When I got back from my honeymoon this week (I was offline 99% of the time) I had an order from my online store, paisleybabies.com. Had I known I would’ve hired someone to mind the store – basically to email in the order. Then today I got another order. Which means it’s being found (must have search engine rankings).
What is surprising about this is that I haven’t done anything to promote it besides onsite optimization (incorporating keyword phrases on each page). I put up the site almost a year ago and the only order I got until now was from a friend. I set it up so I could learn the ecommerce solution I was teaching others.

Most of the people I taught never got an order on their online store in the time I worked with them. However, if they applied what I taught and also built links, they probably have started making money by now. The problem is they were led to believe it would happen within 90 days.

My blog took a few years before I made money – not that making money was the purpose. It still isn’t, but I was learning affiliate marketing and wanted to test out what I was learning. It worked. I still prefer affiliate marketing because work I did over a year ago is still selling and I don’t have to do anything else. No customer service, answering emails, returns, etc. I just refer the orders to someone else and make a commission on every sale.
I also had a check from Google when I got home – another surprise. I always think they’re junk mail. The first check (you must make at least $100 before you get paid) took over a year to arrive, this one took months. I don’t use much Adsense on my sites, but a little.

It took several months to get 1,000 followers on Twitter but then only a few months later, I’m at over 1,800.

I’m sure I could’ve make money quicker had showing me or if I outsourced more of the work. I learned by practicing. After some momentum and time (search engine rankings aren’t instant) it is now almost effortless. I have a little more flexibility in my life now so I can do more to promote my sites, including a redesign of Newspapergrl.

If you missed the first session of Jeremy Palmer’s affiliate marketing course, you can listen to a recording of it on WebEx’s web site. There are other free webinars on the site that sound good too. I wish there was some sort of rating system because it’s basically just a list with no promotion. It’s not just a free webinar on finding a niche – it’s by an industry leader who is qualified and also good at teaching! I also wish I could subscribe so I get reminders of new webinars by my favorite presenters.

Also, I’m thinking, where’s their blog? Then they could promote webinars and get comments on them.

Basically Jeremy is giving away information that he’s invested a lot in learning – high quality information – free. He invests a lot in keeping up on the industry, testing, and reading. The best motivation is no results no pay. In other words, he’s not on salary. The feedback I’ve heard so far is that it’s the information is excellent and presented well. I heard one person say, “what’s the catch?!!!?” and “is this for real??!?” In this case there is no catch and he is for real.

I write about Jeremy a lot since he’s the super affiliate I know best. There aren’t many super affiliates and I only know a couple. As his business has grown he’s been more open to sharing what he’s learned as an affiliate marketer with more people. Don’t miss out.

I just looked at my CJ stats and beheld that my affiliate site that sells flowers is actually making money. I just heard a Mother’s Day ad on the radio on the way to work today (btw, it’s May 11th). I so impulsively wanted to buy 100 tulips. But I didn’t. Still, I’m on a blog binge and this one is off-topic, except that when I first started in affiliate marketing I didn’t know if it would work. You do a lot of work up-front and it takes some time before you see results. That was the toughest thing about coaching people new to Internet marketing! They actually had to believe the work would pay off and keep doing it even though they weren’t seeing any ROI for a long time. But I could relate because I was the same way.
I ignored my flower site and didn’t pay attention to it. Plus, I didn’t have the energy. Now I’m motivated to promote it. In fact, my dream is to blog about working at a flower shop. It’s my Cheers, my Steel Magnolias. Someday I’ll work at a florist and attach a blog to my site which will supplement the low wages. I want it to turn into a real newspaper column and maybe even a YouTube series. Because the stories at florists are just incredible. You get people coming in for a range of reasons, but mostly for big events and significant times of their lives.

My last year in college I delivered flowers in the natural gas van at the Flower Patch. It was a temporary job that turned into a real one. They sent me flowers and asked if I’d work for them. I couldn’t resist, even though I had no intention of working there until then. Plus, they put me in charge of managing the plants and I was taking a lot of botany classes so that hooked me.

Once I locked the keys in the van with the motor running and had to charm a police officer into opening it for me. I sometimes got hopelessly lost (this time I’d have a GPS). I loved the experience of seeing complete strangers at such poignant times (like the family visiting to celebrate a brand new baby). Sometimes it was like I get to tell someone they won the lottery because the beautiful flower arrangement I had in my hands was for them. It made them happy so I felt great. I liked the creativity of it too and the women I worked with. I also got to take a big risk and insist the boss give us breaks or I’d quit, and everyone loved me for that.
This post is sponsored by JustFlowers.com – where you can buy your mom fudge or flowers – you choose! I have a bad memory and it’s worse the busier I get, so this is also my reminder not to forget to schedule buying a gift for my mom. My mom who grows her own sprouts, used to put tofu in our spaghetti, and who makes whole wheat bread from grains that she grinds. And you wonder why I have a little bit of hippie in me!

So here you go: Mother’s Day Flowers

Thanks to Marketing Pilgrim and writing a lot of press releases lately, I’m in the newswriting mode! I first learned this news on Twitter, from Danny Sullivan. Shoemoney said he called it first (a month ago) and Danny Sullivan trumped that saying he and others predicted it a year ago. Oh yeah, and eBay moved their affiliate network in-house because Shoemoney advised them to.

Ah, Twitter. It makes me feel so “in the know.” These days I get news from Twitter as much as from my blog feeds. Egos flare up, people kiss up, rant, and sometimes act childish but I still love it after all this time (and for some ego stroking of my own – I just checked and I’ve been on Twitter for a full year now). But, back to the story.

It’s great that Google sees the conflict of interest with offering SEO and SEM services when they’re the biggest search engine. I’m disappointed that they are not selling all of Performics. They’re hanging on to the affiliate marketing piece.

Has Google ever sold off part of their acquisitions? This is the first I remember. Who will buy it? What is going through Commission Junction’s mind? Google offers a limited amount of affiliate links for advertisers now, but the reporting is terrible and I haven’t seen a single conversion.
However, Performics is the third largest affiliate network and packs some well know brands like AOL, LL Bean, and Motorola. Having their own affiliate network gives Google some real leverage in the market…and more conflicts of interest.

I read an interview that Miles Baker did with Clickbank – the place to buy and sell ebooks and downloadable products. What I like about Clickbank is how easy it is to sign up and use. What I don’t like (which they’ve tried to clean up) is the quality of products isn’t always very high. I also think for the most part, people haven’t heard of them and don’t talk about them.
Here are some fascinating facts about Clickbank

• They do over 21,000 transactions a day
• On average, they take in about $1 million of revenue every day
• They have 110,000 active affiliates
• Out of 1.2 million accounts created, about 1.2 percent of them earn a full-time income from ClickBank (incidentally the percentage of affiliates who earn enough to “quit their day jobs” is very small. If I were better than math and not tired right now I’d figure out of the active affiliates, what percentage make a full time income (whatever that is). My point is, it’s usually pretty low. Most people make passive income.
• The percentage of people making a full-time income on Clickbank is on par with the percentage of people on eBay who earn a full-time income.
• Advertising spots on Clickbank cost about $400-$500 a month.

Here’s an example of a product that typical to Clickbank: Convert Your Car To Burn Water + Gasoline = Double Your Mileage!

I used to promote Jeremy Palmer’s ebook but he made it free (thank you!). His is more from the perspective of a paid search marketer but it still has a lot of information that applies to online marketing in general. It goes more in-depth.

If you want a more general overview of affiliate marketing from the affiliate perspective (promoting other people’s products online in exchange for a portion of the sales price) I recommend Rosalind Gardners affiliate marketing handbook.

Oh and I know someone who made money promoting this language site: Rocket Spanish – Learn Spanish online with interactive games and downloadable Spanish lessons.

There are a lot of knowledge gaps that could be filled with an ebook. I noticed there isn’t a lot on Google or paid search, or even SEO. It seems like there is space for a primer on each. Anyone want to write an ebook? I have one that I’ve never completed. Writing an ebook is A LOT of work and time. Which is why I promote other people’s work as an affiliate instead.

If you want to be successful as an affiliate marketer, you’ve got to read this ebook by Jeremy Palmer. I’m late on posting this but there’s a little surprise from Jeremy Palmer this year. He pulled his ebook in October, I thought never to return. Then, a few months later he put it online and made it free.

In truly generous form Jeremy doesn’t even require your email address plus he gives you his spreadsheet templates. I can’t even tell that he’s using affiliate links in the book. He also announced that he’ll update his ebook in 2008. The principles of affiliate marketing he talks about work well for internet marketing in general. The reason I trust affiliate marketers is that if they don’t convert, they don’t make money. They usually put money up-front to test what works.
The top ranking keywords on my blog are still affiliate marketing related terms. I ran newspapergrl on this tool to find out. Thanks to Paul (here’s his internet marketing blog) for the tip.

Download Jeremy’s ebook here: http://www.quityourdayjob.com/hpam2007/

I’d use a blogging platform to make my affiliate web sites. Easy WordPress blog hosting and installation – just $6.95 a month.

I just read a feature about blogger John Chow on the Unusual Business Ideas that Work blog. I met John Chow at Blogworld a few months ago. The post talks about how much he’s made from blogging – $25k a month. He started out making $300 a month. He spends about $550 a month in expenses. He’s only been blogging for a little over a year.

The article talks about how he makes money giving away his ebook free (with affiliate links). The article says he uses more than 100 ad networks, like AuctionAds and Kontera ContentLink. 100 ad networks – my head hurts thinking about managing that!

“There are no rules or limits in blogging,” he said. “Your earning power is only limited by the traffic you can attract.” Which is the same with web sites, only blogs take a lot less effort to update.

Today my business partner and I met Courtney Tuttle (you should read his blog too). We discussed how web sites attract people once and they usually don’t return. Blogs create a community that people return to again and again to read the latest. That’s why blogs and social networks have such marketing power.

They sum up with this: Blogging isn’t just a pastime or marketing gambit anymore; it’s a living.

Looking for software to help you manage your paid search campaigns? Check out Speed PPC adwords management software.

Jeremy Palmer just wrote and said he is no longer selling his eBook High Performance Affiliate Marketing. It’s sad news because his ebook is one of the best there is. However, he also likes to keep everything very high quality and it sounds like he isn’t able to give it any more attention.

I don’t know how much work it takes to create the book and maintain the program, but others keep selling books for a long time even if the information is dated. He is a paid search affiliate and it’s a dynamic and changing market.

I wish Jeremy the best with all of his other ventures. I don’t know if this means his affiliate training with Affiliate Classroom is going well – perhaps that’s what he’s focusing on. I’ll have to go through my posts and remove the links.

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I met Teresa Tao at CJU this year. She was gracious enough to answer a few questions about her award and the affiliate program at ShoeBuy.com. The program is just two years old and she won a 2007 Commission Junction Horizon Award for her contribution to the industry. They have also been honored by Shopzilla, “for its relentless dedication to customer service and satisfaction.”

“The award for People is presented to an advertiser and publisher who have shown an enthusiastic commitment to performance marketing, are market leaders, and are dedicated to building a strong community among online marketers.”

Newspapergrl: What do you like most about affiliate marketing and what are the rewards of your work?
Teresa Tao: Time and again it is reiterated that affiliate marketing is all about relationships. As I enjoy meeting and learning about people, I have had the opportunity to get to know such talented and wonderful individuals. I am amazed each time of what their capabilities are and because of this, I respect the time and efforts that go into affiliate marketing.

Newspapergrl: What one tip would you give new affiliate marketers?
TT: I realize you are asking for one tip but I have three to share for those who are new to affiliate marketing: 1) Focus on one market or marketing strategy then build upon it 2) Educate yourself constantly and 3) Persevere with a positive attitude.

Newspapergrl: How has winning a CJ Horizon award affected your business?
TT: We are proud to have received CJ’s Horizon Award for People as the meaning behind the award aligns with our overall business goal, which is to provide the best consumer experience. This award would not have been possible without the partnerships we have in our program and these partners are who motivate me to make our program the best. The Horizon Award has reinforced just that.

Newspapergrl: How long have you been an affiliate and how did you get started?
TT: I first got into affiliate marketing two years ago at Shoebuy.com as I saw an opportunity to grow the program despite having no experience. However, I was taught the basics of running an affiliate program and then took off with the objective of making ours the best affiliate program available.

Newspapergrl: What’s one of your favorite tools for affiliates?
TT: One tool that I am a big fan of is our dynamic showcase builder, which allows partners to display our product on their site with just a few clicks of the mouse.

Congratulations to Teresa. I hope to interview some of the other winners also.

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Jeremy Palmer has a whole new training system for affiliates that was launched this week. I blogged about it earlier. Being that I have an inside scoop on this, I wanted to say that the guys in the video are real. In fact, I met two of them at Commission Junction University this year. The other is a graphic designer who designed my Affiliate Flash logo. It’s nice to actually know people and know that affiliate marketing completely changed their lives. It’s real and legit. Honestly, if you have the technical skills and just need to add the marketing, this is what you need to start seeing results.

Since this is a big launch I’m talking it up. Affiliate managers often have affiliates who need more training. Most affiliates don’t make a cent for them but take up time because they want to do better. This is a complete training system for affiliates and it is quality.

It’s exciting to see that each one of the people Jeremy has trained have become CJ Performers like he is. That means they make a minimum of $10k a month in commissions. Check out the video by James Hamby. He doesn’t look like the typical millionaire and my friend Nate and I met him at CJU while we were in line for lunch. What is amazing about CJU is everyone you talk to are the top in the industry.

Here are the videos from Dustin Hassard, James Hamby, and Justin Bowen. Justin, very classy job on your video.