While it seems logical to use your keywords as often as possible in your content, there comes a point where enough-is-enough.  Past this certain point the content suffers, as is obvious in the title of this article which I intentionally stuffed to make a point. (And if it ranks well for the term SEO, I’ll fall over laughing.)  The title should have read;

The most common mistakes beginning SEO writers make

But because I wanted the term SEO to show up multiple times in the title of the post itself, I had to butcher the title and very nearly destroyed readability in the process. This is true in the case of a post or article in which the writer strives to add his or her keyword to the text at any point possible.  The end result is gibberish.

Consider the following piece of text:

Barbados vacations are the ultimate in all inclusive vacations, with very private Caribbean vacation rentals paired with your choice of island activities. The beauty of this tropical paradise, the luxury and charm of the island, and the friendly people waiting for you, make luxury Caribbean holidays in Barbados a truly enjoyable experience one to be repeated over and over again, as many of our guests do!

Notice a theme? this paragraph is so stuffed with keyword rich text that it becomes difficult to follow and from a grammatical standpoint, nearly comical.  If they had just written a few more paragraphs and made sure that the overall topic of their content was vacation related this would not have happened.

Better yet would have been if the writer had dedicated a single page to only vacations in Barbados and not tried to milk keyword space for other packages into one single article.  It’s far simpler to optimize a page for search results if you are laser-targeting one single keyword.  All that has to be done at that point is to write about it and keywords that relate to your exact subject.  With just a tiny bit of effort you will have a post or page that naturally includes the keywords you’re targeting, but without making your readers suffer through a ton of pure babble before deciding to go somewhere else. (And they will.)

The last and probably most compelling argument against keyword stuffing is that the search engine gods absolutely despise the practice. If caught you might just find your PageRank for that particular article drop to zero in the blink of an eye.  At that point you have not only lost all the hard work that you’ve put into overloading your test with keywords, but now you’ll have to go back and rewrite it properly anyway.

Forget Keyword Stuffing.  It’s bad for your rankings, bad for your readers and a complete waste of your time and effort.

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I know that I could upgrade to one of the paid accounts for very little and bid on more work, which would give me a better chance at scoring the job, but I’m trying to make the service pay for itself, rather than throw money into it first and pray that I get something out of it.  Of course, that attitude may change as the month goes on or if I see jobs in the marketplace that I’m qualified for or am just eager to go after.

From my initial probings, Elance is the perfect venue for anyone with a varied skill set like myself.  Having worked in many aspects of the technology industry as well as having a firm background in writing presents a wealth of options that I can pursue, which is a downfall of many other services that lock you into one skill or another without taking into account that you may just be pretty good at more than one thing.

What I’m wondering is this:  Have any of you had experience with Elance?  If so, would you recommend upgrading to a paid account at the outset or just stay with the free account until I’ve managed to get a job under my belt?  Have your experiences been positive or negative?

Let us know in the comments.

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When an affiliate joins in with an e-commerce merchant of some sort (be it a subscription service, a shopping site etc.) payment is received through referrals done from the affiliate’s website, usually through one of the following methods:

1. Pay-per click systems  basically, the affiliate displays advertisements on their site and is paid when a customer or internet user clicks on the link to that website
2. RSS feeds or blogs – even personal sites can sit under this category. Blogging is fast becoming a staple form of marketing and promotion, and affiliate marketing pairs well with this form of online communication
3. Comparison sites and shopping directories – such as review sites or legitimate advertising sites
4. Loyalty sites – this is when a reward system is in place via a cash back or points back system (or charitable donations).  This is also referred to as Incentive advertising
5. Coupon sites that focus strictly on marketing and promotions
6. Email lists – legitimate email lists to subscribers of the affiliate’s website etc… These should be opt-in lists, NOT spam
7. A registration path – when a person registers with a specific site, be it for a newsletter or subscription, offers from other companies are represented and advertised
8. Networks – there are many affiliate marketing networks. Some even function on a multi-tier or multi-level marketing set up.  These offer more opportunities for affiliates, but also more competition in the marketplace.

Hopefully this little list will help you understand a bit more about the different types of affiliate marketing.  I’ll be covering each one of these methods in-depth over the next few weeks, so stay tuned.

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• What is Affiliate Marketing?

To put the above statement in plain English, an affiliate marketer sells goods or services for the parent company.  The parent company then pays the affiliate a percentage of the sale for his or her efforts.

Affiliate marketing is a form of revenue sharing or commission-based advertising. The term “affiliate marketing” however, is often associated with network marketing or multi-level marketing (MLM).  This negative connotation causes some companies to use the term “performance marketing” for their ad campaigns, but the process for either form of advertising is identical.

Affiliate marketing is the most cost effective form of marketing a business can engage in, and is actually incredibly efficient. For this reason many companies (especially those that started in the early days of e-commerce) owe a tremendous amount to affiliate marketing. (Amazon.com is a good example.) It has become normal for companies to include affiliate marketing in their sales strategy.

Publishers participating in affiliate programs are generally compensated in one of four ways:

• Cost Per Click(CPC)
  CPC Advertising pays the affiliate based on the number of clicks an ad or link generates.  A famous example of a CPC system in action is Google’s AdSense ads, which generate incredible sums of money for both Google and its advertising partners.

  While this method works well in the arena of search marketing, factors like click fraud and other questionable tactics; most affiliate programs opt to use either the CPA or CPS models for their programs.

• Cost Per Mil (CPM)
  In Cost Per Mil advertising, the affiliate is paid a flat fee for every thousand visitors that see an advertisement on the publisher’s blog or website.  This method is widely used by blog advertising networks and social media sites, but is rarely used by affiliate companies as a means of selling products.
• Cost Per Action (CPA)
  The Cost Per Action model pays the affiliate whenever a visitor to his or her site completes an action such as filling out a registration form or signing up for a newsletter.  This model is sometimes referred to as Cost Per Lead, since the visitor does not usually have to pay the affiliating company any money at first.  They use the ads simply to gather prospective clients, rather than to make the initial sale.
• Cost Per Sale (CPS)
  The Cost Per Sale model works in an identical manner to CPA advertising, but is based completely on sales. In this model the affiliate is paid only when the visitor actually purchases a product from the parent company.  In most cases the company will track visitors so that the affiliate will be paid even if the visitor does not make a purchase on their first visit, though the length of time that an affiliate will be paid after the initial visit varies by company.

As you can see, the basic principles of affiliate marketing are quite simple. If done correctly, becoming an affiliate can generate a significant amount of revenue, both for the affiliate and the parent company.

Affiliate marketing is not, like some would have you believe, an easy way to make millions while you sleep.  It takes a lot of hard work and dedication in the initial stages to gain the trust of your readers and entice them to follow through with an action or a sale, but it is definitely possible.

In later articles I’ll cover the best way to choose the right affiliate ads for your site and the most effective ways to promote those affiliate efforts for maximum impact. For now, think about what you write about every day.  Are there products out there that are a perfect fit for your interests?  Would they interest your readers?  If so, you might want to see if those companies offer affiliate programs and if they do, sign up and start writing!

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While there is potential profit in chasing each and every product with a high percentage of payout per sale, the potential for garnering a distrust between yourself and your customers by far outweighs any potential for a profitable lasting  relationship.

Before you decide you’re going to market a product or service you need to ask yourself if it’s something you would use yourself. If the answer is yes, then buy the product or sign up for the service and make sure that it works for you. If the answer is no, walk away, you shouldn’t be selling it.

I don’t offer this advice lightly. the decision to be ethical in your sales approach can be costly. Very costly. It’s simple to promote the heck out of some product that has no real use to your customers but turns large commissions for each sale, but this method of doing business comes at an even greater cost.

It will cost you your customers

A customer who feels that they have been slighted in the least is not likely to return to you for advice on their next purchase. It’s far more likely that they will tell every single person that they know how badly they feel they have been treated, thus costing you more customers, more revenue and a serious lack of trust in an open marketplace.

If you’re wondering why I so vehemently preach customer relations on this site, it’s because I learned a long time ago that making a small sale today and leaving my customer satisfied translates directly into more sales from that customer later. It was true when I sold retail, it was true in web development and it was true in technical support. A satisfied customer will most likely come back to you the next time he or she need something that they feel you can supply for them. They might even tell a friend or two.

If you’re selling or promoting software or programs on how to make money, it’s likely that if your customer runs into a problem, he or she will contact you before bailing out completely and walking away in disgust. If you have used the product or service you’re selling, you have the tools to turn the situation into a positive one. If you’re hawking snake oil… Well, don’t expect to see many “thank you” emails. It’s more likely you’ll be seeing chargebacks on sales.

Nice guys don’t finish last. They may get to the finish line later, but they have more to show for it.

If you promise what a product can deliver and sell it on its own merits, you stand to gain a collection of loyal customers, a good reputation and at least one of those “thank you” emails. Your customers will very likely trust you to recommend another product at some point in the future, since the first actually worked for them. This is what they call in marketing a “win-win” situation. You have a sale and you customer is happy.

This concept is especially important in times of economic upheaval. In times like these customers expect to get what they paid for. They don’t have a lot of disposable discretionary income. Make that sale count and it will provide a gateway for another. Blow it by selling your customer something he or she didn’t need and you’ve shot yourself in the foot in the worst possible way.

Stand behind what you sell. It may not make you a fortune in your first three hours, but it will build a solid foundation on which to make more sales in the future.

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In my first three hours of research I was completely inundated with products offering me the one sure fire method that would jump start my online affiliate career. These programs promise all sorts of amazing results, from making a profit within the first three hours to making $700.00+ per day with just minutes of work on my part. Each one promises to give you all the secrets the top affiliate marketers don’t want anyone else to know. All you have to do is sign up for their program (for a fee) and they’ll show you how to get rich in minutes.

I call BullS**t!

The truth of the matter is this. There is no magic bullet. The promise of “if you build it, they will come” only works for baseball fields in small Midwest towns, not marketing niche sites. It may have been true in the early days of the Internet but it is most definitely not true today. Successful affiliates are doing well for the same reason any other entrepreneur does well. They work very hard at it.

I’m not saying that all of these programs are completely useless, but I do feel that he basic premise of most is to prey on the gullibility of people who really do want to learn new ways to supplement their income. Each and every one of the sales pages I visited tells the same story. “It’s simple”, “It’s Easy”, “we’ll walk you through a step-by-step method to make amazing amounts of money”, “it’s fun!”. The promise is for amazing profits with no effort, the same promise that’s heard all over the world on late-night infomercials and it’s the same in the case of the Internet. It’s a false promise.

The more reputable of these systems is selling information that anyone could have found for free on their own if they had just looked for it. In essence you are simply paying them for doing some of the legwork for you. My wife actually purchased one such affiliate program and made her money back within one month without spending another dime. The reason she did not continue was that she found she wasn’t really interested in the situation. Fair enough, the program delivered at least the basic tools for a complete novice to make some extra money. In this case it wasn’t a complete scam.

Other programs are nothing more than thinly veiled attempts to sell even more products that their customers will probably never really need, with the promise that these tools will help in making that first “Internet million.” The reality of this type of program is that they have taken the same basic skills detailed in more ethical systems and turned them into an affiliate marketing sales pitch of their own. In the end they’ll promise to refund the entire cost of their program if the customer isn’t satisfied (this probably happens quite often), but if their customer went through and bought several different tools and utilities as suggested, the company has easily made treble that amount of money off of that person.

It’s simple for an inexperienced or gullible individual to fall prey to companies like the latter and eventually find that they have spent thousands of dollars on useless software, bloated website hosting, design services and useless or outdated information. These people leave the experience disillusioned and disparate. They probably won’t try again, which is a shame, as there is money to be made if the situation is approached in the right manner.

That’s why I’ve decided to write an eBook on the topic. I want to take the mystery out of the process and point people to the right resources, tools that actually do work and people that can actually help them move forward without burying themselves in debt. As a byproduct I’ve come up with ideas for several other eBooks, all on topics that are designed to help people move in a positive direction toward their goals.

I have to be a bit vague at this point on topics and the actual titles and information these eBooks will contain, not because I’m not so excited about it that I don’t want to share it with everyone, but because I don’t want someone to take my exact idea and get it out before I have the chance to do so.

And how will I market this little gem, you ask?

With affiliate marketing, of course. I’ve already gotten a massive amount of help from dozens of affiliates, why not give back by hopefully earning them some money in the process. (Making a bit to help with hosting costs and other necessities doesn’t sound bad either.)

I’d love to know what you think about this. Is it worth the time? Does the topic interest you? Please leave your ideas in the comments. And hey, feel free to let other people know so that I can get as much feedback on the subject as possible.

Peace, I’m out.

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If you are counting on one source of income from your online ventures you’re in for a rude awakening. The amount you earned last week will most likely be significantly larger than the amount you will earn this week. If you haven’t noticed a difference in the amount you can earn per job or per sale, you are among the lucky ones.

If you think I’m sitting in a gilded room spouting these little tidbits of information you’d be wrong. In the past three weeks I’ve had four advertisers send polite emails telling me to pull the ads and links that I had on various blogs.  Each of them was sure to tell me that it was not the performance of these ads that prompted their decision, rather it was a change in marketing focus. What they really meant is that their companies are feeling the strain as well and they can no longer afford the advertising channel that included my blogs.

I have no hard feelings.  this is business and in tough economic times businesses need to cut back. if you do paid posts, you’ve seen it in the pricing for them.  What used to pay $10.00 for a few hundred words is now paying $2.50.  It’s a trend that is going to continue in every market.  Advertisers need people to buy their products.  When people aren’t buying, they don’t have the advertising budget to pay their affiliates or freelancers as well as they used to.  In turn, those people that are dependant on these companies for income accept lower payments, which brings the overall market down.

Diversity is the key

Diverse income channels was a good idea in a strong economy.  Now that the economy is depressed it’s not just a good idea, it’s an absolute necessity.  If you’ve got all your eggs in one basket, you’re going to suffer, if you survive at all.  That’s not a remark made lightly, it’s the plain simple truth.

now is the time to get out there and find other methods of making money.  Look to affiliate sales, freelance writing assignments and alternative forms of advertising.  See if you can barter links with other sites to get your traffic up.  At the very least your CPC revenues should increase with more traffic.

Look closely at any affiliate programs you may be using.  if they aren’t bringing in money, get rid of them. now is not the time to be stubborn and wait for results.  if it’s been there a month and made no money, its dead weight that is on;y eating screen real-estate.  Liabilities cannot be tolerated when money is tight.

The time for tough decisions is here.  There is still a lot of money to be made, but only those who are willing to work very hard are going to reap thee benefit of a good income in times like these.  What the future holds is still uncertain.  For the moment it’s time to tighten your belt and live lean.  if you’ve got the right mindset you may just come out of this in a far better place than you were when it wasn’t so hard. And at the end of this we’ll all have a lot less competition, because those who don’t adapt will go under, leaving more opportunities for those who did.

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The last time I visited iHype there was no visible way to test the system.  In fact, I only managed to find my way to the beta sign up form because iHype was running advertising through Google’s AdSense network that made it appear that iHype was already a fully functional marketplace for paid advertising. At the time it was not.  As far as I can tell, it is not now.

iHype is finally allowing people to sign up for the public beta, though last I checked there isn’t much in the way of opportunities to test whether the system is working. I’m not sure if this is true of all blog rankings and types and as a test I just signed up my PR5 cooking blog to see if iHype has opportunities available for a mid-ranked blog.  As far as the PR3 health related blog I signed up there in July, there were no opportunities at all the last time I checked.  I will update here if it turns out that there are opportunities for the higher ranked blog.

But the hype rolls on

The thing is, Both Mr. Behrouzi and the about page at iHype have much to say about the service that the service itself isn’t living up to.  For starters, the iHype About page has a lot to say about the way the company would like to see itself, beginning it’s introduction with the following:

Welcome to the web’s largest socialsphere marketing platform. iHype delivers a powerful socialsphere marketing platform that empowers online marketers with the ability to market their products & services in a deep, organic, grass-roots online social approach through an exponentialy growing web of individual and institutional web publishers. This innovatively fluid exchange of advertisers and publishers allows marketers to leverage the online socialsphere, while providing all publishers with an avenue to generate substantial new revenue.

This is an impressive statement and I for one wish it were true.  Unfortunately it just reads as so much more spin, considering the lack of any tangible evidence, at least from my perspective, that iHype has managed to garner any significant numbers of advertisers offering opportunities on this platform.

This lack of tangible motion at iHype doesn’t seem to deter Mr. Behrouzi from having a wonderful outlook, or starting more new ventures, however.  His personal blog, Ben Behrouzi’s MaxStartup recently posted a very happy second birthday notice in regards to his company DotNext, inc.  This notice only very briefly mentions iHype, but does speak pretty highly of DotNext’s latest venture, LeapFish, an aggregate search provider which is something along the lines of DogPile on steroids. Mr. Behrouzi also goes on to thank his team for a great year, which is a very nice touch.

In defense of the team at DotNext.  Unlike iHype, which still feels unfinished and the yet-to-be unveiled Ziddler, LeapFish not only works, but it works well.  In a brief test of seaches I performed using LeapFish and DogPile, leapFish gave far more relevant results every single time in a much broader spectrum.  I’ll probably use it in the future.

Not all buzz is good buzz

Unfortunately, most of the buzz surrounding Mr. Behrouzi and his ventures is negative. Much of the news concentrates on Mr. Behrouzi himself, but quite a bit of it focuses on the tactics of his sales staff.  If any of this is true it may very well be a factor in iHype’s lack of blog posting opportunities.  Since I am not a business analyst or trade reporter, nor have I worked with either Mr. Behrouzi or had conversation with anyone in his employ, I cannot offer an opinion on this subject.

If you are interested in reading what others have to say on the subject, simply Google Ben Behrouzi and form your own opinion.  I am not interested in turning this blog into a forum for discussing the man or his tactics. It is my wish to stick to his internet properties as they relate to monetization.

Why I want iHype to suceed

So why am I revisiting iHype if it seems that very little has happened since the last time I reported on it?  Becaue I want it to suceed.  While the concept behind iHype isn’t very different from established networks like PayPerPost, SocialSpark, LoudLaunch and Smorty, the payment structure is revolutionary in the world of Paid Posting companies.

While most paid posting companies rely on a Net 30 or Net 14 payout schedule, iHype promises a 24 hour turnaround on payments.  For bloggers just starting out or for those days when what you really need to do is boost your short-term income, this payment model is ideal.  Not only does it serve to get you paid quickly, it gives bloggers a heavy motivation to post more, because the results are nearly instantaneous.  it’s the kind of payment that the Internet has long promised, but seldom realized. To put it in short form, it’s what a lot of us have been waiting for.

iHype needs to get the ball rolling and get advertisers in the marketplace.

The determining factor as to whether iHype will thrive or fail is advertisers.  Even with a million bloggers signed up, not having opportunities for them will very quickly garner them a reputation they may not be able to recover from.  Hopefully with the new year and the economic crunch they will be able to attract some advertisers who have traditionally shied away from Internet ads with the promise of a lower advertising cost and more exposure.

Unfortunately, they will have to look outside the Silicone Valley for these companies, as nearly the entire internet industry sprung out of the area and it’s unlikely that most have not been involved in online advertising for quite some time.

For the moment, iHype is a tantalizing promise, but one with very little time to start delivering.  The company needs to get a working model in place and attract a lot of bloggers so that they can convince advertisers that their marketplace isworth the expense of advertising with.  On the other hand, to attract bloggers, they will have to offer something for us to do.

At the very least, iHype needs to offer a series of house-paid ads for bloggers to accept.  If they are interested in attracting bloggers with higher PageRank, they’ll have to offer a few higher-paying opportunities as well.  I know that I for one rarely accept any offer that pays less than $15.00 and I prefer to take those that pay considerably more.  I already have the potential for income, so to get me to accept an opportunity I have to feel it’s worth the time it will take to write it, otherwise I will go elsewhere. I’m sure that other bloggers who are already making a decent income from paid posts will feel the same, regardless of how fast the payment turnaround is.

Time will tell

iHype is a good concept.  It’s based on a business model that works, but it’s one that only works if the pieces are all in place and your sales staff is nothing short of a group of miracle workers.  It also requires a customer support staff that rarely, if ever, drops the ball.  The reason that PayPerPost and Izea work as well as they do is due in large part to Customer Love and Founder Ted Murphy’s vision and tenacity in business and his absolute genious in promotion.

If nothing else, iHype should be looking to Ted as a role model for this type of business. Ted has not only made it work, he’s excelled at it.  If you’re going to play in the paid post market, he’s the man to model your business after.

If all the pieces get put in place before iHype manages to fall under it’s own weight, I’ll be first in line to add each and every blog I own to their roster.  I’m a capitalist, as I’m sure you are, or you wouldn’t be reading this.  For now however, iHype is still bordering on vaporware and until there’s some work for me to do there, I’ll stick with what works for me now.

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Where do you make most of your money online?

I’m not asking for specific numbers.  In most cases that would violate the Terms of Service of a given advertiser or service.  I’m asking more in a general sense.  Do you make more from Affiliate advertising, AdSense, eBay stores or amazon shops?  Perhaps you make most of your revenue from direct ad sales or deals with other providers.  Maybe you are even one of the golden ones that makes a reputable amount of money from writing for Associated Content or another service like it.  In any event, we’d like to know.

If you have a moment to spare, drop a comment and let everyone know where you make the biggest part of your online income.  We’d love to hear about it.

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No.  You get in there and exceed your goals.

I look at it this way.  I’ve got a daily goal of $50.00 per day and $250.00 per week for the next few months.  It’s not a lot of money, but it’s more than enough to supplement my wife’s incomes and keep us in happy things like insurance, web sites and dinners out.

If I make that $50.00 in the first few minutes of the day, I’m not going to stop adding to it as long as I have the opportunity.  Why settle for $50.00 when you can make $100.00 or more in a  day?  At the very least I spend the rest of the day optimizing other aspects of my monetizing efforts. And that means that tomorrow I can just go watch some T.V, right?

Wrong.  Tomorrow is a new day.  There’s a goal to be met for that workday and I intend to make it.  Becoming complacent because you’re a bit ahead is a great way to fall behind, and quickly.  It only takes one or two bad days, a cold or a family emergency to put you in the red.  Treating every day like it’s a regular day that’s only just on schedule will usually mean that when those bad days happen, your monthly goals will still be met.

I treat monthly goals in the same manner.  if I meet the goal, I set about padding next month out as far as possible.  When it becomes obvious that I’m consistently coming in over expectations, I adjust my goals. But in the interim, I walk into the next month with less work to do.

If you fail to push yourself, you’re not going to move forward

The name of the game is mercenary.  Opportunities to make money come in waves.  You need to be prepared to ride those waves whenever they present themselves, at least until the point where passive income exceeds your needs, at which point you can join the ranks of the Idle Middle class, but I’m not there yet.

So what do you do on the days when there’s no money to be made?

You find other things to do.  Write drafts for new posts or articles. Work on affiliate programs. Check your current affiliate advertising to see if it has made you any money in its current placement, if not, reorganize and remove any ads that aren’t helping you out.  Until the day that you make 100% of your monthly goals from nothing more than passive advertising, there’s work to be done.  Even then, there’s work to be done.  You still need to keep putting out content that someone wants to read.

In the end, content is still king.  If you produce nothing but chaff to fill in the gaps between posts that make a few dollars you’re not doing yourself any favors.  The ultimate goal isn’t to make a fortune making short term money.  You should be focusing on getting raffic, gaining readers, keeping them and building income streams that don’t require daily attention.  This usualy means finding every income stram that you can, including private advertising.

Having said all that, I’ll move on to achieving my goals for the day, then seeing if I can add a few extra duckets to the total before I’m done.  After that I have an ad server to set up so that I can pull a little more diversified income from other sources.

This is my day job after all, and I get to play CEO.  I like that.

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