We all know that starting out in the world of affiliate marketing can be a daunting process and there is a lot of competition from companies telling you they’re the best have features here and transparency there (no one even knows what transparency means right?). I am only just starting out myself, but I thought I’d share with you the process I’ve been through so far in wheedling out the nightmares and choosing the best option for my blogs. I’m only going to talk about the affiliate schemes I amusing, or have tried to use, but there are many more to choose between. And this is just an overview; I will give a full review of the best of the bunch later on as well as an introduction to affiliate marketing for those who are new to the game.
Commission Junction
I started out with Commission Junction from the beginning, because as most of you fashion and beauty bloggers know, they are the ones representing those advertisers who constantly email us saying their product or store would fit our blog perfectly (Shopbop ring a bell?) and it’s pretty easy to get to grips with actually. You have to create an account first and wait to be accepted, but once you have got an account you’re not always ready to go. Most of the individual advertisers’ programs you have to apply to join as well and wait to be accepted. It’s not too much of a problem though I wasn’t rejected from any that I applied for.
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Technorati is one of the biggest sites keeping track of blogs around the world. If you can get your blog to be regularly indexed with them then it is a potential traffic-builder. In this post I’m going to explain a bit about Technorati, as well as giving some information on how you can use it to promote your blog. I’m also going to talk about some of the Technorati tools that you can use on your blog. If you don’t already use tags in your posts then it can be quite long-winded to start doing it, but the extra traffic is definitely useful!
What is Technorati?
Technorati is basically a search engine for blogs. They claim to track 112.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media so as far as blog directories go they’re a pretty big fish. The idea is that you tag your posts with relevant keywords and they use those keywords to categorize your post. If you don’t tag your posts (like we don’t at the moment) then you won’t do very well on Technorati! You can set up an account and claim your blog; this allows you to use the Technorati tools to increase traffic.
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Adsense has gotten a lot of bad press over the last few years from some people, particularly around the blogosphere – but it has also made a lot of people a lot of money! In this post I’m going to run through the main reasons why you should be using Adsense, as well as the main reasons you should not… confused?
10 Reasons why Adsense is great
- It’s easy! – Google has made it very easy to set up an Adsense account, create an ad unit and implement it on your blog. In comparison with some advertising networks which are, to be honest, a complete nightmare – Adsense is heaven!
- Massive advertiser base – no other network can rival the sheer volume of advertisers Google has at its disposal and that means a better likelihood of relevant adverts being available for your blog. Imagine trying to contact all those advertisers yourself to pitch private ads?!
- Accepts worldwide traffic – some networks will only allow US traffic to count towards revenue which is pretty annoying if you’re based elsewhere or your blog gets a lot of traffic from, say, somewhere like Asia, or Europe. Adsense, on the other hand, accepts traffic from all over the world!
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Did you know you can drive tons of traffic to your blog using YouTube? There is a ton of traffic up for grabs coming from this uber popular social site, yet it’s under utilized by bloggers in general; especially style bloggers. Making this work can be a bit technical, but it’s far from impossible.
First You’ll Need A Plot
You’ll be making a video, so the first thing you’ll need is a plot or concept for that video. The plot should be something people are interested in and searching for, and it should also be relevant to your blog’s subject. Here are a few ideas: Read More…
This post was submitted by Kim.
According to Technorati, 1.4 new blogs are created every second, but with so many swarming around it’s hard to stand out from the crowd, leaving the enthusiasm of their authors intimidated until eventually they give up the idea altogether. In this post I’m going to discuss some of the key questions to ask yourself when you are thinking of starting a blog. It may seem a bit gloomy but it’s not meant that way, I’m just trying to get across that it is a serious commitment, one that I know way too well and have seen many of my previous projects from last year fall to the wayside because the lack of poor planning and evaluation (unless of course you are having fun and pro blogging isn’t in the stars!).
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If you’re thinking of starting a blog, or any website for that matter, then chances are you should be looking at one of the many blogging platforms or content management systems available (a.k.a CMS). There are literally hundreds of open source (a.k.a. free!) solutions and some are so easy as pie to work with. In this post I am are to cover (not review, reviews coming up in our video segment!) the main options available, looking at their benefits and downsides as well as their learning curve.
First we will look at the three main options available to those looking for a dedicated blogging platform which does exactly what it says on the tin. Later we’ll look at some content management systems which are good for blogs but created for commercial websites.
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For a fair few years now, the best way of improving your search engine ranking has been by building a network of inbound links from other blogs.
This isn’t a complex idea, most people know about it but actually getting quality links (without resorting to dodgy tactics or dicing with the perils of buying links) is a tricky business. In this post we’re going to discuss the various ways that I have gone about link building and whether they have been worth the effort.
What is Link Building?
There are two main reasons to build links and it is worth noting that some techniques will only help with one of the two. The first reason is the obvious fact that good links under relevant keywords will help to improve your search engine ranking under those particular keywords. Many places where you can legitimately build links will often have a ‘no-follow’ tag, telling the search engines to ignore those links (annoying I know). However, this doesn’t mean that it is not worth submitting links to these places as they are still potential sources of traffic (the second reason to link build). Referrals are often just as important as organic traffic.
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This is a contributed post. Submit a post now!
Your home office does not need to be eco-friendly or eco-conscious in nature, but with the rising prices of electricity, gas and other natural fuels, might be a good idea to make a few changes toward a eco-conscious lifestyle, which includes your workspace. Here are a few simple steps you can take to make your home office more eco-friendly.
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