My Money Blog

4 Creative Content Ideas For Affiliates That Get Read!

Posted on 09. Aug, 2009 by Casper.

Most people shy away from creating content for their affiliate websites because they have the feeling that they can’t write. Maybe you feel that same way? Writing fresh content for your website can get a little difficult as time goes on. The biggest block to new content is in the form of not being able to come up with fresh ideas. Here are four content ideas for affiliates that will get read and help you earn more affiliate commissions.

1. Product Reviews

The easiest thing to write about is something that you have used before and have had success with. For instance if you are a fisherman and are selling a specific king of bass lure, you can try several out and then write reviews for each one. This can be both good and bad. I recommend doing both so your website isn’t a love fest for all bass lures. Just write from the heart and give your honest opinion. I bad review will not lead to many sales, but will show your readers that you reviews are honest, and have your readers trust your opinion.

2. Interviews

This takes a little more time, but doesn’t require a lot of writing. Find an expert in your niche and either ask them for a phone interview or if you can simply send them some questions via email. Most of the time they will agree to this because it’s more exposure for them. Then either transcribe the phone call or put the email interview into a readable form and you’ve got your newest article.

3. Top 10 List

This is the most popular form of content there is. Mostly because it is more convenient for readers, but also because they can be quite easy. Just pick a topic, write down ten things about it, and just like that you’ve got another article.

4. Answer To A Question

If you see a question in a forum, on a blog, or in an email you received then simply answer it. Create a well thought out, and thorough, answer to it and post it on your blog or in an article directory. Of course, give credit to who asked it or where you got the question from.

If you are ever stumped for creative content for your affiliate website then just sit down with a blank piece of paper and choose on of these ideas. You’ll have your next article done in no time.

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Article Analysis

Posted on 31. Jul, 2009 by Casper.

How to analyse your article before publishing

It is a good idea not only to proof-read your article but also to do a article analysis before your submit or publish your article. I have created this short article analysis guide to make the article analysis quick and easy.

1. Article Title:

The article title should inform the reader of the content, and what the article is about. If you intention is to draw focus to your article, make sure the title is catchy and interesting.

2. Source:

Make sure you note if you have used other articles or information, and if possible create a link for the source.

3. Audience:

Are you using any long and rarely used words?
Your article should be written for your audience. If your targeted audience is not experts on the field, then make sure your writing stule isn’t to academic.

4. Subject:

Try going back and read the first paragraph of your article. Is there a connection between the content in the paragraph and the title?
If not, the reader might not read the whole article as the  reader feels the article wasn’t what the reader thought it was.

5. Limits:

Make sure your article is written within the limit of the title. Is there somewhere you are getting of track?

6. Opinions:

Your opinion can be relevant or not. If you are blogging your opinion is a great way to start a dialog with your readers. If you are writing a general article about a subject, then keep your distance and try to be as subjective as possible. The reader is there for information, not your opinion.

I would very much like comments on this little article analysis  guide especially if you have something to add.

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6 Reasons To Blog For More Affiliate Commissions

Posted on 29. Jul, 2009 by Casper.

Blogging has become the choice of website for many people including online business owners. There are millions of blogs on the internet today with an estimated 46,000 being started each day. These blogs range anywhere from personal diaries, corporate press release outlets, and places to showcase art and photography. That list also includes affiliates. Why? Why should you, as an affiliate marketers, have a blog?

1. Credibility

The way people buy things on the internet is changing. People want to see that they get their money’s worth. A blog will help bridge the gap between anonymous and personal. That sets a person at ease and gives them a more comfortable feeling.

2. Content

The affiliate marketer’s lifeblood is in content. A blog gives you the freedom to produce that content free from an rules or restrictions. Podcasts, videos, and articles can all be showcased for readers to look through.

3. Search Engine Power

Search engines love blogs. They are always updated and keep a fresh supply of content for the search engine spiders to feed on. Some of the top results in search engines are blogs.

4. Consolidation

A blog will help you consolidate all your social marketing efforts into one single place. This way you can have one profile page to send visitors to.

5. Interaction

Blogs have an awesome feature built into them called comments. The comment section allows your visitors to leave comments about your blog post and even interact with each other. This is a great way for reviews of a product or to answer questions.

6. Ease of Use

HTML requires a learning curve. Blogging doesn’t. You can even get started blogging for free with an account at Blogger.com. Sure, you can get pretty sophisticated with the design, and if you want to learn php or css programming it will add to your blogging, but for the most part you can blog stress free.

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Proven Tips For Loyal And Responsive Opt-In Subscribers

Posted on 27. Jul, 2009 by Casper.

A large list of opt-in subscribers is an effective way to earn more income through internet marketing. However, how many subscribers you have isn’t the only consideration you should take into account when building a list.

An effective, and profitable, email list should be built around loyal and responsive subscribers. This means that they are not unsubscribing after you send them a few issues of your newsletter and they actually click on the links based on your recommendations. Keeping subscribers loyal isn’t as hard as it would seem at first. Following a few simple steps will keep your list strong, healthy, and profitable.

Provide Exclusive Information

People stay where they are going to receive information that they can’t get with any other mailing list, article database, or free resource such as a report or ebook. Treat your newsletter as an extension of yourself and build it with powerful, exclusive information. You want to think of it as you are building relationships with these people and are their own personal mentor. Give quality information.

Keep Affiliate Links To A Minimum

It is a tremendous temptation to make as much money as you can with each issue by throwing in every affiliate link you can think of. However, the opposite is actually more profitable and will keep your subscribers less annoyed. An effective strategy for placing affiliate links in your newsletter is to either write a review of the product, interview the creator, or write an article using that product as an example or solution. Choose one, at the most two, products to include in your newsletter.

Keep Emails To A Minimum

Some publishers will send emails everyday in the hopes of making more money each day. What usually happens though is they have to continually grow their email list because they are constantly losing subscribers. People will stay loyal to your newsletter if you keep to a strict publishing schedule and don’t throw in extra emails every time a new product is released or you need extra cash.

You can have a large email list. But, the most profitable ones are the lists that have loyal and responsive subscribers.

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Blog Layout – What Do We Want?

Posted on 22. Jul, 2009 by Casper.

I have spend a few hours browsing through different blogs and although many uses same script ike Wordpress, Blogger and so on, the designs and layouts are very different. Some blogs have lots of link, categories favourite blogs and so on which often seems to much, and other have load of info about their blog-rankings on several lists take a look at this blog to see what I mean :Special Review Articles.

Is the information on the above page really worth anything to anyone?  Why would I want to know who visited this site in the past hour, and why display the alexa ranking? (unless you want to show off by having an Alexa ranking of 100)

In my oponion most of these visual plugins, should not be activated on a blog without some careful thinking. It might just make your blog look messy, and no-one wants to browse around an un-organized blog.

So do we really want all these info-plugins that shows useless info?

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Do-follow Blogs with high PR

Posted on 22. Jul, 2009 by Casper.

Here is a small but continuesly growing dofollow blog list. I try to post only the high PR blogs but there will be room for low PR blogs also, especially if the blog has CommentLuv, KeywordLuv or other extra featues enabled.

Please do submit real comments so we can all enjoy these free links in the future.

This list will be checked and updated regularly:
Last check and update: 28. September 2009

Comment-Scripts info: WP – WordPress   /   ID – IntenseDebate   /   FBC – FaceBookComment

Moderated Info: Shows if the comment has to await moderation before it is shown. It does not indicate wether
the comments are moderatd or not!

If you find any errors please leave a comment and I shall correct it asap. Also let me know if you have a nice blog that should be added!

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10 Tips For Better Blog Writing

Posted on 27. May, 2009 by Casper.

These posts with a number of tips, “does and don’ts “, are really popular. I myself are very fond of them. They give some quick and useful information, that everyone can understand and use. So here is my “10 Tips” -list, that should reflect what I have learned is important so far, about blog content writing:

1. Write for your readers.

Your post should be written for your readers. Your readers are humans seeking information and answers. Make sure you provide what they are looking for.

2. Avoid typos and other errors.

Proofread your posts before publishing them. To many typos and grammatical errors can make your posts hard to read and understand.

3. Use links in your content.

Use content links in your blog posts. Do not be afraid to link to other sites that has further information about the post subject. It will help your readers obtain the information they are looking for.

4. Stay on target.

Your posts should not be to long, and only contain what is important. Most people do not like to read very long posts especially if not all the content is relevant to what they are looking for.

5. Use keywords.

Remember to use keywords in your blog posts. A decent amount of keywords can result in higher PageRank which can result in more visitors. Be careful not to overdo it!

6. Interesting headlines.

A catchy headline will make more people interested in reading your posts. Try come up with several headlines and then choose what you think is the best one. (I recommend this site if you need more info on good headlines)

7. Keep you writing style simple.

Remember that although you might be experienced in what you write about, many of your readers may not be. Make sure your writing is understandable and not too technical.

8. Don’t write and publish.

Don’t publish a post right after you have proofread it. Wait some time and read it again. It is almost certain that you find something to add, delete or edit.

9. Your opinion is fine.

Keep the human touch when writing. A blog is not a corporate newsletter but a personal media. Writing your opinion, and asking questions are great ways to reach out to your readers. It can also be a reason for more people commenting on your posts.

10. Numbered lists and bullet points

Using lists makes it easy for your readers to scan your content for what they are looking for. It also makes your post easier to read, understand and remember.

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Blog Traffic – Back To School

Posted on 25. May, 2009 by Casper.

Lately I have wondering how get more traffic to my blog. I am well aware of the common and popular ways of doing this; commenting on blogs, forum posting and so on. When I first started this blog, not to long ago, I guess I had my own ideas on how to market my blog, but I soon learned that marketing a blog is very different from marketing products and service. So I have given it some thought on how to increase the traffic to my blog.

Going back to marketing school:

As mentioned, I already had a good idea on where to start when it I began blogging. All though many older marketing techniques are  still very useful, I know I need to learn some marketing and promotion techniques that focuses on blogs. I have been “out” of the Internet marketing, making-money-online stuff for quite sometimes and a lot have changed. The Internet changes so fast, that I find myself missing out on some great stuff. So, it’s time for me to get back to school and take some classes in blog marketing and blogging techniques (I hope I’ll pass the finals someday:))

Finding some good marketing tools

To make things easier for myself, I have started to look for some tools to aid me in this blog marketing quest. As we all know the Internet is filled with great and often free tools of all kinds. I have come across a couple of decent tools, and also some helpful sites (found this site while looking for a specific image. I believe I might learn something about blog traffic here: http://www.blogtrepreneur.com).

I hope you understand that I do not wish to post the names or link to any tools just yet, as I want to test them first to make sure they have no harmful effect on my blog. I promise if any of the marketing-tools I find are useful I will make another post!

Just DO it!

I’m a bit embarrassed to say this, as I know better. I seem to have neglected marketing my blog. Been writing some poor articles which I believe was my subconsciousness way of trying to postpone my daily marketing task. It is time to get into the game for real and even if I really don’t feel like it, I have to do it!

So here is simple 3-step plan. I know there’s no details on what I can do or already do to getting some more visitors to my blog, but I am sure I will learn some tips and tricks fast. If you want to come back to school with me I’ll carry your books

I wonder if this blog willhave some useful tips http://blogtrafficgeek.com/ Only problem is: Alexa rank is worse than mine! :/

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Twitter Traffic Machine – Working or Scam?

Posted on 21. May, 2009 by Casper.

I have bought and tested the Twitter Traffic Machine for a month now, so it is time for a review of this popular program.

The idea of the program is to get Twitter Followers, the more people following you the more will read your tweets, thus bringing traffic to whatever site you choose. I have setup my my blog feed here to be posted on Twitter, with the instructions provided by the Twitter traffic machine.

The Twitter Traffic Machine program is very simple to use. Just follow the video instructions. These videos are showing you step by step how to set everything up. I was close to skip ahead a bit as the videos are really created for dummies.

16.000 followers in 90 days…

This is what the twitter traffic machine program says is possible. Also claims you can make money with it. If you are already a Twitter user with a decent amount of followers, you might already have read some tweets for this program. These are obviously from people who has bought the twitter traffic machine and trying to sell it to you.

After one month I have generated about 1.300 followers. Now this is not as much as the twitter traffic machine claim is possible, but there is a reason: I have used this in “passive” mode. I have set it up, and not touched it since. Also I am getting new followers everyday! I believe it is more than possible to get 16.000 followers in 90 days. Actually, you can double this if you want to.

Making money with Twitter Traffic Machine

It might be possible, but haven’t tested it. As mentioned before I solely use the Twitter Traffic Machine for my blog feeds. However, I cannot see why this should not be possible. Any source of traffic can be a profit generator, and Twitter is no exception. If you post a nice offer to 16.000 people a sale is quit possible.

What I really like about the program

The best things about the Twitter Traffic Machine is:

1. It is easy to use, and doesn’t require a lot of work.
2. No extra expenses once purchased.
3. It works even if you don’t do anything after setup.
4. It really does bring in traffic!
5. The traffic can be targeted (you decide)

When looking at the number 4 I bet this is what most wants to know. And yes it does bring in traffic. Although it might look like a program to spam the Twitter community, it doesn’t have to be. (and shouldn’t be).

What I don’t like about Twitter Traffic Machine:

There are always some downsides of programs:

1. Depends on your use, it might generate a lot less followers*

I guess that’s it. Let me elaborate: If you are like me and want to use this program to get traffic for your website or blog there is a “problem”. If your website or blog is about orchids, you probably only wish to get followers interested in flowers, gardening etc. This will limit the number of followers you are able to get. (If you have a blog about lots of different stuff, you will be able to get many followers with shared interest).

Would I recommend Twitter Traffic Machine? For those who wants to drive traffic to a blog, I would definitely recommend it. It is pretty cheap and well worth it, especially since it is not time-consuming.

If you buy it just to make money, trying to make sales with affiliate links and such, I can’t really make up my mind. I can see the idea, since it would be free advertising forever, but I am pretty sceptical about trying to sell stuff to your followers by sending them links to various splash-pages. If you have tried making money with this program, please let me know!

If you have any questions or think I have left out something please leave a comment. This will help other readers make up their mind before purchasing.

You can go to the Twitter Traffic Machine website by Clicking here!

UPDATE – 4. August 2009!

It has been awhile since I started using the Twitter traffic machine. I am still getting visitors, but at a very slow rate. I am not sure if the programs invovled in this system is slowing down, but it sure isn’t the same.

Think twice before you make a purchase. As of now I cannot recommend the program!

UPDATE – 14. August 2009!

It seems everything is running smothly again:) New followers are added at a very nice rate.  I can again recommend the TwitterTrafficMachine system.

UPDATE – 01. September 2009!

TwitterTrafficMachine is no longer available.

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Urgent Update For Blog Owners

Posted on 19. May, 2009 by Casper.

You can follow this easy guide to close this hole on your wordpress blog.

How to Check if Your Blog has this Security Hole

Use your browser and go to http://www.your-blog-name.com/wp-content/plugins

If you see a page which lists all your plugins you have a problem. It is not hard to fix even if you are not a tech geek

So, if you see something like this…

Then it means that anyone can download all your plugins (for which you may have paid money for). If  your folder is empty then it is a playground for a hackers.

How to Fix this Hole

Option one:

The fastest way to fix this is by simply adding an empty (or put some into it if you wish) index.html file to your plugin directory. This is not the most secure way of doing it but it will keep most people from stealing your scripts.

Option two:

Anotherway fix that issue, you can “turn off the directory browsing” which is a very easy to do.

You log in to your CPanel account and look for “Index Manager”. This icon should look like this in the section Advanced Settings:

Clicking the icon will get you to the page which lists all folders on the blog. Choose the folder which you wish to protect from directory browsing. You need to click on /public_html/ folder, like it is shown on the screenshot below…

Once you have done it, you are on the page of settings. You should choose No Indexing from these settings. Like this…

Done! Now the folders and files inside your public_html are protected.

If you need a more advanced protection from hackers you may want to check out this script It uses a pretty clever idea for keeping hackers away from your blogs.

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