Hey guys, as most of my faithful readers have noticed, I try very hard to produce information that will truly benefit you in affiliate marketing.  I’ve written a ton of my content on a more business type style and try to stay away from being too personal as I feel that you guys read this blog to succeed in making money online and I only wish to help!

I’ve written articles on Split Testing Ads, Split Testing Landing Pages, Using PHP to Redirect Affiliate Links, Using .htaccess to Redirect Affiliate Links, etc.

My question is, I would love some input from you guys on what type of content you would like to see published.  Is there a certain topic you would like me to write about?  Would you like to know how to do something that you think is a little technical that I could explain a little better maybe?  Whatever it is that you guys would like to learn, I would love to write about it!

So, in the comments below, let me know what you’d like to see!  Heck, if you would like to see a few more personal posts every now and then, then simply let me know!  As always, to be fair, majority rules!

Popularity: 17% [?]

I know most affiliates use these fancy keyword research tools like Wordtracker, Wordze, or Keycompete…

However, there is a free tool which is one of my favorite keyword tools that exists.  This tool is created by none other than Google themself.  Most affiliates ignore this keyword tool because of the amount of time it can take to create a large keyword list because of the limits they place on results displayed when you search using particular phrases.

Since this is one of my most used keyword tools, I decided to dedicate a small post suggesting that you seriously give this keyword tool a try and also to let those that may of used it in the past know that they have just recently updated their tool.

The single most notable change is this…

Before when you would do a search for a keyword phrase you would get a list of related keywords returned and these keywords would have two sections called Avg Search Volume: Month and Avg Search Volume.  These two sections would then have green bars under them that would allow you see how many times that keyword was searched for a month.  Obviously the more full the green bar the more it is searched per month.

With Google’s recent update to their keyword tool, now instead of little green bars, you can actually see a number displayed on the screen which will tell you an approximation on how many searches that keyword is receiving per month and also how much it receives per month on average.  Below is a picture showing the new look.  Click to enlarge it!

As you can see, this new method provides a much easier to read estimate of how many searches you can expect to see from any given keyword that you may have in your keyword list.

By using this data, you’ll be able to more accurately predict how popular a keyword is, if certain month’s provide lower searches, predict trends, and more.

If you’re not currently using Google’s free keyword tool when you’re putting together your keyword list, I highly suggest you give them a try!

If you have used them in the past, then I highly recommend that you give them another try if you stopped using their service for whatever reason.  It’s amazing simple to use, provides great suggestions, and best of all, it’s FREE!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the new updates and also whether you currently use Google’s keyword tool or not and why!

Popularity: 16% [?]

Relying on personal feelings can have adverse effects on your business!

Did you realize that most affiliates, both old and new, still allow personal feelings or judgments to persuade their actions?  I still to this day, have to watch myself when making a decision about an offer, landing page, payout, etc…  I have to watch to make sure that I go by the data in front of me and not by what I think or may not think about a certain issue.

So what exactly am I talking about?  What things do affiliate marketers do that they allow their personal feelings or judgments take control?  Well honestly, just about anything!

How many times have you thought to yourself that an offers landing page sucked and that it wouldn’t convert so there’s no reason to even test it out?  I know I have multiple times.  How often have you written an ad and immediately decided that it sucked without even testing it or allowing it to receive enough data?

I know I have! In fact, I know tons of affiliates that have been in this game for a long time, yet they still catch themselves doing it once in a while!  As human beings we rely on our feelings for a multiple of things so it’s only natural to allow them in to our business.  However, when you’re working in a business that is a game of numbers and data, it can be a huge mistake!

So whether you’re a new affiliate or one that’s been around the block a couple times, I highly suggest that you leave your feelings at the door!

I would love to hear of times when you let your feelings control a situation and what happened, whether it turned out good or bad!  So make sure to leave a comment letting me know all the details!

Popularity: 18% [?]

As most of my forums members know, I went out of town over the 4th of July weekend to our annual family reunion down in West Virginia!  It was an absolute blast.  Got to play some volleyball (my favorite sport) and also some basketball and softball.  It was awesome getting to see all my favorite family members who I get to talk to like twice a year tops!

It’s sad that I don’t make more time to spend with family members, especially since I work full-time from home and am able to change my schedule around anytime I want!  I plan to stay in contact more with some of my family members this year!

On a side note, I had absolutely no signal with my cellphone provider AT&T down there so I wasn’t able to check email’s, work online, etc while I was gone.  I was really surprised as I’ve always had signal down there before so I’m not sure what happened.  Anyways, that explains why there has been a lack of posting over the weekend and also why I’m now playing catch up thus you’re seeing this blog post instead of one offering much value outside getting to know me a little!

I should be all caught up by tomorrow and will definitely be back on schedule with posting to this blog but I just wanted to let all my faithful readers know I haven’t disappeared!  I’m still planning on bringing you guys great content, information, and nuggets about affiliate marketing!

Overall, it was a good time and without having to work I was actually able to unwind quite a bit, so I was actually kinda happy about it truthfully!  West Virginia, while made fun of for their hillbilly’s :P  really isn’t such a bad place, in fact the scenery out there is beautiful!

Popularity: 15% [?]

So, I watched the second episode of Top Affiliate Challenge today and I thought I’d give my opinion on what I think thus far after watching both episodes.

Let’s start at the beginning shall we?  I loaded up the site the day the first episode was released, about 8 hours after it was released, and found what most of you probably experienced… A buffer screen…  After about 10 minutes the show started only to start buffering again after a couple minutes.  I then paused the show and decided to let it fully load before trying to watch it.  I absolutely hate buffer screens!

After 2 hours, yep I said that correct, the episode finally loaded completely.  Also, before you ask, it wasn’t because of my internet!  The site was really that slow!  Again, I know most of you delt with this same problem and know exactly what I’m talking about.

Now, let me talk about the quality of the show.  It is aweful and that’s being polite about it!  I know many of you probably watched Next Internet Millionaire by Joel Comm and while I didn’t think it was the greatest show either, compared to Top Affiliate Challenge it ran circles around it!

Several times during the episode you constantly see the host of the show staring down at her feet, shortly you realize that’s because she is mostly reading from a script that is on the ground.  How can you tell for certain?  Because the frickin’ camera man shows you! LMAO!

The scene to scene transitions are horrid!  There isn’t a smooth transition within the entire show, it’s constantly jagged and uneven.  The text and effects that are used in the show are the same as what you would see from a video production team of high school students from your local school district…Scratch that, middle school students.

They do some of the stupidest things in the show that makes me wonder if they’ve even thought out how each of these things should work…  In episode two, Jason Henderson wins the immunity ring and while the losing team is in the room voting a person off he walks in and says that he has special powers because of the ring and he wants to give it away…The funny thing is, the team has already voted and the person Jason gives the ring to wasn’t even in any danger of being voted off and basically the host tells him what he just did didn’t matter in the least, yet for some reason they still decided to edit it into the episode???  Can you say LAME!

This show promised that it would be better than Next Internet Millionair, that they would actually be showing you how these teams are making money, etc… I’ve yet to see anything remotely helpful in either episodes…and to make things worse, the show is in no way entertaining…

Top Affiliate Challenge is pitiful, boring, mind-numbing, stupid, pathetic, useless, and a downright sad attempt at an internet reality show…  I’m seriously surprised that they haven’t had any of their gurus or contestants walk off the show yet…  Now that would be entertaining!

Thor Shrock…horrible idea!  Thanks for wasting an hour of my life!

This show sucks so bad, I’m not even going to link to the site so if you haven’t seen it and for some reason you really want to, search for it on Google or take a guess at the URL…

Popularity: 21% [?]