Internet Marketing Trip

Yesterday I logged in my Commission Junction account and saw a new affiliate program was added. The website is Uneetee. I don’t know all the details, so you may want to contact them to learn more.

Here’s the concept : designers can submit their design to be printed on t-shirts and hoodies. Every day a new t-shirt/design hit the homepage. Each time your design/t-shirt is sold, you earn a commission. They also run contests and the winners (most sold designs) get bonus commissions.

Also since they have an affiliate program at CJ (and ShareASale from their website), you could promote your t-shirts portfolio from your blogs and website. The commission rate is set to 21% at both networks.

I know designers earn more money by selling their designs and logos directly to webmasters and various freelance works but this could be an extra income.

Some web designers are very famous and recommended online. Having a kind of gallery/store on their website could be a nice addition to their portfolios and their clients could reward them by buying a T-shirt.

If you submit your designs there, just contact me and I’ll be happy to promote your t-shirts on my various blogs. You can also join ShareASale using my link :) or CJ (no affilate program :().

Hey everyone, I already add a post about getting traffic to your website and blog, actually it was an article from Tay, at SuperBloggingTips.com (you can see my post about it here).

I’ve found this article at DigitalPoint Forums, and there were some others I alredy read in the past that you may want to check too.

Of course, you will find some similar tips but the point is to  burn it on a hard drive part of your brain, and also get some knowledge. Plus these articles are in a list form so you just take the elements you like, and maybe add some later.

So here are some resources that will help you to get more traffic to your website. I’ve found these articles at DigitalPoint but I suppose the authors of these articles would prefer to receive a linkback to their blog where they put effort and quality into it. So you may discover some blogs you didn’t know with great resources to use for your blogs.

 The first one is a Sticky in the Link Development section at DigitalPoint, made by Mr Kumar. Link building is of course a fundamental part of SEO.

Link Building Tips and Resources.

(Mr Kumar, if you’re reading this, why don’t you use the /%postname%/ permalinks structure in your blog instead of the Default one that creates a url like /?p=128 ?)

The second one has been published by superflytrainer. The title was 101 ways to get more traffic on DigitalPoint, but at Imutopia, the author’s blog, it sounds better :

101 Muscular Ways To Get More Targeted Traffic To Your Sites/Blogs Today!

For the third one I need to link to the thread by whatadeals, since it has not been published on another blog (at least I don’t know). But here is the website of the author : TeeVeeLive. Here is the article :

50 Tips On Getting More Traffic To Your Website

I hope you will like what you will read there and crash your server :).

I know I already blogged about that, it was for a merchant that (still) didn’t answer me for an order of 50 items. One of my visitor asked to have a discount for such a high order and I contacted them 3 times, still waiting.

This time, this is another merchant, and if I say they don’t care about affiliates, they may also don’t care about themselves and being promoted properly.

Okay, you may already know I have started a website and I was going to reveal the name when I make my first sale. The first sale is made, the website is Replicas Suck, Authentic Fashion Deals.

I promote apparel, jewelry, watches, handbags, shoes… only authentic stuff, cause replicas suck, that’s the direction of this blog. I also talk about emerging designers that most of us don’t know, but still offer great quality products, and cool style.

Well it sounds like a press release, it’s not, so let’s get back to the purpose of this article. One of the merchant I promote, Bosca has its affiliate program with ShareASale. I like using ShareASale, it’s easy and convenient and also merchants can publish their whole catalog, so you have affiliate codes for each products on their websites.

This is of course something really cool when you want to promote something as large as fashion, there are thousands of products. Sadly, not all the merchants use this feature, and this is the case of Bosca.

Bosca products are leather made : handbags, travel bags, briefcase, wallets, well… mainly luggage. Excellent quality, a recognized house, leather working from near a century. The products are great but there is a problem, at least for me.

On Replicas Suck, if you look at the bottom of the page, there is a banner for Bosca, that says “Bosca | Life. Luxury. Leather. ” This is the only banner they have to propose. No other formats, not any other link for a special category of products, just this.

Of course, with ShareASale, you can create a custom link to any page of a merchants store.

One banner only, the only problem ?

No. This is not the only one. Since there is no product datafeed I thought I could use pictures of their products, I would have save the pictures of the products I wanted to promote and upload them on my server. But first I needed the permission, so I asked.

Bosca affiliate program is managed by another company, so my email got to this marketing company. A nice guy answered me, said he submitted my request and I’ll get a reply soon.

Now, guess what was the reply. Negative. I can’t use their products pictures on my website to promote them.

This is really something irritating. You are doing work for them and you want to do it right. I could have used the pictures without any permission and they may never see this.

Now, if they thought a little bit they would know that when you have a product, people like to see it, especially in the fashion world, where style is something that influence our choices. Ladies, would you buy a handbag without seeing it ? Or any clothes you could buy online, (gents too) ?

At least, imagine this situation. Let’s say you have two merchants to promote, and you decide to display 10 products from each. Well you can with the first, but not with Bosca. There are 10 more chances that a visitor clicks on a picture to see more details of the product.

If a picture amazed you, or if you find something very original, you will wompletely forget about the others.

Maybe they never heard a picture speaks more than words.

Well, you can do the promotion of a merchant, without his products pictures. But will you do it more than once ? When there are 100 products, you can imagine 100 posts or articles, 1 per article.

Too bad, merchants are lazy. They could ask their affiliate marketing manager to create a product datafeed, or code for each product categories, or for some best sellers.

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The first sale made from this website was for a $139 item, not from Bosca. Damn, the commission was only 6% ($8.34). But that keeps growing

I was reading some few posts on DigitalPoint when I saw the signature of a member that linked to an article titled “75 Ways to Increase Blog Traffic“. This is the kind of articles we all like, at least I do. A good list, simple to read. You just take the tips you want or experiment everything.

So as the title suggests, Tay (her name) gives you 75 tips to improve your traffic. A very quick preview here, I won’t steal her content, she developed every points she makes, so visit the link above for a guaranteed good read (sorry, no money back guarantee, it’s free).

“1. Write more content“. This is the number 1 of the list and it should be the most important one for every blogger. Yeah, me included, even if I am busy, I should at least spend few minutes every day to add one article. Focus on quality unique content, and frequency.

“4. Start using StumbleUpon“. A social bookmarking website that will bring you traffic from other people, who will rate thumbs up or down your pages. If you didn’t read my previous post about free web traffic resources, Dean Hunt, interviewed 14 of the top 30 StumbleUpon users, there is also a case study about buzz marketing that you MUST read.

“11. Link to other posts.“ & “17. Establish relationships with fellow bloggers.” That’s what I’m doing right now. I’m blogging about a very helpful article, I will comment on her blog and thank her for her efforts. Tay may be notified of a pingback from this article and may comment here if she wants it.

Just 3 ways here, there are 72 more. Read, digest, take action.

Today, I’m going to talk about an internet marketing guru. No don’t go, wait ! A real guru, yeah, a king with a crown on his head and all.

Name : Dean Hunt

If you don’t know him, then I could call you “sucker”, but I didn’t in July too. At this time I read a thread at DigitalPoint forums entitled “Buzz Marketing Case Study Part 1″. It hooked me, Dean then added a part 2 and 3, that I’ll talk about later.

For those who wonder what is buzz marketing, I think he defines it better than me, in an interview he gave to Carl Ocab. What ? You don’t know Carl Ocab ? Sorry but this time : Sucker !

“Buzz Marketing is the art and science of standing out from the crowd, being talked about and being remembered. Or in other words… it is the ability to create a buzz about a service or product.”

Why is it so interesting ? Traffic for FREE, with only words for weapons, and those can make a killing (marketing speaking of course). Maybe you already read somewhere that writing something controversial attracts people attention. It suggests interest but also creates people opinion. That’s what buzz marketing is about : make people talk about you or your company.

Okay, now where’s the free stuff ?

Dean uses Social Bookmarking websites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious to generate traffic. From his experiences (the buzz marketing 101, 202, 303), he made a Case Study that you can download for free : Web Traffic Orgasm. As you can see there is a book coming soon. If the Case Study gives you some clues, the book will bring you secrets.

Want more ?

Dean interviewed 14 of the top 30 StumbleUpon users. Yes, you can dowload that for free too. I guess you never thought about getting your buzz marketing Christmas gift in advance, so go thank Dean for his efforts, have a good read and start creating some buzz.

This is being discussed a little everywhere on the blogosphere, so I thought it was my turn. GoogleLady is actually running a case study to make money online in three months, with Amazon affiliate program. Everyone can follow her footprints or just read for inspiration.

I actually am thinking to reproduce her efforts since I just re-apply to Amazon associates, but also because I just started a new blog where I add content every day, but haven’t yet started any promotion, except some links from Yahoo! Answers.

Here is where the case study started : Make to Money Online In 3 Month . She now is in her 5th week and already achieved what we can call a success : 1 month later, almost $1500 for November, and the wesbite is still not ranked well in search engines.

What’s interesting in this case study is that not only she almost teaches people for free how to make money online, but do it with a brand new website. New domain, no traffic and no backlinks at the start of the case study, only $100 to invest.

So if affiliate marketing is something you want to start, with a low budget, then I recommend you visit her blog, and start to read. She gives you tips and resources all the way.

Congrats, Lady, I wish you all the best for this future website. You could even stop your case study, you proved how to make money in one month.

My prediction for the end of December ? It will be over $2,000, and maybe reach the $3,000. Christmas is coming, and there will be lots of sale everywhere, her new website being around coupons, she will profit from returning traffic and new one with word of mouth. Plus she can add more merchants to promote, so it’s more choice for visitors.

Yesterday, I posted here about article marketing. The articles you write have to be published of course, so you have to submit them to article directories. I only use 5 of them (there are hundreds).

You can submit one article to each of them, but search engines penalize duplicate content. That means they won’t index the page where they find the same content. That’s why I only submit to this short list :

Ezine Articles
Go Articles
Content Desk
Article Alley
Article Dashboard

Browse these websites and you’ll see how are written articles. Nothing very difficult, be sure to include a link to your website in the resource box. I know Ezine Articles ask articles have to be 250 words. This is quite short, but if you could do more that’s great. 500 is enough.

I’d also recommend that the articles you submit to article directories are different from the ones on your website

My previous post pointed you to the article on SelfMadeMinds article about minisites and how to make money online from them. If you read it, you noticed there was a link to http://www.minisites.co.uk.

Well I just put the link here if you zapped it, this site is just a quick definition and real minisite example.

I’ll have some minisites ready soon that I’ll show you here.

Okay, so I studied a lot, read a lot, and what I knew is still true : you have to work hard. Working hard is creating content for me, and for you too I guess. This is the hard part. From the DigitalPoint forums, I came to a website : Self Made Minds. Two guys are behind this website, they are sharing their experience and telling how they’re doing and also reporting their earnings (this is the fun part).

I really recommend you read their blog, it’s cool and simple explained and also full of ideas.

They of course built several websites, one of them is Coolest Gadgets, and it earns more than 10,000 a month, mainly about adsense. Again AdSense is for CONTENT websites. But, I also read a post on their site telling about “minisites” making maximum money, and showing us a minisite example.

Here is the post : Mini Sites don’t always make mini money.  All you need is a good idea, work on it, buy a domain and host your files, make some SEO.

Your goal first would be to make $1 a day for this one website. Then, how many websites can you create ? What if all your websites earn now $2 a day… Okay you understand. And don’t forget that with time you may have more ideas to add to each of your minisites.

Now, you have to do some brainstorming. I took a pen and paper and wrote down every topic I was sure I can write about. I have more than 50, and I’m sure you can easily do it too, even more. Then start writing. This is not so hard to write content for these websites, this could be the same process if you had to write articles and submit them to articles directories, to increase your backlinks for your main websites.

If you need ideas, visit forums, blogs, read articles about a topic and rewrite everything you think useful with your own words. You may also want to add links. What are the best websites for these topics ? Just use Google and find what are the top sites.

Even if building new minisites will not consume so much time, you also have to keep working on your main websites. So build your network of mini websites and make them profitable, but keep adding content to your bigger money makers.