based on criteria you select. Will tell you if the domain name is available or not.

Dot-o-mator – Enter your keyword(s) in the prefix or suffix box then select a category from the name list, click combine, then check availability. This is a great tool and allows you to quickly check what domains are available.

Once you find a domain name you want to buy go back to GoDaddy or Name.com and register the domain. Both GoDaddy and Name.com offer several payment options, including PayPal. In my experience they also have great customer service. Look for reviews on the two tomorrow.

Tags: domain names, Internet
Posted in Internet | 1 Comment »

PRODUCTIVE PARTNERS: Bloggers and Marketers

Sunday, July 27th, 2008

This is a Guest Post by Scott Ford. He currently does not have a website but loves to write, loves business, and has graced with his presence.

Since the advent of Affiliate Marketing and Affiliate Programs, it seems like bloggers and marketers or product owners have become each others best friends. Bloggers love marketers because they provide a very lucrative way to make money online. And in the same manner, Marketers are enamored by the most skillful bloggers and their blogs. It’s these bloggers (or affiliates) that make it possible for marketers to advertise their products and pay only on a per output basis. In essence, the relationship between the blogger and the product owner is a win-win situation.

As mentioned, it is through the magic of Affiliate Marketing that Affiliates and Marketers find their common ground. This internet marketing strategy is often referred to as blog marketing. But, what exactly is blog marketing?

Blog Marketing Defined

Blog Marketing is an internet marketing strategy where blogs are utilized by marketers as a way to get their products and services known. These marketers work in tandem with blog owners. The blog owners agree to post ads on their websites. They are then compensated each time a visitor to their site clicks on a marketer’s advertisement. This method of compensation is also referred to as a pay per click method. Other compensation methods include pay per lead and pay per sale.

Write for an Audience

Since bloggers are paid on a pay per click basis. They must then find ways to get as much clicks as they can. The fastest way to do this is by generating more interest or traffic to your site. There are several ways of increasing daily hits to your website and one of them is by blogging about general interest pieces. That means you have blog about items that will make the internet surfing public want to read your posts.

Make the Ads Feel like a Part of Your Site

Another way of increasing your number of clicks is by formatting your blog to cater to your marketer’s ads. Make it seem like their ads are a part of your site. Visitors should not be made to feel that they are just clicking random advertisement. The more they seem like an extension of your site. The more clicks you get. Most of the time, you won’t have to worry about this. Advertisement program like Google AdSense sends crawlers to your site to determine the content of your blog. They then place ads that match the content of your site.

Tags: Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, make money online, nichemarketing
Posted in Guest Posts | 1 Comment »

• « Older Entries