Indeed, these e-mails can be so incredibly annoying that I almost always just hit the delete button. I have purchased these products a few times and have been burnt quite often.

A lot of times there’s been some sort of catch that the guru did not mention in his or her pre-sale video or free ebook. These kinds of catches can require you to spend more money. Or, the guru’s strategies flat out don’t work.

While we’ve all become a bit jaded and are tired of these people flooding our in-boxes with the intention of lining their own pockets I do think there are times when it’s actually wise to purchase their products and listen to what they have to say.

Here’s the thing: Some people out there simply offer good advice. Even if you don’t like their personalities or they come off as greedy or arrogant for some reason whatever advice they give seems to work. These are specifically the kind of people to keep an eye on as they can help you propel your affiliate marketing career to the next level.

Let me give you an example. The other day I got an e-mail from an Internet marketing guru about his latest PPC (AdWords) course. Just before I deleted his e-mail I realized that he was promoting his own product (he often pushes other peoples’ stuff). Given I know he’s a smart guy and he’s been the mentor or my current mentor I went ahead and purchased his course.

While my initial campaign has not produced the results I expected only a few hours after the launch (the guru promised 100′s of visitors and that my server would ‘explode’) I will NOT write him off as a liar and unsubscribe from his e-mail list. What I’ll do is go ahead and launch another campaign based on the methods outlined in his e-book.

Indeed, while I’m cautious about buying peoples’ courses I do make decisions based on trust and peoples’ reputations as these decisions have been profitable decisions for me in the past.

1. Not Finishing Projects

When you’re new to affiliate marketing every online every niche you look into looks extremely appealing. You start to make your website with utmost enthusiasm. But, at a certain point you see that you’re not making the money you expected or none at all.

Rather than seeing your project through to the end you get seduced by another potential niche and give up your original project that was supposed to make you the big bucks. Jumping from project to project without seeing them to completion can be extremely disastrous and waste you lots of time and money.

2. Not Following Up With Winning Niches

This is one I discovered in the very beginning of my affiliate marketing career and cannot emphasize enough. Out of all the sites you launch most will indeed be failures. Unfortunately, this is the grim reality of a numbers game called Internet marketing. Fortunately,  as time passes your successes should outweigh your failures.

Here’s the thing though: When you notice that one of your sites or niches is working then you have to TAKE ACTION and do more of what’s working for you! So, if you discover a certain niche is making you money you really need to launch more campaigns in that niche. Believe me, if you take action on your successes you’ll end up with much more money in the bank in the long run.

3. Make Sites That Are Thin In Content

This is a big one. If you look at Google’s Webmaster Central you’ll see that they explicitly say they don’t favor site that are thin in content. Basically, you cannot expect to publish sites that just have a few lines of text. It simply won’t work. Your site will get booted off the search engine faster than you can spell affiliate marketing. For any product or service that you’re promoting I’d recommend at least 500 words of original content on your site’s homepage.

4. Spend Too Much On Internet Marketing Products

This is another big one. In any business it’s of utmost importance to spend less than we’re earnings. This is a basic accounting principle and most of us overlook it. In order to come out as a winner in online marketing it’s of utmost importance to have more money coming in than going out. This means being conservative in spending on software programs, eBooks and domain names.

5. Avoiding Affiliate Marketing Courses Good Teachers

If you’re just starting out then you’ll have a TON of stuff to learn including WordPress, keyword/niche research, SEO, linking strategies etc. All this new knowledge can be quite overwhelming. Personally, I would have saved myself tons of time and money had I purchased a decent Internet marketing course and followed a good teacher/mentor earlier on in my online marketing career. Unfortunately, I spent one full year making mistakes while I was avoiding buying an online marketing course. Now, I can proudly say I’ve had a huge improvement in my online earnings because I found a really good affiliate marketing course.

I hope these suggestions have helped you and wish you all the very best of luck in your affiliate marketing career!

If you’re just getting started then one of your best options is to apply to the eBay Partner Network, also called EPN. Besides Amazon, eBay is the No. 1 onlien store in the world and and has an excellent affiliate program. What this means is that when you send traffic to eBay’s site, they’ll pay you a commission for each visitor that you send them.

When researching how to make websites you’ll find that there are many options. While some people like to use various site builder programs that webhosts offer, I personally prefer to build all of my sites using WordPress. WordPress is a free content management program that was originally intended for building blogs. However, it’s extremely easy to use and lends itself wonderfully to people who don’t have a background with website HTLM coding skills.

Basically, WordPress works with themes (more commonly called templates) and plugins, which are pages of code of varying lenght that gives your websites different functionalities.

Back to the eBay Partner Network. Once your application has been accepted it’ll be time to start thinking about building your first eBay affiliate site. What’s great about eBay’s affiliate program is that you can chose any product on their website. So, with hundreds of thousands of different products on both eBay and eBay Motors you’ll have no problem finding a good niche market that can make you lots of money.

One issue you’ll face is how to link to eBay’s website. One great tool that I’ve used to make thousands of dollars on the eBay Partner Network is a plugin called Phpbay Pro. Phpbay Pro is a software script speficially designed for making niche stores that link to eBay. The way it works is you put in a short line of code in your site and you can pull in images and links for literally any item on eBay.

What’s great about Phpbay pro is that you can use it on any WordPress site. This means that you can use it with any WordPress theme, allowing for you to have an extremely unique looking site. This is in contrast to Build a Niche Store (BANS), the other eBay niche store builder that only allows for the building of sites on very similar looking templates.

The key advantages are that you can use the script on an unlimited number of stores and it always pulls in the most relavent products via an RSS feed. On your page you can display as many items as you’d like and also include the items’ price and current number of bids. Phpbay is extremely easy to install and comes with a useful how-to PFD manual. Furthmore, all customers get access to the PHpbay forum where you can chat with other customers, get your questions answered and read helpful posts on improving your online earnings.

Over the past two years Phpbay pro has been one of the only products for making money online which I have continued to use since I purchased it. In fact, I recently just updated my sites and put in a ton of Phpbay eBay links and have seen an dramatic improvement in my daily online income.

Click to learn more about Phpbay eBay affiliate software.

What exactly is the researching of keywords? Basically, as an online marketer it’s very important that you define two things before you get started with a campaign: Your niche and more specifically the keywords you’re aiming for within your niche.

Indeed, if you fail or neglect to do you research in these areas your site will not have sufficient focus. You will not know what words or phrase you’re trying to rank for and will experience tons of frustration.

In the keyword research process what you’re trying to do is identify keywords that you think you can rank for on Google (and on Yahoo and MSN too). In Brian G. Johnson’s affiliate marketing courses you’ll learn specifically how to use the number of results the Google displays.

This number indicates the competition for the keyword among other online marketers and publishers. If that number is too high you’ll have a very tough time ranking for that keyword. If the number is low enough you’ll have an easier time ranking and thus making money in the niche.

Another aspect to keyword research is long-tail versus shorter keywords. Basically, long-tail keywords are actually phrases made up of several words. While long-tail phrases are easier to rank for the search volume for these words is lower. In contrast, shorter keyword phrases have higher search volume but are harder to rank for.

Using Brian’s methods outlined in Commission Ritual you’ll learn exactly how to find the sweet spot for keywords that you can easily rank for and drive free Internet traffic.

As an online marketer you’ll probably want to get your hands on a good keyword research tool or software package. Personally, I have been using Micro Niche Finder for a while now and have had great success. I’d say the greatest benefit of this software is that it helps me to find keyword ideas that I would not have thought of without it.

Furthermore, Micro Niche Finder speeds up the whole process of keyword research and saves me tons of time. For example, if I want to check to see if domain names are available I can find out really fast with this tool. With free tools such as the Google keyword research tool you’d have to manually search domain availability.

Also, the software has an extremely useful feature called “Strength of Competition”. For any given keyword Micro Niche Finder gives you a number (above or below 50) and a green, yellow or red light indicating how high your chances are for ranking based on a long list of ranking criteria.

Keyword research is no joke. It really isn’t too complicated and is actually really fun! The sooner you learn it the faster you’ll be on the path to making serious money online.

The Internet is full of articles about how you can optimize your AdSense structure to get the best CTR. You’ll read all about blending your ads and which size ad blocks to use. But, this only works to a certain degree.

I believe there’s much more to boosting your CTR than a few layout tweaks.

Everyday when you look at your AdSense statistics one number to track is your click through rate. This is the number of number of click you get divided by impressions (an impression is when an ad shows online).

It is against Google’s terms of service to reveal your CTR so I won’t discuss my exact numbers here. However, I’ll share a very common sense tip for you to get your CTR numbers higher.

Whenever you hear Google itself giving advice and tips they always talk about relevancy.  What is this exactly? Basically, what they want is for the content of the results of a search to match the search term as best as possible.

Now, how does relevancy apply to your AdSense click through rate?

When you launch a website and put in your AdSense code you’ll notice that some of the ads that appear are highly relevant to the theme or subject of your site. Other ads, however, will be completely off subject.

Now, put yourself into the shoes of the visitor to your site. If you make a search query and land on your site and see the ads are highly relevant to your search term will you click? Probably yes if you’re really interested in the subject and can’t find exactly what you want on the site.

Will you click if there are no relevant ads? No way. You’ll just hit the back button on your browser and bounce off the page. Lost opportunity and no money.

So, how do you make websites that show relevant AdSense ads?

The key answer to this question lies in your initial research before you make your site. You need to look at and analyze the AdSense ads that appear on an already existing site to the one you intend to make.

How do I do this?

Go to Ezinearticles.com. You can also go to Hubpages.com. Now, type in the search term of the site which you intend to build.

For an example, let’s use toothpicks. Type that into Ezinearticles and click on the first site that comes up. What kind of ads appear? I see one ad about toothpicks but the rest of the ads are about other dental care products. Would I click? Probably not.

Moving forward with example. Now, type in “wholesale t-shirts”. What kinds of ads come up? Right off the bat I see five ads about t-shirts which I’d consider checking out if I was interested in wholesale t-shirts.

Now, if you do Internet marketing and need to decide on whether to make an AdSense site about toothpicks or wholesale t-shirts which site do you think will get you a higher click through rate and ultimately more money in the long run?

If you’re just getting started in affiliate marketing then you’ve surely heard that it’s very important to get links to your sites. Indeed, Google judges or “ranks” sites based not only on content but on the links pointing to your site.

Here’s how it works for most affiliates in the beginning and you also might relate to what I’m about to say. You hear or read somewhere that you need to get links to your site. Then, you somehow get the impression that you need to get as many links as possible.

Then, you find out that you can use social bookmarking sites to get links to your site. You get accounts at all the big social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Stumbleupon and Mixx. Maybe you even buy some software such as SENuke or BookmarkingDeomon.Com to automate the process for you.

The next thing you know it you have TONS of NEW links pointing to your site. You have a handful of these links showing up on Google in addition to the URL for your site.

But, there’s one problem. And this is a BIG problem. What Google wants to see is that the links to your site grow in a steady and natural fashion. In Goolge’s eyes a link to your site is a vote of approval, resulting in the improvement of your ranking.

But, if you’ve just launched a site and it suddenly has a hundred links pointing to it in the matter of hours (if you use linking software) or days (if you do it manually yourself) Google will say, “What the heck!”. It’ll see way too many links pointing to your site in too short of a time period and this is not good.

See, what’s extremely important to Google is TRUST. If the search engine sees that you software suddenly has too many links pointing to it it’ll lose trust immediately as building links too fast is considered a form of spamming.

However, if you build your links slowly over a long period of time you’ll build trust with Google and see a really good result in your rankings. Furthermore, you won’t waste your precious time building links – an extremely mundane activity I may add – and use your time wisely spending your working hours publishing content to the web.

This brings me to the best linking strategy which I learned from Brian G. Johnson’s affiliate marketing courses. When I launch a site I just get ONE inbound, or  backlink after the site’s completion. Personally, I use a service called Article Underground, which is recommended in Brian’s courses.

Article Underground is a PLR service that offers up to 400 article every month which you can publish to the web yourself. They also over 10o WordPress blogs on which you can write short posts that link to your site using the anchor text of your choice.

Again, I personally write only ONE post per site with two outbound links – one on my anchor text and the other on my domain name (URL) and that is it! I wait about 24-72 hours and my sites are usually indexed and ranking on Google. While Article Underground costs some money to join it has been worth every penny for me.

Back to the best strategy. After making that one post I walk away from linking for abut SIX months. That’s right – I do not engage in any linking practice for half a year. The main reason for this is because I want to build trust with Google. Then, after six months I return to Article Underground and make some more posts.

If you don’t want to spend any money then there is another way you can go about linking, based on Brian’s teachings. You can find blogs that use the CommentLuv and KeywordLuv plugins. These are WordPress sites on which you can leave post comments with links back to your own site.

Again, the same principal of building links slowly applies here. After finishing a site I’d recommend to make three to four posts on different blogs all linking back to your site with your anchor text. All you’re hoping for is one of the webmasters to approve your comment. Then, you’ve got what you need: A link through which Google can find your site.

When I first got started in affiliate marketing I got endless sites kicked off Google because I was too aggressive about my linking. My sites were immediately marketed as spam by the search engine and I ended up losing precious hours of my time with my sites getting banned.

This does not have to happen to you though. Go about your linking strategy in a very slow and prudent way to build the maximum amount of trust with Google in order to get the best possible rankings for your sites.

Further reading

Getting good quality links is important for all online marketers and webmasters. Here are some resources for further reading that may help you.

• Link Building .Net
• Getting Inbound Links
• Linking And SEO
• Google Pagerank And Linking
• Where To Get Links
• Web 2.0 Link Building
• Link Popularity Checker
• Linking Strategies That Work

First of all  what does buying a domain name mean and why should you buy one?

Purchasing a domain name means buying the URL, or the name of a websites. You will own this web “property”. It’s like a small plot of land on the Internet. You can build a website on it. Or, you can just sit on the domain name with the hope of trying to sell it for a profit at a later date.

There are many reasons why you should buy and own your own domain names. If you’re an affiliate marketer you’ve surely noticed that many affiliate marketing programs such as eBay or Amazon ask you to submit a website when applying to the program. Currently, there’s a trend among affiliate marketing companies where they want their affiliates to own and run their own websites on their own domains.

This largely an effort to improve the quality of traffic. With the growth of web 2.0 over the past few years many affiliates have used article sites such as Hubpages.com and Squidoo to link to their vendors. Vendors have noticed lower conversions from visitors from these kinds of sites and have thus pushed affiliates to run their own websites.

As a beginner you’ll probably buy your first domain name at Godaddy.com, the largest registrar of domain names. Please keep this in mind: GoDaddy is where you buy your domain names but it isn’t necessarily your host. While they do offer hosting services most people chose to use a separate web hosting company such as Hostgator, Hostmoster or Bluehost.

Once you’ve picked the name of the domain you’d like to buy you’ll be faced with many choices or domain endings called extensions. The top three are: .Com, .Org and .Net. After that you’ll see other extensions such as .Info, .Biz, .Me, .CC, .Ca and .Mobi.

We’ll call these other domain extensions “second-tier” domains. While you may be tempted to buy one of these these because of a lower price (.Info domains go for a few bucks the first year then the price goes up) you’ll learn in Brain G. Johnson’s affiliate marketing courses that it’s much better to stick with the .Com, .Org or .Net domains.

Why? Because Google likes them. If you search any keyword you’ll find that almost all the results on the first few pages are build on these domain name extensions. You’ll rarely see a .Info domain come up in the search results. This is because it’s possible that Google knows that a lot of short-term affiliate marketers are building thinly contented sites on .Info domains.

Buying domain names really isn’t too complicated. If you learn a few basic concepts in the beginning including buying only .Com, .Org and .Net domains you’ll save yourself from lots of heart ache in the long run and come out a winner in your Internet marketing career.

Do you have a view on the right way to buy domain names? Share it with the world below in the comments section!

If you are looking for an Internet marking course that just plain works then you’ll want to pay very close attention to what you’re about to read on this page.

Click Here To Learn More!

I do affiliate marketing full time and have been working online since the summer of 2008. Over the past year and a half I’ve learned how to make thousands of dollars online by driving free Internet traffic to make money with affiliate programs and Google AdSense.

Online marketing is not a get rich scheme. But, if you take the time to learn how to use tools such as WordPress properly and how to understand basic knowledge of SEO (search engine optimization) you’re life will be a lot easier and you’ll see more money faster!

When I first started out I did so much stuff wrong. While I saw that it was possible to make over $100 in one day I kept getting my sites kicked off Google.

Why? I was doing exactly what Google does not want webmasters to do: Create sites with insufficient content and too many affiliate links.

But, there was one moment when everything changed. The first week I started online marketing I came across this guy named Brian G. Johnson on YouTube. While I saw that he had a ton of useufl information to offer I didn’t buy his course, SEO Press Forula, because I did not want to spend the money.

Fast forward one year to the summer of 2009. Michael Jackson had just died and I make several affiliate sites for Michael Jackson memorabilia. I was doing great with some days of earnings over $200! But, one morning I woke up and discovered my site was de-indexed. That’s right: All my hard work down the drain.

I told myself, I need help. I returned to Brian’s YouTube channel to see what he as up to. Sure enough he had a new course: Commission Ritual. I immediately purchased his course and ever since that date have been doing much better in my online marketing.

So, you ask – Who is this Brian guy and what does he teach?

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Brian is an average American hailing from the great state of Minnesota. Originally, Brian trained as a chef and went to school in France. Around 10 years ago Brian decided to make a change in his life and began a career as an entrepreneur in affiliate marketing.

From the very beginning Brian sought to learn as much as possible about Google and the way people search the web. By understanding these two areas Brian was able to steer his online marketing campaigns in the right direction, drive tons of free traffic and do really well with Google AdSense, eBay and Halloween affiliate marketing – year after year.

By following Brian’s courses I’ve been able to learn the basic fundamental skills for driving free search engine traffic. Indeed, in the fall of 2009 just after buying his course I was able to make well over $1,000 in Halloween affiliate sales – and I was late to the game in making my sites! Fast forward a few months and I’ve learned how to make thousands of dollars on AdSense.

By following Brian’s course work here’s what you’ll learn:

SEO methods that actually work

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of doing all the right things on your website so that the search engines deem it worth of showing on the first page of the search results. SEO is one of the most challenge parts of online marketing – even for experienced affiliates. The SEO methods that you will learn from Brian work great and will help your sites to rank really well.

How to pick the right niches

This subject can be very tricky for beginner affiliate marketers. There are just so many niches onlien that you can market. While most beginners will want to target luxury items that promiss big affilaite payouts Brian offers a much or sound approach to picking the right niches.

How to do keyword research

The definition of keyword research is researching the right words terms to target on your website. This is also a very daunting subject and just uttering those words can make a beginner online marketer very nervous. However, Brian teaches EXACTLY how to go about this task.

Picking domain names

All online markters face the task of puchasing domain names. Buying a domain name is indeed one of your first steps in making websites. But, you’ll have lost of questions: Must I buy a .Com or is a .Info okay? Brian does a great answering these questions and pointing you in the right direction.

How to use WordPress correctly

As an online marketer you’ll be faced with the task of having to learn to make websites. One of the best tools for accomplishing this task is to use the free blogging platform, WordPress. WordPress is easy to use and does not require technical skills or HTML code knowledge. However, there are many mistakes that you can make. Brian G. Johnson is one of the BEST WordPress teachers online.

Best linking strategy

“Linking” describes getting inbound links to your website. In Google’s eyes the quantity and quality of inbound links is important in your sites’ rankings. Many beginner affiliate marketers make all sorts of mistakes in their linking campaigns and this gets them into trouble with Google. Brian does a great job demystifying linking and teaches a great strategy that works.

… and so much more.

This is just the beginning of what Brian G. Johnson has taught me. What’s truly remarkable about Brian is that he is constantly coming out with new material for his students. Like you and me Brian is also in the trenches making new websites everyday. So, what’s great about him is that when he discovers new tools and methods he shares them with his students right away.

In addition to continually putting out new courses he always does a great job making himself readily available to his students. With his regular webinars Brian makes himself available to students to answer their questions and do live website reviews.

I hope you find Brian G. Johnson’s online courses useful too!

More about affiliate and niche marketing

If you’re a newcomer to affiliate marketing then welcome! First, it’s important that you understand the concept of what it means to be an affiliate. There are thousands of online stores. While these stores have their own websites they also rely on marketers like you and me to send Internet traffic to their websites. Many online stores also call their affiliate programs “associates programs“.

Some of the biggest affiliate marketing programs are the eBay Partner Network and Amazon.com Associates. You can join their affiliate programs and send traffic to their sites for hundreds of thousands of retail items. Another well known affiliate program is called Clickbank. Clickbank is the largest online vendor or e-books and software programs.

Another area that you can get into is called Google AdSense. With this program you can create websites which offer information in the form of both text and video content. You can add your Google AdSense code and every time a visitor clicks on one of your ads you will get paid.

There are also many opportunities with Halloween affiliate marketing. With a huge surge in searches for Halloween costumes every autumn affiliate marketers all over the world get have a great chance to make websites for this fantastic niche!

How to I make websites? As a beginner you might be wondering how to make websites. One the best tools that you’ll learn to use is called WordPress.  What’s great about this platform is that it does not cost anything to use and offers a huge library of templates (called themes) and plugins.

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