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Most of my readers know that I give them some tips on monetizing their websites and blogs from time to time, and that one of the ways I try to scare up some cash is to run my Starving Artist Sale to sell my Adsense Backgrounds for Five Lousy Bucks, but I recently ran across yet another innovative way to make money online that you don’t hear discussed very often … Virtual Begging

The first time I heard of this method was when I came across the Save Toby Website, which was a spectacular success, by the way. Then I encountered the Virtual Begging method when I noticed the “Buy Me a Beer” plugin that a lot of people use. I tried it briefly, but no one bought me a beer.

One of the funniest sites I’ve run across is the Digital Beggar … no other purpose but to beg for money with a script that changes the message every time the page is loaded. I don’t know how successful he is at soliciting donations, but the idea is unique and the implementation humorous.

Here’s some other graphics that gave me a chuckle the other day when I found them here.

So with all the make money online scams out there, perhaps getting rid of the ads and posting one of these in your sidebar is the way to go. What do you think?

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The Right Brain vs Left Brain test

Is the dancer turning clockwise or counter-clockwise?

If you see the dancer turning clockwise, then you use more of the right side of the brain and vice versa.

(Guys: If you only see a silhouette of a naked woman … FOCUS. Is she turning clockwise or counter-clockwise?)

Most see the dancer turning counter-clockwise though you can try to focus and change the direction; see if you can do it.

The Blueprint for Success

If you read the online marketing forums, you’ll find a lot of newbies getting started in affiliate marketing, most who seem at a loss as to where to begin. They want to know what you are selling, where you are selling it and how you are selling it as well as a template sales/landing page. Basically, what they want is an exact blueprint for success.

There are literally hundreds of self-proclaimed “gurus” who claim to provide you with the exact blueprint that you need for success … at a price, of course. You can literally spend thousands of dollars in pursuit of this elusive blueprint and never achieve the success that each of their sales pages proclaims. In fact, most people who try their hand at an online business will fail. Many will get discouraged because they haven’t made a dime from all the “blueprints” they have purchased and find themselves losing money instead of making money.

A Guide for Creative Thinking

Here’s a secret that most affiliate marketers won’t tell you.

There are no blueprints

Much of the rehashed garbage information that is found in the “guru” ebooks can be easily found on the Internet for free. I have read many of these ebooks and have never found one that actually contained a “blueprint” for a successful online business. The blueprint is inside your own mind and any information you need to accomplish your goals can be found for free.

In order to be successful in life and business you need to get your own creative juices flowing and come up with ideas. The more ideas you can generate, the more successful you will be. They don’t all have to be earth-shaking, ground-breaking ideas … generate enough ideas, and one of them is bound to be a prizewinner.

Creativity is a latent skill … a skill that everyone is born with and that grows with use. You can increase your creative powers by using them, over and over, in every situation, deliberately and specifically, until creativity and a creative response to life is as natural to you as breathing in and out is. There are very few things that you can do that can have a more powerful positive impact on your entire life than becoming excellent in creative thinking. And you can if you think you can.

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I’ve put together an Affiliate/CPA Directory for you to help you choose ad networks and products to promote. Another consideration when choosing your networks is the problem of affiliate cookies being intercepted by popular spyware detection programs. The problem of cookie deletion has long been a problem of the online ad industry. A report from independent spyware researcher Ben Edelman highlights the degree to which spyware detection software gobbles up your commissions by intercepting affiliate cookies.

Edelman studied 11 spyware detection programs to determine which ones devoured cookies from a range of 50 ad systems, including ad networks, affiliate networks and Yahoo’s and Google’s pay-per-click ad systems. These spyware detection programs included McAfee Internet Security Suite, Symantec’s Norton Internet Security and Microsoft Windows Defender, LavaSoft’s Ad-Aware, PC Tools’s Spybot Search and Destroy, Webroot’s Spy Sweeper, and ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite. Read the rest of this entry »

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I made a list of CPA Affiliate Networks in an earlier post. This is a list of US and International Affiliate Networks that you get commission for selling products, rather than generating leads. I’m a member of Commission Junction (CJ), Linkshare (LS), Affiliate Future US, ClickBank, PayDotCom.com, ShareASale (SAS) and MarketHealth, with MarketHealth being my best performing now, but PayDotCom.com the best in the past. Hope you’ll find this list useful when searching for products to promote. If you run an affiliate program that is not listed, leave a comment and I will add it. More information needed to choose the best networks can be found in my newest Dot Com Mogul article: Is the Cookie Monster Eating Your Commissions?

The Largest Affiliate Networks

AMWSO - Affiliate Management Consulting firm lead by Chris Sanderson, manages 20 affiliate programs from leading merchants such as Western Union, Panda Software, Shopster, GoodTimes Entertainment, Gaiam, South Beach Diet and Forzieri.

Commission Junction (CJ) - a ValueClick company, delivers performance-based online marketing solutions. Network access to the USA, UK, Germany and France.

Linkshare (LS) - LinkShare pioneered online affiliate marketing, and today runs one of the largest pay for performance affiliate marketing network on the Internet. Network access to the USA, UK, Canada and Japan.

Microsoft adCenter Affiliate Program - If your site is focused on Internet marketing, search marketing, web development or business you have the opportunity to generate revenue by referring new advertisers to MSN adCenter, via the Microsoft® Affiliate Network.

PartnerCentric - manages 40 top affiliate programs including well known brands like National Geographic, BriteSmile, Medifast, 21st Century Insurance, The Company Store, Lamps Plus, Domestications & Quicken Loans.

Performics - Now owned by DoubleClick, provides performance-based online marketing services and technologies for leading multi-channel marketers. Clients benefit from Performics´ custom approach to affiliate marketing, search engine marketing and lead generation programs.
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Does it get tiresome to you to go from blog to blog only to read that they’re giving away 1,000 Entrecard credits or having a big contest if only you will subscribe to their feed, post the contest everywhere, Stumble Upon them, Technorati, Digg, Reddit and del.icio.us them.

Yeah, I know contests are a great way to drive some traffic and get subscribers and all that, but it just seems that when a blogosphere idea gets a foothold, everyone does it nearly simultaneously. It lacks originality and gets boring to read one contest hype after another. I think if I ever do decide to have a contest, I’ll give away something interesting … instead of Entrecard credits, maybe a blind date with Johnny Depp or Jessica Alba, depending on your preferences. But until I get that lined up ….

I promise you that I am not going to bribe you with anything to read my blog.

Nothing up my sleeves, no snake oil promises … just content. I am going to provide quality content. I will put a piece of myself into what I write and write openly and honestly. Hopefully, you’ll learn something or get some value from my words. That is my promise.

Photo Credit           Read my latest post, Liars, Thieves and Scoundrels at Dot Com Mogul.

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One thing you don’t hear talked about very often in affiliate marketing is ethics. There is a sleazy underbelly in the affiliate marketing industry. For every good thing said about affiliate marketing, there are many more negative things said. Affiliate marketing is an enormous business. Most prominent businesses on the internet use some form of affiliate program today. So how can it have such a bad reputation?

Affiliate marketing is a highly competitive business and many affiliate marketers resort to cut throat methods of making sales. In addition, some of the companies are frauds. You’ve heard it before, I’m sure … “get rich overnight with little or no work on your part.” Using trickery and deceptive promises isn’t a good way to build your reputation or a sustainable online business. Every business owner knows you have to work hard and invest time to gain real results.

In addition, some affiliate marketers use such methods as cookie stuffing and, as in the example screenshot of Blackmaskmarketing (now taken down), outright theft of commissions that were rightfully earned by another marketer. Little wonder that affiliate marketing is a dirty word to some, with landing pages like that one available. This was being sold with resell rights and already Google had tons of scammers hawking it.

Just because you’re on the Internet and can often work anonymously, doesn’t mean you give up your moral compass. Build your relationships as if you were face to face. Sell products that give value to your customers. Lies, deceit and trickery are not the way to build a good reputation or a sustainable business. It might be good for a fast buck and I know that is all some affiliate marketers are looking for, but if you’re building something more, hard work and honesty will go farther to achieving your long term goals. Set a good example and mentor others to help them achieve their goals, and in return you will be successful yourself.

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Ok … I admit it. I’m a stalker. I first met the owner of this blog in the Rich Jerk’s forum. At times he was harsh, rude, abrasive. I found that somewhat appealing. In actuality, he’s a no-nonsense marketer who is very successful at what he does. What differentiates him from other successful marketers or “gurus” if you will, is that he gives away valuable information for free. I made my first real money from his posts at Rich Jerk. He left Rich Jerk for another forum and I stalked followed him there also. He then launched his own forum and this is without a doubt the best Internet Marketing forum I’ve been a member of, bar none. Link to it is on his blog.

If you are serious about learning as much as you can from someone who is a master at his craft, you should subscribe to Ruck’s blog at Cash Tactics and join his forum. This is not a paid review and there are no affiliate links. He actually has a large following already and doesn’t need my endorsement. This is just an honest assessment of a must read blog for those who are serious about making a living online.

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I’m a bit disappointed in the services that are available to help bloggers sell their “real estate.” I’ll be honest .. I started this blog when I was a newbie at Internet Marketing and it’s early life was nothing more than a splog at best. Not really knowing what made a great blog or even the best way to push products, I went with the highly overused “review” blog. Throw a few banners up and talk about products and people would come in droves to buy them … right? Wrong. I’ve since deleted all of the original posts and started over some time ago. My goal now is to publish content that people actually want to read … and if they buy some products while they’re here or a paid review or ad space … so much the better.

So when I first began this blog, I ran across all those paid review sites and applied to them. I was promptly told that my blog did not meet their rigorous quality criteria. Well, now it does and I’ve been accepted into all of them. However, the problem I am now finding is that their advertisers don’t meet my rigorous quality criteria … with my main gripe being … they are cheapos. Read the rest of this entry »

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I found these two shops for blogs … PrestoGifto and PopShops. PrestoGifto integrates CafePress products in your blog and PopShops integrates products from Commission Junction, Linkshare, ShareASale, LinkConnector, Performics and Red Galoshes, so you will need to be a member of these networks to utilize these shops.

If you look at the links in my nav bar, you’ll see Blogger’s Shop. That is a PrestoGifto shop. The one that says Books and Stuff is the PopShop. So far, I’m getting a lot more clicks on the PrestoGifto (CafePress) products, but I just installed these yesterday so it’s too soon to tell how either of these will work out.

Both shops are easy to install and integrate. PopShops takes a bit longer to set up since you can choose up to 100 products. Both of these shops are still in Beta but seem to function beautifully. PopShops has a feature you can install that will put a little pop button in your “write post” bar and you can pop a product in the post. I’ll pop one in here to show you … lol. They do have a much larger selection of products to choose from so if you aren’t pushing “blogging thongs” not to worry. You can choose your products by keywords. Very simple to add an ad to your post with PopShops. Read the rest of this entry »

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MAKE
~$$$$$$ BIG MONEY $$$$$$~
FAST

No really …. I’m serious!

Is anyone else tired of all the “Gurus” and their “Make Big Money Fast” ebooks that run anywhere from $49 to $197 for a bunch of rehashed or should I say regurgitated garbage? I’m not saying that it’s not possible to make money online. I am saying that the Gurus are using the desire that people have to work for themselves and achieve their financial goals by selling them one piece of crap ebook after another … all with the same Read the rest of this entry »

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