MARKET ASSOCIATE

This week I received a comment that peaked my interest and begged the question, When should I add Google AdSense to my website?  This was not the first time that I heard this question.  It always comes up when people launch websites and it is always in connection with generating traffic.  So is it good to add AdSense on the first day of launch or should AdSense be added when web traffic reaches a certain level.  Well, lets look at mindset and were you plan to promote your website.

Where you promote your website in the beginning will directly attribute to if you use AdSense in the beginning or not.  I am a believer that when you first start launch a website you should use directories as some of the first linking partners.  Directories like yahoo directories, DMOZ and Google directories are the perfect first starters.  More on directories to post to in a later post.  But because these directories are so hard to get in it has been said to NOT use Google AdSense until you have been accepted into these directories.  These directories frown on websites that are primarily affiliate marketing websites and tend to make money off of Google AdSense.  So, if these are the key resources that you use to promote your websites don’t use Google AdSense in the beginning.

If your are not going to use these directories are you main launching linking points then I would recommend adding Google AdSense in the beginning.  As for traffic, if due diligence has been done for keyword research then there is a certain expectation that traffic will come to a website.  As long as linking campaigns are done correctly and regular content is added to the site.  And there is always PPC campaigns.  Either one of these techniques will not warrant the removal of Google AdSense in the beginning.

Me myself I always stick to adding Google AdSense in the launch of any of my websites.  Like I said before, I expect with careful research of keywords and a rock solid foundation, I will have traffic come to a website.  And in some cases I could start earning AdSense money on the first day of launch.  That is my expectation and I definitely don’t want to miss out on that money.

Well, I am done with one of my latest case studies.  It involved trying out a traffic generation system that was supposed to generate instant traffic for product promotion.  I ran this program for a week and I was not impressed with the results nor with the toolbar install that ran on my browser.  It seams that every hour the instant buzz toolbar would fail and send a continuous ping to the instant buzz server to get reconnected.  The problem was that when this ping was initialized it froze my terminal and I could not type.  In the middle to putting up post I would have words that were missing letters.  After a while this becomes very annoying.  It was something that I could not tolerate, so I uninstalled the toolbar.

So, how does this end the case study?  It ends the case study because the whole traffic scheme was the more instant  buzz noticed that I was jumping from site to site the more ads they could put in my face.  That earned me credit to have my ads displayed to others in the system.  Now that I have uninstalled the toolbar they are unable to deliver ads to me and as a result my ads will not be displayed to others.  But I am glad I had a chance to check this system out.  And as a affiliate marketer, I must test, test and retest multiple products to see which are useful or not.  It just happens that in this case, instant buzz was not useful at this time to me.

I will send a email to instant buzz to see if they will be able to fix there system.  If so, I may reinstall the toolbar and continue the evaluation.  Otherwise, this one will go to the junk heap.

There is a lot of money in selling tickets and I have been trying to capitalize on it for a while now.  I can’t say that I have found the holy grale as of yet.  But the potential is sure there.

Selling tickets as a means for making money online is very profitable.  And I wanted to point out the two most profitable ways of doing it.  The two way I will look at is buying and selling and affiliate programs of course.

First buying and selling..  Hannah Montana has been a hot ticket in the past weeks.  This ticket went on sale at ticketmaster as just a presale and was sold out in the first 5 mins.  Each show!!!  Wow..  Imagine if you were able to get your hands on some of these tickets.  Well if you were their are a number of websites that allow you to resale those tickets for a substantial profit.  Three most notable are Ticketsnow, Ebay and Stubhub.  Stubhub is owned by Ebay so if you resale on this site they will also advertise the ticket on Ebay.  Million on eyes looking for that one ticket.  If you search eBay, you’ll find a ton of tickets going for sale in the $200-$500 range.  You will also see the same on Ticketsnow and Stubhub.  Selling a ticket on either of these sites for this hard to find ticket alone has the potential to net you hundreds of dollars per ticket.  That is good money.  Also, selling on either of these sites is very simple.

Now, lets get to the affiliate programs.  I’ve used each of these programs and I love each one.  Ebay, even though you will not make a lot of money by getting someone to buy a ticket, the real money comes into play to getting new people to signup for ebay.  They will pay you $25 dollars per each new signup that buys anything.  Anything..  Boy, I love this affiliate program.  So, to me it just a numbers game.  The more people I send to Ebay the more money I will make.  Ticketsnow and stubhub are a little different.  With these programs it is about the ticket.  The more the ticket the more you will make.  I’ve gotten returns on sales in the $30 dollars range to the $60 dollar range.  And these numbers are from one ticket sale.  Imagine if you could be 20 to 30 sales a month.  20 X 30= $600 per month.  Great money.  The only drawback with having an affiliate site for tickets is that there is a lot of competition.  This is not a program I would recommend for a beginner as it will take time to get high in the serps of any of the search engine.  And if your a PPC person, most keywords will cost around $1 to $3 dollars per click.

If your interested in getting in affiliating with ticketsnow, ebay or stubhub they are all managed by www.cj.com.

By far the most difficult task for any internet marketer is to obtain votes or links to there website. With it being so difficult it is important to learn all you can about SEO and link generation to maximize your daily effort.

Today, I want to discuss some of the best links that I have used to help me in the task of SEO and link generation. All of these links are free, but don’t think that they are lightweights. No, all of these sites carry a lot of weight in the SEO industry and if you are able to learn the varies techniques that each of these sights teach you will go far in this industry.

My TOP Picks:

By far the most important sights that I have found thus far for SEO have been seomoz.org and SEObook.com.

SEOMOZ.ORG has so much information in there blog that it would probably take a year to finish reading all the material. They hit on many problems dealing things like duplicate content, Google analytics, keyword placement and much more.

SEOBOOK.com says everything in the name. They focus on some of the same topics as seomoz.org but they also have a course that beginners or even veterans to the industry can and should take. Included in the course is a book that covers all the topics of SEO. If your not willing to take the course, you can buy the SEOBOOK. This course is not free. I have not taken the course as of yet, but I hear it get very high marks.

http://www.associateprograms.com – I have to say that I have been following assocateprograms for the past 4 years. And I have not been disappointed yet with all the material offered for free from this site. They have a powerful forum that have eager and willing people to help anyone in need as they grow in this space of affiliate marketing. The owner of this website also has numerous articles that show numerous examples of websites and strategies that have helped to make major influxes of money.

http://www.theblackinkproject.com – I just found out about this website in the past week and I have to say that it is a valuable resource and it is also free. The project is the brain child of quityourdayjob.com. It is a 4 week course that teaches everything from finding a niche, building a keyword list, to outsourcing for growth. I personally am taking the course and I listened to the first video today and I enjoyed every bit of it. I highly recommend it to anyone that is looking for a meaningful course to learn affiliate marketing/internet marketing.
http://courtneytuttle.com – I have been following courtneytuttle.com for the past year and he has a very good grasp in making affiliate marketing website profitable. He also has a course that he teaches a select few his techniques. Students that have finished the course have stated positive comments on how he has helped them to make a difference in there overall return. I enjoy how candidate his statement are and how straight to the point he has been. Take a look at his site and to will see what I mean.

http://www.wordtracker.com – Wordtracker is the engine I use to find niche keywords to build my websites on, but they also have a blog that features case studies that at times will help to focus in on how to find niche markets and how you and I can capitalize on them.

I am sure there are many more examples out their that are great resources but these are at this present time my best resources on the subject of SEO. I am sure that you will see and come LOVE them is I have.

First, I want to say that I have been very laid back when it comes to updating this site lately. I guess I am getting a little tire and lazy. Sorry about that.

But I have had this lingering question keep flashing through my mind. Should we create sites that are primarily dependent on search engines?

I know what most of you would say.. A very long YES….

But what if for 6 to 7 months the search engines like you and after that they search engines drop you. Leaving you with no traffic. How do you insult yourself?

I think the whole primise of advertising a website should be on everything but the search engines. Don’t get me wrong, you should continue to do all the SEO page updates that you continue to do, but count on things that you can control.

The more control you have over your traffic, the more control you will have with your income.

Search engine traffic should be a bonus to everything else that you are bringing in.

What do you think? I would love to hear your experience…

Correct positioning of your Google adsense ads can make or break your success with the Google adsense program. Why is this true? Some studies suggest that eye positioning on website gravitate to particular sections of web pages. And if you don’t have the necessary ads in these positions you will not get the clicks.

I talked to countless people that have great traffic, some with 300 to 1000 new visitors a day that say that they only make approx. at max $10 to $20 dollars a month on the adsense program. What a shame. But when I look at their websites the ads are either buried in wording that no one usually pays attention to or the ads are located in positions that just don’t call any attention to their presence.

So were is the best locations for you Google adsense ads. Well, I have found the number one best place for the ads are near or in proximity to your main menu. Why near your main menu. Because you know that visitors eyes will and always look for the menu structure of your website. So the common places for placement should be to the top right, the very top under your menu, or the top left. These are the most common locations for you main menu.

But what about the color scheme of the Google adsense ads? Yes, color is very important. You have to make the ads looks as seamless as possible. Here is an example on one of my website ISaved Home Decor. Here I decided to position the ads at the very top right under my main menu. In direct eye contact. Also, I removed the borders; just these two changes will increase your adsense proceeds one hundred percent.

By using these tactics I was able to increase my adsense click through rate significantly depending on traffic level and people’s interest.

Take my advice and give it try. I believe you will see a change and hopefully make adsense a more pleasurable experience.

When I first started my career in affiliate marketing I found it hard to find topics to write articles on. I couldn’t find a focus. My mind was so wrapped up in how to build websites or how to promote my websites. I couldn’t figure out what was important and what I should focus on. Yes, I read plenty of articles, forum post and the like and everywhere I looked everyone would say content is king. The more content the better. But what should I write about. Well, I finally figured it out.

I found that writing articles is just a means of answering questions. Questions that are related to your websites field of interest. As a result, you have to spend time in forums to see what kind of information is needed. If the questions are of interest to the public especially on forums their will be plenty of responses to these questions. Thats important, the more responses the more interest in the topic. Write these questions down. They will be your fuel for you next articles. Do your research and answer the questions from every angle. Then publish the article on your website and on free article publishing websites. As your audience becomes more familiar with your work, your audience will grow and learn to trust your insight.

Another great way to find article material is explaining tools of the industry. Take for example: lets say you are an expert at google adsense and you have made multiple streams of income using the google adsense service. Well, if you could express this service in words thus duplicating your technique with your readers, you will have create a killer article.

Now article writing is not a impossible task. With anything it take practice. But the more you do it the easier it will become. If all else fails their are professional writers available for hire. Most are hired through services offered by elance.com and rentacoder.com.

I hope this article has helped you in finding enlightened topics to expand on. On last note, don’t give up. Article writing is one of the best ways to building backlinks on the internet and it is well worth the effort.

Blogging to the bank promises to guide the common individual to hundreds of dollars per day just by creating blogs on blogspot.com and directing customers to affiliate websites. Personally I thought this program was an exceptional idea but their were a few techniques used for promotion that I would not recommend. Also, I would tweak the program just a little.

Tweaking the program

Yes, using blogger.com does have its advantages but prepare for the disadvantages. First off blogger runs a spam spider that checks all the websites on their domain periodically. As a result their may be occasions that blogger will take away access to some of your websites if it is deemed that your blog is spam. To protect yourself I would recommend producing multiple blogger accounts. With each account focus on a particular topic. For example if the websites that you were creating centered on fish, then only create fish websites under this account. Yes, this in effect causes you to maintain multiple blogger accounts. But what is better, multiple blogger accounts were only one segment of your business can get shut down or one account were google could remove all of your business in one days time. I would lean more to having multiple blogger accounts.

In conclusion, I definitely recommend “Blogging to the Bank“. The ebook is a easy read with only around 40 pages and it is definitely a usable system for those who are just starting as affiliate marketers with little start up money. As a bonus, blogger makes the whole process very easy.

As you all can see I’ve switch my blog from blogger.com to wordpress.  But it wasn’t because I love wordpress so much, it was mainly because of Blogger.com deleting all of my blogs.  Luckily I was hosting this blog on my own and I was able to pull all the post from my blogger account one by one.  But it wasn’t easy.  I had to pull the blogs entries one by one by hand, coping and pasting, a very painful wakeup call from a service that I put a lot of trust in.
Now, I have to admit that blogging to the band and blogger.com are not a good combination.  Yes, its a great idea of using blogs to promote products but putting your livelihood in a free service that you have no control over is definitely a mistake.  So, if your using the blogging to the bank system go ahead and invest in a domain that will allow you to have multiple sub domain.  Than create as many blogs on the domains as the hosts allows and move onto domain 2 then 3 then 4 and follow the same information that is provided with the blogging to the bank system.  But don’t put all your eggs into blogger.com.  You are only going to create a recipe for trouble in the long run.  And if they erase all of your blogs you will hate yourself because of all the hard work you put into creating those blogs and all the promotion you put into those blog that you may be discouraged to continue on.

In conclusion, put out a little investment and build the same business described just do it on your own terms