Ass Out Cash

The research is still going on.  In my what seems to be never ending quest for the right solution I came across this site.  I honestly am not sure of the actual commissions they give, but these guys make it easy to put up a content rich video game site.

Big Fish Games has a spectacular set of tools for affiliates. I signed up, downloaded the SGS (Satellite Game System), made some changes for my niche, added some ads, and was ready to go. I am not sure how effective this will be, or how popular my niche choice is, but it was too easy not to. Since by now you are all asking, Well what is the site so we can check it out? I have nothing to hide, so I set it up at http://www.games.cheesymeat.com and the niche is cooking games.

On top of this I tried my own twist on Google AdSense Arbitrage.  Well it really isn’t, but as I mentioned in a previous article, my web site host (StartLogic) gave me $50 Google AdWords credit when I signed up.  So I figured I might as well try it out on this.

Next time – my Adword campaign for www.games.cheesymeat.com success or failure and the details

Over the holidays I have been on vacation but haven’t done anything yet to improve my money making position. I have been playing with my kids, and dog, and spending quality time with my wife. After they are in bed at night I have been continuing my research.

I am reading 2 books right now.

1.  Multiple Streams of Internet Income – How ordinary people make extraordinary money online.

By:  Robert G. Allen : originally published in 2001, and second edition in 2006

2.  Cashing in with Content, how innovative marketers use digital information to turn browsers into buyers

By: David Meerman Scott : Published in 2005

I picked both of these up at the local library.  When I finish each I will give my review of them.  I have also been doing a good amount of online research.  There is so much information out there on affiliate marketing and making money online that it is hard to determine what is hype and what is good.  I am sticking to my earlier post that I am not going to pay for anything until I am bringing in cash.

I have also downloaded a free mind mapping software to help get my thoughts organized.  So far I have only used this as a tool to narrow my keywords.  I have created a tree starting broad and getting narrower to home in on some good specific key words.

.  Next post will be about free tools I use online to prepare for what I do.  Keyword searches, hit tracking, and more.

I left off last needing ads for my new site.  The package I am using comes ready for Ad Sense.  How do I sign up for that you ask?  Well either go to google.com/adsense or my preferred method, HubPages.  HubPages is a not only an easy way to get your Google affiliate account set up, but an excellent place to find and deliver information and articles for exactly what we are trying to do here.  Affiliate marketing. I am still exploring HubPages, and find it more intriguing the more involved I get with it.

Google limits the amount of ads allowed per page, and you tend to get repeating ads if you have a very specific niche anyway.  So I need a different outlet for affiliate ads.  Now what do I do?  Well I did what most web savy do.  Searched Google.  I came up with 3 affiliate sites I am content with for now, and some I may sign up to in the future.

First ClickBank.  At first I was confused as hell at what ClickBank was trying to do.  I was baffled by their website.  I was green and couldn’t fully grasp affiliate marketing yet.  Once I understood what I was doing and where to get it, I was un-impressed by the product offerings.  Just check out some of the sales pitch pages.  Some of this stuff is garbage (to you and I, maybe not to Mr. XYZ), and some of this stuff sells itself.  I even found things that I have been interested in buying in the past.

Next Commission Junction.  Commission Junction makes it kind of hard to get where you want to be.  To CJ you and I are Publishers.  We are publishing the ads and the adveritisers are the people who want their products sold.  Once you fill out an application for a publisher you are set.

I also signed up at Paydotcom.com.  This site is similar to ClickBank, and I have not used it much as of today.

There are tons of sites for affiliate marketing, Ebay has one (they rejected my application), LinkShare, LinkConnector, and alot more.  You can find a pretty solid list with reviews here http://www.affiliatetips.com/online-channels-affiliate-program.html, and several pages worth at http://www.affiliateseeking.com/netwo/23000002/1.html (I am not “affiliated” with these sites)

Next time — what do I do with all these ads?

About 2 weeks ago (early December, 2008) I was surfing around the net, and stopped at Sedo to check my parked domains.  My account was up to a whopping $12.XX after 15 months on 40 domains.  I thought to myself, this is ridiculous, I can do better than this by myself.  So it began.  Did I begin the right way.  No, I didn’t do much research I just jumped and started treading water.  So if you follow me along my affiliate learning path (it may be rather rocky) maybe together we can make a few extra bucks.  I am not trying to make millions, just make some extra cash to pay off the bills.  If we find a way to get rich, well, so be it!

Before I detail how the first 2 weeks went some background on myself.  I am a 31 year old Mechanical Design Engineer.  I don’t necessarily like my job, but it is a semi-reliable paycheck.  After all I have to feed my wife and 2 (soon to be 3) kids and dog.  I am pretty technical, I have done web design in the past, and have some limited skills in HTML, PHP, and image manipulation.  Over the last year I have been starting up my own company focused on LED lighting and technology.  Unfortunately the stock market crash put a huge delay on my startup.  Only thing missing right now is capital.

Back to the affiliate marketing.  The first thing I did was look for a script that would compile as many pages as possible in the least amount of time.  After a minimal amount of searching I purchased DomainZaar for $99. DomainZaar is capable of setting up multiple domain names with different keywords on one hosting platform.  This was a great feature for me, as I own a lot of domains and did not want to host them all individually.  I will expand on this product later.

Now I needed a place to host my sites.  My business site is hosted at StartLogic and they have treated me well for several years now.  They support PHP , MySQL, and CGI, everything I needed for my application.  They also have services included that will do automatic installation of WordPress Blog software (what you are reading right now), and OSCommerce, a very effective (and free) e-commerce solution, and more.  When I signed up there was a special running for unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited storage for $5.95 per month, they also threw in $50.00 worth of Adwords credits.  Seems like a good deal to me, and I tend to be a loyal repeat customer when treated right.

Next episode we will discuss setting up accounts with Google Adsense, ClickBank, and Commission Junction.  Plus forwarding of GoDaddy domains.