Posted Monday, November 16, 2009 by momscashblog |
The numbers are in and E-commerce Research shows that 70% of consumers are going to research and comparison shop online for the upcoming holidays. Halloween’s e-numbers were higher than expected by retailers which makes one think that Christmas 2009 numbers will be higher than thought even during these economic times. To be sure consumers are going to be making wiser decisions, and taking advantage of the online perks like, free shipping, secured shopping, overnight delivery and other great deals that internet shopping offers the consumers.
Christmas, Boxing Day and the upcoming holidays are the biggest shopping days of the year and a great time for retailers and for online affiliate marketing to work for you. Affiliate marketing can be as easy as selling a product on your blog/site or, setting up a web site selling one product or concentrating on several products. This site will have the potential to bring in extra money for you this Christmas and months after. Not getting even a small site/campaign up means you are facing a huge opportunity lost to supplement your income.
Make sure that when it comes to choosing the products that you want to sell on your new website, that you pick products that you have an interest in, it will only make it easier for you to sell something that you stand behind. You should also take a look around the internet, check out the television and thumb through some magazines for the hot items of 2009. I did a google search and some of the hot items that I found for this season are of course hi-tech products. That includes GPS Receivers, any of the Wii games, and of course iPods. Also take note that Tickle Me Elmo is back again, but of course he’s now Tickle Me Elmo Extreme! When it comes to toys don’t overlook the classic board games like Monopoly, Scrabble and Clue, which according to the consumer magazines board games have spiked in sales since 2008. Families are finding themselves staying at home more, rather than spending money that they may not have on going out, and this creates more family time. You may want to keep that in mind when thinking about what products or how you will present your campaign. Don’t forget Fido, pet toys and supplies are a big seller with affiliate marketing there is real money to be made there. Remember you have to now get consumers over to YOUR site, so think about your ads and how you will promote your site or products.
Once you’ve decided on the product[s] that you are going to sell and you’ve done your homework feeling that this item is one that will sell well, it could be worth your while to buy a domain name and, set up a website just for that product. Remember the site doesn’t have to be a large site, it can be just a few pages to which you could add to later on. If you don’t want to put up a site you can start selling products that you have picked and, advertise it on your blog or website now. You should try to stick to the same product on one site, if you are into computers then sell them on one site. Later on you could always open a webstore where you would sell different products, but to get something going for this Christmas keep it simple!
In conclusion do a little bit of research for your products, get your affiliate network ready, get your site up, advertise, promote your products and wait for the money to roll in. Make this a great affiliate Christmas, you have nothing to lose and plenty to gain.
Posted Wednesday, November 19, 2008 by momscashblog |
By now, most of us have heard that the best way to make money blogging is by having more than one blog. With multiple blogs you can diversifying your niches just as you would with mutual funds in the stock market. A good mutual fund invests in several different types of stock with several different companies. The money adds up and because all of your eggs are not in one basket, mutual funds are safer than investing in just one stock. The same principal applies to blogs but with blogs you don’t necessarily diversify for the safety of the investment because a blog doesn’t cost much to run. With blogs, you diversify to make MORE money. The average web hosting for a blog is around $7 a month and with most hosting companies you can also get unlimited add-ons for that price, so why not have more than one blog? All you have to pay for is a new domain name but if you don’t want to buy a name, you could even start some more blogs using a free hosted site such as WordPress.com or Blogger.com and use those blogs to drive traffic to your main site by linking them in your posts, or sidebar. (WordPress.com and Blogger.com provide free hosting but you do not own your domain name and there will be restrictions on ad usage.) By having multiple blogs in different niches (categories) and getting streams of income from all of them, you could make a very hefty yearly income right from your own home.
I have recently started two other blogs besides MomsCashBlog and later I hope to start more. I plan to keep them separate from MCB and I even have a friend who is interested in blogging and is working with me to learn about blogging. (and it’s great to have someone to dish with about blogging! lol). MCB makes pretty good money but I want to branch out and make MORE money and learn all I can about how to make money online. I can then pass what I’ve learned onto everyone who comes here. I am enjoying the process and the creativity it takes for each one of them. What I really like is that I can use all of the different aspects of my personality on my different blogs. With this blog, I’m pretty much boxed into a tight niche where I am teaching what I’ve learned about making money online so it’s not really appropriate for me to just talk about myself or certain things that interest me.. on the other ones I can say whatever I want and there’s freedom in that. (more…)
Posted Saturday, October 4, 2008 by momscashblog |
If you’re looking for ways to save on monthly expenses, your cell phone should be one of the most obvious places to cut. When debt experts help clients with their budgets, one of the first expenses they look to cut is the cell phone (and cable or satellite plans but that’s a whole different ball game that I won’t get into now! lol) I know many of you are gasping because you feel you could never live without your cell phone, but remember, it’s a luxury and not a necessity, so you really could live without it if you had to. Still cell phones are a convenience and a great safety device so if you need to adjust your budget and can’t give up the cell, some debt experts suggest using a pre paid cell phone to save money. With a pre paid cell phone (Track Phone), there are NO monthly bills and you get to control and decide how much money you spend on your own cell phone use. You buy as little or as much airtime as you want, when you want it.
TracFone wireless is a pre paid cellular service that purchases “airtime” from the big cellular companies so you can use it wherever you use a regular cell phone as it uses their towers. Their price per minute (or unit) is the same and sometimes even better than most cell phone plans… but there is no monthly bill and no contract… and no credit checks, either! They have more cellular customers than ATT and Verizon combined. They also sell the best brand name phones from top manufacturers such as Motorola, Nokia, Kyocera, and LG so if you’re into fancy gadgets with the latest technology you can get it, just as you would with a cellular plan. But if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t care about all that bling and you really want to save money (like me!) then you can even get a phone for less than $10!
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Posted Monday, September 15, 2008 by momscashblog |
Selling our used books is a great way to recycle and help the environment as well as declutter our homes… but selling used books usually doesn’t bring enough money to make it worth the effort. Traditional used bookstores only offer around 50 cents or less per book and with eBay, you have to sign up and create an account and then enter the auction and all that jazz. It’s a waiting game and it doesn’t usually pay off, because no one wants to pay those shipping fees. Well, I found a wonderful website, CKYbooks.com, that pays a good price for used and new books. It’s easy to use, you get an instant quote (offer), shipping is FREE, you get paid within 24-48 hours… and if you get a better offer, they will “match” it!
CKYbooks.com has a database of book ISBN’s and an evaluation of each book’s worth, so you’ll get an instant offer for any book they want to buy. The offers are based upon a book’s estimated resell value and the book’s popularity. The lowest offer they make is a guaranteed $1.00…. The highest offer they have given out is $100 for one book! (Wow!)
This site is so easy to use and answers all of your questions. Just type in the 10 digit ISBN number or the 13 digit number at the bottom of the bar code that begins with 978. You immediately receive an offer (price they will pay for your book), accept or reject that offer and proceed to the checkout or enter more books and watch your money rack up. (more…)
Posted Tuesday, September 9, 2008 by momscashblog |
Alright folks, Pepperjam (PJN) is having another Pepperjam Incentive Program for the month of September! (That’s 3 months in a row they’ve done this for us so take advantage of this great offer!) Here’s the deal… For the month of September, any NEW publisher/affiliate (that’s a blogger) who signs up with Pepperjam and gets approved, will receive a $10 Sign On- Bonus! They’ve upped their Referral Payout from $5 to $7 again, but only for the month of September. After you join the network and get approved, you can write a post about the PJN Referral Program and/or anything else about PJN, and you will get another $10 for each post you publish. (So I will get an easy $10 for writing this post just as you will.) You can write up to 5 posts during the month of September, but you have to notify PJN and show them your post to be approved before publishing. Just read the rules after you click the banner below and sign-on to get your $10.
For those of you just starting out, this is fast money in your account and it will get you going on the right path to making money online! You have to get going and do it now, in September, and you need to have some posts on your blog already so they can take a look at your new blog and make sure it is legitimate. (All ad networks have to do this.) Here’s how simple it is to make some fast cash from this program:
1. Sign up ($10)
2. Make a post about PJN ($.10)… after that all you have to do is
3. Get ONE referral ($7)
and you will have $27 in your account!!! IT’S THAT EASY…
Now even if you don’t get a referral right away, all you have to do is make another post about Pepperjam Incentive Program… and make another $10! and you will have $30 in your account. (then when you get a referral you’ll have $37!) It’s a Win-Win situation no matter how you look at it.
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Posted Monday, September 1, 2008 by momscashblog |
Here’s some good views and advice about using Affiliate ads on your blog from another blogger. Robert Cyr is one of the many good blogger friend’s I have made here on MomsCashBlog so he has written a post about his experience with Affiliate ads and Affiliate Marketing.
Making Money with Affiliate Marketing – Crash Course
I have been an avid follower of MomsCashBlog ever since JJ took over the reigns. My name is Robert Cyr and if you have read some of the comments here my name might be familiar to you. If you have researched blogging I am certain that you have read that blogging is about networking and establishing friendships. I am pleased to let you know that JJ and I have emailed back and forth on several occasions sharing and helping each other out.
Let me give you a little of my background; I started blogging back in March of 2008 with the sole intent of making money. Yeah, I know they say if your goal from the beginning is to make a ton of money chances are you will fail. I am proof positive that what “They Say” is not always true!
I have four blogs, two of which I keep secret as they are my “Bread and Butter” and are very niche specific. When I comment on JJ’s blog I always leave a link to one of my blogs about Wholesale Closeout Merchandise. In addition to my own blogs, I am a freelance contracted writer on several other blog like TopTenWholesale.com
I am going on my seventh month blogging and I am making money. I am making more money than I thought possible…and it grows each month. I have shared one of my last checks from Commission Junction with MomsCashBlog readers….Here it is again.
JJ asked if I would take some time to help her community understand affiliate marketing and I am pleased to share what little information I have learned since I started. Please note that there is tons of information on the Internet showing you how to make money blogging, but I will honestly tell you that there is no “One Guaranteed” way. My success has come from intense reading and trial and error.
I want to share with you a simple concept today that has brought serious dollars my way. In the affiliate world there is jargon to learn. Every industry has terminology which you need to understand. Today I will share a couple of terms:
Landing Page –- A Landing page is simply a page your visitors reach by some means of Internet search. This page is typically where the affiliate marketer would review and talk about a product and hopefully send the visitor on to the site selling a product or service. A Landing page is where you, as a publisher, must convince your visitor that the product or service you are reviewing is worth the purchase.
If you investigate landing page techniques on the Internet you will find that many affiliate marketers spend hundreds of dollars in PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising to get visitors to Landing pages.
Do not be afraid! Here is what I have learned and I have made thousands of dollars without spending one cent on PPC advertising… Are you ready for the big secret?
Every blog post you write is a landing page. Blog posts are indexed almost immediately in Google. I can write a blog post and within hours someone out there has found it by keyword search.
When you write a blog post and fill it with appropriate keywords you will get Organic Traffic.
Organic Traffic -– The best traffic to have to your website or blog because it is FREE. Organic traffic is any traffic that comes to your site without being paid for
Lets make a little formula for earning money through affiliate marketing:
Start a blog + Write blog Posts (Landing Pages with affiliate offers) = Commissions through Organic Traffic
Caution! Make sure that each post you write has value. This is why most successful bloggers will tell you that you must be passionate about the topics you blog about.
For example: If you love cooking, blog about cooking. Write blog articles about preparing meals, buying ingredients and maybe entertaining with food. You can integrate affiliate offers in each blog post such as… A blog post about pan frying steaks might chronicle the advantages of using Rachael Rays non-stick cookware. And then, of course insert your affiliate link to Rachael Rays cookware, where your blog readers can visit and hopefully buy the set of pans you are promoting. Viola! You have just earned a commission!
You cannot monetize a blog without first having a blog. If you have been reading JJ’s blog for sometime thinking about starting your own blog…what are you waiting for? If you want to become an affiliate marketer making money blogging about your passion (Whatever that might be) get started with JJ’s FREE blog tutorial. It will guide you through the process of staring your own blog and hopefully a second income!
Questions about affiliate marketing? Ask me through comments- Let me know if you learned anything through my rambling and maybe I can make a future guest post.
Posted Tuesday, August 26, 2008 by momscashblog |
When someone is thinking of a new venture, they usually want to know what to expect before they start the process. I know there are many bloggers-to-be who are wondering about the process of monetizing a blog with affiliate ads, so here’s some terms and information about using Affiliate Ads on your blog and what to expect when dealing with advertisers.
Affiliates Advertisers are advertising networks who agree to advertise on blogs and pay you a fee or commission for sales or referrals made on the blog. The advertiser becomes your “associate” or “affiliate” and you become their “affiliate”. So when you deal with an advertiser they will call you or your blog an affiliate because it is like two companies calling each other associates/affiliates. The advertisers under the Affiliate Networks are called merchants. (i.e. Pepperjam is an Affiliate Network that has several merchants under them and Sesame Street is one of them. So Sesame Street is a merchant under the Pepperjam Network.)
It does not cost you anything to put ads on your blog. (Remember, you are doing a service for them by allowing them to advertise on your blog!) Some ads pay better than others, so of course you want to find the best deals possible. You also want to choose ads that you feel your readers will be attracted to and that fit your overall topic. You can remove the ads anytime you want as there is no contract saying you have to keep affiliate ads on for a certain period of time. It’s your blog, so it is up to you but you should leave them on for a while and experiment to see which ones are working best for you.
Publisher – When you (as a blogger) sign up with an Affiliate Advertiser or Network, you are considered a publisher because you are publishing content, or posts, on your blog. You first need a blog up and running to sign up with an Affiliate Advertiser (they will ask for your blog’s url or e-mail address… you can’t sign up with advertisers before you have a blog). You will need some posts on your blog for them to look at your site and accept you as a publisher. Don’t worry that you have to be a best selling author to be accepted as a publisher. (lol) That’s not what they are looking for, they just need to know that your blog has a reason for being and is not a SPAM blog or a porn site as most Affiliate Ads will not associate with porn sites.
Pay Out’s – A pay out is the amount of money the advertiser holds in your account before they will pay you and the amounts differ from Network to Network. For instance, Pepperjam has a pay out of $25., where some are $50. or $100. This means that the Advertiser who has a payout of $50 will not give you a payment until you have built up $50 in your account. (most bloggers look for the lowest pay out possible so they can get the money that is owed to them quickly!)
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Here are some of the usual ways that Affiliate Ads pay a blogger/publisher for advertising on his/her blog:
Pay Per Click – you are compensated for sending traffic to the merchant. You don’t get a lot of money for pay per click, but it can add up.
Pay Per Sale – you are compensated by the merchant if the a sale or purchase is generated from the affiliate ad on your site.
Pay Per Lead – the merchant agrees to pay for a qualified (or sometimes unqualifed) lead, which doesn’t always work well because it’s up to the merchant to decide if they’ll pay for the lead.
Commission fee – With some Affiliate Ad Networks, A Pay Per Lead or Pay Per Sale could also be called a “commission”. It is a set amount or percentage that you’ll get paid for making the sale. With commissions you will have to wait a certain amount of time for the deal to be completed. (This is because a customer can change their mind and stop a transaction within a month so the advertiser cannot give you the commission until the deal is safe. This time period is usually one month but may take 2 months for you to have it in your account.)
Referral – you are compensated a certain amount of money for each person that you refer to the advertiser. You get a referral fee every time a blogger (publisher) signs up with an Affiliate Advertiser from the ad on your blog. (and of course another blogger get a referral fee when you sign up with them!)
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Applying for Affiliate Ads – To apply for an affiliate advertiser or Network, you COULD find out the name of the Affiliate you want and go directly to them… BUT why would you do that when you have a great opportunity to help out a fellow blogger by becoming a referral? After all, what goes around comes around and you want others to use your ads so we should be helping each other out with referrals. Be a good blogger friend and find the advertiser you want from one of your fellow bloggers and click on their ad so they can get a little money out of the deal. I bought my blog so at first a few of my ads were just transferred over to my name, but after that I made sure I went to other blogs to get my ads and give a referral fee to my fellow bloggers. It’s a win-win situation! It doesn’t take anything away from you and you will be giving another blogger some income by being a referral.
Getting Accepted – After you have applied, the Affiliate Advertiser will check out your blog to make sure it is appropriate for them to place their ads on and to make sure you have some content… so start getting some posts on your blog if you plan to have ads on it! It will take a day or two for the advertiser to accept you as an affiliate, but that depends on the Network you’re dealing with as some could take longer. If you are not accepted by an advertiser, find out why because it could be a mistake.
One advertiser refused me because they said I had “inappropriate content on my blog”.. when I called them about it, they checked again and said it was indeed a mistake…. When they looked up MomsCashBlog, they went to a “mom porn site” by mistake! (It seems there are some naughty Mom’s out there.. but I’m not one of them! lol) We had a good laugh and he told me “Sorry, your site is VERY appropriate and it has great content… you’re definitely accepted!” So, if you get rejected from an advertiser, find out why and fix it, or try again later when you have more posts, or just go onto another advertisers who WILL accept you.
Choosing ads and putting them on your site -- Once on the Affiliate Network site, there will be categories for you to go thru the list of advertisers and choose the ones you would like on your blog. It should show you how much commission you will receive with each of them, either in percentages or a set amount. You will see the various display ads (images) that are available. For each ad, there are usually a few sizes and types to select from, such as banner ads, block ads, or the small square 125×125 pixel ads.
The advertiser will provide the HTML code for each display ad, and they also provide the code for text link ads too. (You can use either a text link ad or a display ad, or both to promote the ad on your site) You don’t need to know anything about HTML to do this because you will be cutting and pasting the code into a widget or adblocks… depending on which theme you have and/or how you choose to use it.
Putting Ads in Your Sidebar – The absolute best tutorial I have found that explains how to put ads in your wordpress sidebar . If you haven’t been to Blogwell.com you will definitely want to save them in your favorites as they have some expertly written posts on blogs. But if you need more information on putting ads on your blog, let me know with a comment or e-mail me at jj@momscashblog.com.
