There’s always someone who wants to know if they should choose Article Marketing OR PPC to promote products.

Well, this choice is never obvious for a beginner Affiliate Marketer…

Obviously, PPC will bring more traffic to your sites “IF” you do it correctly. But, it also costs A LOT more to bring in a ton of traffic. Then there’s another: but… it might just be worth it.

You definitely need to know what you’re doing using either method. With Article Marketing – you need to know AT LEAST the basics of Search Engine Optimization… at least. I would suggest learning as much as you can, just in case.

With Pay Per Click – you have to have MONEY… but you also need to understand Keyword Research, Ad Grouping, Tracking, etc, etc… yes, there’s a lot to learn with PPC. I highly suggest reading Beating Adwords OR Adwords for Dummies.

[note: you can get Beating Adwords for FREE when you join Wealthy Affiliate ... limited time offer]

If you jump the gun and throw your hard earned money into PPC… sorry for your luck! No worries though, you can fix the issue by reading one of those books and understanding Quality Score and all of the other goodness of Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, Microsoft AdCenter and the rest. They’re all different – yet all similar.

Article Marketing can cost you A LOT of time if you jump the gun and don’t take time to do Keyword Research – or even MARKET research. I see a ton of useless articles, lenses and hubs out there that are a complete waste of time… they’re obvious Affiliate Marketers who come across as Spammers.

Keep the “spam” to a minimum… as in NO SPAM.

Either way, both of these methods should be used as you start increasing profits with one. Just don’t jump the gun… learn SEO if you’re in Article Marketing (Bum Marketing). Learn as much as you can about PPC if you’re itching to get a ton of traffic to your site.

Now that you’ve got that out of the way…

How does your Landing Page(s) look?

More on that later… =)

Posted by Clint Lenard | No Comments »

About a year ago it seemed that everyone got slapped by Google, including myself. My PageRank went from 5 down to 2… then, thankfully, my PR went back up to 4 about 3 months ago.

I just noticed that it’s down to 3 again…

I haven’t been paying attention… was there an update recently? A Slap?

That sucks.

Posted by Clint Lenard | No Comments »

I’m leaving on a 5 day vacation and I’ll be posting while I’m “there” to keep me even more busy… I’ll be posting some tutorials on “Bum Marketing”, which is basically Article Marketing.

While I have success with PPC, I actually enjoy writing articles on certain topics, even under other “pen names”.

I’ll explain everything I do and how I keep focused and even how I find the right topics to write about…

Stay tuned!

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The owners of Wealthy Affiliate University just announced a special bonus (limited time offer) for those who decide to join up.

They’re giving away their highly touted ebook titled “Beating Adwords”, for free when you join Wealthy Affiliate.

The book is definitely awesome – and worth $67.00 ALONE.

I’ve talked about Wealthy Affiliate on many occasions and have referred over 50 happy members over the past 8 months alone. This membership site is where I got my start… it molded me into a very knowledgeable and very happy affiliate marketer.

On top of THAT bonus – they’re also giving away information on a  $1,000,000 Niche!

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Our $1,000,000 Marketing Blueprint is Coming…

Last week we sent a mail out and told you about a $1,000,000 per year niche that we are going to be giving away here at WA! Early Next week, Kyle and I are giving one of our HOTTEST selling campaigns to all members here at WA as a gift!

We’re going to show you how some of the top marketers out there [do] $1,000,000 per year promoting in this industry. We’re talking about a starving crowd, hundreds of millions of people strong that literally can’t wait to make a purchase. We will be giving you a marketing blueprint next week.

This is something that ALL members at Wealthy Affiliate will receive for free!

We are expecting for many of you to be able to make a full-time living promoting this industry, and there is room for EVERYONE to take part.

We’ll be giving away keywords, webpages, marketing angles, hot article marketing phrases, and audiences.. Lots of audiences.

Oh, and you can expect to convert at 1:10 – 1:30 (yes up to 1 in every 10 people buy in this industry)

So, keep your eyes peeled here at WA early next week.

Carson

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I just figured that there would be plenty of people who would be interested in that deal. Take advantage of it ASAP as it will NOT last long… the book sells like crazy, I know that for a fact. So, why not get it for free?

Join Wealthy Affiliate and get the bonus material here

Posted by Clint Lenard | 6 Comments »

I started doing Affiliate Marketing (full time) about a year ago…almost! But, it hasn’t always been so easy. I actually just got completely tired of having clients always contacting me for help, to be honest, and that led me to actually dropping all but one…

Last summer I went back home for a vacation, met a girl (she’s kin to the devil, I just didn’t know at the time), took more time off from work, hung out by the pool a lot, and finally everything came to a crashing halt.

At that time – I just wanted to have fun. I had been working all the time for almost 2 years straight… no fun, few friends to hang out with and no fun. It was my choice, but it was still hard. I had fun, for the most part.

But, when all was said and done… I had nothing left. I wasn’t making much money while I took the breaks. Well, not much compared to how much I make now (no, I’m not a millionaire or anything), even if I take a vacation.

That’s when I started looking into where I always seemed to make money, no matter what… and that was through several Affiliate Programs. I decided to learn more about Affiliate Marketing and found Wealthy Affiliate. I studied everything they gave access to, including the forums. I became hooked on learning and implementing all of the strategies I read about (or heard about) and tried as much as I could, even the ones I knew would fail…

I started doing good again and along came the Devil’s next-of-kin… the ex-nutcase ex-girlfriend. After about 2 weeks of talking to her again, I realized that I let her take me away from my work, even when she was supposed to be working. I got nothing done, again.

Then I finally kicked her out of my life again thanks to information from her cousin. It saved me from a major headache and her advice (from the cousin) kept me from going off the track… thank god.

Even after the initial struggles, the thought of possibly wasting my time and then the thought of wasting my money and being broke – I started to realize that there’s no other business that I would enjoy quite like Affiliate Marketing.

Next week I will be taking a 5 day vacation and I will be paid for every minute that I’m there, guaranteed. When I get back – I don’t have a ton of work to get back to… no boss, no crazy emails, phone messages, etc.

So, while it hasn’t been a fantastic voyage, it’s been the most exciting “job” I’ve ever heard of, much less worked at.

I guess my point is — make sure you stay focused. This business is NOT easy when someone is trying to pull your mind away from your future. Everyone wants your attention when you need to be focused… so, focus on them when the work day is over.

I know, I know… it’s so easy to say it, unlike the reality that I just exposed myself for. But, things have changed. Those that want my attention understand that I have work to do and I’m very passionate about my work. They don’t whine, bitch, moan or complain when they’re not receiving replies to text messages or emails… or even IM’s.

Cut those types of people out of your life, if possible! I wish I would have sooner. I’d be so much closer to my goals right now.

Posted by Clint Lenard | No Comments »

If there’s one thing that I suck at – it’s tracking. It’s not that I’m not any good at actual tracking, since I DO use software for that… it’s that I can’t stand going into that much detail. Sure, it may increase profits when you start looking through data, but it’s just soooo damn time consuming!

To be honest – I use so many different scripts to help me collect, sort and sift through data, yet I rarely ever check them. I’m lucky to even remember to check out my Analytics stats.

I need to break the chain… I’ve been really lazy when it comes to doing some of these (what should be) CRITICAL steps to increase my revenue. Hopefully I’m the only one who’s doing this… ha!

Seriously — track as much as you can and make it a HABIT to understand this data that you’re capturing. Measure everything you can and you will definitely start increasing your daily, weekly, monthly and annual income. I guarantee you.

Posted by Clint Lenard | No Comments »

I think Feedback is such a great way to learn what customers, or potential customers, might think of your site. You might find out errors on your site, misspellings, etc. You might get feedback about a specific product that has a lot of bad publicity that you didn’t know about… a product that might not be pulling in the conversions it once did.

I find it funny how some “wannabe” Entrepreneurs tend to take feedback (or honest criticism, or advice) as a slap in the face… I recently tried to help someone that I had a lot of respect for – only to find that he didn’t find my feedback to be what he wanted to hear. Apparently, he thought his Web Designer was a conversion specialist. A Master of all trades…

If that were possible – I’d save a lot of time learning!

The guy had a bunch of small text links stuffed next to each other and one said “shop”. Sure, it may seem easy enough to some people – but how about using all of that flashy FLASH to help direct people to your SHOP? Makes sense…doesn’t it? I mean since Flash was developed for Presentations and what-not, wouldn’t it make sense to direct the customer to the place you’re presenting?

Hmmm… I give up.

That’s why I no longer deal with clients. I’m not a know-it-all, which is why I pay for consulting in areas in which I am not an “expert”. But, when it comes to conversions, I tend to have a little bit of knowledge… I just figured this guy would like to make a little more money, rather than lose customers who can’t search around the the “shop” button.

I have a few big websites that I use for Affiliate products. 1 is constantly being updated and I’m always trying to get feedback from people, especially customers. And as much as I think I “know” my customers, I know nothing in the end. Much like Search Experts know nothing about how people REALLY search. Everybody is different, but so many are so similar.

Take advice and don’t get butt hurt about it. People are giving you a chance to make more money.

Posted by Clint Lenard | No Comments »

Have you heard about the newest tool from Google?

This one is pretty cool… it’s called Insights For Search and it’s pretty useful!

I just started messing around with it about an hour ago – but so far it’s come in handy for a few particular niches I was curious about.

Pay attention and make sure you check out the entire page and get to know what the numbers mean!

Posted by Clint Lenard | No Comments »

I just received an email about a big WebCEO Discount for those of you who are trying to get into SEO.

WebCEO is my favorite SEO software, by far… right now you can get the Small Biz Unleashed for $159.00

SmallBiz Unleashed.
Includes Professional Training
and PIM certification
$159 $339
+$30 USD (bonus)

You can get the Professional Unleashed (the version I have) for $269.00

Professional Unleashed.
Includes Professional Training
and PIM certification
$269 $479
+$50 USD (bonus)

Just check out the Prices page and scroll down to see the differences.

Either way – WebCEO DOES have a free version you can check out!

Posted by Clint Lenard | 1 Comment »

I have a little rant… I purchased WP Affiliate Pro from DealDotCom back in October of 2007. I bought it because I needed something to help track outbound link clicks. Well, it worked great for about 3-4 months and then it stopped working.

I actually used it for a few affiliate programs, which it helped with as well. But, I relied on it so much that I’m not losing money on a ton of different programs… money that should be a sure thing each and every month.

I’ve tried to contact their support department on several occasions and, of course, I get nothing… as a matter of fact – the only time I DID get any reply from them was about 9 months ago when I asked about getting an unobfuscated version so I could get their “wp-affiliate.php” link changed. I can’t stand when companies do that kind of crap… it’s unnecessary and ridiculous. What’s the point of having outbound “sneaky” links when they make an obvious link name for each?

But, now that I actually need support – they’re no where to be found.

I’m hoping to find another product that works better… or else I’ll have to create my own, which I’m too lazy to do these days.

Posted by Clint Lenard | 1 Comment »