The Affiliate Lifestyle Blog

I’m all for making fast, short-term, easy cash.

However, there are some serious down-side’s to affiliate marketing.

I subscribe to Uber Affiliate’s blog. He just made a very humbling post titled “I made $182.64 Profit Last Month.”

Now, if you know anything about Paul, you know that he made $200,000 in revenue with Azoogle in 1 month last year.

So how does someone go from bank to broke in 1 month?

Pretty easily, actually:

Affiliate offers get canceled or expire – This just happened to me today. I have a campaign making $500 in profit/day and I just received notice it’s closing in a week. Gee, thanks for the heads up.

Affiliates steal your ads and landing pages – Yep, with no competitive barriers, affiliates swipe ads and landing pages, leaving you and your once profitable gold mine looking more like a gold pond.

You get CANNED – Networks have all sorts of “Terms And Conditions” – If you accidentally or willingly violate these terms, you will get banned from running the offer.

Without a list, you have no real asset – If you aren’t building a list of opt-in’s, your “business” is more like a sophisticated arbitrage operation.

Networks reduce your payout – Yeah, this happens ALL the time. Let’s say you are making $3.00 on a nice dating offer, then they decide to give you $2.00. Well, there goes your profit margin.. you can kiss that campaign good bye.

You Get SLAPPED by Google – You call your landing page a work of art, Google calls it a poor attempt at adding value. They slap the daylights out of you, and tell you to insert more money and try again.

Your girlfriend dumps you – Okay, this is what happened to Paul I feel for you buddy.

So the moral of the story is to become a merchant by creating your own products and getting hoards of affiliates promoting your super duper product. Then you can meditate in a Vipassana Ashram in India while your affiliates are making you piles of cash.

AFA – An average frustrated affiliate who has no game and rarely manages to convert offers profitably. Also an affiliate who tends to look to “gurus” for validation, buys a lot of ebooks, but never takes action.

Yes, we’ve all been there. I was there for a long time. Here’s the game plan:

1) Write your financial goals for the year. If you want to make $100,000, then fine. Divide that by 365 to give you $275/day in profit. Now, how do you get to $275?

2) Come up with a GAME PLAN. If you know nothing about affiliate marketing, then pick a traffic strategy, like PPC or SEO. If you know something about affiliate marketing, focus on what you are currently making money with. If that means PPC, then dedicate nearly ALL your time to this 1 THING.

3) Now, time to figure out what your core competency is. First, what do you enjoy doing? PPC? Do you like managing sites? DO you like managing a team? Pick the top 3 things you like to do, then find someone to do the rest of the crap. You can find someone on rentacoder.com easily enough.. Try a few people to see who’s good, look at their feedback, if they complete the project and are good, then hire them by sending them an email and asking them if they want to work for you.

4) You should know what projects you have lined up. If you are doing affiliate marketing, look at what you are already profitable doing, and then just expand by 1 degree of separation. For example, I’m in the computer help niche, so I want to sell affiliate products like antivirus software, registry cleaners, etc. Don’t go hoping around from one niche to another.

5) So now you should have a traffic strategy, someone from rentacoder who is working for you, and a few offers selected that you KNOW are profitable because you see them all the time. Don’t make the AFA mistake of choosing an offer which you don’t see any other affiliates running.

6) Now get your butt to work. Your time is the most important thing you’ve got, so manage it successfully. Don’t do the AFA “browsing forums” , “checking email”, “blah blah”… You need to be focused! That means keeping track of your time PER project. Keep track of how many ACTUAL hours of REAL WORK (profit producing) you are doing.

7) Now, you should have proper TIME MANAGEMENT skills, you should have a team consisting of at least a designer (don’t ever design your own sites, waste of time- focus on the marketing or copy).. And you should have your PROFITABLE niche selected, and a few offers lined up.
Start a… review site, start a direct linking campaign, do SEO, I don’t really care what you do. BUT DO IT. And FAIL. And I mean FAIL HARD and I mean FAIL FAST. You are new to this industry you are going to fail, so give it the best shot you got, learn from it, then move on. Don’t spend 4 weeks building an affiliate site.

9) TAKE ACTION NOW. AND THEN TOMORROW TAKE MORE ACTION. KEEP TRACK OF YOUR PROFIT. Set goals + deadline. IE. I’m making $100 by January 1st. Then tie an incentive to it So you are motivated.

10) OPTIMIZE LIKE CRAZY. TRACK EVERYTHING. LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES. Each campaign you build should be more sophisticated than the last. Sorry, my time ain’t free guys.. I charge $500/hour- feel free to schedule a consultation.. But perhaps other affiliates will help you along..

11) NEVER STOP LEARNING OR GROWING.. ITS YOUR MINDSET.If you are determined, nothing will stop you. Otherwise, you are just another AFA.

Peace.

Keyword research is the most powerful and profitable skill that all PPC affiliates must master.

Sure, your landing page matters. Your ad copy matters..

But intense keyword research is going to take your $100/profit/day campaign to $1000++ / profit / day.

I’ve created an offer which should be a no-brainer for anyone interested in keyword research.

1) First, check out my review of KeywordSpy. It’s by far the best keyword research tool on the market.

2) Next, read my limited time offer.

Basically, all you need to do is purchase KeywordSpy through my affiliate link, and I’m going to send you my KeywordSpy Masters Course.

The course teaches you everything you need to know about how to be successful with the tool.

3) Just send your KeywordSpy receipt to receipt@keywordresearching.com, and I will send you the entire course PLUS a really cool bonus of 40,000 of the most successful Adwords ads (my personal swipe file!).

To Your Success
Josh

“My name is Tracy Johnson. I have 2 kids and a wonderful husband. I lost 45 pounds using combination of two free products I saw on TV.”

You’ve probably Acai being promoted every where..

It’s converting like crazy…

But is it ethical? Is it a scam?

What’s your take?

Keyword research is part science, part art.

First, you need to understand your market– how they think, talk, and communicate with each other.

You need to figure out your ideal customer.

What are the typical stages of a buying cycle?

How does your market tend to buy products?

What are the most valuable keywords in your market?

These are just a few questions you need to ask yourself before starting your keyword research.

I’ve put together a 5-day e-course called “Keyword Research Secrets” that will give you a solid grasp of the keyword research process.

Check it out. You won’t be disappointed.

I had some fun writing the “sales letter”

To Your Success,
Josh

I’ve created a new video series, which I’m calling “You Suck At Adwords.”

This is for COMPLETE NEWBIES! So if you have a clue, then this video is not for you!

I’m not one to promote the heck out of any product launch. But this is different…

This is something that will TRANSFORM your business.

My income grew 819% in just 3 MONTHS with Amit’s coaching..

Serious stuff. Life changing stuff…

PPC Classroom isn’t just another ebook..

It’s not a get rich quick scheme..

It’s literally the SECRET behind EVERY successful PPC SUPER Affiliate.

I guarantee you, these are the exact strategies that every super affiliate is using with PPC.

Over 20,000 people have already opted into PPC Classroom.. This is going to be a HUGE launch!

You Want Some PPC Secrets Right Now?

Listen To Me Grill Amit Mehta On His PPC Strategies

During the interview, Amit shares detailed information about PPC:

Is “direct linking worth it? Or is it just a fad?

Can you talk about Jet Streaming on the content network? What does this mean?

Whats the typical size of your keywords list on a new campaign?

When you first launch a campaign, what match types do you usually use?

Can you explain what a Google slap is? How many times have you been slapped?

Whats the #1 thing you look for in a niche before going into it?

What are the 3 Most important elements of a landing page?

What ad position is the most profitable on Google Adwords?

Can you explain what Perry Marshall calls the “Adwords Stupid tax” ?

We’ve heard you have a personal trainer that you meet with 3 or 4 times per week..So, how much can you bench press?

How much will PPC classroom cost?

In case you forgot.. PPC Classroom launches tomorrow at October 14th at 2 PM!

Check out my video below for an inside look at PPC Classroom.. Remember, the course launches on October 14th at 2 PM ET.

ALSO….

I had the pleasure of answering some interesting questions about Amit’s coaching, what he has taught me, what markets I’m in, etc.

Listen To Anik Singal & Amit Mehta Interview Me! (Right Click->Choose Save As)

To Your Success,
Josh

Listen up. If you are remotely interested in PPC you need to buy Amit Mehta’s PPC Classroom.

To be frank, I haven’t even seen the members section yet and I’m recommending you check it out.

Amit was my personal coach for 4 months. He took me on as a student from April to June of 2008…. and with his help I raised my affiliate income from $7,091 to $65,197 per MONTH in just 3 months..

Yes, it’s true…

The next logical question is, what the heck did he teach me??

Okay, here’s what he taught me:

1) How to understand a niche before you launch your affiliate website. This is so important to do correctly. If you do it right, then the profits roll in. If you do it wrong, you’re left with a website that is not pulling traffic or conversions.

- Point #1:

Do a bunch of Google searches for all your competitors in your industry. Click on the PPC listings and see how they structure their landing pages. Are they using review sites? Are they direct linking to the offer page? Are they creating a content based website?

- Point #2:

What keywords do your competitors use to drive traffic to their site? Which keyword tool is best for finding out which keywords your competitors are using?

Point #3:

How do you manage your time when you outsource your website? I hope you guys use Basecamp… because that’s what Amit is using to manage his team.

Point #4:

When are you setting up new offers? And when are you quitting? How long is too much time to spend optimizing an offer? What is your ROI on your TIME?

Point #5:

How do you create a landing page that gets clicked? How do you build trust? How do you develop your call to action (HINT: Use PAIN points to open, DRILL those pain points home, then provide your SOLUTION with BENEFITS)..

Point #6:

How do you grow your keyword list? (HINT: MULTIPLIER LISTS/ KEYWORD RESEARCH TOOLS SEODIGGER.COM, Google Keywords Tool, ETC…

Point #7: You just launched a campaign.. And … It’s a DUD! Ooops.. Who you gonna’ call? What you going to do? You are out of luck, because unless you know how to take a step back, analyze your statistics, and optimize your campaign CORRECTLY.. you just wasted 3 weeks building your site that doesn’t convert!

Point #8: Keywords.. CHECK. Landing Page.. CHECK. Conversions CHECK. Move on or continue to optimize? Hmm.. Good question.. What’s the ROI on your time? How long does it take you to manage the campaign?

Point #9: Are you serious? I took my business from $7,091 to $65,187 in 3 months with the help of this guy named Amit Mehta?

I pestered him. I emailed him 5 times. I finally got the dude on the phone..

I begged “AMIT, MENTOR ME”.. “I WILL HELP YOU”… So he finally agreed and I got the true insider’s look at his entire business…

BOY.. Was I SHOCKED.

I was doing everything backward, sideways , upside down…

This guy was running his business like a slick oiled machine…

He had a team that built his sites for him…

While he was…….. with his wife.

Now, Amit launches a coaching program and says “JOSH.. Join my conference call at 5 pm so you can tell everyone how successful you are.. Oh yeah, send me some screen shots..

So I have no choice, the guy is my friend.. he taught me his business.. so here are a few screen shots…

Okay.. so what am I getting at?

I suggest you take a HARD look at PPC Classroom..

Heck.. the guy is revealing some great tips on his videos…

Do I make a profit when you click on those links and buy? Heck yeah. And you know what? I’m proud of it because Amit & Anik deserve it.

I tell you what… If you buy their course and are STILL having problems with your campaign.. Shoot me an email and I will make sure your campaigns are WORKING.. Even if it takes working with you for 3 hours to get them right.. (OF course , I know if you follow his coaching program you won’t have any problems)..

So it’s your choice. Are you a slacker? Or are you a PPC Guru?

Get With the Program

What if I told you I just built a 300 page website using private label rights?

The site has a front end product and back-end, with autoresponder.. I wrote the sales page and used private label rights for everything else..

It’s pretty easy to find content that you can purchase for a minimal fee (like $5 – $25 bucks for a few hundred articles)..

So what are private label rights and why are they important?

Private label rights basically mean you can buy articles or content to resell or post on your website that someone else has written and decided to give away for a small fee. You simply purchase the “rights” to the content, and you can then resell this content.

Building a website using private label rights (plr) is straight forward.. You can buy plr from tons of websites on the internet, just do a google search for “private label rights” — you’ll find plenty of sites willing to give you content for a few dollars.

Once you buy the content, you can simply post it on your site, or even sell it! It’s not good for search engine optimization, since you will face a duplicate content penalty, but if you have a membership site you can easily post these articles to add value to your site.