Increase Affiliate Sales Conversions Dramatically

This week’s making money online “Quick Tip” can help give you a much higher conversion rate when promoting affiliate products.

If you read my 2 previous posts on how to “Cloak” affiliate links (The Ultimate WP Affiliate Sales Tool and Simple Affiliate Cloaking Method) you know I am a big fan of cloaking affiliate links as you get a much higher conversion rate than leaving those big ugly URL’s that have your affiliate ID code displayed in them.

What works even better than those two methods at converting sales is registering a domain name for the sole purpose of promoting one particular affiliate product and forwarding the domain to your affiliate link.

Here is how it basically works. Let’s use one of my own domains for example. There is a product for making money online called Camera Dollars that has a really good conversion rate, and pays a whopping 75% commission. You earn $26.98 on each sale. They claim that 1 out of 10 people that visit their site purchases the course… which is incredible! The product is a course on how to make money with your camera by taking pictures and selling them online. You can imagine how popular this is nowadays with practically everyone owning a digital camera. Even though I have not tried selling any photos yet, I have purchased the course and it is really good. Someday I am sure I will try and sell some photos… but I am getting off track on what this post is actually about.

Since CameraDollars is a Clickbank product… it has a typical affiliate link (Hoplink) which takes visitors to the merchant site while tracking your affiliate id. Here is the hoplink for Camera Dollars:

http://YourClickBankNickName.camera.hop.clickbank.net.

So if I were promoting that particular product (which I am) I have a few options:

1. I could just use my hoplink which would be http://dotspro.camera.hop.clickbank.net. It is not the prettiest link in the world, but it works.
2. I could cloak the URL using one of the methods at the beginning of this post and it would end up looking something like: www.MakingMoneyOnline.com/cameradollars/ which is much nicer looking URL.
3. But an even better way would be to register a domain and redirect it to my affiliate link (hoplink). So what I did was register the domain PhotoRiches.com and redirected the domain to my affiliate hoplink. So anytime someone goes to www.photoriches.com they are taken directly to my affiliate link, and if they make a purchase I make $26.98.

Now of the 3 methods above, the 3^rd would obviously be the most expensive to implement, as you would have to register a new domain, as well pay for hosting for that domain. Now if you followed one of my earlier posts on “Never Pay for Premium Hosting Again” and implemented those strategies you would not worry about having to pay for hosting each time you register a new domain name. Also, as I mentioned before… this method definitely has a higher conversion rate than the other two and one sale would actually pay for the domain and hosting for year on a lot of sites.

Another cool thing about this method is it is much easier from a marketing standpoint online and off. Checkout this simple banner I just created to the right. A lot of affiliate banners that merchant’s offer for promotions have the merchants URL displayed right on the banner. Instead of clicking the banner, I know many people just type in the URL and they bypass the affiliate link resulting in no referral fee if they end up purchasing the product. With this banner… if a visitor clicks on it they will be taken to my affiliate link destination, as well as if they type in the URL. There is really no way to bypass my affiliate link as they do not know what the merchants URL actually is.

Imagine how great this will work for offline promotions as well. I could easily run inexpensive ads in newspapers, magazines, fliers, etc… that are extremely short and to the point. Here are just a couple examples of some simple ads:

————————————————————
Get Rich Taking Photos!
www.PhotoRiches.com
————————————————————
Got a Digital Camera? Learn How to
Make Money Taking Simple Photos!
www.PhotoRiches.com
————————————————————

I think you get the point. Those same ads could be run online in places like; Craigslist, Free Online Classifieds, etc…, as well as in your signature file on forums, in your emails, etc…. The more places you display it, the more chances you have of making money.

Now this post wasn’t designed to promote CameraDollars (even though it is a great product), it is to teach you another way to promote affiliate programs in general, and hopefully get much better conversions.

There are lots of big Internet Marketers that use this method and I notice most of them when registering a domain name usually choose something that is close to the merchants actual URL. An example would be if the merchant’s URL for their particular product is MagicalCashDonkey.com (which is a totally made up name)… you might want to register one of the following domains or something similar:

MagicalCashDonkey.net/org/biz/info/etc…
TheMagicalCashDonkey.com
GetMagicalCashDonkey.com
MagicalCashDonkeys.com

As you can see… they are all very close to what the original URL is, so when a potential customer uses one of those links, they probably wouldn’t even notice that the URL is slightly different than the one they are redirected to.

As for my domain PhotoRiches.com, it is actually quite a bit different than the product I am marketing, but the sales page is so good… it doesn’t really seem to make a difference to people.

So if there is an affiliate product (or several) out there that you really want to promote the heck out of… you might want to consider registering a domain specifically for promoting each product and redirect each domain to your affiliate link(s).

Making Money Online Promoting a Free Secret System to Help People Earn $300-$500 a Day

I love learning different ways that people figure out for making money online. If I see an ad that catches my attention in Adsense or Infolinks I usually click on them to see what the advertiser is trying to market. So I have decided to add a new segment to Making Money Online where I will search out unique methods that people use to market affiliate programs (that I find interesting) and share them with you. I hope you find them interesting too.

Today I am going to be writing about a way that I have actually seen used on many sites lately, and I am pretty sure it works (for making money for the affiliates), as I have been tempted to sign-up and to test this system myself, and I have pretty good willpower for these types of programs. So I know if I am tempted, I am pretty sure there are people that are actually trying this out and making some affiliates very wealthy.

What the affiliate marketers are promoting on these sites are different Online Casinos, which all pay quite a bit of money. The secret is they are not promoting the casinos directly. What they are doing is promoting a “Secret System” that will show you how to make $300 to $500 a day beating the casinos. This is basically how it works on most of the sites I have seen this on. The owner of the site says they are going to share a method with you to beat the online casinos day after day playing European Roulette with their secret system. What makes this work for me is they don’t try and sell you anything at all. They don’t even ask for your name and email which is really smart.

They reveal their entire secret system to you right there on the webpage. They spill all the beans, as they are trying to make it seem like they are helping you out just because they are nice guys. Not only are they sharing their secret “beat the casino” system with you, they also let you know that they have personally tested this system out on many of the online casinos out there, and they recommend the ones that they have found to work the best for them. Wow, they must be super nice guys I guess. Well they could be nice guys, but there is definitely an ulterior motive to their generous information.

So why would these guys share their secret money making online system with you for free? Do they really want you to make money? They might want you to win some money, but in the long run I am sure they would prefer that you lose money instead. Why would they want you to lose money? Because if you joined the casinos through the affiliate links they recommended, they will earn a certain percentage of all the money you lose.

I checked out several of these sites and many of them recommend the same casinos. When I checked out those casinos, each of them has affiliate programs that pay the affiliate 30% of whatever the people they refer to the casino lose for as long as they stay a member. So as long as the person they referred continues to gamble on that site, they will earn 30% of however much that person loses. So if they lose $100 the affiliate earns $30. If they lose $1000, the affiliate earns $300. Not bad for making a simple recommendation.

So let me give you a short explanation on their secret method for beating the casinos,  and show you that there is a much better chance in the long run that the affiliate will earn a lot more money than the gambler ever will.

Here is the secret formula in a nutshell. They go into more detail on several of the sites, but hopefully this will make sense to you.

I am guessing you guys understand the basics of European Roulette. It is a casino game which is basically a spinning wheel with 37 slots. There are 18 red and 18 black slots and 1 green spot numbered zero. The green slot (0) is what gives the casino their slight advantage, which makes all the difference for the casino. It is important that they play European vs. American Roulette, as American Roulette has 38 slots, with two green slots; zero and double-zero… which gives the house and even larger advantage.

There are lots of different bets you can place when playing roulette, but for this particular money making system…players will only be betting on either red or black which pays even money. That means if you bet $1 on black and the color black comes up, you win $1. If red comes up or the green zero, you lose the dollar you bet. Definitely pretty simple stuff. So here is how this system works.

• Take $1 and bet on red or black.
• If your color comes up you win. Yeah… you won $1.
• If you lose, double your bet ($2) and then bet on the same color again.
• If you lose, double your bet ($4) and then bet on the same color again.
• Keep doubling your bet on the same color until you win.

If you have enough money and you keep doubling your bet, eventually your color will come up. Once your color comes up and you have been following this method you will have won $1.

Once you win, you start over by betting $1 again and follow the same routine over and over again until you win a total of $200. Then they say it is time to go to a new casino, so the casino you are currently playing at doesn’t catch on to your method.

I have actually tested this many times using the “Play for Free” mode at a few different casinos and I have done quite well, but that was with pretend money, so there was no stress on me actually losing my own money.

So let’s break this down to see how this would play out in the real world… at least if it were me following this secret formula for making money online with my own hard-earned cash.

I would start out following the routine… making a dollar here and there slowly building up my winnings. But then I would probably get on a losing streak (at some point) as most gamblers often do. So let’s see how much money I would be down if I lost 10 spins in a row.

1. $1
2. $2
3. $4
4. $8
5. $16
6. $32
7. $64
8. $128
9. $256
10. $512

So if I had 10 bad spins in a row (which is possible) I would be down a total of $1023, and I would be starting to get very stressed out. I am a family guy now and I just hate losing money. I hated losing money before I was married and had kids, but it is a much bigger deal nowadays for sure! I would think to myself, if I lose another spin I will be down $2047. Then if I lost again, I will be down twice that. The fear would probably overcome me and I would probably just cut my losses and quit right then. I’d be down a little over a grand and the affiliate that signed me up would be up a little over $300. So who’s the winner there? Definitely not me.

Now I am not saying this system doesn’t work, but I think if it did all the time… EVERYONE would be doing it.

Actually… if you had unlimited funds (like the casino) and the casino had no caps (the maximum amount of money you are allowed to bet), this system is guaranteed to make you money if you followed it to the tee. But none of us have unlimited funds and casinos do have caps… so if you get on an unlucky streak, you could literally lose your house! That doesn’t sound like a good bet to me!

So why did I write this?

Am I trying to promote online gambling? Absolutely not!

Am I recommending that you start promoting Online Casinos? Nope!

What I am trying to promote in this post is CREATIVITY! I just thought the method they used to market those affiliate programs was very creative and I am sure they have had much success with it.

So next time you decide to promote an affiliate product or service… or even your own product or service… try and think outside the box!

Making Money Online Promoting Affiliate Products in Your Blog Posts

As you know there are unlimited ways of making money online, and deciding what is best for your business model can be really tricky. Well today I am going to be talking about affiliate programs, as they are one of the best ways to get started making money online. Actually I am going to talk about the best way to implement affiliate marketing into your blog as it is one of the better ways for bloggers to generate income.

Below are 6 tips to help you convert more sales when marketing affiliate products on your blog…

1. Market to your niche – Make sure you promote things that are relevant to your readers. If you are running a Martial Arts blog, don’t try promoting a “Guide to Making Money Online” just because it pays a 75% commission. Stick with affiliate programs related to your blog’s audience. I see people all the time trying to sell things that have nothing to do with their blog’s niche and I just don’t get it!
2. Don’t just rely on banner ads, instead promote affiliate products in your posts – I find it amazing that many bloggers still think the way to monetize their site is to sprinkle some Adsense ads throughout their blog, and display some affiliate banners on their sidebar and they are done. You are not going to sell many affiliate products that way. To get people to buy affiliate products you need to write about them in your posts. You can write a whole post dedicated to one affiliate product, or you can write a post on a broad topic and recommend one or more products throughout the post.
3. Know your product – The best way to promote something is to try it yourself first, so you can give an honest review. Not only that, but you know the ins and outs of how it works, and if you have used it a while you can tell people how it has worked for you. If you just can’t afford to purchase the product first, make sure you learn as much about it as you can before you try and promote it.


4. Only recommend quality products and services – Do you want to get a bad reputation fast? Then start recommending crappy products to your readers. That will do it! But seriously, if you want to be successful and be known as a person that people trust… make sure you only recommend really good products. If you do, those past buyers will be much more inclined to purchase whatever you’re promoting next. Plus, they might even write some nice comments thanking you for your great suggestions, which can only help your sales conversions… as well as your reputation as an honest marketer.
5. Try and keep out the competition as best you can in your posts – Usually when I am promoting an affiliate product in a post I try and not have any Adsense ads in the post, as those ads could actually steal your affiliate commissions if clicked on. Sure, you might have made 50 cents for the click, but you might have lost a 50% commission or more if they decided to purchase the product through that link instead of yours.
6. Display ad banners in your post that relate to what you are trying to market – Instead of displaying a bunch of rotating random banner ads (which I did in this post)… when writing posts to promote affiliate products I usually display banner ads that relate to whatever product I am writing about. I like to keep my reader’s mind focused on what it is I am trying to promote. If the affiliate merchant doesn’t offer any good banner graphics, I usually just create my own banner ad and use that. If you are not good at creating banners yourself, you can always use 20DollarBanners. You can save 10% on your order (packages not included) with the coupon code “mmodotcom“.

Those are the major things I think about when promoting affiliate products in one of our blogs. Of course the key to converting more sales is to get more traffic. So if your blog does not get a lot of traffic, don’t expect to be making a lot of money just yet. Hopefully, if you stick with it and your site becomes more popular and your traffic grows… so will your sales.

How about you? Do you have any tips for promoting affiliate products on your blog? I am sure everyone would love to hear what works for you.

Tuan Nguyen of 20DollarBanners Interview

One of the greatest parts of doing these weekly interviews (ok, maybe not weekly yet) is getting to meet (at least by email or phone) some of our favorite Internet Entrepreneurs. The interview Mark did last week with Lee Silber introduced many of you to a great writer, as well as motivational speaker, and maybe some of you will check out some of the books and services that he offers… which might help you to excel in whatever business you are in, or perhaps help you in choosing the right business path for you.

Well today’s interview is going to introduce you to someone who you probably don’t know by name, but I am almost positive you have seen his work many, many times all around the Internet. Today I am interviewing Tuan Nguyen, who owns 20DollarBanners and has been making money online for many years now. He has created banner ads and other graphics for some of the biggest companies on the Internet.

Before I get to the interview, I want you to know that we are running a one week contest (Aug. 26 – Sept. 2) in which you can win a complete banner “Starter Package” ($109 value) just for leaving a comment below. Please click here to read all the rules, as you can greatly increase your chances of winning by completing a couple of other simple tasks. For those of you who read the rules yesterday (Aug. 24th), I have added a couple of things that you can do to earn more entries, so please check the rules again.

Okay, so let’s get on with the interview…

Doug: Tuan, thanks you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule and doing this interview with us.

Tuan: Thanks for having me Doug. You have a great website here, with a lot of information. I’m sure it will be useful to those looking to making a living online.

Doug: Thanks Tuan, I do appreciate that!  So how and when did you open 20DollarBanners and was it successful from the beginning?

Tuan: I started 20DollarBanners back in early 2003 while I was studying. There has been steady year over year growth from the beginning. I started by posting on a public forum that I would design a free banner for 5 different companies, they took up the offer rather fast, and that was where I got my first set of portfolio showcase. After that, I continued posting on the forum offering my service, with my free designs as portfolio, and those companies giving testimonials in my threads, it just started to get busy from there.

Doug: Was this you first online business venture? If it wasn’t, what was your first business and was it successful?

Tuan: 20DollarBanners would have been my 2^nd venture if I remember correctly. I tried starting a web hosting service prior to 20DollarBanners, but that was a flop. It was, and still is, one of the most competitive industries on the internet, with big companies paying affiliates up to $120 per referral, newcomers simply can’t afford to compete. After 3 months, I sold the business along with the website and the few lonely souls that signed up for the service.

Doug: How many banners do you think you have created over the years? I imagine it has to be a lot.

Tuan: A brief glance at my folders, I can estimate that I had created just over 35,000 banners on my own, and in total, over 50,000 have been designed by 20Dollarbanners. You can see some of my work in the portfolio section of my site. I have not updated the portfolio since 2006, so it’s a bit outdated. I’m planning to update it soon (in this case, ‘soon’ means 3 years and still counting)

Doug: Do you do all the designing yourself or do you have a staff, and if so… how many designers do you have working for you?

Tuan: I did all the designs myself up until just over a year ago. Too much work was coming in and 16+ hour day couldn’t handle it all so I got some help. Including myself, there are currently 3 of us working on banners and other design projects.

Doug: Do you have a lot of repeat customers? I see many banners in your portfolio from a lot of the same companies.

Tuan: We do have a lot of repeat customers, in fact, a large portion of our work comes from repeat customers, ranging from those who came back after a year to customers who order on a weekly basis.

Doug: Where did you obtain your graphic design skills… did you go to school to learn them, or were you self-taught?

Tuan: I got introduced to Photoshop in one of the subjects I was studying at Uni. The course didn’t teach us much more other than editing a few graphics for a project we were doing.

It got me interested so I started collecting and reading Photoshop tutorials to learn how to use the program, and created a site call pslover.com along the way.

The so called ‘skill’ is just from experience. Due to the nature of my work, I deal directly with many internet marketers and managers, who know what works and what doesn’t on advertising materials, some would tell me what to write and what to emphasize on a banner ad, some would tell me what colors and call-to-action to use, so from that, I’ve learnt how banners should be designed to capture user’s attention and deliver a message. With this experience, the designs and styles of my banners also changed over time. If I still design the way I did in 2003, I don’t think I would still be in business.

Doug: What other online ventures have you started over the years, and how have they done for you?

Tuan: Through 20dollarbanners, I have received many other work requests, from magazine ad designs to full website development. I don’t specifically promote these services, but I accept these jobs upon request.

I have tried other online ventures, such as affiliate marketing, developing websites, and even domaining, but due to the workload that keeps coming through, I never really have the time to put in the required efforts to see any real results. There are definitely many ways to make money online as long as you do the required research and put in 110%. It’s not as easy as many of the overnight success stories you’ve read.

Doug: How is your Page Peel and eBook Cover design businesses doing? They seem like the perfect addition to your banner business. Do you offer any other graphic design services?

Tuan: The page peel is going great and quite a popular product. We developed a custom backend for our corner peel so all you need to do is copy and paste 1 line of code to your website to get it working, while advanced users can edit the scripts and customize the installation with the provided files.

Funny enough, I get more ecover orders through 20dollarbanners than the ecover site itself. I never promoted the ecover site, except having a link from 20DollarBanners.

We work with some of the big guys in internet marketing, so we do a lot of ecover as well as minisite designs.

Doug: Do you have any big plans for future online projects that you can share with our readers?

Tuan: At the moment I accept all design and development work through 20DollarBanners which is not very efficient or professional. We are working on creating specialized websites for each design service we offer, including website headers, template designs, minisite designs, and website development.

One of the other sides to online ventures I would like to focus on is website development. I currently run a few other web sites, and am looking to launch a few more in the coming months. My goal is to have a network of high traffic sites.

Doug: Any tips for new graphic designers just starting out? It’s a very competitive business, so you most know some secrets.

Tuan: Build your client base and keep them happy. It does not matter if they have a $20 project or $2000 project with you, keep them all happy. The $20 customer could bring in more than $2000 worth of referrals in the end. Your customers may bring you more work and referrals than most other advertising methods, and they’re free and effective.

Doug: Do you do much marketing or is mostly word-of-mouth nowadays? Was it always that way?

Tuan: I only started advertising the last couple of months. But before that, our main source of work is through word of mouth and our organic search listing on Google for some targeted keywords. During slow periods, I would post on some forums offering the service and some discounts. I was never short of work so marketing wasn’t a main focus. I started exploring different marketing methods and still haven’t found any that brings as many customers as word of mouth referrals.

Doug: I noticed you have an Affiliate Program and Reseller program. Can you tell us a little about each, as our readers are always looking for ways to make money online?

Tuan: I’m sure most people here would have an idea what an affiliate program is, so I won’t go into details. We offer affiliates 15% commission for each order they refer, as well as repeat orders from that customer. The program is free to join.

The reseller program is a new offering we are still testing. It is a private label reseller service where as a reseller, you can offer your visitors banner design service through your own website. The customer place orders and manage their banners all through your own website, 20DollarBanners will handle all the transactions and design work behind the scenes. It is ideal for website owners or web services who want to add this service to their existing offerings and make some money on top of it.

How it works is each reseller has a base price, which is what we charge, and a charge price, which is the price they charge their customer. For example, if your base price is $10 a banner, and you charge your customer $15, your profit is $5 for that banner. Because our prices are very competitive, resellers can afford to add some markup to our prices and still give fairly good pricing. Resellers can also target a completely different marketing and charge much more. I’ve seen places charging $95 for a single banner.

Doug: Any last words of wisdom you would like to give our readers in regards to making money online?

Tuan: Despite all the overnight online millionaire stories you’ve read and heard about, making money online is not as easy as it’s made out to be. Avoid too good to be true offers and do your research before committing to any online ventures. Try and find what it is that you enjoy doing and see if you can bring it to the online world. For example, if you enjoy drawing or photography, you can start an illustration service or sell your photos. It’s much more rewarding to do what you enjoy rather than trying to enjoy what you do.

That’s it for the interview. What did you think? To me, Tuan is the PERFECT EXAMPLE of a true Internet Entrepreneur. He found a niche that he really enjoys, and he works very hard to provide a quality product and exceptional service, and is building on his success… which has paid off nicely for him.

If there is nothing else you take from this interview, always remember what the last thing he said was and try and follow his advice… “It’s much more rewarding to do what you enjoy rather than trying to enjoy what you do.”

Last couple things… don’t forget to enter the Contest to win a complete banner “Starter Package” ($109 value) just for leaving a comment below. Please read the Rules first.

Tuan has also graciously offered a 10% discount to any of our readers who would like to get some individual custom banners designed for their website. To get this discount, all you need to do is type in the coupon code, “mmodotcom” when you place your order on his 20DollarBanners website.

Again, I want to thank Tuan very much for the great interview, as well for the AWESOME Prize Package he gave us, and for the discount he is extending to our readers.

*** One last Contest Modification – Instead of listing what actions you took to enter the contest in the comments section below, please list them on the contest page instead . We would like to keep the comments below to be only about the interview. Thanks!

Win an Awesome Custom Banner Package

This is part one of a two part post. The second part will be posted tomorrow. Today I am just writing to let you know about a contest we will be running starting tomorrow, and about a discount code that can be used to save you some money on getting custom banners created for your site. If I tried to cram all this information, along with the interview into one post, no one would read the entire thing, so I had to break it up.

Tomorrow’s post is going to be our second “Spotlight Interview”. This time we will be interviewing Tuan Nguyen of 20DollarBanners fame. It is a really good interview, so you definitely do not want to miss it. Tuan has been making money online for many years now and you will learn how he got started and some of the secrets to his success, as well as some of his future plans.

When I asked Tuan if he would do the interview, I also asked him if he might be able to throw in a prize that we could give away to one of our readers, maybe a banner or something. To my amazement, not only did Tuan say “YES”, he went way above and beyond my expectations. He actually gave us a complete banner “Starter Package” ($109 value) to give away, which includes the following size custom banners…

• 1 – 468X60
• 1 – 120X60
• 1 – 125X125
• 1 – 120X600
• 1 – ANY SIZE

I totally wish I could enter this contest, as I would love to win that prize package. If you haven’t seen his work, make sure and visit his site, as he does an amazing job and his prices are awesome! I think everyone that owns an online business should consider having some banners created for their site. I am actually going to have Tuan design some banners for MakingMoneyOnline.com. We are just trying to decide exactly what we want.

How does this contest work? It is going to be a simple raffle where we pull the winner’s name out of a hat. I think we will even video tape the official drawing and find a sexy model to pull the name out of the hat to add a little excitement to the event.

Here is what you need to do to earn raffle tickets. The more actions that you take from the list below, the more raffle entries you can earn.

1. You need to leave a comment on tomorrow’s Spotlight Interview post of Tuan Nguyen, which will earn you one entry in the drawing. This is the only mandatory thing you need to do to be entered in the contest. Please leave a comment that shows you actually read the Interview and hopefully have visited his site. Just saying “Great Interview” really doesn’t prove that you actually did either of those things. (1 Entry)
2. Twitter this post. (1 Entry)
3. Twitter the interview. (1 Entry)
4. Stumble the interview. (1 Entry)
5. Vote for the Interview on Blogengage (1 Entry)
6. Write a post about the contest and interview with links to both. (4 Entries)
7. Subscribe to our newsletter. (3 Entries)

That’s it. To enter the contest all you HAVE TO DO IS LEAVE A COMMENT ON TOMORROW’S INTERVIEW, and if you would like to earn some extra entries, you can do any of the actions above. So if you do all the actions mentioned above you would earn a total of 12 entries, which is the maximum available per person. Doing any of the actions more than once does not earn you any more entries, but if you would like to, we wouldn’t mind it

Contest Ending Date: This is important as well. The contest is going to last 1 week, so it will end on Wednesday, September 3rd at 11:59 PM (PST), so you have that long to complete any of the actions you would like to do. Any actions completed after that time will not count as an entry. IMPORTANT: You also need to make sure and let us know all the actions you took in the comment section of this post. We will announce the winner on Monday, September 7^th. So that is everything I believe you should know about the contest. If you have any questions… ask us in the comment section below.

As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, I also have a coupon code to save you some money. Not only did Tuan give us a great Prize Package to give away… he also is offering a 10% discount to any of our readers on individual banner creations. Unfortunately, you cannot use the coupon code for banner packages, as those are already deeply discounted, but if you want to get one, two, or three custom banners created… you can use this code to save yourself 10% on your order. Just use the code “mmodotcom” when you are checking out and the discount will be applied.

That’s it for today. Make sure you read tomorrow’s interview and get entered into this contest, as that is really a great prize package. Also, if you are in need of some banners for your site, head over to 20DollarBanners and order some. Just make sure you use our discount code.

Making Money Online Selling Posters

We decided to create a new section titled “Money Making Affiliate Programs”, where each week we will be talking about some of our favorite affiliate programs we have used over the years, or new ones that we think have a lot of potential.

Since summer is going to be over before we know it (sorry), I decided to talk about an affiliate program that has brought me in many 1000’s of dollars over the years and does exceptionally well at the end of summer. Not to say it doesn’t do great year-round for making money online, but I just seem to have promoted the products more at the beginning of the each school year.

So what type of product am I talking about? POSTERS! That’s right, just plain old posters… well not just “plain old posters”, as this company has over 500,000 in stock and they are adding more and more all the time. The company is called, All Posters, but that could be a little misleading as they have grown over the years and now they sell; posters, prints, stand-ups, magnets, apparel, and much, much more…

Like any legitimate affiliate program it costs nothing to join and they offer some very advanced linking methods to make promoting any type genre of poster a breeze.

You can actually earn money a couple of different ways, which I really like. You can earn money by selling posters directly to public, which is where I have made most of my money. Plus you can earn money recruiting other affiliates to market their products, which is called a two-tier commission structure.

So here is how the commission structure is broken down:

Tier 1
You earn 20% commission for any purchase someone makes on All Posters via your affiliate link. If they purchase anything on the site for up to 10 days after they clicked on your affiliate link, you will still earn the 20% commission. The one thing I have noticed about selling posters is hardly anyone purchases just one poster. Most people purchase several, plus they offer framing and all sorts of other products, so their total bill can grow pretty quickly.

Tier 2
You can earn up to $8.00 for each new affiliate you recruit, plus lifetime residual income.

• You get $3.00 when they make their first sale
• You earn $5.00 when they make their second sale
• You earn 5% of every sale they make for life (this can be very lucrative if you recruit yourself some super affiliates)

As for marketing posters, there are many ways to go about it. I created a really basic site, PosterDiscounters.com… many years ago (which really needs a major overhaul), and for not getting much traffic it has always done pretty well at converting sales. It does especially well when I spend some time and promote it.

But don’t think you need your own custom site to make money selling posters, as I have had a lot of success over the years using other more direct methods like promoting to my different mailing lists, PPC advertising, adding their dynamic code to niche sites, etc… The only limit to marketing posters is your own imagination. Once you sign-up you will see all the cool different ways you can add posters to your site(s).

So if you are interested in making money online and are looking for another potentially lucrative income stream, sign-up here.

Quick Tip – Simple Affiliate Cloaking Method

The last 3 days have been super hectic around the office, so I have not had much time to write. My business partner Mark has been on a 2 week vacation and will be back to work on Monday, and in his absence I have had to do everything around here, so I am a little behind. Plus, my kids just got out of school Tuesday for summer break. So today is going to be one of the first of what I am calling “Quick Tips”. It will just be a quick tip on how to do something specific. I am thinking about making this a once a week type post, but we will see how it goes over.

Today I am just going to show you a quick way to “Cloak” your affiliate links. There are a many reasons to do this, but probably the best reason is it helps keep people from hijacking your affiliate links and stealing your commissions.

There are lots of different ways and services out there with which you can cloak your URLs. Simply do a Google search for “URL Redirection Services” and you will see lots of different options.

For this post I am just going to show you a really simple PHP script that you can create in seconds and works great for a simple redirection.

Here is what we use on a lot of our sites. Now this only works if your server is running PHP. Again, there are probably lots of ways to do the same thing, but this is what we have always used.

1) Open up a text editor like Notepad and paste the following code onto your page:

—————————————————————-

<?php

$URL=”http://www.PUT_AFFILTIATE_URL_HERE.com“;

header (“Location: $URL”);

?>

—————————————————————-

2) Change http://www.PUT_AFFILTIATE_URL_HERE.com to whatever your actual affiliate link is.

3) You have 2 different options on how to save it and I prefer the 2^nd method (which takes an extra step or two), but both work fine.

• Give the file a name and end it with .php extension. For example is you were promoting an affiliate program for guitar lessons, you might want to call it “guitar-lessons.php”. Then you just upload the file to your server and you are done. Then whenever you are promoting that guitar course you would use the address www.YOUR-WEBSITE-URL.COM/guitar-lessons.php.
• With this one, you are going to need to create a “folder” with whatever title you like. For the guitar lessons example, you will probably want to call the folder something like “guitar-lessons”. Next you want to save the file you created above as “index.php” and save it in the “guitar-lessons” folder. Then you just need to upload the entire folder to your server and you are done. Then whenever you are promoting that guitar course you would use the address www.YOUR-WEBSITE-URL.COM/guitar-lessons. Another option you see nowadays using this method is;  create a main folder entitled “recommends” (or whatever you like) and they upload all the affiliate folders into that file, which also helps organize the folders on your server. Then whenever you are promoting that guitar course you would use the address www.YOUR-WEBSITE-URL.COM/recommends/guitar-lessons.

So let me show you step-by-step real live example. I will create a redirection URL for an affiliate link to Jamorama.com, which is one of Clickbank’s top selling merchants for Guitar Lessons.

Step 1) I pasted the following into a blank Notepad document:

—————————————————————-

<?php

$URL=”http://www.PUT_AFFILTIATE_URL_HERE.com”;

header (“Location: $URL”);

?>

—————————————————————-

Step 2) I changed http://www.PUT_AFFILTIATE_URL_HERE.com to my actual affiliate link:

—————————————————————-

<?php

$URL=”http://mrdomains.jamorama.hop.clickbank.net”;

header (“Location: $URL”);

?>

—————————————————————-

Step 3) I created a main folder called “recommends” and then a sub-folder called “guitar-lessons” and I saved the file as index.php in that folder.

Step 4) I uploaded the folder “recommends” with everything in it to MakingMoneyOnline.com and I was done.

Step 5) Now, whenever I want to promote Jamorama, I just point people to: http://www.makingmoneyonline.com/recommends/guitar-lessons and it takes them right to Jamorama via my affiliate link. Give it a click and see it works.

After you have done this once, from then on all you need to do is create the file and affiliate folder and upload them into the “recommends” folder and you are done, which literally can be done in less than one minute.

This method also REALLY WORKS GREAT when you create eBooks and eCourses, or even offline affiliate marketing. I have even used this method on business cards.

Selling Information Products – Best Ways to Start (Part 2)

I am going to change the order of things in my series on, “Selling Information Products”. Part 2 was going to be on some simple ways to create your first information product, but I am going to save that one for the next section. Instead, I am going to write about the best way I know of to create and sell your first information product and why I think it is the best.

As many of you know I have been making money online (doing all sorts of things) for over 10 years now, and in that time I have purchased MANY books and courses on all sorts of different ways of marketing things online. I believe the most I have ever spent on a product was around $997 which I purchased at a JV Alert Seminar. I probably never would have spent that much money on one product, but the creator gave anyone who purchased it life-time access to all his products and any future products he creates, so it was definitely worth the money to me. Plus he let us pay in in 3 installments, which really closed the deal.

Besides that one, I believe the most I have ever spent was; I bought a few products in the $497 range, many in the $97 range, a lot more in the $47 range and I cannot tell you how many in the $29.95 and under range. Almost all of them were very good products, except a few which I should have asked for my money back, but didn’t.

So why am I telling you this? Because of all the products I have purchased online to help me in my making money online endeavors, the best thing I have ever bought (to this day) only cost me $7.00. SERIOUSLY… ONLY $7 BUCKS! I am sure a large percentage of you out there have heard of this before, because it is definitely not new. But for those of you that haven’t, you should pay attention, as it is still one of the best ways to get started making money online. The product I am talking about is called the “Seven Dollar Secrets”.

What the Seven Dollar Secrets is a short 33 page eBook teaching you how you can make a ton of money online selling inexpensive (ideally around $7.00), short (around 30 pages), content-packed eBooks. Not only can you make a lot of money, but you can also build a subscriber list (who actually spend money online) at viral speed. And I am sure you know that building a list is the key to making money online for the long term.

So let me give you a quick overview of what you will learn, and more importantly what added bonus you will receive that makes the product worth many, many times more than seven dollars.

• You will learn how simple and fast it is to create a content rich eBook
• Why $7.00 is the “Magic Price” to start building your Info-Product Empire
• How you can make much more than the original $7 you charge your customers
• How to quickly build an Army of Affiliates eager to promote your book
• Why your subscriber list of paying customers will build at viral speed
• ADDED BONUS – The actual script he uses that makes all this work. I personally would spend at least $100 to purchase just the script and it comes FREE as a bonus for buying the eBook.

Now is this going to make you rich fast like one of those MILLION DOLLAR PRODUCT LAUNCHES you hear about all the time? HECK NO! What this is going to do (if you apply it) is it is going to help you get started (hopefully fast) making money, and even more importantly help you build a list of people who spend money online which is the most important thing of all. Because once you have built yourself one of those huge lists like the big gurus have, then you might be able to have one of those million dollar launches, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s first get you started making some money.

SPECIAL NOTE TO ALL YOU BLOGGERS OUT THERE: If you want to make money blogging you need to do more than just write posts and paste Adsense and Banner Ads on your blog. If you visit all the probloggers out there like; John Chow, David Risley, Shoemoney, Zac Johnson, etc… they all do more than just write posts. Many of them have other sites that they own which they promote on their blogs that bring them in a lot of money; many have their own products, as well as promote affiliate products in many of their posts. You too need to step out of your comfort zone if you really want to start making money online. I honestly believe that this will open your eyes to a whole new world of income for you, and it is cheaper than the price of a pizza! Click here to grab a copy for yourself.

Buy, Test, Review, Earn Your Money Back, Profit, Use Forever, Keep Making Money… Sound Good?

Over the years we have spent literally thousands and thousands of dollars purchasing products and services online. Quite a bit of it was absolutely wasted money, as we never used many of the products for one reason or another. Sometimes it was because the product sucked, and we were too lazy to ask for our money back. Other times we were lured into purchasing products that we really didn’t need because of great copywriting.

Fortunately for us and our wallets we have learned to be much better about spending, but more importantly… we have learned 2 great lessons that will not only save you a TON OF MONEY, but you will also (hopefully) end up getting your product for free, and then start making you some money.

LESSON 1: Don’t Be Afraid or Too Lazy to Ask for a Refund –

I can’t tell you how many times I have been a victim of both those mistakes. Just looking around my office and closet, I see lots of things that I purchased over the years, that I have never even taken out of the box. Also, on my computer’s backup hard-drive there are lots of ebooks and reports that are just terribly written, and taught me nothing, but I still paid for them. Fortunately, in the last couple of years I have made a conscious effort to cure myself of both those money wasting bad habits. Here are some steps that will help you cure them as well:

First thing… make sure when you purchase something, that it comes with a Money Back Guarantee. Also, READ what the requirements are to get your money back. Most of the time merchants will state that they have a “No Questions Asked” guarantee, but other will make you jump through hoops to get a refund. If you really want to buy something and they have one of those guarantees (that takes some work for you to get a refund), make sure to print out their return requirements. That way, if you end up wanting to return it… at least you will know exactly what you need to do to get your money back.

Secondly… don’t be afraid to ask! If you don’t like a product, ASK FOR YOUR MONEY BACK. Merchants offer a Money Back Guarantee for a reason, and if you are not happy, take advantage of it. Money is money, and in this economy especially, you do not want to be throwing money away at something you are not going to use. There are many unscrupulous merchants out there as well, that prey on the lazy and fearful, by offering money back guarantees on products they know are crap, because they know in general most people won’t ask for refunds. Don’t be one of those victims.

LESSON 2: If You Like the Product or Service, Let the World Know About It –

What about when you purchase a product and you LOVE it? Then you need to let the world know! Since you are going to be telling everyone you know, why not make some money at the same time? MANY (if not most) merchants nowadays offer some type of Affiliate Program for the products and services they offer. Some pay small percentages like 5 to 10%, while other pay up to 75% and even some pay 100%.

An Affiliate Program is basically a program setup to reward you (the affiliate) for referring new customers to their products or service. It makes sense that if you like a product or service, why not take advantage of the merchants affiliate program and make some money with it.

What I try to do when I have purchased something I really like is… I go straight to the merchant’s website and see if they offer an Affiliate Program, and if they do, I sign right up. It is best to do this right away, as you are still feeling that “new toy” joy you get, and you want to use that feeling when you promote it.

Next you want write an honest review of the product or service, with your affiliate link attached. I find that the longer and more detailed you can write about the product, the better conversion rates you will have. Also, if you can show that you actually use the product(s) that makes a TREMENDOUS difference in conversions as well. And for even better conversions, if you can make a video of you using the product or showing how it works, you can really turn up the sales.

Once you create the review, you can post it on your Website or Blog, you can add it to your Review Site (I love those), or you can send it to your subscriber list. Even better, add it to all of them. If you really like the product, it will show in your review and there is a GREAT chance that others will like it just as much and purchase the product through your affiliate link.

Once a couple people purchase the product through your affiliate link, it will probably have paid for your original purchase, and then all the rest of the money is profit in your pocket. Not only did the product end up not really costing you anything, you get to use it forever, and you will hopefully keep earning money from the referrals for months and years to come.

Making Money Online as a Clickbank Affiliate

I am a big fan of flowcharts. I find them very helpful to understand how things work. With this flowchart we want to show you the basics of how you can make money online promoting Clickbank products. I am not going into detail here on how to drive traffic, or create a sales page or anything like that. This is just to show you how you make money as an affiliate if a customer goes through the entire sales process purchasing a Clickbank product through your affiliate link.

Looking at the image above, you will see that we start with the Customer (the most important person to you making money online). To get the customer into this process you need to do some type of marketing to get them there. You can create a sales page, review site, squeeze page, you can send out an email, create a blog post, etc… We will explain how each one of those work in future posts.

From there, the customer clicks on your affiliate link (Clickbank calls it a “HopLink”), which is basically a link to the merchant’s website with a special tracking code built in so you get credit for referring the customer to their site.

Hopefully the merchant has created a great sales page and the customer decides they must have their product. The customer then clicks on the purchase link that takes them to Clickbank’s secure ordering form where they can pay with most credit cards, as well as Paypal.

Once the payment has been approved and processed, the customer is taken to the merchant’s thank-you page where they can download the product.

Clickbank at the same time (within 2 minutes) credits both accounts; the merchant with their earnings and you (the affiliate) with your commissions. You are able to login to your account and see your sales in real time, which is nice. They also have several different methods to pay you, depending on your needs. All that information can be found on their site.

That’s basically it! For more answers, checkout Clickbank’s FAQ section for affiliates here: http://www.clickbank.com/affiliate_faq.html