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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SlimChews.net… A Start for Conversions.  A Great Implementation of Zac’s Landing Page Template

As we discussed in our article “SlimChews.net: A Look at a Weight Loss Review Landing Page“, we discussed SlimChews.net.  In that article, we discuss the creation of landing pages in niche industries and subsequent matching with affiliate programs to take advantage of the market.

We are proud to report a 4.3% conversion rate. This means:

1. Once they click from my page to the landing page, a cookie is set.
2. Once a visitor is on that page, they 4.3% of the visitors to that page are signing up for the product.  That is a Great conversion rate!

We used Zac Johnson’s Freely available Comparison Shopping Landing Page template . . . Go to the site and download your own.

PS… here is a screen print of conversions.

4.3% Conversion

UPDATE: Since launching this post, you may find this article useful:  http://blackinternetmarketing.com/hair-braiding-revenue-generation-meets-zac-johnson-landing-page/-/Black-Internet-Marketing/2009/01/17/

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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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By concentrating on the weight loss niche, we will launch a site and make revenue from a natural organic traffic model, and then see how we can throw some PPC money at it 2-3 months down the line, if Organic Traffic has not picked up.
The weight loss niche, from an online perspective, is one that I am very interested in.  You see, in 2 days, it will be November 1st.  This means that, as online marketers, we have exactly 2 months to get on the ball for the New Year’s Eve Resolutions.

I already have a couple of weight loss sites.  Having lost weight on my own program (drug or metabolism enhancement free), I have a key interest in losing weight.  (See Fat3500.com for my ebook).  However, I also know that there are a lot of weight loss aids out there that are heavily sought by people.  So it is a GREAT niche to master to make a few bucks.  Check out slimchews.net for an example site.

Enters the Challenger WU-YI Tea.

Here are the steps I chose to pick Wu-Yi Tea as niche product.

1. Offline research:  First and foremost, there is a real buzz around the water cooler.  I heard someone talking about it and swore they were talking about fitness with a WII instead of losing weight with WU-Yi tea!
2. Based on hearing about it, I decided to google it.  Yep, Very healthy PPC ads.  I did a google search for WuYi and found that there were not a lot of results…. only about a 157K results…
3. See above.

With a well search engine optimized page, I can get some traction with Google …. Now we have to look for search frequency….

Learn to use the Google External Keyword Selector Tool.  You can reach it by clicking here…. So as of September 2008, the following happened :  There were approximately 18,100 searches in September for “Wuyi” !!!!

The keyword has an average Cost Per Click of $2.31.

Value Driven Business Motive

• So we have a good business model:  weight loss
• We have a term that has a decent number of results to compete against for natural or “organic” SEO
• We have a term that has a good frequency of searches (18,100)
• We have a term that has a relatively “Juicy” CPC.  This means that we have an EXIT plan if we build a site.

What is an Exit Plan?

My exit plan would be to buy the domain, create a website, optimize the site for Search Engine results, and then see if my site will convert.  If It does NOT convert, then I am looking to SELL the site.  Maybe someone else would be able to tweak it and make it work.  At a CPC of over $2 for a simple click, this means that a decent attempt at search engine penetration, with a HOT domain, in a sought after product field could mean a decent ROI for purchase and time.

For the next posts, I will show you the next steps, including Affiliate Program searches, Domain Name Purchase, (even though I already bought it), web hosting Setup, Blog Setup (my chosen method of a strong SEO candidate), and initial seeding for Google.

Stay tuned!

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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Weight Loss Season Cometh

Since New Year’s Resolutions bring great… well uh… RESOLUTIONS, I thought that I would beef up my weight loss programs and landing pages. At the very least, launching these sites and landing pages at this time during the year, may prepare me for Natural Search Engine Traffic By the New Year… Hopefully. So Here is how I did it… (You can do it to!)

Steps:

1. Find a Weight Loss Product to market
2. Join the Affiliate Network that markets that product
3. Create a series of landing pages or use their prescribed methods to market to your email, blog, or website traffic… For a FREE landing Page Template, check out Zac Johnson’s template tutorial by clicking here
4. Best of all… MAKE MONEY….

Example Site

SlimChews.net , was designed from a FREE landing page template by Zac Johnson.  The conversion is $35 per trial… so basically… They pay you $35 for you to get a product sold for under $5!  This is how ya make some cash on the internet!

Stay tuned, as I am going to break down the Affiliate Programs used and the steps to get your marketing off the ground!

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