Just kidding… but on the real, we had our webinar recently  on NO B.S. methods to make money online.   In this webinar, we showed the audience how to create online revenue via inexpensive website creation and promotion methods, with subsequent affiliate program monetization. 

Check out the webinar by Clicking Here…. It’s  Free

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Yesterday, I was chatting with my oldest son about the economy and his job situation.  He has taken a “non-traditional” route.  By not finishing college, he has had a little harder road than some of his other friends who did finish school.

As I sat there trying to encourage him, I did take the opportunity to try to interest him in learning all that I do.  Now, granted, I have been doing this for years… so perhaps it looks a litte more intimidating than it really should.

I showed him some affiliate commissions…

Affiliate Commissions for Slim Chews

Braids By Breslin Affiliate Program

But with all of that, I am still not sure that he understands all of the streams of revenue join together to make some cool cash flow.

I TRIED to show him, (in terms he could understand), search engine optimized pages of mine showing a number 1 spot… but still not sure that he got it…..

Google Search Engine Optimization

I even tried to show him where his family, owns and operates BlackAtlanta.com and 30 other African American city sites with Number 1 Google Status out of 15 MILLION results, which brings miscellaneous affiliate dollars and ad deals from all kinds of companies…

Google Black Atlanta Positions

I even showed him how we get small daily checks from Google….

Google Daily Clicks

BUT… with all of that

I think the easiest for him to imagine was when I sparked his imagination by telling him that he could take something that he loved…. turn it into an electronic ebook… and then SELL it.

I helped him calculate the total hours that he thought it would take to write the ebook… and then what it would take to get it in front of a hungry audience who wanted it.  (it is a HOT idea… and if he does not write it, I will!)

Not everyone has an internet marketer for a dad.  But EVERYONE & anyone can acquire RESOURCES.

Personally, I would check out Tim Harris’ sytems.  He shows you how to “Beat the Recession/Depression By Learning How You or Anyone can Generate Instant Fast Cash with no mony, no special skills, or no connections on the internet. ”

Now, I am a realist…. so I preface my recommendation with two knowns for acquiring success..

• There are people in this world who have a silver spoon and the royal hookup.  They come from money, generate more money, and pass money to their kids.  Nothing wrong with that…
• THEN, there are hard workers….. who start with nothing and make something.

If you fall into the first boat, good for you.  Otherwise, in the second bullet, you summarize most of us.  You summarize my son, who can come up with unconventional ways to make cash, even though he did not do the “traditional” college route.

Tim shows you how to:

• implement cash generating strategies for the internet
• how to monetize web sites
• use tools to get started
• produce internet products within 24 hour
• write sales letters
• get people to endorse and praise your product.

Better yet, he has a 2 hour course on how to make money from CPA networks, (like I showed you above in the Slim Chews Money Screen Shot)

Again, click here to check him out…. If my son would read all of these helpful guides, and watch the videos, he too would be on his way….even if he has a marketer for a dad!

More Reading from BlackInternetMarketing.com

• See how I was able to use landing pages to market the Braids By Breslin program.  Click here.
• See how we started marketing a version of the Slim Chews CPA program by clicking here.
• Check out our comments on landing pages in the weight loss sector.. .Click here!

Good luck!

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Online dating is a huge market online.  We straddle the fence between Match.com and BlackSingles.com.

For us, BlackSingles has a better reception as far as media conducive to our demographic and better yet, they take the time to keep their banners fresh and up to date.  Our experience shows that Match.com has a seemingly larger database of potential dates…. But what good is that if no one is getting to those landing pages?

Here is an example of the testing that you should clearly do to effectively monetize traffic via all of your affiliate programs.

Goal: To get as many site visitors into a conversion funnel to become a dating customer.

Traffic Sources: Mostly organic traffic on one of our test sites:  www.blackatlanta.com

Our ClickThrough Stats:

Dating Impressions and Click Throughs for Multiple Banners

Please note that Revenue can still be generated on this clickthroughs!   As with most affiliate programs, we are most concerned with:

• setting that all important cookie
• getting them to sign up for an email list for the affiliates to market and convert
• a direct conversion, (which did not happen yet on these clicks)
  

Banners:

Banner 2401

Banner 2408

Banner 2413

Results

So out of 253 banner impressions, the 3 different banners got varying degrees of rotation.

Per the results, Banner 2413 was the winner with 80 impressions and 4 clickthroughs (5% ).  This banner also received ALL clickthroughs!

Some Reflections

Now, some may say that should clearly promote a winner only after a solid test number of impressions given.  Sure, we could have waited for 100 impressions a piece for ALL banners, but sometimes, a HUNCH can help you in making money.  Just ask Warren Buffet.

So clearly, the last piece of this is that we immediately go into our ad server and deactivate the two losers!

Now, these results were click through summaries for that the Affiliate program has provided to us.  You can use your analytics program or vendor programs… JUST GET STARTED!!!!

**************************************************************************************************************************

Update:  as of 2/10/09, Our study still stands… The Click through rate has decreased…. but with over 300 shows a piece, still has a better click through than the other two.

Click Through Is Still The Winner

DEFINITELY turning all traffic towards Banner 2413.

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PepperJam Network

After building up a great Search Engine Position for the important keywords of “Slim Chews” and “SlimChews”, I get the email from Pepperjam Network, that they have stopped their affiliate program. 

While building and owning your own product line may mean a major investment and even a liability upfront, the key thing to know is that you OWN the line and your product line is not dependant on a product line that may go away. 

This happened to me with the Slim Chews Affriliate Program.  We are Still Number 2 in Google… But without the namesake, we have no product to push. 

Now, I have contacted the vendor, and from what I see, the program may continue with another affiliate program vendor.  We can either:

• Sell the domain name… with proven traffic and SEO value AND REVENUE, we can sell….
• OR we can steer product selection to another weight loss product….

We will keep you posted.  The issue is that if you put major time and effort into building landing pages, investing in traffic, building SEO, there is still risk for you as a promoter. 

Affiliate Program Nirvana.  Or Lack Of…

I have tried CJ.com.  LinkShare.com.  Many of them.  Came across PepperJam Network and Really wanted to make an financial investment in promoting their CPA products… Slated to start in January 2009…  I really like PepperJam Network!  They have plenty of affiliate network awards for 2008!

But every product I tried either Discontinued OR kicked me out?  Plus, what was almost a $10 payout for referral of other affiliates to their program, has turned to $0.50.  YES, 50 Cents! 

Did they have such an influx of new affiliates that they can afford to pay such a sucky amount? 

Feedback?  PS… let me make 50 cents off of you… Click here to join PepperJam LOL

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Hair and Fashion have a huge market place online.  Do a web search for Hair Braids or Hair Braiding or Braids By Breslin to see how…

A couple of years ago, I advertised on BlackAtlanta.com for a company called “Braids By Breslin”.  The banners did not really have a very high click through rate for the general population of site visitors.  However, I quickly noticed in the stats that the term “Hair Braiding” was quickly becoming very popular as far as natural organic traffic for the site.

This was because of some ancillary content that I had added as a landing page for the terms.

So I contacted Braids By Breslin by email, and coincidentally, they were starting an Affiliate program.  I was their first affiliate.

For months, I enjoyed easy affiliate commissions from natural search engine traffic for “Hair Braiding”, and was even able to tweak search engine optimization for other keywords like “hair weaving” or “Kinky Twists”.   And then the GOOGLE flip out occurred.  Google flopped on me and my stream of revenue went down the drain.

Some Key Learnings

• Search engine optimization is a GREAT way for free traffic opportunities.  It is also VERY direct, in that the end user is definitely looking for your product or service.
• However, when Organic traffic is the ONLY source, if SEO efforts flop, then one should be prepared to supplement traffic in other ways.

A Solid Hair Braiding Product

Another key learning opportunity was basically that, you should promote strong products.  In this case, promoting an affiliate program, with strong products.  Here are some high quality Hair Braiding Examples!

With The Complete Training Package, You Get…

The Braids By Breslin “Four Hairstyles In One ” DVD

The Braids By Breslin “Cornrow Compilation” DVD

The Braids By Breslin “Weave Compilation: Volume 1 DVD”

The Braids By Breslin “Weave Compilation: Volume 2 DVD”

The Braids By Breslin “Master Wig Maker DVD”

The Braids By Breslin “Fusion DVD”

And The Braids By Breslin “Extensions” DVD

So,

1. Look for a niche in your traffic (Check your Stats!)
2. Then look for a product in which you could put in front of that demographic to buy!

Good Luck!

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Pepperjam Network Affiliate Program… Paving the way to improved Affiliate Marketing

I signed up for the Pepperjam network as an affiliate.  The reason I was searching for them, was because they had a leading weight loss supplement that I was searching for, in order to market. At any rate, I applied as an Affiliate.

So I am in my control panel, and I get a Pop up, requesting a chat. It was one of the Affiliate account managers, discussing with me, the affiliate program that I had just applied to for marketing permissions.  I chatted further with her for several minutes, and she even suggested correlating affiliate offerings in that industry.  Extremely helpful.

Proven Track Record: Just so you know, I use them for my SlimChews campaign.  See that landing page experiment test at:  http://blackinternetmarketing.com/slimchewsnet-a-look-at-a-weight-loss-review-landing-page/-/Black-Internet-Marketing/2008/10/21/

For me, to see their success as a young company is great.  That combined with the facts that their client portfolio grows consistently with large corporate entities shows that they are doing the right things.

PepperJam Network, endearingly called PJN, prides themselves in:

• Making Affiliate marketing profitable and educational for both merchants and affiliates
• Use of Web 2.0 technology for access to banners, reports, and more.
• Availability of SID-Level tracking/reporting for the benefit of search marketing to the keyword level!

As an affiliate, I welcome and encourage you to click here to go and sign up.  Browse through their clients and the programs that you can market.

Now, for your Free $10….
Pepperjam Network is Now Offering a $10 Affiliate Sign On Bonus. Join Today.

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Slim Chews: Lose 20 Lbs in ony 6 Weeksl

In our post describing the importance of the landing page experience and good search engine optimization, we announced testing a review site based on weight loss.  Today, we show a screen shot of SEO excellence.

As our a world-renown blog and podcast guru, Mwangi at TheDisplacedAfrican.com, questioned the reason behind showing you publicly our experiments.  We remind our readers that we are not just another “make Moolah” with our tongues hanging out type blog or site, but a site that tries to add another level of value to our readers.

As a guy who has been in web development and strategy for almost 10 years, I am not the professed guru of internet marketing, nor do I show the $100K Google Checks.  So what we do work on though, is showing our clients and readers proof in our own way.

On to Proof… 

In our article on creating a landing page based on a niche affiliate product, we launched www.SlimChews.net.  Read that post in your spare time…

Two ways for Traffic…

As you know, we can always

1. PAY to send traffic to a site.  OR, if skilled enough and let’s face it… LUCKY enough,
2. We could gain traffic naturally through search engine optimization.

SEO Keywords Results for Our Experiment

For the affiliate product of “Slim Chews”, a weight loss that at some time or another must have been reviewed by Oprah and featured on TV, we wanted to be found for:

• Slim Chews
• SlimChews

Our target audience would be those who are familiar with the product or had heard of the it.

Results:  Since posting that blog post on October 21, 2008, we have gained a good share.  See below.

Keyword:  “SlimChews” position #2 (as of 11/18/08).

Please note: Through our SEO value, we “own” position 2,3,4,5 via our SEO. Although these are other sites, it funnels traffic back to our landing page.

SlimChews Search from 11/18/08

Keyword: “Slim Chews” position #1/551,000 Results! (as of 11/18/08).

"Slim Chews" Search from 11/18/08

Keep checking us out! And if you need to lose weight with a system reviewed on Oprah, click here!

Please let us know your thoughts below via our comments section!

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1.8 Million Results for WUYI

Google Search Engine for the term ”Wuyi”.  This was an attractive number for us, as the results competition for our approach to organincally promoting the page via search engine results would have been easier.

• Domain Name: Wuyi.tv was purchased.  It was the only TLD (top level domain) that was available from a base level of including the term WUYI.  Plus, there were no other domain names in the top search results EXCEPT the main manufacturing company.  This may be of benefit to search engine results.
• The Server: We will be hosting with Hostgator.com.  As we discuss in our post entitled “Web Hosting for 1 Penny“, Hostgator provides a great hosting service.

For the rest of this post, we concentrate on changing the DNS of the domain name to point to the server.

DNS.

In easiest explanation, the DNS helps to redirect a name towards a server address called an IP.  An IP address can be a very long number based on the following number layout:  111.111.111.111.

Challenge… Can you memorize the following number:  206.190.60.37?

This is the IP address for yahoo.com.  So you can type http://206.190.60.37 or http://yahoo.com .  Your choice!  What DNS does is associates yahoo.com to the server with the address of 206.190.60.37.

Today, we are going to:

1. Login to the control panel of our domain name registrar.
2. Change the DNS values to the IP addresses of the servers at Godaddy.com where we will install the Wuyi.TV site.
3. Allow up to 48 hours for “propagation” to occur.  This means, in laymen’s terms, that the all of the “directions and turns” that a request for the site www.wuyi.tv must make in the World wide web, must be carved out in those first 2 days.  Normally, it is done within hours…

Next steps… In post 3, we are going to load a landing page or some sort of site on the server hosting www.wuyi.tv and start the SEO optimization.  We will most likely start a blog or some sort of dynamic page site, that will allow us to get good SEO value, while changing the content on a frequent basis.

We are also going to talk about the affiliate program that we applied to in anticipation of promotions.

Here we come WuYi!

For our other WuYi Tea Experimental posts:

WU-Yi Tea Experiment: Planning WUYi.TV Weight Loss Site | POST 1

WU-Yi Tea Experiment POST 2: Changing DNS… Preparing for Site

WU-Yi Tea Experiment POST 3: Creating a Simple Site for SEO Aging

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But many people still consistently ask us “Just HOW do you make money online?”   Although there are a ton of websites on “Making Money” online, we STILL think it is a great question, as the internet seemingly can be this very cloudy and nebulous “thing”.

And then to have to figure out how to get from a website, to people paying you, to that payment ending up in your bank account can further be a wild set of steps and imagination to those NOT doing it yet.

So here is our shot at explaining 10 ways to make money…

1. Advertising:  As you gain traffic to a website, you document that traffic and share it with potential advertisers.  Normally, they will want to know information such as:  Your demographic and who your site is aimed at  You Traffic:  How many visitors actually come  They will want you to PROVE that by showing traffic stats and maybe even past advertisers on your site. With this, an Advertiser pays for an Image or a Link or some presence in a defined place on your site.
2. Sponsorships:  If your site has a section about Tennis Shoes, then maybe, a Tennis Shoe company may want to SPONSOR that section of the site.  In reality, a sponsorship may be considered an advertisement.  But sometimes, a sponsor may deal with the fact that the channel or section or even the whole site may not have the traffic and FULLY established demographic yet.   This makes their spend with you, MORE of a sponsorship than forcing you to prove already existing stats.   This depends on the Sponsor though. 
3. Sales:  Whether you are selling items from your garage, or whether you buy and stock manufactured items , selling these items from your site is a way to make money.  For example, if you are a computer store owner, then selling power cables, cpu’s, and monitors may be a way to make your money online.  OR, you may be lucky enough to have come across a batch of 100 cookbooks for half price.  Your goal would be to create a sales cart to sell those cook books at a profit online.  This may require a picture, description, and a good ole button to that says BUY.  They click and buy and you make MOOLAH!
4. Affiliate Programs:  With this method, you are doing “word of mouth” advertising for a vendor who provides a service or product.  You send them a potential buyer, and the buyer chooses a product and buys.  If they buy, then you make money.  Think about it.  We do this everyday.  We tell others where we bought our shoes, where we bought our cars, etc.  At least this way, we can get paid for making the recommendation.
5. Consulting:  Do you know how to scuba dive in the waters of Antartica?  Why not create a website that establishes your authority as a Cold Water Scuba Diver and sell products and consultation surrounding that hobby?  This is a perfect way to turn a hobby into a stream of revenue by “Consulting”.
6. Web Site Creation:  Ok Ok, maybe this is a reach.  But this goes a step further than consulting, adds a small degree of technical and creative savvy and puts you in a position to make money by developing websites.  If you learn and get your own site up, why not make some dollars with friends and family?
7. Outsourcing:  So here is the model.  You create a website.  Advertise a service, and then have service providers waiting in the wings once you get a request for the service.  Easy enough?  I have done that and acted as the Project Manager for the job.  If done correctly, and with dependable help, the whole activity is totally seamless to the paying customer.  You are the “middle man” joining a person needing the service with a hungry service provider.
8. Domain sales:  I sure wish I had bought TV.com.  Can you imagine?  With names like Business.com selling for $7.5M in recent years, it is no wonder that being in the right ownership of Domain names can be a lucrative business.  There are full time domain investors, who buy and resell names like stock. Consider that as a potential cash generator.
9. Work at home Jobs:  Using the internet to work virtually is a way to make money.  Here is how.  You find an employer who supports the TELECommute.  You do your tasks via a home office and report results via the internet and phone.  As GREEN becomes the more IN thing to focus on, working virtually will become a feature of many employers. 
10. And 10… Drumroll please!  SELL YOUR OWN Electronic PRODUCT.  We piggy back off of number 3… Sales… But if you create your own product, namely an ebook on some subject that you are passionate about and then put systems into play to promote, fulfill its order and reward affiliates who will use Word-Of-Mouth marketing to push your products, then you can make cash off of the automated sales, literally while you sleep. 

We will talk more about all of these in detail on BlackInternetMarketing.com.  In the mean time, keep making that money online… or planning to!

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MarketLeverage.com is a pretty hot Affiliate Network.  As I have described in some of my other blog posts, one can make great money with Affiliate Marketing.

How OFFLINE Affiliate Marketing Works:

The easiest example of Affiliate Marketing in the Offline world is:  WORD OF MOUTH advertising.

1. I buy a great pair of shoes at a store
2. I tell 10 people about it
3. 3 buy.

In the offline world, I DON’t get paid as easily for this referral.  If my friends go buy the shoes, there is no tracking system in place to give me credit for the referral.  (not normally at least).

More on Affiliate Marketing

In the ONLINE version of this transaction, I could:

1. Find a shoe vendor who is willing to pay a commission for my word of mouth referral
2. Get a Special link that that vendor, or the vendor’s representative (the affiliate network), can track.
3. I pass out the link to my friends and of course to people I DON”T necessarily know.
4. They go to the website via that link and buy and I GET PAID a referral commission.

Easy enough?

MarketLeverage is the company that secures people like me, who will pass out those links….  They connect me with the companies who own the shoes… or in that case any product or service that is being marketed.  They are called an Affiliate Network.

But to get to the companies that they represent, You have to join first!  Click here to check out the crew at MarketLeverage.com.  You will apply and they will consider your website and marketing plans for their clients’ products.  Once approved, you can get commissions too.

http://bizpropose.com/a.php?a=CD10915&b=21377&d=0&l=0&o=&p=0&c=4110&s1=&s2=&s3=&s4=&s5= Click Here

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